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“Ginnie buys all these so-called miracle creams and potions. You know the ones, where they promise to temporarily make all your wrinkles and shit go away? And then she doesn’t use them. So we had a few glasses of wine that night and decided to video ourselves trying them out. We chose four of them, and we each did two, one on each half of our faces. And one of the four worked!”
“Really?” I found the video and played it.
Aunt Meg was a lot of fun, especially after a few glasses of wine. She giggled and told the most cringe-worthy jokes, but they were so bad you couldn’t help but laugh. Ginnie didn’t have a good persona for this kind of thing, but Aunt Meg killed it. With her infectious laughter, combined with the intelligent way she talked about her aging skin and the changes she was undergoing with the MS, she was incredibly engaging. No wonder it had gotten so many views.
“And today,” she continued when the video ended, “someone left me one of those private messages, offering to send me a sample of their cream if I would do it in a video. I don’t know if it’s a scam or not, but it’s kind of fun, right?”
“Let me see.” She handed me her phone and I checked out the messages. Sure enough, a new skincare company called SkinWrecked, had contacted her, offering to send her samples if she would do videos talking about them.
“It looks legit,” I said. “As long as they don’t ask for any money, I don’t see the harm.”
“Ginnie’s going to die,” she said, shaking her head.
“I hope not,” I quipped, getting up.
“Let’s eat,” she said. “I cooked earlier and then came up for a little nap. Now I’m feeling better so we can warm up the lasagna and have dinner.”
“Okay.” I held out a hand to help her as she carefully got to her feet.
“And you’ll see. We’ll figure out what to do about your project.”
“Dr. Russell warned me I was taking a big risk,” I admitted. “But I honestly thought I could do it. I was so sure if Sam got me backstage, I could get someone in the band to talk to me. Even ten minutes worth of an interview would’ve been enough to write the cover story.”
“The story you wrote was really good,” she said. “You got two more advertisers after it came out. And you’re getting visits to the site every day.”
“Like forty or fifty,” I mumbled. “That’s not very impressive. And a lot of those hits are probably the same people coming back every day looking for new content. When they don’t find it, they’re going to get bored.”
“So add new content.” She quirked a brow at me.
“It’s not that easy,” I said. “And besides, now that I won’t be graduating, I don’t know if I want to keep it up.”
“Now you listen to me.” She put her hands on her hips as we got to the bottom of the stairs. “You put a ton of heart, not to mention time, into that website. You absolutely need to continue it.”
“Aunt Meg. It’s hosted on the school’s server. Once the semester is over, they’ll take it down and I can’t afford to pay for web hosting right now.”
“Of course we can.” She squeezed my arm. “How much can it cost?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to buy a domain name and then the server…” I let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a lot, Meg.”
“I follow a bunch of book bloggers who host websites, and I’m sure they don’t all spend a ton of money. There has to be an inexpensive way to do it.”
I grabbed two potholders and pulled the lasagna out of the oven. “This is still warm.”
“Then let’s eat. And you can Google inexpensive website hosting or whatever it’s called.”
“Okay.” I smiled, shaking my head. She was like a dog with a bone once she got something in her head. It was one of the things I loved about her, but I didn’t know what I would do going forward. Right now, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I’d been so sure I’d graduate next month.
I looked down at the piece of lasagna Aunt Meg had just put in front of me and my stomach rolled.
The next thing I knew I was puking my guts out into the trash can.
11
Zeke
Vegas was always a great city to play in. The fans loved us, the venue had amazing acoustics, and we were playing three nights, which meant I could sleep in the same hotel room and not have to be on the fucking bus. It also meant my parents, sister, and brother-in-law were coming to one of the shows, which should prove interesting. It was only a four-hour drive for them, so they were coming up Saturday morning, would see the show Saturday night, and probably drive home Sunday. Unless they decided to stay for Sunday night’s show as well.
My mother and I hadn’t spoken since I’d cut off her credit cards, and as I’d expected, she was making my dad’s life miserable. However, he was on my side this time, and he’d told me to do what I needed to do. At least someone in my family understood my frustration. My sister had called to plead my mother’s case, but I’d nipped that in the bud when I reminded her that Mom hadn’t bought her a Mercedes.
