And indeed, I climbed on my stool and played Where’s Waldo with the party pics.
In the first pic I found him in, he was talking to a group of people, smiling, wide-eyed, engaged. But after one or two shots, he inevitably locked in on the camera. It may have been my imagination, but he never seemed to look directly into the lens. His eyes were always a smidgen off to the left like he was looking past the camera. Like he was looking at me. I shook off a shiver and grabbed a sweatshirt from a hook on the wall.
Zion interrupted my stargazing with a “Whoop!”
I figured he’d gotten some pictures that turned out well, but when I swiveled around, he was staring fixated at his phone, his face contorted in uncontained glee. “Omigod!”
“What?” I slipped off my stool and tried to look over his shoulder.
He hid his phone against his chest, but I could tell by his shining eyes and pudding face that he would tell me. “Omigod. So this morning, I tweeted at Adrianna.” He turned his phone to face me so I could see his notifications. “Look! She just favorited my tweet.”
As I looked at his notifications, another popped up. “And she just followed you.”
“WHAT?” He fumbled the phone but caught it before it dropped to the floor. “OH MY GOD!”
“I hate to be a naysayer, but are you sure it’s her and not a bot? Or some auto-follow thing? Or her manager?”
His expression darkened, and I regretted my words, but I didn’t want his fawning to lead to disappointment. “It’s her. Look. It’s official.”
“Yeah. Okay.” I patted his back. “That’s awesome, Zion. How cool for you.”
I caught Derek watching us with a smirk on his face. He thought he was too seasoned to get excited over any celebrities. I pursed my lips at him, too grown up to stick out my tongue.
As soon as I was at my desk, I sneaked my phone out of my bag and searched for Micah on Twitter. When I found him, I followed him and wrote,It was good to see you last weekend. Thanks for the tickets to your show!I stared at the message for a minute and then hit Send. I didn’t expect to have the same luck as Zion, but it was worth a shot.
It had been a long time since I’d used Twitter in such a personal way. I pushed my phone into my pocketbook and scooted up to my desk. My laptop was docked. Three enormous monitors stretched across the workstation. On the left, a folder displayed thumbnails of the images from Friday night. A Twitter app dominated the center console, flashing constantly with new updates. The right monitor currently showed a map of Brooklyn.
I scrolled through various feeds on Twitter watching for any indication of a celebrity sighting. I’d hit the streets in the afternoon, but for now, I needed to tag any pictures Andy had missed. Halfway through the pictures, I’d started yawning so loud, Zion went and fetched me a cup of coffee. The groups of people repeated again and again in slightly different configurations. I’d been introduced to most everyone, but if nobody in the office could recognize them, they weren’t generally of any interest. But in a crowd like this, it had to be assumed that anyone could be someone or might one day become someone. Better to tag what I could.
Aaron Silver.I typed the name in, trying to recall when I’d taken his picture. How did I manage to get a shot of Aaron Silver without noticing that? Aaron had played the lead in an off Broadway production ofHairearlier in the summer, but I remembered reading in our own Arts and Leisure section that he’d recently taken a smaller part in a larger production. I could have asked him about that if I’d seen him there rather than here, through the lens.
The next picture clued me into why I’d missed seeing Aaron. Micah had stepped in front of the camera and walked toward me. That must have been right before he took me to meet those snobby old farts.
Zion snuck up behind me. “I’m heading out. Someone spotted Peter Dinklage walking his dogs.”
“Okay. I’ll see you at home later. I’m gonna go poach Andy’s turf later today.”
“Don’t work too hard.” He mussed my hair and left.
When I turned back to tag the next picture, I noticed Eden standing in the background, Adam’s arm wrapped around her, caressing her belly. She’d missed that one. The gesture could mean anything, but Andy missed nothing. I glanced over my shoulder, finger hovering over the delete key. But if a picture disappeared, Andy might ask why. So instead, I clicked on the tags and made sure Eden and Adam weren’t listed.
Chapter 11
Andy’s favorite stomping ground was a restaurant that catered to the stupid rich. The menus had no prices, and the chefs prepared tiny portions of elegantly plated and delectable food, though from what I could gather, money couldn’t buy unicorn meat or other rare cuts unavailable at any ordinary steak house. The patrons here paid for prestige. The restaurant faded into the urban landscape and looked like any of the hundreds of hip and trendy spots all over town. An innocent couple visiting the city might inadvertently walk in and ask for a table. Lucky for them, they’d be turned away, not because they didn’t have reservations. One didn’t need reservations at a restaurant like this. The right people could stroll right up, unannounced, and be seated. Meanwhile, I’d never been through the front door. I pictured the A-listers inside shaking hands with each other, making jokes only famous people would get. “Did you flash the paparazzi out front?”
At times like these, I wished I could drink to numb the sense of rejection. I had no true desire to be accepted by this disparate group of people who shared little in common with each other except for their exceptional spheres of influence. I’d observed them long enough to know they were all just people. Some had been born with money and power. Others had earned it. Some were gracious despite their blessings. Others behaved as though the universe owed them even more. But all of them needed the same basic things. All of them had to eat. And it didn’t matter that it was six o’clock on a Monday. Time bent to their whims.
I staked out a position close to the corner near the parking garage. And waited. I slipped an earbud in one ear and loaded up a playlist to block out the street noise. My phone buzzed, so I knelt down on the concrete to slip it from my backpack and make sure Zion wasn’t trying to reach me. But it was only a Twitter notification. I clicked it.
Micah had replied to my earlier tweet.Glad you had a good time. See you at our next show?
I checked his feed and found it littered with recent replies he’d made to others like he’d just logged on and started going through all of his tweets, and it made my heart sink to discover he’d answered me at the end of a chain of obligatory fan management.
He wrote,Thanks! Love you, too!to a number of fans who’d expressed their love for him.
AndI hope you have a happy birthday!to people begging him to tweet that, or who casually mentioned it was their birthday. Either way, he had it covered.
When I saw the tweet where he wrote,Yeah, that Micah Sinclair’s the worst,I had to click through to find out what inspired him to respond that way. The original tweet hadn’t even been addressed to his Twitter handle. Someone had claimed,Micah Sinclair sold his soul to the devil. How else can anyone explain his popularity?
