Big Summer(44)
“I’ve done some babysitting myself. But I’ve never met an influencer before.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you have.” I’d had only one glass of wine, an icy Riesling that was perfect with the oysters, plus a few sips of the signature cocktail. It shouldn’t have been enough for me to feel buzzed, but I did, warm and expansive, with my joints and my tongue loosened. I leaned closer and whispered, in a mock-ominous voice, “We’re everywhere.”
“Can I see your page?”
“Of course.” As I pulled out my phone, I examined his face for scorn or skepticism, any gesture or expression that would have implied doubt or disbelief that a reputable manufacturer would pay someone like me to model their clothes. But all I saw was curiosity.
“Here we go.” The first picture on my Instagram feed was a shot that Drue had taken, of me on the ferry, wearing my navy-blue sunhat, red lipstick, and red-framed heart-shaped sunglasses. Against the white-painted backdrop of the boat’s railings, with the blue sky and the dark water behind me, the colors all popped, although I’d played around with the contrast and the saturation to get it just right.
“Very nice,” Nick said.
“So you’ll be following me?”
“I have a confession.” Nick dropped his voice and leaned in close to me, so close I could almost brush the top of his head with my lips. “I’m not on Instagram.”
I widened my eyes in an expression of shock. He grinned.
“I’m not actually online at all.”
Now I actually was horrified. “What?” I sat back, staring at him. “No Facebook? No Twitter? No nothing?”
“No nothing,” Nick confirmed.
“You mean you won’t be posting shots of the wedding bed, with the approved wedding hashtag?” I shook my head. “I’m not sure they’re going to let you stay.”
“Oh, it gets worse. I didn’t even have a smartphone until two years ago.”
“Who even are you?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I just never got around to it,” he said. “At first, I thought Facebook was for, you know. Um. Older people. And I didn’t need to sign up somewhere to keep in touch with my high school and college buddies when I saw them in real life. So, by the time I made up my mind to do it, everyone had moved on to the next thing.” He smiled, wiggling his bare feet in the sand. “Guess I just missed my moment. But what about you? How does the influencer thing work? You use your account to advertise clothes?”
“Clothes, shoes, makeup,” I said. “Exercise gear. Heart-rate monitors. My dog endorses organic pet treats. It’s a whole hustle.”
“How long have you been doing it?”
“Oh, a few years.” I cleared my throat, figuring I should tell him my history before he borrowed someone’s smartphone and looked it up himself. “I had a clip go slightly viral a while back. After that, a few brands approached me. I’d say it’s been a slow build since then.”
“And did you always want to be, you know, famous?”
I looked at him to see if he was teasing, but his expression was sincere. “I’m not famous,” I said.
He gestured at my phone. “People are giving you money to wear their clothes and feed your dog their treats. That’s kind of famous, right?”
I cringed, thinking of a term that I hated: “Insta-famous.” I said, “If I’m famous at all, it’s only in a very specific circle, to a very small number of people. And it’s not about fame. It’s about having a community. Connecting with people who care about the same things that you do.” I sipped my drink.
“So what’s the goal?” Nick’s voice was still pleasant, but his expression had become a little guarded, somehow wary. Or maybe he was just genuinely clueless. Maybe influencers hadn’t yet colonized Cape Cod, and this was all new to him. “Do you want to hit a certain number of followers? Make a certain amount of money? Or is it just about having a community?”
“You sound like my dad,” I said, half to myself. My father had asked me all of these questions and more, usually after I’d pulled out my phone in the middle of a meal, to see how a post was doing, or respond to comments. “The goal,” I repeated, using one fingertip to draw circles in the sand. “Okay. Ideally, if I could wave a magic wand and have everything I want, Instagram would be just for community and connection. And I’d make as much money as the big names, without having to deal with… you know, everything they deal with.” I was thinking of the genuinely famous plus-size influencers and the hard-core hate-followers they attracted. So far, I’d only gotten a smattering of disparaging or cruel remarks, but I knew that the more followers I got, the more of them I could expect.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll give it all up and just do my crafts and run Bingo’s account. Let her be the breadwinner.”
This led, naturally, to a discussion of my crafts, which led to me showing him my Etsy storefront and then Bingo’s account. Nick told me about the dog he’d grown up with, a flatulent beagle named Larry, who would howl every time he heard the refrigerator opening, and that he hoped to have a dog of his own someday, but that he wasn’t home enough to give a pet the attention it would need.
For the next half hour, Nick and I sipped icy wine and ate oysters as the sun descended toward the waterline and the party got louder around us. I learned that the boat he worked on was called the Lady Lu, that a mate’s jobs included gathering the bait—most of the charters used herring—setting the lines, baiting the hooks, helping clients reel in bluefish and striped bass, extracting hooks from fishes’ mouths, and filleting the fish for the passengers to bring home. “It’s expensive,” he said. “We charge passengers seven hundred and fifty dollars for half a day, which covers our fuel, the equipment, maintenance and upkeep on the boat, all of that. Captain Steve’s got regulars. People who go out every year. Fathers and sons, grandfathers or grandmothers and grandkids. For some of them, especially when the little kids catch their first fish, it’s the best day of their summer.”