Page 71 of All Our Nevers

I brought a mix of things: some pieces I consider visual art (to be displayed), some fashion (to be worn), and some that straddle the line. At the front of my booth is a poster with a QR code and all my social media handles. It’s stationed between two of my favorite outfits: a patchwork dress in sage green with gold embroidery, and a two-piece crochet set in black—long skirt and matching crop top. The top has two bright red apples across the chest, exactly where you’d expect, each with a bite taken out. The skirt says BITE ME in repeating crimson along the side.

If I’d realized this was an event for children, I would’ve picked something else.

Okay, maybe it’s not an event for children, but it’s certainly catering to a family audience. I mean, the booth next to mine is fucking interactive. Hordes of nine-year-olds are wasting perfectly good yarn to make oversized pom-poms and I want to die.

What am I doing?

Like really—what am I doing here?

Is this a productive step in my career? Does it align with my goals? What even are my goals anymore?

I was supposed to be making fashion and art, visiting Milan and Paris and taking hold of opportunities with both fists while I’m still young. I think back to my notebook with the three-item goals list, still folded open on the table at home:

1.Make good art

2.Make good fashion

3.Make good money

This craft fair isn’t any of those things. Something’s gotta change.

Without a second thought to our intensely awkward stalemate, I take out my phone and send a text.

Lia: hey you never gave me guy’s number

Lia: can i have it?

He replies in under five seconds.

Owen: 617-555-0619

Owen: Can we talk about last night?

I don’t respond. I’m too busy creating a new contact and shooting a desperate shot. I opt for English because I don’t trust my business French at a time like this.

Lia: Bonjour, Guy. This is Lia Mercado. We met a few weeks ago at your firm’s party. You mentioned that your cousin’s boutique is expanding from Paris to Boston and I would love a chance to connect with her, if you still think she would be open to it. I’m including a link to my website below in case it’s a helpful reference. Please let me know if there is anything else I can provide at this time. Merci et à très bientôt xx

I read it once, twice, thrice, proofreading meticulously. I even run my extremely basic French phrases through Google Translate to make sure I didn’t fuck up an accent mark or something.

The moment I hit send, I hear a shrieking child say, “Mom, look! That one has apples! Can I get it?”

She’s accompanied by an exhausted-looking woman in all gray and at least three middle-school minions, grabby fingers rampaging through each booth they pass.

“Oh, honey,” the mom demurs towards my suggestive bitten-apple work, “I don’t think it’s your size.”

She meets my gaze with a reprimanding furrow in her brow, asking how dare you interest my child in a shirt that vaguely alludes to the existence of breasts? I pretend not to notice.

“Please, mom? Pleeeeaaasee?”

The child sounds vaguely snotty, like the state of being eleven or whatever has left her with a perpetual cold. A cold she’s now rubbing all over my hand-made garments.

Kids are assholes.

I don’t even try to engage her or the mother. They’re not my target audience by a longshot. An expensive bachelor’s degree and six years of grinding my crochet fingers to the bone for… this?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

I want to complain. I want to whine. I want to bitch about this stupid day and be told I’m right and the world is wrong.