My response was a blank stare. In addition to the lack of a modeling industry in our tiny community, I’d never thought of my lanky body and pointed features as positives.

“Actually, don’t do it,” Freya continued. “You’ll end up with low self-esteem and an eating disorder.”

It had been a throwaway compliment, but I clung to it for days. Unlike every other person on our island, Freya saw something different when she looked at me. She saw someone interesting, fashion-forward, maybe even elegant. I swear my posture improved in the afterglow.

Freya had been an actress, too, a career she called soul-crushing.

“I did a teen sitcom pilot that never got picked up. And a sappy Christmas movie that was just embarrassing. My character’s name was Trixie Gains. Do I look like a Trixie fucking Gains to you?”

I laughed. “No.”

“We filmed it in LA with fake snow. I had to wear angora sweaters in every scene, and it was ninety degrees. LA is a cesspool,” she informed me, “but I miss the weather.”

In more recent years, she’d been a social media influencer. “It was the best gig ever,” she said, her eyes sparkling with remembrance. “I’d get paid twenty grand for a post. Up to thirty for a live story. I got invited to clubs and restaurants and concerts. And I got so much swag! Beauty products, electronics, even vacations.”

I avoided social media like a root canal, but I said, “Sounds amazing.”

She put down the sponge she’d been using to wipe the wheel. “I had half a million Instagram followers. I’d get over a hundred thousand likes on my posts. Sixty thousand views of my stories. It was addictive—all the attention, all the adoration, and positive reinforcement.”

I smiled and nodded, though I was unfamiliar with the feeling of public validation.

“But then . . . all those people turned against me.” She dropped her sponge into a bucket of water and stood. “It was never real. They never cared about me.” She moved toward the back sink, leaving me to ponder her bitterness.

Other than some superficial chitchat—What’s your favorite class at school? Photography. What kind of music do you like? Eighties and nineties alternative—Freya talked exclusively about herself. This worked well for me. I wasn’t ready to open up to her, didn’t want to dispel the illusion that I was just a regular girl. I couldn’t risk her judging me as a freak and cutting me off. She was the most interesting, extraordinary person I had ever met. I was already addicted to her.

Since her marriage, Freya had lived in Montreal, Las Vegas, and New York. “I loved it there,” she told me. “In my heart, I’m a New Yorker.”

“You’ve lived in a lot of places.”

“My husband was a professional hockey player. When he got traded, we moved.”

My family did not watch sports. Our motto was: Cooperation, not competition. (Yes, my family had a motto that was embroidered, framed, and hung in our entryway.) Hockey, in particular, was too violent and pugilistic . . . though I’m sure my spaz of a brother, Leonard, would have loved it. But I knew enough about pro sports to be impressed. By the money, the fame, the athletic prowess.