Page 7 of Wide-Eyed
My brand as an NYC It Girl was under fire, and I was going to redeem it by pivoting to small-town, island-in-paradise content.
Mike Holliday was under the impression that I didn’t know what real work looked like. He was wrong, but this perception would make for good content. As a kid, there was a reality show I watched at Gran’s (Mom wouldn’t let me watch it at home) about two heiresses who went to small towns and were bad at every job. They wore cute outfits with headbands and had lots of fun, and the show was a great success.
If I pulled it off, this trip to New Zealand wouldn’t just shift the sentiment of my existing fan base, it would grow me a whole new one.
I was an American fish out of water, and the rough-and-ready locals would be bemused by me at first, but I’d quickly charm the pants off them and become the belle of the town. It would be content gold.
Best of all, my success would show Paul he could go fuck himself.
“Hello!” I said brightly to a feminine person at the counter, coffee cup in hand. She had glowing brown skin, round apple cheekbones, and sunglasses on her head holding her thick brown hair back. Her hair was almost as long as mine, but in much better condition. I vowed right then that we would become friends and swap hair mask recommendations.
“Hey,” she replied. “Nearly shat the bed there, d’in ya?”
“Excuse me?”
The woman nodded at the street. I realized she was talking about my parking.
“Oh my god, yes!” I laughed. “The roads here are so weird! I never drove in New York City. You don’t need to. The subway—that’s the underground train—is really good, and there’s always cabs or rideshare apps or whatever. I’m Lyssa, by the way.” I held out the hand that wasn’t holding a crumpled, bloody napkin. “My pronouns are she/her, and I’m from New York.”
“Yeah, I know who you are. I’m Tanya. Call me Tanz.”
“Oh! Hi!” It was exciting to be recognized this far away from New York. My grin dimmed a little when I realized this fan would have seen my disastrous livestream. “I promise, no more livestreams,” I said quickly. “My content is about to enter a whole new era. Exciting times ahead.”
“Content?” She frowned. “What do you mean?”
It sounded like waderyumin, and it took me a second to unpack this in my head. How did New Zealanders make four separate words sound like one?
Tanz continued. “Kev mentioned you in his Christmas newsletter last year. You’re Caroline’s friend, right? She lived with you in New York?”
No offense to Caroline, but this was the first time I’d been recognized in relation to her, not the other way around.
While I was processing this, Mike appeared from the hallway behind the counter holding a red pouch with a white cross, which he set down.
“Plaster, plaster …” he muttered, rifling through the bag. “Why does no one replace the plasters when they take them? People think I’m made of plasters.”
For a very confusing few seconds, I thought he was talking about casts and mold making. Then I realized he meant band-aid.
Not to be that tourist, but I genuinely hadn’t anticipated a language barrier coming to an English-speaking country.
Caroline wasn’t nearly this hard to understand, and none of the travel websites had warned me about New Zealanders blitzing their words into a kind of verbal purée, or forgetting about the letter R. Then I remembered that Caroline had done a lot of traveling before she lived with me. She was accustomed to slowing down and speaking so people could understand her. Meanwhile, I’d walked straight into Middle Earth with a holiday visa.
A child appeared next to the register, fisting the ledge of the counter in their undersized hands. “Excuse me, Mr. Mike!” they bellowed.
Now that was how Kiwis should enunciate.
“I need a plaster!”
“What for, Tim, mate?”
“My ouch!” Tim lifted the hem of his princess dress and showed Mike a scrape on his knee that we had to squint to see.
“He scratched it on the path,” a grown-up said, having followed Tim inside. “He wanted to be the first in line to hug Elsa but was a bit too keen. Stacked it in front of everyone, di’n ya, little mate?”
“Yeah,” Tim said.
“Same,” I offered, and showed Tim my matching scraped knee.
His little face screwed up. “Eww.”
