by Linda Gerber
Victoria studied the paper. “Yes. You’re right. Remember, there were cameras following us all day as we did the shoot. I shouldn’t doubt we’ll soon see photos from Buñol as well. Any photographer who caught you in a shot these past several days will probably try to cash in.”
“You’re kidding.” I ran my tongue quickly over the wires on my palate expander and remembered how Daniel said they might cause a glare on film. What if one of those photographers got me with glitter-mouth? What if they had caught me in a really awkward moment like checking out the rip in my shorts or adjusting my bra or something? I wasn’t so sure I was thrilled about the idea of being followed anymore. “But…. why?”
“Think about it. You’re the daughter of American television personalities; he’s a powerful businessman. It’s a story.”
I looked at the picture in the paper again. “Is that what the article says?”
“From what I can gather with my limited Spanish. Yes.”
“What else does it say?”
She hesitated for a moment too long. “Not much of substance. Now let’s forget about it.” She folded the paper back up and stuffed it into her bag. “Do you want a sandwich? I’m famished.”
I followed Victoria into the kitchen, but I wasn’t fooled by the distraction. There was something about that story she wasn’t telling me.
Even after the chase with the photographers and the tabloid article, Victoria made me finish my homework. I couldn’t concentrate on any of it, though. I tried to ask her more about that newspaper article, but every time I did, she changed the subject. It made me wonder what was so bad she couldn’t tell me. And that made me more determined to find out.
The minute she took a bathroom break, I whipped out my phone to text Mateo. I might not be able to read Spanish, but he could. He’d be able to tell me what the article said.
We were halfway through the math workbook when I heard a noise in the hallway. I looked up eagerly, hoping it might be Mateo; but the next thing I knew, the door burst open and Mom and Dad and the entire WIR crew crowded into the apartment.
Mateo and Logan came in last. I started across the room to talk to Mateo, but Cavin stopped me.
“Just one moment. We need to talk. Wait for us at the table, would you?” He turned me around and sent me back into the kitchen.
When I finally got Mateo to meet my eye, he gave me half a shrug before looking away. I wondered if he had even gotten my text. Or if he had gotten it and told his dad about it. That would explain how my apartment was being turned into a situation room.
But not why.
Cavin had ordered everyone into containment mode. “I want numbers of every newspaper, television station, and radio station in the region. Now,” he barked. “We need our response out by the afternoon cycle.”
“Response?” I asked. “To what?”
But nobody was listening. Within minutes everyone was either online, on the phone, or plotting around the coffee table.
And I was trapped in the kitchen with my mom and dad, Victoria, and Señor Ruiz-Moreno.
Finally, Cavin joined us at the table. “There’s at least a dozen of them camped out downstairs,” he said. “They want a statement.”
I was confused. “Wait. We give statements to paparazzi?”
“Paparazzi?” Cavin said. “No, I’m speaking of the news folk.”
I glanced back at Mateo again. So much for article translation. “I don’t understand.”
“They want to talk to you about your video. When did you take it, how did you discover you had filmed a robbery, questions like that.”
“They want me to talk to them?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“You will not be talking to them,” Dad said.
“Right,” Cavin agreed. “Not here. We should do it properly. Bayani! See about booking her on some of their morning news shows and the—”
“No!” Dad said. “That’s not what I—”
“I’ve spoken with the police,” Señor Ruiz-Moreno cut in, closing his cell phone. “They can remove reporters from the building, but they can’t stop them from setting up outside. The leasing company has agreed to post a security guard in the lobby to ensure they remain outside.”
“We’ll issue a placeholder statement,” Cavin said. “And then in the morning—”
“Cassidy is not speaking to anyone,” Mom snapped.
“I didn’t say it had to be Cassidy, Julia.”
And on and on. I was trapped in a really bad drama.
I wasn’t sure I understood what was going on, but I was starting to put the pieces together. I figured when the network called that they had seen my video and the stats count because they were monitoring my blog. But if that was the case, I didn’t get what Dad meant when he said they were also monitoring the “fallout.”
Now, according to Cavin, we had reporters camped out in front of our building. Somehow my blog video was news. And if Victoria had seen one newspaper with my picture in it, there were bound to be others.
So what I wanted to know was how word had gotten out about my video so fast. Was there a leak at the police station? Or did one of the thousand hits on my blog blab to the press?
I left my parents arguing with Cavin and slipped away from the table. In the doorway, I waved to get Mateo’s attention, and then pointed down the hall, motioning for him to follow me.
Logan, of course, tagged along.
“You do love to cause a flap, don’t you?” he said, flopping down on the bed.
I dropped into the armchair by the window and nudged his foot with mine. “Shoes off the covers.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but decided against it and kicked off his shoes. They fell in dual thumps to the floor.
Mateo took the chair by the desk and turned it around backward, straddling it like he did when he came to tell me about the images in my video. “Did you really get stalked by photographers?” he asked.
I thought of the guy fading in and out of the shadows and couldn’t help smiling. “One or two,” I said.
“We saw you on the telly,” Logan offered. “At a tapas bar. Your mom about lost it.”
“They were calling you a hero,” Mateo added.
“Why?”
“You caught the bad guys,” Logan said.
“Not really. I didn’t even know they were there.”
“Yeah, but you caught them in the act anyway. That’s what counts.”
“This is crazy.” I leaned back in my chair and tried to decide how I felt about all the attention. Would people recognize me on the street? I smiled, imagining myself with swarms of fans, begging for an autograph. Showering me with gifts. Clamoring for an interview.
“Wait.” I sat up and looked to Mateo. “You’re the one who noticed the guys in the background. Why aren’t they coming after you, too?”
“Cuz he’s not as pretty,” Logan said.
For once I couldn’t think of a comeback. A hot blush crept across my cheeks. Did Logan just say I was pretty?
“And,” Mateo said, “because I’m not the only one who saw what was going on back there. Why do you think the video is going viral?”
“Viral? What are you talking about?”
“Have you not looked at it since yesterday?”
“Looked at what? I deleted the video after we got home from the police station. I haven’t been online since then.”
Logan sat up. “She really doesn’t know.”
“Know what?” I demanded.
Mateo pointed to my laptop. “May I?” I nodded, and he opened it. “This.” He picked up my laptop and handed it to me. There I was, frozen with my mouth open in a small white rectangle on the YouTube page. My video.
“Now look at the view count,” Logan said, leaning closer.
I looked. But I didn’t believe it. “No way.” Over forty-seven thousand views? In one day?
“This is just one upload,” Mateo added. “There are more.”
�
�Wow.” I sank back against the chair cushions. “I don’t understand. Why would anyone care? I’ve never even heard of El Jefe until now.”
Logan stretched out on the bed again. “You may not know him, but it looks like El Jefe is a big deal around here.”
Mateo nodded. “Also, in my country, contrabandistas steal more than just objects. They steal our culture. Our history. To catch a little one is big news. To catch a giant is huge.”
“Yeah,” Logan said, “Da says it’ll mean big numbers for the show.”
“And your blog,” Mateo added. “Have you checked the stats lately?”
I hadn’t. Not since I took down the original post after we got back from the police station. But now I was curious. I grabbed my computer and typed in my URL. And gasped. My blog had over three thousand unique hits in just the last hour.
I snapped my computer shut and jumped up from the chair. “Hold on.” I crossed to the door. “I’ll be right back.”
My plan was to go grab the newspaper so I could get Mateo to read it for me. But when I walked into the front room, everyone had gone silent. They were all staring at me. No, I realized as Bayani flapped his hand for me to get out of the way, they were staring at the television behind me. I turned around.
A familiar face filled the screen. I recognized him at once, even without his 4:30 A.M. sunglasses. El Jefe was giving some kind of press conference. In Spanish. “What is he saying?” I asked.
Daniel shushed me.
“He says your video is fake,” Mateo said. He and Logan had followed me from the room and were standing right behind me. “He says it’s a publicity stunt by the show. He’s considering a lawsuit.”
“Give me a break,” I said. I turned to face everyone in the room, as if I had to appeal to their sanity instead of El Jefe’s. “I didn’t even know who he was until after all this started. Besides, even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know how to doctor a video like that. I uploaded it exactly as it was on my phone.”
“Yes, but he’s not talking about you; he’s implicating the show,” Cavin said. “And he may have a case about the video being altered.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Of course you didn’t do anything. But all the videos floating around have been enhanced in some way. Otherwise, you can’t see who’s in the background. Even the video we took to the police had been changed by the editing software.”
“But I have the original,” I said. “It’s still on my phone.”
“You didn’t erase it?” Bayani asked.
I shook my head.
“Well,” Cavin said. “This just got interesting.” He pulled out his phone and started punching numbers.
“Where is it?” Dad asked.
I ran and grabbed my phone from my room and handed it to him. Mom, Bayani, Daniel, and Victoria crowded around him as he played the video back.
“Ha!” Daniel laughed. “Gotcha!” He high-fived Bayani.
“This is perfect.” Dad gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Good work, Cassie-bug.”
“Dad!”
They decided that the phone needed to go directly to the police. I thought that meant I would be going with them, but Cavin squashed that idea right away.
“Too dangerous,” he said. “This El Jefe is a powerful man, and ye’ve crossed him. Who knows what he might do to—”
Dad cleared his throat and made big eye gestures in my direction. “It might be better,” he said, “for you to stay out of the public eye for the time being.” His fake-upbeat voice scared me more than anything Cavin had said. It meant he thought the threat of danger was real.
I turned to Mom for a voice of reason, but she only shook her head.
“It might be best for you to stay inside until we get this thing resolved,” she said.
If only I’d known how long that would be.
Travel tip: Personal space in Spain
is smaller than what Americans are used to.
Until that day, I never thought I was claustrophobic, but honestly? There was no place to go in that tiny apartment. I couldn’t even walk out onto the balcony because the paparazzi were still gathering on the sidewalk below, and about a dozen cameras were poised, ready to snap my picture as soon as I walked through the door.
The next day El Jefe was formally charged. He held another news conference to proclaim his innocence. Once again, he claimed the whole thing was a setup by our show. It was far too convenient, he said, that I just happened to be out walking when someone supposedly broke into the cathedral. And in the wee hours of the morning, no less. What kind of parents allowed their underage child to wander the streets at all hours?
More cameras gathered outside our apartment building, so Mom and Dad decided to keep me locked up inside. Meanwhile, Cavin and the network wanted the show to keep filming as scheduled. They wouldn’t give the public a reason to believe When in Rome had anything to hide.
Except for me.
The only bright spot was when Señor Ruiz-Moreno arrived to take my mom and dad out for that day’s shoot and brought Mateo with him.
“I could stay here,” Mateo offered, “and keep Cassidy company.”
Señor Ruiz-Moreno looked to my mom and dad for their input before answering.
“That’s fine,” Mom said, “as long as Victoria doesn’t mind the disruption to her lesson time.”
Who cared about Victoria? I didn’t mind. Not that anyone was asking me.
Mateo kicked back on the couch beside me, which made me smile. He wasn’t waiting for Victoria’s say-so.
Bayani’s cell rang and he talked into it in a low voice before holding his hand over the receiver. “Daniel’s in the lobby. He said there’s a whole pile of notes and flowers for Cass down there, and should he send them up?”
I jumped up from the couch. “For me? Who are they from?”
Bayani shrugged. “Fans, I suppose. Admirers. You’re big news right now.”
“I don’t like it,” Mom said. “For so many people to know where she is—”
“You’ve seen the media circus downstairs,” Cavin scoffed. “It’s hardly a secret.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“What should we do with the flowers?” Bayani asked.
Dad looked to me and then to my mom before turning back to Bayani. “Tell Daniel he can send them up only after they have been screened.”
Bayani relayed the information and hung up the phone. “We should go,” he said. “We don’t want to get behind schedule.”
They began to file out the door just as Victoria got there. She was carrying an armload of flowers.
“It appears you have fans, Cassidy. Take a look.” She set the flowers on the coffee table and handed me a handful of little rectangular cards. “Some of them sent notes.”
Mateo took one of the cards and burst out laughing when he read it. “This one’s from a secret admirer.”
“Give me that!” I snatched it from him and tried to read what it said, but it was written in Spanish. Or Valencian. Or whatever. I handed it back. “What does it say?”
“No puedo vivir sin a ti.”
“But what does it mean?”
He clutched his hand to his chest. “I cannot live without you!”
“Okay, that’s awkward.” I pushed the card away.
Victoria quickly tore it in half. “My apologies. Clearly the screening process leaves a bit to be desired.”
“These are in English,” Mateo offered, handing me another stack of little cards.
“Good job!” “Hang in there!” “Nice work!” I sifted through the cards and then dropped them on the table. Whoever sent those messages probably meant well, but the whole thing made me feel weird. I didn’t know the people who were sending those cards, and they didn’t know me. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate their support, but I would rather have had people like me for who I was and not for something I did by accident.
The doorbell chimed and I must have flinched because Victoria patte
d my arm. “Don’t worry. They’ve closed off the entrance. No one can come up without being cleared first.”
I already knew that, of course, but it still made me tense up when she went to answer the door. I was relieved to see it was Logan.
He came into the room carrying another armload of flowers. “Da told me to bring these up. Where do you want them?”
Mateo pointed to the pile on the table, and Logan dumped his armload along with the rest.
“It’s a mess down there.” Logan nudged Mateo aside so he could sit next to him on to the couch. “The entire front of the building is surrounded.”
I twisted the hem of my shirt. “Maybe I really should go talk to them. So they’ll go away.”
“No,” Victoria said. “It would be like feeding sharks. I’m sorry, hon, but your parents are right about this one.”
The walls seemed to shrink in on me, and my stomach went sour. The air in the room felt heavy and stale. And sickeningly sweet. “These things have got to go.” I scooped up the flowers to put them outside. At least that was one thing I could do.
Before Victoria could object, I crossed over to the balcony and yanked open the door. What I should have done was dump the flowers and duck back inside, but as soon as I stepped out the door it’s like there was some invisible hook, pulling me to the railing. For two days, all I had done was hear about the scene below. I wanted to see for myself how much of a mess it really was.
So I peeked over.
“¡Aquí está!” someone shouted. “There she is!”
For a heartbeat, I froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Long enough for a photographer with quick reflexes to get off a shot or two. I drew back, my chest squeezing tight, and realized I was still holding the flowers. No, not holding, hugging. Hanging on to them like they were my favorite teddy bear on a stormy night. I threw them down and ran back inside.
“Told you,” Logan said.
I couldn’t deal with the smug look on his face. I couldn’t deal with anything. Hot tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t want them to see me cry. I retreated to my room. But not before I saw Mateo shoot a pointed look at Logan.