by Sonia Hartl
“I know. Just …” I stared at my house and swallowed. “Just give me a day.”
“I have to get back to work.” Elise squeezed my hand. “If you need anything, don’t even hesitate. I’ll have my phone on me all day.”
“Thanks.” I straightened my spine as I slid out of the front seat.
As soon as Elise drove away, I pulled out my phone and cursed the cracked screen. I opened Twitter. Before I faced the Bees and Mom, I wanted to see how involved Eric was—had he just retweeted Jessica, or had he been in on it from the beginning? The thought made my pulse pound in my ears again.
I scrolled through his timeline. He’d retweeted Jessica’s thread, but he didn’t comment on it like he knew it had been happening. So that was something. Still, he replied to people bombarding his mentions with a whole “Aww, shucks” demeanor I found disingenuous. And he lied about catching the fly ball. A ridiculous lie. If anyone had gotten a picture of me catching it, it would blow up with a quickness. He’d only posted one update since the night before.
@baseballbabe2020: Dreamed about a cute blonde and seashells last night. I hope she’s real. #baseballbabe
Barf. If he’d really been that into me, he would’ve gotten my number instead of acting like a lovesick puppy on Twitter. But texting me didn’t get him likes and retweets. Posting that he’d been dreaming about me did. A lot of likes and retweets. Over fifty thousand.
Still, I followed him. I needed access to his direct messages. There was no way I’d question him out in the open, not when my mentions were already a mess. He didn’t follow me back, and I closed the app before I threw my phone again and damaged it for good.
The chatter from the dining room halted as soon as the screen door slapped shut behind me. Usually the Bees were so elbow-deep in old lady gossip, they rarely noticed whether I came or went, but the silence that followed my footsteps had my gut twisting. Maybe they already knew. Maybe they’d found out from the web of information that spread across this town faster than it took for Wi-Fi to catch up. If I didn’t get to tell them myself, their reactions would be ten times worse. Gram would rage, Mom would worry. A roaring fire erupted between my temples. I’d burn the entire Internet down and feast on the smoldering bones left in its ashes.
Donna looked up at me as I entered the room. A woven leather headband circled her head, flattening her flowing gray hair. She’d never left her hippie days behind. Gigi gave me a little wave, and Paxton’s bunny shirt flashed in my mind. I had to choke down the laugh, for fear that if I let it go, it would become hysterical and never stop.
“Heard you caught a boy at the game.” Donna’s bright eyes twinkled. No doubt remembering all the boys she’d “caught” during the era of free love.
The muscles in my back stiffened. “What else did you hear?”
For the first time, I dared to slide a glance at Gram. If she’d found out from anyone other than me, I’d see it simmering within her like the tip of her cigarette. She looked me over and gestured for me to take a seat. My knees cracked as I slowly, so slowly, lowered myself to the wobbly chair next to Peg. Gram generally had more bark than bite, and most days I didn’t have a problem with testing her, but this was not most days.
The ceiling fan whirred above our heads, twisting the sticky paper that hung from it, littered with dead flies. I kept my gaze on the pear-and-apple design of the plastic tablecloth as Gram’s gaze pierced a hole in the side of my head, as if she could empty the thoughts in there from sheer will alone.
I turned, and Gram’s sharp gaze narrowed. “Why aren’t you at work?”
Gigi stared between the two of us, as if she’d be willing to throw herself in as a buffer if the interrogation got to be too much. Gram meant well. Underneath her scaly layers—deep underneath—beat the heart of a softie who would claw apart the world for her family. Even if those claws were sometimes directed at us and what she deemed as our shortcomings.
I sucked in a deep breath. “Butch hired a new guy, and he’s never had a job before, so I let him take my hours for extra training.”
Gram sniffed like she could scent the lie on my tongue. “That was nice of you,” she said, as if she meant the exact opposite. “And how are you going to make up those lost wages?”
Of course I had to get the lost wages lecture on the worst day of my life. Because no one could take a day off around Bizzy Evans unless you were sick, and at that point you better just die, because you could’ve powered through it otherwise. Mom had taken four days off for strep throat three years ago and Gram still brought it up whenever she was in a mood.
“I could try selling sex on the Craigslist,” I said just to annoy her.
Peg let out a cackling laugh. “Nobody wants what you’re selling, girl.”
“I haven’t seen any boys sniffing around the back door in ages,” Gram said.
“Thanks, you two. Really.” I crossed my arms. “I was just thinking the other day I had way too much self-esteem, and I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of some.”
“That’s the problem with your generation.” Gram put out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. She’d burn the house down one day. “You get your participation trophies and slack off at work, and then you’re left with all this time on your hands to think about self-esteem.”
Gram was truly a relic from another era.
The Bees went back to sorting through their quilting patterns, trying to come up with a new design to account for Iris’s untimely absence. Gram probably thought I’d wormed my way out of work because I was tired from the game. Which was fine. She could think whatever she wanted, as long as I had a full day to process how I’d break the news of my sudden notoriety. I needed to protect the good memories of the game for Mom, while keeping Gram’s already less-than-warm feelings about the Internet in check. If I had a Magic 8 Ball, I was pretty sure it’d tell me Outlook not so good.
“If you’re done giving her the third degree”—Donna nudged Gram, a sparkling laugh quirking the corners of her full mouth—“I’d like to hear more about this boy from the game.”
Just the mention of Eric made me seethe. The way he was preening away on Twitter, acting like he’d caught the fly ball and given it to me. And for what? What did he stand to gain from all this? I had no doubt this was all some kind of grand ruse. Either to stretch out the fifteen minutes of fame he seemed to bask in, or because the pull of approval was too strong.
I understood that pull. That spark I’d get in my chest whenever I got a thumbs-up on one of my reviews. The way it felt to see my number of views steadily rising. The want and need to be successful, to earn a proper income stream from YouTube. To get out of Honeyfield. Maybe Eric had similar dreams. Maybe he was just making the best of a shitty situation.
“Don’t bother.” Peg gave me a wink. “Macy didn’t even get his number.”
I hunched my shoulders. “Thanks for the reminder.” If I had gotten his number, I’d be using it right now to call him up and ask for an explanation. “If you’re all done picking over my non-love life, am I excused?”
Gram waved me away. “Fine. Go on out back with the other layabout.”
I ground my teeth. One weekend. Mom takes one weekend off in two years, and Gram was suddenly acting like she’d been freeloading since I was born. Never mind that we all pitched in to keep our heads above water. Gram’s social security checks barely covered the taxes on the house, her smokes, medical insurance, and quilting supplies for the Bees.
Mom and I took care of the rest.
I pushed open the screen door on the porch to find Mom laid out on an old beach recliner. Strips of the plastic had broken away and they dragged along the near-dead lawn. She had one foot dipped in the kiddie pool beside her with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a worn copy of a Nora Roberts novel in the other. She looked up from her book and smiled, and I wanted to keep that image forever. She looked so relaxed. Happy. I made the right call on putting off telling her about Eric and Jessica Banks.
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br /> “Permission to enter the Hamptons?” I asked.
Mom stood and gave me a grandiose bow. “Permission granted.”
I kicked off my shoes and stepped into the kiddie pool. The cool water lapped at my ankles, taking off some of the burn still rolling around inside me. “Butch let me take today off work too, so now Gram thinks we’re both sponges on society.”
Mom splashed a little water at me with her foot. “She’s just mad because I won’t let her into the Hamptons with that gnarly toe of hers.”
Raptor foot. Gram had an enormous toenail that had gone bad, and instead of having it removed like a normal person, she’d let that hard, crusty thing grow. Sometimes clicking it on the kitchen floor at us whenever she wanted to be truly evil. Nothing got us to clear a room faster than the sound of that nail on linoleum.
I made a retching noise. “Please don’t make me vomit. I didn’t even eat lunch yet.”
“I was just about to go over to Fanny’s for some eggs.” Mom pointed to the basket of cucumbers she’d picked from our garden to barter. In the summer, most of our food came from trading with others in town. It’s how we all got by. “Do you want to come?”
“Nah, someone needs to keep an eye on the Bees during their time of need.” I’d no sooner said the words when a shriek came from the dining room, then all four voices raised at once. Getting them to agree on the theme for their most important quilt of the year hadn’t yet ended in bloodshed, but it had come close.
Mom left with her cucumbers to trade for eggs, and loaded up last year’s winning Bees quilt to trade for a half a cow at the Jackson farm, which would pack our garage freezer and give us enough beef until next summer. It was the way we’d always done things, and likely always would, unless I got my YouTube channel off the ground.
That wide-open pit of fear, of never having enough, opened before me again. Things had been going along fine until Jessica Banks. Even if she had boosted my views and likely thought she’d done me a favor, I didn’t want this. Not this way. R3ntal Wor1d was supposed to be my way out. Something I could build and call my own without having to give away pieces of myself just to survive.
Even though Gram never said it, I knew it killed her to trade those quilts for beef. Just like it killed Mom to wait on those people she went to high school with, who only came back to town to visit family, and who smirked at the sorry life of the pregnant cheerleader. Gram and Mom did what they had to do, and I was proud of where I came from, but I wanted options. The chance to fail or succeed outside of what this town expected of an Evans. I’d created Misty Morning to keep my real life separate. I’d never given anything away, never mentioned my real name on R3ntal Wor1d, but with one series of misconstrued events, Jessica Banks had torn the doors off everything I’d wanted to keep locked away.
I thumbed open YouTube. My phone took a sizable chunk of the two hundred dollars a month I’d been earning from my reviews, but I’d told myself it had been worth it, it would all be worth it. Someday. I again swore at the cracked screen I’d eventually have to pull together enough money to replace, and flipped over to my channel to see if I could deal with what strangers were saying about me—not Misty, but Macy Evans and who I was as a person. The one thing I swore I’d never barter or trade.
GinaLaCross: How can you talk about feminism in your videos and then let some guy treat you like a truck stop glory hole? Hypocrite.
Nope. Too soon. I closed YouTube and opened Twitter. Eric had finally followed me back, and I had a new DM in my inbox. It could only be from him. I’d long ago set options to only allow those I followed to DM me, thanks to one too many dick pics sent by random sickos. As much as I wanted to figure out what kind of game he was playing, I didn’t click on the message right away. DMing him put me at risk of screenshots. It would be so easy to twist my words with a well-placed photo chop. I knew how Twitter worked. I’d seen both the rise and fallout of viral fame, with popcorn in hand, for years. Never thinking I’d one day be weighing my every word and wondering which ones could be used against me.
The preview of his message showed: We should talk. My finger shook as I moved to tap the message. I desperately needed answers, and this was the only way I’d get them. Sucking in a deep breath, I clicked.
Eric (Baseball Babe) Dufrane: We should talk. I think this situation could benefit us both. Feel free to FaceTime me.
I stared at his phone number. Talking face-to-face made me more comfortable than DMing. I wouldn’t have the time or space to weigh my words properly, but at least I could avoid the threat of screenshots. I started typing, deleted, typed again, still unsure of how I’d answer him. His profile picture appeared in a little bubble in the DM with three dots.
Eric (Baseball Babe) Dufrane: Hi.
This was too much. I closed Twitter and headed inside to break up another fight between the Bees. I’d figure out what to do about Eric and his DM tomorrow.
CHAPTER
FIVE
AFTER DONNA AND GIGI went home, I headed into the kitchen and poured myself some sun tea. Condensation beaded along the faded daisy print on the glass, and I rested it against my cheek. It had been so hot today. The window air-conditioning unit above the sink barely had enough power to cool half the room. The cross-breeze Gram tried to create by leaving the doors open on either end of the house didn’t do a lot when there wasn’t any breeze to begin with.
Peg came into the kitchen, thrumming her nails on the peeling yellow countertops that hadn’t been changed since Gram bought this house forty years ago. “We can handle ourselves, you know. You don’t have to throw yourself into every squabble.”
I smirked. “Is that why Donna looked about two seconds away from ripping out your throat with her teeth?”
“I make one joke about a pro–Vietnam War theme and she loses it.” Peg’s lip curled. “Peace and love, my ass.”
The front screen door slammed shut, and I patted Peg’s arm as I passed, laughing at the snarl still etched into the lines around her mouth. Mom carried in a basket of brown eggs, a loaf of freshly baked bread resting on top of them. I raised my eyebrows in question.
“I caught Fanny on baking day.” Mom nodded to the bread. “I offered her some peppers from the garden, but she said she already had more veggies than she could eat in a week.”
“Nice.” I’d give Fanny a free rental next time she came by on my shift. I took the basket from Mom and she followed me into the kitchen. We had chili mac baking in the oven, and the homey scent made my stomach rumble. “I’m so hungry, I could eat that whole loaf myself.”
“Me too.” Mom ruffled my short hair.
I hadn’t managed to eat lunch, my stomach still too sick to handle food. Instead I spent hours on Twitter, using my mobile browser in incognito mode instead of the app. It didn’t do anything except keep my searches out of my history, but it made me feel better. Like if it wasn’t in my history, I didn’t really look it up. I stayed glued to my phone until the battery dwindled to 1 percent.
I read full threads calling out voyeurism and asking people to respect my privacy. I read comments questioning whether I was pretty enough for the stunning male specimen that was the Baseball Babe. I read a handful of people wondering if I got paid to have sex with Eric in the bathroom, because my Instagram pictures showed I was clearly in need of money. I’d locked my Instagram hours ago, but not before plenty of people had gotten screenshots. Someone set up a GoFundMe for my lawyer fees, for when they expected I’d inevitably sue Jessica Banks. A roaring headache pounded in the bridge of my nose and went all the way down to my neck.
Jessica fielded questions like a pro. It was like she’d been given the lead role in the summer’s biggest blockbuster, and she was milking it for all it was worth. I had no idea what she wanted from all this, but she bathed in the attention, tagging every media outlet on the planet, making it very clear how willing she’d be to give even more details on air. Stuff she said she hadn’t yet posted to Twitter. Like the whole lie she created a
bout Eric screwing me in a public bathroom wasn’t enough.
When I’d had about all I could take of Twitter, I flipped to my email. I had no clue how my email address had gotten out there, but I read three offers to star in a porno movie and five rants about how “girls like me” were single-handedly responsible for all the filth and corruption in the world before I shut that down too. I still had over fifteen hundred unread messages in my inbox. How could I act normal enough to choke down dinner?
Mom went to work cutting up vegetables for our salad while I set the table. We fell into the easy rhythm of Sunday dinner prep. Even with the sweltering heat, I lived for summer nights like this. Current situation notwithstanding. After dinner we typically humored Gram and Peg by pretending to watch the evening news while they took bets on which anchor would be the first to keel over from a heart attack. Old people and their morbid games. Then Peg would go home, Gram would go to bed, and Mom would slip out to the Hamptons to enjoy a glass of tea and her romance novels until the sun set. I still had movie and lake plans, as far as I knew. No one had texted me to say otherwise.
Elise had touched base with me a few times to see how I was holding up, and to fill me in on all the ways Midnight was terrorizing Brady on his first day. Aside from sticking him on rewind duty, Midnight had him go through the store to make sure everything was still in alphabetical order. She also quizzed him on various movies he’d probably never heard of, let alone seen, so he could make appropriate recommendations. And of course she looked down her nose at him for not knowing any of the VHS movies. He didn’t even need to know old movies to rewind and run the register; she just liked to play boss.
Peg had gone around back to help Gram unload the half cow from the car. She’d bring some of it to Gigi—and Donna, once they were on speaking terms again—since their efforts had helped purchase the beef. We gathered around the table, conversation flowing easily enough between Mom, Gram, and Peg that no one noticed how I picked at my dinner. I was starving, but my mind drifted back to Twitter, Eric, and Jessica.
