Ten days after arriving at my childhood home, my landlord calls to tell me my apartment is nearly finished. I can move back in as long as I don’t mind workers painting and fixing odds and ends for the next week or two. It may be tiny and stark, but it’s home, for now, and it’s time to go back—to my rented furniture and Bed in a Box; to the city, with its lights and people and energy. I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m starting to see the woman that I’m meant to be and I need to get her back to the city. Back to my life. I miss it.
Dad’s in the kitchen making soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. He calls them Toy Soldiers, because he cuts the toast into strips for dipping into the yolk. As we sit at the kitchen table, I tell him I’m going to head home. I feel a bit nervous, as though I’m letting him down, but he grins. “We better get you to the train station early if we’re going to fit all those bins in the luggage compartment,” he cracks but I just shake my head.
“How ’bout I get them next time?” I smile broadly.
After breakfast, Jeannie asks if I’d like to come with her to her favorite flower shop. We walk there together, and on the way, I get the courage to ask her about being child-free. “I don’t know if Dad told you how it’s my thing,” I say ineloquently. “So I’m just always so curious.”
“Honey, your dad didn’t have to tell me. I’ve read your book.” She grabs my hand. “So what do you want to know? I never envisioned not having children, I just never envisioned having them. My husband didn’t feel strongly either way, so he never put pressure on me. It was definitely against the norm not to have kids, when I was your age. But I always liked to forge my own path. I guess I thought it was a way to define myself. And so, we just never did.” We pass a café, the chairs set up Parisian-style, so the patrons can sit facing the street, taking in the passers-by.
“Well, thank you.”
“For what?” she says.
“For sharing that with me. It’s personal.”
“Well, you can ask me anything. Do you want to ask me if I regret my decision?” she says.
I shake my head. “Not really. I hate when people ask that.”
“Me too,” she says as we reach the flower shop and head inside.
After lunch, Dad and Jeannie drive me to the train station. I hug Dad, then turn to Jeannie. “I’m really glad we’ve had this time to get to know each other,” I say to her, and I can tell that my words are what she needed to hear. She beams and pulls me in for a hug. Then Dad helps me lug three suitcases onto the train. I may not have taken all my childhood possessions as he’d hoped but I filled two big bags with my childhood books.
As the train pulls out of the station, I watch the world zip by for a few minutes, thinking about the days to come, and how I want them to play out. I think about Mom, and what she would’ve done. But that’s always been the problem—by the time Mom was my age, she was already sick. That overruled all other aspects of her life. But I’m not sick, and I can’t use that as an excuse—I don’t need that as an excuse. I can do anything I want to, and for the first time, I feel lucky about that.
I turn my phone back on. It’s time to deal with everything.
A barrage of texts flood the screen. Most are from Feloise, Xiu, Gloria, Casey, and a bunch of people I wouldn’t necessarily call friends, but who follow and comment on my Instagram posts daily. But I don’t read their texts because before I can click on them, his name steals my attention. Will’s sent three messages. One, asking me if we can talk. Another, telling me that he misses me. Another wondering if he should drop off my books. I wonder if he sent these texts before or after his pool date with Gillian. Not that it matters.
And yet, if I had just replied after his first text, or even his second, would we have found a way to make up?
And yet, I don’t reply now.
I hesitate for a moment, my finger hovering over the Instagram icon. I haven’t posted in weeks, and I know the inactivity will mean that I’ve lost followers. Brands will be upset and cancel contracts, and while I always maintain that my online paid campaigns have nothing to do with the IRL me, who gives child-free talks at conferences, I know the two are connected. The Kit with hundreds of thousands of followers guarantees more ticket sales, more exposure to an event than another speaker with half the social presence.
I open the app. The first thing I notice is the number of followers—it’s higher, not lower. But how? I scan the photos. I’m in them, but there’s something off. I recognize them, for sure, but then I realize that I never posted them. I click on the most recent one—a picture of me in a bikini on a beach that I can’t place. My hand shaking, I study the details of the photo, realizing it was a picture from Bali, a trip that Eric and I took years ago. It was posted this morning.
Hands still shaking I scroll down to read the caption. It’s my voice, I suppose, but the words are not mine. I didn’t write this—how I’m on the beach taking a little me-time, and how I got bikini-ready for this trip by working out at an F45 studio for weeks…it’s all lies. I’ve never even been to an F45 studio. And it’s a paid ad, I realize when I scroll to the hashtags.
But how did this happen? Who wrote this? Who would even have access to my account?
Of course. I flip over to the texts from Feloise, scrolling backward through her rants about where I am, what I’m doing, how I can’t just disappear. And then I realize that she made sure I didn’t.
I hit Feloise’s name in my list of Favorites.
“Look who’s alive!” she says.
“Yeah, and not on the beach in Bali,” I whisper hoarsely. “What the fuck, Feloise?” The woman across the aisle looks over at me and shakes her head.
“You’re welcome,” she says sarcastically. “I saved your ass. You disappear for two weeks, and can’t be bothered to tell me what’s going on? You abandoned four contracts. I don’t get paid if you don’t get paid and just because you wanted a break doesn’t mean you actually get to take one.”
“I don’t get to run my life? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s not your life, it’s your business. And so, again, you’re welcome. You’re lucky that I had the foresight to use the logins you gave me to your accounts, to post your scheduled content, and then, when that ran out, to create content for you. And to even get you a new contract. And no, I did not cancel your speech at the conference as you asked me to, because we’ve worked too hard to build up your brand, your profile, for you to throw it all away with one momentary blip of insanity. I hired a writer for your speech, she was expensive but not the most expensive, and the speech is pretty good. I’ll flip it over to you. And the bill.”
For a split second I’m speechless. But the fury that’s boiling in my belly comes to the surface. “No. Feloise. Just, no. You can’t do that. You can’t make stuff up about me, you can’t write posts in my voice, using my words. You can’t pretend I’m in Bali with a picture that’s more than five years old. You can’t lie and say I worked out at a gym I’ve never even been to. You can’t sign contracts for me. You can’t hire people and expect me to pay for it without asking me. Feloise, do you hear yourself? I took a break because I needed a break and you’re telling me that I don’t matter because I’m not important as a person, I’m purely a brand, a business to you?” The image of Bernie, the titular character in Weekend at Bernie’s, comes to mind. I’m Bernie, and there’s Feloise, keeping me alive. I start to laugh. I’m delirious, and it’s all I can do.
“Are you laughing?” Feloise screeches.
I take a deep breath. “Yeah, I am. And oh, you’re fired.” I hang up, shove my phone in my bag and look out the window, leaning my head against the glass, a small smile forming on my lips.
Fionn greets me when I walk through the glass doors into the lobby of my apartment building. “Welcome back, stranger.” He walks around the massive marble desk and takes my bag from me, walking with me to the elevator bank. “You’re gonna love your place. Like new,” he says, then laughs. “Actually, I have no idea how it looks but I’ve been told to tell you that the smell might be a bit strong from the paint, and you should keep the fans on. But that’s no big deal—all the better to get that hair-flip like J. Lo for your photos, right?” He laughs a big belly laugh. I’ve missed him.
Fionn pushes the elevator button for me, waiting with me until the doors open.
Outside the door to my apartment I pause momentarily to let the weight of the moment sink in. Moving out happened so quickly, I didn’t really consider what it all meant to leave my place and live with Will. I always knew I’d be back but I didn’t really think through the how, of what it would mean to be back. Now, it all dawns on me. This apartment first became mine because I failed in my relationship with Eric. Now I’m back because I’ve failed in my relationship with Will. Failed my audience, my brand, my career.
I grip the door handle, feeling my breath quicken.
Or, I’ve found myself. And this is me, coming home. To the home I built for myself when I dared to make a change in my life, by leaving the security of a relationship that wasn’t working, to be the person I knew I needed to be.
I push the door open and take in my old-yet-new surroundings. The space is empty and reminds me of the day I moved in. My things are all still in storage, and while at Dad’s I arranged to have the rented furniture—the couch, the coffee table, the occasional chair that was in my living room—picked up. I didn’t put in a replacement order and now, I’m relieved. Not having furniture means not having to be indebted, not having to post about rented furniture, not having to remind my circle of influencer frenemies to comment about my chair, my couch, my coffee table. No more freebies means I can be free.
Slightly uncomfortable, but free.
And with all the empty space, I can bring my books out of hiding. And so, in the afternoon, after unpacking my bag, remaking my bed and getting a few groceries, I head down to the storage locker and haul the many boxes of books back upstairs. With music playing on my portable speaker and the sun shining through the west-facing windows, I start stacking the books—not in my oven or in cupboards, not under the bed or in the closet, but out in the open. From the floor as high as the stack will go without tipping over. I may not have French doors, but I have floor-to-ceiling windows, and enough books to line the edges of my entire apartment. It takes me hours, and feels like therapy. Finding the right spot for each book, making sure it’s the right fit. When I’m done, my place feels magical—like something, well, like something I’d see on Instagram or on Pinterest, but better because it’s original, because it’s mine. I stand back and snap a picture with my phone. Just one, because it doesn’t need to be perfect, and there’s no one in the world who needs to approve it. I post it to my @BookKit account. There’s really no reason to post the photo to a completely private account without a single follower. But to me, there’s every reason in the world.
The email comes through as I’m hopping in the shower after having come home from a run. I’ve never liked running in the city, but somehow, after getting used to running in the country, it feels less like torture and—almost—therapeutic. And exhausting myself means I’ve been sleeping better, and I’ve been feeling less anxious, in general. But the email has my stress level skyrocketing within seconds.
It’s from the Women in Business convention, with my name, right there in bold letters, headlining the Friday night sessions. How did this happen? This week has been quiet. I’ve read, gone for runs, and been completely social-media free. Friends have texted to find out why I haven’t been posting. Brands have emailed to ask about collaborations. But I’ve just ignored them all. It’s been therapeutic. Now, my bubble is burst. I knew I couldn’t ignore real life forever, but I didn’t think I’d be jolted back into reality quite like this. I call the publicist in charge of the event, who says she has no record of Feloise cancelling my appearance. “In fact, I just confirmed everything with her yesterday,” Salome says. “She said you were absolutely ready to go. Please don’t tell me there’s a problem. I can’t deal with any more problems today.”
My mind races. Why didn’t Feloise cancel me? Is this her way of getting back at me for firing her? Does she think that, by sending me to the wolves without a speech, she can punish me? It doesn’t matter, because on the other end of the line Salome is clearing her throat and asking me if she can expect to see me at 6 p.m. tonight. I have to cancel. To speak as planned would be completely misleading to everyone who’s bought a ticket. Unless I just give up and go back to my brand, to the person people expect me to be. And I can’t do that. I can’t risk falling back into my old life.
And yet, I blurt out, “I’ll be there.” Because I know exactly what to do. It may not be what the crowd has come to hear, but it’s what I need to say.
I hang up, take a quick shower and then sit down on the bare floor with my laptop resting on my thighs to figure out what the hell I’m going to say to ten thousand women tonight.