“Good,” Gram said. “Let it be a warning for anyone else who wants to show up here.”
I had no response for that. Gram didn’t go online. She had no idea what she’d just unleashed. I followed her back to the dining room. Gram had literally fried a guy’s face for me, which was why I couldn’t tell her that she’d likely made things worse.
The phone rang and Gram yanked the cord out of the wall. “Those damned reporters have been nonstop all morning. I’m calling the phone company.”
“I’m sorry.” Useless words.
“This isn’t your fault.” Gram lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the fan. “We’ll change our number and get on with it. Bad timing with the fair coming up and all.” She patted my cheek. “Get those canned goods over to Elise’s momma.”
I put the boxes in Peg’s car, and Gram stood by the front door with her flyswatter in hand the entire time, but no one else came around. She said she’d use my cell phone later to get our number changed. If only I hadn’t sat next to Eric or ogled his abs so openly or let him walk me to the bathroom or a hundred other things Jessica had used to craft her story. It wasn’t my fault, and I’d keep telling myself that until I believed it, but I couldn’t deny this whole mess had upended our entire world.
I drove to Elise’s, Paxton’s reaction running through my mind the entire time. I’d never seen anyone so terrified in their life, including the time Elise’s pants got caught on Grumpy Gill’s barbed-wire fence when we’d cut through his farm behind her house for the first and last time. The scene outside my house was chaos, but Paxton acted like those people were coming after him with a chainsaw instead of Gram going after them with a flyswatter.
I pulled into Elise’s driveway and texted Paxton: Are you okay?
Paxton: Fine
Okay … Me: It just looked like something was going on there
Paxton: I’ll see you at work.
Cool. I could tell when I was getting the brush-off. No need to spell it out.
I sat in Peg’s car, scrolling through Twitter. The woman who recorded Gram taking a flyswatter to her boyfriend didn’t waste any time trying to collect a piece of that viral fame. She’d posted it about ten minutes after pulling away from my house.
@EmilyPayneBlogLife: Check out #FlyBallGirl’s crazy grandma. I’d be careful if I were you #baseballbabe #flyswatter #fuckinginsane
@torontoraptors4life Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife: HOLY SHIT!!!
@MinaWillis Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife: I hope you’re filing charges.
@dogsbiteback22 Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife: Damnnnnnn, that old lady fucked him up. how embarrassing for your boy.
@trinanotnina Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife: How is no one talking about the slippers yet?
@fruitbythefoottt Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife @trinanotnina : Didn’t you hear? Dirty slippers are in this year #TrailerParkChic
Rage spotted my vision, pulsed in my veins, gnashed its teeth inside me. It was one thing to tear me apart and judge the Instagram pictures I’d willingly posted online, but Gram wasn’t even on Twitter to defend herself. She’d only been protecting me. They didn’t know her; they didn’t know a single thing about me and my family. I responded with shaking fingers.
@MacyAtTheMovies Replying to @EmilyPayneBlogLife: Maybe you should’ve stayed home then. Come to my house again and you’ll get worse than a flyswatter to the face.
Then I rolled down my window to get some air so I wouldn’t puke all over Peg’s dashboard. Gram’s pink quilting slippers were nearly as old as me, and more gray than pink now, but it’s not like she wore them to a fancy dinner party. She was at home. Minding her own business. Like Emily Payne Blog Life and her boyfriend should’ve been doing.
Elise tapped on the roof of the car, and I jumped. My phone flew out of my hand and landed at my feet. “Why are you sitting out here like a weirdo?” she asked.
“No reason. Gram wanted me to bring the jam and tomatoes for fixing our dryer, and she asked if your mom needs any sewing done.” I opened the door and got out. As I reached for my phone, Elise snatched it first.
“Are you on Twitter? No one goes on there anymore.” She scrolled through the thread I still had open. “Your grandma burned a dude with an electric flyswatter?”
“Yeah. That woman and her boyfriend showed up at the house this morning. I think they’re amateur journalists or bloggers or something. Gram chased them away.”
“Bizzy Evans is a motherfucking legend. Please, God, let me be that awesome when I’m old.” She closed the app before handing my phone back to me. “Stay off Twitter. No good will come of looking at those threads.”
“I know.” But I still couldn’t stay away. It had become an addiction. “Paxton brought over some of Gigi’s patterns while those bloggers were there. He seemed super freaked out.”
“Don’t stress over it—he’s just a really private dude. I have to get to work, but I’ll be by your place tomorrow with my tools and get that dryer fixed,” Elise said. “Momma’s inside. Just bring the box in to her.”
As soon as Elise drove away, I got back into the car and scrolled through Twitter again.
CHAPTER
TEN
AFTER MOMMA GOMEZ DECLARED me too thin and loaded me up on roasted chicken and rice, she let me leave. Elise had forgotten her lunch, so she sent me over to the Video and Repair to bring it to her.
The bell above the door dinged, and Lance Harrington walked in behind me. His light brown hair turned sandy in the summer and he already had a deep tan from helping out at his parents’ farm. He was only a few inches taller than me, but Harrington boys managed to fill out just fine. Elise pinched his cheeks like she used to when I was dating him—he really did have the most pinchable cheeks—and went to let Midnight know she had a customer.
“I’m not here to rent a movie,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be working.”
“I’m not actually working.” On a scale of one to ten, how sad did hanging out at work off the clock make me look? “I’m running errands. And stopped in to say hi.”
“Okay.” He didn’t look like he cared either way. Coincidently, the same look he’d had when I’d told him I wanted to break up. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve been contacted by a couple of reporters and bloggers.”
“What?” I swayed a bit to the side, and Lance put a hand on my arm to steady me. “Why? What did they want?”
“I think …” He bit his lip and looked at the ground. “I think they saw pictures of us on your Instagram before you went private. They wanted to know if we were still together, if you broke my heart, if I knew Baseball Babe.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what’s happening.” First Gram and now Lance. How far into my personal life would this poison spread?
“It’s so bizarre. Momma had a fit when she found out you were Fly Ball Girl. She was following the story, all into it, and then, well …”
I could only imagine what Lance’s good Christian momma thought about that bathroom picture. The chicken and rice I had for lunch threatened to make an appearance all over his shoes. “So, should I change my identity now or …?”