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Unfortunately, it’s true. Nobody who gets to a certain level of social media fame can avoid the occasional scandal. I bet, if there’d been Facebook at the time, even Mr. Rogers would have caught some flack.
But this is my first.
I need to decide how I’m going to handle it.
I could fight fire with fire, lash out at Kitty and the mean comments. But that’s not who I am, and even the thought of doing it doesn’t bring joy but rather a dark, swirling feeling to my gut.
I could ignore it, take the high road, keep doing what I’m doing and being who I am. That doesn’t feel right either, though. Arielle accused me of pushing anything non-sunshine down or packaging it up with a layer of rainbows, and ignoring this seems like I’d be doing exactly that. This hurts, and it’s okay to feel that.
Which leaves me with addressing it. But how?
My phone rings, but I let it roll to voicemail. It rings again, and I sigh grumpily as I look at it because there are few people I answer the phone for—Mom, River, Noah, Arielle, Eli, Becky, Simon, and Loretta. Anyone else can leave a message or text me. Mostly because I do not need my car’s warranty extended and I’m not falling for your computer virus scam.
But I see Arielle’s name on the screen. So even though I do not want to talk right now, I answer. “Hey, I can’t talk now. Work stuff is—”
Arielle cuts me off. “Answer your Zoom call. Now.” The line goes dead as she hangs up.
“What?” I ask, but she’s already gone.
A moment later, my computer screen is taken over by a Zoom invitation. I don’t want to answer that either, but Arielle has never done this before. What if there’s something wrong with her or Eli, or Becky, or . . . one of the residents? I’d never forgive myself if I was so caught up in my own drama that I missed saying good-bye to someone. It hurts that my mind goes there, but it’s a sad reality with Arielle’s patients.
I click to join the session and Arielle’s face pops up, filling my screen. Her face is bare, and her hair is pulled up in a messy bun that says she was still feeling last night’s karaoke party this morning too.
“Can you hear me? See me?” Arielle asks, waving at the camera.
“Yeah,” I say sullenly. “Can you hear and see me?”
In answer, Arielle steps back from the camera and instead of the break room at the nursing home I expected to see, she’s in the activity room with a handful of residents.
“Wow! What will these kids think of next?” Mabel asks.
Viktor whistles and shouts, “Looking good, Riley.”
“Uhm, hey, everybody. How’re you doing?” I don’t know what to say. I don’t have time for this when that story is getting shared as we speak and comments are pinging down my feed faster than I can read them.
Hazel barks out, shushing us all instantly. “Quit yer nonsense, girl. We aren’t calling about us, we’re calling about you.”
“Me?”
Arielle leans forward, getting closer to the camera to be heard over the group of seniors as they offer support with various versions of ‘we’re here for you, Riley.’
“I don’t even know how they found out. Not like anyone here is on the ’gram or social media. Hell, they call it ‘The Interwebs’ and ‘The Google’. But news spread like wildfire, and they insisted on talking to you.” She looks over her shoulder, saying quieter as if we have any privacy at all, “How’re you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” I answer instantly.
Arielle’s lips press together. I can read the disappointment there. I absolutely just did what she said I do. But is it such a bad thing to focus on the good? Why wallow in bad stuff when there’s so much joy to be found, even if it’s hard to find it right now?
“You’re okay? My bad then. I guess we can hang up, everyone. Riley’s fine, totally fine. She’ll probably go online later and post something about Joroast. Business as usual, nothing at all out of the ordinary happening today.” Arielle raises a brow in challenge.
I growl, giving in. “Fine. You want the truth? I have no idea what to do! I hurt Noah and need to fix that. I’ve got this scandal going on because I said . . . what I said.” I don’t want to repeat it. I’ve already hurt enough people, Noah and myself included, with my thoughtless words. “And I need to fix that. People are coming out of the woodwork, gleefully dancing through my comments with pot-stirring crap that hurts. And I just want to . . . hide.”
Arielle snaps her fingers and then points at me through the screen. “There you are. It’s about damn time.”
