Big Summer(109)

I turned on my phone. Ignoring the dozens of messages and friend requests and reporters asking for interviews, I went first to Instagram, where I flicked through pictures of Drue Lathrop Cavanaugh. Drue at a Women’s Economic Summit, in a pink silk blouse with a bow at the collar, looking smart and exceedingly competent; Drue in a pair of tight jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, perched lightly on Stuart’s lap, looking sexy; Drue with her arm around me in the Snitzers’ kitchen, Drue next to me in the water on the Cape. Me and my best friend.

She looked good in every shot, and not one of them had told the truth about the two of us, or about her, about who she was, or what she wanted, or who she’d been in love with. Not any more than my Instagram account told all of my truth, or Darshi’s account, or Leela’s.

I clicked the link for Leela’s page, thinking that it might already have been taken down, but there it was, replete with pictures that told a familiar tale of ease and joy and beauty. Here I am with my famous friends, here I am at this great party, here I am on this beautiful beach. I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy. Every repetition a lie.

I looked at the pictures for a long time. Finally, I went to my Instagram draft file, and the question that had been waiting. I am a teenage girl, and I want to know how can I be brave like you.

I wrote, I’m not brave all the time. No one is. We’ve all been disappointed; we’ve all had our hearts broken, and we’re all just doing our best. Make sure you have people who love you, the real you, not the Instagram you. If you can’t be brave, pretend to be brave, and if you can’t do that yet, know that you aren’t alone. Everyone you see is struggling. Nobody has it all figured out.

I posted it, closed the app, and looked out into the darkness. I thought about what it would be like to quit social media for good, to give up my influencer dreams. I’d imagined someday being as big as Drue, or Leela, but now that dream felt hollow, like running a race for a medal, only to learn that the gold I’d sought was just colored foil wrapped around empty air. Nick and I could live on a beach somewhere, in a house on the edge of a dune, with ocean views and no Internet connection. I had money, or I would, and Nick would, too, assuming Drue’s will held up in court. I could give some to my parents and some to charity and keep the rest to begin whatever life I chose. I could be as public or as private as I liked, sharing only as much of myself as I wanted.

Through the window, I watched as Nick rolled over, sighing in his sleep. I could see the sky just starting to change colors, the black giving way to pearly gray. I looked at my phone, at the shots that Nick had taken of Drue and me in the water, on the last night of her life. Both of us were laughing, heads thrown back, the skirts of our dresses gathered in our hands. She’d been splashing me. Drops of water hung, sparkling, suspended in the air, and the sky stretched, vast and brilliant, behind us. She looked—we both looked—young and beautiful. Only one of us would stay that way forever.

I thought about all the things Drue hadn’t known, in that picture—that she had a brother and a sister. That all of her scheming would come to nothing, that she’d never save her father’s business, or launch her husband’s; she’d never get to be on TV, never divorce the man she didn’t love and marry the one she did. I stared, as hard as I could, but it was impossible to square the lovely, laughing girl in the picture with her current and absolute absence from my life, and from the world. A lovely memory Until eternity; She came, she loved, and then she went away.

Sitting under the brightening sky, the metal bars cool and familiar against my back, I felt my throat tighten and my eyes prickle with tears. She envied you, Aditya had said. A week ago, even a day ago, it would have sounded unbelievable, because what did I have that Drue could have ever wanted? But now I knew. It was all around me. A mother and father who loved each other and loved me. A man who might love me, too. A job I liked, a loyal dog, a true friend. Enough confidence to at least try to get the world to take me on my own terms. A body that had saved me.

I smiled down at my thighs and gave them an approving pat. “Thank you, thighs,” I whispered. I looked out at the city, the gorgeous end-of-night sky, and thought about a young woman who could have had any guy in the world and who had loved one just like my father. I could hear her, in the doorway of her bedroom, whispering, Thank you for being my friend. And I could see her, after the Sunday we’d spent together, with a plastic bag full of olives and almonds and baba ghanoush swinging from her arm, young and pretty and heading into her brilliant future, smiling and saying, This was the best day of my life.





Acknowledgments


I am grateful to be published by the wonderful people at Simon & Schuster and at Atria. My thanks to Carolyn Reidy and her assistant, Janet Cameron, to Jon Karp and to Libby McGuire and her assistant, Kitt Reckord-Mabicka. Thanks to my agent, Joanna Pulcini.

Lindsay Sagnette was a thoughtful, patient, and perceptive editor who helped coax this story to its fullest potential. My thanks to her and to her assistant, Fiora Elbers-Tibbitts.

At Atria, I am lucky to be supported by an amazing team of women and men who help my stories make their way into the world. Thanks to Suzanne Donahue, who is always great company; to Kristin Fassler; to the brilliant and creative Dana Trocker; to subrights wizard Nicole Bond; to my wonderful publicist Ariele Fredman and her daughter Millie, who gives me perspective and reminds us all that the purest love in the world is the love of a little girl for a big garbage truck.