How Far She's Come

by Holly Brown

  But with Lyndon, I wasn’t going quietly. I was trying to put up a fight, and the police refused to hear me. They acted like I was making a big deal out of nothing. “Let him have his fantasy,” a detective once told me.

  The flowers came next. Lyndon must have spent every cent of his disability checks, because they were on my car and on my doorstep and delivered to the campus TV station. Big gaudy bouquets. People would ask, “New boyfriend?,” and finally I had to tell them I had a stalker because it looked so weird that I was constantly throwing these bouquets into the trash. Also, I needed someone to walk me to my car every night.

  The police advised me not to communicate with Lyndon. They said it was better to give him nothing, and eventually, he’d lose interest. Which is not at all how stalking operates. Stalkers are desperate for your attention. They’ll do anything to get it.

  I stopped following police advice. I wrote a letter back to Lyndon. I told him that I was flattered and I wished him all the best but that I had a boyfriend whom I loved. I asked him to please stop all contact.

  There was a slim chance he’d actually listen. But more likely, I could smoke him out. I was sick of him being in the shadows. If he got mad enough to show himself, then the police would have to do something.

  I started to get phone calls at all hours of the day and night. He never said a word. I changed my phone number, and the calls stopped for a while before starting up again. I never figured out how he got unlisted numbers.

  I finally decided to consult an attorney instead of the police. She told me we should file a restraining order. Lyndon would be served a subpoena and ordered to appear in court, though she said he probably wouldn’t show up. Well, she didn’t know Lyndon. He was there, early, with bells on. It was the first time I ever saw him.

  Lyndon was overweight, with black Coke-bottle glasses that made him look like a raccoon. Behind them, he blinked constantly, like he could never really bring the world into focus. I faced him down, and I won. I was awarded the restraining order, which meant he couldn’t have any contact with me, not even letters.

  Now there were dead flowers on my car, on my doorstep, at the station. The police said it was only a violation of the restraining order if I could prove they came from Lyndon. If I could prove it! As in, they didn’t intend to help. They’d washed their hands of me. Meanwhile, Lyndon now knew the parameters, and just how far he could go.

  Since I didn’t get any more letters, I had no idea what he was thinking—if he still thought he loved me, or if it had turned to hate. I no longer had a window into his mind. I thought that’s what I wanted, but I was more terrified than ever.

  Here’s what I didn’t tell the People writer:

  About R.G.

  That in some of Lyndon’s letters, he was describing my sex with R.G., as if it had been with him. He knew specific noises and utterances. Was he peeping in the windows, hiding in the closet, bugging my room? I never found out. But by the time R.G. and I broke up, I’d stopped having sex with him. There wasn’t enough vodka in the world to relax me.

  I could feel Lyndon all around me, all the time. I could tell sometimes, when I came into my apartment, that the air was different. There was a slightly different smell, or the closet door was half closed when I knew I’d pulled it all the way shut. I kept mustard and mayo on the refrigerator door, and when I came back, they’d be on the main shelf. He was letting me know he’d been there but in a way that would sound ridiculous if I called the police. “Arrest him, he moved my condiments!”

  The People writer and all the readers would probably have thought I was crazy too. That’s why I had to keep it to myself.

  For the first time in my life, I was depressed. Nothing brought me joy anymore. I felt as dead as those flowers.

  Then the cut-out magazine notes started. They were left at the studio, under objects or taped to them. They’d say things like “You’re mine. Always.” I couldn’t prove they came from Lyndon, and the police wouldn’t even try.

  My car window was broken, but nothing was taken. At the TV station, I was locked in the studio and had to pound on the door until someone let me out. I slipped on a patch of ice on my recently de-iced steps and got a concussion. But with no proof it was Lyndon, I just had to watch my back constantly. No one else was going to.

  I didn’t bother telling the police, so I didn’t tell People either. I just told the woman who interviewed me that I got a job in Pittsburgh and headed out of town, and I never heard from Lyndon again. Dennis and I agreed that I wouldn’t say anything about last week’s note. Better to give the impression that it’s all in the past. I’m a survivor.

  The writer asked me what I wanted to tell Lyndon, in case he was reading this article. I said, “That he can never steal my life again. To all the stalkers out there: You can’t love people you don’t know. Even if we’re in your living rooms, you don’t know us.”

  She included the whole quote, but it was a gotcha moment. A twist.

  “I see you got to the good news,” Dennis said.

  Lyndon was found dead by his mother eighteen months ago. It was ruled a suicide.

  If it’s not Lyndon, it’s someone else who got into the studio and left me that note. Someone else who knew Lyndon’s MO, who could use Lyndon’s very words against me. If this is an intentional copycat—if someone in New York found out about my past and about the ransom notes—if he realized that by using my old stalker’s methods, he could terrify me even more, then that would mean Someone Else isn’t delusionally lovesick but truly sadistic.

  That’s hardly good news.

  “You’re shaking like a leaf,” Dennis said.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “You have to be willing to share yourself with the audience if you want to move up.” He studied me. “Do you still want that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Sitting in for Trish was the first step. Did you see that rave from Tom Shales?”

  “Yes. You had it delivered to my apartment.” I stared at him, as it dawned. “Didn’t you?”

  Someone Else delivered it. Someone Else knows where I live.

  I have no en suite bathroom in my dressing room, and I had to dash down the hall to throw up. On my way back, everyone wanted a piece of me. I’ve been here a month, but I’ve just become a celebrity.

  Scott stopped me to compliment my strength; even Trish got in on the act, wanting to tell me she’d had a stalker once. Scott rolled his eyes behind her back. Then he walked away, and there, at the end of the hallway, York Diamond was waiting. York didn’t notice me, or pretended not to. Scott said to him, “Good to see you!,” and backslapping ensued.

  On the one hand, this means that York must be who he said he was. On the other hand, it means York has access to the set. I know that the security footage for that day has been reviewed and everyone’s been cleared, but maybe York is a regular visitor so he didn’t get flagged as suspicious.

  With Lyndon dead, I have no choice but to speculate.

  I was relieved to just be in my newsreader chair and not on the couch today. Though afterward, when all I wanted was to get home, I had more people approaching me for autographs than Trish and Scott did. Everyone seemed so friendly and nice and supportive, but I couldn’t help thinking that it could be any one of them.

  The Tank stayed next to me the whole time. His bulk communicates a clear message: Why attack this little lady beside me when there are so many easier targets in the world?

  But he might not be able to deter someone who’s truly crazy. So even as I did my best to smile and accept their compliments and sympathies, I wasn’t really there. I was lost in frightening scenarios. Battery acid being thrown. Butcher knives wielded. Shots fired.

  Then three women approached me together. I could tell they’d wanted to be last in line to have the most time. They said they were in a support group together, and it seemed like they’d been victimized in some way that they weren’t specifying. They praised me for speaking out a
nd held me up as a role model for their daughters. They said it’s not just about the stalking but the double standards: how women have to be careful what they wear because then they’re asking for leers and catcalls; how if you drink too much and someone has sex with you without your consent, it was your fault; how you can’t walk around after dark without being afraid, and if you do get raped, then you brought it on yourself because you shouldn’t have been out there alone.

  I hadn’t thought before how much stalking and rape victims have in common. I’d assumed that if you were actually attacked, then the police had to take you seriously; rape is a crime. But from what these women were saying, even those who’ve been violated suffer from scrutiny and judgment, just like I did. And they feel guilty and ashamed and terrified, just like I have. Like I do.

  They were there to thank me but also to invite me to their group. They slipped a card into my hand. I could never go though. I’m on TV. I can’t share with a roomful of strangers.

  Just a country full of them.

  I’m barricaded in my house now, and The Tank has gone home. I’m as afraid as I’ve ever been.

  So this is going to be my life again.

  But I’m getting what I want, right? I’m a celebrity.

  Chapter 26

  Cheyenne Florian is an anus licker who better shut the fuck up about the president. #greatman

  Cheyenne wants child rapists on the street. #stupidcunt #TeamUntil

  She needs to know what rape is really like. #rapefantasies #whatIddotoCheyenne

  Just look at her legs. Don’t listen to her mouth. #seenandnotheard #watchonmute

  She’s anti-American. #Communist

  Talentless cum receptacle. What’s she ever done? #greatman

  I bet her cunt smells like old garbage.

  After she fucks you, she bites your head off. #blackwidowCheyenne #worldsworstgirlfriend

  What’s the big deal? She’s ugly. #getbronzer

  Her father needs to go ahead and die already.

  And that’s just on the mainstream social media sites, where as fast as INN can get a thread or a comment removed, another one sprouts up. There’s no head of the snake; there are thousands of heads, like Medusa, and they keep propagating, and, more frightening for me, migrating. INN is making it harder for them on the major sites, but there are thousands of angry fringe sites, communities, and message boards, too many to monitor, where they’re congregating, spewing hate, and hatching plans. It’s funny because if those guys actually met Chase, they’d hate his privileged ass, but as a concept, the idea of a woman turning against her guy at the same time that she’s attacking the man holding the highest office in the land—it’s too much for the sexist, misogynist, and pro-rape contingents to take.

  I accept the drink Edwin offers even though I’m going on Ty’s show again tonight. I need to settle my nerves somehow.

  “I know it’s brutal, what they’re saying,” he tells me. “But remember, they’re a very small minority. A vocal minority, sure, but the mainstream media response is positive. They’re not even talking about you but about the story, which is the whole point, right? They’re insisting on answers. From the president of the United States! Journalists go their whole lives waiting for a moment like this.”

  He’s right, I need to keep things in perspective. I took this job for the good I could do, and I’m doing it.

  But perspective is hard to maintain when I’m this afraid. After the viral video, there were plenty of rape threats, but now it’s whole websites devoted to me. On www.whatiddotocheyenne.com, there are long and detailed descriptions and enthusiastic back-and-forths about which implements they’d shove inside me and which they’d use to bludgeon me to death when they’re done. The accompanying videos and GIFs are professional grade, like someone’s really taking their time on the violence and the gore. There are discussion groups that have elements of reality, like including INN’s address and suggesting ideas for how they’d get to me in a way that could cause maximum professional disruption and personal damage. Most are absurd, but then, a lot of people said that about the circus of the 2016 election. If they’re obsessed and determined and they don’t have much to lose, then anything becomes possible.

  I’d been lulled into a false sense of security when it hadn’t happened sooner. I’d been so smug about INN’s ability to put pressure on the major sites, and so sure that the goodwill from my earlier reports on cyberbullying would form a protective shield around me. I thought people would continue to remember their higher selves, and that I was helping them do that.

  I’ve been so stupid. People don’t want to be their higher selves; they want to indulge their vitriol and feel powerful through their bullying rings. Of course this would happen again, and at a much greater intensity.

  It’s like with Elyse. There’s always Someone Else. But unlike 1991, now they can find one another and form lynch mobs. They band together and egg one another on to be more and more extreme. The natural endpoint is for someone to follow through, just like it was with Elyse.

  “I’m thinking someone else should take over the story,” I say. “Ty, maybe?” Meaning, a man. They don’t write the same things about men. Male media personalities don’t face the same type of danger.

  “You can’t let a bunch of misogynists win.”

  “This isn’t about winning. It’s about survival.”

  “A bunch of freaks on the internet aren’t a credible threat, but I can see how it’s scary to read some of that stuff.”

  I close my eyes. “I don’t think I can handle this, Edwin.”

  “When’s the last time a broadcast journalist was physically attacked in this country? The 1980s, when Dan Rather got mugged, maybe? And that was random. The guy didn’t even know who Dan Rather was. Journalists get attacked in war zones. You planning to go to a war zone anytime soon?” He smiles at me.

  I don’t smile back. Has he really forgotten Elyse Rohrbach?

  This is probably another part of his grand plan, what he hoped would happen all along when he hired me. I can take the viewers on a tour of the depths of fringe misogynist America. But I don’t want to go, and he can’t make me.

  Only he already has.

  There’ve been a few disturbing emails before, but now Reese is having trouble keeping up with the flood of filth to my inbox. According to INN’s security team, none of it constitutes a direct threat. It makes me think of Elyse’s diary, and how the restraining order just showed Lyndon how far he could go. Now the internet has shown them all how to walk that line, to terrify without consequence. I long for the days when my biggest worry was not being taken seriously by the viewers, when my hot-as-shit pile was too high. Now they’re taking me seriously, all right.

  But will the police, if the time comes?

  “Stick to your guns, and it’ll die down,” Edwin says. “#strongwoman. That’s what you are. You withstand the hate to get the love. And the money. And the power. That’s how it works.”

  “Are you just capitalizing on that, or are you trying to change it?”

  “You’ve already done two stories on bullying in social media. What do you think?”

  I don’t know anymore.

  “Every strong woman feels weak from time to time. Every strong man too.”

  “Is that my latest tweet?”

  He laughs. “I love that you can keep your sense of humor. That counts for a lot. But haven’t you noticed the increased police presence in the building today?” I haven’t. “An officer will be assigned to get you to and from INN, every morning and evening. If you go out, they’ll patrol where you are.”

  “What about my dad?” He didn’t choose any of this. Sure, he laughs it off for my benefit. He says they’re cowards hiding behind a computer screen, and he’s stockpiled plenty of artillery if anyone wants to come for him. But just the idea that someone could wish death on someone as wonderful as my father is too disgusting for words. I’m ashamed that I’ve brought him into this.

&n
bsp; “No one would touch an old man.”

  “He’s not an old man.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” He comes and sits right beside me. “I’m going to tell you the truth.”

  What’s he been telling me so far?

  “You’re working yourself up over nothing. Those groups can’t touch you. You’re a celebrity. You want to know who they can touch? Everyone else. Before you came to INN, when you googled yourself, the first thing that came up was your naked pictures. That’s not true anymore. There’s so much about you that all their bullshit gets buried. They want to disseminate false information or rumors about you? It never gains any traction. In a heartbeat, I can line up interviews for you with the top periodicals and TV newsmagazines in the country. We can get the cover of any magazine we want. We could get you 60 Minutes. You can tell your story and drown them out.”

  “Why haven’t you done that?”

  “Right now, we’re focusing on the work. Then we start on the media training to get you ready for that. Honestly, at the moment, we don’t need it. We’re keeping you exclusive to INN. People want to see you, they have to tune in.”

  While I don’t care for his patronizing tone, he is reassuring me, a little.

  “The other thing those groups do to people? They call and text you incessantly with cruel, disgusting, harassing messages. You had any of those?”

  If you don’t count Graham, then no.

  “Your phone got hacked before and your pictures were stolen, but that’s not going to happen now. They know better than to even try. They know you’ve got the toughest cybersecurity, plus the police will be on them immediately.”

  That wasn’t true with Elyse. But then, she didn’t call the police after she was a celebrity; she called them when she was on campus television.

  Edwin’s not done. “Those groups also love to come after your family and friends. They barrage them with the same nastiness, or they trick them into giving up information that they can then use against you. They want your dirty laundry, and then they’ll air it. But you, you don’t really have family or friends, do you?”