Excerpt from ‘Girl with the Primrose Pin’

In a little forgotten town in Mississippi, Kayla and Faith come of age on the Internet. Kayla is beautiful and kinetic, with the kind of face that amasses thousands of likes on Instagram. Faith, shy and studious, is her ghostwriter. But the persona created by these two best friends is disrupted when Faith is accepted into Harkness College, a prestigious women’s only college outside New Orleans—and when she comes under the influence of her enigmatic art history professor. Girl with the Primrose Pin is a propulsive, chilling story of female friendship, power, and the ways we are beholden to the images we create.

*

Kayla

In South Korea, thousands of girls, some as young as twelve, audition every year for the opportunity to attend idol school. This was what I learned, back in Gator Park, when I searched for affordable plastic surgery and the invisible hand of the Internet showed me a Reddit thread in the “K-Pop Obsessions” community where strangers analyzed every aspect of idol school: the grueling schedules of vocal, dance, and makeup lessons; the hierarchy of the classes, where the most promising girls were put on Team A and the fat, awkward, wide-faced ones languished on Team B; the debt the students took on, which they’d spend years, even as famous pop stars, repaying.

This fascinated me. I’ve wanted to be many things: beautiful (which I am), smart (which I’m not, by any conventional standard), bulletproof (which I’m not, by any standard). But for the longest time, I wanted to be a young, lithe South Korean girl. I wanted to be plucked from obscurity and given the formula for fame. In the only intermediate math class I took in high school, my mind stumbled over the quadratic formula no matter how many times Faith went over it with me. But in a different country, and in a different life, there was a formula I could understand. That any girl, no matter where she came from, could combine X (extreme discipline), Y (plastic surgery), and Z (careful cultivation of her image) to become an idol.

I found a doctor in New Orleans. His name was Dr. Charles Moses and he had a 98% approval rating on RealSelf and a Groupon for $100 off a cosmetic procedure, which seemed as fateful of a sign as any for me. At the time, I was losing 20,000 followers a day. The office was a bland, monochromatic building off Magazine Street in the Garden District, next to a vape store and across from a vaguely Thai restaurant called Buddha Belly and an equally vague Irish pub that drew the types of women and men, respectively, that I was losing as followers.

“What don’t you like about yourself?” Dr. Moses asked.

The question irked me. This wasn’t a matter of my personal taste, as though my looks weren’t a commodity. But gamely, I gestured to my lips. “These need to get bigger,” I said.

“You’re already a very beautiful young lady.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I want to do my cheeks, too.”

Dr. Moses promised that I would feel a pinch, which wasn’t true. As the needle slid, then hooked, into my skin, I gasped. When Dr. Moses pulled the needle out, drops of excess filler sprinkled my face. It felt like I was crying. Later on, I found out that a local anesthetic should’ve been offered but wasn’t. Must’ve been the Groupon.

The injections took fifteen minutes from start to finish—the same time that it took to take a photo, edit it, and post. After a few days, the swelling subsided. In every reflective surface—mirrors, glass coffee tables, the window of a parked car —I examined my new face. With the added definition to my cheeks and lips that Dr. Moses insisted was subtle, I was simultaneously more and less beautiful. I was, oddly, more beautiful in photos—more myself, even. No longer did I need to contour my cheeks with two types of bronzer, or re-pixelate my cupid’s bow.

But I’ve seen the way Faith looks at me, that strange mixture of pity and revulsion on her face. Faith was different too, at Harkness. When I showed up outside her dorm that night in October, Faith was prettier than I’d ever seen her. As much as Faith thinks I don’t notice her gawking at my face, she also doesn’t see what I see: how little she eats these days, the way she lingers in front of mirrors now when she had once avoided them. You’re doing it too, I wanted to tell her. Just because you’re at a fancy college, getting your fancy degree for your fancy future finance job doesn’t mean you don’t have to play the game.

I was also jealous, of course. Because while the formula at Harkness wasn’t for fame, it guaranteed something better: security. And Faith had it.

*

The post on Halloween generated 121,567 likes, and 832 comments, the most engagement I’d gotten in the past year. At first, many of my longtime followers—the cottage-chic bloggers in Oregon, the Taylor Swift acolytes, that boy with the stutter in Orlando—were perplexed. I had gone from early Taylor Swift-adjacent to Fifty Shades of Grey adjacent, except Hannah’s bad boy knew more about art history and the power dynamics were less overt. They direct-messaged me: thought you were going to Tulane? Are you okay? Are you a virgin? Watch out—he’s taking advantage of you!

But by the time Faith and I posted a second, and then a third, installation about Hannah’s growing attraction to her dark, brooding professor (the flirtatious comments left on her essays, the chaste hug in his office after class), the story was the story. It was different from the narrative that other influencers were shilling, about gratitude and meditation and hair-growing gummy bears that tasted like strawberry. Hannah Primrose was, once again, authentic. Hannah Primrose had 254,000 followers, an increase of 75,000 followers in the past few weeks.

This growth, according to Brian Marquez, was exponential. I saw Brian’s email come in while I waited for Faith outside of her class. It was one of those rare, autumnal days that November, when the air smelled, bracingly, of campfire and peat. With my tan cashmere, black skirt, and Doc Martens, I looked like any other Harkness student as I folded my limbs into the triangle of space fashioned by the gnarled roots of an angel oak, making myself as small as possible. I felt cozy in there, secretive. The ground was damp. I thought of a story that my momma had read to me as a girl, about a family of mice living in the hollows of a tree called John.

I opened Brian’s email:

Hey Hannah!

Long time since things fell apart last summer. But I just wanted to drop a note saying that you’ve been crushing it lately! Growth is exponential. Seriously, super impressive. Love how you’re laying it bare, in such an impactful way. I had no idea you were going to Harkness. When you get a moment, let’s connect about opportunities, etc.

It was the email I had longed for, the one that eluded me all the months since I lost the Bed Bath & Beyond sponsorship. But I felt empty. The angel oak was at the center of Harkness’ postcard-perfect campus: All around me, girls in twos or threes milled out of the nearby arts building, their arms laden with textbooks I couldn’t understand; their voices speaking in the code of the upper-middle, of field hockey and spring breaks and internships; their ponytails swinging in that easy, genuine optimism for the future. These girls were Hannah Primrose. This was who Hannah Primrose needed to be.

A few yards away, Faith materialized. I watched as she walked across the lawn. She was with another girl from her sorority, Ellie or whatever. Their little heads leaned towards each other, in that conspiratorial way of schoolgirls. Her friend was saying something that made Faith laugh. As the corners of Faith’s mouth stretched into an unabashed, gum-showing laugh that, back in Gator Park, Faith would’ve covered with her hand, the irony hit me: all of our lives, Faith had been my ghostwriter. Now I was the ghost, condemned to live my life through the prism of Faith’s.

Mid-laugh, Faith spotted me. She waved. She tugged at her friend’s sleeve, pointed at me, and, together, they strode towards me, the patterns of the many-limbed live oaks flitting across them in the honeyed light of early afternoon. With a smile that rearranged every feature of my face, I waved back.

Faith

“Kayla’s gorgeous,” Callie said, with a little sigh. As though on cue, Kayla waved from across the lawn, where she sat, prettily, under the oldest tree on Harkness’ campus, a 250-year-old angel oak, dripping in Spanish moss and heavily etched with the initials of past generations: Class of 1924, A+C, TJW ’54, 7-7-12. Kayla was wearing my sweater, which was 95% polyester but, on her, looked convincingly like cashmere.

“Let’s say hi,” I said, as though it was a casual encounter. Callie and I walked in lockstep, and I tried to ignore Kayla’s gaze. The grass was soft and yielding under our footsteps, al dente, which made me think of a few days ago in Wyman’s office. My visits were, by now, a common occurrence. There was always some pretense to follow him after class into his office: to follow-up on the questions he left in the margins of my assignments, which were many; to ask about a double-major in economics and art history, which required his approval; to discuss internships for the summer.

These visits took on a rhythm of their own. I’d sink into a deep-seated, velvet armchair that Wyman liked to joke was haunted by the spirit of his dead great-aunt, while Wyman sat on the edge of his large, octagonal desk. Our legs were always a few feet apart, angled, awkwardly, in opposite directions. Any body language expert would’ve been fooled. But however distant I was physically from him, the air sizzled when we spoke, a vast reimagining of time and space.

“You’re not like my other students,” Wyman loved to say. “They’re so robotic, so professionalized, with their Linkedin profiles about their lifeguarding jobs. Your mind is special, Faith. I hope you reconsider finance as a career. You could do anything.”

“What choice do I have?” I loved to say back.

The last time I was alone with Wyman, we talked through lunch. During a rare lull in our conversation (we had long stopped talking about my future, and happily devolved into a wide range of other topics), my stomach growled. The noise that my body made was painfully obvious, guttural—a hhhhhhh that echoed, that made me want to recede into myself. But instead of ignoring it, Wyman was delighted. Again, I was struck by his physicality. How the very muscles in his body seemed to ossify by the physical proof of my hunger.

“You should’ve had lunch by now,” Wyman said.

I shrugged. “I’ve got it in my backpack. I can eat later.”

“Why don’t you eat it here?” Wyman said, lightly.

At my hesitation, Wyman said, “I don’t mind. It’s my fault I’ve kept you.”

But it wasn’t just because I was afraid of eating in front of Wyman; it was what I had to eat—what I ate, routinely—that I didn’t want to show him. Reluctantly, I reached into my backpack for my Tupperware of soggy spaghetti.

I pried open the plastic lid, filling the office with the smell of Chef Boyardee. Wyman winced—it was subtle, but I still saw it. I looked down at my lunch, ashamed. Wyman jumped off his desk to rummage under it. I heard the opening, and closing, of a door until Wyman pulled out a tin can, a small bowl of coarse, flaky salt, a pepper shaker, some cheese and butter. “I’ll eat with you,” Wyman said.

For the first time, I noticed the tiny sink in Wyman’s office. It was tucked into the far left corner, behind a large, leafy plant. Wyman slowly filled a sleek kettle with a razor-thin, swan-like spout. As Wyman waited for the water to boil, he smiled at me. “Have you ever been to Italy?” he asked. “No,” I said.

“There’s a little trattoria off this tiny, rambling street in Florence that has this cacio e pepe that I’ve tried, and failed, to successfully recreate a thousand times,” Wyman said. His smile widened. “But today,” he said, shaking the can, “is a new day.”

“What do you like about it?” I said.

“The feel of it,” Wyman said. “The give of the pasta as you bite into it.”

I could still see, all of it, so clearly: the bundle of pasta that was the circumference of my wrist, its delicate, translucent strands fanned out in the rolling water like an accordion; the look of quiet concentration on Wyman’s face as he cut the butter in, bit by bit, and cracked black pepper.

Wyman took a seat at his desk, across from me. I admired the simplicity of the plate in front him. “Can I try it?” I asked.

“I thought you’d say that,” Wyman said. He took out a fork, hesitated, then took out another. He held it out to me. It was, in my hand, surprisingly heavy. Tipping forward in my chair, I lifted a few tendrils out of the knot of pasta, then wrapped them, tightly, around my fork.

I avoided Wyman’s gaze as I took that first rich, buttery, redolent bite. Before I knew it, a soft “oh” slipped out of me as I was transported: inky night skies, scattered with starlight, a castle crumbling into the sea.

Al dente, Wyman had said. That was the word I hadn’t known to use to describe my pleasure in that moment, a word so well-known by the rest of the English speaking-world that I wanted to throw my laptop against the wall when I saw the full extent of my ignorance, the word I returned to, again and again, since: the peach ripening on my desk, al dente; the heft of my left breast in my right hand, al dente; the ground underneath me as I walked to Kayla, al dente.

“Why didn’t Kayla rush again?” Callie asked. “I mean, unless she’s a complete nutjob, she could’ve gotten into any sorority she wanted.” Callie glanced at me, then added, “But of course she’s not a nutjob, since you’ve known her forever.”

“It’s just not her thing,” I said.

By the time we reached Kayla, she had gotten up. Kayla’s hand, I noticed, was grasped tightly around her phone. “Hey girl,” I said, as brightly as I could.

“Oh hey,” Kayla said. “I love those booties,” she said, to Callie.

Callie beamed. “You don’t think they make me, like, too tall?”

“Are you kidding me?” Kayla said. “You look mahh-ve-lous. Want a pic? Faith will vouch for my supreme photo-taking skills.” Catching my eye, Kayla winked at me.

Callie handed her phone to Kayla, then struck a pose, one hand on her hip. Kayla clicked away. I tried my best not to act annoyed.

“These are amazing,” Callie proclaimed. “Thank you.” She threw her arms around Kayla, and Kayla hugged her back, rolling her eyes at me.

“Posting now,” Callie said, bent over her phone. “Should I tag Alpha Phi? I’m still butthurt they haven’t featured me on their Instagram yet.”

“That’s bullshit,” Kayla said. “You’re easily one of the prettiest girls in the house.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Callie said. “Are we following each other yet? What’s your handle?”

I glared at Kayla. “Oh, I’m not on Instagram,” Kayla said, smoothly. “I’m just a really private person, you know?”

Callie wrinkled her nose. That a girl as attractive as Kayla would not be on Instagram was, apparently, difficult for Callie to grasp. “That’s okay,” Callie said, with too much emphasis. Slinging an arm over Kayla, Callie said, “Let’s see what’s going on at the house.”

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