Chapter 19 #2
“Not Mabel’s family,” Olivia says. “Dean’s family. Nephews and their kids. They’re pissed that Pip inherited the winery, and they sometimes come around pretending to want to help when what they really want is to get money out of her.”
“So they don’t know about the cash flow shortage?”
Olivia shakes her head. “All they know is that Pip’s sitting on a gold mine with what the property’s worth and that they don’t think she deserves it since it was their family’s before she married into it. They don’t know it’s on the brink of belonging to the bank.”
“I don’t think they even know what Mabel and Pip have been doing here, hosting all of us and making this a home for so many women,” Samantha says.
“I keep thinking about what else I can do to help,” I say.
“We all are,” Olivia says.
“It’s probably dumb, but I’ve been enjoying gardening so much that I—I wish I could learn how to take care of the grapes. I did some research, and it seems like if we could sell the grapes instead of giving them away, it would make a big difference.”
“It would,” Samantha says. “But one person can’t manage twenty-five acres of grapes solo. We’d still have to hire people.”
“I know. I’ve seen the crews in the fields. And I meant even after paying the workers, it would be good income. But I’m good with people and I’ve loved my time playing in the garden and I want—I want to do something that will make the kind of difference here that here has made in me.”
They glance at each other while I wipe my hands on the napkin, then rise and head for the sink to start on the dishes.
A deal’s a deal, and I mean it.
I want to pull my weight around here.
I want to be useful.
I want to stay.
“You mention this to Mabel yet?” Olivia asks me.
“No, it didn’t occur to me as a possibility until yesterday when I was on my way up to the tasting room, and then—well.
Now I’m a little worried I’m crossing a lot of lines and breaking a lot of unwritten rules with what—with my crush on Heath, and for a minute this morning when I—when we woke up, I thought maybe I was finally going to get kicked out. ”
Saying it out loud makes it more real than I’d like, and I don’t realize exactly how worried I am until Samantha murmurs a soft, “Oh, sweetheart, who hurt you?”
I swallow hard and blink harder while I open the dishwasher, finding it empty. “What, life doesn’t make everyone this kind of insecure and paranoid?”
“It does not,” Olivia says softly.
I say a silent, sarcastic thanks to my parents for the number of times they talked about what they would finally be able to do when I graduated high school, and to my boss of the last four years who always gave me a vibe like he only kept me on because my segment performed well and not because he liked it, and to every boyfriend who ever dumped me because you’re just too much, Cricket.
“Guess I’m lucky then,” I murmur.
Then I shake my head. “Actually, I am lucky. I’m lucky to be here. And so grateful.”
“We’re lucky to have you,” Samantha says.
I swipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Now if I can find a way to bring in money and get over this stupid crush, everything will be perfect.”
“You aren’t the first person to have a crush on him, and you won’t be the last,” Olivia says.
“But you’ve been really good for him,” Samantha says. “That’s different from our other friends here.”
“It’s probably proximity. Whenever the mother-in-law house is ready and I move back in there, I’m sure this will fade.”
“You should mention the grape idea to Mabel,” Olivia says.
Samantha smiles softly. “I think she’ll like it.”
“She’s good at seeing the opportunities. Look what she did with bringing us all here.”
“Running this place—it’s what Mabel was born to do. She might play low-key about it, but she cares. She cares so much.”
“I can tell,” I say softly. “What she’s done—honestly, I think she saved my life.”
Olivia finishes buttering the croissants and slides them into a rack.
Samantha smiles softly at me. “We’re glad you’re happy here.”
“It’s a good place to take as long as you need to find yourself again,” Olivia agrees.
“Or to make a new home.”
“How long did it take you to find yourselves?” I ask.
“I’m still looking,” Olivia deadpans.
“Took me about six months,” Samantha says.
Their viral moment was on par with mine. No nudity involved, but they got as much negative attention as I did after they posted a video of the two of them in lumberjack costumes for Halloween, doing what lumberjacks do.
Except instead of splitting wood with their axe, they were doing a sketch pretending to split things that had come from each of their ex-girlfriends.
When Samantha took the axe to a ceramic dildo, one of the flying pieces hit Olivia in the face and dropped her.
The internet went utterly insane.
Some people thought Samantha was abusing Olivia, even though they both insist Olivia hadn’t been hurt nearly as badly as she played on the video.
Some people made a big fuss about lesbians having dildos, like there aren’t a dozen different simple explanations, from the dildo being used for humor’s sake to sexual orientation being more complicated than I like women or I like men.
Some people thought they were doing lesbians a disservice by dressing as lumberjacks and feeding stereotypes.
And on and on.
What they thought was funny turned into a nightmare.
“I knew we’d be okay when Samantha got back on the internet and read some of the hate mail and didn’t immediately run back into hiding,” Olivia tells me.
I wince as a full-body shiver overtakes me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to do that. And then I think I’m being a bigger chicken than my actual chicken is for continuing to avoid it.”
“Sometimes going the wrong kind of viral is about just that moment, and sometimes it’s about more,” Olivia says.
The last text message I got from my mother flashes in my mind.
When are you going to quit hiding? I can’t convince Belle to hold that job at her firm for you much longer, and now my friends are all talking about how much I must’ve messed you up that you’re dragging out your reaction to this.
Yeah.
Me being here is about more.
“You know what helped me most?” Samantha says.
I shake my head.
“Taking my power back. I got back on the internet, in my lumberjack costume, and I flipped off the whole world.”
Olivia grins. “More trolls came out of the woodwork, but we had a bottle of wine with Mabel and Ginny and did dramatic reenactments of the worst of the comments.”
“Facing it and realizing it only had as much power as I was willing to give it was incredibly healing.”
“So…I should video my own vagina?” I say dryly as I load the dishwasher.
“If it helps,” Olivia says.
“And then you can use it yourself on instead of that asshole who—”
Samantha cuts herself off, and I glance at them in time to see Olivia giving her a zip it gesture.
“What asshole?” I ask.
“Honey, everyone’s an asshole on the internet,” Olivia says.
Heat streaks through my body, and while the alcohol didn’t make me want to toss my cookies, this conversation might make me toss my croissant. “Is someone using my video on GrippaBeav?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Samantha says. “Mabel’s on it, and she’s getting it taken down for copyright infringement.”
The look on Olivia’s face—Mabel’s not having success.
I’ve been here for a month.
Avoiding the internet for a month.
Have they been making money off of my video for a full month?
“I have to report it,” I say. “It’s my video.
I’m the owner. The report has to come from me.
Not that I’d mind if Mabel pretended to be me, but I did a lifestyle segment once on a guy whose video was used without permission by a major corporation.
I learned a lot about how this works. I have to report it. ”
“We don’t have to talk about this,” Samantha says.
I straighten, something new flooding my veins.
Something I haven’t felt yet while I’ve been hiding.
Anger.
No, not anger.
Fury. Rage. Wrath.
And I suddenly need to know exactly what they’re talking about. “Tell me.”
They share a look.
“What?” I’m gripping a scraper in one hand and a mixer paddle in the other. Both need to go in the dishwasher, but I can’t let them go. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Someone fed your video into AI to modify it, so it’s not materially identical to the original video, which calls into question if it’s copyright infringement or if it qualifies as satire.”
My eyelid twitches. She sounds like my sister Belle. “Were you a lawyer?”
“We had to talk to a few lawyers when our own video made the rounds,” Olivia says.
“Someone—someone’s making money off of an AI rendition of my vagina?” I ask.
“Multiple renditions,” Samantha murmurs. “Of your vagina animated to sing and dance.”
“With an unexpectedly high number of subscribers,” Olivia adds.
I didn’t know it was possible for my spine to snap this straight, but here I am, feeling three inches taller.
“Sleep on it for a few nights,” Olivia says.
Samantha’s nodding vehemently. “Going back on the internet isn’t always the answer. If you’re not ready, if you’re not in the right headspace—it can backfire. It can backfire spectacularly. I had Olivia right next to me the whole time, Mabel and Ginny too, and I wasn’t flashing vajayjay.”
“And you can’t control what goes viral and makes money. Good or bad.”
They know exactly what I’m thinking.
That if someone’s going to make money off of my vagina, then it should be me.
I have the famous vagina.
The infamous vagina.
And I’m living in a place that needs the kind of money that GrippaBeav can make a woman.
Fast.
Faster than any other idea I’ve had.
But my entire body is breaking out in a sweat at the idea of ever showing the world my vagina again. I’m still rushing through showers, and I ran into the bathroom this morning to hide from Heath seeing that I need a bikini wax.
“My sister’s a lawyer,” I say, hating the words the minute they come out of my mouth.
My sister will lecture me on wearing underwear anytime I’m filming myself. She’d probably lecture me more if she heard how many times I’ve gone without underwear because I don’t do my laundry often enough.
But if it helps Mabel and Pip and Ginny and Samantha and Olivia and Lavender and Heath—
Oh my god.
Has Heath seen it?
Not the point, Cricket. Not the point.
If it takes asking my sister for help to get money to help this five-minutes-of-shame commune, then I’ll ask for help.
“Chicken!” a little voice shrieks. “Look, Samantha! I found a chicken!”
Lav barrels into the kitchen, carrying my squawking chicken.
She’s wearing a foam hat that looks like alien antennae—Lav, not the chicken—and when she drops The Cluckinator, I notice her nails are painted scaly green and she’s wearing a pink rhinestone shirt that says I’m the trouble in uneven rhinestones, like this was hand-made, but thank goodness, where my matching shirt has a penis, hers has a rhinestone dragon.
Olivia springs into action. “No chickens in the kitchen, Lav.”
I rush toward Lav, grabbing the bird before she gets any farther into the room while Samantha pushes the cart of finished croissants into the pantry and away from any flying feathers.
And that’s it.
Nothing else terrible happens.
The croissants aren’t ruined or unusable.
Lavender trails me outside, asking if the chicken can be a dragon at her birthday party.
Nothing’s broken.
Nothing but me, breaking out of what’s become a very, very narrow comfort zone here at Makepeace Cellars.
I’ve snapped.
And I’m taking back my life.
Now.