Page 43 of Famous for a Living

I frown at a blob at the bottom of the bed and tear the sheet off for the third time, just to check.

Nothing.

“I don’t know what it is with him,” I say, drawing the sheets up again. “He just grates on me. I feel like he’s a walking sign of judgment.”

“He is?” Serena says incredulously. “Honey, you’ve got a whole country against you. They did a whole SNL skit about you last weekend, but you’ve got a problem with the guy picking you up from airports and saving you from losing your toes to hypothermia?”

I frown. “I didn’t know about the skit.”

“It was pretty funny, actually. We’ll watch it when this is all over. You’re gonna love it.”

I let ten full seconds pass in silence.

There’s a long sigh on the other end. “Fine. What did he say that was so awful? Dazzle me with his insolence.”

“It’s not so much what was said—”

“Give me direct quotes here.”

“He accused me of not appreciating nature. He thinks I’m too shallow to do anything besides be glued to my phone all day taking selfies.”

I’m halfway through angling the camera on my phone for a shot of my manicured toes beside the glow of the woodstove, when I hear myself and stop. I close the camera app.

“Did he actually say that?”

“He implied it. Heavily . . . And,” I add, “he wishes I wasn’t doing this job for the park.”

“Did he actually say that too?”

“Not directly, but when my uncle announced what I would be doing to everyone, he didn’t smile.” I pause. “And I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but it was a moment to smile.”

For a long moment, there’s silence.

The room is quiet, but for the ping-ping-ping of the sewing machine behind Mina’s closed door.

“Cat.”

Her voice is motherly. Motherly enough I’m tempted to grind my teeth. Here we go.

“This isn’t about Ezekiel—”

“Zaiah,” I correct.

“It’s about you. This happens every single time you find yourself in a room with someone who isn’t tripping over themselves with excitement to meet you.”

My shoulders hitch up as I growl, “It absolutely does not.”

“I’m not saying you’re narcissistic—frankly, if you were, that’d be easier to deal with. No, what I think—you wanna hear what I think?”

“No.”

“What I think is that you’re just absurdly, like next-level ridiculous, insecure about yourself. Honestly, you’d think after thirteen years of this you would’ve gotten over this terrible thing of pretending you don’t do what you do for a living so everybody likes you. You want to be the most successful influencer in the world but also have absolutely nothing to do with it the second you’re around a negative person.”

“So you agree!” I exclaim. “You agree he’s a negative person.”

“I agree he is probably honest. And frankly, I think you should find that refreshing given how many crap friends we’ve seen flake out the past few months. An honest person who seems to at least decently like you is worth a hundred of those idiots.” She pauses. “I’m sorry. But it’s true.”

I know it is. Painful as it is, she’s right.