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“Hi, yourself.” As Wil put the Bronco into gear, Katie looked at her manicure. Wil wore her nails short, in pretty ovals. Her ring finger was maroon with a perfect white circle, and the rest of her nails were buff clear, with perfect maroon circles. The TikTok people loved to talk about Wil’s nails. Katie was certain Wil had influenced all kinds of trends and fads.
Wil wore jeans that fit her exactly right, and her black motorcycle boots, and an unbuttoned gray waffle Henley, different from the tee she’d had on earlier, cleavage pushed up just so. Her soft, pale blond hair was styled in an artful, femmey mullet that drew Katie’s eyes to her perfect mouth, which literally everyone on the internet was talking about, the bottom lip so full, it creased in the middle.
“You must have so many offers,” Katie said. Because she knew the business. She saw what April saw. Everybody had seen it in high school.
Cool, beautiful, smart Wil.
“To ride in the Bronco? Less than I would expect, but I’m biased.”
Katie laughed. “No. Entertainment offers. Offers from people who want to gift wrap what you’ve got going on and act like they invented you.”
Wil wrinkled her nose. “A few.”
“Not good?”
“I mean, it’s interesting trying to figure out the what and the why of the offers.” Wil took a detour in Katie’s parents’ neighborhood to avoid getting to the main road via a steep hill that was always covered in ice this time of year. Katie’s dad took the same detour. “Some are obvious. The porny stuff, for example, sure, inevitable. Those are easy to pass on. But there’s stuff from cosmetics people, streaming people, completely random ad people. What do they want? What do they think I can give them? How far will they go to try to exploit me?”
Wil tapped the steering wheel. Her smile was small, private. Katie felt like she’d been invited inside Wil’s mind, which was a delightful feeling.
“I ended up reaching out to some other creators on the platform,” Wil said. “That led me to a pretty intense deep dive into all the ways the people making the content are getting screwed over. I actually spent most of a four-day weekend off work one time just reading the terms of service from beginning to end, marking them up, making sure I completely understood everything. Now every time they update, I’m on it, checking it against my notes. I’m all up in the forums, leaving comments for other content creators, helping them sort through their problems or understand their situation better. It’s the same thing I do at work all week. Cut through red tape. Simplify complex situations for other people.”
Wil glanced at Katie and smiled right at her. “I like fighting for other people, figuring out how things work and looking for ways they could work better,” she said. “But as far as making decisions about anything beyond just basic ad packages on my channel, I don’t have a decision tree for any of that stuff.”
“Do you want one?” As soon as she asked this, Katie realized she wasn’t sure she wanted to give Wil a decision tree for mediaoffers. One of the things she liked best about Wil’s channel was that everything about it had been decided by Wil. It was hers. She’d made it, in the most absolute and basic way that Katie never got to make anything.
“I need a decision tree for my entire life.” Wil laughed. “I’m not irresponsible or impulsive or anything, truly. I have a tendency to stick? I guess.”
“Like in a rut.”
“Like in what’s comfortable, mostly because I really enjoy everything. I genuinely like my job, for example.”
“As an insurance adjuster?” They had picked right back up the conversation they’d started earlier. It was as if everything they said to each other was part of one long, continuous talk that never ended.
“I love being an insurance adjuster. I love knowing all of this ridiculous, industry-specific language and going out to places and taking my pictures, writing the report. Fixing something simple with money. I also love that no one cares, at least in my company, what I’m like, or how I dress or spend my time.”
Katie listened, watching Wil drive.
Once, all those years ago, Wil had taken her hand off the gearshift and put her arm along the back of the bench seat. Then, when it was time for her to shift again, just as she was taking her arm away, she’d softly pulled Katie’s hair and slid her fingertips down Katie’s arm.
It had been the first time Katie had ever spontaneously felt herself get wet. She hadn’t felt strange about it. Being with Wil had been incredibly fun, easy. Getting turned on like that before she even knew what she wanted from, well, anyone had only been interesting. They were leaving for college soon. Everything was golden hour.
Looking at Wil now, in the dark, Katie wondered, though,about all that intensity then. Why she remembered everything about the cab of this truck down into the deep sense memory parts of her brain.
“Every day is different,” Wil said, still answering Katie’s question. “I don’t even mind that the clients calling in are often upset, or angry, or both. It feels like what I can do is useful. Document. Listen. Look. I don’t make the money decisions, not really, or the policy ones, but I can advise clients.”
“I can see that. But you’re doing this creative project, so I wonder if something’s not all the way stuck down.”
“Maybe. Or a lot of little things aren’t? Living in the same place, which, again, I like. I like how the space feels, and my landlord, who I’ve known for a long time, and I’ve been interested in my different housemates, and some of them have become friends. But.”
“But.” Katie smiled.
Wil rolled her shoulders and grinned at Katie. “Something isn’t fitting right. Even the TikTok, I can feel there’s a way that it wants to be something else, and it’s happened faster than anything else in my life, that shift.”
Katie liked looking at Wil this way, in the Bronco, with the only light coming from the street. Even more, she liked looking at her live and in person instead of on the tiny screen on her phone. It seemed inconceivable that she hadn’t spent any time or talked to this woman in thirteen years.
It felt like something else Ben had taken away, something Katie hadn’t even realized Ben had taken away.
But also, once things had settled—once there was an April, once her mom wasn’t flying out to LA at least once a month to stay and help Katie get on her feet again—there hadn’t been anyone who’d thought to tell her that if she wanted to be comfortable in this new normal, to stick with Wil Greene.