Internet Famous

by Danika Stone

  “Madi!” He waved enthusiastically. “I thought I’d missed you!”

  Madi waded into the milling crowd, Laurent immediately disappearing as she was caught in an ocean of strangers. This was what Madi hated about her height. She stood on tiptoe to peek over the sea of shoulders until she caught sight of Laurent again. He was grinning as he headed straight toward her. Madi pushed her way through the final knot, catching herself against Laurent’s chest.

  “You’re here,” he said, and leaned down to pull her into a hug.

  “The train was late, and I—wait! Whoa! Oh my God, what’re you doing?!”

  Madi cackled with high-pitched laughter as Laurent lifted her into his arms. He held her up against his chest in a way that reminded her of the water-jumping pose from Dirty Dancing. It was awesome and silly, and she couldn’t quite believe it. Her giggles faded as he let her slide from chest height, to face-to-face. Like some scene from a movie, Madi thought. Only thing he missed was—

  Laurent leaned in and kissed her.

  The crowd disappeared. Sounds faded. Time stopped. Madi wrapped her arms around his shoulders, feeling his mouth wander over hers, his hands holding her up as if she were a feather. Finally, he broke the kiss and set her down and brushed his hands over her shoulders. She beamed up at him.

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “You need a hand with your bag?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, blushing. (Was everyone watching them? It felt like they were.) “It’s only an overnight bag.”

  “Ready to go?”

  “First I need to text my dad.”

  “You sure I can’t hold that for you?” Laurent asked. “I want to help.”

  “I’m good,” she said, shifting her bag to the other shoulder. “Just give me a sec.” She fought her phone from her pocket and typed in a quick text one-handed.

  made it safe to ny. laurent’s here. bye!

  Thanks. And make sure you get your work done, Madi. This is important.

  i know, dad

  Call me if you need anything.

  I will. bye!

  Text Lisa to let her know you’re there.

  got it

  Her phone’s screen pulsed with another reply, and Madi groaned. (Leave it to her father to become a mother hen at the worst possible second.)

  And given your company, I’d prefer you did your homework first, and had fun with Laurent second.

  A wave of heat rose up Madi’s neck, and she tucked her phone away. She felt it buzz again but didn’t answer it.

  “Everything okay?” Laurent asked.

  Madi reached out and took his hand. “Perfect.”

  “I thought we’d start with coffee.” He glanced over in concern. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “It’d be better than all right. It’d be awesome.”

  And with coffee on her mind, a pack on her shoulders, and Laurent at her side, Madi’s New York adventure began.

  *   *   *

  Madi sat at the table in the coffee shop, her phone beside her, as she tried to connect to the MadLibs site with the free Wi-Fi. The café was smaller than she’d expected from Laurent’s Snapsed pics, but cozy. Warm wood counters met exposed brick walls. Jazz played on the sound system.

  On the other side of the shop, Laurent waited at the counter. When Madi’s phone finally connected, she looked up and caught him watching her.

  Just a second, he mouthed.

  Madi nodded, her gaze drifting over him. If her entire life had turned into an ’80s movie, Laurent was doing his best to play the part of the romantic lead. He towered half a head above the tallest guy in the coffee shop, and when he flicked his hair, he looked like a model from a shampoo ad. Well, if he’s going for the heartthrob role, he certainly looks the part.

  Madi grinned and looked back down at her phone. MadLibs was taking forever to load.

  “My firstborn child for decent Wi-Fi,” she groaned.

  Before her eyes, the page’s URL abruptly changed. Madi blinked in confusion, then hit BACK. The MadLibs site began loading, and then, a second time, the page launched to a secondary site. She glanced up at the html address bar, double-checking that she’d typed it in correctly. MadLibs. It bounced a third time. Confused, she watched as a series of lurid images appeared and a man’s nude body flashed on-screen.

  “What the hell?”

  Behind her, someone snickered. She swiveled to see a young man sitting at a table by the door, his hand over his mouth as he laughed down at his phone’s screen. With jet-black hair that hung in his eyes and an oversized hoodie, his face was nearly invisible. Madi’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down as three more images—each more lewd than the next—appeared on the piggybacked site.

  “Oh shit!”

  This time the teen’s chuckling was distinct. Her chin jerked up. Who the hell is that?! She slid her chair away from the table. Could he be the troll?! The thought was so bizarre—so completely out of the blue—that Madi couldn’t breathe. She stared at the nameless boy, but his gaze was on his phone. He began to cackle.

  “Who in the world…?”

  It was the troll, Madi realized. It had to be! And she needed to call the police. Heart thudding, she imagined what she’d say. There was a troll attacking her. He’d followed her to New York. He wanted to screw up her life—her real life! That’d mean hours of questions, her father involved. No time to spend with Laurent.

  Forced to consider her options, doubt needled its way into Madi’s certainty. What was her proof that this was the troll, other than a gut feeling that the kid in the hoodie was someone she knew? That he’d hijacked her site? It sounded crazy. Maybe it was. She squinted, trying to get a good look at the boy’s face. There was something unnervingly familiar about him.

  The hallway of Millburn Academy flashed to mind. The day I picked Sarah up, I saw a black-haired kid who—

  “It’s Gavin!” Madi rose shakily to her feet. She needed to find out for sure.

  Before she’d taken two steps, the black-haired teen abruptly stood and stalked out the door, leaving her standing alone. Madi’s hands trembled around her phone as she stared after him walking down the street. From the side, he looked far less like Gavin than he had before. Maybe it hadn’t been him after all.

  “Everything okay?” Laurent asked.

  Madi squeaked and sat back down in her chair, flipping her phone—and the hacked site—facedown on the tabletop. Her face burned as she held the POWER button down, waiting for the phone to turn off. How much had Laurent seen? When she got to her aunt Lisa’s, she needed to check the site’s security settings and figure out who was hijacking her MadLibs URL. With a few tweaks, she should be able to block any outside attack.

  “Madi…?”

  “Everything’s fine,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Just having some trouble with the MadLibs site. That’s all.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “Not really. It’s fine. I’ll fix it tonight.” She glanced out the windows of the café. The teen was gone.

  “Ah.” Laurent set a cup in front of her. A waft of coffee rose to her nostrils, and she took a deep breath, the phone momentarily forgotten. “This is for you.”

  Madi forced away her anxiety over the black-haired stranger. Think about that later. She looked down at the complex image of a lotus, floating in the foam of her cappuccino, and smiled. “Oh, wow! Thank you.”

  “The barista says you’re lovely,” he added, sliding into the chair across from her. “She also thinks it’s good I brought an actual person on a date, rather than just sitting here alone, looking pitiful.”

  Madi giggled and peeked over at the counter. A young man and a middle-aged woman with her chin propped in her hands were watching the two of them with obvious interest. Madi looked back to Laurent, dropping her voice.

  “So, do you take all your dates here?”

  “All?”

  She smirked. “I’m assuming you’re pretty popular, Laur
ent. I mean, those two”—she tipped her head toward the counter—“can hardly keep their eyes off you.”

  “Not so much.” He laughed.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Let’s just say dating’s not my thing.”

  Madi grinned. “Now, that’s something I need to hear about.” He groaned, and Madi scooted her chair closer. “C’mon, Laurent. I want the rest of the story.”

  He crossed his arms on his chest. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “That’s not true.”

  He ran his hand over the back of his neck, wincing. “No, I can’t.”

  “C’mon, Laurent. I’ve told you lots of embarrassing things.”

  “Fine.” He sighed. “Truth is, I’m terrible with women.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely hopeless.”

  “That’s not true. You’re amazing.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted it. Laurent’s smile spread until his face was incandescent. “You think so?”

  “Well, yeah,” Madi said drily. “But it’s not a matter of thinking. Everyone can see it.”

  “Not everyone. But I like that you noticed me.”

  “Um, yeah.” On the street, a steady stream of people moved past. She wondered if anyone else was as terrible at blurting things out as she was. (If there were an Oscar for this sort of thing, she’d win it.) “Anyhow,” she said, forcing her way through the awkwardness, “I remember you talking to me and the rest of the MadLibbers. That didn’t seem too hard.”

  She looked up to find him smiling. It wasn’t the wide grin from before; this was gentler. It felt like something meant for her alone, and she couldn’t stop herself from returning it.

  “That was only because I didn’t care with them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “It’s easy to talk to someone if you’re not worried. If you don’t care what they think. The MadLibbers were the same as I was.” He sighed. “As soon as I start worrying about fitting in, I clam up.”

  “What’s there to worry about?”

  “I’m too much of a geek.”

  “Too much?” Madi said. “I don’t think that’s possible. Geekdom is a badge of honor online.”

  “Well, yes and no. That’s how I got into your blog, you know. You were doing the whole retro comic reread at one point last year.” He dropped his eyes. “I, er, have a bit of a comic book addiction.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Madi said, grinning.

  “Not exactly the first thing I admit to dates.”

  “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “How many comic books do you own?”

  Laurent shifted uneasily in his seat. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  “Please?”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Oh, come on!” Madi said, laughing. “You’ve got to tell me now.”

  “It’ll make me seem crazy.”

  “Hardly! It’s not like you’re weaving sweaters from belly button lint or keeping toenail clippings in jars.”

  Laurent’s face contorted in shock. “That’s … horrible.”

  “See? Those are all things I’ve seen on the Internet. You’re completely normal by comparison.”

  “All right,” he sighed. “I have close to two thousand comic books. A hundred or so graphic novels, some signed. And most are ones I’ve read, but I, um, I have a few first editions, wrapped in plastic.” He cringed. “That’s really weird, isn’t it?”

  She smiled so wide her cheeks hurt. “No, Laurent. It’s not.”

  He dropped his chin, studiously stirring sugar into his cappuccino.

  “So you’re a geek’s geek, hmmm?” Madi lifted her cup, taking a sip. “I happen to like that about you. You’re passionate about whatever we rewatch. I find you really easy to talk to.”

  “Ah, but I find it hard getting to know new people outside fandom. The few people I hang out with are connected to that culture. Friends I’d met at comic conventions.”

  “But you talked to me.”

  “Online first, then by Skype, and later at the MadLibbers get-together. Plus, I’d invited you, so when I went to pick you up, it kind of…” He fiddled nervously with his spoon, tapping it on the wooden tabletop. “Pushed me forward.”

  “Then fireworks, right?” Madi joked.

  Laurent didn’t laugh. His palm slid forward and he caught hold of her hand, pressing tight. “Yes, minette. For me, at least.”

  And to that, Madi had no answer at all.

  15

  “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

  (When Harry Met Sally, 1989)

  Saturday provided even more excitement. In a quiet side street, Laurent insisted Madi close her eyes and let him take the lead. Lids pressed tight, she stumbled blindly forward.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  She shivered as Laurent’s mouth brushed the shell of her ear. “Just trust me. All right?” His fingers tightened around hers. “Almost there.”

  “Okay.”

  In the last minutes, Laurent had slipped on her backpack, taking one of her hands in his, the other hand sliding around her waist. She wasn’t sure where they were, but she could smell damp cement, mildew, and decay. The sounds of the city had dimmed in the last seconds, the red glow of sun through her eyelids replaced by darkness.

  “You know I don’t like scary movies, right? No screamers on my dashboard. No trolls in the dungeon.” She shuddered. “Definitely no trolls.”

  Laurent laughed. “This is good, Madi. I promise.” His scruff brushed her cheek, voice low. “Just a little farther. Here. Take a step down. Don’t let go of my hand. This is definitely something you’ll want to include in your video of New York.”

  “If you’re certain. I mean, I’m not even sure where…” Madi stumbled, but he caught her, the faint scent of cologne rising as he helped her regain her footing.

  “And one more step,” he said. “A little to your left. Aha, almost there now. Hold on.”

  He put a hand on either shoulder, turning her slightly. When he let go of her, Madi’s arms rose in fear, but Laurent came back to her side.

  “You ready?”

  Madi nodded.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Her lashes fluttered open to discover they were standing in the damaged interior of a building. She guessed it had been a brick apartment building, but a fire, sometime in the last years, had gutted the interior. Now it was a roughly rectangular box forming a massive chimney, three or four stories high, with charred beams and the wilting remains of fire-bent stairs clinging to one side. Below their feet, the floor was warped and uneven, but apparently sound. Above them, the wide-open sky.

  Madi gasped as her eyes adjusted to the light.

  Light poured in from many glassless windows, highlighting an explosion of imagery. Faces rose from floorboards. Intricate words twisted into strangely foreign shapes. Round and round, the interior walls had been painted into a massive mosaic of light and color.

  “Oh my God. Did you paint this stuff?”

  “Oh no, not me,” Laurent said. “Though I’ve met the artists who did.” His arm slid over her shoulders. “One of them is a MadLibber, actually.”

  “Who?”

  He winked. “I’m pretty sure you can figure out which artist would have the attitude to do something like this.”

  Madi’s eyes widened. “ArtWithAttitude? This was painted by Ava?!”

  “Among others,” Laurent said. “But don’t tell her I took you here.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s, er … a little protective of this spot.”

  A line creased Madi’s brow. “But this isn’t her place. I mean, it’s just a building. Right? Anyone could go here.”

  Laurent laughed. “You try telling that to Ava sometime. I’ll go hide i
n the fallout shelter while she explodes.”

  Madi frowned, remembering the unexplained conflicts with Ava/ArtWithAttitude that had started with their meeting at the Metrograph. “Fine,” she said. “I won’t say anything to her.”

  “Thanks for understanding.” Laurent stared at the broken-down walls and vibrant graffiti with the reverence some people saved for church. “I love this place. I’ve photographed almost all of it.” He looked down at her and grinned. “The murals are always changing. Come back in a week, and this’ll be new again.”

  Madi smiled. “This is the inspiration for your photographs.”

  Laurent nodded as Madi turned in a circle, imagining how Laurent would frame her within this backdrop. She’d only seen the raw footage of her videos, but she could already tell the vlog would be far better than she’d expected.

  “And the … the feeling of it is what you want to capture?”

  Laurent’s eyes widened, gold dancing in the green. “Exactement! I want to photograph the life and spirit of a place. Not just the structure, but what a building is because people have put their lives into it.” His hand rose to cup Madi’s cheek. “Because they’ve loved it. Their vision is imprinted on it for—for—always.”

  “Forever?”

  “Yes. Forever … Inaliénable. Indélébile.”

  His thumb brushed the edge of her cheek. It seemed for a moment like they might kiss, but then he looked away. His eyes moved over the graffitied walls, inspecting it like a Rembrandt.

  “Is that why you started taking pictures?”

  Laurent’s face grew wary. “That was part of the reason.”

  “Why else?”

  When he didn’t answer, Madi moved closer. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Laurent let out a long breath and smiled. “It’s nothing. I just…” He shook his head. “There are lots of reasons, of course. Art and creativity and—like you said—capturing things like this. But…” His face grew intensely sad for a moment. “It’s also because I wanted to be more than just an objet d’art myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Laurent turned back and wrapped her in a gentle hug. “Do you remember that day by the ruins, when you told me why it was easier to live online?”