He has read Harry Potter, at least, so that helps.
“So I could ‘ship’ Hermione and Ron,” he works out aloud, “but I could also ship Hermione and Harry, right? Even though one of those relationships actually happened in the books and the other one didn’t?”
“Exactly,” I say, irrationally proud. “Either one would be considered a ship. A lot of people ship Harry and Ron too. And Hermione and Draco.”
“Draco?” he says, bewildered.
“Sure.” I laugh. “Then there are portmanteaus—mashups of celebrities’ or characters’ names, to form a new word. A name for the ship.” I’m about to say, “Like Cevie,” but I stop. Josh obviously knows I’m on social media and that Nikki follows me, but he has no clue how internet famous Silvie and I really are.
Out of nowhere, it occurs to me that … maybe … I don’t want him to know?
That can’t be right. Can it?
Yes, Nikki spilled some beans I probably wouldn’t have brought up so soon, and yes, Josh and I have spent a lot of time talking about internet stuff, but it’s all been in such a normal kind of way.
Josh didn’t come here with a single preconceived notion about me, facts about my life, or opinions about my opinions. He only knows what I’ve told him. We’re just two people, getting to know each other organically. After the drama of the past several weeks, there’s something very appealing about that.
Possibilities grip me, hard, and won’t let up. It’s not a friendship yet, this thing. But so far, it’s easy, and uncomplicated, a teeny-tiny-baby seed of something that might grow into a friendship. I don’t know what that growth will end up looking like, but I want to give it its best chance. Water it, give it sunlight, and let it flower however it wants to, free from outside pollution.
“How old are you? Seventeen?” I ask, mainly to change the subject, but also because I want to know. He looks young, but why are all his references so ancient?
“Yeah.”
“Mm-hmm.” I study his face. There’s a little smudge of marshmallow from the s’mores donut below his bottom lip. “And you’re not a vampire?”
I mean it as a joke, but it comes out so earnest that we stare at each other for half a second, then, at the same time, burst out laughing.
“What?!” Josh says when he’s able to catch his breath.
“You look seventeen,” I explain. “But Fleetwood Mac? Linda Ronstadt? Joni Mitchell?” I repeat some of his earlier references. “You’re so … old.”
His grin turns wry now. “You are not the first person to tell me that.”
“And you’re not on social,” I continue, “and the whole CD thing …”
Josh shrugs, but unapologetically. “Music has always been my thing, you know? It’s how I make sense of the world. And when you play violin, you’re always surrounded by classical music.”
I nod.
“I had a violin teacher back in Florida, from the time I was four years old. Renia. She had this massive record collection, and I was fascinated by them,” Josh explains. “My dad worked full-time while also going to grad school full-time, and was a single parent to me and my sister, so more often than not he was late to pick me up from my lessons. After the official part of our lesson was over, Renia would let me choose a record, and we’d sit there and have a snack and listen to it while we waited for my dad to arrive.”
There’s a lot to unpack in there. I make a mental note to ask him about it all at some point. But for now, I just nod to show I’m listening and that he should continue.
“Renia had an affinity for women-led music. From almost all genres, but mostly folk, country, and rock. I can’t really explain it, but that music, those records … it became part of me. Like a deep, under-my-skin, irreversible thing.” He shrugs, as if to lessen the poetry of his words.
But I understand what he means. Not the music stuff, but finding a thing that infuses itself into your DNA. It’s what political activism used to be for me.
“There was some modern stuff like Ingrid Michaelson and Kacey Musgraves,” he continues, “but mostly classic stuff. Chrissie Hynde, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Tracy Chapman, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone …”
“Patsy Cline,” I say, remembering.
“Exactly.” He seems surprised.
“My mom said you were playing a Patsy Cline song when she met you,” I explain.
“Ah. ‘Walkin’ After Midnight.’ Right. It’s on the CD too.” He waits, as if he’s asked a question. And after a second, I realize he kind of has.
“I haven’t listened to it yet,” I admit. I’m pretty sure Josh wouldn’t think snippets overheard from Mom’s car windows count as “listening.”
He nods. “That’s cool.”
“I will, I promise.” I can’t help adding, “If it were on Spotify, I would have already.”
He rolls his eyes. “I told you, I do listen to music online. And I am planning on putting my stuff up there—I just haven’t gotten a chance yet.”
“Okay, okay, fair.”
“Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but vinyl is back. Every hipster in Brooklyn and design snob in South Beach owns a turntable.”
“Yeah, I guess I have seen some people talking about vinyl online,” I concede.
After a pause, he asks, “Why is the internet so important to you?”
I wait for the rest. But apparently that’s it. “Is that a trick question?”
“No.”
“Um …” Even without going into the whole influencer thing, there are so many answers I could give. I mean, it’s the internet. The most world-changing invention since … I don’t know … electricity. Or modern medicine. Where could I possibly start? “It’s convenient,” I try. “No—not convenient. That’s not the right word. What I mean is, it gives you access.” Yes. Access. That’s it. “We have access to all the information, all the people, all the music. Anytime. It’s such a privilege. Albert Einstein didn’t have that. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t have that. Why shouldn’t we utilize it as much as we can?”
“I agree that it’s a valuable resource,” Josh says. “But, CeCe, you have to admit it’s a lot of garbage too. Hacking of elections, cyberbullying, fake news.”
Whoa. I dip back inside myself for another self-conscious second. Does this guy care about politics? Could that be something we could really talk about?
“It’s like the more time people spend online, the less they know how to make decisions for themselves,” he’s saying. “Have of you heard of … wait, what are they called? ‘Influencers.’ ” I can hear the air quotes. “They’re these people online who tell their followers what to buy and wear and believe and do. And they make insane amounts of money for it.”
The hope balloon inside me pops so hard it stings.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of that …” I say.
“Influencers.” The disgust in his voice is not subtle. “More like brainwashers.”
“They’re not brainwashers.” It comes out fast, and more indignant than I would like. “They don’t tell people how to think. More like … they share things that align with their values or style. Things they think their followers—who are already following them because they found something interesting or enjoyable in their posts, for their own reasons—might connect with. And if they have the chance to make a living from it, and add some fun and positivity to the world, so what? I don’t see what’s so wrong about it.”
Josh’s eye-roll-adjacent expression makes it clear he doesn’t agree. He shakes his head. “I don’t get it. I also read about how actual dictionaries are adding words like selfie, hashtag, and emoji to the official English language. It just feels wrong.”
“But why does it feel wrong?” I retort. “I know the internet isn’t perfect. Obviously. But why focus on the bad stuff? Or rule out a natural evolution of a language and culture? Think of all the amazing things that couldn’t have happened without the internet.”
The person next to us at the window
counter gives me a look, and I realize I’ve practically been shouting. My cheeks warm.
“Like what?” Josh asks.
I lean forward and lower my voice. “Oh, I don’t know, like unprecedented access to education for girls and women in some developing nations? Or how it offers a human connection for incarcerated people serving long sentences for minor offenses? And, oh my god, it’s been an absolute refuge for gay kids in the Bible Belt. I know finding an online community helped me when I was coming out, and I have a supportive parent.”
Josh sighs. “I hear you. I guess it does do a lot of good too. Maybe it’s just not for me.”
“That’s fair.” And it is. I will always defend social media and everything that comes with it, even the bad, because it’s valuable to me. But I also don’t need to convince anyone that it must be valuable to them too.
If I suspected it before, I’m one-hundred-percent certain now: Josh won’t look me up online. It probably wouldn’t even occur to him to.
In a flash, I’m decided.
I’m not going to tell him about my online life. I’m going do my best to make sure the word influencer never comes up in our conversations again. He doesn’t need to know that I make money from social media. That I get paid to post about beauty products and clothing companies, or that I’ve been asked to model even though I’m not a model, or that I have internet famous friends, or that my dog has his own fan base, or that a million people around the world know heaps more about me than Josh does.
He’ll find out eventually, I’m sure. But for now, I’m just Cecilia Ross, and he’s just Joshua Haim, two people who like donuts.
It’s exactly what I had no idea I needed.
I don’t want to ruin it. I’m even willing to overlook the fact that he kind of, sort of offended me with all that brainwasher talk.
Josh’s phone chimes with a reminder that it’s time for him to leave to pick up his little sister from spring break camp. We wave to Nikki and the other employees, then hover outside the shop to say our goodbyes. “Thanks for asking me to meet up today,” I say. “It was fun.”
He hesitates. “Can I confess something?”
Oh no. What’s he going to say? Did I have him all wrong? Is he really a rep for some pyramid scheme? A serial killer? A Republican?
“Sure,” I say.
“I’d kind of thought, when you agreed to meet up today, this was going to be a date.” He blushes and gives a little chuckle. “Stupid, huh?”
“Oh!” I wasn’t expecting that. “Um …”
“Don’t worry, I know now you’re not into guys,” he says hurriedly. “I’m cool with that.”
“I … uh …” What do I even say? Do I come out to him as bi? I don’t want him to misinterpret that as me saying this was a date, or that I like him that way. Or do I just let him assume I’m a lesbian, even though it’s not exactly true, because that would keep us in our lanes here?
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I made it weird.” He’s toeing the ground again, like he did that day at the park. “I just really enjoyed our conversation today, so I felt like being honest might be the right thing. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
A car with its windows down cruises by, an upbeat ’60s-sounding song I don’t recognize pumping from its speakers. Josh starts to move, just a sway at first, but when the car stops at a red light, giving the music an opportunity to linger, his gangly wiggle grows into the kind of dance that is not at all cool but also pure joy.
I step back to give him room to do … whatever this is. Talk about a non sequitur.
“I love this song!” he says, moving his arms in a sort of ocean-wave motion.
I laugh. “I can tell!” A tiny part of me wants to start dancing too, but I can’t bring myself to do it. What if people saw?
The car gets moving again, and the music fades into the distance.
“Okay, well,” Josh says, the slightest bit out of breath. “I guess I’ll see you around?”
I gape at him, trying to play mental catch-up. He’s given me an out from the conversation, and I’m certain it was purposeful. The words thank you form on the back of my tongue, but I swallow them down. There’s something else I need to say, now that the tension has been defused.
“Wait,” I say quickly. Josh was honest; I can be too. “You’re right. This was a just-friends thing.”
“I know, you don’t have to explain—”
“But,” I continue, “I actually ID as bisexual.”
I wouldn’t have mentioned it today if the subject hadn’t come up. But it did. And I still haven’t managed to find a totally chill, #nbd way to come out to someone, so I might as well take the opportunity while it’s in front of me.
“Oh!” Josh’s eyes flicker with thought, as if he’s going back and reframing his perception of me, just a little.
I find myself doing the same, studying him with an interest I usually reserve for when I zoom in on other people’s app pictures, to try to read what their T-shirt says or figure out where they are by the street sign in the background.
Josh is the rare kind of person who wears his whole self right there on his expression. He’s so … open. Genuine. Even when his views don’t align with the rest of the world’s, he still doesn’t try to mask them.
I remember what it was like, to be like that. To be so certain of myself and my thoughts that I would tell anyone what I thought at any moment, without a single second of hesitation, and without caring what they’d think of me. Josh has that glimmer in him, even if he doesn’t know it. And I want to hold on to it.
“Are you free tomorrow?” I ask. “I could show you some stuff around the city.”
There it is—that earnest, unabashed smile. “Yeah. Cool.”
We enter our numbers into each other’s phones and exchange a quick hug. As we head off in separate directions, my footsteps are light with new-friend energy. I’m really glad I took a chance today.
That afternoon, I go home, curl up on my bed with Abe, and click on Silvie’s feed. Because clearly I have zero self-restraint.
When I see her latest post, I nearly drop the phone.
A book deal.
A book deal?!
Silvie’s always wanted to be a writer. She used to share her short stories with me all the time, and I was happy to be given another window into the way her brain worked. Her stories were good. And she is the queen of thrift store shopping; publishing a book on thrifting isn’t that much of a leap for her, in theory. But we broke up only a few weeks ago. It takes more time than that for a book deal to happen, surely. Even if she hasn’t actually written the book yet, she would have had meetings, negotiations … I don’t know the first thing about the publishing industry, but she must have been working on this when we were together. And she didn’t share it with me. A whole new kind of rejection punches through my core.
We used to argue about her obsession with thrift stores all the time. I have no problem with buying used clothing; it’s great for the environment, you can find great stuff, and it’s important to have affordable options for people who can’t buy new clothes all the time. The thing I did have a problem with was that Silvie didn’t see any issue with shopping at certain religion-based charity shops, who donate a large portion of the money they make selling used goods to organizations that actively lobby against women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights. It’s well-documented information, and a two-minute Google search will tell you exactly which stores take money from people like us and then use it to hurt people like us. But Silvie didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal, and rolled her eyes at me when I’d get upset about it, as if to say, Stop being so CeCe about everything. Lighten up.
And now she’s going to publish a book that will shine a favorable light on these places. I bet that’s why she kept it from me—she knew I’d have objections, and she didn’t want to hear them.
Um, congrats? I DM her, hoping it will induce an explanation.
No response. Even though she
’s replying to public comments and clearly online right now.
I pelt my phone across the room, and it lands on my beanbag chair.
Why is it so easy for her to ignore me? Am I really that inconsequential to her, after two years together?
It doesn’t help that the messages of support from #Cevie fans have dwindled to practically zero. I get that life online is fleeting, and that people have short attention spans, but I hadn’t thought everyone would forget us quite so quickly. Not our diehards, at least. It’s been a few weeks post-breakup, and everyone has already moved on to whatever the next thing is. Everyone except me.
I pick up my phone again and select the MUTE option next to Silvie’s handle. It’s not an unfollow, but her posts won’t turn up in my feed anymore. I’ll have to seek them out if I want to see what she’s been posting.
Then I text Mackenzie; it’s four p.m. here, which means it’s seven a.m. her time. She’s probably up and out for a run by now.
Is there something wrong with me? I ask her.
Explain please, she writes back. That’s one of the things I like best about Mackenzie—she’s not one for offering baseless platitudes. She needs context.
Silvie’s doing totally fine without me. She’s having the best time ever in Mexico, and did you see she got a freaking book deal?? Like … how??
You didn’t know about the book thing? Mackenzie asks.
Nope.
Ouchhh.
Yep. And she’s ignoring me now. AND I searched #Cevie and no one’s used the hashtag for two weeks. It’s like that movie where that guy wakes up in a world where no one remembers the Beatles. I’m the only one who remembers Cevie.
Hold on, she writes. First of all, just because people have moved on that doesn’t mean they don’t remember. Second, yes, Silvie SEEMS to be doing great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she IS doing great. You know how social makes things look, babes. It’s not real life.
Follow Your Arrow Page 8
