I shook Kira’s hand as Ariadne laughed, used to our frequent betting. Typically, we bet a few dollars at a time, and the winning dollars always went to our shared fund for utilities. It was my favorite game.
When the elevator opened, Ariadne stepped out and said, “It’s his daughter’s birthdate.”
“Yes!” Kira fist-bumped as I sighed. It might be my favorite game, but I wasn’t very good at it.
I settled into my desk and pulled up my notes from this weekend’s event. So many details, so little time. I had started writing my article on the flight home from California last night, but then I crashed after the second paragraph. My vision for this article included a recap and a list of reasons why people need to visit Fort Bragg during Whale Fest.
Did I decide to glance at Noah’s content from the festival he attended in LA? I did. But the decision was out of spite. He posted a handful of Stories, a series of photos, and one video. It was shocking how little he posted about an event. I wondered if he was getting lazy after years as an influencer.
Noah was a lifestyle influencer—meaning he posted a little about a lot of things. Local and national events, restaurants, gym workouts, daily routines, to name a few. His good looks helped him get away with posting so many different things. To me, it seemed like even though he influenced well, he didn’tactuallyknow what he was doing.
Victoria, my boss, entered the office, an Hermès bag hanging off her shoulder. She zoomed toward me and the fear reappeared in my stomach. I was nervous it might come up my throat at any moment along with my coffee and bagel.
Her cropped brown hair looked freshly cut, and as always, her makeup was flawless. She drew her cat eyes sharp enough to kill me, if she wanted. Which based on the look on her face, she did. “What is this?” She flashed her phone, which was playing the video of me and Noah on repeat.Shit.
“Um…”Deny, Macey, deny!No, she had a video in her hands. That wouldn’t work. “Me enthusiastically interacting with a famous influencer?” Honestly, I was surprised Victoria even used TikTok.
“You just consider yourself lucky you weren’t wearing anyRoamer’s Digestswag in this video.” No swag was worn that day at all, unless you counted a whale costume. “Or else you’d be out of this office likethat.” She snapped her fingers.
My throat felt thick when I tried to swallow. “I’m sorry, but it’s really not fair that a random person shared a private moment of me on the Internet.”
“Life’s not fair, Macey,” she said. “Your article better be worth it. Send it to me by the end of the day.”
She turned to go, but I foolishly stopped her. “What about my photos?” I held up my Canon. “I got some great shots of the whales, and I thought we could use them in the article.”
It took standing by the ocean for four straight hours, but dang it, I got those photos.
Victoria didn’t bother giving me a second glance. “I’ll take a look.”
That was what she said every time. And every time, she rejected them.
My chair rolled backward when I crumbled into it. I stuffed my head between my arms for a minute, leaning against the desk, trying to get a hold of myself.I won’t cry. Big, scary bosses don’t deserve my tears.At forty-four, Victoria was twenty years older than me, and she had no trouble beating down my self-confidence.
Usually, I took it in stride. Everyone in the office walked on eggshells, aware that she could snap at any moment. One of the few things that kept me going after a particularly bad day was Victoria’s implication that she was training me to rise inrankings. But the pace of the training was at snail’s speed and full of little-to-no constructive criticism.
I allowed myself a few shaky breaths, then moved forward.
The first thing I did on Monday mornings was check my column’s analytics. I pulled up my dashboard, intending to compare week-over-week analytics, and I nearly fell out of my chair.
It was a glitch. There was no other explanation.
Because somehow, my page views shot up by 5,000 percent over the last day.
Who did I go to about a glitch like this? I’d draft an email right now.Dear Google CEO, wtf is this?
I quickly scanned which articles attracted the interest, and that reaffirmed there was a problem. The majority of the views weren’t for my articles, they were for theAbout Maceypage on theRoamer’s Digestwebsite.
Once I confirmed that no nudes of mine had been leaked, it was back to confusion. Why would thousands of people suddenly be interested in…
No. It couldn’t be.
A single viral video couldn’t have brought all these people to me.
Right?
Someone dropped into the seat next to me. I glanced over at Calculator Cal. I didn’t know much about him except he owned his own tutoring business as a side hustle, had luscious hair, and used a blinged-out pink calculator.
Calculator Cal shoved his phone in my face. “Did you see this?”
