Famous for a Living


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter 1: The Launch
 Chapter 2: The Umbrella
 Chapter 3: The Peanuts
 Chapter 4: The Cabin
 Chapter 5: The 9-to-5 Life
 Chapter 6: Cades Peak
 Chapter 7: The Trash Cans
 Chapter 8: The Winter Carnival
 Chapter 9: The Boys
 Chapter 10: The Moose
 Chapter 11: The Lie
 Chapter 12: The Flat White
 Chapter 13: The Supportive Niece
 Chapter 14: The Tenth Annual Skijoring National Race
 Chapter 15: The Confession
 Chapter 16: The Date
 Chapter 17: The Best Friend
 Chapter 18: The Bench
 Epilogue
 Do I Have a Problem? Quiz
 Influencer Support
 Discussion Questions
 
 An Excerpt from Meet Me in the Margins
 Prologue
 
 
 About the Author
 
 Acclaim for Melissa Ferguson
 Also by Melissa Ferguson
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
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 Guide
 
 Cover
 Contents
 Chapter 1: The Launch
 
 
 
 
 Dedication
 
 
 To Laura Wheeler, my editor. Your kindness, wit, wisdom, and presence throughout this book have been more of a blessing than
 you know. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chapter 1The Launch
 
 
 
 
 
 One doesn’t intentionally wear itchy, viridian-green jumpsuits to match the elaborate wainscoting on the walls around oneself.
 
 Did I know it would match?
 
 Of course.
 
 Was I aware it would look fantastic in pictures?
 
 Naturally.
 
 But to actually pick out my birthday-party-turned-surprise-launch-party ensemble for the sake of matching the walls? That’d
 be ridiculous.
 
 
 I did it to match Bobby.
 
 More specifically, I did it because viridian green is Bobby Braswell’s personal color of choice for the year.
 
 And when your birthday-party-turned-surprise-launch-party partner is the Bobby Braswell, designer and partner of Club, the social media app forecasted to, as Bobby liked to say, “make Instagram and Facebook a distant and unsettling
 memory,” you dress accordingly.
 
 
 “Cat’s turning thirty. She doesn’t need to broadcast it with a thousand candles.” Serena hip checks Kiel, one of the most
 renowned caterers in the city (who also happens to be a foot taller and a solid hundred pounds heavier than Serena), out of
 the way.
 
 
 “The icing!” Kiel protests, as Serena begins plucking the glittering golden candles out one by one as though defeathering
 a dead chicken.
 
 
 She doesn’t budge.
 
 And, just as this scenario has gone between them the past three catering events, he throws his hands in the air.
 
 As Kiel shuffles down the spiral staircase of the loft overlooking my living room, muttering the same murderous phrases he always does in his thick German accent, Serena works. 
 
 Her auburn hair curls around her shoulders, pushed back just enough from her face to highlight a delicate jawline leading
 to lips that, instead of being artificially plumped to one degree shy of clown-sized proportions—as was the way of 99 percent
 of the forgettable faces walking the streets of Manhattan these days—are magnificently thin. On her head is perched a silky
 cream top hat, matching a cream pantsuit and four-inch heels, and on her ears twinkle Daddy’s latest little trinket: a six-thousand-dollar
 pair of earrings he spotted in a shop window on the way to a business lunch, dropped in, and purchased, all because he thought
 they would look nice on his little princess.
 
 
 And they do.
 
 Simply put, Serena Whitman is my best friend. Has been since that very first day we met at a fundraising event for childhood
 diabetes when, upon hearing my name, she lost that vague my-manager-said-I-should-be-here expression in favor of an enthusiastic
 handshake.
 
 
 I couldn’t shake her that evening.
 
 Or the next.
 
 And eventually, I gave up trying.
 
 And while her interest in becoming an influencer has long passed, our friendship—nearer to sisterhood level at this point—stuck.
 
 Serena blows a strand of hair from her eyes as she plucks the three-tier cake with surgical-level