by Lux,Vivian
"Great job, now we can go to the park!" I exclaimed. He squealed and bolted for the door. "Hold hands!" I called and he made an about-face and grabbed hold of my hand. I pulled out my phone and sent an "On our way" text to Jason who I'm sure was already there, waiting.
Max chattered away the whole walk there; little snippets of songs from school, a few lines of dialogue from a library book we had read the day before. I pointed out the passing cars, and he told me the make and model of each one of them as he tugged me along the sidewalk.
Across the park, I could see Jason. He had spotted us and was already walking towards us, but I couldn't deviate from the routine. We stopped right at the gate. "Okay, we're here buddy. Tell me the rules."
"No running. Stay with me," Max repeated.
"And?"
"And."
"Tell me the rule about being a good friend."
"We don't laugh when friends get hurt," he intoned seriously.
I nodded. This was a new rule and one my mom and Greg had been drilling pretty hard. Max got confused when other kids got hurt, and sometimes, whether out of a misguided attempt to comfort them or from some tangle of emotions in his own brain, he reacted to their injuries with wild, inappropriate laughter. This brought stares, and sometimes angry smacks from his playmates, who couldn't understand that Max wasn't making fun of them for falling. For his own protection, we had to teach him.
"Okay buddy, go have fun. Be careful."
Max whirled around and careened directly to tallest slide in the park.
"He is fast as hell," Jason observed, standing next to me.
"So fast," I agreed, watching my brother shriek with happiness as he hurtled down the slide. "And getting faster too. Sometimes I miss how easy he was to catch, back before physical therapy."
"Yeah, well look how much happier he is now that he can do things," Jason said, keeping his eyes trained on Max. "I haven't seen him able to balance on one foot like that."
"I know, isn't it awesome?" I smiled. For a second it felt like my heart was filling up. "He's doing really well these days."
"Just like his big sister, hmm?" Jason prodded, nudging me in the side.
I looked up at him and laughed. "Is it that obvious?"
"You've been a bit of a trial lately," Jason huffed. "I need to mean this man in person and shake his hand for taking you off my hands."
I socked him in the stomach.
"Ooh, honey, not cool, I just had tacos."
"Oh, poor baby," I rubbed his stomach. "But you deserved it.
Over his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of something...metallic? Glinting in the bushes.
"What the hell?" I muttered. But Max chose that moment to veer dangerously close to someone's picnic. "Max, too far!" I called. My brother looked over his shoulder but didn't move. "Max!' I called. He stepped one foot closer to the spread-out blanket. "That's a one, buddy," I called, holding up one finger.
My brother recognized the immediate danger of timeouts that came when I counted and trudged slowly back to the playground.
"That was almost too easy," I exhaled, looking back at Jason.
That metallic glint flashed behind him again.
"Hooker, do you see this or am I going crazy?"
"See what?" Jason turned around just as the glint was followed by a bright flash. "What the actual fuck?" he said, squinting.
"Is that...is someone taking pictures of us?"
"I'll go take care of this," Jason growled.
"Jason, hang on." I looked back at Max. "What if it's some kind of predator? We should call the police, someone hanging around a playground taking pictures like this?"
"By the time the police get here, this sick fuck will be long gone," Jason rumbled. He rolled his shoulders once. "I got this shit."
He stormed towards the bushes like an avenging angel. I swiveled my head back and forth, watching him and watching Max and wishing like hell that I could find some way of growing a pair of eyes on the back of my head.
There was a rustling and Jason's loud, shouted, "Hey!" I couldn't take it anymore. "Max! Time to go!"
My brother shrieked and immediately dropped to the ground in boneless protest. I shot a frantic look over my shoulder, trying to see what Jason was doing, but he had chased the pervert over the small hill behind the bushes. "Max! Now please!"
Avoiding the stares of the rest of the parents, I grabbed my screaming, rigid brother and ducked his flailing legs. "Buddy, I'm sorry, we need to go now," I panted, wrestling him over my shoulder. He answered with a loud shriek. If I had any intention of getting out of here unobserved, I was rapidly losing my window of opportunity.
"Zoe!" Jason called. He rushed towards us, panting, eyes a little wild.
"Do you need me to call the police?" I cried, clutching Max closer.
Jason bent over and unleashed a string of curses under his breath, and then straightened up again. "No. Fuck, I mean yes, you could. Maybe. But they won't fucking do anything."
"Fucking do anything!" Max yelled.
"Great," I muttered. Then I looked back up at Jason. "Why? Why won't they do anything?"
"Fucking do anything!"
"Because," Jason said through gritted teeth. "It was a different kind of pervert. That guy was a fucking paparazzo."
"He was? But he was taking pictures of Max!"
"Not Max, honey," he sighed. "You."
Chapter 32
Low
There was something different about the front of my building and it didn't register until I was safely parked in the underground the garage. I wrinkled my brow and rushed to take the elevator up to my floor, then ran to the window to confirm.
The cheap nylon tents and tangled equipment of the paparazzi had disappeared. Only one lone guy plopped on stool still had his telephoto lens trained upward. I ducked back before he could see me and took a deep breath.
Holy shit, was it all over? Was I going to finally have some fucking peace now?
The thought made me so giddy that I needed to tell someone.
Me: Yo! What are you doing?
Pepper: Just sitting by the phone waiting for you to contact me, asshole. Where the hell have you been?
I grinned.
Me: Sorry. I've been a little wrapped up lately.
Pepper: In your girl?
Pepper: You can't lie to me.
Me: You're right and I'm not even going to try to lie.
Me: Yes. I'm wrapped up in her.
Pepper: Let me check my calendar real quick.
Pepper: I just counted twice, and while I'm no mathematician, I feel like this has lasted way longer than a week.
Me: Your feelings are correct.
There was a long pause, the three dots hanging in the air for a lot longer than it must have taken her to write...
Pepper: Lowell...
It was all wrapped up in that one word. The warning, the nervousness, the worry for me. But she was wrong. She didn't need to worry about me, or Zoe.
Me: Pep. I love her.
My phone rang in my hand.
"Say that again," my sister demanded, her voice hoarse and rusty with disuse.
"I love her, Pep."
"Have you told her?"
"Not yet. But I will."
Pepper made a small noise and I waited. People always trampled over her, filling the silence she needed to gather her thoughts. I waited, though I won't lie and say I did it with any sort of grace. I paced the floor of my living room, stopping to check outside the window several more times. The lone paparazzo was still there, but the rest of them were off somewhere, doing something. Probably making someone else's life a living hell. I was grateful to whoever sacrificed themselves to give me peace.
"Lowell," Pepper exhaled.
I snapped back to attention. "Darling sister."
"Do you know what you're doing?"
The question caught me by surprise. "Do I ever really know what I'm doing?" I joked.
"Cut the crap." Her voice
was sharp.
"I didn't realize there was crap to cut."
"Are you being deliberately dense?"
"No. This is my regular density. I have no idea what you're trying to get at Pepper. Words. Try using words."
She sighed the sigh of someone who'd been silently putting up with my crap for twenty-five years. "Woe," she began, and this time my nickname made me smile fondly. "I don't want to see you get hurt."
She just kept surprising me. "Why would I be the one to end up hurt?"
"Because, idiot. When you're in with someone, you are in. You are literally the most loyal, no, the only loyal person in my life. And when that loyalty isn't reciprocated, it costs you little pieces of yourself that you try to cover up with joking and playing the idiot. You give and give and give and too often the other person only takes. Fuck it, I'm one of those very people." She swallowed. "I know you're always thinking about me. Worrying about me."
"I am."
"But I can worry about you too, Woe. So I'm going to ask you again. Do you know what you're doing?"
I thought back to Zoe's smile, the way she danced with her whole body. The trust she had in me, and the million little ways she'd shown me that I worthy of it. "I think I do, sis," I told her. "And I think she does too. You don't have to worry about her hurting me, I know you'll cut her if she does."
"I will," Pepper said firmly.
"Okay, psycho." I drummed out a quick rhythm on my knee. "All this time my worry hasn't been so much about the shit that I was actually doing, but the shit I had no control over. Like tour schedules and scheduling conflicts and, I dunno, my whole weird fucking life. I was worried that it was going to be that shit that hurt her. Like I'd fuck up and double book and miss her brother's piano recital or some shit. Like some random paparazzo would show up and get in her face and scare her. I would never deliberately do anything to mess things up. But I'm also smart enough to know that not everything that happens is deliberate. Sometimes shit just...happens."
We both fell silent. It felt good and terrible at the same time to finally put all this in words. And Pepper, of all people, was the one who'd be able to understand why I was most afraid of the things in my life I couldn't predict.
Pepper's voice was so small it was barely audible. "You gotta do it anyway," she recited, like it was something she had heard a billion different times. "Even if it scares you. We could all die in a fiery explosion if the sun goes supernova tomorrow..."
"Jesus Christ, Pep...."
"Well? Do you stop fucking going outside then? Or do you just do it anyway?"
I smiled. "You have a point. A fucking grotesque one, but it is a point."
I could hear the malevolent grin in her voice. "See? I do pay attention in therapy."
My grin widened. "So you're saying I should tell Zoe that I love her?"
"If you do, then yeah."
"Wow, sis. This actually really helped. You aren't as big a bitch as they say."
"I know. I'm bigger," she retorted smartly. "And now I'm hanging up because all this yammering about feelings has given me a headache."
I laughed. "Love you too, Pepper." I hung up, still grinning. This was it. I was going to tell Zoe exactly how I felt because the sun might go supernova tomorrow but you have to live your life all the same.
I was still grinning when my phone buzzed in my hand. Figuring it was Pepper calling back to bitch me out for the headache I'd saddled her with, I answered on the first ring.
"Mr. Stowe?" It was a woman's voice I didn't recognize, calling me from a very noisy place. Over the din of voices, I could barely hear her repeat my name. "Is this Lowell Stowe of Ruthless?"
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. "How did you get this number?"
"Mr. Stowe, I was just calling to see if you'd like to comment on the leak?"
"The...leak?" I dropped the phone on the floor and raced to my computer.
Chapter 33
Zoe
Max was digging again, this time over in the back corner of our tiny lot, while I sat on the chaise with a paperback. My Kindle habit used to be legendary back when I was still flush and gainfully employed. But these days I was discovering the joys of my library and their kick-ass interlibrary loan system. At the moment I was a biography kick and was knee-deep in Dolly Parton's tell-all.
Dolly was a freaking hoot.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out and scowled at the number.
One of the worst things about job-hunting was the need to answer unfamiliar numbers. It always put me on edge.
"Zoe Chandler speaking!" I chirped into the phone. I couldn't keep the flash of hope from igniting in my veins. No matter how many disappointments I'd endured, there was still that bright, hot flare that this! this could be it!
A vaguely familiar voice answered. "Miss Chandler, this is Sarah Gibbs. I'm calling from UltraMarine Publishing. We spoke the other day?"
The slightly slurred voice clicked together with the vague deliver and I remembered her instantly. The receptionist. With the tits and the Lycra dress. The one who liked getting presents from her highly inappropriate employer. "How can I help you, Sarah?" I said brightly, hoping to mask my distaste with peppiness.
"Mr. Gaines wanted to apologize for missing your appointment the other day and asked if I could give you a call and set up another interview."
I bit my lip, remembering the downright skeevy vibes I got from the place. I should just hang up right now, but once again, my instincts were butting up against my desperation.
"Oh?" was all I said.
Her voice dropped, and I pictured her leaning conspiratorially over the Formica. "He said that in light of this new information, we needed to look for a new way to fit you into the organization."
I scowled. "What new information?"
There was an abrupt pause, and then the sound of something scraping like she'd dropped the receiver. She picked it back up again and exhaled a loud blast that made me pull the phone back from my ear to protect my hearing. "Are you...do you not...?" She took a breath and then actually sounded sympathetic. "Oh. Oh honey, you don't even know yet."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Great job, Zoe, drop an f-bomb at someone who's offering you an interview. But still, "I have no idea what you're trying to say to me. What information?"
Her voice dropped. "You didn't hear it from me, okay? Just...I don't know, like...go on the internet. You'll find it."
I hung up feeling abject terror. Then I hit the browser on my smartphone.
"Hacking Scandal!" the headline blared. I scrolled through to see that all of the news sites were blasting the same story. Scores of celebrity nudes had been leaked to the public. But what did this have to do with me?
I read without comprehension, noting all of the noteworthy names. The hackers used blunt force tactics, just trying passwords that corresponded with publicly known info.
My heart sank.
Feeling like I was betraying him, I searched. "Lowell Stowe, nudes."
The search came back in a nanosecond and there they were. The pictures I had taken for him. Of him. My thumb on the side of the frame and then...
Oh.
Oh god.
Me.
His hand on my breast. My lips parted, that moment when he had entered me, the ecstasy that it captured. I was there in some of them. Most of them. The birthmark on my right breast made it clear.
Feeling sick, I slowly tapped out my name. Z-O-E C-H-A-N-D-L-E-R. Then ran a search.
It was the very top listing.
Above my resume and above my Linked-In profile. Above my bylines for Grip and the freelance work I had done. Far, far above the half-hearted website I started putting together then abandoned as hopeless.
Above all of the things that were relevant - to the life I was leading and the goals I was chasing - was my naked body, on display.
Chapter 34
Low
The phone rang. I di
dn't answer. It stopped ringing.
Then it rang again.
Voicemail. Another voicemail.
I stared at the ceiling and I didn't answer. Deleted the voicemails without listening to them. I didn't need to know what they were asking. What they were saying.
Care to comment? Care to comment? Care to fucking make a comment about your privacy being violated? Care to give a statement about how you fucked over the life of a girl you loved just by being fucking you?
Delete. Fucking delete. Again. When it rang in my hand again, "Fuck you!" I shouted, slamming it against the wall where it shattered into a million plastic pieces but it just... kept... ringing.
I have no idea how long I stared at the ceiling. After a while, the sound of my shattered, unusable phone ringing slid into the background. Just a constant noise that I ignored.
Just the way I ignored the sound of trucks and cars outside of my building, the sound of voices and the shouts of the paparazzi yelling for me to come out, come out and let them take a fucking picture, just one goddamned picture...
As if taking a picture wasn't the cause of all this fucking mess in the first place.
That noise sank into the background. I didn't need to answer them. I could just hide here forever.
Staying in the background where I should have stayed in the fucking first place.
Then suddenly the noises outside changed. Whoops and shouts and the sound of shutters clacking like an angry group of starlings and I sat up wondering what the fuck was happening when my buzzer suddenly sounded.
Then a rusty yet feminine shout. "Open the fucking door, Woe!"
I hit the call button and then ran to the window, where the flashes momentarily blinded me. Then I ran back to the elevator and pulled her in, then checked the lock twice once I slammed the door behind me.
"What the hell are you doing here, Pep, are you fucking crazy?" I panted.
My sister looked pissed, but oddly no more than normal. "You don't answer your goddamned phone."
"For good fucking reason, don't you think?" I shouted.
