Page 53 of Famous for a Living

So amazing, in fact, she had to close the store and instituted a “feast or famine” situation where it opens back up only at certain designated times. She hired her mother and a whole host of women in the community who can sew in a pinch. Anyone who walks by our cabin these nights would hear the loud pinging of the sewing machine and even louder TV volume to make up for it. Even Jax and Kevin have started dropping in. Every night’s a veritable sewing party.

And they sell out in five minutes.

I even suggested we try jacking up the retail price to a ridiculously high price one night just to see what would happen.

Sure enough, they sold out quicker.

People all over the internet are carrying them, proudly displaying their “original CC.”

Mina’s Cozy Cup covers have gone viral.

And true to her word, Mina slipped me that twenty dollars.

But what’s just as shocking to me in all this is that it worked. It worked that I shared something, just like the old days, and people wanted it.

Serena was right.

The boot deal came through.

Serena apparently even “ran into” a tent company and there was some interest there too. (Although frankly, I have a hard time buying her story that she ran into the brand manager while getting her nails filled.)

It was relieving. There’s a sliver of hope.

“So. You’ve been roped in to this fiasco, too, huh?”

I’ve stepped into the huddle at the edge of the frozen lake. Kevin stands beside me, chin quivering and skinny chest looking even skinnier without the bulk of his ranger uniform. His strawberry-blond brows are frozen. Frozen.

I draw in a breath for the lie. If I can even faintly get him to believe me, it’ll be the performance of a lifetime. “No, no, I’m excited about this,” I say, my teeth tingling as they flash freeze when I smile. Somebody next to me is slapping her thighs, hard, while hopping in place.

“What a great tradition.” Even I don’t believe my words.

Suddenly, a couple men in thick parkas drop a thick strip of carpet on the lake. They give it a push, unrolling it toward the center of the lake.

People seem to know what is happening and begin to follow.

I turn my head, scanning the lake’s border.

Wait.

Where are we jumping?

We’re jumping from the edge, right?

I squint at the small square cut out of the ice in the center of the lake.

Oh no. Oh no no no.

“That’s it?” I point. “That’s where we jump?”

“’Scuse me,” one of the men in the parkas says, an aluminum pool ladder over one shoulder.

Half a dozen lifeguards are beginning to surround the area in the center, their heavy parkas hanging loose over their bare shoulders and lifeguard swimsuits. The water is the color I imagine when I think of the night the Titanic sank.

The color of night.

An inky black blue.

You couldn’t see a person an inch below the surface.