When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae

by Kirsten Mortensen

  She wanted to break in. Shout, “Of course they’re fakes! I never said they weren’t—they aren’t my photos!”

  But how could she?

  Like Kendra had said, she was in them. They’d come from somewhere . . .

  She jolted suddenly. Jillian had said her name. “. . . admit they’re pretty realistic.”

  “I—I’ve never said that the, um, fairies were ‘real’ in the same way that, you know, this chair is real.” Libby leaned forward slightly and now she tapped the arm of her chair, realizing even as she did that it was probably out of view of the camera. “I’m not sure they are—I think it’s more that—”

  “So are you admitting that you faked the photos?” Jillian asked.

  Libby noticed the boredom in her voice had vanished.

  “Oh no! I did not fake them!” Her voice had risen slightly. “What I’m saying is—”

  “The angle of the lighting on the figure’s jacket is irrefutable,” George Photo Sleuth cut in. “These aren’t only fakes. They’re bad fakes.”

  Jillian laughed heartily. “So there you have it, folks—they’re real, they’re fake, both sides of the story. But Libby, if they do lead you to that pot of gold, give us a call, and we’ll have you back on, okay? And thank you, George. Next up. They’re cousins. They hate each other. Why do their parents think they should marry? And still to come—”

  Jack was chopping the air with his arm again.

  Libby yanked the earpiece cord and slumped in her chair while he unclipped the microphone.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” she moaned softly.

  “You did great,” Jack said.

  47

  Of course, the whole way home, the one person she was thinking about was Paul. Specifically, she was thinking pleeeeeeeeeeease pleeeeeeeeeease let me find out he spent the morning asleep, or painting, or on the phone with Josh. Anything but watching that awful interview.

  The limo turned into the driveway.

  Jade’s Prius was parked up by her house. So it was Gina, not Paul, who headed up the gauntlet, flying up to Libby as the driver opened her door, her eyes blazing.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had pictures?”

  “Where’s Paul?” Libby said, and then turned to the driver to thank him.

  “How dare you hide this from me?” Gina shouted.

  A knot of campers had begun to form around them. “Oh yeah, I heard about them!” one of them said. “Can we, like, get copies?”

  Libby turned back toward the house.

  Paul was striding down her front steps.

  She could see, even from that far away, that his face was white.

  “Paul,” she said. “I don’t know anything about them.” Her voice caught as she said it, though, and he gave her a fierce look. “I swear,” she whispered.

  “You’ll be lucky if Simon doesn’t pull out of this deal, Libby Samson,” Gina hissed.

  “Why would he pull out?” Libby glared at her. “I thought he was so gung-ho on publicity.”

  “Good publicity. Not . . . this kind of publicity” Gina snapped. “I’ve been an hour trying to figure out what I’m going to say to him about this—he’s not taking my calls. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me—”

  “I didn’t know.” Libby looked at Paul again. “I don’t know what these are except that they are fa—”

  Gina stopped her from saying it. Physically. She clapped her hand over Libby’s mouth.

  The campers stared.

  Then it was Paul’s turn, and both Libby and Gina knew better than to argue. “Gina, you and your . . . friends . . . need to leave. Libby, we have to talk.”

  “We have to talk, too, Libby,” Gina was saying, but Libby was already halfway up the house, following Paul.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “They’re fakes, Paul.”

  “Of course they’re fakes,” he said angrily. “That’s not the point. The point is that every time things seem to calm down, you find a way to stir them up again.”

  It was more than she could take. “But I didn’t do anything!”

  He’d headed straight toward her office and was seated at her computer. “Look,” he said harshly, gesturing at the screen. “Look.”

  It was like the original outbreak all over again. Seven sites. Which meant that there were probably more out there, or would be, soon. The rest of the iceberg.

  Paul glanced up and saw Libby was crying and softened. “Okay, I’m sorry. But try to think. Where could these have come from?” He’d printed out copies of the photos and now spread them on the desk. “Obviously you posed for them.”

  She pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and wiped her eyes. “I was . . . so shocked when they first showed them to me in the studio. But then on the drive back, I realized. They’re from when they interviewed me for that newspaper article. I mean, they’re different shots from the ones that ended up in the paper . . .” She picked one up. “They’re different. I’ve never seen these specific photos before. But they were taken on the same day, I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re sure that’s who took them?”

  “I’m positive. If you compared them to the newspaper photos, you’d see. I’m wearing the same clothes. That tee shirt.”

  “Okay . . . but here’s the thing. I can’t see someone from the paper doctoring photos like this—”

  Libby shook her head. “No. Me either.”

  “So it has to be someone else.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gina,” he said.

  “It doesn’t look like she was involved, though.”

  “No. No, it doesn’t.”

  He gathered the pages back up. “Well, we’re going to find out who did it.”

  She nodded again.

  “I’ve got a call into that new sys op at work—and hang on, I bet that’s him, now.” He pulled out his cell phone and took another Kleenex from the box while she listened.

  At one point Paul looked at her and made writing motions in the air to signal he needed a pen and paper for making notes, so she dug through the stuff on her desk, and he started writing some things down.

  Then he hung up.

  “He traced one of them back to the IP address of a web hosting company called Jeepers Hosting. We are so going to sue the sonofabitch who did this—”

  “Oh.” she said. “Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “I think that’s the company Ty uses for his blog.”

  “You must be kidding me.” Paul stood up.

  “Paul, maybe it’s just a coincidence,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “No. I’m gonna talk to him. And it’ll be a conversation he won’t ever forget.”

  “Paul!” She followed him down the stairs. “Paul, I don’t think—”

  He’d reached the front door, and she broke into a trot to try to catch up with him. “Paul! Please let’s talk about this!”

  She caught the screen door before it had swung closed.

  Paul had stopped to root through his pockets for his car keys.

  And Dean was standing at the foot of the front steps, holding a paint brush.

  She tried to run past him but his hand flashed out, and he’d grabbed her arm and stopped her. “What’s going on?”

  “Let me go! Paul, you need to calm down!”

  “Libby! What happened?” Dean said.

  “Some photos have turned up,” she said. “And we think maybe Ty’s involved. Paul!”

  He was opening his car door.

  Dean dropped her arm. “It wasn’t Tyler,” he said, turning to direct his words at Paul.

  Paul shut his door and walked back over. “What did you just say?”

  His jaw was jutting out and his eyes were narrowed.

  “You want to sock somebody? Then you can sock me.”

  “Dean!” she gasped. “What are you saying?”

  He looked at Libby. “I did it, Libby. I posted the photos. To show these people, here”
—the campers had gathered around again—“what a fake you are.”

  “You S.O.B.,” Paul said, and his fist suddenly jabbed through the air toward Dean’s face.

  Libby screamed.

  Dean’s right hand flew up and he deflected the punch as easily as if he’d swatted a fly.

  The campers gasped and backed away.

  Libby could hear Paul’s breathing and then Dean was speaking to him in a low, hard, even voice. “I did it for Libby, you idiot. Because I happen to care about her.”

  “So you publicly humiliate her. That’s your idea—”

  “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? What people think. Not whether she’s happy. And you claim you love her? You don’t have a clue, buck-o.”

  Libby had never seen Paul so furious. And she’d seen him plenty angry.

  So he probably didn’t even realize he was punching out at Dean again until he’d done it. But this time, Dean just stood there, and Paul’s fist connected with his jaw, hard enough that Dean’s head snapped back.

  She screamed again, then clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. And just stood there with the campers behind her muttering “whoa!” and “holy shit,” and Paul stood, too, looking at Dean, and then at Libby. His face was purple and his breath was fast and hard. “There,” he said. “There.”

  Then he turned and walked to his car.

  “I’ll call you later,” he said to her as he shut the door.

  He backed out of the driveway, and then when he was on the road and pointed toward Rochester he jammed the gas hard, his tires squealed and gravel spurted up and pinged off the campers’ cars.

  And then he was gone.

  “I didn’t have to let him hit me,” Dean said.

  She looked at him. He was rubbing the red mark on his jaw. “Well then, why did you?”

  “He needed to hit me more than I needed to duck.”

  “I see. Suppose you get out of here.”

  “Libby—”

  “Get out.” And she left him standing there and went into her house, shut the door, and locked it.

  And even after she’d heard his truck drive off, she didn’t come out again.

  48

  She supposed it should have been comforting, the next morning, to be back into her old routine—up before it was fully light out, dragging baskets out to her gardens, picking produce, packing it in her coolers to drive to Susan’s.

  But it wasn’t comforting. Not at all. For starters, she’d barely slept the night before, and she felt sick to her stomach and light-headed. Yeah, there was that.

  And there was the little thing about her life being in a complete shambles, besides.

  Susan hadn’t seen the interview. But she knew about it. And was feeling for Libby in such a genuine and sorrowful way that Libby wanted to ask if she could just move in with her. Please adopt me and let me live with you forever.

  But she didn’t. She didn’t even take a nap like Susan offered. Instead, she helped her sort and bag produce for her subscribers’ weekly pick-up, and then finally about 2:00 in the afternoon she dragged herself to her car and started home.

  The first thing she noticed, when she drove up, was that her road was empty of cars.

  And then she pulled into her driveway.

  And there were no tents. No campers. None.

  They’d left.

  And her house.

  Spray painted across the front, across her brand new paint job, were the words “hoax hoax hoax” and “lying bitch.”

  With bunches of exclamation points.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She spent Sunday morning painting over the graffiti.

  Then Paul phoned her and they agreed to meet at Highland Park, in the city, to talk.

  She got there first, and parked on Highland Ave., and waited, and then five minutes or so later she saw him in her rearview mirror, walking up the sidewalk.

  She got out and he pecked her lips with his, and they hiked up the hill through the lilac bushes to one of the blacktop paths that crisscross the park, and then after a bit they came to a bench and sat down and agreed that it was a gorgeous day.

  Then they were both silent for awhile.

  “I talked to Maisey this morning,” Libby said finally.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s okay. She’s going to apply to a couple of colleges, see if she can matriculate in January. She’s thinking maybe special ed. And she’s probably going to come stay with me until she starts. She says Gina’s going back to Hawaii.”

  “Good for her. Maisey, I mean.”

  They sat a bit longer.

  “So,” he said finally.

  She waited.

  “Sorry I punched your friend.”

  “We were all upset.”

  A couple passed by. They were walking a dachshund on a little red harness and they smiled and nodded as they passed.

  “Libby.” He was looking at his hands. “I don’t really want to do this. But my boss—”

  “I’m off Skin Tones.”

  “It was bad enough before. But now that this has happened . . . well, you know how important credibility is. In this game . . . we can’t risk that people will think the articles are bogus. Josh was saying—”

  “Paul, I’m not a fraud.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I really do see them.”

  A couple of kids flew by on skateboards and a robin landed on the grass nearby and began hopping about, cocking his head at the ground to look for worms.

  “Anyway, I’m awfully sorry about everything,” Paul said finally.

  Me too, she thought. “I know.”

  Next order of business.

  “So. What about you and me?”

  He was looking at his hands again. “Yeah. Well, you know. It would probably be best if we took a little break.”

  The robin hopped out of sight down the hill.

  “No,” she said. “No, Paul, I think it would be best if we just called it quits, you know, for good.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  They sat for awhile more, and then made their way back down the hill to her car, hugged, and she drove off, leaving him standing there on grass on the side of the road.

  49

  She was moping around the next morning when somebody banged on her door.

  She opened it and it was a flower delivery guy.

  “Libby Samson?”

  She took the bouquet, and when he’d left she set it on her counter and opened the card.

  No message, just Dean’s name.

  She tossed the flowers into the kitchen garbage can in the corner.

  But then, a little while later, she fished them back out and put them in water.

  After all, it wasn’t really the flowers’ fault.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Next morning.

  Same time.

  Delivery guy was back with another bouquet.

  By Friday she’d run out of vases.

  By the middle of the next week, she had flowers in canning jars and pitchers and drinking glasses in every room in her house.

  50

  It was nice to have her place to herself.

  Yeah. And talk about understatements.

  She’d started hiking up to her gardens again, for no particular reason. Just to be outside, and smell the air, listen to the cicadas. Feel the sun on her face.

  It was September, now, and the nights felt almost frosty but the days were still summery. The golden rod and wild asters were in full bloom, and the leaves of the sugar maples, always the first to turn in the fall, were already tinged with orange.

  She hadn’t seen her little friends since that last time, when Paul had found her after she’d sneaked away. But she wasn’t really looking for them, either.

  She sat on the straw covering one of her beds and lowered her eyelids against the brightness of the sun.

  And then she opened her eyes again and suddenly it was a
s if the colors had all doubled in intensity—tripled in intensity—the yellows and purples of the wildflowers, the shimmering horizon, the azure sky deep as infinity overhead. And she suddenly felt how much she was part of it, so that somehow the intensity was inside her as well as outside, and she realized also how much bigger it was than her: the pulsing energy of nature and of life, and how much bigger it was than the petty failures people mourn, our silly failures that we snatch to our hearts from the teeth of our silly fears and our silly angers.

  “So that’s it, then,” she murmured.

  And then in a moment it faded back again, and everything looked the same as it had before—beautiful enough, and crystal clear through her tear-cleansed eyes . . .

  She shivered, stood up, and walked back down to her house.

  51

  “You can stop sending me flowers,” she said.

  Dean stood on his porch, and the look in his eyes is one she’d never forget, the relief and the longing and the love.

  “Libby.”

  He put his arms around her and held on like if he let go, she might vanish into thin air.

  ###

  Kirsten Mortensen is a professional writer residing in Rochester, NY. Her published works include the novel Can Job, a humorous look at life and love inside a dysfunctional corporation, and the non-fiction books Outwitting Dogs and 101 Dog Training Tips (both Lyons Press). Please say hello to Kirsten at www.kirstenmortensen.com or on Twitter @Kirstenwriter.

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