Kind of Famous (Flirting with Fame Book 3)

by Mary Ann Marlowe

  He might have just been looking for a way to rescue Jo, but I was so grateful. I tugged his hand so I could bring him in for a hug. “Thank you, Zion. You’re a lifesaver.”

  Jo looked over with a curious eyebrow lift, and I filled her in. “Looks like you’re losing your house guests a little early.”

  As soon as dinner was over, Ash and I walked back to Jo’s to gather our stuff up, once again. Zion went on home ahead of us to make sure the apartment was presentable, and I prayed this was my last big move so I could finally unpack.

  We called for an Uber, and as we waited on the front stoop, I thanked Jo profusely for her hospitality and friendship. She insisted I was welcome anytime. She shook Ash’s hand and bid her farewell. “Well, it’s been nice meeting you. How long are you in the city?”

  “I’m not sure. A few days I should think. Possibly into next week.”

  Even though Jo seemed exhausted by Ash, she gave her a hug and said, “I hope you’ll be in town when Micah gets back. I’m sure he’d love to meet you.”

  Ash must have read that as potential for a future encounter. “I would love that.”

  It astounded me that Jo could be so gracious, though I understood why she had to be. I’d seen what happened when a musician or anyone associated with a band disrespected a fan. It was blood on the walls for days, weeks, years—sometimes forever. Jo probably knew better than to be rude to Ash when their time together was ticking down with the seconds.

  When Jo leaned in to hug me goodbye, I said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  She squeezed extra hard. “It happens. Not your fault.”

  It was a relief not to be painted by the same brush as Ash, though I’d shown enough clues that I was in the same family of art supplies. Jo took me at face value.

  I had no requirement to treat Ash with such polite good humor, and the minute we climbed into the Uber, I let it all out.

  “What the fuck, Ash? Did you lose your mind?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You just spent the entire dinner grilling Jo like you were a reporter. Or a crazed fan girl.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not ashamed of being a fan. I had no idea you were such a snob.”

  “What are you up to, Ash?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you set out to use me to meet Adam? Do you really think you can use Jo as your next steppingstone? After all, that’s probably what you think I did, huh? Make friends with Jo so I could end up on the inside?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No!” This argument was making me think of my fight with Shane. “I didn’t intend to. I didn’t invite myself out to dinner with Jo. I didn’t invite myself along to stay at her place. It just happened.”

  “Neither did I, Layla. You invited me.” That was technically true, but she’d given me little choice apart from being rude.

  “You never had any interest in meeting me, but then I met Adam. Isn’t that right? You flew out here on some make-believe family emergency so you could climb over me and get to Adam. Admit it.”

  She leaned against the car door, glaring at me, sucking on her teeth, and I thought I had her. She’d have to confess. “My brother’s having a baby.”

  That wasn’t what I expected her to say. “Your brother’s having a baby?”

  “Well, no. My sister-in-law is. Obviously. She went into labor yesterday, and we thought she’d have the baby by now, but the doctors put her on some drug—Turbo Lean or something like that—and it stopped the labor. They did some tests and want to evaluate her for a few days. If everything’s okay, they’ll induce her.”

  My eye twitched.

  It sounded like a convenient excuse. It still didn’t add up to me. “Why didn’t you just stay with them?”

  She exhaled a growl of irritation. “First of all, my sister-in-law hates me. Apart from that, she’s on bed rest. My brother doesn’t want anyone stressing her out. I was only supposed to be here a few days.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “In Williamsburg. You might know that if you ever spent time on the site getting to know anyone rather than just managing people and sharing news about the band. You think I’m the spastic fan? You don’t even bother to talk to people unless we’re talking about what goes through Adam’s head when he writes songs.”

  I felt gutted. “You’re not hoping to meet Adam?”

  She threw her hands up. “Of course, I’m hoping to meet him. You think I’m insane? This almost famous shit’s really gone to your head, Layla. You know they don’t belong to only you.”

  “Are you expecting me to introduce you? You don’t expect Jo to introduce you to Micah?”

  “Put yourself in my shoes for a minute, Layla. I mean, I know you’ve been an insider for the breathtaking span of a month, but if our roles were reversed, wouldn’t you harbor the possibility of meeting him?”

  Then I remembered that I’d had that exact hope when I’d first met Jo. It was an innocent desire. I didn’t really expect to meet Micah or Eden or Adam, but by virtue of knowing Jo, the door had opened.

  “Cause if you think you wouldn’t have wanted to, you’re fucking crazy, Layla.”

  Her last words hit me, hard, right in the heart. It was exactly what I’d said to Shane.

  “Oh, my God.” My head began to spin, and I laid my forehead in the palms of my hands. “Oh, shit.”

  Bless her, Ash didn’t ask the Uber driver to stop and let her out. She laid a hand on my knee. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I lifted my face from my palms, unsurprised to find them damp. The dam threatened to break, and my voice cracked. “I’m such an asshole.”

  She took my hands, despite the tears. “I hadn’t ever thought so before today. What’s going on?”

  “Everyone crawled out of the woodwork. People I’d never talked to before. They all started wanting something from me. At first, it was nice. But then it kept happening, and—”

  “—it got creepy. I can imagine. I’ve had a few people hitting me up to find out if we could set up a site-level meet and greet for one of their New York shows. I told them not to be presumptuous wankers. Ever since Adam came by for the Q&A, they all feel closer to him.”

  “To be honest, I did feel like you. Exactly like you. Only I hid it. I pretended I wasn’t a huge fan. I didn’t tell anyone about the site. I thought it would scare them off.”

  “Well, that seemed to work out then.”

  “Except it didn’t. Not with the one person who matters.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Little clue here?”

  “Shane.” My breathing sped up with the mention of his name, and the sobbing kicked in for real. “Now I get it. I get what he meant.”

  “Hello? You want to get me up to speed?”

  “If I’d spent years like this instead of days . . .”

  “So, I guess you’re just going to talk to yourself now. You need a minute alone?”

  Her words registered, and just like that I started laughing. “He wanted me to prove it was always him. How could I do that? He’d never believe me.”

  “A one-sentence summary would probably suffice. Otherwise, I’m not gonna be much help.”

  I blotted my face with the hem of my shirt. “When Shane found the site, he jumped to conclusions. He thought I was only dating him to get to the other guys—Noah or Adam.”

  “But Adam’s married. Wait.” Her mouth dropped open. “You’re dating Shane?”

  “Was.”

  “Holy shit. Good on you!” She twisted her mouth and muttered, “Mental note to cross him off the list.”

  “Ash, I really am sorry. I should have just asked you instead of exploding all over you.”

  She leaned forward and wrapped her arm around my shoulder
s. “You know I love you, Layla.”

  “Love you, too, Ash.”

  “Not as much as you love Shane, though.”

  I smacked her. Then I looked into her eyes for some hope. “Help me figure out how to prove I’m not this super fan, that I’m not just using him.”

  She shrugged. “Shut down the site.”

  The core of the earth could have detonated at that moment, and it wouldn’t have held a candle on the extinction-level event blowing my brain like a fiery comet.

  “Shut down the site? My site?” The site I’d built from scratch, cultivated, maintained, marketed, grown, and loved like a best friend. It could be as irritating as a needy toddler, but in the absence of any real friends, the site had been my sole companion. I tried out the suggestion again. “Shut down the site.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  I was back to talking to myself. “What would it prove? What if I give it all up for nothing?”

  “You know, if you have to ask that question, it makes me wonder if Shane might be right. What do you want, Layla?”

  It would be a huge gesture, and not one Shane had asked of me. But it couldn’t be for him. It couldn’t just be about winning his trust because I wasn’t sure he could win mine. This would have to be for me. I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath and held it.

  Delete my fan site. Of course.

  I wouldn’t stop being a fan. I wouldn’t let Shane’s jealousy chase me completely away from the life I’d started to build. But I would prove the fandom didn’t define me. I didn’t need to be Pumpkin39 anymore.

  The tears welled again. “If I shut down the site, what about you? What about everyone else?”

  She rubbed my knee. “Layla, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s this place called Facebook . . .”

  Would they all find each other there? Would life go on elsewhere? Would I matter to them anymore?

  There it was. I realized it had always been a little bit about me. Okay, a lot. I’d thought by remaining anonymous, I was proving I didn’t care about the notoriety, but that wasn’t exactly true. I’d miss the ass kissing even though I’d demurely told them not to treat me special. I’d miss the feedback on my blogs. I’d miss cracking skulls from time to time and having people do what I said because I was the one who said it.

  Everything crystallized around one brilliant realization.

  “I need to shut down the site.” It was so obvious. I jumped out of the Uber the second it stopped in front of the address Zion had given me. “Come on. We have an empire to destroy.”

  “Whatever you say, Fearless Leader.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Zion buzzed us up, then gave us the tour, such as it was. Unlike Micah and Shane, Zion apparently lived on normal wages because his place was a small two-bedroom all on one floor. His kitchen and living room overlapped in the same space, like on Friends. He showed me to Jo’s old room where she’d left behind her enormous bed that took up almost the entire space. It was perfect.

  With a handshake, we worked out a loose agreement. He insisted on paying more than half the rent owing to a couple of factors. One being that his boyfriend would often come and go. Two being that he expected I might be spending more time away from home once Shane got home.

  I explained that we’d broken up already. With a dramatic, “Oh, my God,” he dropped onto his sofa and started grilling me for details.

  Ash said, “But she has a plan to get him back.”

  I shook my head. “I know it won’t change anything really. Maybe it will make me feel good to show him he was wrong. He might never even know I did it.”

  “You’re not going to tell him?”

  Zion looked back and forth between us. “Tell him what?”

  “She’s going to delete the fan site.” Ash looked perversely happy, considering she’d invested as much time as I had in that community. “Isn’t it romantic?”

  Zion beamed. “It’s insane. I love it.”

  “This is ultimately for me, not him. Even if it made him trust me, there’s still the issue of my shattered trust in him. He acted like a big bully.”

  I didn’t mention how he’d left a Shane-shaped hole in my heart in the process.

  “When are you planning on doing this?”

  I looked at Ash and took a breath. “Tonight, at midnight.”

  He clapped his hands together. “I want to be there when all this goes down. I positively live for drama.”

  We camped out in his kitchen discussing how to go about the destruction of the site and prep the users for what was to come. We decided it would only be fair to post a statement on the site to warn the posters of the impending collapse of civilization. That would give them time to collectively freak out and then come up with their own plans to reconnect elsewhere.

  While Ash jumped on the forum, I banged out a blog post. We’d post them simultaneously.

  I typed furiously.

  Dear friends,

  It is with sadness that I am announcing Talking Disaster will cease to exist at midnight EST tonight. I realize that many of you have made this place a regular stop on your Internet rounds, and some of you have made this your home. I’m so grateful for this amazing community and for what you’ve all given me over the years in laughs and friendship. It’s time for me to close this chapter on my life and begin another.

  You may be asking why I don’t just hand over the reins to the website to someone who could run it in my stead. That’s a valid question, and one I would have considered if my motives were simply to move on. You may be thinking that something negative happened with Adam or the band to make me want to abandon them, but don’t go there. Adam has been incredible, and I’m going to encourage him to find you guys wherever you might go and continue to interact. I will always love the band. It’s just that Adam and the band aren’t the center of my world. And they haven’t been for a very long time. Too long.

  Trust me. This is about me and my need to cut this habit cold turkey. If you hate me for doing this, so be it. I hope that you will understand though and continue to count me among your friends.

  Where do we go from here? I’m sure any one of you could spin up your own website if you wanted to go that route. You could make a group on Facebook as well. Hit up DeadFan (Ash) as she might have some ideas. If anyone is worthy of picking up the Fearless Leader moniker, it would be her. She’s been my rock for the past few weeks as I transitioned to my new job.

  Best wishes!

  Pumpkin39

  Ash had written something similar and pointed to the blog for more info. We both hit Submit and stared at each other in disbelief. She made a nuclear explosion with her hands and laughed. “This is kind of awesome.”

  “I think I might throw up.” What was I doing? I pressed my hands to my face, wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. I hit refresh and saw comments flooding in on the blog.

  So sorry to see the site go, but you’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s been obvious for a while that you haven’t been as engaged as you once were. I think this move has been a long time coming. I wish you the best of luck in everything. You were the shit, Pumpkin.

  I posted a thank you and read the next comment.

  Is this because you’re friends with the band now? You said you’re not mad at them, but is there some conflict of interest thing where they’re afraid you might let state secrets slip or people might no longer see you as an impartial fan?

  I hit reply.

  Honestly, this has nothing to do with the band. They told me they love the site. I’m not exactly friends with the band. I’m just lucky enough to have gotten to know them a bit more.

  More comments came in. Mostly supportive. Some were angry at the short notice. Soon, they were no longer directed at me. Instead, they began talking about what to do. The same was goi
ng on in the forum. Fans making plans to move their campsite to another location. That’s when I knew we could leave them to it.

  As we waited for midnight, we sat on Zion’s sofa watching entertainment news and speculating about the fallout. I started to have serious second thoughts about bringing down the board, but I reminded myself I wasn’t wiping the site out of existence. It would still be there in code and data, at least for now. For all intents and purposes, it would be gone. Nobody would be able to login. Nobody would be able to share pictures or videos. Nobody would be able to read my old reviews and leave nasty comments. Nobody would be able to private message me.

  Speaking of my private messages: Oh, my God.

  I logged into the forum one last time and opened the queue. There were so many messages. At first they had varying subject headers, but around ten, a trend began to take shape. Message after message had the subject: To Layla. Not To Pumpkin, like they saw me as a real person. Like they’d coordinated their effort to say goodbye or beg me to reconsider. I couldn’t even start to open them, or I might cry.

  When midnight struck and we convened at the kitchen table again, I pushed the laptop over to Ash.

  “I can’t do this.”

  She opened up the admin panel to the page with the link to disable the site. “You can.”

  “Holy shit.” I waited for her final nod of approval, then raised my finger and slowly lowered it like a bomb in slow motion, complete with the whistling sound. As I clicked it, she said, “Boom!”

  I copied my blog post onto an index.html file, added my contact email, and uploaded it to my public_html directory. That would force anyone coming to the main page to see my message. Then I redirected all traffic to the front page. To be extra thorough, I changed permissions to make the rest of the pages inaccessible and I renamed the database.

  “Well. That’s that.”