RENATA:
because you’re a brat
BEN:
I’m not a celebrity. And if either of us is the brat here…
RENATA:
wow great insult bro
RENATA:
so witty and original
RENATA:
however will i recover
RENATA:
maybe go deal with your exploding phone or something
BEN:
Yeah, will do. Thanks for the heads-up.
RENATA:
lollllll for sure. good luck with internet fame haha
Ben ignores this last as not worthy of reply, and then immediately regrets it when he…reads the rest of his messages. He’d assumed that Ren was exaggerating, since she tends to, but a number of other very online people in his life have reached out, too, expressing similar sentiments. He opens the link to the video, sure it’s going to show him the same two thousand hits or so it did when he looked at it before lunch, and lets out a little shriek when the number is2.2 million. 2.2 million?! It’s only beenupsince this morning! It must be—a glitch, or something. An error, that’s all. It couldn’t possibly be real.
But…but could a glitch have generated all these comments? Ben scrolls through them, a little dizzily. Some of them say things about the recipe, but those are in the significant minority.Most of them are saying that Pete is hilarious, or that the video is hilarious, or that the editing is hilarious, or that he, Ben—the Voice-over Guy, as most of them are calling him—is hilarious.
And a glitch couldn’t generate this email in his inbox, either, Rick’s address, no subject, ten words:Did too good a job, kid. My office. Monday. Early.
Ben stares at it hard, and swallows.
THREE
The next thirty-six hours pass in a blur.
No; that’s a lie. Benwishesthey would pass in a blur, because he thinks that might be less nauseating. The hours wash over him, somehow both agonizingly slow and much too fast, as though every second is one of those slow-motion explosions in an action film. So much ishappeningthat it’s hard to keep track of, but at the same time, those events are all taking place only on the small, glowing rectangle of his phone. His physical body mostly paces around inside his apartment like a caged animal, eyes glued to the screen, occasionally shoving a handful of cheese crackers into his mouth.
Ben talks to a lot of people on Saturday night—good friends, old friends, bad friends who have chosen this moment to slither back out of the woodwork—and doesn’t sleep much, although he tries to. Mostly, he stares at the ceiling and thinks,What have I done?AndWhat’s going to happen?AndWhat’s Rick going to say?AndWhat am I supposed to do now?
The ceiling does not offer him any advice, but at some point he must doze off a little, because when he blinks awake it’s morning and he’s got emails and messages from people who say they’re with news channels and media companies, andcan he confirm that he is the Ben Blumenthal from the viralGastronomevideo, and would he care to comment on the video’s success? Some of those messages are private, but a number of them are public, and on the social channels where they’re public, Ben’s follower count has…climbed. Not exactly dramatically, but enough to be noticeable, especially for someone like him, whose typical follower count anywhere tends to hover around twenty-five.
Even as he reads them,new messages are still coming in.
Ben, having begun, without noticing, the slow process of inching down off his pillow in anxious horror upon opening the first message, realizes abruptly that he is lying flat on his back, every part of his face below his eyes hidden under the covers, holding his phone in the air as far away as possible, as though hoping a bird will steal it. Having now been made aware of this, he should really move, but he finds himself all but frozen. For a single searing second, it’s as though Ben’s whole life has skipped its track, and he is poised, breathless, waiting to see where it will fall, and whether or not he’ll survive.
Then he notices he also has a message from an unfamiliar number; when he clicks into that one, he scrambles bolt upright in bed, the stomach-flipping sensation of hurtling through the air…well. Not leaving him, exactly. Just…altering, somewhat.
PETE:
hey, it’s pete.
