“Thanks, Elliott. I do appreciate it.” And I did. It was nice to know that, even though things hadn’t worked out for us romantically, we could still be on good terms, we could still talk like this. I knew this wasn’t the norm; I knew that most people, once a relationship ended, usually went their separate ways, unless kids were involved.
“I’m always here for you.”
“I know.” I tried to take another deep breath, the tightness in my throat loosening just a bit. “Mom’s stopping by soon,” I said. The kitchen was full of the warm, slightly sweet smell of the scones. The sunlight spilled in across my beloved farmhouse table, made from salvaged wood that I had found for fifty dollars in a little antique shop on 8th Street this woman ran out of her garage. In the center of the table was a glass cylinder vase holding some blue irises. The light was just perfect for a photo of some sorts, but that was the last thing I wanted to do right now.
“I’ll take that as my cue,” he said. “I’ll be in touch. Stay safe.”
“I will. You too.”
He let out a short, barking laugh. “No one’s going to try to gun me down,” he said. “At least, not if they’re after Instagram stars.”
I stood there for several moments after I got off the phone. I had felt pretty okay before Elliott’s call, but now, nothing felt right. I couldn’t help but think about Cecily, and her family, and what an awful void her absence was going to leave in their lives. That was the thing that Elliott didn’t quite understand—yes, there would be people who’d be sad if I died, but there was no one out there who depended on me the way I knew Cecily’s children depended on her. I’d even looked at her husband’s Instagram a few times, and read the lovingly captioned posts about what an incredible wife and mother Cecily was.
I leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on my face. My mother would be here soon, and she just wouldn’t understand why I was this upset. She was not the sort of mother you could really talk to about this sort of thing either—she was steely, no-nonsense. In many ways, her attitude could be viewed as refreshing, but if you were feeling emotionally vulnerable, she was not the person you would want to go to.
I had just taken the scones out of the oven when the doorbell rang. I closed the oven door and went down the hallway to the door to buzz her in. I smoothed my shirt and brushed any stray wisps of hair from my face as I glanced at myself in the small mirror I had hanging above the vintage hooks where I kept my keys. I looked okay. My cheeks were a little splotchy, but that was all right. I could blame it on being in the hot kitchen.
“Smells good in here,” Mom said when she stepped into the apartment. She wore a pair of beige linen pants and a blue T-shirt. She looked at me closely. “Are you getting sick?”
“No,” I said.
“Allergies?”
“I’m just... I was talking to Elliott before you got here.”
“Oh?” I could hear the interest in her voice.
“He just told me some upsetting news, is all. I didn’t cry, exactly, but that’s probably why it looks like I’ve got allergies.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Someone died.”
This news interested her, at least a little bit. “Someone you know, I assume?”
“Um, yeah. Her name was Cecily. We’ve never met in person, but—”
“So you didn’t really know her then.” My mother brushed her short, steel-colored hair back. She was a tall, imposing woman who could make me feel like I was seven years old again just with a look.
“No, I did know her. We just never met in real life. We were planning on it, though.”
“How can you know someone if you’ve never met in real life? Did Elliott know her, then? Is that why he was calling you about it?”
“He’d never met her in person, either. But he knew her.”
“What was he calling about?”
“He thinks that I should hire some sort of security,” I said. “Because of what’s happening. Cecily was well-known on Instagram, just like two other people who have died recently. It seems more and more like someone is targeting Instagram celebrities.”
“Everyone wants to be a celebrity,” Mom said, under her breath. “Probably this person committing all these crimes, too. Wants their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“I was skeptical about the deaths being connected, but now, hearing about Cecily... It seems like it’s a bit too coincidental. I think that’s what Elliott’s thinking too, and probably why he called to suggest it in the first place.”
“I think that might be a smart idea.” My mother nodded. “I always liked Elliott. He has a good head on his shoulders. It’s a shame that things didn’t work out between the two of you.” She frowned as she said this, though I wasn’t sure if she was even aware of the fact that she was frowning; she had always blamed the end of that relationship on me. She couldn’t understand why I would break up with someone who was crazy about me, who I got along with. It sounded so stupid to say, Well, it’s because I love him but I’m not IN love with him, but that was absolutely true. It was, perhaps, something that I always knew about Elliott—that we were really nothing more than platonic friends—but I had tried to set that knowledge aside, had tried to make a relationship work. Because there is something to be said to having someone love you the way I knew he had once loved me. It wouldn’t have been fair to him, though, if I had stayed, because I wasn’t able to reciprocate the feeling. He deserved someone who would be able to do that for him.
“We’re still friends,” I said to my mother now.
“That’s good. That says quite a lot about him, actually—that he would be able to remain friendly with you, despite the fact that you broke his heart.”
I was tempted to roll my eyes, but I refrained. That would only start an argument. “It’s been a while now, Mom,” I said. “People move on with their lives. And I really don’t think it would’ve been fair to him if I had stayed, knowing that I didn’t feel the same way he felt about me.”
“That’s something I just don’t understand,” Mom said. “Do you think everything was always romance and butterflies with your father? It absolutely was not. It took a lot of work. There were, in fact, plenty of times that I would’ve been more than happy to call it quits, but when you take a vow of marriage, it’s a commitment that you honor, through the good and bad, thick and thin. And now that you kids are grown up, Dad and I both have our own interests and we give each other the freedom to pursue those interests. But at the end of the day, I know we’re both still glad that we didn’t throw in the towel and get a divorce like so many people of your generation seem to think is perfectly okay.”
“That’s great and all, and I’d like to think that if I ever got married, I would take my vows seriously, too. But Elliott and I weren’t married. So your example is kind of not relevant.”
“Don’t tell me what is and is not relevant,” my mother said crossly. “And besides—” She paused.
“Besides what?”
“Never mind.”
I sighed, deciding not to press the issue. Things with my mother and I had always been a little prickly. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little envious of the easy relationship my younger sister Aoife had with both our parents; they just always seemed to be operating on the same wavelength. It was like they understood some sort of secret language that they all decided not to let me in on. I had always felt this way; becoming an adult and finding success in life had not changed these feelings. I put the scones onto a plate and set them out in front of her, along with the pitcher of lemonade.
“These do look good,” she said. She started to reach for one but stopped, her hand hovering over the plate. “Do you need to take a picture or something first?”
Clear disdain in her voice as she said it. While Dad had readily taken to smartphones and apps and a more digital sort of lifestyle, Mom was far more old-fashioned about it. She still couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that I had been ab
le to quit my job as an admin assistant to “post pictures online,” as she put it, making it sound like I was doing it on some porn site or something.
“No,” I said, declining to add that I had been planning to take a picture, but now, in the light of the news, I wasn’t going to. I’d take a picture of something else, later. Well, more like dozens of photographs, and then I would go through and decide which shot to use, and what I was going to say about it. That’s what she didn’t understand—it wasn’t as simple as just taking a picture and posting it. A lot of time went into it.
My mother helped herself to one of the scones, which was a British-style currant scone. Next to the plate of scones were two small bone-china bowls, one with clotted cream, the other with strawberry jam. I watched as she slathered first the cream, then the jam, onto the end of the scone and then took a bite. She chewed, swallowed, and then gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “These are good.”
I felt a tiny rush of relief. My mother did not dole out the compliments readily, at least not to me. If she was saying the scone was good, then it must be really good. She took another bite and then set it down on the plate.
“So,” she said, “are you going to do it?”
“Do what?”
“What Elliott suggested? Look into getting some sort of security?”
“I don’t know. The whole idea of it seems a little strange.”
“Do you feel unsafe?”
“No. But Cecily probably didn’t, either.”
“I imagine hiring someone for that sort of work would be quite expensive.”
This was another touchy subject. My mother could not wrap her head around the fact that people could make so much money through something like their Instagram account. In a way, I could understand; sometimes I myself still had trouble believing that I was able to make as much as I did from a single post, but I certainly wasn’t the only one, and I certainly wasn’t making the most, by any stretch of the imagination. But to my mom, that wasn’t really making an honest living. It wasn’t true work, even if there was a whole lot going on behind the scenes that she didn’t know about.
“It probably would,” I said. “I don’t really know, though, because I haven’t talked to anyone about it. I couldn’t even begin to guess what the price might be.”
“It would probably be quite the spectrum. I’m sure there are some fly-by-night places that would probably end up doing you more harm than good. Cheap, but you get what you pay for. From there, you could probably work your way all the way up to the cream of the crop where you have to pay them just for getting up in the morning.” She looked at me. “Do you feel you’re in danger?”
I shook my head. “Not really. That’s sort of what I said to Elliott, too, but then he said that Cecily probably felt the same way, which is a good point.”
“I would at least make some calls,” Mom said. “And if you do end up hiring some bodyguard, make sure that you thank Elliott for giving you the idea in the first place.”
I sighed. “Okay, Mom. I will.”
***
That night, I lay in bed, scrolling through Instagram. I went to Cecily’s page, which was full of condolences from people around the world. I started to write a comment of my own, but then stopped, in part because I didn’t know what to write, and in part because it seemed so impersonal. But this was the only way that I’d ever known Cecily, so it wasn’t like I’d call up her husband to tell him how sorry I was. I tried to go back and write something, but the words just didn’t come. The ones that did sounded trite, or it was something I was certain that everyone before me had written. Usually, the words came easy, but right now, they were not.
Instead, I looked through Cecily’s pictures. Like my account, most of the photos were of her house—beautiful, gorgeous, colorful interiors, perfectly appointed furniture, the whole place radiating a welcoming atmosphere that made you wish you knew her in real life and could go there to hang out.
There were some pictures of Cecily, and I found myself gravitating to those. It was hard to fathom that she wasn’t here anymore, how quickly something like that could happen, how life could change so drastically in an instant. I tried not to think about her family, but of course I couldn’t help but do exactly that. How awful that was, that her kids were now going to have to grow up without their mother. And that if it was someone who was targeting Instagram stars, how awful that was, because if she’d never signed up for the account in the first place, then she’d still be alive. There were so many what-ifs, it boggled my mind.
***
I got up early the next morning because I wanted to get down to Second Chance Antiques, which was one of my favorite stores to find really great vintage housewares. The owner, Michelle, also seemed to have a knack for finding great artwork, and I thought it might be nice to try to find something new to hang in the living room, something that Cecily might’ve liked, as my way of honoring her. I also knew that I needed something to keep myself busy with, instead of sitting around my apartment all day wondering why such awful things could happen to good people.
I still hadn’t reached out to her husband yet. And with each passing minute, the things I might possibly say to him seemed less and less genuine—I kept replaying the scene over in my head where he saw my message and got mad, wondering who the hell I was. I knew it was doubtful that he would really react that way, but once the thought was in my mind, it was impossible to let it go.
Sometimes, I really hated the way my mind worked.
It’s like a thought would take hold, and even if I knew that there wasn’t any real reason to stress out over it, or worry, it was like my brain just couldn’t let up. It was in sharp contrast to my sister, Aoife, who was so carefree and easygoing it was hard not to be overcome with envy whenever I was around her.
Which would be later tonight, actually. Aoife was driving up from Santa Cruz to visit some friends, and we’d planned to meet up for an early dinner at her favorite sushi spot. I tried to redirect my thoughts to what I might order tonight, but they kept sliding back to Cecily, to her husband, and to his awful response to the message I had not yet sent.
I was so lost in these thoughts that I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going; I was just walking, sort of following the girl in front of me, who was going in the general direction that I was headed. We approached an intersection; the light was green for cars but the red stop hand was up for pedestrians. The girl I was behind glanced over her shoulder, quickened her pace, and then hurried across the intersection right as the light turned yellow. I stepped out after her, knowing the light would turn red in the next second—and it did—but a big, dark car that was trying to take a right-hand turn came screeching to a halt, the front bumper less than an inch from me. I jumped, my heart in my throat.
“Watch the hell where you’re going!” the driver shouted, sticking his head out the window. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with short, gelled-looking curly hair, gold aviator shades. He was driving a black Mercedes.
“You almost hit me!” I shrieked, my voice shrill and slightly hysterical-sounding. My heart thudded in my chest. “And you’ve got the red light!”
“It wasn’t red when I was trying to take the turn, but your stupid ass was in the way!”
He leaned on the horn, so I flipped him off and continued across the crosswalk, but instead of taking the right, he yanked the wheel to the left so he could follow me, yelling a string of threats and curses after me. I could feel my shoulders inching up toward my ears as I hurried down the sidewalk.
He slowed the car to a crawl. “You think you can talk to me like that, huh, bitch?” he yelled. People looked our direction, but no one said anything, no one tried to intercede. “No one talks to me like that!” I glanced over my shoulder at him, and though his eyes were obscured by the glasses, I could see the rage in his face. Clearly, he was a person who was used to getting whatever he wanted, when he wanted, with no pushback from anyone. He was also quite obviously so
meone who had serious anger management issues.
I sped up my pace, expecting that he’d drop it and speed off, but he didn’t; he continued to follow me. None of my fellow pedestrians would meet my eye; it was like I was invisible.
“What’s your name?” the guy shouted. “Why don’t you tell me where you live so I can stop by some night and teach you some manners? Not going to be such a big talker then, are you? I’m sick of dumb bitches like you who think they can mouth off to whoever they want and get away with it—but guess what? That’s not gonna happen today!”
I could feel my heart racing in my chest. Part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I knew that would only make things worse. The other part of me was truly scared that this person was actually a psycho and might try and do something—even though it was broad daylight. Even though I was here, walking down the busy sidewalk. What if he pulled a gun out and shot me, then sped off? It would be easy enough, and he was certainly talking like someone who might have a loaded gun in the glove box or tucked into the waistband of their pants. His yelling got louder, and all I could envision were scenarios that ended with me in a pool of blood on the sidewalk. This had all started because I had simply gone to cross the street when I was supposed to?
I abruptly stopped and turned, following someone into the building they were going into. The door shut behind me, and I hurried through the lobby, away from the guy in the car. Finally, I couldn’t hear him anymore, and I hoped that he wasn’t going to try to double park and come in here after me. I stopped when I arrived at the elevator bay. I didn’t want to go back outside, but I didn’t know if I should just go up to some random floor and pretend like I actually had business there.
“You going up?”
The voice jolted me out of my thoughts. A guy was standing in one of the elevators, his hand pressed against the door, holding it back.
“Oh, um, sure,” I said. I stepped over the threshold and he let go, the door sliding silently shut.
“What floor?” he asked.
I leaned against the smooth, cool side of the elevator and exhaled. It felt safe in here, which I knew probably seemed rather ironic. But I felt like I was closed off from the rest of the world, from that crazy guy.
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