Page 42 of Famous for a Living

—Lord Byron, 1788–1824

He turns back to the fire. “If you didn’t understand why when you got up here, you never will.”

The view. Of course he means the view.

“The view is breathtaking. I got that,” I retort, cinching up my pride. “But if you’re going to go to the trouble of making a cabin at all, I just don’t understand what’s so terrible about the idea of having a more”—I wave my hand around, searching for proper words to describe all this—“livable space while you’re enjoying it. Is it so wrong to, for example, have a decent window?”

He frowns at me, as though I just dissed his mother. “Not everybody wants an Instagram-worthy stay. Sometimes that’s the point.”

All this feeling over a window.

A chicken-wired window.

But there it is again. Him getting his feathers ruffled over something more. Over me and my lifestyle and everything, to him, I am.

“Oh fine.” I throw my hands up. “I get it. People feel like they can pat themselves on the back for living like they’re homeless on purpose one weekend during vacation. There’s something more validating about the experience if they’re roughing it and not having cell service while doing it. But if that’s the case, why have these cabins at all? Clearly you’re winning more at life if you sleep in a tent—no, in a hammock—no, wait, on the ground. On the ground with nothing but some nice dry leaves to warm you. That’s what real people do, isn’t it? Not spending their lives getting free crap for a bunch of pictures?”

For the second time today, he looks at me with surprise.

And at a loss.

“The fire’s ready. Why don’t you take your boots off and get them dried up before we head down.”

But I’m moving toward the door. My halfway-thawed toes cry out in protest, but my pride won’t let me stop. “I have what I need here. I’ll get a few shots of the other cabins and wait outside.”

“Cat, no—”

“It’s fine,” I say firmly, and shut the door before I can hear, or say, another word.

Chapter 7

The Trash Cans

My toes didn’t fall off.

It was touch and go there for a few hours while I sat on the edge of the yellowed tub of the little bathroom with my feet in hot water, Mina sitting beside me all the while (also with her feet in the water) working on elaborately woven roomie bracelets.

This was followed by an evening sitting upright on the pullout bed, vigilantly scanning the nooks and crannies for any snakes burrowing in through the walls. Cradling my phone against my shoulder as Serena lectured me on giving Zaiah “a hard time.”

That’s the thing about Serena. She prides herself on being an impeccable judge of character, and once she makes a judgment about someone, they hold that title for life.

To be fair, she hated Bobby. And was right.

Wasn’t thrilled with my manager. And was right.

And absolutely detested Petra—my singer-songwriter ex whom absolutely everyone loved, down to the Queen of England herself. And sure enough, as we discovered when pictures surfaced of him with an entire alter-ego life in some off-the-grid community (complete with spare wife and two kids), she was right then too.

Which is why it was quite unfortunate that she met Zaiah on that night of my birthday launch party. And deeper into the land of unfortunate affairs, he was the only one to be seen eating her beloved grandmother’s recipe of sauerkraut soup. Which she noticed.

“So he was trying to save your skin—your, I might add, income-serving skin that would do better without a bear slash across your face. Although . . . you probably could do something with that. It would really drum up the general public’s sympathy for you . . .”

I jerk my legs out from under the blanket, where I can’t stop imagining a curled-up snake lying at my feet. “Serena. I’m not going to play with bears in hopes of a sympathy vote.”

“I’m just saying,” she says, a shrug in her voice, “it’s worked pretty well for that guy with the pencil incident.”

“No.”

“Fine. Anyway, from what I’m gathering here, you returned the favor of Zaiah helping you out, twice, by snapping at him on a mountaintop. Clever. You got a real instinct for survival.”