Audrey began laying out a plan to help me “land” Connor, a plan that seemed hinged upon heavy spending at Nordstrom, Sephora, and the salon, but I was fixated on her word choice: best friends. I’d always considered Audrey my best friend, but she always reserved the honorific for her childhood friend Izzy. Hearing her say we were “best friends” warmed every corner of my heart.

“Trust me, Cat,” she said. “You’re going to be like a different person when I’m through with you.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AUDREY

Smudging a new home with a clump of burning sage was painfully trendy and more than a little woo-woo, but still I found myself circling the basket of smudge sticks at Urban Outfitters. I had spent an hour wandering around inside the Georgetown CB2, testing out different couches and lusting after light fixtures, but had walked away without purchasing anything. My lack of furniture was getting ridiculous, I knew, but I still couldn’t commit to a couch. It was an anchoring piece, something that set the tone for the entire room—and since I planned to escape my basement apartment as soon as possible, it would need to be something that wouldn’t look out of place in a larger apartment. Overcome with indecision, I put a pin in the furniture buying and popped into Urban, ostensibly to look at some patterned pillows I saw featured on another woman’s Instagram. I wouldn’t buy the same pillows, obviously—I was no follower—but I thought there might be something else I would like.

I was underwhelmed by the pillow selection but intrigued by the smudge sticks, imagining how dramatic the smoke would look on camera; it would make for a great series of photographs. The smudging itself would make good blog content, too—people were really into Wicca and other mystic shit. I got at least a dozen comments each week inquiring whether I had tried crystals or had my chakras aligned.

Why not? I thought, picking up a smudge stick and carrying it to the register.

I’d thus far avoided filming much inside the apartment. I didn’t want my followers to see how little progress I’d made on unpacking—especially after I’d done that Live where I talked about getting started on the boxes. I couldn’t bring myself to unpack, though, because I knew I could find someplace better as soon as I marshaled the resolve to spend a day sifting through ads on Craigslist and Zillow. Besides, style was the bedrock upon which I’d constructed my whole image, and I knew my followers expected me to live somewhere more chic than this bare basement apartment. With that in mind, I returned to CB2 and purchased a matte-black table lamp and a polished silver side table I had been eyeing.

At home, I wiped down the walls and baseboards in the sunniest corner of my subterranean living room, arranged my new purchases, and topped the table with a bright bouquet of flowers from Whole Foods. The tableau made the apartment look charming and inviting … so long as you narrowed your field of vision to that one portion of the apartment. The rest remained crowded with boxes, but I would address that later. My more immediate concern was generating new content for my followers, an inclination that gave me pause. I’d watched so many of my online friends become fixated on polishing their lives to attract lucrative sponsorships only to lose their authenticity—and their followers. I was careful to remain myself online—an amplified version of myself, sure, but myself—and I was rewarded by a devoted fan base. I knew I could make bank if I started aggressively monetizing my online presence, but there was no way I was selling my soul to corporate sponsors. I wanted to remain true to myself, and, more important, I wanted to have a shred of dignity left when the influencer bubble inevitably burst.