CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A NYA
I had one rule in life—trust your first instinct. I hadn’t always lived by it, and there were plenty of times I discarded it, but after the mugging, it became my mantra. My instincts were right most of the time, and I needed to trust them. Doing so would help me, not hurt me.
My instincts told me to remain calm. They said that I—we—had the power to decide how this moment was going to play out, and how it was going to affect our lives. If we stayed in control, we’d be able to preserve the last sliver of power that remained.
We just had to keep our wits about us.
Not that it was simple or easy to do. This reaction wasn’t typical for me, wasn’t part of my usual emotions. In fact, I would have said it was out of character for my usual modus operandi.
But going viral online was different.
The internet wasn’t a real place. I’d always said that. Whatever happened there was happening virtually, in a matrix of screens and computer code. It wasn’t real life, far from it. Navigating my daily life was complicated enough without putting extra emphasis on the comments and opinions of people I’d never meet face-to-face.
So, I did my best to go about my normal business. I needed to get to the store, and Robert said he had some errands to run, so we agreed we’d continue with the plans we already had for the day. He left my house around eight, and we decided we’d meet for dinner that night at his place after I shut down The Green Frog at six. After he was gone, I jumped in the shower and got dressed, the whole time still thinking about what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Viral video aside, it was a head spin.
Yes, I was disappointed that we hadn’t won the competition. The prize money and the prestige would have gone a long way toward helping the store, and it was going to hurt telling Gwen that we hadn’t succeeded.
Hooking up with Robert was the exact opposite of that. Being with him was a good thing—an excellent thing. For the first time in years, I felt warm and optimistic, as if being vulnerable and open with him had reconnected parts of my soul I’d long thought were dead. I felt lighter and happier.
So, despite what was happening on my phone, I swept my hair into a French pin, pulled on my camel-colored silk tank dress, slipped on my tan loafers, and headed to the store. I was the only person scheduled that day, and I welcomed the quiet I knew would come from working the day after a major summer holiday.
I wasn’t alone for long.
Morgan showed up at the store about fifteen minutes after I opened, bursting through the front door in a pair of black leggings, strappy athletic top, and Adidas sneakers. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Where else would I be?”
The door clattered shut behind her. “I don’t know. You’re not answering your phone.”
“It’s in my purse in the office.”
“You haven’t checked it?” she asked as she crossed the small showroom space.
“Not in a little bit.” I held up my hand. “Trust me, I’ve seen the videos.”
Her shoulders relaxed as she reached the cash wrap desk. “Good, you know about that.”
“My phone practically melted from all the notifications. Robert’s did too.”
My best friend’s jaw slackened. “Oh. You’ve... you’ve seen his phone?”
“He stayed over last night.” I grinned, knowing she’d get the implication of my expression. “And it was really good.”
“Like, how good?”
I laughed. “Like, three times good, let me put it that way.”
Morgan gasped.
“Don’t act so shocked.”
Bending down, I pulled the Windex and a few paper towels from the small stash of cleaning supplies I kept beneath the cash register. The large storefront windows were streaked with fingerprints, and the morning light streaming through them highlighted how much they needed cleaning. Doing a task like this would prevent me from accessing my phone, which I wanted to keep locked up in the office.
“Let me take care of these windows,” I said as I rounded the cash desk. “I didn’t realize they had gotten so bad.”
Morgan followed me back to the front and offered to help, but I insisted on doing it myself, reminding her that I had a certain way I liked the windows to look. She laughed at that and reminded me of the disastrous window paint I’d put on them back when I first took over the store, paint meant to advertise a huge back-to-school sale, and that took five tries to wash off the glass.
“That’s when I learned you were a picky person,” she said. “Much more than I remembered.”
“I guess I’m just old and crusty.”
I squirted some cleaner on a paper towel and began cleaning the window, starting with the large cluster of fingerprints near the display of Madeline and her friends. I didn’t understand why people wouldn’t monitor their children, wouldn’t stop them from touching things in the store they didn’t plan to buy, but it never failed. These arrangements were too popular with guests, and I didn’t want to risk further alienating what was already a dwindling customer base.
“I know the video is getting a lot of traction,” I said once I cleaned the first group of smudges. “The remix was pretty silly.”
“Well, they partnered it with those dance videos from Swept in Love , and I thought that was pretty funny.”
I grimaced. “TikTok dances are so cringe.”
“Unless you’re, like, a nineteen-year-old gymnast from some SEC school. Then they get you million-dollar endorsement deals.”
I stopped rubbing the glass with the paper towel. “Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s old. I’m sure this is just a flash.” I moved to the second section of the window. “A trend. People aren’t that interested in someone like me.”
“But that kiss looked like something out of a romantic comedy.”
I scoffed. “Says the woman who has already found the love of her life. I think you’re a little too hopped up on romance right now for your own good and all the wedding planning.”
“Actually, I still need a break from that, so now that I don’t have the float to distract me, I’m moving on to this viral video business.”
“I’m glad to provide you one.” I gave her a mock bow.
Morgan studied me. “You’re not curious at all?”
“About what?” I spritzed more cleaner on the paper towel and glossed it over the nearest section.
“What’s on your phone? What’s happening to that video right now?” She took an unused paper towel and followed my lead, streaking it with Windex before crossing to the unclean area on the farthest side of the window. “You’re not thinking about it at all?”
“Oh no, I’m obsessing about it all the time. Just trying to keep myself from accessing my phone all day.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
I stopped working. “Not very well.”
Morgan stopped cleaning too. “Good, I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
“Do you think this will be a good thing or a bad thing?”
“There’s no such thing as bad press.” She walked toward me, crumpling the used paper towel. “You know that.”
“But—”
I considered all the viral videos I’d seen across the internet in the past, all the time when they went wrong, when people messed up their lives with one moment, with one break in their usual behavior. It didn’t matter that the internet had been around for a few decades and that most people had daily access to it. The internet was still the Wild West, still a vast place with few rules and lots of dark corners. What people cheered today they could easily jeer tomorrow.
There was nothing saying they wouldn’t do that to me. To the store. To the life I’d built since coming home to New Burlington.
“What if this goes wrong?” I asked. “What if this ruins my life?”
Morgan leaned against the nearby display table of puzzles and games for early elementary-aged school kids. “I don’t think it will.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “And in shock. I knew people were recording that moment. I saw all the phones out, and I know that’s what people do now. It’s instinct. But I didn’t think anything I did would be of that much... interest to people. Especially not my love life.”
“That’s what Robert is now? Part of your love life?”
I nodded.
“I like that.” She jerked her head in the direction of the store's back office. “Now, can we please go check your phone?”
I smiled at my friend and laughed once, shaking my head. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
We stored the Windex back in the cabinet underneath the cash wrap desk, tossed the paper towels in the trash, and made our way to the small office. I took the phone off the wireless charger, and we walked back into the main section of The Green Frog. We were slow, but it was still early, and if anyone came by, I didn’t want to miss them. Morgan and I sat in the two club chairs next to it, chairs that made up a small place where shoppers could rest and read books before making their selections.
“Well?” she asked as I unlocked the phone. “What’s on there?”
“Like, fifty new text messages. And a full voicemail inbox.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s a lot.”
“It is, considering I checked the phone, like, five minutes before you showed up,” I admitted.
My friend laughed. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
I thumbed through the messages, the volume of which was severely slowing the capacity of my phone. It was hard to read them all: solicitations for management, texts from people claiming to be agents, messages from random journalists, and more than one from someone who claimed to want to sleep with me or ask me out on a date. Most came from numbers I didn’t recognize. How in the world had they managed to get my phone number so quickly?
My social media accounts were even worse—my direct messages were full of comments and weigh-ins on the video, as well as inane questions and solicitations.
“Now I understand why celebrities turn off the direct messaging on their accounts,” I muttered to Morgan after reading several messages targeting me for my weight and my overall looks. It never ceased to amaze me how people on the internet assume they can bring up someone’s appearance to them as if they had a say in that person’s existence. “I’m totally going to have to do it too.”
“Lots of trolls out there.”
I looked up from the device. “Millions.”
“Anything promising in the froth?”
I scrolled some more. “There’s an offer from Daily Mail .”
Morgan rubbed her hands together. “Okay, that sounds legit. Daily Mail has a big reach.”
Skeptical, I locked the phone and placed it in my lap. “They’re a tabloid.”
“That everyone reads.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Think about how much one article with them could do for you. I mean, people would be coming to The Green Frog all the time, and that would mean more money, and it wouldn’t matter that we didn’t win the float competition.”
I slumped. “I’m sorry we didn’t. You worked so hard, and I still can’t believe the judges didn’t see it.”
She put her arm around my shoulders. “I’m not that upset about it.”
“You’re a good friend, Morgan. I don’t deserve you.”
“Now it seems like the competition doesn’t matter anymore. After all, everyone is talking about that kiss. That’s the one thing that’s got potential. This is like lightning in a bottle.”
Morgan’s eyes were bright and wide. I stared at my friend. Was she right? More than that, could I handle it?