Messy

by Cocks, Heather

  Heathcliff and Cathy could have sated their guttural yen to sup on each other’s spirits by DMing their love letters on Twitter—private passion naught but an Internet outage could intercept, thus irretrievably and detrimentally changing the course of Wuthering Heights from a searing lovelorn drama to a lukewarm revision of You’ve Got Mail. How about Jane Austen? Wayward Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, who disappeared with the sly knave Wickham, would be unable to resist making herself the mayor of Gretna Green on foursquare, and would have been dragged back to Longbourn well before dawn. And imagine the Facebook stalking between Jane and the Bingleys, or how Darcy might’ve vanished for good after Lizzie excoriated him on her Wall for his aloof prejudice and impenetrable pride. It would rend their romantic journeys into shattered oddments of a story arc. Or, take To Kill a Mockingbird: Scout would’ve had an online journal recounting her travails (much like this one, but spiced with her unique flavor of innocence), but the inevitable parody Boo Radley Twitter feeds would demystify the man and his magnetic myth! Each of these tomes would have been the poorer—a shadow, a joke—for the inclusion of these modern miracles of connectivity.

  Indeed, it causes one pause: If social media would have laid waste to the purity of our classic love stories, mutilated our morality plays, and turned starkly simple coming-of-age moments into chilly digital snapshots that couldn’t equal the warm beauty of the thousand words, then what is it doing to us—ourselves—in this very moment? In yearning to know more, are we condemning ourselves to settle for less? With our hands overflowing with technology, yoking us to the superhighway succubus, are our hearts and minds the emptier for it? Or is being able to intertwine fingers with one another from thousands of miles apart worth pouring out our souls through our laptops and not our eyes?

  Pensively,

  B.

  After a long moment, Brooke realized that her mouth was hanging open. Nobody—except maybe Arugula—used so many SAT words, sentence after sentence. In fact, that entry read like a cracked-out, pretentious parody of Arugula. Had Max totally lost her mind? What was going on with her?

  Brooke forced herself to relax her face (nothing was serious enough to court wrinkles). She and Max had been getting along fine; Brooke had even started to enjoy the friendly bantering that had grown from their bickering. The makeover she’d given her had been fantastic. And Max herself had been very helpful in keeping Brooke’s conversations with Brady on track once they’d met up the night of the concert. In fact, Max’s smoothness had probably paved the way for Brooke and Brady’s lip-lock, and that wasn’t the sort of favor you did for someone you hated. But as Brooke reread and reread this pompous entry, she couldn’t help thinking that it had been written to make her look like an idiot. To wound her.

  And it had worked. Brooke had never anticipated that Max McCormack, of all people, would turn into someone who had the capacity to hurt her. It was a very unwelcome surprise.

  “Brooke!” a voice said warmly.

  Brooke snapped her head up and saw Headmistress McCormack walking out of her office, followed by Max, who was cradling her own cell phone as if it had just been returned to her after a long confiscation (which, given what Brooke knew of Max’s disciplinary history, it probably had been). The light in Max’s eyes seemed to dim a bit when she saw Brooke’s face.

  Guilty, Brooke thought. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

  “So nice to see you being so conscientious about turning in your assignments,” Mrs. McCormack said, blithely picking up Brooke’s folder, unaware of the simmering tension between the girls. “I hope Maxine’s tutelage has been helpful.”

  “Oh, yes,” Brooke said, never taking her eyes off Max. “Max has been unbelievable.”

  Max’s eyes flickered with what Brooke would swear was defiance. “Anytime,” she said, with exaggerated sweetness. “I just hate to see a fellow student suffer from her own academic inertia.”

  So it was deliberate, Brooke realized. She knew people would think the entry was absurd.

  The two stared at each other for several awkward seconds. Brooke tried to pour a gallon of betrayal into her face, punctuated with some hurt and a little rage. Max simply wore an innocent expression that seemed to become more angelic the more Brooke allowed herself to seethe.

  I am going to kill her.

  “Well, this has been great, but I have to go,” Max said. “I’ll be late for gym. See you later, Brooke!”

  “Drop by the set later, sweetie,” Brooke replied, her eyes flashing with subtle menace. “We have so much to discuss!”

  If she wasn’t mistaken, Max looked a little scared.

  Good.

  twenty

  MAX PULLED INTO THE parking lot of the Miauhaus photo studio just off La Brea and gazed up at the ivy-covered building, fronted by a huge sign with a rotating black-and-white cat logo, so familiar to her after seeing it approximately a hundred and thirty-seven times on America’s Next Top Model.

  Remind me again what you’re doing here?!? her brain screamed.

  This was a good question. Max hated confrontation—well, okay, that wasn’t totally true. She loved confrontation when it happened in front of her, and it involved other people. But it was harder to hide behind flip remarks when the drama was her own. And as soon as Max had hit Publish on that entry in the wee hours of Monday morning, she’d known there would be consequences. The comments on it were hilarious: Some people were hailing Brooke as a florid genius, a true new-age wordsmith, but most of them were wondering if she’d fallen and cracked her head on a thesaurus. One had posted simply, “HEROIN,” in all caps, forty-three times (Max had counted twice).

  Max didn’t regret posting it one bit. After using Brady like that, Brooke deserved to take a little heat. But Max’s allergy to melodrama meant that after Monday’s accidental run-in with Brooke in her mother’s office, Max spent the subsequent two days studiously dodging her; however, today Brooke had texted Max to reiterate that she needed her at Miauhaus because Vanity Fair was doing a photo shoot for a big, splashy article about the Nancy Drew cast, and Brooke wanted her official blogographer to chronicle that milestone. It may have been a ploy to draw Max out of hiding, but Max’s lingering financial issues meant that she had to suck it up and report for duty, and stop pretending nothing had happened. And, accordingly, face whatever came at her.

  She won’t fire me. She needs me too much.

  Max pushed open the glass doors and sidled inside the cavernous white-walled building. A security guard pointed her toward a door labeled PLAYHAUS. Inside, a small snack table was set up in front of a brightly colored wall, starkly contrasting the sterile contours of the photo-shoot set—a white floor and backdrop were joined with a gentle curve instead of a right-angle corner, which Max assumed was to avoid casting strange shadows but which also made it look like a piece of paper caught in a gust of wind. Kyle and Zander were chortling and patting each other’s backs while Tad Cleary talked to a woman wearing a pencil skirt and a smart white blouse—evidently, this was the reporter, armed with a tape recorder, which would be handy later because Tad was talking so fast his face had turned purple. Several of the younger cast members, perched in tall folding director’s chairs over by a faux-brick corner that was doubling as a makeup area, were garbed in 1930s-era fashions as a nod to when the Nancy Drew book series first debuted. Brooke was nowhere to be seen, but Brick was standing just off set in track pants and a white Hanes tee, munching on trail mix and then punching the caloric information into an app on his phone. His face fell.

  “Raisins,” he said sadly to the table, throwing a handful of trail mix in the trash. “The silent killer.”

  Max decided not to go hunting for Brooke. Instead, she checked around for a low-key place to sit. The reporter was conducting interviews before the shoot, and Max wanted to see Brooke dance around questions about her blog, satisfying that dark part of her soul that thought Brooke deserved a little trial-by-fire after coasting so far on all the credit for OpenBrooke.com. A sofa near a
kelly-green wall seemed like a promising place to go unnoticed. I’ll blend and no one will see me, she thought, until she remembered she hadn’t dyed her hair back yet.

  “Hallo, there, Max. What up?”

  Of course the Brit-Boston Twit found me. The one time that green would’ve come in handy…

  “Don’t I look just ducky?” Carla asked, twirling in a canary chiffon dress with tan pumps and a matching floppy hat, plus a few strings of pearls. “This shit’s wicked pissa.”

  Pick a region and stick to it, Max wanted to yell. Instead, she said politely, “Can I help you with something?”

  Carla bit her lip, in what Max was sure was feigned concern. “Brooke is acting a bit off her trolley today,” she confided. “I asked her what ‘superhighway succubus’ meant, and she looked like she was gonna choke like the BoSox.” Carla cast Max a sly glance. “This latest entry was a little barmy.”

  “Some people are very different in writing,” Max said, hoping that would be enough to stave off whatever Carla was percolating.

  “And I heard she nailed this gig at least partially based on the blog,” Carla said, her voice lowering conspiratorially. “Can you imagine if it turned out to be codswallop?”

  “I’m sure Brooke is just overtired,” Max said firmly.

  “Right you are, darling, I’m sure,” Carla said, gazing down at Max’s notebook. “It’d be so friggin’ wack if they had to recast Nancy,” she added, unable to hide the note of hope in her ever-morphing voice.

  So that’s it. She thinks she can pounce.

  Without even bothering to answer, Max clambered off the couch and started rooting around on the snack table. This called for beef jerky.

  The photographer clapped his hands. “All cast to the set, please,” he called out. “We are a go for the round table.”

  Max tucked herself into the shadows behind the Sparkletts water dispenser and watched. Carla was trying to chat brightly to Zander about Silversun Pickups, the band du jour on his shirt. Tad was pacing rings around the guys playing Carson Drew and one of the crackheads. And then Brady appeared, in a pin-striped waistcoat as gray as his eyes. Max’s guts twisted and churned—seeing him hurt in a curiously satisfying way, like the first day you can scratch your skin again after having chicken pox. She resisted the urge to wave, instead shrinking back a bit farther into her place. He looked so dapper. So dashing. So…

  “I’m here,” Brooke said. “So sorry to keep you waiting.”

  So not into me.

  Brooke strolled onstage looking more like a 1920s flapper than a ’30s debutante, but Max wasn’t about to quibble with Vanity Fair. Her hair had been ironed out and then crimped into one of those era-specific body waves and pinned by a headband; her sparkly silver dress was short and layered with intricate vintage necklaces that played off her black Mary Janes.

  “Beautiful,” Brick crowed, walking over to give Brooke a loving hug—snap, snap, snap, went a photographer’s camera—before backing away again. Brooke smiled tentatively. She looked adorable, but a little frantic around the eyes. They seemed brighter than usual, as if they had recently been wet. Max knew her well enough at this point to see that the facade was close to cracking. Brooke took her place in one of the red plastic-and-metal chairs that had been placed in a circle just off set, and everyone filled in around her.

  “Okay, first question,” the reporter said, clicking on a tape recorder. “Brooke, were you nervous about stepping out of Brick’s shadow and into your first leading role?”

  Brooke smiled wide, as if she’d flipped a switch. “Not at all,” she said. “My father does cast a very long shadow, but he also made sure I was raised to be strong and self-assured. I am my own person, and I know that, and he knows that, and he gave me the confidence to realize that eventually, everyone else will know that, too.”

  Brick nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Nice,” Max said under her breath.

  “And your blog seems to have been a great head start in that arena.” The reporter smiled. “I was particularly intrigued by your Catcher in the Rye theory. Care to elaborate on that?”

  Brooke’s smile suddenly seemed a tiny bit stuck. “I think… it spoke for itself,” she said.

  “And how about that really intriguing piece that ran Monday, about technology?” the reporter continued.

  Brooke waited. No other question came. “What about it?” she asked.

  “It was just so impassioned.”

  “Well, you know, I was just… thinking… about connections,” she said, running a finger up and down the length of one of her necklaces. “And how, like, we miss them. Or sometimes we make them. But. You know. What are they, really?”

  Max began gnawing on a particularly nasty hangnail. Shut up, Brooke.

  “For example, um, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Rumer—”

  Brick frowned. Max screwed her eyes shut and channeled all her energies at Brooke. Wrong Willis. Wrong Willis. Wrong Willis.

  “Um, I mean, Scout, how she, you know, sees the world differently, with innocence, and…” Brooke faltered.

  Brick started tapping his feet uncomfortably, shifting his weight back and forth.

  “Also, like… it’s computers…”

  Max felt queasy. She’d thought she’d enjoy seeing Brooke on the ropes, but under the hot studio lights, with everyone’s eyes on Brooke’s slow meltdown—Carla’s were smug, Brick’s confused, the producers’ bugged out in horror—she just felt rotten. Max considered coming to Brooke’s rescue, but she couldn’t figure out how to run interference.

  In the end, it was Brady who stepped in and saved Brooke. “I thought it was a very interesting rumination on whether the quality of relationships are improved or not by the instant access we have to people’s thoughts,” he said. “Judging by the time stamp on that entry, I think Brooke may have been up too late writing it, and she’s fried.”

  “Care to comment on the YouTube video of the two of you?” the reporter asked.

  “Nope,” Brady said with a charming smile.

  “Does viral video like that, really personal stuff, change or confirm your impression of the Internet as a ‘superhighway succubus’?” the reporter pressed Brooke.

  “It—” Brooke’s hands were plucking her necklaces like guitar strings. Max was convinced she was going to break one of them. Her face sagged; she suddenly did look tired. “You know, Brady is right. I think I need a cup of coffee. My brain isn’t working properly,” Brooke said, her voice straining a bit. “Would you excuse me for a second, please?”

  And Brooke turned tail and practically sprinted off the set, straight past Max’s couch and out into the hall.

  Don’t follow her, Max’s inner voice scolded. She brought this on herself.

  But Max’s feet apparently disagreed. She slipped out of the room just as Brick was saying, “Sorry about that, Janice—all work and no cardio, eh?”

  Max assessed the hallway. The studio called Whitehaus across the way was being used, and the other space a few paces down was locked, which just left the bathroom. Max gently pushed open the door. Brooke was standing in front of the mirror, trying to redo her makeup while surreptitiously wiping her eyes.

  “Brooke?” she said, tentatively. “Brooke, I…”

  But she fell silent, unsure of what to say.

  “Oh, right, now you’re at a loss for words,” Brooke snapped, but her trembling voice lacked its usual bite.

  What could Max say? She’d done it on purpose. She’d known. “It was just one entry, Brooke. I was just playing with—”

  “Sure you were,” Brooke spat, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “And it never occurred to you that publishing it might screw me over.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Save it,” Brooke said, holding up her hand. “I may not use the word succubus in everyday conversation, but I am not an idiot. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to sabotage me.” Her lip trembled. “After all I’ve done for you, you’re
ruining everything I’ve worked so hard for.”

  “Everything you’ve—” Max cut herself off and took a steadying breath, then started again. “I am grateful for the salary,” she said. “I really am. Let’s just calm down and—”

  “Calm down?” Brooke said. “You were in there just now. I was terrible. This is a mess. And it’s all your fault.”

  “Whoa,” Max said. “Hold on here. None of this is all my fault.”

  “I never should have trusted you,” Brooke continued, as if Max weren’t even there. “All you ever did was sit in the corner and say rude things under your breath about me and my friends, and I should have seen this coming.”

  “Seen what coming, Brooke?” Max said. “That this whole giant lie might blow up in your face?”

  “Let’s cut the crap,” Brooke said, glaring at Max in the mirror. “I know exactly what this is about. Or rather, who.”

  “Stop it, Brooke, I—”

  Brooke unscrewed a mascara tube. “No. I want to hear you say it,” she said, jabbing the wand in Max’s direction like a sword. “You want Brady, and you’re mad I got him.”

  “Brooke—”

  “Say it.”

  “Fine!” Max threw up her hands. “Yes. I like him. And watching you two make out was horrible.”

  “I knew it!” Brooke said. “I asked you a million times if you wanted him, and you said no, and you helped me. I’m not a mind reader, Max.”

  “It didn’t take a mind reader,” Max said. “You and Molly figured it out before I even did.” She ran her hands through her hair and tugged hard at the ends, letting out a frustrated breath. “Besides, what could I have done? If I’d said yes, you would have made fun of me and then tried to fake-date him anyway.”

  Brooke made an aggrieved face. “Okay, that is such a lame excuse. First of all, I am not that big of a bitch, and second of all, it’s not my responsibility to make you suck it up and admit how you feel.”

  Max knew this particular comment held at least a grain of truth. She chose to ignore it.