by S. J. Maher
“Hi,” he says.
“Come on in, honey,” says Macy. “This here is Crystal. She’s going to show you a good time.”
I smile at him. He smiles at me and steps inside.
“Isn’t she pretty?” says Macy. “She gonna take care of you.”
“Hi, Crystal,” he says. “She’s right. You are pretty.”
He is laughing nervously.
I reach out and shake his hand.
“Hi,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” says Macy. “I just need the fee.”
Bruce gives her some folded bills, which she counts.
“You kids have fun,” she says as she leaves. Then she’s gone.
Bruce sits down on the bed and grins at me.
“You’re just so beautiful,” he says.
He spreads his legs and rubs the front of his pants. Oh God. This is not happening. He is smiling at me in anticipation. He is so stupid, I can tell. And poor. His teeth are yellow and he smells of stale cigarettes. I can’t do this. No way.
I get up from the chair and look out the window. There’s a blue Ford truck sitting there that wasn’t there when we came in. It’s a semi, the cab of an eighteen-wheeler. He’s a trucker. Of course.
I turn to Bruce.
“Pennsylvania ZBC 2977,” I say.
He looks back at me.
“That’s my license plate,” he says.
“That’s what I’ll tell the cops. And they can use that to find your real name.”
He blinks at me blankly, swallows.
“Sorry, Bruce. I don’t do this. I’m not a hooker. There’s a big pimp in the next room trying to force me to do it. It’s human trafficking and it’s illegal. I could go to the cops but I don’t want to. I just want to get away. So you’re going to sit here for fifteen minutes, give me a head start.”
He blinks repeatedly. He can’t understand what’s going on.
“But I paid,” he says.
“You can ask them for the money back after I’m gone. I don’t care. But I’m not sucking your dick, and if you don’t give me fifteen minutes I’m going to the police and telling them to track down the guy who owns a blue Ford, license plate ZBC 2977.”
He swallows.
“Bruce, if you like, we could just call the police,” I say. “Would you rather we do that?”
He swivels his head around, opens and closes his mouth.
“This is a scam,” he says. “You and that black lady are ripping me off. Give me my $30 back.”
“Look, Bruce. There’s a great big guy in the next room named Chris who was choking me half an hour ago. I am afraid he’ll kick the shit out of me. Please help me. Just give me a head start.”
I realize I can give him $30. I dig into my purse and find some bills.
“Here,” I say. “There’s your money back. Just please sit here for a few minutes.”
He takes the money and frowns. The situation obviously requires more thinking than he’s capable of. He may have some mild handicap.
I stand and go to the door.
“Please, Bruce,” I say. “Just give me fifteen minutes. Please.”
I open the door and look at him, pleading with my eyes.
“Please.”
56
After Jess and I finished our lunch, and I finally popped an Ambien, I went uptown, where I sat out in front of her office building. I wanted to see if anyone was going in to meet her there. Wayne, actually. I got a seat outside a café across the street, ordered a glass of wine, and went through the tasks she’d assigned me.
I emailed Lenora, who quickly let me know she hadn’t ever planned on including the name of my company.
She also told me she had talked to a friend—Wendy—a producer for CNN, who really wanted to talk to me. Lenora vouched for her. I emailed her. She suggested a drink at four at Bemelmans.
Then I emailed Declan, who, it turned out, would be delighted to meet me for dinner Saturday.
I can’t believe what’s been going on in your life, he emailed. I hope you’re okay.
Not really, I replied. Fair warning.
My wine was done. There was no sign of Wayne. I ordered another glass and kind of blanked out, watching people walk by, letting my mind wander.
I checked my phone when I was getting ready to leave. I had an email.
From: Wayne Timmons
To: Candace Walker
Date: 3:45 p.m., June 22, 2018
Subject: Did you like them though?
I don’t really understand what you mean, Candace. What’s going on?
I realized it was a reply to an email I had sent him.
From: Candace Walker
To: Wayne Timmons
Date: 3:33 p.m., June 22, 2018
Subject: Did you like them though?
The pics.
What? What was he talking about?
Oh my God. My phone buzzed in my hand. I had a fresh text.
Ha ha. U dum.
It hadn’t occurred to me that someone could hack my email the same way that they’d hacked my social accounts. What must Wayne be thinking? What if he was with Jess? He would show her. This was catastrophic. But I didn’t have time to fret about it.
I quickly sent a reply.
From: Candace Walker
To: Wayne Timmons
Date: 3:48 p.m., June 22, 2018
Subject: Did you like them though?
I didn’t send this. Sorry. My email’s been hacked.
I shut down my phone and went to meet Wendy from CNN. I would deal with my email security later.
She was waiting for me at a quiet table under one of the famous murals, wearing a big smile. She was Chinese American, corporate stylish, a bit nerdy, with a Donna Karan handbag but inexpensive walking shoes.
She waved when she saw me, gave me a friendly hug, got the waitress to bring me a glass of wine.
She told me, quickly but carefully, about her career, which seemed to revolve mostly around her ability to convince people to go on television and then make sure they performed as expected and didn’t get exploited by the network.
She told several stories about the little ways she looks out for interview subjects, telling her senior producers to back off if necessary. I don’t think I have ever met anyone more solicitous or sensitive than Wendy.
Then she got me talking.
She was so easy to talk to. She seemed to know exactly how I felt about everything that happened, empathizing with me, probing me with gentle questions, which spared me having to explain, at painful length, what it was like to have everybody I knew see a picture of me with a penis in my mouth. I found myself opening to her, trusting her.
She gave every impression of being ready and willing to put me on TV.
I was sold. I was also running out of time.
“So do you want to interview me?”
“I think so. If you can handle the exposure. It should be overwhelmingly positive. What happened to you is a huge cautionary tale. It would be great TV.”
“Would you show the pictures?”
“Maybe, but blurred versions, to give people the idea of what they were. It’s a lot better to show people things than tell them things in the TV business.”
“I don’t want people to think I’m manipulating this for my benefit.”
“They won’t think that. That’s not what we’ll tell them. They’ll think, ‘Oh that poor girl.’ That would be the script.”
I looked at her dubiously.
“Seriously. This is what I do. This is who I am. I’m kind of a mess as a person. Single at fifty-two. No kids. No cats. Drink too much. Don’t have any real hobbies. Neglect my friends. But I know TV. And I know that what we have here is a simple, classic story. Nice girl gets the shaft.”
“Then what happens to the nice girl?”
“That would be your story to write. This would allow you to make your story your own. Right now, it’s a story about a girl who m
ight have been hacked or might have posted dirty pictures of herself. Even the Pandora story won’t completely change that. A TV story would. It would make you the cute redhead who got hacked.”
“Do I want to be that girl? I kind of want to be the cute redhead getting ahead in the exciting world of social media.”
Wendy gave me a sad smile.
“I know,” she said. “It’s terrible. Maybe you can be that girl again someday. But I have to tell you, that’s not who you are right now.”
I knew she was right.
I told her I’d think about it and then I got on the subway and went home to change my Gmail password. As I did it, I realized that my old password was the same as my old Twitter password. Maybe this would end it, I thought, and then I had a big glass of wine.
57
I leave Bruce looking confused and head for the highway. I walk quickly past another terrible-looking motel, past a vacant lot. I can’t see I-81 but I can hear the trucks going by. My heart is pounding. I am exhausted and terrified and a little drunk. I need to get away from Scranton.
It isn’t going to happen, I realize, when a black SUV pulls up beside me. The passenger-side window rolls down and I can see Chris in the driver’s seat. Fuck. He must have been sitting in the parking lot, waiting for me to run.
“Get in,” he says. “We need to talk.”
I’m walking past a Hyundai dealership. There are woods behind. I could run into them. I can’t let Chris get his hands on me again.
I’m turning when he shouts out.
“Candace! You need to stop fucking around right now.”
I stop. How does he know my name? I’m fucked. If he calls the police, they’ll have me within the hour. I feel like crying.
I give up. I stand there, staring at him. I’m trapped.
“I don’t want you to choke me again.”
He smiles.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t. Get in. You’re in a lot of trouble and I can get you out of it.”
“Promise. No choking.”
He smiles, then laughs and for a second he looks almost kind. He leans over and opens the passenger door.
“I promise. No choking. Get your ass in here.”
I get in and he drives back to the motel.
“I’m serious about the choking. I can’t take it.”
“Just wait. We’ll talk in the room.”
I follow him meekly back to the room. I’m acting like a child.
“Where’s Macy?” I ask.
“She’s in the other room calming Bruce down, sucking him off,” he says, closing the door. “At least I hope so.”
“I gave him his thirty dollars back,” I say.
I sit down on the chair. He sits on the bed and stares at me.
“I realized while you two were in there,” he says. “I remembered the story about the Hipster Killer.”
He holds up his phone.
“I don’t know why you didn’t want to suck a dick, girl,” he says. “I know you know how to do it.”
He turns the phone to show me the picture of me with JFXBF in my mouth.
58
On Saturday morning, I slept late, then met Beatrice at a patio near her place in Flatbush, and we had kimchi tofu tacos and beer and watched people walk by for a while.
She made a big deal of showing me her latest needlepoint.
“Whoa,” I said, freaked out. It was the topless picture of me, half rendered in thread or wool or whatever.
“You like it?” she asked.
She looked at me intently, watching for my reaction.
I didn’t like it. It was stolen. It represented misery and suffering.
“It . . . I don’t know.”
“I thought I might use it as the motif for my show. It says so much about how women are exploited by the use of their objectified bodies.”
“But it’s different from the other pieces. Those women were paid to do what they did. This was stolen.”
“I know! That’s what makes it perfect. It makes that link to exploitation.”
“I don’t know. It makes me uneasy.”
“Okay,” she said, putting it back in her purse. “We’ll talk about it again before the show. Do you have any better idea of who did this to you?”
I told her the convoluted story of how my life was continuing to go off the rails, leaving me in a state of perpetual confusion.
“I have a short list of suspects,” I said. “Alvin. Declan. Kevin. Maybe you can help me make is shorter. How well do you know Kevin?”
“Pretty well. He used to do tech stuff for the phone sex company Rudy worked for.”
“Wow. I didn’t know she did phone sex.”
“They.”
Her face got hard.
“Right. Sorry. They. I guess I was thinking of her as a woman because it was before she transitioned, back when she was Liz.”
“Don’t deadname them. They were never a woman, not really.”
“I know. Sorry. It’s hard. I’m used to calling everyone he or she. If I have to start calling some people they or it, I get mixed up.”
“It?” said Beatrice. “Tell me you didn’t just call Rudy it.”
Her upper lip was a thin line. She was angry, struggling to hide it.
“No,” I said. “Whatever. A new pronoun. I’m sorry. Bad choice of words.”
I changed the subject.
“So could Kevin be the one fucking with me? If he wanted to, he would know how.”
“No. Now that I think about it, he’s not the type,” said Beatrice. She looked as if she wanted to explain, but shrugged.
“He seems like a creeper.”
“I don’t see him that way,” she said. “I like him. He lives around the corner from us and comes by for beers sometimes. He’s kind of nerdy but nice. He’s never been creepy with me.”
I felt kind of hurt that she discounted my experience of Kevin.
“Creepers aren’t creepers with everyone all the time,” I said.
I thought, but didn’t say, Well, he wouldn’t necessarily be creepy with you, Beatrice, because you’re kind of a big girl, so you might not be the best one to judge whether he’s a creeper or not.
“He has his own theory,” Beatrice said.
“He does? He hasn’t shared it with me.”
“You went to Sandy Hook, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Did you know Adam Lanza?”
“We were in the same class in elementary, but no. Not really.”
“Kevin wondered if this hacking could be linked to Sandy Hook.”
That didn’t make any sense. I was at NYU when it happened. It was a big awful thing, terrible for Mom, but I wasn’t part of it.
“I don’t see how it could,” I said.
“I don’t know either. But Kevin thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy. He thinks the shooting didn’t happen. Maybe the government’s trying to mess with you because of something you know, maybe something you don’t know that you know.”
I was about to tell her how dumb that was, but she looked at her phone, said, “Oh my God, I’m superlate to meet Rudy,” then gave me a perfunctory hug and ran off.
I went home and had a postbrunch nap. I was woken up by a call from Mom. I let her go to voice mail, but she hung up and called again, so I picked up.
She couldn’t understand how any of this could have happened. It likely didn’t help that Susan Pennyman, a neighbor, had shown the pictures to her mother, who had commiserated with Mom, no doubt reveling in the opportunity to rub her face in it.
Susan is dumb as a post, but somehow managed to marry a doctor and pop out a couple of babies, and I’m sure her mother loves reminding my mother of how smoothly Susan’s life is going.
Mom hadn’t seen the pictures, thank goodness, and Jess had patiently explained to her several times that someone had somehow stolen them, but she kept asking me how it could happen.
“But these are sex pictures,”
she said.
“They were stolen from my phone, and the awful part is that I don’t know who took them. But Jess and I are hoping to figure it out.”
“But how could they get them?” she asked.
“Mom, are you crying?”
“I’m not,” she said, but I knew she was.
That made me cry. I felt so frustrated, the two of us silently crying, connected by phone in mutual misery. This was not helping me get my life together.
“I don’t see how somebody could steal them,” she said. “I mean, how?”
“It’s phishing. With a P-H instead of an F. They got me to click a link and I downloaded a Trojan horse or something and they took over my phone. It’s a hacker. It’s what they do.”
She went silent and started crying again.
“But the picture,” she said. “That was on your phone?”
I realized that what she really wanted to know was how I could have taken such photos. She didn’t understand, and I couldn’t explain. Or she did understand and was upset that I had shamed her. Unlike Jess, who had a career Mom could brag about, or Susan Pennyman, who was raising a doctor’s babies, I had brought her embarrassment, humiliation.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now,” I said. “I’m superupset with myself. It’s probably the second-worst thing that has ever happened to me. But it’s too late. It’s done. I just have to keep on going somehow, get past it.”
“But people will see these for the rest of your life. Anybody who wants to can see you . . . I don’t know. Jess says I shouldn’t look at them but I wonder if I would feel better if I saw them.”
“Mom, please, you’re not helping. Do not look at them. I promise you it won’t help.”
“I still think you should come back here for a while. Take a little break, give yourself a breather. I’m worried about you.”
“Mom, I can’t run away from my problems.”
“What are you going to do now? If you lose this job, how will you pay your rent?”
“I’ll figure it out somehow. I always have. I’m not going to give up and move home.”
“Look, Candace. I haven’t told you, and you need to know, that I’m not going to be able to help you financially. I can’t. Your father worked hard, and invested, but the market . . .”
“Mom, don’t cry. It’s not helping. Really not.”