Astrid had ten million followers and counting. Not Kardashian-level fame, but respectable numbers—and her fame was expanding. She was the embodiment of the concepts all-inclusive and Rodeo Drive, so beautiful that oil princes and bored corporate oligarchs would pay millions for a private audience. Her TikTok-debuted hit “Solanum” was taking over Spotify. She posted multiple photos on her socials every day, and at least one story a week. But despite all that, even the tabloids couldn’t find her in real life, and they were paying people just to look.
The two women wandering up and down the beach couldn’t afford to pay people to look for Astrid, so they were looking for her themselves as the sun drifted west.
“She’s got to be here,” Stacy whined. Stacy was Astrid’s most active fan. Her phone vibrated with the tooth-rattling intensity of an AMBER Alert whenever Astrid posted anything, anywhere. She owned at least two sets of all of Astrid’s streetwear; one to wear, and one to keep. She hid the shame of being Astrid’s fifth follower close to her heart and vowed over the burning posters of her previous idols that she would do whatever it took to be the first to buy tickets to all of Astrid’s shows.
“She just checked in,” Lana replied. “She’s here.” Lana was indifferent to Astrid, but Stacy was her best friend and had no other interests that occurred regularly enough to sustain their friendship. Plus, whatever Lana thought about Astrid’s music, she liked the clothes, and Stacy would usually lend her some pieces when they went out together.
The pair wandered the beach looking for the world’s current favorite celebrity recluse until the sand under their red-lacquered toenails chafed and corrupted the skin into blisters. Temporarily defeated, they sat on the retaining wall between the beach and the parking lot to share a slushy lemonade. Stacy scrolled through Instagram with one hand, monopolizing the lemonade with the other. With a shrill series of beeps her phone presented a photo of Astrid, framed by two frayed palm trees, wearing a tight t-shirt emblazoned with the number 13.
“Damn! She’s still here! Do I buy the shirt or find her first?” Stacy leapt up, spilling pale yellow chips of frozen lemonade that sizzled on the granite wall. She had grown up on this beach and knew exactly where her idol was posting from. She marched toward the setting sun with purpose. Her red-and-blue polyester shorts rode uncomfortably high, but she wouldn’t dare be seen fixing them. Lana doggedly followed, tired feet sinking into the crests and troughs of hot, dry sand kicked up by the day’s crowds.
Near the muddy waterline, Stacy tripped over an older man wearing an incongruous grey fleece gilet over a black collared t-shirt and khaki shorts, sitting with his bleached legs outstretched and half-buried in the sand. He had his phone in one hand and a potato in the other. He looked up quizzically, the odd symmetry of potato and phone hanging in the humidity between them.
“What . . . the . . . hell,” Stacy sneered. “What are you looking at?”
Lana pulled her away. “Come on. She’s not here. Celebrities are allowed to lie about their check-ins; it’s a security thing.”
“Potato Head freak!” Stacy snapped over her shoulder as Lana led her back toward the slushy stand.
The man put the potato down and typed on his phone: Big love, Glass Beach! See you again soon!
The Likes from ten million (and counting) followers were flooding in before he had read the post confirmation message. His celebrity emulator was working better than he had dared to expect. Under his algorithm, the dimpled nightshade in his hand was pushed and pulled into a nightclub maven with a shock of raven hair, smooth russet skin, and a perfect tawny glow. Two faint flecks became Astrid’s eyes, drilling into the camera with the luminous dare of an Old Hollywood starlet. As he admired his work, he was surprised to notice the sudden onset of wrinkles at the corners of the mouth.
He rolled the potato into his camera bag and stood up, smacking sand from his board shorts. He would have to stop at the grocery store and pick out a new potato on the way home; Astrid 13 was beginning to go soft.
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