“I’ve made some money. But you can see that,” he said, indicating the apartment. “You know how much a place like this costs?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess,” Lola replied.
“Two million. For a one-bedroom.”
“Wow,” Lola said, pretending to be impressed. She stood up and walked to the window. “So what’s this job?”
“Sex columnist,” Marquee said.
“That’s original.”
“It is,” Marquee said without irony. “See, the problem with most sex columns is—there’s no sex in them. It’s all that relationship bullshit. Nobody wants to read that. My idea is brand-new. No one’s ever done it before. A sex column that’s really about sex.”
“Isn’t that called porn?” Lola asked.
“If you’re going to call yourself a sex columnist, I say, show me the sex.”
“If you’re going to hire me to have sex, I suggest you show me the money,” Lola replied.
“You want cash?” Marquee said. “I’ve got cash, and plenty of it.” He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and waved it in front of her. “Here’s the deal. A thousand dollars a pop.”
“I’ll need half up front,” Lola said.
“Fine,” Marquee said, peeling off five one-hundred-dollar bills. “And I’m going to need details. Length and width. Distinguishing characteristics. What went where and when.”
That evening, instead of going to a club, Lola stayed home and wrote about sex with Philip. She found it surprisingly easy, cathartic, even, working herself up into a froth about the cruelty he’d exhibited in dumping her for Schiffer Diamond. “He had a fat penis with swinging balls in a sack of prickly skin. And he had wrinkles on the back of his neck. And little hairs beginning to sprout from his earlobes. At first I thought those little hairs were cute.” Finishing the entry and reading it over, she found herself longing to do it again and decided Philip deserved more than one measly post. By changing his name and profession, she ought to be able to get at least three more entries out of him. And then thinking about the best way to spend the money, she paged through one of the tabloid magazines and found a bandage-wrap Hervé Léger dress that would look amazing on her.
A few days later, Enid Merle was cleaning out her kitchen cabinets. She did it every year, not wanting to become one of those old women who accumulated dust and junk. Enid had just taken down a metal box filled with old silver when her buzzer rang. She opened the door to find Mindy Gooch standing in the hallway in a huff. “Have you seen it?” Mindy asked.
“What?” Enid asked, slightly annoyed. Now that she and Mindy were friendly again, Mindy wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Snarker. You’re not going to like it,” Mindy said. She strode through Enid’s living room to her computer and brought up the website. “I’ve been complaining about these posts by this Thayer Core for months,” she scolded, as if the posts were somehow Enid’s fault. “And no one took them seriously. Perhaps someone will, now that there’s one about Philip.”
Enid adjusted her glasses and peered over Mindy’s shoulder. “The Rich and the Restless” was written in small red block letters, and underneath, in large black type, “Hell Hath No Fury” next to a photograph of Lola taken outside the church at Billy’s memorial service. Enid pushed Mindy aside and began reading.
“Lovely Lola Fabrikant, spurned lover of seedy screenwriter Philip Oakland, gets even with him this week by penning her own brilliant version of sex with a man who bears a satisfying resemblance to the aging bachelor.” The words “brilliant version” were highlighted in red, and clicking on them, Enid was taken to another website called The Peephole, featuring yet another photograph of Lola, followed by a graphic description of a young woman having intercourse with a middle-aged man. The description of the man’s teeth, hands, and the little hairs on his earlobes was unmistakably of Philip, although Enid co
uldn’t bear to read the details about his penis.
“Well?” Mindy demanded. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
Enid looked up at Mindy wearily. “I told you to hire him—this Thayer Core—months ago. If you had, this would have ended.”
“Why should I be the one to hire him? Why can’t you?”
“Because if he works for me, he’ll only continue to do the same thing. He’ll go to parties and make things up and write unpleasant things about people. If you hire him, he’ll be working for a corporation. He’ll be stuck in an office building, taking the subway like every other working stiff, and eating a sandwich at his desk. It’ll give him a new perspective on life.”
“What about Lola Fabrikant?”
“Don’t worry about her, my dear.” Enid smiled. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll give her exactly what she wants—publicity.”
Two days later, the “true” story of Lola Fabrikant appeared in Enid Merle’s syndicated column. It was all there: how Lola had tried to fake a pregnancy to get a man, how she was obsessed with clothes and status, how she never gave a thought to being responsible for her own actions, or even what she might do for anyone else—making her the ultimate example of all that was wrong and misguided about young women today. Portrayed in Enid’s best schoolmarmish tone, Lola came off as the poster child for bad values.
On the afternoon the piece came out, Lola sat on the bed in her tiny apartment, reading all about herself on the Internet. The newspaper lay beside her computer, folded open to Enid’s column. The first time Lola read it, she burst into tears. How could Enid be so cruel? But the column wasn’t the end of it, having ignited a firestorm of negative comments about Lola on the Internet. She was being called a slut and a whore, and her physical features had been dissected and found somewhat lacking—several people had hypothesized, correctly, that she’d had a nose job and breast implants—and hundreds of men had left messages on her Facebook page, describing what they’d like to do to her sexually. Their suggestions weren’t pleasant. One man wrote that he would “shove his balls down her throat until she choked and her eyes bulged out of her head.” Until that morning, Lola had always enjoyed the Internet’s unfettered viciousness, assuming that the people who were written about somehow deserved it, but now that the negativity was directed at her, it was a different story. It hurt. She felt like a wounded animal, trailing blood. After reading another post about herself in which someone wrote that the Lola Fabrikants of the world deserved to die alone in a flophouse, Lola once again burst into tears.
It wasn’t fair, she thought, holding herself while she rocked on the thin mattress. She had naturally assumed that when she did become famous, everyone would love her. Desperate, she texted Thayer Core again. “Where are you????????!!!!!!!!” She waited a few minutes, and when there was again no response, she sent another text. “I can’t leave my house. I’m hungry. I need food,” she wrote. She sent the text, followed immediately by another: “And bring alcohol.” Finally, an hour later, Thayer responded with one word: “Busy.”
Thayer eventually turned up, bearing a bag of cheese doodles. “This is all your fault,” Lola screamed.