Josie’s teeth clamp down on her bottom lip and she widens both her eyes. Well, that looks says. Did you?
I did not. I was too busy remembering a quiet November afternoon in a sun-filled bakery. I wonder what Beckett would think of a place like this. I imagine him here, overwhelmed and confused, squinting at the chalkboard placards on the outside of each workspace. Glaring at the mason jars in the open kitchen. Scowling at the fresh cucumber water and complimentary warm hand towels.
I shake my head.
“I’m sorry,” I clear my throat and curl my hands around my mug. “Could you repeat what you said?”
Kirstyn flicks her shining blonde hair back behind her shoulder. She’s wearing oversized glasses with a thin, gold wireframe. A collection of bangles dance down her wrist. She lifts the mint green tea kettle off the tray in the center of the table and offers it to me. I shake my head.
“Dance,” she says, placing the kettle back down with a small pout. “You know, like those challenges you see everywhere?”
She gestures to her phone face up next to the tray—a cohesive stream of dancing influencers. I try to picture myself there, wedged in between all that content. I can’t even begin to imagine it and I feel a twist of anxiety. I’m pretty sure the last time I did any sort of choreographed movement, I was thirteen in my parent’s basement, singing to Backstreet Boys at the top of my lungs with Josie using an umbrella as a microphone stand.
“I know the challenges,” I offer, with no small amount of hesitation. I can see where this is going.
This isn’t where you’re supposed to be, a voice in the back of my mind whispers. It’s been getting louder and louder, that voice, a steady trickle of doubt. But if I’m not supposed to be here, where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be doing? I’ve spent my entire life curating this platform, building this audience.
I blink away from the phone and look out the window at the bustling sidewalk below, distracting myself with the people on the street. I watch as everyone moves past one another without looking up—a mindless, endless drive forward. A gust of wind tunnels down the sidewalk and lifts the edge of a bright red scarf. For a second, the woman clinging to it looks like she’s flying, her hand grasping at the ends. She manages to catch it just as she stumbles past a tiny empanada shop—a bright pink building with string lights across the top, sandwiched between a national box store and a glossy bank. A small woman with olive skin laughs in the window and snaps her towel at someone on the other side of the counter. A smile kicks up the corner of my mouth. I can hear her joy from here.
“Evie,” I feel Josie’s boot under the table, nudging against mine. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat. I shake my head and force my attention back to Kirstyn. I’m all over the place today. I need a strong coffee and a six day nap. “I’m here. I’m listening. Explain to me what you’re looking for.”
“We think you should add some choreography to your videos,” Kirstyn repeats slowly, enunciating each word. I would hazard a guess that I won’t be seeing Kirstyn again after today. “Sway believes movement and dance would make your content more approachable.”
Josie slowly turns her head to look at Kirstyn. If looks could kill, I’m pretty sure Kirstyn would be a pile of ash. Movement and dance. I tap a fingernail against the lip of my cup.
“What do you suggest?”
The light pinching of her lips turns into a tightening between her eyebrows. “Dance,” she repeats, the first hint of frustration spilling out of her lightly-lined lips. “Movement—“
I wave my hand. “Yes, movement will make my content more approachable. But as I am sure you are aware, my content is largely aspirational. Travel focused.” I frown. “Do you think I should do “Yah Trick Yah” in the aisle of a small-town bookstore?”
Josie snorts. My sarcasm goes sailing right over Kirstyn’s head.
“That’s amazing,” she tells me, greedy hands reaching for her laptop. She begins to frantically type, her hot pink nails dancing across the keyboard. “What an incredible idea. I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”
A dull headache pounds at the base of my skull. “That wasn’t—“ I sigh and look back out the window, down towards the empanada shop. The woman laughing in the window is gone now. “I was joking.”
“Oh, well,” Kirstyn doesn't look up from her computer. “It’s a good idea. Maybe you can workshop it on your next trip.”
Josie widens her eyes at me. Workshop it, she mouths. She mimes a dance move from the early ’90s I’m pretty sure we workshopped during our Backstreet Boys routine.
I don’t dignify the suggestion with a response and attempt to change the subject. I am weary down to my very bones. “Where is my next trip?”
Half of me hopes Kirstyn tells me my next trip is home, to the tiny and mostly bare apartment I rent here in the Bay Area. I don’t know why I signed a lease to begin with. I think I’ve spent a total of six nights there over the past three months. But I had been yearning for some roots and an apartment seemed the logical answer.
“Oh, right. Here we go.”
I began my partnership with Sway because I wanted to help more people, tell more stories, access more communities with small businesses trying to get their name out. Like Peter in Spokane, a retired veteran with a grilled cheese food truck and—no lie, the best tomato soup I’ve ever had. Eliza and her dress shop in Sacramento, recycling fast fashion into sustainable pieces. Stella at Lovelight Farms, working so hard to create a whimsical winter wonderland. The people I visit have everything they need to make an impact, I just … help them along. Give them a boost.
Account management was starting to be a little too much for Josie and I to handle. We were spending more time on the administrative side of things instead of the creative bit of it. My partnership with Sway was supposed to make all of this easier. But honestly, it’s been one headache after another.
“This is your next trip,” Kirstyn announces with all the flair I’ve come to expect from Sway.
A blank screen hums its arrival as it drops from the ceiling. It winks awake with a burst of color, a loud and heavy bass drum filling the space. Josie jumps in her seat, scrambling to keep her mug from flipping over.
Bejeweled bodies sway with their arms in the air. A woman with fur boots to her thighs and a bright purple sequined bodysuit swings from a vine across—I squint at the screen—a bright red pool of jello.
“Holy crap,” Josie whispers.
My headache deepens.
“Why are you showing me Burning Man?”
“It’s not Burning Man. It’s the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival,” Kirstyn tells me, almost bubbling over in excitement. The bracelets on her wrist make a tinkling noise that I feel in my teeth. “It’s a newer festival, and Sway thinks this will be a good fit for your brand evolution.”
Sway thinks. I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“My brand evolution.”