Why did I leap at her suggestion? Why did I plug my number into her phone so she could call me the next day and make plans to meet for salads at Le Coucou? Why did I follow her out of that bathroom and then pose with her by that wall of roses, champagne raised and laughing at some joke no one had actually uttered, while her photographer snapped away?
Oh, I’m sure you’ve already figured it out by now. I wanted to be loved. Don’t we all? Some of us just choose more visible ways to seek it than others. My mother’s love was gone; I needed to find that same gratification elsewhere. (So a therapist once told me, at $250 an hour.)
But there were other reasons, too. Saskia’s confidence knocked me off my feet. I was a Liebling, I was supposed to be the one sitting in the catbird seat, and yet ever since the day my mother plunged over the edge of the Judybird I’d felt…unmoored. There were nights when I woke up barely able to breathe, battling the familiar, panicky feeling that I’d somehow screwed everything up forever; that I was an abject failure notable only for my name. That without that I might just disappear off the face of the earth without a trace. I’d spent most of my twenties seeking something that would solidify my existence in the world, and what Saskia did—well, it seemed wholly within my capabilities. I could prove that I was good at something.
Or maybe it was just that Saskia’s cool superiority made me feel the need to beat her at her own game.
Or maybe it was just as simple as Why the hell not?
Regardless: When I woke up the next morning, I discovered that she’d tagged me in a series of photos (New bestie! Girls’ night out, helping sick kids, so much fun! #dolceandgabbana #leukemia #bffl). In just eight hours, I had gained 232 new followers.
And with that, I found my something.
* * *
—
I couldn’t tell you exactly how I went from a few dozen Instagram followers to a half million. One day, you’re uploading photos of your dog wearing sunglasses; and the next you’re being flown to Coachella on a private jet with four other social media It Girls, twenty suitcases full of wardrobe changes provided by a major fashion website, and a photographer to document the moment when you nonchalantly twirl your Balmain dress just so while pretending to eat an ice cream cone.
That Balmain moment will be liked by 42,031 strangers. And looking at the comments (Beauty!—YAAS SLAY—Vanessa I adore U—SUCH A BABE) you will feel more substantial than you’ve ever felt in your life: as if you really are that glamorous, jet-setting fashion queen with an army of friends and no self-doubt whatsoever. You are admired—adored, even—beyond your wildest imagination. You’re living the V-Life; everyone wants to be you but only the very lucky few will come even close.
If you play out a role long enough, can you become that person without even realizing it’s happened? This happier, more evolved person you are pretending to be—can they just inhabit you? Every day, as you put on a show for a worshipful audience of hundreds of thousands (or, heck—even just one other person), when does the performance stop being a performance and just become you?
I’m still waiting to find the answer to that question.
* * *
—
Several years passed like this, a blur of fashion shows and late-night dinners at caviar restaurants and rides across Lake Como with rich men whose names I had no reason to remember. Once I hit 300,000 followers I finally told my father what I was doing, which didn’t please him one bit. “You’re doing what?” he barked, when I tried to explain the term Instagram influencer. The mottled pink skin at his temple wrinkled with consternation; his nostrils—which had grown veined and corpuscular with age—flared like those of an enraged bull. “I didn’t raise you to just live off your trust fund. Vanessa—that’s really not wise.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “It’s a real career.” And it was! At least, if you judged it by the sheer amount