“How is Lorraine going to help get me out of this mess?” I groan, wiping down a clean counter because I need something to do with my hands.
Zoey pulls out her phone, unlocks it, and hands it to me.
“What am I looking at?”
“That’s Lorraine’s channel,” she says.
I look down at the page she’s pulled up, and I see a little drawing of a cartoon Lorraine in a circle with a pink background. Underneath is the wordHeartSmart.
Zoey taps the screen, and I finally see what she wants me to see. Lorraine’s follower count.
It’s almost four million.
I look at Zoey. “She has four million followers?”
“Yes,” Zoey says. “I did her branding last year around the time her account blew up. She just keeps growing.”
Wow. I assumed Lorraine had a couple of random subscribers. This is... unexpected. Yet another assumption I’d made that had been completely wrong.
“What does she talk about?” I ask.
Zoey clicks on one of the videos. Lorraine is sitting on the little bench outside her apartment. She looks up into the camera and adjusts her glasses then, like she’s only just realized it’s recording, and she smiles.
“Good morning, HeartSmarties! Today I’m back to answer another one of your questions. You know I can’t be anything but honest, so I’m going to tell it like it is. This question comes from StrawberryLongcake03. She says, ‘I started dating a new guy a month ago, and I’ve started to notice that he only texts me back late at night. Should I be worried?’”
Lorraine looks at the camera and laughs. “Oh, sweetheart, there’s a fine line between a butt dial and a booty call. If he’s only texting you after hours, it’s not because he wants to be your pen pal. It’s time to tell this guy he can take you out on a proper date, when the sun is up, and if he doesn’t want to do that, then move on. Life’s too short to waste your time.”
Hearing the words “booty call” come out of Lorraine’s mouth is hilarious and jarring. I’m surprised she even knows what that is.
Zoey clicks the phone off, and the last bit of Lorraine’s blunt advice hangs in the air.
She’s right. Life’s too short to waste my time.
“Go over the plan again,” I say, feeling a bit more determined than I was ten seconds ago.
“So you make a video.” Zoey hands me an iPad. “I wrote out some bullet points. You simply tell your fans that you made a mistake.” She shrugs. “Mistakes happen. Just be honest. You were so excited about the market that you mixed up the salt and sugar, and you want to make it up to them. Then announce your plan for ‘Porch Swing Sidewalk Samples,’ a chance for them toswingbynext weekend for a free treat. Your way of making it up to them and proving to them that youdoknow how to bake.”
I sigh. “This feels humiliating.”
“It’s not,” she says. “It’s honest. People respond to honest.”
Me included.
Lennon nods, bouncing Eve on her hip. “She’s right. People will love it.”
This makes me think of my old life.
The one I never fit into.
I realize that they’re right. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. I screwed up. I’m going to own the mistake.
And people will forgive me.
Hopefully.
“Okay, what do I need to do?”
@theporch
