“You aren’t the first person to have a crush on him, and you won’t be the last,” Olivia says.
“But you’ve been really good for him,” Samantha says. “That’s different from our other friends here.”
“It’s probably proximity. Whenever the mother-in-law house is ready and I move back in there, I’m sure this will fade.”
“You should mention the grape idea to Mabel,” Olivia says.
Samantha smiles softly. “I think she’ll like it.”
“She’s good at seeing the opportunities. Look what she did with bringing us all here.”
“Running this place—it’s what Mabel was born to do. She might play low-key about it, but she cares. She cares so much.”
“I can tell,” I say softly. “What she’s done—honestly, I think she saved my life.”
Olivia finishes buttering the croissants and slides them into a rack.
Samantha smiles softly at me. “We’re glad you’re happy here.”
“It’s a good place to take as long as you need to find yourself again,” Olivia agrees.
“Or to make a new home.”
“How long did it take you to find yourselves?” I ask.
“I’m still looking,” Olivia deadpans.
“Took me about six months,” Samantha says.
Their viral moment was on par with mine. No nudity involved, but they got as much negative attention as I did after they posted a video of the two of them in lumberjack costumes for Halloween, doing what lumberjacks do.
Except instead of splitting wood with their axe, they were doing a sketch pretending to split things that had come from each of their ex-girlfriends.
When Samantha took the axe to a ceramic dildo, one of the flying pieces hit Olivia in the face and dropped her.
The internet went utterly insane.
Some people thought Samantha was abusing Olivia, even though they both insist Olivia hadn’t been hurt nearly as badly as she played on the video.
Some people made a big fuss about lesbians having dildos, like there aren’t a dozen different simple explanations, from the dildo being used for humor’s sake to sexual orientation being more complicated thanI like womenorI like men.
Some people thought they were doing lesbians a disservice by dressing as lumberjacks and feeding stereotypes.
And on and on.
What they thought was funny turned into a nightmare.
“I knew we’d be okay when Samantha got back on the internet and read some of the hate mail and didn’t immediately run back into hiding,” Olivia tells me.
I wince as a full-body shiver overtakes me. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to do that. And then I think I’m being a bigger chicken than my actual chicken is for continuing to avoid it.”
“Sometimes going the wrong kind of viral is about just that moment, and sometimes it’s about more,” Olivia says.
The last text message I got from my mother flashes in my mind.
When are you going to quit hiding? I can’t convince Belle to hold that job at her firm for you much longer, and now my friends are all talking about how much I must’ve messed you up that you’re dragging out your reaction to this.
Yeah.
