Page 25 of Girls Will Be Girls
Louisa:
God, I love you
With a slight achein my head and sweat already clinging to my freshly showered skin, I throw a bathing suit under my baggy surfer-chick-inspired t-shirt dress, because I know I want to be in that lake today. The hotel provided me with coffee and a continental breakfast, so I go sit out on the patio to start work and take in the early morning sun without any distractions.
Speaking of distractions, I peek over at Lou’s side of the cottage, but it’s completely dark.
I re-focus and open my laptop. I dip into my file on Village Bay and scroll through all the research I did beforehand.
In the three or so years I’ve worked as a travel and wellbeing writer atLure Magazine, I’ve honed my routine when I’m on assignment. I do a good amount of research on the place I’m visiting, make sure I have a few spots that are a must story idea, but then also leave room for spontaneity. All of my best articles have always come from something I find while I’m there.
Like, goat yoga on a local farm, sound baths at the library after dark, or line dancing with bull riders in the same ring they were just almost killed in.
I need to get started on content today, and seeing as I’m already damp from sweat and in my swimsuit, I pick paddleboarding as this morning’s activity from the list I made before I got here. There’s a little water sports center in town that has a class in an hour, so I book in for that.
I’m always pretty apprehensive about a completely new activity, but I’ve done paddleboarding before, so know what to expect. I wouldn’t say I pride myself on my fitness and dexterity. I’m always afraid I’ll be so bad at something I’ll embarrass myself, they’ll ask me to leave, or I’ll break my face.
I love my job. I enjoy writing about travel, it means I get to go to cool places, but I’m not a huge fan of the wellbeing part, which is probably about two-thirds of my job.
I absolutely hate participating in organized sports, exercise, or bodily movement. Anything where I have to be on display at something I’m terrible at — no thank you.
Lure Magazineis my dream magazine, but when it comes to the role, I’m still paying my dues — despite the cruelty of asking a millennial to pay anything on top of our already sky-high bills.
I want to be writing about the hottest things around the world that week.
I’ve been gunning for a job in the online and trends team for years, but Evelyn — the founder ofLure— hired me based on an article I wrote about my trip to Boysen in Vermont, where I was visiting one of my best friends Dylan. She and her fiancé, Elijah, split their time between there and New York.
It was an article where I listed the best activities in that small town, along with the drinks that paired perfectly with them. Like, chocolate tasting at the local boutique paired with a Bailey’s cocktail, or playing hide and seek in the woods by my friend’s house paired with a smoky whiskey shot.
Evelyn loved my angle on the piece. So much so that she slid into my DMs and offered me a travel writer position. I was unbelievably excited to be getting a job at a magazine, especially one that I already loved, after spending a year as a freelancer/bartender. I said yes without hesitation, even after she revealed that the travel writer also looks after wellbeing.
I pretended to love that just as much.
I loveLure, and I love Evelyn. If I have to stomp down my anxieties when it comes to exercising in a group, I will do it to keep myalmostdream job.
I’ve been subtly hinting for a while now that I’d like to move departments, and one day, Evelyn is going to pick up on that.
But for now, my specialties have become exclusive looks into punishing exercise classes no one in their right mind should volunteer to do, marathon training plans forThat Girl, and the best hikes in any given region.
Now I’m here, and it’s an amazing assignment, and when Evelyn told me about it she said,“I think you’re going to absolutely love this one. This is so you.”,which the travel part, absolutely, but the amount of activities I have to do — yikes.
But that’s what they pay me the medium bucks for.
I have a spare fifteen minutes before I need to leave. I could get started on some preliminary notes for my articles, somesetting-the-scene paragraphs, or I could Google-stalk my new neighbor.
Annoyingly, he doesn’t have much of a social media presence. HisInstagrampicture is a photo of him from behind in front of some water, but it’s blurry, so you can’t make much of him out. He also only has one post, and it’s from years ago, of him and a group of people dressed up like tennis players at a party. He’s not even looking at the camera.
His account isn’t even private; that’s how unused it is.
He has noTikTok. I can’t seem to find him onFacebook. He doesn’t even have aLinkedIn.
All I can find from him is aTwitteraccount—I refuse to call it anything else — that occasionally retweets articles and posts from other people at the Washington Post or other journalists, but not many original posts other than him reposting his own articles.
I go down a rabbit hole of reading the stories he’s done, and his writing is good, it’s interesting, and to the point. Kind of like him. I sort of regret looking, because now this man I’m slightly intimidated by because of how beautiful his face is, is intimidating in a whole other way.
Of course, he had to be smart and interesting.
I delete my search history — just in case — before closing my laptop. I hoist my string bag packed with a towel, water, sunblock, and a small notepad and pen for notes onto my back and then walk towards reception to take a quick look at those brochures. Casey’s on a stool behind the counter, flipping through what looks likeCosmo.
