Off Message

by A. C. Fuller

  Legally, Gold Island is owned by an overseas LLC, but it's the shared play place of some of Silicon Valley's richest men and women. Tonight it's the host of a 1920s throwback New Year's Eve party hosted by Peter who, in addition to being my boyfriend, is one of the young-money billionaires who likes to spend his money on ridiculous, over-the-top parties.

  In my 3-inch black heels, I stroll from the dock to the mansion, doing my best not to stumble on the uneven stone walkway. The party is in full swing. Fast jazz music floats toward me though the cool night air, and the stone mansion is lit by what must be a million candles.

  At the main entrance, I'm greeted by a man in an old-fashioned tuxedo, who asks for my cell phone. "This is a technology-free party." He holds his hand out like he's asking for a tip.

  Peter told me I'd have to check my gadgets at the door so I wouldn't freak out. Forewarned, I checked Twitter, Facebook, and Ameritocracy's top ten list while on the ferry. That should keep withdrawal at bay. I hand the doorman my phone and enter the massive ballroom.

  Peter sees me as soon as I see him. Even in a room full of millionaires, billionaires, and celebrities, all dressed in fabulous vintage outfits, Peter moves like he owns the place. He glides toward me like each person is exactly where they should be, where he knew they would be. In his 1920s tuxedo, complete with lapel vest and black wingtips, he slides around them effortlessly, like a skier navigating a course for the hundredth time.

  "Darling." He leans in to kiss me. "You're late."

  The way he says "darling" is perfectly Peter, full of cartoonish wealth and exaggerated classiness, but with enough self-deprecating irony to be charming.

  I've had to pinch myself quite a few times lately. Hot relationships with generous billionaires aren't really my thing. Four months ago, an exciting evening consisted of getting off work at six, having a glass of wine with Steph, then eating leftovers while watching Game of Thrones for the third time.

  Now, it's…well, not that.

  Peter and I haven't put labels on what's going on between us. I'm working harder than I ever have, and I don't have time to obsess about my relationship status. Plus, I'm having a great time, and I don't want to complicate things by overthinking them. For now it's good sex, extravagant food, and nights on his king-sized bed under the canopy of stars that shine through the opening in his retractable roof. Beats my tiny room in the office hands down.

  "I missed the earlier ferry," I say. "Got pulled over."

  He takes my hand and we step back against the wall, surveying the scene.

  "I should have warned you about the speed trap. What do you think of the party? Keen, right?"

  I roll my eyes at him playfully, trying to take it all in. The ballroom is an open space of at least four thousand square feet, decorated with art nouveau prints and vase after vase of white and pink flowers. The largest chandelier I've ever seen hangs in the center over a parquet dance floor. Waiters in formal black-and-white outfits hurry in and out of a hidden kitchen, handing out champagne and hors d'oeuvres to guests. In the corner, a full jazz band plays on a small stage, next to which are some familiar faces.

  "Steph and Malcolm are here," I say. Though I've gotten used to my low-level celebrity, I'm still more comfortable with my old friend Steph, who manages the day-to-day operations of Ameritocracy, and Malcolm, one of Peter's assistants, who DJs on the side.

  Peter wraps an arm around my waist gently. "Among other people. I'm going to introduce you to some potential donors tonight, plus some other interesting people."

  "I know. I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I wanna say hi to them."

  At first, I worried about what it would be like when my relationship with Peter went public. Because he's the CEO of Colton Industries and a serial celebrity dater, I wondered whether our relationship would become constant fodder for the tabloids. We've had a few stories, but it turns out that many of the scandalous affairs that reach the front page are leaked by PR people desperate to generate publicity for their celebrity clients. That, combined with the fact that I'm not especially interesting, has kept those stories at bay.

  I tug Peter's lapel and we weave through traffic across the room. Malcolm catches my eye when we're still ten feet away, nodding at the woman to his left as if to say, Look who's here. She's about thirty years older than Malcolm—early sixties, I'm guessing—but stunning in a blood red dress and matching heels. For a moment I assume he's showing off his date, but then I think I recognize her.

  "Mia," he says as Peter and I approach, "good to see you."

  Steph hugs me quickly. "You're late. You left me alone with these cartoonish rich bastards and…oh hi, Peter."

  "Hello, Steph," Peter says.

  "By 'cartoonish rich bastards,' I definitely didn't mean you." They're about the same size, about half a foot taller than me. Steph loves to make fun of him, and she's protective of me, but she likes Peter. "Seriously, though," she says. "Nice party."

  After an awkward moment, I turn to the woman in the red dress next to Malcolm. "I'm Mia."

  "Oh, sorry," Malcolm says as I shake the woman's hand. "I figured you two already knew each other, since she's writing a piece on you. On Ameritocracy. Mia, this is Gretchen Esposito. Washington Now podcast, formerly of the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and so on."

  "She doesn't need my résumé," Gretchen says.

  I swallow hard. "Oh, duh! I knew I recognized you. I was just listening to…never mind. A piece? You're writing about…wait, what?"

  "She's writing a piece on Ameritocracy," Peter says. "I invited her to the party."

  "And Malcolm is?"

  "Babysitting me." Gretchen says. "My guess is that Peter assigned him to me to make sure I don't get any reporter cooties on the rich folks."

  Steph lets out a long, loud laugh, temporarily drowning out the sound of the trumpets, which have kicked in on the other side of the room.

  "We just can't afford another cootie outbreak," Peter jokes smoothly.

  Gretchen locks eyes with me. "I'd love to get an hour with you."

  We're the same height, but her eyes are laser-focused, her light brown hair tied into an unceremonious ponytail. I'm intimidated, but I try not to let on. "That'd be fine," I say. "Not tonight, though. We're here to enjoy ourselves. Plus, I imagine you don't have a recorder with you since this is a no-technology party."

  "I have excellent recall," she says. "I can transcribe whole conversations from memory."

  I squeeze Peter's hand, uncomfortable at the thought of Gretchen Esposito digging into my life, or my past. "Call my office tomorrow and we'll set up a sit-down. But, wait, what's it for? I thought you only did the podcast now."

  "She's doing a freelance feature for the New York Times Magazine," Peter says. "I figured you knew."

  I give him an irritated look. It's not just that he gave access to a reporter without asking me. One of the rumors going around, and one of the things the Saturday Night Live sketch poked fun at, is the notion that Peter secretly controls Ameritocracy, since he donated the five million dollars that launched us into the limelight.

  "Don't blame him," Gretchen says. "I may have given him the impression that you knew about the feature. Access is all we have."

  Steph shoots an irritated look at her, but I decide to smooth it over. Pissing off Gretchen Esposito as she's writing a feature on Ameritocracy is a bad move. "It's fine. Just call the office and we'll connect early next week."

  "Good," she says, turning. "I'm gonna get a drink."

  Malcolm follows her to the bar, and I turn to Steph. "Did you know she was writing a feature?"

  "No," Steph says. "This is America, after all. She doesn't need our approval to write about us."

  I jab Peter in the arm playfully. "But she needs approval to come to the party. Can't believe you invited her."

  "I figured you wouldn't mind. Besides, she did give me the impression that you knew."

  I know from experience at my old job, managing the offic
es of the online magazine The Barker, that journalists often gain access by playing sides against one another. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, and I can't hold it against Gretchen. "She was just ripping into DB on her podcast."

  "Don't be so sensitive," Steph says. "It's literally her job to ask the tough questions. She does it to Democrats, Republicans, and five-star generals. Hell, she even digs into other news organizations when they deserve it. The fact that she was grilling DB on her podcast elevates him, and us."

  "Fine." I offer a weak smile and grab two glasses of champagne from a passing tray. I hand one to Steph and we raise our glasses. "To us, and to a fabulous 2020."

  "What about me?" Peter says, pretending to be hurt.

  Just then, another tray passes, this one covered in champagne glasses filled with a reddish liquid and garnished with lime wedges. Peter's signature Red Bull. He takes one when the waiter slows.

  "Okay," I say. "To the three of us."

  Peter downs the glass in one sip. "And to Ameritocracy."

  By 11:30, I've had two glasses of champagne and Peter has chugged three Red Bulls. I've embarrassed myself attempting the foxtrot, and Peter has somehow managed to make the Charleston look cool. Gretchen Esposito and her perfect memory have been hovering around me all night, Malcolm always nearby.

  My only regret is that I haven't spent much time with Steph, who's been fluttering from potential donor to potential donor all evening. After our big rally in November, we received an influx of five million dollars from my old boss Alex Vane and four of his media-mogul pals. Other donations poured in as well. We now have over twenty million dollars set aside to present to the campaign of the winning candidate. But we can always use more money, and, as Steph loves to point out, twenty million is only a tenth of what the Democrats and Republicans will spend in 2020.

  Over a million new voters have registered since the rally, and around two hundred new candidates. To my surprise, the new candidates haven't gotten much traction yet. Other than DB and Robert Mast, who have risen to numbers one and two respectively, the top ten is much as it was before the rally.

  Panting on my way back from the dance floor, I catch Steph's eye. She's chatting with an old woman and, as I approach, I hear she's doing so in French.

  Not speaking a word of the language, I tune her out until I hear the words, au revoir, and Steph grasps my arm. "We need to talk."

  "Huh?"

  She drags me into a corner, then looks around to make sure no one else is within earshot. "About an hour ago, the staff started to disappear in and out of the kitchen."

  I'm tipsy and have no idea what she's talking about. "Isn't that their job?"

  She gestures at a pair of waiters, hurrying through the door. "They were acting odd, so I started chatting with one and—"

  "You're leaving Benjamin for a waiter?"

  Benjamin Singh is Steph's boyfriend, or at least the guy she's been sleeping with for the last three months. He's also our lead tech guy at Ameritocracy. She glares at me, and I know something serious is happening.

  "Mia, be quiet for a minute. This is important."

  I don't know if Steph has had much champagne, but her tone makes me feel more sober by the second. "What is it?"

  "There's a video. It—"

  She stops mid sentence and I follow her eye to Gretchen Esposito, who stands beside us, seeming to have appeared from nowhere. "Are you hearing anything about a leak?" Gretchen asks.

  "Huh?" I look from Steph to Gretchen, thoroughly confused.

  The reporter stares me down. "I'm hearing something about a leak."

  I look for Malcolm. "Isn't Malcolm supposed to be babysitting you?" It comes out a little ruder than I intended. "I mean, watching you. Helping you."

  "I ditched him when he went to the bathroom. I keep hearing rumors about a video."

  Steph steps between us. "No phones here tonight, remember? For all we know, they might've found David Bowie alive and well in Greenland. It's almost midnight, anyway, Gretchen." Steph grabs a glass of champagne from a table and hands it to her. "Go have some fun."

  Gretchen eyes me suspiciously, takes a small sip of champagne, then turns on a dime to meet Malcolm, who's hurrying across the room toward her. Steph pulls me behind the stage, where the band is playing a jazz ballad that sounds vaguely Italian.

  "There's a video," she whispers, cupping her mouth to my ear. "Of DB."

  "Another DB video? That's good news. Why do you sound so concerned?"

  DB's Christmas Day video to his fans became Ameritocracy's most watched video of all time. Partially because he used it to endorse single-payer healthcare while his cute pug sat on his lap, but also because he did so with a casual sincerity that convinced a lot of people that he knew what he was talking about. It was the video that pushed him into the number one spot.

  "Not that kind of video."

  "What do you mean?" I ask, but Steph doesn't answer. She fixes her eyes on mine the way she did when she told me she'd seen my then-boyfriend Aaron at a restaurant with his ex. It's a look that says something is wrong. Really wrong. And I don't want to say it out loud.

  "What is it?"

  The band begins a slow, trumpet-heavy version of "Auld Lang Syne," and Steph drags me into the kitchen past a group of waiters filling trays with champagne flutes. A woman in a white chef's coat barks orders, but doesn't seem to mind as we pass through.

  "Steph, where are we—"

  "Wait."

  We pass through the front kitchen into a larger kitchen, with lower ceilings and at least a dozen ovens and stoves under a long stainless steel hood system. My guess is that the kitchen is closed for the night because a group of chefs in black coats huddle in the corner as men in aprons wipe down countertops.

  Steph marches up to the group of chefs. "Hector, muestre a Mia el video."

  The circle of chefs opens to let us in, and I see that they've been staring down at one man's iPhone. I have a bad feeling about this.

  "Show her," Steph says to the oldest of the chefs, who has a yellow pin on his jacket naming him as Hector Castro, Executive Chef.

  Hector eyes me. When I waitressed, the chefs hated when we came into the kitchen. The only group they hated to see in the kitchen more than the waitresses were the patrons. So, at first, I take his look as one of suspicion. "Are you sure?" he asks Steph. No, not suspicion. It's concern.

  "Show me," I demand, pushing into the center of the group.

  Hector presses play.

  It's not especially high-res, probably almost twenty years old. It appears to be a sex tape, in that it's a mostly-naked guy lying between the legs of a mostly-naked girl. And yes—that's David Benson.

  He's maybe twenty years old, with a floppy boy-band haircut that looks dated now, but those classic good looks are unmistakable. I try to figure out if I recognize the girl beneath him making soft noises, her breasts exposed and bouncing.

  I don't recognize her, but she doesn't appear to be conscious.

  3

  Our little office in Santa Clarissa is bustling. Phones ring and buzz around me as staff members rush to answer inquiry after inquiry about the video. Even Post-it, the office cat, is acting strange. Since I pulled in at 8 a.m. after a couple hours' sleep on a couch at the Gold Island mansion, he's been stalking around my ankles protectively. He knows something is up.

  Last night, I watched the video three times in the kitchen. Once word of it broke, things at the party got weird. Leaked sex tapes are nothing new, but it's rare that we see one from a superstar like DB, rarer still that it has terrible implications. Peter immediately retrieved his phone and watched the video a dozen times, concern written on his furrowed brow. To me, DB is a candidate. To Peter, he's a friend of nearly twenty years. After trying to reach DB on all his phone numbers, Peter sulked through the rest of the party. He was still awake when the party broke up and I crashed on the couch.

  One of the greatest drivers of political change is scandal. It's always been th
at way, and it turns out it's no different for Ameritocracy. Overnight, David Benson dropped a spot in our rankings, from number one to number two. Taking his place at number one? Retired three-star general and favorite of hawkish conservatives, Robert Mast.

  But the leaderboard is the least of my concerns. When I got to the office, I watched the video three more times, and I still don't know what to make of it.

  From what I can tell, it was shot sometime in the early 2000s, when DB was in college. Certainly the scene has all the marks of a college party. From the crummy couch, to the red plastic cup on a table next to them, to the occasional noises from people shouting drunkenly far off camera, the scene screams "Kegger!"

  The footage isn't a grainy surveillance-camera shot, but it's definitely from the era before smartphones with cameras. My guess is that it was shot on a high-end home video camera. The clip that leaked on Twitter is thirty seconds long and the only thing I'm sure of is that it's DB and a pretty blonde woman having sex. Just like in the movies, his jawline is solid enough to crack the screen, and, even in the dim light, his green eyes are unmistakable.

  But in the ten hours since it leaked, the video has raised more questions than it's answered.

  Who's the girl?

  Who leaked the video?

  Why did it leak now?

  And, most importantly, was it consensual?

  Debate over the last question has raged online since minutes after it leaked. In the video, the young woman has her eyes closed as DB lays on top of her. And though he doesn't say anything, she makes sounds at a few points in the clip. The precise nature of the sounds have raised the biggest questions.