The Bright Side of Going Dark

by Kelly Harms

  Finally I get the guest log-in screen and go onto a web browser that hasn’t been updated in ten years to get my email and DMs. There are four hundred new messages. I don’t want to answer any of them. I scan the list of emails and see the one that matters most, from my Pictey friend Heidi, who lets me guest at her studio whenever I feel like teaching. She writes, Whoa, girl, saw your latest post. You ok? Loop me in, please?

  Quickly I type back, Totally fine, do not worry about me. Because what else can I say? I scan the other emails. There is nothing of even moderate import, not if I want to stay off Pictey. There are a lot of DMs from followers—I generally answer as many as I can each day, then batch send the rest an autoreply and a link to a free video yoga class, but there’s no way I can do that on this pony express–paced internet connection.

  I’m just going to have to let them go for a while. I mean, I did say I was going dark. If anything’s truly important, I’ll see it when I get back on my phone.

  The rest of the real email is just miscellaneous stuff. Project updates, PR outreach, endorsement requests, invoices sent and received. I handle most of it in ten minutes. This is a relatively small part of my work, a part I don’t much mind. Even so, I make an out-of-office message, giving myself two weeks instead of one so I have time to get up to speed when I come back. In it, I write that I won’t be checking email, though of course that’s a lie. Whenever I see that phrase in someone else’s out-of-office reply, I get a good chuckle out of it. There is nowhere on God’s green earth where someone won’t check their emails at least a couple of times in a week, except possibly a monastery. Until someone tells me they’re at a monastery for their spring vacation, I will know it’s not that they aren’t checking email; it’s that they wish they weren’t.

  My mom comes in the room about then. She’s wearing tech pants and a red flannel shirt buttoned up to the neck. She looks ridiculous. “What are you dressed for?” I ask her. “A lumberjacking competition?”

  “A hike, my dear. You said you left your phone on top of Mount Wyler, right?”

  “You’re coming with me?”

  “Absolutely. We may need to look around a bit, and more eyes are better.”

  “But you think phones are the devil, Mom,” I say, a bit surprised.

  “But you don’t,” she says. “And you’ve been twitching like an electroshock therapy patient since you lost the damn thing. Go get dressed. The sooner we get up there, the sooner you can stop with your DTs.”

  “Ah, Mom. You have such a way of doing something nice and being mean about it. Give me ten minutes,” I say, turning back to the computer and starting to log out of everything.

  “You know . . . ,” she says, the ellipsis practically audible. “You could always leave your phone up there. Just use my computer whenever you need to get online.”

  I furrow my brow. “Mom, it’s one thing to take a break from my Pictey account. It’s not the same as dumping my phone. I need that phone about a hundred and fifty times a day. I’ve got my messaging, my passwords, my credit cards, my medical charts, my grocery lists, my recipes, my phone book, my address list, my camera, my everything on that phone. Honestly, I’m not even entirely sure I could find my way from the Target back to your house without the phone. What if I need to buy a toothbrush or some—” I realize I’m about to say dog treats. Target sells Mike’s favorite dog treats. I cut myself off and say instead, “Toothpaste.”

  “You just go up 70,” she says.

  “Easy for you to say,” I reply. “And if I got there, how would I pay?”

  “You’d just use a credit card. Remember those?”

  “But my credit card info is in the Target app.”

  “They’ll take money in any form.”

  “But I would miss out on my bonus points.”

  “Oh dear,” she says sarcastically. “You wouldn’t be self-reporting your every purchase to an international conglomerate in exchange for a few pennies’ discount here and there? Tsk tsk.”

  There’s no point in talking to her. I just need to get back my phone.

  “I’ll go suit up and meet you on the trail, ok?” I say, because my mom is kind of a slow walker.

  “Ok. See you there.”

  In about ten minutes I’m dressed in cute sky-blue hiking pants and a drapey athletic tee over a floral sports bra. I could be an REI model, if one on the older side. I grab Andy’s hat and hustle out the door, noticing for the first time that my mom doesn’t even have a smart lock on her door—of course, she’d need Wi-Fi to use that—so there’s no way to lock up behind me. I guess I just leave the door open for anyone to stroll in? Well, luckily this is nowhere. To rob a place you have to find it first, I figure.

  I expect to catch up to Mom around halfway to the foot of the mountain, but I don’t see a glimpse of her until I’m within view of the mountain spur on the trail, and I quickly see she’s not alone. She’s with someone a foot taller than her and in possession of that thick brown unruly hair and tanklike build I recognize from yesterday. Dewey. It has to be. Quickly I do the calculation: Mia plus Dewey equals good. Mia plus Dewey plus Mom equals x, where x is unsolved but probably a negative number. Hm. “Mom, did you pick up a stray?” I call ahead of me loudly, because I’m terrified if I sneak up on them, they’ll be talking about me.

  “There you are, slowpoke!” she says. “Dewey says you guys met yesterday on the hill.”

  “We did,” I agree. “He escorted me down before the rain came.”

  “Dewey’s my egg guy,” Mom says.

  I look at him in surprise. He seems somehow too butch to be an egg guy. Where the hell did I get that idea? “Those were delicious eggs,” I say instead. “What kind of chickens do you have?”

  He starts saying names of chickens. I don’t listen because I wouldn’t know a bantam from a golden retriever. I really shouldn’t have asked, but knowing where your eggs come from is definitely on-brand for @Mia&Mike, and maybe I should get some photos if he’ll let me. I can take the breed names down later, when I have the feathery faces to go with the names.

  “Those little blue ones are my favorite,” says my mom. “Almost too pretty to eat.”

  “Ameraucanas,” he says with a smile. “Those girls are so lovable.”

  When he says that, it stirs a memory. “You have a girl,” I say. “A daughter?”

  Dewey nods. “I do. Nine years old going on forty-five,” he says.

  Nine. I think back to the egg house. The girl in the window. “What’s her name?” I ask.

  “Azalea,” he says. “Lea, I call her.”

  “Lea,” I repeat. Lea, the girl who looked so unprepared for the world.

  My mom interrupts. “I’d like to borrow that daughter of yours,” she declares. “I don’t necessarily buy into the ‘woman’s touch’ idea, but there’s something to having a grandmotherly presence in a young woman’s life.”

  “You mean, a presence besides her actual grandmother?” Dewey asks with a smile.

  “I thought you said she was in Florida,” my mom replies blithely. “I’m right here.” Mom gestures to me. “And I raise great kids,” she says. I am startled to hear her say something nice about me. “Though childless.”

  I purse my lips and look up out of the corner of my eye. There is nothing polite I can say right now.

  “Strong argument,” Dewey replies. If he’s noticed me making faces, he pretends not to. “What would your grandmotherly presence involve, exactly?”

  “Backwoods camping?” she suggests. “White-water rafting?”

  Both Dewey and I laugh. “She doesn’t mess around, does she?” he asks me.

  “No time for baking cookies and fixing braids,” I say. “Does Lea own a good pair of waders?”

  “I’ll be honest—Lea’s not as outdoorsy as I would have expected. She’s got a homebody streak. Mostly likes to hang out with the chickens. Makes me worry sometimes. I want her to have social opportunities, enjoy the mountains, you know.”

&nb
sp; I nod. To my mind, homebody would be the worst insult someone could level at me. My work depends on me being out there. All the time. That’s what makes people love me. “I’m sure she’ll do great when she finds her thing,” I say, because what else can I say? “Ah, did Mom tell you where we’re heading?” I ask him.

  “Back up the bump, I guess?” he says. “She asked me to come with. And I may as well. It’s a gorgeous day for walking.”

  I give my mom a look, and she pretends not to see it. “It’s going to be more of a brisk hustle,” I tell him. “I left my phone up there yesterday.” Because you caught me by surprise, I think. “I’m at a loss without it.”

  Dewey makes a worried face. “In all that rain?” he says.

  “It’s in a BadgerBox,” I say. “It’ll be fine. It would survive a mudslide and a forest fire, if it came to that. And I know exactly where I put it. So don’t feel like you have to tag along.”

  Mom coughs. “Someone’s overconfident.”

  I can tell my mom is hoping I don’t find my phone. I suspect nothing could make her happier than me floundering around techless for a while. “It’ll be fine,” I say again.

  “I’ll come anyway,” says Dewey. “Shall we?” He gestures up to the trailhead, and we start off.

  On the walk, my mom asks him more questions about chickens and his daughter. Apparently she’s been down lately because one of the hens she especially likes was nabbed by a coyote. I try to pay attention, but my mind wanders off. Embarrassingly, I’m thinking about the phone. I’m thinking about how good it will feel to unlock it and see my notifications, what a huge relief I’ll feel.

  Then I realize it may have lost its charge, if it was looking for a signal or pinging me all night. Ugh, I think. I’ll have to get it back down the hill and plug it in before I can even start to get up to speed.

  And what will happen when I do? I keep ruminating while we’re hiking, as the grade gets steeper and we all get a bit winded, even my mom, who is fit as a fiddle. When I do get my phone back, plug it in, charge it up, what exactly am I expecting to see? Calls from Tucker, I am willing to bet. Either to argue with me more or to apologize more. A text or two from my bank about my low balance. Scads of notifications from social apps—only I deleted my social apps yesterday, I remember.

  Outside of the big platforms, what exactly do I do with my phone? I wonder. I mean, isn’t most of what I do with it liking, posting, commenting, tweeting, snapping? All on apps I deleted for the week.

  When I finally do get it back, will I turn it on and see . . . nothing?

  I hike faster. I need to get to the top of that mountain and prove to myself that I’m a person, with friends, not just contacts, not just followers or “Friends” with a trademark symbol behind the word. Without Tucker, who has been my closest confidant since Mike, and a few colleagues who I emailed this morning, is there anyone else I honestly know in real life who will even notice I’m offline? Other influencers, maybe? But personal friends? I think of Lynnsey and other IRL people I knew from before my star rose. We can go weeks without texting. Months, probably.

  “Mom,” I say. “Dewey. I think I’m going to hike up ahead.”

  “Are we really that slow?” asks Dewey, though I have noticed him taking shorter, lazier strides to keep from outpacing my mother.

  “We’re not,” says my mom. “It’s just that she’s addicted to that damn thing. She’s like a junkie running to her dealer.”

  “Not her fault. Phones are engineered to do this to people,” he says. “It’s part of the inner workings. Like a slot machine, only with your human attention, not quarters.”

  I walk faster. This has been my mother’s favorite subject since I became an influencer, and I’ve heard it all ad nauseam.

  “Maybe,” I hear my mom saying as I gain distance, “but like a slot machine, it’s up to you if you use it.”

  To my surprise, Dewey doesn’t agree. “If you had a slot machine in your pocket since you were eight years old, you might feel differently.”

  I smile to myself as I keep lengthening my stride. That Dewey’s not a bad guy. I appreciate anyone who can give my mom a little pushback.

  And because it’s not me she’s arguing with, she listens to reason. “Maybe so,” I hear, still farther behind. They must be slowing down as I speed up. “Maybe the engineering these systems do is enough to make us all gambling addicts.” There’s a space in the conversation. But then she speaks again. “But even still, I wish my daughter fought it a little. Instead she’s just become part of the problem.”

  I break into a jog. I gain more ground, and when I’m out of sight, I find myself cutting the switchbacks, treading up the deer trails, just as I disdained yesterday. Risking my ankles and the ecosystem to get to the top faster. I need to see that phone, see that there’s even just one meaningful message on it. A connection. A genuine benefit to the buzzing, tracking, pinging slot machine I cannot seem to stop feeding with my attention. If there is . . . I can ignore everything Mom says, go back to LA, get back to work, get that tuning fork of YES out of my head.

  If there isn’t . . .

  What if there isn’t? What if my phone is just full of messages from Tucker asking about when he’s going to get the first check and telling me I’m a fraud and asking if my dropping off Pictey for forty-eight hours is going to hurt his revenues? What if it’s nothing but strangers haranguing me to get back on there and do my duty, post my outfit, say something re-Pictable, recommend my favorite coffee grinder? What if it’s just the empty Pictey prompt and the blinking cursor and me trying to live a lie for a few more days or weeks or years?

  Some combination of dread and yesterday’s tequila gurgles in my stomach. I’m running hard now, crashing through the deer trail, messing up their scents and the foliage and the intricate underground life of the forest that exists off the man-made trails. I feel a stick against my leg and see I’ve torn the hem of my hiking pants on some kind of wild-berry thorn, and a rip is moving up my ankle. I am thirty feet from the top. I’ve been running full out for a long time. I stop, pant for a minute, think of my mother’s words. I wish my daughter fought it a little.

  That goddamned phone. Look at me. Carelessly, thoughtlessly careering up a slope with one of the most beautiful vistas in America, not seeing a thing because all I can think about is what packets of data might be on one three-by-five-inch screen.

  Instead she’s just become part of the problem.

  I burst into a run again. I am at the top of the viewing spot now, right where I set down my phone yesterday after my out-of-office post. It’s right there, muddy, but there. I lean down, breathing hard, and wipe off the screen to wake it up.

  It shows a list of notifications. Calls from my pharmacy, my dry cleaner, and Tucker. Spam callers. A reminder that my period is two days away. An update that something I ordered online once three years ago is on sale. My screen time update: I used my phone an average of six hours a day last week. And most recently, a text from Tucker that says Hey—signing off may not be the best move . . . call or DM asap?

  My blood boils. He was ready to close his account without a word, but when I take off a night—just one night—he’s in a hot panic. What does he know about the best move? The best move would have been to marry me on the day he said he would or, better still, to never have proposed at all. I look one more time at my phone. Not one meaningful text, email, DM, notification, banner, alert, ping, or share. It’s been almost twenty-four hours, and all the billions of buzzes that normally keep me jumping every three minutes amount to exactly nothing when I ignore them. Just absolutely nothing.

  I hear a growl of fury and realize it just came out of me.

  Then I hear footsteps. Mom and Dewey, I imagine. I don’t care. They’re probably starting to draw near on the switches. They’d love what I’m about to do—or at least Mom would. So much so that I almost wait so she can witness it. But I can’t wait, in the end, because I’m terrified. The hold this tiny device has
over me is too much. If I don’t get it out of my hands right now, I may never be able to.

  So I wind up. The phone seems to be screaming. It’s vibrating even now, another notification—another “call me” from Tucker. I will not call you, Tucker. I will never call you again.

  I scream now, a full-on scream, like Xena the warrior princess getting ready to run forward with a spear and stab the bejesus out of someone. It’s a battle cry. That’s exactly what it is.

  Then I wind up and thrust my arm forward, just like Mom showed me how to do in slow-pitch. Follow through with the wrist. Watch the arc.

  It’s a good throw. My cell phone flies off with a beautiful, graceful trajectory, a toy airplane made of silicon and glass. Then the descent begins. I realize what I’ve done. I open my eyes wide in disbelief. I see the phone fall out of sight over the edge of the cliff.

  I hear it hit with a sickening crunch.

  So that’s it, then, I think. That’s that. I’ve just thrown my phone over the edge of a mountain.

  That was really weird of me.

  Weirder still, I feel . . .

  Amazing.

  PAIGE

  Search for: @Mia&Mike

  NO NEW POSTS

  Click HERE to see the feed.

  Click HERE to find similar accounts you might enjoy.

  Obviously after the crepes are gone, I know what I must do. I call to be sure my sister is still in the hospital. She is. I don’t know why—suicide watch? Healing from her wounds? But no matter: I’m not squeamish. Because of what I did back then, my dad hates emergency rooms and has told me not to take him to one when he’s too old to decide for himself. This means, I suppose, that he’ll die in the back of my car in the hospital parking lot.