I shake my head again as I sit on the bench. “No,” I whisper, reaching up to pull off my lucky scarf.
“Are you sure? Do you mind if I feel your forehead?” the woman asks gently.
I nod this time, closing my eyes and flinching slightly at the sensation of her cold hand on my face.
“Oh, my God. You’re burning up. I’m calling an ambulance,” she says, setting off to find a phone.
“Wait,” I call out, holding up my still-vibrating iPhone. “I have a phone… Here. Take it. I don’t want it.”
As she walks toward me, I can’t help but think about that chubby girl in my Spanish class. We are kin now. Today will be known as the day a single photograph changed my life.
The curator is a couple feet away from me when I lose my grip, dropping the phone on the floor as I pass out.
CHAPTER 1
CHARLEY
Now
Social media is a blessing and a curse. It can be used to galvanize support for important issues, like shedding light on social injustice. It’s the best resource we have for sharing inspiring art and funny memes. On the other hand, social media has also become a means to pass judgment on people before they can defend themselves. The court of public opinion delivers its justice swiftly and without remorse.
I killed all my social media accounts about two and a half years ago. I’d rather be a nobody than a cog in that kind of machine. My friends, however, have started to question my commitment to this philosophy.
The yellow glow from the streetlight pours in through the glass storefront, illuminating Michelle’s cinnamon skin as she hits the switch on the wall to dim the lights inside The Dunk seafood restaurant. Her silky black hair is pulled up tightly in one of those high ponytails that always make me wonder if she’s secretly walking around all day with a massive headache.
Michelle works as the general manager at The Dunk, because her dad doesn’t trust anyone else to run their family business. After locking the entry doors, she slides her jangling gaggle of keys into the front pocket of her black waist-apron and begins wiping down the tabletops.
I stand up from the table nearest the register, to stretch my arms and legs. Almost every Tuesday through Sunday, from eight p.m. to eleven p.m., I sit at this table to keep my best friend company while she closes up the restaurant. Sometimes, I help her clean so we can get out of there faster. Mostly, I use the time to edit photos on my laptop while chatting with Michelle.
“Is there any chili left?” I ask, closing the lid on my MacBook.
Michelle makes a mean chicken and white bean chili. Her mom, Monica, started making it for me when we were kids, when she realized I couldn’t eat their original chili recipe because it contained pork sausage. It was one of the rare times my mother’s Jewish heritage resulted in the creation of a culinary masterpiece.
Michelle grabs a clean towel off the shelf under the counter and heads toward the dining area. “Julio! Pack me a quart of chili, please!” she shouts toward the kitchen.
“Okay, Mitch!” the cook shouts back.
“Want to hit the beach tomorrow?” I ask as I slide my laptop into the snug foam compartment of my waterproof travel case.
Michelle sprays lemon-scented cleaner on the table next to mine and nods. “Fuck yeah. I need a beach day,” she replies, then sinks down into the seat across from me. “Which one?”
“Portuguese?” I reply, closing my laptop case and taking a seat again.
Michelle slides her phone out of the pocket of her blue skinny jeans, her top lip curling in disapproval. “Portuguese Beach is so crowded in the end of June.”
“Not on Monday mornings. We can get there early to get a good spot, then book it when it starts getting too crowded in the afternoon.”
She shrugs. “That’s probably better. It’s not like I need a tan.”
Every time Michelle references her skin color, it makes me sad. It reminds me of the one time she let down her guard and admitted to me how she hated the way people treated her differently in the summer, when her cinnamon-brown skin became a rich coffee-brown. We all have things we hate about ourselves, physical features that feel more like betrayals than assets. For me, it’s the bump in my nose I inherited from my Jewish mother. For Michelle, it’s her skin color. For our other BFF, Allie Kim, it’s her slanted eyes. Maybe that common thread of self-hatred is why we’ve been best friends since elementary school.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and text Michelle a single, lonely poop emoji.
She looks up from her phone screen. “If you need to release the chili demon, just go. You know you don’t have to ask to use the restroom.”
I smile as I let out a fart. “Not necessary when I can let it out right here. I just wanted you to look up from your phone.”
She rolls her eyes as she understands this reference. “You have to dump him. Stat. That guy gives me the creeps.”
The “him” Michelle is referring to is Tyler Bradford, the son of Mayor Tom Bradford, whom I started dating four months ago. Tyler has an annoying habit of texting me emojis to get me to look up from my phone when we’re hanging out. Michelle and Allie do not like Tyler. To be fair, I don’t know if I even like him. But in my opinion, being alone during the summer is worse than being alone during the holidays. If I do dump Tyler, it will be in September or October.
“He’s not that bad,” I say, opening up my bank account app to check my balance for the tenth time today, a new and disgusting habit I acquired recently.
Michelle looks up from her phone again and cocks an eyebrow. “The guy nicknamed you his ‘little oyster.’ He’s a creep.”
The smile on my face vanishes when I see my account balance. “Ugh. I need some new clients ASAP.”
Michelle’s face softens. “Are you in trouble? Like, are you not going to be able to pay your phone bill, or something?”
“It’s not that bad…yet. But I definitely need to figure out a way to bring in more clients or it’s R.I.P. Winters’ Weddings.”
She turns her attention back to her phone, types something, then turns the screen toward me. “Maybe if you put your photos on Instagram, like this girl, you’d get more business.”
I stare at the Instagram profile for a girl named Elizabeth Messina, who Michelle follows on Instagram. “Yeah, and maybe if I hadn’t failed my final exam, I’d have a degree I could use to get a job.”
“You didn’t fail your final. You refused to retake it,” she replies as casually as if she were commenting on the weather.
“Really? This again?” I reply, my voice climbing an octave. “You’re saying I was supposed to fight my way past the sweaty paparazzos so I could give a solo show of pictures depicting the places where my boyfriend and I had sex? The boyfriend who dumped me on Instagram?”
Her eyebrows shoot up as she looks up from the screen. “I’m just saying that maybe you could have chosen some different pictures and hired a bodyguard to get you past the paparazzi. If you really wanted the degree, that stuff shouldn’t have stopped you.”
I shake my head. “You know what happened the last time I tried to create another Instagram account.”