Chapter 15 #2
a limited time, we’re offering just $9.99 a day.”
“I’m guessing you’d say it’s a bargain for those already looking.”
“Hard not to.” Enzo chuckled. “Theoretically, of course, you could get everything squared away in just one day, so it’s like
you’re having us do the detective work for the price of a couple coffees. I’ll also take this time to mention we’re, of course,
keeping the original HeartString active, though it’s shifting its focus.”
“To what?”
“Well, there are people who haven’t opened their Soulmails .
. .” He gave me an oddly pointed look, but I kept my face plain.
“Those people want to live life the old way, still up to the game of chance. Or people whose soulmates aren’t romantically inclined.
We want to respect that, so we’re reducing the cost for those who choose that path.
Plus, there’s an option for people who are newly eighteen and haven’t received a Soulmail.
” The growing number of people worldwide who had reached the age of majority in the last few weeks was loud on social media.
Protests had begun outside of the White House, the aerial shots like a D.C. -based Coachella.
Polite face, I reminded myself, my jaw painfully tensing as I strove to keep a placid expression. Every one of my molecules screamed
to retreat from this man. I suspected that if you took a human pH strip to him, he’d test as whatever color acid was. “Well,
it was a real pleasure to have you here today—”
“And,” Enzo interrupted, jutting out his chin, “I have an announcement to make.”
Off camera, Samantha’s frown threatened permanent residence. A surprise announcement hadn’t been in the pre-show notes. “Is
that so?” I said carefully.
Enzo faced the camera head-on. “I’m here to announce SecondString, a division of HeartString Corporations. Its goal is to
re-create the online dating scene for people who’ve had the unfortunate circumstance of having their beloved Soulmails already
pass away. Part of that membership includes optional bimonthly sessions with grief counselors.”
I blinked. “Remarkable,” I managed.
“It’s the same price as HeartString, but you get redeemable coins, depending on the number of therapy sessions you attend—”
“We certainly know the importance of quality mental health,” I interrupted.
“That’s all the time we have today, folks.
On tomorrow’s Du Jour, we’ll talk to celebrity attorney John Josephs, who’s citing Soulmail as the number one reason for legal separation as of late and discussing the New York State regulation that added ‘Soulmail’ as a box you can check on divorce forms. Thank you so much for coming, Enzo. ”
“Thank you for having me. I’m sure your viewers would love to know which one of the HeartString sites you’d join, Olivia,”
Enzo said, turning to give the camera a wink.
My Soulmail was mine. It was one of the last things I had control over. My vision tunneled, breath hissing from my throat in a painful wheeze.
Smarmy Enzo of Dating Website Fame had deftly pulled a card from the house of them I’d built. Not just that—he’d done it for
attention. He had purposefully shifted the comfort I sat in for his own benefit.
But still. Media training meant I was supposed to make him feel at ease, a dinner party hostess extraordinaire, a sacrificial
lamb. Instead, I opened and closed my mouth, narrowed my eyes, and pinned him with the worst of all things in human interest
television.
Silence.
Sweat clawed into my hairline. “And that’s the daily Du Jour,” I eked out just as Samantha jerked her glasses from her face
and made a throat-slicing motion. Cut.
I stood. The cameras went dark. White spots blurred my vision, and my fingertips trembled. “What the hell was that?” I said to Enzo.
He stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “It was excellent TV,” he said. “You’ll thank me later.”
“How dare—”
“Oh, please. I saw the article right from the greenroom.”
“The article,” I repeated through clenched teeth. “What article?”
Enzo had the grace to blush. “The one about your big breakup with that wealthy dude. The finance or tech bro with the expensive name? Rumor has it his Soulmail wasn’t you.”
I inhaled, exhaled, and gave him the best facsimile of a withering glance I could muster. Without another word, I marched
offstage, brushing past Samantha. “Not now,” I said when I saw her mouth open.
“Oh. Yes, now.” Samantha fell into step beside me. “Dish,” she commanded.
“There’s apparently an article written about Wells and me.”
“As I’ve just been informed.”
I peered at her. The PR person during the interview, the cupped hand, the rapid-fire speech. My nose began to itch. “How bad
is it?”
“Bad enough that if it’s true, you’ll have led on an entire network.” Samantha paused. “And a country.”
“Wait.” We rounded the corner and speedwalked down the hall toward the break room. “I let people make assumptions about my
love life. That’s true. But I never lied. And it’s also none of their business.”
Samantha made a sound of frustration. “Here’s the thing, doll,” she said. “You know it’s your business. I know it’s your business.
And America doesn’t give a flying eff whose business it is. They want to know. They feel entitled to.”
“Well, they aren’t.”
Samantha hesitated. “Am I allowed to ask if this article is true? You two opened your Soulmails and they aren’t compatible?”
“No. That isn’t true.” A laugh bubbled from me. “I’m feeling very fight-or-flight right now.”
Samantha waited.
“Or freeze. There’s a fourth one now, too, isn’t there?”
“Fawn,” Samantha said archly. “And I’m not flirting with you here until they come up with a fifth. Spill.”
My stomach churned. “Let’s just say he broke the promise that approximately twenty-two percent of monogamous American couples do.”
“What a fool.” Samantha pulled a glasses case out, swapped the purples for the greens. “And you knew about this since the
beginning?”
“Yes . . .” I trailed off, heat striking my cheeks.
“Hmm. So when you said you were keeping your name—”
“I wasn’t being dishonest.”
“That was quite the move.” Samantha slowed a step. “And what about the wedding?”
The wedding. I thought I’d made it clear it was over. But now with both the request for a food tasting and thinking of Leila’s
in light of everything that’s going on reference, I had to wonder if Wells had kept the wedding date as-is. Maybe Leila was worried because she’d seen this article,
not because she’d seen what was happening with my new job. “It’s complicated?”
“Well. I strongly suggest you find a way to uncomplicate it. The special . . .”
“Is still technically on,” I said. “I emailed Yvonne to talk, but she’s away.” I reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind
my ear, which was how I realized I was trembling. Assuming Wells had taken care of things was a huge error on my part, but
in the middle of the mess my life had become, that ticking clock of a ball-drop nuptial was so far away. It had felt like
something I could ignore until it was too late, like early red flags in relationships, unexplained weight loss, and ice caps
melting. And while it wasn’t right, it was easier to let everyone make assumptions, because that meant I could figure out
how to earn an amount of money that would allow me to breathe easier. To save a little bit every month for stability’s sake.
Besides, the right people knew the truth—my parents, Natalie, Wells.
But still. The truth was that I was scared of the looming humiliation for when I had to explain to everyone in my life that
we weren’t getting married.
“Olivia,” came a voice from one of the doorways. “Marta Jenkins, PR. I’m going to suggest a statement of some sort regarding your relationship with Wells Stratton.”
Samantha glanced between us. “How bad is it?”
“It’s trending,” Marta said. “With your engagement picture from the New York Times. You look like modern-day Kennedys.”
I frowned. “There already are modern-day Kennedys.”
“You know what I mean.” Marta’s eyes flitted to my left hand, and a thin line beside her mouth deepened. “No ring,” she pointed
out to Samantha.
“Olivia’s a big girl.” Samantha glanced at me and lowered her chin, the telltale sign she was about to drop her brusque. “But
the network will want you to take a position here. It’s good press—for the network, for Per Diem, for you.” Her eyes narrowed.
“For From Yes to I Do.”
There it was: the tiniest scrape. A crumble of my new foundation. You are only as valuable as what you bring in. I supposed that was true for everything, but it was stark at this level. “Look. I get it,” I said. “I do. I swear. I understand
I’m a public figure now.” My fingernails bit cashew-shaped divots into the flesh of my palms. “This is a private matter.”
Marta crossed her arms. “What would you like me to say?”
“Easy. ‘There will be no comment at this time.’ ”
The break room was blissfully empty. I sank into one of the plastic chairs, my vision dotting, my breath coming short and
fast. Before I lost my nerve, I pulled up the article.
The engagement photo was framed in my old apartment. It was the more casual of the two edited versions. Wells’s mother preferred
the other one. My mouth was parted in faux laughter, Wells’s dimples devilish and charming. At the time, I’d thought it made
us look real, but now, we just appeared posed. I steeled myself and read.
Trouble in Paradise? New media darling Olivia Jane Adler recently shot to fame after her viral real-time soulmate reveal video and subsequent Per Diem debut, so it’s no surprise there would be intense interest surrounding Adler’s own love life.
And not so different from many of us, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies.
Instagram photos dated as early as 2019 picture Adler with Wall Street finance expert Wells Stratton, the son of the longstanding
Hamptons Stratton family. Their engagement website was created in January, which promised a society-studded event this New
Year’s Eve.
A source close to the couple tells People that when Stratton opened his Soulmail, he didn’t read Adler’s name. “She was devastated,” the source reports. “Dress was bought, Amica Georges secured, save-the-dates
already sent.”
As of the day Soulmails launched—nearly one month ago—Adler herself reported she had yet to open her Soulmail. Since then, she has answered a fan’s comment on Instagram confirming the same.
“He doesn’t want to hurt her, and thought about going through with the wedding anyway,” the source reports. “They’ll always
support each other.”
Neither Adler nor Stratton have posted a photo with each other since July 4.
As of press time, their engagement site has been archived, but the cached files can be found here. The Stratton family attorney declined to comment. Adler’s team has not immediately responded to People’s requests for comment.
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I swore. With my index finger, I traced the soft tender spot at the base of my thumb.
I was a person on the earth the same as other people were people on earth, and somehow, everyone felt entitled to muse over who my soulmate was, where I came from, and everything else about me, from my dress size to how much work I’d had done on my face or body.
A pang seized my neck. I snagged a bottle of water, cracked its cap, chugged. Liquid sloshed in my stomach, sitting heavy
on a very specific worry.
I scanned my Wikipedia page, but the internet hadn’t unearthed the story about Sabrina. Yet. They didn’t know of my lost sister,
of the tragedy shroud I’d grown up beneath. Not for the first time, I wondered what it might have been like if my older sister
hadn’t made the choices she did.
The worst thing I could not unlearn: my seat-belt-less sister had survived the initial car crash, becoming a human projectile
through her friend’s windshield. She likely had no idea she had lost both of her arms, because when first responders came
to the scene, Sabrina had emerged from the woods next to the burning car and asked them if they had any Advil before she collapsed
on the road. She never regained consciousness.
That was the detail that lived between my parents and me. And as a natural-born researcher, I learned newspapers on Cape Cod
were as brutal as the rumor mill at my high school. I read everything I could about Sabrina’s death during an eighth-grade
research class. Its intention was to teach us to trust dot org websites, but it wound up being much more than that.
Almost worse, the dead girls in that car had become a ghost story in town. Sophomore year, my friends teased me when I skipped
the “rite of passage” of driving down the street with the car lights off to try to “rouse the K-girl ghosts.” Instead, Caleb
and I had stayed in to watch Alfred Hitchcock movies and eat Doritos in his parents’ basement.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my sister.
I just didn’t know what dredging up her memory in public would do to my parents.
What if some enterprising reporter called the house?
Poked them with needling questions, my parents who grieved day in and day out?
I crumpled the now-empty bottle, stowing it in the recycling bin.
Furious with Wells. Furious with myself.