“Hey,” she said, totally casual, as if our apartment always looked like the sorting room at a recycling plant.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“I’m making lanterns for Saturday night.” She held up a can with a pattern of holes punched in it. “You pop a little tealight in there and it glows. Put enough of them out and they’ll make the whole space twinkle.”
This must’ve been another one of her Pinterest projects. Last month, she’d dragged a raggedy dresser drawer in off the curb and upcycled it into a wall-mounted wine rack for our kitchen. It sounded wacky, but it looked cool. She was a pretty talented crafter.
“Do you own that drill?”
“No, Ray loaned it to me.”
“Does he know what you’re using it for?”
She answered with a shrug, but I knew she’d kept him in the dark. Ray was our super. If he knew his drill was going to be used to create decorations for an unsanctioned rooftop party, he never would’ve given it to her, since he’s the one that was going to have to deal with all the complaints.
“Can I help with anything?” I asked.
“No, thanks. I’ve got it covered.” She lowered her head and resumed her work, the room echoing with the sounds of shredding metal and spinning gears.
I carefully maneuvered around the tin can obstacle course to get to my bedroom, where I shut the door against the racket.
Alone, at last. I couldn’t jettison my bra fast enough.
After changing into my favorite sweatpants and a hole-ridden T-shirt, I busted open that bag of bodega goodies and woke my laptop from its peaceful slumber. Lines of code filled the screen, a reminder of how I’d spent my weekend: getting digital revenge on the guys who did me dirty. I’d almost forgotten about that.
By now, the cathartic effects of JerkAlert had worn off, and it was time to free up some space on my web server. I signed into my dashboard, ready to take the whole thing down. But when I looked at the activity log, I did a double take.
Over a hundred new records had been added to the JerkAlert database. Overnight.
For a moment, I thought there was some sort of glitch. Like the hosting service had linked my login to a different account. Or I’d been hacked by some cyberpunk with low ambition.
Reading the entries, though, they were clearly legit. Dozens of tales of women who’d been jilted by guys they’d met on Fluttr.
My friends had apparently been busy.
I texted Lia, Whit, and Dani: Did you 3 stay up all night adding guys to JerkAlert?
A few minutes later, the responses started rolling in:
DANI:
What are you talking about?
LIA:
I didn’t add anything...
DANI:
Neither did I. I mean, hello? Look who you’re asking.
MEL:
Don’t tell me Whit entered all of these herself. There are over 100!
And then, in a separate text, without copying Lia or Dani, Whit asked me: Got a sec?
This could not be good.
She answered on the first ring. “Don’t be mad.”
Which meant I was about to be really, really mad.
“What did you do?”
“I shared JerkAlert with a couple of contacts.”
In Whit-speak, “a couple of contacts” could mean hundreds of people. Working in PR meant she had endless connections. Not to mention a skewed sense of the meaning of “a couple.”
“I didn’t want anyone else to see this,” I said. “It was just a joke.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know? You didn’t say that.”
She was right, I guess. I didn’t tell her not to send it around. Besides, if I was concerned about discretion, I shouldn’t have sent it to Whit in the first place.
“It certainly doesn’t look like a joke,” she continued. “It’s really well-done, Mel.”
“Thanks.” An unfamiliar tingle bloomed in my chest. Pride. It had been so long since I’d felt it. “I’m taking it down, though.”
“What? No!”
“Yes. It made me feel better for a minute, but it’s not like it’s gonna fix anything. Dating is depressing enough without putting more negative energy out there into the world.”
“Look, I’m all for spreading positive vibes,” she said, “but you’ve obviously struck a chord here. Women are having a hard time on Fluttr. At JerkAlert, they can connect and share their experiences. Plus, it’s a way for them to protect themselves against shady guys. Before you swipe right, you can check their JerkAlert profile to make sure they’re not gonna send you a dick pic.”
“I thought you didn’t mind dick pics.”
“Only sometimes,” she said. “The point is, most women do mind. And it’s not just dick pics you’re saving them from, either. Women are logging all kinds of shady shit. Guys who ghost, who stand you up... Did you see that one guy who was actually married?”
My stomach clenched. “No.”
“Yes! He was dating a girl for like a month before she found out. I guess he’d stuffed his wedding ring in the pocket of his pants and when he took them off it went flying across her bedroom floor. How stupid could he be?”
“Wow.”
“See? You’re doing a real service with this site.” Whitney cleared her throat, shifting to a more subtle, serious tone of voice. Her no-nonsense, get-shit-done, businesswoman voice. “And beyond that, this could be a step in the right direction for your career.”
I snorted. “Yes, I’m sure this would look great on my résumé. Melanie Strickland—Founder of JerkAlert.biz, because JerkAlert.com was already taken.”
“I’m serious. The concept is original and compelling. You could really turn this into something big.”
“It’s not the kind of thing I want to go public with, Whit. Do you know how pissed guys would be if they knew I was the woman behind it? Especially that married guy. Who knows what they’d do?”
“So stay anonymous. The public doesn’t need to know who you are. That actually makes it more interesting.”
My initial instinct was to tell her she was crazy, hang up the phone, and continue with my plan to delete the site. But then I remembered Alex’s words: The right opportunities are the ones you create yourself.
What if this was my opportunity?
JerkAlert was my vision, and I’d already brought it to life. Maybe it would be the ticket to a brand-new phase of my career.