ASTRO CHEAT SHEET

GUEST NAME: Aimee

SUN SIGN: Cancer

MOON SIGN: Libra

RISING SIGN: Virgo

AGE: 37

OCCUPATION: social media influencer

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER GUESTS: married to Adam, best friends with Farah

SPECIAL NOTES: unexpected Sun, Moon, and Node synastry with Farah. What’s the connection?

AIMEE

Farah and I set our bags down near the steps and I kick off my shoes to drag my feet through the thick green lawn. Together we walk around the astrology house to the ocean view.

“I wish I could bottle that fresh-air-and-saltwater scent,” I say to Farah.

“Already planning your next caption?” Farah grins ruefully.

The three-hour drive to Stars Harbor Astrological Retreat took nearly four, due to the number of times I forced Farah to pull over to the side of the road to capture Instagrammable moments.

At an idyllic little farm stand, I hopped out of the car, the dust from the unpaved road coating my slides, and craned my neck, looking for a toddler I might be able to pass off as one of my own three girls.

“Is she too tall to be Dylan?”

“No, but too blond,” Farah said. “But that could be Clara in the blue stripes over there.”

I spotted the little girl near the sign for the pick-your-own strawberry patch. “You are a genius,” I told Farah.

I angled my phone for several perfectly framed shots of me smiling over the little girl’s back as she crouched with a basket of berries in the distance.

“Aren’t you billing this weekend as a romantic getaway, not our usual group family vacation?” Farah asked. I was surprised at the bitterness in her voice, but then again, I don’t normally rope her into my photo shoots; she doesn’t have the patience for the banality.

“I’m not posting these now. They’re for next week. It’s called scheduling content,” I said.

“I wish I could pre-deliver a baby so I could build in a little breathing room for next week.”

“Last one, I promise.”

The rest of the drive to Stars Harbor, I felt a bit nettled. My posts may appear frivolous to Farah, but a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes to create lucrative content.

Since leaving the women’s magazine where I started my career, I’ve made a living posting to social media about the superficial parts of motherhood—how to remove ketchup stains, how to sleep train, how to make the perfect cake pops for classroom birthday celebrations. But there is nothing shallow about being a mother. Not for me. It’s the most rewarding, soul-searching journey I’ve ever taken.

Farah does not share my views about motherhood as a vocation, or social media as a job. Farah is a doctor, the most traditional of professions. She doesn’t have a clue about an influencer’s challenges in the parenting space. I have to keep tabs on the newest trends in clothing and gear, amass thousands of adorable shots per week when my subjects are cranky for the majority of the day, and manage a regular posting schedule for my sponsors down to the ideal hour of day to maximize the algorithm.

But Farah and I are drawn together by our differences, not repelled by them. We share a mutual respect for our individual choices. So I know it wasn’t my extended Instagram photo shoot that was bothering Farah on the drive. She sounded stressed, frazzled even, as she navigated traffic. Rather than peppering her with the questions on my mind, I gave her the space to work it out.

Now, seeing her open expression as we look out at the ocean, I ask, “Hey, is everything all right?”

Farah glances at me and then back at the horizon. “Beckett darted out in front of a car yesterday,” she says after a pause. “I was putting Cole in his car seat and Beckett took off across the street. A Mercedes was barreling past, but their emergency system kicked in. Stopped on a dime.”

“Was he okay?” I ask, horrified.

“Yeah, but he cried because he saw the ice cream truck and then it was gone. Not because he almost, you know, died.”

I can’t help but laugh at Farah’s dry delivery. She seems pleased by the break in the tension.

“He’s fine, I’m fine, everyone’s fine,” she says. “Joe asked me if I was on the phone. He thinks it’s my fault.”

“Joe is a politician; his default is blaming other people.”

Farah doesn’t say anything. She clearly feels responsible. Her read on Joe might even be a projection of her own guilt.

“It must have been so scary,” I say.

Farah nods. “I still hear the tires squealing in my head.”

I let the moment stretch out between us. Farah’s eyes are trained on the ocean ahead. I know there’s more to the story, but I trust that she’ll tell me when she’s ready.

“So should we go meet this astrologer? You googled her?” Farah asks, changing the subject.

“I would say I can’t believe you didn’t, but of course you wouldn’t.”

“I don’t have time for that nonsense,” Farah says.

“Okay, so what are you picturing?” I ask.

“A wrinkly old woman in a muumuu?”

“Exactly. But she’s young and she’s wearing cute pants.”

I flash the photo of Rini on her website. Her shiny brown hair is swept over one shoulder. Wrapped in a red peacoat, she sits on the front steps of the black-and-white Victorian home, staring straight into the camera with a closed-lip, mysterious smile.

“She looks so normal. How’d she become an astrologer?” Farah asks.

“That’s every twentysomething’s dream job,” I say. In the days leading up to this trip, I had googled the astrologer obsessively, and now I pull up some of the best headlines to read aloud. “ ‘Young entrepreneur revives hospitality on the North Fork and zoning law changes thwart her competition.’ ‘What can’t she do? Success in the stars for this whiz kid.’ She sounds like an ingenue, while I wasted my youth partying and churning out articles with clickbait headlines for thirty bucks a pop.”