“Oh! Did he respond?”
“It was an actual letter,” said Charlotte, snootily. “He’s probably just getting it, or the letter might still be airborne. Above the Med.”
Lee smiled. Charlotte loved glamour. “What if he says he still loves you?” she asked.
Charlotte considered. “He’s probably dead,” she said. She sat up. “And furthermore,” she said, her method of ending the discussion. Charlotte changed the subject. “Lee Lee, I am really starting to worry about Regan. What on earth has she gotten herself into?”
“Some sort of money scam, I think,” said Lee.
“Do you think she ran off with her new French boyfriend? But that just isn’t like her, is it?”
“François isn’t real,” said Lee. “It’s some thief who pretends to be a French boyfriend.”
“Trafficked with Mariana van Zellerdid an episode on this,” said Charlotte soberly. “Remember? A woman in Kansas thought she was engaged to a helicopter pilot, but it was a young man in Jordan. Or Jamaica? Maybe Jamaica, Queens…”
“I didn’t see that episode,” said Lee.
“You did, too,” said Charlotte. “Who else would I have watched it with?”
There was a quiet moment, as mother and daughter both acknowledged that they only had each other.
Charlotte broke the silence. “And then there was that ugly fat man? Who thought a Brazilian model was in love with him?” Charlotte laughed meanly. “But it was a high school teenager in Texas, using photos from a supermodel’s Facebook page! People are stupid.”
Lee did not point out that her mother had flown “across the Med” to rekindle a relationship with a man she’d last spoken with ten years before. But was it stupid to dream of being loved? Where was the line between stupidity and hope?
46
Love Hackers
By Flora Willingham
Eddie, The Yahoo Boy
The Yahoo Boy says his real name is Eddie and he is twelve years old. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts. He tells me he is barefoot, although I can’t see his feet on WhatsApp. I found Eddie after responding to his WhatsApp message attempting to “pig butcher” me.
(The message said,Susie, is this your number?I responded,No but I will pay you $50 USD in Tether to chat right now for ten minutes.To my shock, he called me immediately. I was very happy to have aprimary source#1.)
When Eddie calls me, he is in his brother’s hair salon. On his phone camera, he shows me around King Salon, a wooden building on stilts, situated, he says, “in the biggest floating slum in the world.” I ask him where exactly and he says, “Nigeria, man, what do you think?”
Eddie’s brother, who goes by “King,” has booted up his generator and Eddie and a dozen kids are charging their cellphones while we talk. They yell and wave in the background.
“If you have a phone, you have a chance,” Eddie says.
To be honest, I admire them. Eddie says they sit in King Salon and text all day. When I ask how many texts he sends daily, Eddie says, “At least five hundred or more, like one thousand.”
He notes, “If one person texts back, it is gold.”
I ask Eddie if he remembers any women from Savannah, Georgia; if he remembersanyonespecifically; if he remembers anyone with my mom’s name, Regan Willingham. It’s possible, isn’t it, that little Eddie could be François?
Eddie says, “I remember nobody and nothing.”
If he gets a “customer,” he sends them up the chain. He is just theBomber,using the few English-language scripts he’s been able to buy. If someone responds,Editorsget involved, thenLoaders, Pickers, Billers,and—in the worst-case scenarios—Yahoo PlusorYahoo Plus Plus,but this is less common now that the murders in the city have come to light.
Eddie says he scams to get money for school tuition and the required uniform. He hopes to be a barber like his brother someday, and when that day comes, he and his brother will rename the building “Two Kings Salon.”
47
Cord
