by S. J. Maher
I was like that. Now I will be different.
* * *
I finally stop the car at the Watertown Walmart and go inside.
I will make sure my future is not like the lives of the people here. Everybody looks as though they could benefit from some dentistry and a makeover.
That would be a good reality show. White Trash Makeover.
It’s weird. All my life I’ve associated poverty with black people and other minorities. Here in Watertown, everyone is white and they have the same horizon-dimmed matter-of-fact fatalism that I associate with poor minorities. Like, their lives are awful enough that they can’t afford to care too much what some fool like me thinks of them. They look at me, if at all, with undisguised longing. I am obviously a creature from another strata, a pretty blonde in nice clothes. They want to be me, to have what I have, and don’t even have the self-respect to resent me.
Everyone’s skin is pasty. Nobody has nice clothes. All the vehicles need replacing. I don’t know what happened here, but it looks like the town’s industry shut down and everybody who could got out.
Before I do my shopping, I decide to have my first Big Mac in three years. I’m standing in line in front of an awful family. The mother is haggard, with stringy bleached hair. She’s wearing sweatpants and a sports bra, so that everybody can enjoy looking at her flabby gray belly. Her waist-high son is bent over a tablet, playing some game that produces explosion noises. His little sister is hanging off her mom. Mom is looking at her phone.
When I get my horrible lunch, I grab a table and sink my teeth into the delicious, disgusting Big Mac. The gross family sits next to me. The noise from the kid’s tablet is intensely irritating to me. He can barely look up from his screen to stuff his face with chicken nuggets. Mom ignores him and looks at her phone while she stuffs a burger into her mouth. The daughter, who for some reason doesn’t have a tablet, starts to whine when she takes the first bite of her burger.
“They put ketchup on it,” she whines. “I can’t eat it.”
The mother ignores her at first, her head bent over her phone. When the kid keeps whining, she pays her no mind. Then the little girl, a homely little thing, tugs at her mother’s sleeve and her mother smacks her, without looking at her. The girl starts to quietly cry. The mother doesn’t comfort her, just keeps jamming her burger into her face.
I feel like crying just watching and start thinking about the girl’s grim prospects. Her mother’s horrible man will abuse her as soon as she hits puberty. Mom will pretend she doesn’t know it’s happening because she needs the guy around. The kid will resent her mother for denying the truth of what’s happening and take off with the first local mouth breather who offers her a way out. I can see her life stretched out in front of her, and it kills my appetite. I decide to dump half my disgusting lunch and finish my shopping.
If I had energy to spare for political feelings, which I don’t, this kind of place would make me a socialist. If that little girl is going to go be abused and neglected, why does she have to have bad teeth and a shitty Walmart wardrobe, instead of growing up like I did, with nice cars and clothes and dentistry and soccer and music lessons and sailing camp?
But anytime I think about that kind of political question long enough I realize that I just don’t care enough to be a socialist. The fact is that I don’t like the little brats whining and mewling behind their white trash mothers at the Watertown Walmart, and I can understand why nobody who isn’t related to them by blood could be bothered to do anything for them. Let them vote for Trump and commit acts of incest in their trailers. I don’t care.
Anyway, I find what I need: a black bikini, a pair of denim shorts, a little tool kit, a compass, and a GPS.
My getaway stash is now $580. Not bad.
Then I drive around the outskirts of Watertown for an hour or so, which is depressing.
I’m looking for a big, sad-looking used car lot. I find one. Jason’s Used Cars and Trucks. It’s in the woods. I drive to the back of the lot. I sit there for a while, keeping my eyes on the crappy little trailer with the sign on it where the salesmen must wait for impoverished customers to rip off. Nobody comes out. They must be gone for the day.
Eventually, I get out with my little tool kit and crouch behind the Ford Focus next to me. I use the little wrench to take off its license plate, then scoot around to the front and take that one off, too. I am out of sight of the office so long as I stay low.
Next, I go to a Hyundai parked a few spots away and remove its plates. I replace them with the plates from the Ford, put the Hyundai plates on my Canadian Volvo and put the Ontario plates in the trunk.
Then I crawl into the backseat and collapse and sleep until dawn.
74
“Ten thousand dollars,” said Jess in the elevator. “They want to give you ten thousand dollars. That’s nothing.”
“Fuck,” I said. “That’s not good, is it?”
“That’s what an intern gets if the boss hurts her feelings. And, of course, it includes an NDA.”
“Which means I can’t talk about my experience.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“It doesn’t sound like you think I should take it.”
The elevator door opened and she marched out.
“I think you have to take it.”
I stopped in the lobby.
“What do you mean? It’s a terrible deal.”
She stared at me.
“Terrible compared to what? Compared to getting nothing? Leaving them free to say whatever they want about you in court documents?”
She checked her phone.
“Where’s Wayne?” she said. “He is supposed to meet us now. He’s sort of our inside man.”
She tapped on her phone.
“I’m going to get him to meet us on the subway,” she said. “I have to get uptown for a meeting.”
I followed her to the corner and down into the subway. We descended, went through the turnstile, descended again, and found him, sitting on a wooden bench on the platform.
He rose and kissed Jess on the cheek. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
He gave me a hug. I sat down next to him. Jess stood in front of us.
“So,” said Jess. “Anything to report?”
“I am no longer employed by SoSol,” he said. “They must know I’m your spy. I went in this morning, then Beatrice came in and said Rebecca wanted to see me. She said thanks for my work for SoSol but they were reorganizing. There was a security guard there.”
“Shit,” said Jess. “I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything?”
“I saw Kevin in the lobby. He seemed upset and was kind of venting. He didn’t know I’d been let go. He told me that he heard Alvin blamed Craig for the Pandora article and, well, hiring you. Apparently Rebecca wanted to hire Beatrice. Craig pushed for you. Rebecca thought you were trouble and Craig kept sticking up for you.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. He shrugged, as if to say, I did what I could.
“BT dubs, great article in Pandora,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Are they going to put it back up?” he asked.
“What?” I said.
“They just pulled it down a few minutes ago.”
I checked my phone. There was an email from Lenora. Lawyers’ orders. Story was down, at least for now. She had follow-up questions about my SocialBeast account. SoSol was saying they could show login records connected with all the posts. She said Pandora’s lawyers were considering posting a retraction and apology. It was really important to get back to her.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“They made a settlement offer,” Jess told Wayne. “They say they can prove that nobody at SoSol had anything to do with posting the pictures. Their lawyer was so confident.”
“Wow,” said Wayne. “That’s not how you hoped it would go.”
Jess turned to me.
“Look,” she said. “Is there anything you haven’t told me?
What happened to your old phone?”
“I only have one phone,” I said. “I don’t know what they are talking about.”
“What’s SocialBeast? That threw me for a loop.”
“SocialBeast is a social media management app. I use it to send out scheduled tweets and Instagram and Facebook postings.”
Jess turned to Wayne.
“They had some kind of high-tech guy there. He went through the phone, discovered that all the nasty pictures were posted by Candace’s own SocialBeast account.”
“Hm,” said Wayne.
“The clear implication was that Candace basically did it herself,” said Jess. “From her other phone.”
“Which I don’t have.”
I couldn’t believe what Jess was saying, or how she was saying it. A terrible old feeling came back to me.
“You don’t believe that,” I said.
She looked away.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” she said.
“It matters to me. You’re my sister.”
75
I wake up, confused and cramped in the back of the Volvo at dawn.
I pee behind the car, have a drink of water, and change into my new black bikini, denim shorts, and one of Jess’s T-shirts and head to Clayton, north of Watertown, on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River.
It’s pretty, a faded resort town with big clapboard houses on tree-lined streets.
There obviously is no money now, but there once was, likely before people could get on airplanes and go to far-off places on their vacations, and the best they could do was sit in some cabin on a riverbank. Whatever. Back when they had money they built nice buildings and are obviously trying their best to maintain them.
It gives the place a rough charm. There are a lot of flags and red, white, and blue bunting on many of the houses. It’s like a forgotten small town America left over from the days when Jimmy Stewart was a movie star.
I find the library and spend a few minutes looking at maps, plotting my escape.
Then I go online and check for news on the hunt for the Hipster Killer. The New York Post has a short item about Douchebro’s car being found in Scranton, and there’s a story in the Scranton paper, but otherwise there is nothing. There won’t be until someone finds Chris and Macy, or Simon and Karine, but I hope to be far away by then.
I sign into Linda Wainwright’s Facebook account.
Yes! Irene has replied.
She blathers on about how upsetting the whole thing is before getting to the point.
My goodness, Linda, I can’t imagine that I would have any information that could help with this but I’d be happy to meet with you. I listened to the recordings again and they don’t seem to have any clues, but I’ll play them for you if you like.
I actually laugh out loud with delight in the library and leave with a spring in my step.
I walk down to the riverfront, where there are marinas and restaurants. It’s cheerful, with gulls making their gull noises and the sun sparkling on the Saint Lawrence.
I get a coffee and walk down to the Antique Boat Museum and watch some kids out sailing little Optimist dinghies, the same kind of boat I used to sail at summer camp.
It seems like a good omen. I feel pretty good. Ready for the end.
76
When Jess wouldn’t say whether she believed me or not, I suddenly realized that I was in danger of being seen forever, by everyone, as a whorish attention-seeking freak.
She wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. She was looking at her phone, and at the tracks, watching for her train.
“Fuck,” she said. “I’m going to be in trouble if I miss this meeting.”
I stood up from the bench and said her name.
“Jess. Jess.”
She finally looked at me.
“Jess, you have to believe me. Somebody has done this to me. I don’t know how they did it, but they did. And it’s destroying my life.”
I raised my voice over the low rumble of an oncoming train.
“It is going to destroy my life! You have to believe me.”
Wayne stood and went to Jess’s side. He looked rattled.
“I do believe you,” said Jess. “I believe you have been completely honest with me, but I think we have to consider whether you’re right about everything. It’s possible that you’re confused or mistaken about some things. You need to take a time-out.”
Her face changed.
“I got an email this morning from a lawyer, Reginald Parker. He’s representing Jeff. Says that you caused a scene at Chimmi’s last night, after you left my place. They want a restraining order.”
“That’s total bullshit,” I said. “That’s not what happened.”
“Minnow, I checked the Uber. You went there after you left my place.”
I took a step back. I couldn’t believe this.
“You think I’m crazy,” I said. “Oh God.”
“I think you should likely get a different lawyer,” she said. “This is not ideal. I can find someone else for you.”
“I have to decide today whether to take the offer. I don’t have time to get a new lawyer.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at me the way someone looks at a not-very-intelligent child.
“Minnow, you have to take it,” she said. “You have to take the money and go home and stay with Mom for a little while and see a doctor. I think you need help. If I’m wrong, the doctor will figure that out. If I’m right, it’s really important that you get help.”
Wayne was standing there nodding, agreeing with every brilliant word out of her mouth.
“No!” I shouted at her. “No way!”
My rage was incandescent.
I had to shout over the sound of the approaching train. Its imminent arrival and Jess’s imminent departure made my message more urgent.
“I’m not crazy!” I shouted. “I’ve been sexually harassed! I’m going to go on CNN! I’m not going to let them get away with this.”
Wayne looked at me like I was nuts. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Jess shook her head.
“You’re not going to do that,” she said. “You’ll look crazy. That producer, Wendy, emailed me today. I told her that the interview might no longer be helpful to you.”
Jess was sabotaging me. She was working against me. It was clear. I had always been prettier than her, not as good at school and a career, because I didn’t work like a drudge, but people always liked me better. I could see how it ate at her, constantly, for years, and when I was having a crisis, she was conspiring with the people trying to bring me low. I stood there, assessing her, seeing her clearly for the first time, and it was breaking my heart. I was greatly reduced and she was okay with that.
She looked up the track and then at Wayne. I could see that she was just thinking about ditching me and moving on with her awesome, much more functional life.
The sound of the train was getting louder. It wasn’t slowing down. It was going express. It wasn’t going to stop.
Jess turned to give me a condescending smile. She shook her head.
“Oh, Minnow,” she said. “It’s going to be okay. You just need some help.”
She reached out to put her hand on my shoulder, to give me the kind of reassuring pat that you give a toddler.
It was too much. I angrily swept my arm up to push her hand off my shoulder.
I swung too hard, though, it knocked her off balance, and she took a step backward. She was suddenly teetering on the edge of the platform, arms outstretched, her beady eyes bugged out. Wayne and I both stepped forward to grab her, we bumped into each other, and the train was suddenly there and they were falling in front of it. I reached for them, tried to pull them back, but it was too late, they fell, and the train swept them from my view.
77
I take off my T-shirt on the way to Irene’s house on the outskirts of Clayton.
It feels great to drive alon
g with the window down, feeling the sun on my body. I look great in a bikini top.
Irene’s house is set back from the road behind a lovely row of old maples and a big, well-kept yard. She has a Trump sign on her front lawn.
It’s a white clapboard two-story with green trim, and the front seems to be the back, which must mean it was built long ago, when houses faced the river, not the road.
There’s a garage next to the house. An old Volvo station wagon is parked there, which ought to mean she’s home.
She must have heard the car in the driveway, because she comes to the door, a gray-haired woman in jeans, running shoes, and a faded cotton blouse, looking sort of fretful behind the screen.
Here goes nothing.
I get out of the car and give her a big smile and wave.
“Hi!” I say. “Irene?”
“Yes?” she says, trying to place me.
She looks older and more befuddled than I expected.
“Hi!” I step away from the car. “It’s Linda, your friend from Facebook.”
For a moment I think she isn’t going to buy it, but then she smiles.
“Of course,” she says.
“Did you get my message? I just sent it this morning. I was driving up to Boston and thought I’d stop in.”
“I didn’t,” she says. “But that doesn’t matter. Why don’t you come in?”
I let out a huge sigh of relief.
My plan works. She knows a young blonde in a bikini on the internet. I don’t really look very much like Linda Wainwright, but I am a young blonde in a bikini and Irene assumes I am who I say I am.
Her kitchen is homey and kind of sad, spick-and-span and faded. It smells like honey and ginger.
“Would you like to see my little business?” she asks.
Would I ever!
The world headquarters of Cheese of the Month Club is in a little room that must have once been a den. There’s a big fridge containing many different packages of carefully labeled cheeses, a shelf covered in special shipping envelopes, and a desk with a computer.