“Jesus, Shane.” I welcomed back the anger. It was an easier emotion to endure. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Layla.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Throughout the weekend, I kept getting nice messages from people reaching out to remind me of times we’d interacted.
Jaclyn, the Theater of the Absurd fan site admin sent me a message titled:Congrats and a question.
Hey Pumpkin,
Now that you’re a big celebrity, it might be fun if you’d be willing to come over to my board and do a quick Q&A. I understand if you’re totally busy, but maybe when you get some free time. Everyone over here has tons of questions they’d love to ask you.
Let me know,
J
It cracked me up that she thought I was suddenly an interesting enough person that anyone would want to interview me, but then again, if our positions had been reversed, I probably would have done the same thing. The fans would be happy to talk with anyone who had connections to the band.
A couple of people I’d never spoken to in my life directly, though their screen names and avatars were familiar, contacted me with invitations.
Hey, I see that you’re friends with Adam. My band will be playing a gig in Queens tomorrow night. It would be awesome if the two of you came. Let me know and I’ll send you the deets.
As if I could drag Adam out to see any random band perform. Nice try though.
On my way into work on Monday, my Walking Disaster notification went off, and I checked the text from Ash.
I’ve got to be in NYC this weekend. Can we meet up?
I stopped and pondered her question. NYC was a long way from Portland. Especially on such short notice.
What’s going on? Business?
Family thing, actually.
Sure. I can swing by wherever you’ll be staying. I’d love to finally meet you.
Actually. I don’t know where I’ll be staying yet . . .
I couldn’t exactly invite her to stay with me since I didn’t have a settled place myself. The housing search had stalled, but I felt the pressure to figure things out. Shane would be home Sunday, and I couldn’t be homeless when he got back. I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage when he’d already shown a willingness to coerce me.
Speaking of my strange online relationships, my private message queue on the site had become untenable. No matter how many times I cleared it out, I’d come back to dozens more. I’d stopped trying to read them and instead skipped over anything withCongratulationsin the subject which meant almost everything I read was an invitation to hang out or a request for a favor. Was every single poster going to try to contact me now?
Apparently so.
Most of the messages were innocuous. It wasn’t until mid-morning, after my developer meeting that I received the first private message that really creeped me out.
Subject: Sneaky
I met you at a show in South Bend. I can’t believe we didn’t figure out you were *the* Pumpkin before with that hair. Very sneaky of you. Do you think you’ll be able to get the band to come this way again?
What was going on? How would anyone know what I looked like?
I started scrolling through the forums until I saw a thread titled:Fan Blogger article you guys should see.I’d heard that name recently.
I didn’t bother scanning what was copied in the forum and went straight to the source. The article was titledRumor Mill. It was dated Friday and had several paragraphs of random gossip about different minor celebrities. I got halfway down the page and saw why it had made it to my forum. Right in the middle of the article were four pictures, side-by-side.
They were photos of me.
