“What am I gonna do,” I mutter into the carpet. From this angle, I can see everything going on under the couch but pretend I do not see it. An exterminator isn’t in the budget. I’m barely scraping by with my OnlyFans earnings, since ninety percent of my subscribers bailed after I said I wouldn’t post nudes.
I scroll through my many, many notifications. The unofficial BettieHughesUpdates account, which has mostly evaporated—its organizers moving on to shiny new starlets—has retweeted low-hanging gossip about my “clearly shopped photos,” even though they have no proof of that. I’ve endured too much. Like the fire from earlier. It’s frankly miraculous that I survived, since I drank so much wine that going anywhere near that fire should have turned me into a Molotov cocktail.
I decide to deactivate my Twitter. It’s the equivalent of a tantrum, and I’ve done it before, but it makes me feel better.
Then I mosey over to Instagram, where I post stories encouraging my followers to enter a sixty-day “A Healthier NewMe” pledge with VerdIgRIS Tea.Sign up today with my promo code HUGHMONGOUSSALE.I find one of my best selfies, change my dark brown eyes to green, and post that, too.
I receive immediate replies: some asking for more information on the tea, some calling me out for MLM scheming, some asking for nudes. Even when the interaction isn’t positive, at least people are responding. People remember me. Right at this very moment, while they type their comments, they’re thinking about me.
“There.” I toss my phone aside. “Now I can spend the rest of the night hating my life.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
I jump off the couch, entire body vibrating with a bloodcurdling shriek. A man wearing a sweater with blinking red and green lights sewn into it is standing in Eileen’s living room. “Get out!” I yell. “Get out of my house! How’d you sneak through my alarm system?” I really could not explain why this is one of the first things I shout. I don’t even have an alarm system.
He flinches. Holds up a tentative finger. “But you...”
“What are you, a stalker? One of my fans?” Maybe I’m still drunk, and right now I’m yelling at some guy on my television screen.
But he looks real. He could be a detective, or a real estate agent. No! Anything but a real estate agent! I start throwing things. My G. Label x Tabitha Simmons Heli Sandals. My Alexis Steelwood Charcuterie Board. Even my Stinson Studios Natural Oak Serving Bowl, 14”. The charcuterie board cracks him over the knee, and he jerks to gape at it, then me. When the serving bowl goes flying, he’s prepared for it, and with a twist of his hand, the bowl rebounds seconds before making contact with his chest. It lands on the floor at my feet, cracking into three pieces.
I shriek again. “My bowl!”
“I’m sorry—I—”
I hurl the pieces at him and he does that thing again, waving his hand to halt their travel in midair without physically touching them. I stare at his hand, beginning to reexamine this situation from a different angle than “but what about my bowl.”
“Please don’t do that,” he entreats politely.
“Was that...” I sputter. “Are you...”
“Telekinetic, yes,” he replies as I say, “Jesus.”
He pauses, eyebrows lifting. “Ah, no, I am not Jesus. I am Hall!” He smiles broadly, which forces me to take proper notice of his brilliant smile, deep smile lines bracketing his mouth. Then I notice other details, like his mop of chestnut brown hair, olive skin with a dash of freckles, and long lashes framing green eyes.Arrestinglygreen, like my fake posts for verdIgRIS Tea results. They’re the clearest jade I’ve ever seen. I’d peg him as in his midtwenties, with boyish good looks and good humor that I find suspicious.
“Do you not remember me?” His face falls, hand landing squarely over his heart. All of the blinking red and green lights on his sweater start flickering. “Oh,no! But that makes me so sad! I remember absolutely, wonderfully everything about how we met. I put it all down here! For posterity!” He plucks a large red book from somewhere behind him and flips to the first page. It features a Polaroid of the two of us, me sprawled on the couch unconscious, eyeliner and mascara smudged. He’s giving the camera a thumbs-up and a happy, lopsided grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s a tight race, but I think the most alarming aspect here is that I can see both of his hands in the picture.
Which raises the question: “Who the hell took this picture?”
“I did,” he replies, flipping to the second page. This one’s got aPolaroid of the two of us with a broken bowl on the floor at our feet. In the picture, he’s holding the red book, showing it to me. A caption in gold ink shimmers beneath:
“Who the **** took this picture?”
“I did.”
The asterisks intended to preserve sensitive eyes from the wordhellare, upon closer inspection, miniature poinsettias. “Ahhh,” he sighs, gaze welling with fond emotion as he strokes the book’s spine. “Memories.”
I grab the book. It’s labeledthe time i was invited to the physical plane by bettie monica hughes and tried sunny d for the first time ever and it was so awesome.The title’s a combination of alphabet stickers and cut-out magazine headlines. “My middle name is Gardenia,” I say, dumbstruck.
The wordMonicadisappears,Gardeniafading in. “That was a placeholder, since I didn’t know. I really love the name Monica. It’s technically the most beautiful human name, tracing back to the fourth century.”
I stare at him.
“But Gardenia is fine.” He snatches the scrapbook back. It vanishes. “I’ve been waiting forever for you to wake up again. Why are there so many dead plants in here? I bandaged your cut and put together a nice gingerbread loaf, if you’re hungry.”
That explains the smell and the stretchy beige material wrapped around my right hand. I don’t know what to make of that. It strikes me as both kind and violating.
“Right,” I croak.
