Master of My Fate, Captain of My Soul

5:00 P.M.

Imogen

There was something strange about watching Rinn filming herself.

It took away a little bit of the magic, made Rinn look a little bit ridiculous. After all, she was swinging a stick around on her phone, talking to the air. But also, it was endearing. To watch anyone put that much heart and soul and care into a thing.

For once, Imogen didn’t feel tangential embarrassment at that. She normally would have, watching someone try so hard with so much determination and so little self-consciousness. But instead, Imogen was impressed with Rinn’s dedication to a thing that she loved.

Of course, that’s when Rinn flipped the camera around. “Say something, Imogen.”

“Something,” said Imogen, in an absolute panic.

And then Rinn laughed. Not at Imogen. But at what Imogen had said. Like it was funny. Like her horrible, awful, no-good dad joke was funny.

“Imogen is a riot,” said Rinn with so much authority that Imogen nearly believed her on the spot.

Rinn clicked through her phone, posted the video, and then snapped the telescopic arm of her selfie stick back in place. “Okay. That was the easy part.”

“That was the easy part?” Nothing about the way Rinn had held focus with the lens of her phone camera and continuously talked to it for four minutes had, in any way, seemed like the easy part.

Rinn nodded. And for such a sunshine-and-happiness kind of person, it was amazing how much gravitas she could lend to her statements. “Now we gotta go tell the Harvey fans waiting in line that he’s not going to be at the bookstore due to unforeseen circumstances.”

“The unforeseen circumstances being that he hits on teenage girls in bookstores and probably also his younger publicist and maybe any young woman who has the misfortune to cross his path while he’s alone with them?”

“Yes, but hopefully we don’t have to announce that to the entire bookstore because I think Jo’s in enough trouble for punching Harvey as it is. I don’t think we need to fan that fire, so to speak.”

“I wish we could,” said Imogen.

“Oh, we always can,” said Rinn in that voice again that made Imogen believe her. “But it’s a question of whether we should. If it’s necessary, I think we should. But that’s the problem with creeps. It’s always on the victims to expose them and the victims to bear the brunt of what people believe. The vulnerable risk everything. The powerful can just point at everything that they have amassed, as though that’s an argument against potential injustice and misbehavior.”

“You know,” said Imogen, “I’m starting to feel bad that I’ve never watched your book channel.”