by R M Wild
While all the other businesses on Main Street were closed, I knew that both my foster father and his founding partner William Bearing would be at the office trying to get a jump start on the day’s billings. Given that Robert Slate’s specialty was real estate, I knew that he’d immediately refer my questions about defamation to either Bearing or one of the other partners, so I didn’t even bother to call ahead for an appointment.
I parked along the curb and hustled up to the front door. As expected, it was locked (a new policy after the kidnappings), but a window in the back was casting a yellow square onto the neighboring fence, suggesting that Robert had already arrived.
I used the spare key he had lent me to let myself in. Down the narrow hallway, past each of the six closed doors representing the partners’ offices, I knocked on the wall next to the shiny plaque that read Robert Slate, Esq.
Robert looked up from his desk. Sometimes I wondered if he had calcified into a permanent fixture in that executive chair.
I stepped into the office, very conscious of the hard square in my pocket, one swipe and quick click away from reliving Phyllis’s death.
“Hey Dad, you got a quick minute?”
“What on earth are you doing up so early, Rosie? Don’t you have guests?”
Dawn was breaking behind the fence outside his window. “These days, this is late for me.”
“I heard what happened to Phyllis. Are you okay?”
After my near-drowning, my foster father had sworn off social media, but even he, luddite extraordinaire, had heard about Phyllis Martin’s instant conflagration.
Should I lie and be strong?
“No, I’m not okay. My business has taken a grave hit. My Facebook page has been swamped with trolls. I was wondering if you had any legal advice about how I might handle these jerks. They’re killing me.”
Robert chewed the tip of his pen.
“Dad, that’s the wrong end. You’re going to get ink all over your mouth.”
He looked at the pen for a moment, and then turned it around and checked his shirt for spilled ink.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m just tired,” he said. “We’ve had loads of new cases.”
“Must be nice.”
“It depends,” he said. “The toilet clogs a lot more often.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Concerning defamation, William would probably give better counsel than I would. I’d hate to steer you in the wrong direction. You want my honest advice?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Get rid of Facebook.”
“I can’t. I might as well swear off the grocery store. My demographic is all over Facebook. They spend half their waking hours sharing pictures of the fall foliage.”
“I know, I know. The company needs a big stick, right in the trust-hole.”
“When does Mr. Bearing arrive?”
Robert checked his watch. “He should be here any minute.”
I nodded. I cleared my throat. I twiddled my thumbs. I tugged on the hem of my shirt.
“Is there something else?”
I cleared my throat again. Three times. “Did you know that Peter—”
A knock on the doorframe startled my bladder and I almost wet myself. I whipped around so fast, I grabbed my pocket to keep my phone from flying at the wall.
“I thought I heard your voice,” a man said. He was dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, one far more expensive than my foster father’s, one that fit his swimmer’s body—an inverted triangle—quite perfectly. His hair was styled in a casual quiff and he was as smooth-shaven as if he still hadn’t reached puberty. After all that time on the swim team, I imagined his face wasn’t the only thing he shaved. But that wasn’t to say that he looked young—he just looked airbrushed, like the cover of GQ magazine had come alive.
“Rosie, this is Kyle Kendall, one of our new partners,” Robert said. “He’s our criminal guy. We brought him in after Thomas’s death. If I’m not mistaken, you two went to high school together.”
“You’re not mistaken,” Kendall said. “We actually met again a few months ago.”
“I remember,” I said. “It was when I came in to ask about Peter Hardgrave’s—” I paused on the name, “—real estate difficulties.”
“That’s right,” Kendall said. “Forgive me for intruding on your conversation. I was just brushing my teeth in the bathroom and couldn’t help but overhear your troubles.”
Robert gave me a strange smile. “Kyle is often here before I am. He really knows his stuff. He graduated from Yale, top of his class.”
I couldn’t tell if my foster father was trying to brag about his newest acquisition, or if he was dropping a hint about our potential compatibility.
“I’ve actually handled a few defamation cases,” Kendall added.
“You see?” Robert said. “Top of his class.”
“Did you know the word troll actually comes from trawl?” Kendall said.
I smiled. “I did, actually. Matt Mettle told me.”
Kendall looked at Robert. “Our Matt Mettle? From high school? The star quarterback?”
“I know, crazy. Right?”
“You don’t say. I always thought Matt Mettle would have died of venereal disease by now.”
“Me too,” I said. “But somehow, he keeps surprising me.”
“Anyway, I would say the easiest way to avoid the criticism is to shutdown your Facebook page,” Kendall said.
“That’s what I said,” Robert added.
“Have you seen my page?”
“Yes and it’s a darn shame. Usually, businesses would go out of their way for that kind of exposure, but this doesn’t seem to have an upside.”
“I can’t shut down,” I said. “I get more than half my customers through that page.”
He exhaled loudly. “Well, in order to pursue a slander case, you’ll need to demonstrate that a particular statement from a particular individual directly caused a loss in a revenue,” Kendall said. “Unfortunately, that may prove very difficult. I suppose I could put together a suit to intimidate them into stopping their behavior, but given the current political climate, that won’t be easy either. We probably couldn’t actually win the suit, but we’d still ‘win’ if they gave up and left you alone. It would cost though. It’s up to you.”
I didn’t have to think hard. “I say we do it. At this rate, I won’t be able to afford groceries by the end of the week.”
“He’ll work pro bono,” Robert added.
“I will?” Kendall said.
“Yes, you will.”
Kendall flashed a toothy smile. “Sure, why not? I’d be happy to help. But I’ll warn you, Maine’s got a decent anti-SLAPP statute.”
“He’s right,” Robert said.
“What’s SLAPP mean?” I asked.
“A SLAPP is a strategic lawsuit against public participation. It basically protects these trolls from having their first amendment rights trampled on.”
“Stupid constitution,” I muttered. The founding fathers couldn’t possibly have anticipated social media. “Give a jerk an avatar and he’ll wield his so-called ‘rights’ like a musket.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” Kendall said. “But the law is the law. I interpret it, I don’t write it. Even if we bring a suit, it might have the opposite effect of more publicity. You remember a few years ago when that horror movie was shot at Disneyland?”
“No.”
“Exactly. No one does. The filmmaker decapitated Minnie Mouse and her severed head terrorized the tea-cup ride, but no one bothered to go see it. Disney had every right to sue for trademark infringement, but they didn’t waste their time because they knew a lawsuit would have brought extra attention to the movie. Instead, the movie was bad, and it faded away quickly, the best possible outcome.”
“So you’re saying my best options are to either shut down the Facebook page or to leave it alone?”
“Basically. With news cy
cles these days, Phyllis Martin’s ashes will stop swirling around this town in a week and she will be completely forgotten. You operate a business. That business is not you. People have the right to leave reviews and you need to refrain from responding. Sometimes the other cheek is the one with less acne.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“That sounded better in my head,” Kendall said.
“I think Kyle’s giving sound advice,” Robert said. “Are you okay with that?”
“Not really,” I said. “But do I have any other choice?”
“No good ones, unfortunately,” Kendall said.
I turned to leave. Ignoring those hateful posts was harder than it sounded. “Thank you both anyway. I’ll get out of your hair now.”
I gave each of them a little wave and then left the office. At the moment, I didn’t have the strength to ask Robert if he knew anything about my real father—and I certainly didn’t want to do it with Kyle Kendall listening.
I was nearly past the bathroom when Kendall stepped into the hallway behind me.
“It was real good to see you, Rosie,” Kendall said.
I turned around. “You too,” I said. And I meant it. He was easy on the eyes.
“I was thinking—are you going to our ten-year reunion?”
I froze, standing on the same footprints the condensation from my boots had left on the hardwood. “I um—I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest.”
Actually, that was a lie. I had seen the Facebook invite and my initial thought was they’d have to tie me up and threaten to burn me at the stake to get me to attend. “What about you?”
Kendall smiled. “If you go, maybe. I would need a strong anti-conformist by my side to survive some of those monsters.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you dislike high school?”
“Since always. Those four years were far from the best years of my life.”
“Compared to what?”
He winked. “Hopefully, the ones yet to come.”
10
Later that evening, while Stanley Eldritch wowed our one new guest with stories of the old days—back before most of the seafaring vessels had radar, the lighthouse keepers had to stay up all day and all night so they could operate the fog horn—I slumped in one of the folding chairs by the window and wallowed in a mud-pit of self-pity by continuing to read the deluge of comments about my inn.
I heard Red and Breakfast serves its stakes well-done.
That son of a witch should hang!
Most of these trolls didn’t even know who Phyllis Martin was. Half of them were from California, or farther, and they enjoyed commenting on the train wreck they could watch from the comfort of their gaming chairs.
Hour by hour, the wreckage extended as more cars piled on. Earlier in the day, a criminal rights group had started peddling conspiracy theories about how I was a lobster-rights advocate out to destroy Phyllis Martin’s chowder business. Another group, this one representing the prison guards, said that my hit job had callously put their brethren at risk. It was a nightmare of Biblical proportions—and sure to cause more sleepless nights.
Thankfully, tonight’s guest was German. The only reason she was staying with me was that she couldn’t read the comments. While she listened intently to Eldritch’s stories, I didn’t bother telling him she didn’t speak English.
Meanwhile, Captain Herrick leaned back in his chair and lazily poured the contents of a hip flask into the hot chocolate he had swiped from me after I realized I had made too many mugs for the evening.
I needed something to settle my nerves. One drink couldn’t hurt. I had been sober for well over a year now.
“You mind if I take a sip?” I whispered.
He looked up from his mug. “Well, well. If ain’t the lobster calling the pot trapped.”
“It’s been a rough week.”
“It’s been a rough year,” he said and passed me the flask.
I poured less than a shot’s worth into my rooibos tea. Hopefully, the alcohol would be enough to sand the edges off my anxiety without stirring long-buried demons. The oily swirl floated on the surface for a moment, sank, and reddened the tea as if I had pricked my thumb over the mug.
I took a sip. The concoction was sweet, yet burned my tongue worse than tea straight from the microwave. I coughed and winced as the sting struck the fleshy stalactite hanging in the back of my throat.
“Is this Red Rum?”
“It’ll knock you on your tush and make you beg for help,” he said.
I took a deeper sip.
He grinned. “I say you get a wicked bazz on.”
I had let myself get so tired, so busy, so completely run down, (and so completely sober) that the booze hit me faster than a runaway locomotive. First, a lightheadedness made me feel as if I was levitating, and then a full-on buzz twanged my nerves.
I drank more, and quickly.
“Whoa, ease up, Betty Ford. This rum is meant for sippin, not inhalin.”
I set down my mug and wiped the blood-red mustache from my lips. “You got any more?”
Captain Herrick looked at my empty mug and then poured me another thumb’s worth. “Dang, girl. You’re gonna drink up my reserves. Once my stash is gone, there ain’t no more, not unless you can convince old Peter to start brewin again.”
That was exactly the plan—if only I could find him. I threw the drink back hard enough that some of the boozy tea splashed out and wet my jeans. I suppressed a burp and put the mug down so hard that Eldritch paused in his story and looked over.
“You okay, Red?”
I stood, emboldened by the booze and stumbled over to the German guest. “Lemme tell you the truth,” I slurred. “This guy only knows half the story. Lemme tell you what really happened the night my sister disappeared.”
Eldritch looked to Captain Herrick. Captain Herrick shrugged.
“You see, my sister Chrissy, she was a bit of slut,” I said, teetering in front of the fire. “She was planning on running away with an older dude, a real winner of a guy, a guy even worse than our friendly Captain over there, what’s his name?”
Eldritch looked at the German guest. She was wide-eyed and pressing herself back into the couch cushions as if she were trying to minimize her presence in the room.
I looked at Eldritch. “Oh, c’mon, Stan, Stan the Man, don’t act like you’ve never seen a drunk person before. Don’t tell me you didn’t drink yourself silly up in that tower and whip out your ding-a-ling and piss into the wind when you were too lazy to go downstairs.”
“Red, please. I think you—”
“I think you should sit down and lemme finish my story. You ain’t the only one who can tell stories,” I burped. I half-spun, half-stumbled to face my guest. “And don’t you act like you’ve never dealt with witches before. You Germans used to hang them up in the town square. We New Englanders weren’t the first. We learned it from YOU.”
The woman stood. “I think I vould like to go home.”
Captain Herrick suddenly stood and tossed what little rum was left in his hip flask into the fire. The flames exploded behind my back and singed my sweater.
“Okay, you’re officially flagged,” he said. “I got a stake in this business too and I ain’t gonna let you act like a red-tushied monkey who’s eaten too much of the tingly banana.”
“I vant my auto,” the German said. “I vant to leave.”
“Understood,” Eldritch said. “I will give you a ride back to town.”
Captain Herrick grabbed my arm and led me to the stairs, but I pulled back. “Wait a minute, you silly kraut. I ain’t even told you what happened. Not the truth at least. My sister Chrissy wanted to get married for cryin out loud. At seventeen. She stole her mother’s wedding dress. And I ain’t afraid to say it: I’m glad she’s gone. I got another sister. A REAL sister. One whom I shoulda been lookin out for!”
Captain Herrick dragged me up the stairs. “You’re done for the night,
my sweet cherry pie.”
Eldritch fetched the guest’s coat from the foyer closet and helped her out the front door. “I’m sorry you had to see this tonight. She’s been under a lot of stress lately.”
“From the bit I understood, you are a vonderful storyteller,” the German said. “But the redhead…not so much. Sie ist der Kuckuck.”
Before the angle of the ceiling eclipsed them, I caught a glimpse of Eldritch picking up my phone. In my bumbling rant, it must have fallen out of my pocket.
I could have sworn his face went blue as he swiped my screen alive.
Who the heck was he calling?
“Which room is yours?” Captain Herrick said.
I half-nodded, half-dribbled spit down my chin as I motioned toward the first door on the left. The whole hallway was stretching and compressing like I was trapped between a remake of Vertigo and Psycho. Worse, I was so tired, my head was as heavy as a pot full of lobsters.
Captain Herrick kicked the door open and tossed me toward the bed. I went reeling across the room, shouting “Strike!” And then collapsed on the old bed with a shriek of the springs that could only be described as two pallbearers dropping a metal casket.
I twisted on the bed to face him, the comforter wrapping me up like jungle vines that had come alive to conspire against me.
Captain Herrick closed the door behind him. “You know, just when I began to admire your work ethic and your composure under pressure, you totally break down. Now I don’t know what to think about you.”
I raised a hand like I was mocking him with a sock puppet. “Blah, blah, blabbety-blah.”
He rolled his eyes and came toward me. “I thought I had issues, but you are a genuine mess.”
I tried to sit up. “I need to get back upstairs and make breakfast,” I protested, the words dribbling down my chin.
Captain Herrick kneeled over me on the edge of the bed and pushed my shoulders back. “You ain’t goin nowhere.”
My head struck the pillow and triggered a flash of bright orange. I blinked. The room was spinning, the porthole flashing pink. Time had compressed to the absurd. How long had it taken us to make it upstairs?
