Followers

by Megan Angelo

  “Sure thing,” Catherine said. Her face was blazing red.

  * * *

  It became the thing she feared most in the world, her name. And it was everywhere.

  One time Orla sat in a cab, stuck in traffic on her way to the prissy crisis counselor Craig had prescribed, and watched her name ripple over the Times Square crawler of a national news network. That time it was just her last name, at the end of an ominous headline, one sandwiched between stories on the presidential race she was paying no attention to: SALGADO FAMILY MAY PRESS CHARGES AGAINST NATUZZI, CADDEN. Orla’s face had gone limp with shame, thinking of her parents. Their name looked just the same on-screen as it did on the driftwood sign above their stove: THE CADDEN FAMILY, EST. WITH LOVE 1985, MIFFLIN, PA. She hadn’t talked to Gayle and Jerry since Anna Salgado died, and she would only be able to if they showed up and pressed the buzzer at her door, which they hadn’t so far. Orla had set her phone to airplane mode. She wasn’t checking her email. She deleted her social-media accounts. She stopped watching television—first because she couldn’t fathom that she was on the news, and then because she couldn’t fathom that she wasn’t anymore. How dare the world move on and leave her to live out this ending alone?

  The people who recognized her on the street now looked at her sharply and called her a cunt. She had been called that so many times on the internet, she thought the word had lost its sucker punch. But hearing it out loud, unexpected, when she was in sweats and just picking up toilet paper, was a whole new kind of injury. Once, as Orla was hurrying home, past the nail salon under her apartment building, a woman standing on the sidewalk in her toe separators hissed the word and spit at her. Then she went right back to being on the phone, as if the gesture was routine. As if it took nothing out of her.

  After that, Melissa bought her a Yankees cap and said not to leave the building without it. She banged the hat against Orla’s desk, then set a tennis ball beneath it, squeezing the brim into an arch over the ball and wrapping a rubber band around to make it stay. “So that it doesn’t look so new,” she said. Orla nodded in silence, looking at her, thinking that Melissa looked fat. Orla knew she hadn’t worked out since Anna’s death, nearly a month ago, and that, apparently, was enough time to melt the marble curves that took her years to carve.

  As for the rest of them: Mason still reported to the apartment each day. He was afraid to tell his husband that the network had suspended Flosston Public indefinitely, that they were ignoring Craig’s pleading follow-ups. Craig still came to 6D most days, too, for no discernible reason. He puttered around like a broken toy, chattering or sinking into hour-long silences. He missed the mug when he tried to pour coffee. He opened cabinet doors and left them that way. He had to be reminded, every day, that Aston wasn’t there.

  Aston had gone back to the Bowery Hotel, and he wouldn’t leave his room. He would not return calls or texts from anyone, but he tweeted constantly.

  Anna S was a beauty. Coulda seen her in one of my videos (after 18th bday, obvs)

  My true heart goes out to her family and friends

  It’s so loud in my head why should I be quiet

  I thought I was eating the world but the world ate me, the money, the money made a monster out of me

  But the money will be gone son

  SOON

  Hey ASTONished Nation—Don’t forget to download my app! It’s free all month! Let’s get this to number one on the App Store!

  FUCK THAT LAST TWEET I been hacked

  “You weren’t hacked,” Melissa said, when she somehow got him on the line. “It’s a preset promotional tweet. Please put your phone down, I’m begging you. Aren’t you on your way?” They were all waiting in the apartment, Amadou, too, his hand resting on Floss’s pile of suitcases. Floss and Aston and Mason were scheduled to begin a trip to Bali from Teterboro in an hour. Though the network was freezing them out, Mason had agreed to finance the shooting trip himself, to the tune of twenty-one thousand dollars, in hopes that the network execs would look at the footage and remember why they used to like them.

  “Put Aston on speaker,” Floss said to Melissa now. Melissa shook her head, but she did it. “Aston, baby,” Floss purred. “I know it’s a tough time, but we need to be together right now.”

  Aston ignored her. “Is Craig there?” he said, sounding yelpy and frail.

  “Yeah, I’m here, buddy, what’s up,” Craig tittered.

  “I heard they might sue,” Aston said. “Anna’s parents.”

  Craig opened his mouth, but Melissa held up her hand. “Don’t worry about that, Aston,” she said. “That’s our job.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” Aston said. “I want to be named. As a—” There was the sound of him fumbling, checking something. “As a defendant,” he finished.

  “What do you mean, pal?” Craig covered his eyes with his hand. “The suit, um. I mean the suit probably won’t happen, but they were only talking about Floss. And Orla, I guess, because the comment came from her account.”

  “Orla wouldn’t be involved if she didn’t know Floss,” Aston said flatly. “And Floss wouldn’t be famous if she didn’t know me. So if you think about it, it’s actually all my fault.” There was the sound of rustling paper. “I called Harry.”

  “You called your accountant?” Craig dropped his hand. His eyes bugged.

  “Yes,” Aston said, a hint of pride sneaking into his wobbling voice. “Harry says I have fifty-nine million dollars.”

  “You’re worth fifty-nine million dollars,” Craig said. “It’s different.”

  “I started doing stupid shit online, and now I have fifty-nine million dollars,” Aston said dreamily. Instinctively, Orla grimaced. Her shoulders tensed and crept up toward her ears. When she looked around the room, she saw the rest of them doing it, too, as if they were hearing the first crash of thunder in a storm. “Fifty-nine million dollars,” Aston repeated. “Anna did something stupid online—one thing! And she’s dead. It isn’t right, it isn’t—”

  There was a muffled grunt, and the sound of something breaking on a wall. In 6D, everyone flinched.

  “I want them to have my money,” Aston babbled. “Her family. I’m done with it. I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it. She’s dead. Do you know what it’s like in my head? Is it not like this in all your heads?” There was a pause; Aston’s breathing sounded so childlike, Orla felt she might cry. “Fifty-nine million dollars,” Aston said. “If they won’t sue me, I’ll Venmo it to them.”

  What the fuck, Melissa mouthed at Craig. She cleared her throat. “Such a kind thought, Aston,” she said soothingly. “But we can’t be making donations to the Salgado family just now. With the legal proceedings, it might muddy—”

  Mason piped up: “Can we talk about this in person, Aston? Please. The plane is waiting.”

  “What plane?” Aston sounded annoyed.

  “Bali, babe.” Floss leaned toward the phone. She was using her sexy-baby voice, but Orla could see that she was shaking. “We need this trip so badly.”

  Aston laughed, an empty, disbelieving sound. “I’m not going to Bali,” he said. “With you?” He kept laughing. “I’m not going to fucking Bali.”

  There was the sound, on the phone, of a light, distant knock, then of Aston dropping the phone. A faraway voice, hotel-polite, asked him something. “No,” they heard Aston answer. “Everything’s not all right. A girl is dead ’cause I’m famous. And your Wi-Fi here fucking sucks.”

  * * *

  Later that day, Orla was alone in the apartment. Mason and Floss left for Bali without Aston. Craig and Melissa wandered home. Orla lay down to take a nap. Since Anna’s death, her sleeping hours had begun to almost outnumber her waking ones.

  Every once in a while, as a form of penance, she listened to one of the voice mails her phone filled up with. There was always more cunt talk, and sometimes a creative variation:
people surmising that she didn’t have a soul, or offering to rape her with a two-by-four.

  One day, the message she chose was so formal and hateless, it sounded foreign. “Orla Cadden?” said a woman, sounding befuddled, like she was reading Orla’s name off something she hadn’t seen before. “I’ve been—You sent me an email earlier this year,” the woman said. “Or rather, it was last year. It was at least a year ago. I’m sorry to be getting back to you so much later. But if you still don’t have representation, let’s set up a time to talk.” She paused. “Oh—this is Marie Jacinto. I’m a literary agent.”

  * * *

  Marie’s assistant told Orla to come in the next day at eleven. In the morning, Orla put on a pair of black ponte pants that were snugger than she remembered, despite the fact that she had barely been able to eat lately, and a freebie owl-print blouse from a hipster store that once mistook her for larger and quirkier than she was. She put on the Yankees cap.

  Outside, the air was warm, the sun beating. Orla registered for the first time that it was June, then realized, with a startled glance at the clock in the drugstore window, that it was actually almost July.

  In the wake of Anna’s death, a crowd had gathered again outside their building. People who wanted to yell at them mixed with loyal fans shouting support. After the fuss died down, the police removed the barricade for good. For the first time in nearly a year, the whole width of the sidewalk on Twenty-First Street was open. Now it looked as it had when Orla lived here without Floss.

  Today, though, Orla peeked under the curved brim of her hat and saw a woman sitting where the line used to be. She looked about fifty, and familiar. She was Latina, with woolly hair dyed brassy orange and eyes rimmed in smudged electric blue. Her soft upper arms shook slightly as she scratched at a sudoku. She had brought, Orla saw, her own chair, the kind of padded metal folding chair Gayle would have dragged to the table if they had an extra person for dinner. The woman looked up when Orla walked out of the building. She closed her book of puzzles.

  Orla had time to stop at Starbucks. Hypothetically, she wanted coffee, but she found that the thought of actually drinking it made her queasy. She was, she supposed, nervous. She stood beneath the mermaid marquee, trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, in the glass, she saw the woman from the chair. She was standing still behind her, two sidewalk squares back. Orla started walking again, heading north. She crossed Twenty-Third Street and glanced over her shoulder. The woman was still there, following her. She looked Orla right in the eye.

  Orla started to sweat. She wanted to raise her hand, hail a cab, escape, but she could see the cars jammed end to end, up to Madison Square Garden. She would have to take the subway to make her meeting on time. She sped up and crossed Eighth Avenue, headed for Seventh. The woman kept up with no effort, practically floating after her.

  Underground at Twenty-Eighth Street, the woman gave Orla space, pacing two columns down on the platform. Just before the 1 train crawled into the station, Orla stole a look at her and tried to figure out where she’d seen her before. In a flash, she saw the woman on television, sitting with her eyes cast down, a man’s arm around her shoulders as she hiccuped and broke into tears. The rest of the memory flooded to the surface, shocking Orla into dizziness. The train’s doors opened, and she forgot, until they were closing again, to step on. She pressed in just in time. The woman was already seated at the other end of the car, with her sudoku back out again. It was Mrs. Salgado. Anna’s mother.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Marlow

  New York, New York

  2051

  Marlow was still sitting in 6D, thinking of Honey and staring at the stationery with her name on it, when she heard the footsteps in the hallway, evenly pounding her way. She stood up. She watched the handle on the front door turn. Human or bot? Bot or human?

  Bot. It was Mateo, from the Archive, and Marlow sputtered indiscriminately in protest as she took a step back from it, toward the apartment’s artless window. If Mateo belonged to the Archive, how could it be all the way down here?

  And then she saw that an explanation must be on the way. Mateo was holding the door for someone.

  It was strange: she didn’t hear a single footstep before Honey Mitchell appeared—she seemed to just materialize out of stray, sparkling atoms in the apartment’s doorway. Honey just stood there for a second, taking in everything in front of her, resting her unimpressed gaze on the sofa, the stick lamp, the matted, faded rug. Somewhere in her survey—between the counters and the busted intercom, hanging off the wall near the door—she glanced at Marlow, with no more or no less interest than she had shown for any other thing using space in the room.

  Finally, Honey cleared her throat. “Let’s not be in here too long,” she said briskly. “All this grime makes me nervous.”

  As if she had spoken a command it recognized, Mateo slid its own jacket off, draping it over the seat of a bar stool. Honey climbed up carefully. Marlow watched her, watched everything that wasn’t her face. That part, she was putting off. Honey wore a crisp white blouse tucked into white riding pants and a white cashmere shawl wrapped several times around her shoulders. There was a white hat, vaguely Western with its white braided cord, cocked above the fat blond bun at the back of her head. On her hands, she wore white leather gloves; on her feet, white leather cowboy boots, perfectly unblemished. Even Marlow, who had been in New York for less than a day, understood what sort of privilege spotless shoes meant here. Above the backs of her sneakers, Marlow’s Achilles tendons were gray from the who-knew-what rising out of these streets.

  Finally, she confronted the scar. It seemed, in the room, almost pretty—a shining spot, designed to catch the light. But she knew that might be temporary. Marlow, once, in a fit of regret-tinged interest, had asked her device endless questions about scarring. She had learned that the color of scars could change, could rise and fade with the hour, could vary with emotion. That some never lost their angry hue completely. Perhaps Honey’s was only white right now because she was—and she did seem—very calm.

  “How did you know about this place?” Marlow said. She was still standing, frozen, just a few steps in front of the couch, unsure of what else to do, whether to sit. Her intruders seemed more comfortable than she did. “How did you know I was here?”

  Honey frowned at the gray spots on the fingers of her gloves marking where she had gripped the bar stool. “I knew you were in New York because everyone knows, now,” she said, sweeping one hand toward the street below. “Then I heard about your near miss being hunted at the Archive, so I had them go back through the footage to see what you were doing. They’ll do that for me, you know. I’ve been very generous.” Honey smiled at Mateo, but the bot missed the gesture. It stared politely into the distance. “I saw you in our search room, writing down this address,” Honey said. “The cameras could just make it out.”

  Marlow felt herself reddening. With all the people walking hunched and chewing ugly in New York, she had figured the city was light on surveillance. But their nonchalance, she realized now, only signified that no one cared to watch what they were doing. That didn’t mean they weren’t being filmed.

  “That’s invasive,” Marlow snapped.

  Honey laughed, a glittering cackle that filled the apartment, making it feel, just for a moment, like a place people might have once lived. Then her face turned thoughtful. She studied Marlow now, as if Marlow had just come alive, had finally become more interesting than all the dust-coated furniture. “I’m glad you think so,” she said. Then she stood and clapped her hands together. “Let’s get going, then,” she said. “I’m sure someone in Archive security has sold a tip on you being here by now.”

  Marlow had never felt so angry with herself. She had to write this address down? She couldn’t have memorized it? (No, she knew instinctively. Since the day she’d strapped on her device, she’d never had to memorize anything, and now she coul
dn’t. That part of her brain was out of shape.) Her instincts had been right: no good came of paper. She picked up the cursive letter from where it still sat on the couch, folded it awkwardly, and jammed it into her jeans pocket. “The last time I went somewhere with you,” she said to Honey, “it basically ruined my life.”

  “Didn’t turn out so hot for me, either,” Honey said. “And yet, here I am, trying to help you.” She hopped down from the bar stool and walked Marlow to the window. Below, on Eighth Avenue, people scurried, looking goal-oriented, seemingly unconcerned with Marlow’s whereabouts. But then she saw a cab pass—two, actually, in quick succession—with holograms of her face shimmering above their roofs.

  “So, to recap,” Honey said. “People already know you’re at this address. And I think you know what will happen if you try to leave on your own. My car’s around the corner, at the freight entrance. I know you don’t trust me. But I’m your only good option.”

  Marlow turned her back on the window and looked up at the ceiling, pretending to weigh her nonexistent options. She noticed then the strangest thing above their heads: running across the ceiling, just above their heads, was a row of white jagged bits, shaped like teeth, jutting downward. Sharp remnants of a wall that had been shattered, or blown away—a wall that must have once protected the couch from the sunlight that ruined it eventually.

  Honey was watching her. Marlow met her eye. “I’d feel better about this,” she said, “if you’d just tell me what you want. What your angle is.”

  Honey rolled her eyes. “You Constellation folks,” she said. “You can’t see past plot. Out here in the real world, sometimes we do things just to do them, and see what happens later.”

  Marlow remembered, suddenly, a middle-school lesson on local culture. The teacher had been going on about someplace where people ate chili on top of spaghetti—this factoid conjured blank looks, since Constellation kids had never tasted either—when a student asked the teacher what she would say Constellation had. What people did only there. Being filmed and broadcast all day to millions was the obvious reply, of course. But since the teacher couldn’t say that on-camera, she launched into a speech on the town’s architecture. Marlow had another answer, though she didn’t raise her hand to offer it. We see story, she thought, crystal clear. We see arcs everywhere. That’s what comes from living this way. That’s what’s ours.