“Can you BELIEVE this weather,” Stacy bellowed to everyone, rushing into the green room with her tiny publicist, knowing she didn’t need to introduce herself. “I spent so long getting my hair perfect, and all for what? Oh my God. It makes you want to kill yourself. Whoops. Bad joke. You know me! Hey, do you guys have a phone charger I can use? Cheers.” Stacy snatched a lead from Gwen’s twitching hands, then spied the snacks. “Oh, cakes, yummy. Is this all for me? How sweet.”

We all hovered and watched Stacy eat a cupcake, while I wondered when I should introduce myself. The young influencer had clearly made a “book launch outfit” mood board at some point after googling “what writers look like.” Gone was her usual array of erratic revealing clothing. Instead she’d poured herself into a crisp white shirt with skinny tie, dark blue jeans, heels, and gathered her hair into a professional ponytail, topped off with prescription-free large-rimmed glasses. “Wow. Watermelon too. Oh this is great.” She pulled out her phone. “Look. Everyone outside is so excited.” Stacy fell down a social media rabbit hole, and it was now slightly weird she hadn’t said hello to anyone. I coughed, to alert her publicist, who was also buried in her phone. She looked up, and I saw the obvious effort it took her to pretend enthusiasm for me.

“You must be Fern! Oh my. Lovely to meet you.” She launched herself up and air-kissed me.

“Nice to meet you too. How’s it been going?”

“Oh crazy. Just crazy! We found out today we hit the bestseller list though. After only three days of sales.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“So much thanks to you and Gah! of course.”

“We were so happy to support Stacy.”

Stacy, behind us, held up her phone, and started filming a video to post. “This, ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between...is what a green room looks like,” she said, narrating herself without a whiff of self-consciousness. I sucked my stomach in as the lens swept over me, pretending I didn’t know I was being beamed to over four hundred and fifty thousand followers.

“Stacy? Are you free for a second? I’d like you to meet Fern, your amazing chair.”

The influencer stood up to shake hands. “It’s great to meet you.” She smiled with the full wattage, as if I was one of her fans. “Fern, was it?”

Her publicist filled her in. “Fern’s the Mental Health editor of the Gah! website. And she founded the Hold On For Tomorrow project. You know? That blog post that went viral a few years ago, encouraging people to post reasons to stay alive? She started that.”