I look around the table, meeting each of my friends’ eyes. The truth is written there, plain to see.
Arielle dog-piles onto Becky’s words. “Babe, you know I love you. We all do. And one of your absolute best traits is your whole sunshiny vibe. It’s beautiful and uplifting, and honestly, I wish I could see the world the way you do for even a second. But life can be ugly. It’s messy and brutal and painful sometimes. And you don’t have to package that up with some inspirational quote and pretend it’s okay . . . for us, for your followers, and most importantly, for yourself.”
“Those hard times are what make the good times better,” Eli says.
“You gotta have rain to go with the sunshine, huh?” I ask ironically, and they all nod.
“He said stupid shit, you said stupid shit. Apologize, fuck, and move on,” Loretta summarizes concisely and bluntly.
“Thanks. I think,” I tell them. They’ve given me a lot to think about. Not only about Noah but about myself.
“Oh, now that we figured that out . . . did I tell y’all that I have a date this weekend? Met him on that app you told me about, Riley. We’re only an eighty percent match, but I figure that’s better than some rando looking for free dog groomings.”
“Congratulations!” Becky tells Loretta. “That deserves a celebration. Let’s order some more mushrooms since Riley ate them all. Now that my morning sickness is gone, I swear I could eat all day, every day.”
Becky laughs at herself, chugging her fifth glass of iced water with lemon. Lots of lemon because that’s what the baby likes, she says. Simon smiles, moving the small bowl of lemons closer to Becky and then pushing the call button on the tablet to have Maylee come take our latest order.
Eventually, I do get up and sing a few favorites, including Mom’s favorite, Total Eclipse of the Heart, which seems appropriate.
It’s annoyingly popular, but we finish with a group rendition of Don’t Stop Believing. And I vow to do just that.
Chapter 26
Riley
Morning comes too soon. Eli and Arielle offered to stay over when they dropped me back home after the night out, but I’d wanted to hide again. I’d had a lot to think about after everything The Crew told me last night. So my brain power is foggy from overthinking and alcohol.
But what’s in front of me on my computer screen isn’t a nightmare or some figment of my imagination. It’s real.
And it’s awful.
Like a lot of influencers, I pay for a ‘net crawler’ service, an automated program that scours the Internet for mentions of ‘Riley Sunshine’ or my web addresses. Normally, it’s a litany of hotlinks back to my own ’grams, tweets, and reposts.
But this morning, I’ve been greeted with something new, something unexpected. I usually don’t show up in the gossip blogs considering I live a life that’s pretty public. I don’t do drugs, get into barroom brawls, or throw around my influencer status expecting preferential treatment and freebies. And when I’ve done something embarrassing, more often than not, I end up talking about it myself on my social media.
This time, I didn’t post it myself. And it’s not something potentially embarrassing but funny, like commentary on my singing that, when assisted by liquid courage, tends to sound like a horny fox screaming for a mate. No, this mention of my name is nothing like that.
It’s about me and Noah. Or Midnight Mark, as he’s labeled in the captions. I guess someone saw us arguing on the sidewalk yesterday, and like any regular person of the social media age, they started filming. It only took an hour before I was identified as Riley Sunshine and Noah was identified as Midnight Mark from our reveal post.
I’ve watched the video at least ten times now, listening to the hurtful words and flinching at the pained looks on our faces. Seeing myself this way is bad, but seeing Noah like that is worse.
The audio isn’t clear for some of it. You can’t hear us mention BlindDate, thankfully. But my saying, ‘so lonely I had to use a dating app’ and ‘loser’ is unmistakable.
Now the gossip sites are off and running. People have been grinding their way through all of the major dating sites and apps, trying to find my profile. So far, nobody’s hit upon BlindDate, and I suppose it’s good that I used ‘Rachel’ and an email that isn’t associated with any of my social media feeds. I did my best to delete the profile and scrub any activity, even deleting the messages between Noah and me, and I can only hope that I did it in time.
The story that gets re-posted the most is written by one of the sleazier, lazier gossip bloggers out there, Kitty Warner. Kitty’s Litter Blog isn’t one of the normal media sites, which at least have a little bit of journalistic integrity. Kitty Warner favors a writing style that’s half tabloid hype, half conspiracy theory-level insanity, and all just fact-based enough that suing her is a waste of time.
And she gave me the full Kitty treatment on this one.
Riley Sunshine: Scandalous Video Slays Image
The world of influencers is full of spotty characters at the best of times. Normally, they’re Botox and silicone-filled ‘models’ who use their overly filtered feeds to steer delusional ‘fans’ into paying for chats, nude photos, or overpriced merch with their pseudo-recognizable taglines.
But few have been so grating, so saccharine sweet, as Riley Sunshine. The self-professed ‘spreader of sunshine’ has built her brand around being a so-called normal girl, one who wants all her followers to live their best life. Irritatingly perky with her perpetual yellow knee socks, combat boots, and silly wave, she’s garnered half a million followers over the past few years.
But dun-dun-dun, to no one’s surprise, things are not all sunshine and rainbows for Riley Sunshine.
Gasp . . . what? But how could that be?
I hear you, Kitty Cats. And I understand your confusion. I too saw the pictures with the hot guy Riley’s been flaunting around. She might as well have stamped ‘new and improved’ on her forehead and added in a caption saying, ‘love is out there for us all.’
Ugh . . . excuse me while I puke into my morning Froot Loops.
Don’t think me a jealous, catty bitch, though. The issue isn’t Miss Perfect finding her Prince Charming. It’s not even how she met him.
Oh, you missed that part?
Well, listen to the audio from Riley Sunshine herself saying she met the man of her dreams on a dating app. No big deal, we’ve all done it except . . .
Did you hear the part where she says people who use dating apps are LOSERS?
Why, Miss Riley Sunshine! I’m appalled, and maybe a little impressed, at your cattiness. But we can’t all be privileged princesses who make a living with smiles and so-called ‘normal girl stuff’ like makeup videos, photo shoots, and volunteering. We have bills to pay and needs to meet—like food, rent, and dick.
So excuse me if I skip over your fake-as-fuck, toxic positivity in favor of some real life. One where I probably haven’t washed my hair this week, my lunch consisted of Cheetos straight from the bag, and my dates come via an app where we all know the drill. I’m down to Netflix ‘n Chill, and then I’ve got things to do, so GTFO.
Oh, and hey . . . your fans see who you are now too. Fake, staged, and judgmental of those less ‘sunshiny’ than you.
Meow.
They’re ugly words, both Kitty’s and my own, and I’ve had to take time to process them. While I read and watch the video again, the story’s going viral. I guess people love to see others fail, and that’s what I’ve done.
Failed at my dating attempt. Failed at my relationship with Noah. Failed at spreading sunshine. And most importantly, failed at being real, the one thing I pride myself on.
The comments are an utter massacre . . . especially on the pictures of Noah and me. Someone posts a screenshot from the argument, and then someone else adds a caption to the picture that says, Dating App LOSER. That comment alone has thousands of likes now.
ItsLuz- Preaching positivity and spreading sunshine? Oops, don’t look now, bu
t your ugly is on display. Too late . . . we all see you.
SlothsDoItSlow- Thought you were fake. Now I know. Fake AF.
YoYoYoYourCherona- Toxic Positivity, party of one, please sit down.
ChampionJosh- I’ll stretch those lips into a real smile . . . with my dick. DM me.
I lean back, rubbing at my eyes. I’ve dropped followers in the past twenty-four hours, about twenty-five thousand or so. And while that’s a major hit for my business, it’s not what’s killing me right now.
I mostly just want to talk to Noah, but I can’t show up at his work like some stage-five clinger. River called me this morning and told me he talked to Noah last night too and recommended that I hold tight. It’d sounded impossible at the time, but then all this online drama started and it’s at least giving me something to focus on. But it’s only a matter of time before someone does enough internet sleuthing to put together Midnight Mark’s face with Noah’s name, and then it’s a short Google search to figure out that he’s one of the developers of BlindDate.
This has the potential to destroy his livelihood too.
“Take a deep breath,” I remind myself as I see another notification pop up, this one a repost of Kitty’s story. “These sorts of things happen.”
Unfortunately, it’s true. Nobody who gets to a certain level of social media fame can avoid the occasional scandal. I bet, if there’d been Facebook at the time, even Mr. Rogers would have caught some flack.
But this is my first.
I need to decide how I’m going to handle it.
I could fight fire with fire, lash out at Kitty and the mean comments. But that’s not who I am, and even the thought of doing it doesn’t bring joy but rather a dark, swirling feeling to my gut.
I could ignore it, take the high road, keep doing what I’m doing and being who I am. That doesn’t feel right either, though. Arielle accused me of pushing anything non-sunshine down or packaging it up with a layer of rainbows, and ignoring this seems like I’d be doing exactly that. This hurts, and it’s okay to feel that.
Which leaves me with addressing it. But how?
My phone rings, but I let it roll to voicemail. It rings again, and I sigh grumpily as I look at it because there are few people I answer the phone for—Mom, River, Noah, Arielle, Eli, Becky, Simon, and Loretta. Anyone else can leave a message or text me. Mostly because I do not need my car’s warranty extended and I’m not falling for your computer virus scam.
But I see Arielle’s name on the screen. So even though I do not want to talk right now, I answer. “Hey, I can’t talk now. Work stuff is—”
Arielle cuts me off. “Answer your Zoom call. Now.” The line goes dead as she hangs up.
“What?” I ask, but she’s already gone.
A moment later, my computer screen is taken over by a Zoom invitation. I don’t want to answer that either, but Arielle has never done this before. What if there’s something wrong with her or Eli, or Becky, or . . . one of the residents? I’d never forgive myself if I was so caught up in my own drama that I missed saying good-bye to someone. It hurts that my mind goes there, but it’s a sad reality with Arielle’s patients.
I click to join the session and Arielle’s face pops up, filling my screen. Her face is bare, and her hair is pulled up in a messy bun that says she was still feeling last night’s karaoke party this morning too.
“Can you hear me? See me?” Arielle asks, waving at the camera.
“Yeah,” I say sullenly. “Can you hear and see me?”
In answer, Arielle steps back from the camera and instead of the break room at the nursing home I expected to see, she’s in the activity room with a handful of residents.
“Wow! What will these kids think of next?” Mabel asks.
Viktor whistles and shouts, “Looking good, Riley.”
“Uhm, hey, everybody. How’re you doing?” I don’t know what to say. I don’t have time for this when that story is getting shared as we speak and comments are pinging down my feed faster than I can read them.
Hazel barks out, shushing us all instantly. “Quit yer nonsense, girl. We aren’t calling about us, we’re calling about you.”
“Me?”
Arielle leans forward, getting closer to the camera to be heard over the group of seniors as they offer support with various versions of ‘we’re here for you, Riley.’
“I don’t even know how they found out. Not like anyone here is on the ’gram or social media. Hell, they call it ‘The Interwebs’ and ‘The Google’. But news spread like wildfire, and they insisted on talking to you.” She looks over her shoulder, saying quieter as if we have any privacy at all, “How’re you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” I answer instantly.
Arielle’s lips press together. I can read the disappointment there. I absolutely just did what she said I do. But is it such a bad thing to focus on the good? Why wallow in bad stuff when there’s so much joy to be found, even if it’s hard to find it right now?
“You’re okay? My bad then. I guess we can hang up, everyone. Riley’s fine, totally fine. She’ll probably go online later and post something about Joroast. Business as usual, nothing at all out of the ordinary happening today.” Arielle raises a brow in challenge.
I growl, giving in. “Fine. You want the truth? I have no idea what to do! I hurt Noah and need to fix that. I’ve got this scandal going on because I said . . . what I said.” I don’t want to repeat it. I’ve already hurt enough people, Noah and myself included, with my thoughtless words. “And I need to fix that. People are coming out of the woodwork, gleefully dancing through my comments with pot-stirring crap that hurts. And I just want to . . . hide.”
Arielle snaps her fingers and then points at me through the screen. “There you are. It’s about damn time.”
I sag, feeling empty after that outburst.
Viktor pipes up, “Aw, girl, don’t look so sad. That fire you just showed? It shows your strength, and it’s real pretty on you.”
Mabel bumps him with a shoulder. “Not the time to flirt with her, old man.”
Viktor winks at Mabel and then smirks at me. “There is never a wrong time to flirt.”
“How about at a funeral?” Hazel deadpans.
Viktor chuckles. “You’d be surprised how a little bit of pleasure can soften the hurt of grief.”
“Ew,” I say, not sure how the conversation got onto this topic.
“Wasn’t there something you wanted to say that wasn’t grossly inappropriate, Viktor?” Arielle prompts.
Viktor looks at Arielle in confusion for a moment and then recognition dawns on his face. “Yeah, yeah . . . there is. Back in the day, I was a bit of a politician. Betcha didn’t know that, did you?”
Hazel interrupts with a snarky, “Bet you did more than your fair share of shaking hands and kissing babies.”
Viktor frowns at her before continuing to tell me, “Anyway, there’s a lot of mudslinging in politics. I had to put up with a lot. People talking about me, my wife, even my kids . . . like they knew us up close and personal, which they most certainly did not. Sound familiar?”
I nod. “Yeah. What’d you do?”
“My damn job. Those people elected me to take care of the city, and I wasn’t gonna let some mouthy folks stop me from doing it. But I also wasn’t gonna let people say things about my sweet Agnes. Her kind soul didn’t deserve that. Lord knows, she had enough on her plate taking care of me,” he says wistfully. I swear the women are getting teary-eyed too, likely remembering their long-passed spouses.
“I gave ’em hell, I did. They’d write that I was misusing funds, and I’d invite them all to the budget meeting. They insinuated that Agnes was unhappy with a sour man like me, so we’d go on the town and I’d spin her around the dance floor until she was so dizzy, she couldn’t help but grin. They said I was doing a bad job, and I told them to send in their suggestions.”
Hazel pats Viktor’s hand. “That’s actually real nice. I bet Agnes loved that.”
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He lays his hand over Hazel’s and offers a small smile that looks sweet, right up until he says, “You aiming to get spun around the floor yourself? That could be arranged, you know. Arielle . . . I think we need to have a dance.”
“Like a prom!” Mabel shouts in excitement. “We can have a ‘Get Fancy’ day and then dance the night away.”
“As long as we’re done by seven PM. That’s my bedtime,” Bertha adds.
Arielle glares at me as the residents get more and more excited, some of them telling stories of their younger days attending dances. Apparently, Mabel was prom queen. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.
“You see what you’ve started? A prom? Seriously?” Arielle says on a sigh, but I think it’s all for show. She loves her patients, and if they’re excited to get dressed up and sway back and forth a bit, Arielle is for sure going to make it happen.
I shrug but smile. Just a little one, but it feels good. Like even in the middle of chaos and disaster, there can be something good if you look hard enough. And if you can’t see it, you just make it happen yourself.
“I’ll help plan everything,” I assure Arielle.
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she vows.
That seems to remind Viktor of something else. “Hey, girlie, when’s our checkers rematch? I think I could play on Saturday afternoon around two.”
He makes it sound like his days are full from sunup to sundown and he’s penciling me into his busy schedule.
“Saturday sounds great, Viktor. But let me get this stuff with Noah and this video figured out before we make it a date, ’kay?”
I swear Viktor blushes, but then he remembers himself. “Riley, for a chance at a date with a pretty thing like you, I’ll block out my whole calendar this weekend.”
Hazel yanks her hand back from Viktor, who was still holding it gently. “We’re having breakfast on Sunday, you old rascal!”
“And we’re having dinner on Saturday,” Mabel says.
The Blind Date Page 31