Little Black Dresses, Little White Lies

by Laura Stampler

  FROM: Harper_Anderson@Shift.com

  TO: carter@deviant.com

  SUBJECT: Re: Congratulations

  !!!

  I know I should have a more eloquent reaction, but so far the best I can do is punctuation. I feel honored that deviant thinks my bingo game is funny . . . I know how brutal you guys can be. Thanks for not being mean.

  Also—how’s your reporting trip??

  FROM: carter@deviant.com

  TO: Harper_Anderson@Shift.com

  SUBJECT: Re: Congratulations

  Oh, we were being plenty mean . . . just with you and not to you.

  Reporting trip was good.

  FROM: Harper_Anderson@Shift.com

  TO: carter@deviant.com

  SUBJECT: Re: Congratulations

  My blog wasn’t mean. It was tongue in cheek!

  FROM: carter@deviant.com

  TO: Harper_Anderson@Shift.com

  SUBJECT: Re: Congratulations

  Ha. Keep telling yourself that. I told you, your snark is one of your greater assets.

  Also, I know we’re meeting for my parents’ next week, but wanna join in on a group brunch Sunday? My friend is having a thing at Bacchanal. On him. Bring whomever.

  I light up brighter than my computer screen. I flash back to D-Bag Dull Man telling Kristina that I wasn’t one of “them.” It wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure out that I didn’t fit. But Carter is telling me just the opposite. He thinks I’m talented. He thinks I’m worthy. Carter is picking me, specifically. I imagine sitting next to him in a booth at brunch, in front of all his friends, sharing a stack of pancakes. I imagine him putting his hand in the small of my back and guiding me through a swanky party to meet his parents. And then I can’t help but imagine him telling me that he doesn’t want this to end when I finish the internship. That he can’t, because just like I’ve been waiting for someone like him, he’s been waiting for someone like me. I can’t turn off my internal narrative.

  I feel powerful. Like I can do anything.

  My story is fourth on the Leader Board.

  The Shift Girls and I stay on the lookout to see if other websites have picked up my blog too.

  “Once one site starts to write something, they all do,” Abigail says authoritatively. “No one wants to miss a trending story, right, Jamie?”

  Jamie responds only by furrowing her brow. She puts on her earphones dramatically and turns the volume of her music up so loud that we can hear it.

  “She’s just bitter that your story is doing better than any of hers today,” Gigi says, shooting Jamie a pointed side eye. “She is the viral expert, after all.”

  Viral.

  I’ve always hoped one of my blogs would go viral, but now that it actually might happen, I realize that I don’t know what that actually means.

  After half an hour of searching, when nothing else comes up, we take a break from looking. We pick up salads. We get back to work. I resume my assigned search for pictures of celebrities making out in Starbucks. But Brie interrupts my flow.

  “I’m glad you’ve grown out your hair,” Brie tells me. “I don’t really like it shoulder length.”

  “Um, thanks?” I download a picture of Beyoncé and Jay Z kissing at a basketball game. “But I haven’t had short hair in, like, two years.”

  “Non sequitur much?” Gigi asks.

  “Not really,” Brie says, beaming. “Because in the picture that BuzzSnap posted of Harper, her hair is short.”

  Everyone stops what she’s doing. Even Jamie. The only noise to be heard comes from someone yelling at a PR person on the phone from across the office. And then we go from complete silence to every single one of us talking at the same time, our words traveling over and under and in between one another’s as our bodies rush over to see Brie’s computer screen. We’re making such a commotion that reporters and editors who never acknowledge the interns’ existence, unless they’re ordering us to run an errand, come over to see what all the fuss is about.

  BuzzSnap has not only written about me creating the game but it’s copied my bingo board and is asking readers to tweet screenshots of the worst dating app profile pictures they’ve seen using the hashtag #MatchBookBingo. They’re creating a master bingo board of shame.

  I look up at the Leader Board. My story has ascended above a think piece about Kim Kardashian and a video post about Curmudgeon Cat meeting a baby duckling. (Curmudgeon Cat is less than enthusiastic.) When it reaches the number one spot, McKayla comes out of her office.

  Our gut reaction is to brace ourselves. Usually when McKayla deigns to enter the main office, it’s to humiliate someone in front of a crowd. If there were ever a campaign to bring back public hangings, we know where she’d stand. But now McKayla is at her most effervescent.

  “This is how it’s done, ladies,” McKayla says, arm outstretched toward the Leader Board television screen. “One story, by a freaking intern, and we meet our July goals one day early. I think we might even make a record. I’m always saying, it’s not about writing a million stupid articles about things that have already gone viral online. It’s about finding one good story that can make it on its own.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jamie look around helplessly. “That’s not what she says ever,” she whispers, loud enough for only interns in close proximity to hear. It’s true. McKayla is always telling people to write more, more, more, and faster, faster, faster.

  But whatever. Don’t dwell on that. Don’t diminish your success. I worked hard. I wrote well. I earned this.

  McKayla continues her grandstanding. “It’s too bad you aren’t graduating from college early,” she says to me. Like sharks taste blood in the water, like dogs sense fear, McKayla has a knack for spotting insecurity and then exploiting it. Jamie’s a goner. “You’re the only one here who would make any sense to keep on next year. Maybe we’ll have to extend your column and you’ll write it remotely.”

  “I would love that!” I don’t know if McKayla means it or is just saying that to push Jamie’s buttons. (If so, it’s working. Jamie starts snapping the hair tie on her wrist and taking slow, long breaths through her nose.) But if I could keep writing during the school year, that would be incredible.

  As a reward, McKayla tells me that I can go home a few hours early, after I round up some #MatchBookBingo tweets for a follow-up post. “We want to milk this for all the clicks we can get,” she says.

  I start going through Twitter and rounding up tweets.

  At 3:10, @LadyLana tweets, “Say no to bathroom mirror selfies #MatchBookBingo.”

  At 3:15, @manicpixiedreamgirl99 tweets, “ ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’ #hardpass #MatchBookBingo.”

  At 3:16, @jetsfan22 tweets, “We aren’t here for your amusement @harperanderson #shallow #MatchBookBingo.”

  At 3:16, @MRA4life tweets, “@harperanderson is a dumb slut #MatchBookBingo.”

  Wait, what?

  No matter how many times I read it, the angry message stays the same. My stomach drops. I click on my mentions to see if maybe it’s just a fluke, but it isn’t. There aren’t a lot, but there are certainly enough. And they’re meaner, and way more personal, than the bus-back-from-the-Hamptons blog tweets.

  “Um, McKayla?” I get her attention before she goes back into her office. “This might not be a big deal”—please don’t let this be a big deal—“but a few guys are really mad about the post. They’re saying that I’m objectifying men.”

  “They’re saying a lot more than that!” Gigi laughs. “What losers.”

  McKayla comes over to my computer to investigate, and starts clicking on the profiles of some of the angry tweeters. “Oh, this is nothing,” she says. “Men are so touchy.”

  “But I didn’t mean to objectify them!” I say. I really didn’t. Even though, as I think about it, I kind of sort of did.

  “I cannot handle this negative energy,” McKayla says, and I realize that she’s talking about me, not the angry men. “Just go home and
have a drink—er, virgin, of course. If this were actually a problem Shift needed to be worried about, you’d know it.”

  It doesn’t take long to find out how right she is.

  31

  WHEN I GET OFF THE subway by Aunt Vee’s apartment, my phone buzzes with texts from Kristina.

  Kristina:

  Are you doing okay?

  Kristina:

  Don’t listen to these assholes!

  Kristina:

  I’m sorry we got in a fight. Love you. Call me.

  Then I check my Twitter.

  By the time I’m back at Aunt Vee’s, it’s safe to say that the shit has officially hit the fan. Internet outrage is flying at me from all directions, and the comforter that I’ve pulled up right under my eyes (so I can still read what people are saying) isn’t enough to shield me from the vitriol.

  My blog has definitely gone viral. And while some articles reacting to the piece are positive, quoting funny lines from the blog, the tide has definitely turned.

  A men’s rights activist blog inserted some of my Facebook pictures into a manifesto about how “Harper Anderson is everything that’s wrong with teenage girls today.” Not only do they think I’m exploiting boys on MatchBook, but they think I’m exploiting them in real life, too. Using my Make-Out Bandit blog post as Exhibit A (“Did Harper Anderson get consent?”), my Forager Date as Exhibit B (“If her dates refuse to buy her expensive meals, she makes fun of them.”), and my Three-Hour Relationship as Exhibit C (“I’m sick and tired of the man-hating, feminist, PC agenda.”).

  Another site is accusing me of compromising privacy by telling girls to tweet real guys’ profiles, putting vulnerable teenage boys at risk.

  “That wasn’t me!” I defend myself to Princess, who looks as lost as I do. “I just told girls to play Bingo! BuzzSnap’s the one asking for real profile pictures.”

  I start to get really worried when not just fringe blogs, but more mainstream news sites also start to criticize me, “controversial teen dating blogger Harper Anderson,” and Shift magazine for other offenses.

  Bigger news outlets start to pick it up and pick it apart. All the criticism, the poking and prodding at every little detail, weighs me down. A blogger for the Good Morning America’s website is freaking out that a teen magazine is “practically begging underage girls to subject themselves to predators on unsafe dating apps.”

  An opinion piece on CNN has a different critique. It says that MatchBook Bingo is “obviously a thinly veiled drinking game.” For proof, the article includes screen grabs from my and some of the other Shift Girls’ public social media posts. And while I could argue that my tweet saying “Drink if you see a MatchBook bro posing with his grandma” was a joke, I don’t think that anyone would believe me.

  Princess nuzzles me with her nose. She understands.

  According to Fox: “Not only is this encouraging Shift’s twelve-to-nineteen-year-old demographic to binge-drink, but the interns are all teenagers themselves. Shift should be taken to task for endangerment, and their promotion of underage drinking should be stopped, through legal channels if necessary.”

  As McKayla said, it’s really easy to tell when things have gotten bad.

  I don’t know how to control this.

  My phone buzzes again.

  The Shift Girls tell me to “hang in there.” Carter asks if he should be jealous of all the attention I’m getting. (Jealous?) Ben is still radio silent since our last awkward encounter. Bobby Snapchatted me a picture of his new MatchBook Teen profile. My parents say to call them back. Kristina says to call her back. She’s already warned her manager that she’s going to need a break.

  I pick Kristina.

  I miss Kristina.

  As soon as the FaceTime connects, I realize that this is the first time I’ve actually seen her in weeks. (We’ve texted. Kind of. But I’ve been busy.) The summer sun has lightened her hair and darkened her skin. She has the look on her face that she usually reserves for her own rare personal crises.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “You’re asking me if everything’s okay? Harper, I wanted you to call me to talk about you. How are you holding up? I saw some stuff on Facebook and it’s looking pretty brutal.”

  As soon as we make virtual eye contact, mine start to water. I don’t want them to, but it’s not up to me.

  “Am I a horrible person?”

  “Oh my God, are you being serious? Harper! Sure, I thought that you might have been a little unfair to the forager dude, sure, I wish that you had called me back, but this is ridiculous. You’re a good person and a funny writer.”

  “But what if my other blogs were kind of mean, too?”

  “Stop it,” Kristina says. “They were funny. You’re not mean, you’re my best friend. People love kicking you when you’re down. It will pass as soon as Curmudgeon Cat sneezes adorably in a new YouTube video.”

  Between the clubs and the dates and the Hamptons and the boys, I’ve forgotten that I might need my best friend. “I wish you were here.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “You haven’t said that in a while.” She settles into a smile. I missed her smile. “I have to go back to work soon, but call me later. Also call your parents! They’re freaking a little.”

  “You’ve talked to them?”

  “Obviously. You aren’t the only Anderson in my life. Hang in there.”

  By the time I get off the phone with my parents, who don’t agree that I’m “everything wrong with teenage girls today”—although maybe I should tone down the snark—I feel like every bit of energy has been sapped from my body. And it isn’t even dark out yet.

  I drag one foot in front of the other to the balcony off Aunt Vee’s master bedroom, so that I have a front row seat for the sun’s final descent over the park. No matter how bad a day I’ve had, I can at least enjoy this. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe New York’s summer sunsets. The outlines of skyscrapers are stenciled into the electric pinks and purples of the transforming sky, and the entire city becomes magical.

  “Isn’t that sight something?” Aunt Vee slides open the balcony door. She waits until the sun disappears to ask about the blog.

  “You saw it too?”

  “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” she says. “I was doing much worse than playing bingo at your age. Much, much worse.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “I could tell you a story or two about objectifying men.” She smiles fondly at memories that I think would be emotionally scarring to hear.

  Aunt Vee sits down by my feet at the end of the lounge chair and gives me a serious look. “Do you think you’re in trouble at Shift?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are you going to handle things tomorrow?”

  I just raise my shoulders and sink lower into the chair.

  Aunt Vee pats me on the foot. “You’ll think of something. They won’t do anything drastic, I don’t care what the petition says.”

  Petition?

  I grab my phone and see that there’s an online petition saying that “Shift’s dangerous teen dating blog should be canceled,” I should be fired, the internship program should be disbanded, and basically that Bosh Media should be burned to the ground. A lot of people have signed, offering to dance on the ashes in the comments section.

  I also have a new e-mail from McKayla.

  “Come to my office first thing in the morning.”

  That doesn’t sound good.

  I might not have to figure out how to handle things at all. McKayla might handle them for me.

  32

  WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO work on the day that you’re probably going to get fired?

  I follow the advice of Sunny’s fashion guru Karl Lagerfeld and opt for a little black dress. It’s a simple, jersey A-line I got shopping at Forever 21 rather than shopping in Aunt Vee’s closet.

  Princess makes an uncharacteristic, e
arly-morning venture across the bedroom to rub her head against my calf as I stand in front of the full-length mirror. At first I think it’s her way to comfort me while I carefully put on my eyeliner, my declaration to the universe that I will not cry today. But when I hear the jangle of chains outside my door, scurrying paws and little yips in the living room, I realize that Princess isn’t being affectionate. She wants to go for a walk.

  But then my stomach drops. If dogs are here waiting to be walked, that means Ben must be here too.

  Ben.

  I haven’t seen him since the weekend. Ever since Phantom, he’s been picking Princess up before I’ve gotten home from work. And I get it. But now he’s here earlier than usual, and I wonder if it’s because he saw everything that happened with my blog post, all the “I Hate Harper” fan clubs popping up all over Facebook, and he came over to help me through it.

  I leave my room mideyeliner, still holding the pencil in my hand, and say, “Ben, I’m so glad you’re here. You won’t believe the shit storm I’ve been in since I went viral—”

  I stop abruptly when I realize that while the dogs look familiar, the walker does not. Atticus is chewing on the shoelace of a complete stranger in a Saint Agnes Mathletes T-shirt.

  “I’m not Ben?” He says it like it’s a question. And like I don’t have eyes. “I’m walking dogs for him for a few days?”

  “Oh.” Ben sent a replacement. I watch the younger, shorter dog walker as he tries to untangle himself from the leashes. “I’ll just leave you to it then.”

  “But, uh, I hope you get better soon,” he says, unwrapping Pepe’s blue leash from around his head.

  “What?”

  He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Your . . . viral situation.”

  “Oh, no! It’s”—Not-Ben gives me a pitying look—“not worth explaining. Never mind.”

  I try not to catastrophize on the subway to work. I’m used to waiting forever for a train, but today is one of those rare days when the express train rushes into the station right when I get to the platform with an exhilarating whoosh that makes my dress balloon like Marilyn Monroe’s, hair fall out of place, and heart skip a beat.