“Posting, you mean.” Confused, I blink. I’m thinking about the tiny Instagram paragraphs she writes under her daily meditation and yoga selfies and how not hard they are. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re even harder to compose than actual writing.

“Posting is writing.”

“On a small scale.”

“Whatever the scale, skill is still required. And effort. And it’s the hardest thing I do.”

My $895 is already gone, so I decide to stop fighting. “The hardest.” I relent. I’m all in.

“Harder than working in a mine.”

“So much harder.”

“Or digging ditches.”

I shrug. “They’re just big holes!”

The back door opens and a woman in chef whites enters the kitchen. “Andy will get dinner ready while we go into town, Judy,” Sari says, putting her cup down on the counter. “I’ll show you around and we’ll pick up some wine and cheese.”

Andy has chin-length violet-silver hair, a pierced lip, and a full sleeve of tattoos on both bare arms. She looks at Sari and then at me with sadness, then pity. It takes me a few seconds to realize that we are too ridiculous to even bother hating. I blink in horror. I have crossed a line I never even knew existed. I want desperately to disappear.

“Thank you, Andy!” I say, gushing. Then, as if that’s not weird enough, I wave and walk toward her with my hand extended. “Hi! I’m Judy!”

Andy looks at my hand like it has a bird on its head. “Judy. Chill,” she says calmly, before heading toward the refrigerator.

* * *

Sari and I get into a huge SUV—the kind you have to actually step up and hoist yourself into—so that we can go into town to buy wine and cheese. She backs out and drives all the way down the lawn to the road, passing our car.

“Sorry you had to park so far from the house. We had a muddy thaw.” She shrugs with faux frustration. “Country living.”

“It was good exercise.”

“That’s why it’ll be great to start yoga this weekend. It changed my life. I’ve cut my Xanax in half.”

“I know,” I say. “You posted a lot about that last year.”

She ignores me. “So I never did ask you what you’re working on now.”

I shrug. “Work.”

Sari looks confused.

“I have a day job,” I explain. “I write for a health and wellness site.” I tell her a little bit about Well/er—the founding bro-dudes, how young everyone is, how I get my inspiration for “researched” pieces from my everyday life. “Maybe I’ll write about this trip!” (“Is country living actually like chicken soup for the soul?” “The science behind how a daily walk in nature can boost the quality and quantity of your creative output.”)

“Creating isn’t work for me.” Sari sniffs. “Creating is my life’s work. There’s a difference.”

Sari pulls the SUV into a gravel lot in front of a slate sign hanging from a lamppost: VERMONT COUNTRY PROVISIONS. We jump down out of the car and pad across the gravel, her clogs digging in with each step. Inside the dimly lit shop with sawdust on the wide-plank floors, multiple blackboards show cheese and wine specials written out in colored chalk, while wealthy weekenders fondle delicately wrapped hunks of triple-crème from local dairies and artisanal crackers. If Gary were here he’d tell me it smells like feet. Though we have been apart for less than an hour, I miss him desperately.