Gabbie patted her last, straggling student on the back of his tiny windbreaker, gently pushing him into the arms of his mother, then closed the door behind them. She turned back to face the empty classroom, her eyes landing on her metric, which she’d placed at the front of her desk along with her paperweights and confiscated balls of slime. She went to her desk and held the ball in her hand, looking through it to see her distorted fingers on the other side. Since the conversation at Maya’s housewarming, she’d been feeling even more stressed about her progress. Her metric was still the lightest of the three by far, and she only had one sanction. But she’d come up with a plan.
Gabbie took a deep breath, grabbed her tote bag, and walked out of her classroom and down the hall to the teachers’ lounge. Once the door had closed behind her, she searched the sauce-splattered countertops and stale-smelling, coffee-stained cabinets, finally finding what she’d been looking for: the Notorious RBG mug that belonged to Bri, another TFA teacher, who also taught a third-grade class. Bri, also known as @noneofyourbriswax, was by far the most famous person Gabbie had met before Delali. Her TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube channel had at least 300k followers each, and she always got the best and newest crafting supplies for absolutely free. Gabbie was, in her opinion, the better crafter: the cutout pumpkin on Bri’s classroom door paled in comparison to the bedazzled Día de los Muertos skull on Gabbie’s. She was also pretty sure the pink and green pom-pom rug she’d DIY’d for her classroom had been the inspiration for an identical one that had ended up on Bri’s Instagram. Same with her paint-swatch birthday display and Halloween hot chocolate bombs. Bri had never seemed interested in collaborating with Crafting and Coconut Oil whenever Gabbie mentioned it, but she was desperate. She’d been stuck at 50k on both platforms for weeks despite churning out content at a pace that only a crazy person (with magical powers) could.
Gabbie brewed a pomegranate tea—Bri’s favorite—then snuck a mini mason jar out of her bag. She’d used her powers on other people multiple times now, but this would be the first time that wasn’t totally spontaneous. She knew she’d be way less nervous if she just used a potion, so she’d been up all night with her lesson book open on her countertop, trying to get the recipe right.
She mixed and remixed until her IKEA pot emitted a deafening bang and she had a thick, yellow syrup. It had solidified overnight, and now she scooped a spoonful into Bri’s tea. Even though she remembered reading that the intensity of a potion did not correlate with the quantity ingested, she was scared it was too much. Anyway, she couldn’t undo it now. The mixture had already melted away, disappearing into the tea completely.
Gabbie knocked on the doorframe of Room 601, and Bri looked up from the screen of her clunky, New York State–issued ThinkPad.
“Hey Gabbie,” Bri called. She smiled. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing,” Gabbie said, approaching Bri’s desk. She took in the orange, purple, and black streamers on the ceiling, the paper plates Bri’s students had colored and taped all over the cinderblock walls—the room really could use some work. “Just had some leftovers of the treats I made for the students today. I thought you might want some.” She raised Bri’s mug, then placed it on her desk. “Goes well with tea.”
“Ugh,” Bri said. She pulled a bug-eyed look. “You are the best!”
Gabbie pulled a Tupperware out of her tote bag, pulled off the red top, and extracted an ornate meringue lollipop. She took a second to take in her handiwork—the delicately piped rainbow rosettes, the gold leaf, the high-end pearl sprinkles. She’d outdone herself.
Bri gasped. “Ohmygosh,” she said, grabbing the lollipop. She took a loud, crunchy bite. “This is so good.”
“Trust me,” Gabbie said, practically shaking from the weight of her deception. “It’s even better with the tea.”
“And they look amazing,” Bri continued. “Do you mind if I take a pic?” She stood as she said this, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.
“Sure,” Gabbie responded. “Hey, you know I have a TikTok where I post this kind of stuff, right? It’s called Crafting and Coconut Oil. Same for my Insta and YouTube.”
“Do you?” Bri asked. Gabbie wasn’t a naturally suspicious person, but she really doubted Bri was unfamiliar with the account. “That’s really cute.”
“Yeah,” Gabbie said. Bri finally reached over and lifted the mug to her lips, taking a sip. Gabbie could feel her heart in her throat. Bri swallowed, and her face immediately relaxed. Her shoulders dropped and she blinked a few times as she adjusted. Yes, Gabbie thought—the potion was working. “You know, if you’re gonna post something similar, I think you should tag me.”
Bri nodded, smiling absently. “Yeah, definitely, of course.”
“And, like, in the future, too.”
“Yeah.” Bri continued nodding, now in unison with Gabbie, as if she understood what she was really getting at. “I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”
Satisfied, Gabbie broke into a smile and started to back away before Bri could change her mind. “Thanks for agreeing to promote me, Bri! That’s so sweet.”
She turned and walked out of the room, too scared to wait and see if Bri would somehow realize what had just happened. She knew the potion would wear off at some point soon, but there was no way Bri could pretend this conversation hadn’t happened.
Gabbie was at home tending to her DIY teacup cactus garden when her phone let out the first chime. She picked it up and peered at the screen—it was a batch of notifications from Instagram. She opened Bri’s page—a grid of crafts, school-friendly outfits, and baked goods all washed in an ashy white filter—to see that Bri had already posted a picture of the meringue lollipops. She hadn’t even bothered to remake them, she’d just posted the pictures from that afternoon, alongside an incredibly long caption:
I just wanted to take a second to shout out fellow teacher and crafty girl @craftingandcoconutoil AKA Gabbie Nwosu AKA one of the most talented creators out there! Crafts, natural hair, baked goods—Gabbie does it all!! Today Gabbie showed up with a Tupperware full of the most gorgeous meringue lollipops and was kind enough to offer me one! Let me tell you, they taste as good as they look—like an orgasm and firework on your tongue, combined! This is NOT the first time Gabbie’s work has blown me away. For the rest of the week, I’m gonna be reposting @craftingandcoconutoil’s work because yes, she’s that good!
Gabbie scrolled through the grid to find that Bri was, in fact, reposting her work, with full credit. She’d even added Gabbie’s handle to the captions of the pictures of the rug and hot chocolate bombs. Gabbie sat and watched, phone in one hand, metric in the other, as her follower count ticked higher and higher. When her follower count crossed from five digits to six, she let out an involuntary shriek and called Dan—though he was probably asleep. Gabbie made sure that Dan would wake up to three missed calls, their code for a soft emergency, then turned off her Instagram notifications and got ready for bed.
In bed, thinking about the possibilities of Crafting, a thought sprang into Gabbie’s head—she wanted to tell Faison, too. She hadn’t expected him to think about her again after she’d left The Bar the other night—she’d even wondered if her powers had somehow activated and that was why Faison had paid her so much attention. But he’d DM’d her the morning after, saying she’d inspired him to do more hands-on design. Since that message, she couldn’t go more than five seconds without thinking about him. There was the draw of his supernatural eyelashes, of course, but there was also the way he just seemed to get C&C. Of course, she was still madly in love with Dan. But talking to Faison was a nice distraction, and it couldn’t hurt to have another entrepreneur in her network. Maybe she’d message him in the morning.
In the morning, Gabbie was awoken by the sound of her phone buzzing against her nightstand. She reached for it immediately, accepted the call, and sat up in bed.
“Hi, sleepy,” Dan said, his voice soft and affectionate, a smile spreading across the phone screen. It had been months since Gabbie had heard him sound like that. “Sorry if I woke you. You had a soft emergency?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gabbie said, shaken awake by the memory of yesterday’s insane follower count. She opened her Instagram and there they were: the thousands of followers she’d amassed last night, plus their DMs, proof that it had really happened. “Dan, the most amazing thing in the world happened to me.”
Dan looked relieved. “Oh, good. I thought it might be something bad.” He tousled his hair and took a bite of the donut he was holding. “What’s up?”
“Okay, so you know how I said I wanted to start taking C&C really seriously, but I was stuck at like fifty thousand followers?”
“Wouldn’t it be C&CO? Technically?”
Gabbie waved her hand. “Yeah but that’s not nearly as cute.”
Dan looked unimpressed by this. “Yeah, I remember,” he said.
“Well, yesterday this other crafter who teaches at my school reposted some of my stuff and gave me a huge shoutout, which, honestly she kind of owed me because, not to be paranoid but, I feel like she’s been copying my stuff for a while now? Actually, it’s Bri, I’ve definitely mentioned her to you before. Anyway she posted me and now I have like—” Gabbie checked her phone. “105,659 followers!”
Dan lifted his head, finally giving Gabbie his full attention. “Really?” The corners of his mouth jerked downward quickly.
“What?” Gabbie asked. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Dan replied. He looked off camera for a moment.
“Not nothing,” Gabbie pressed. She’d know that look anywhere—it was the same one he’d made when she chose to stay in New York instead of going to Kenya.
Dan sighed. “It’s just the whole influencer thing—it’s so not you, you know? I mean more power to you but it has nothing to do with broadening early childhood education or improving the public school system or any of the things I thought you cared about.”
Gabbie was taken aback.
Dan took in her reaction, then continued. “I mean, it’s great, for sure. But you know being an ‘influencer’ or ‘content creator’ or whatever you want to call it isn’t just posting cute pics, right? You’ll have to learn how to read the analytics and pay attention to user trends.”
“I didn’t say I thought it was easy. I mean, that’s why I’m so excited. Because it’s hard. And I know it’s not important or groundbreaking or whatever, but crafting is a big part of my life. You know that.” Maybe Dan had a point—though it crossed Gabbie’s mind that Dan’s failed junior year startup, Cocktail Hour, which created personalized cocktails for users based on Myers-Briggs personality tests, hadn’t exactly been benevolent either. That hadn’t stopped her from wearing a pastel Cocktail Hour branded T-shirt everywhere she went for five months straight.
His voice softened. “Hey, babe, don’t take it that way. Listen, Gabs, I’m always going to support you no matter what you do. I’m just saying, it seems like a departure, that’s all.”
Gabbie started to explain—to tell him that C&C wasn’t about money, or having a huge following, or whatever he was imagining. That it was about crafting and sharing the things she loved with other people. That sure, it was a departure, but it was also the most Gabbie thing ever. That departure was kind of the point. But nothing came out.
Dan leaned back in his metal desk chair, his mouth rounded into a slight frown. “Just something to think about.” He adjusted his dashiki. “Listen, I gotta go—course planning is taking a little longer than usual tonight, and I only stepped out because I thought you had an emergency.”
“Okay . . .” Gabbie said. Was she crazy or was this the opposite of an appropriate response? Was it the distance, or had Dan always been like this? She had nothing to compare to though, because she’d never had anything this interesting to tell him before. “Talk to you again today?”
“Yeah. I’ll see if I can find some time.” With that, he said a quick goodbye and he hung up.
Gabbie clicked her phone off and put it back on her bedside table. She was so consumed with the dread that manifested any time she and Dan parted without resolving a conflict that even seeing her metric a shade darker couldn’t raise her spirits.
@celebriteesshop
@celebriteesshop
@craftingandcoconutoil
@craftingandcoconutoil
@craftingandcoconutoil