No one answered right away, so she powered her phone down again. It had stayed off pretty much all day, and she’d liked it. In the shower, there was sand between her toes. She watched it collect near the drain and then, finally, swirl away under a tiny wave.

In her room after changing clothes, she settled in watching makeup tutorials. There was something soothing about them. It was reassuring to know that when you sat down you were going to witness some kind of transformation.

Her favorite was Kiliko, a Japanese American girl around Ilanka’s age who had a massive following. She had a bunch of Disney princess tutorials that were pretty fun to watch—her Maleficent was amazing—but mostly she liked to transform herself from a pretty drab-looking, normal girl you might see in school into something more akin to a supermodel, or doll. Someone who got noticed.

Ilanka felt like playing along.

She opened up her makeup drawer and got out foundation and powder and eyeliners and a whole palette of eye shadows and a handful of lip liners and lip pencils and lined them all up, as if preparing for surgery, and sometimes it felt like that.

She’d learned that there were often steps that didn’t seem important but were. You couldn’t skip any shadowing or highlighting or layers and expect good results. You had to do it all, exactly as explained, if you wanted the effect Kiliko was going for.

It took nearly a half hour to get through it, but when she was done, Ilanka barely recognized herself in the mirror. And she liked that. She took a selfie and posted it and tagged Kiliko and added ten hashtags having to do with makeup and tutorials and transformations and then put her phone down.

When it dinged at her she figured it was her first like and she’d somehow changed her notifications. Because it was a sound she didn’t recognize.

She had a text from a number that had nonnumerical characters mixed in. Some kind of hack or spam. The message said: I’m looking forward to our time together.

It was hard not to get freaked out by stuff like that until you realized it was just some computer scam. Like when you get email from a friend who has supposedly lost their wallet in Nigeria and needs you to send cash. And doesn’t provide an address.

The next note said: A warning:

The next one said: Your father is engaged in illegal activities.

This was getting too weird. Her father’s company collected data about people from quizzes and other opt-in apps and sources. Then they placed targeted ads for their clients. Nothing illegal about it. She deleted the thread.