Chapter 32
Troy took a healthy bite out of the juicy cheeseburger on his plate and savored the rich mix of flavors that flooded his tongue. He chewed and swallowed, then took a deep drink of his cola.
Alison sat across from him, an iced tea and green salad in front of her. Impulsively, he reached across the table and took her hand. “This is just about perfect,” he said. “Awesome food, awesome company. What more could I ask for?”
She squeezed his hand, her eyes softening as she looked at him. He loved the way her expression always changed in some way as soon as her gaze landed on him. It was never static, it always filled up with excitement, or affection. Or lust. He didn’t want to forget lust.
“I think the career day went pretty well,” she said. “Even though both of our Q&A periods focused a little bit more on reality shows than our actual jobs.”
He laughed. “Well, I think that’s just the generation nowadays. They’re pretty obsessed with social media, and if you think about it, reality shows are just kind of the ultimate social media. It’s just that you’re keeping up with the lives of people you don’t know instead of your friends and family.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “You know, I never thought of it that way. It does kind of explain why people react so much differently to me after they’ve seen me on the show, though. Because, when people would recognize me before, from my work—there was a certain element of them feeling as if they knew me, just because they were familiar with me, with my face and my voice. But after the show, it was like they really thought they were my friends. It was unsettling at first. But what you said makes sense. Their brain is categorizing it in the same place that it puts Facebook updates or tweets or Instagram posts from people that are in their social circle.”
Troy grinned. “See? I’m more than just a pretty face.”
She laughed. “And with a face that pretty, you wouldn’t even need to be. I’m impressed.”
Her phone chimed from inside her bag and she reached down to pull it out. “Speaking of connectivity in the modern age…”
She swiped her fingers gracefully across her phone, and her eyes widened.
“Babe, what’s wrong?”
She seemed suddenly unaware that he was even at the table with her. “Oh, crap. Dammit,” she mumbled as her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard of the smart phone screen.
When she’d apparently found what she was looking for, had the information listed out in front of her on the screen, she just stared at it for a moment with ashen skin and wide eyes. Troy was starting to get really worried, so he reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. “Alison, just tell me what’s going on.”
She looked up at him as if she was waking from a trance. Without a word, she simply handed over the phone. He took it and looked at the screen. He couldn’t imagine what would be so shocking.
The first thing he saw was that it was full of photos of her in front of the classroom at the career day. At first, he thought that it was nice. That they must’ve been posted by classmates of Mila—that what he was looking at must be a tagged search on Twitter or Instagram.
But then he saw the thing that changed his perception of the situation, and he understood why she was so upset.
Along with the photos were headlines. These weren’t social media posts. They were articles, along with thumbnails of their accompanying photos.
The headlines were brutal.
“Bartholomew Bails– Broadway Baby Judge Flees New York”
“Alison Bartholomew Giving Up Career to Teach Elementary School?”
“Alison Bartholomew, Career in Tatters, Speaks to Students”
“Bartholomew Can’t Do, So She Teaches”
His thumb moved mindlessly, scrolling down the screen from one insulting headline to the next.
He put the phone down, brows scrunched tightly together. “I don’t get it. We left there literally an hour ago. We haven’t even finished our lunch yet.”
She shook her head and slumped her shoulders. “Welcome to so-called journalism in the internet age. They’re bottom-feeders. They have interns sitting in rooms monitoring Google alerts twenty-four hours a day, for every celebrity’s name imaginable. B list, C list. Hell, Z list. Some kid must’ve posted a photo with my name, some gossip blog picked it up and filled in their own clickbait backstory, and the rest ran from there.”
“But…but…we just left there an hour ago…”
She laughed. “Troy! You were a ballplayer. You’re a celebrity, too. You get how this works.”
He shook his head. “I was never a celebrity. I was a player.” He gestured at the smartphone. “It was never like this.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you never paid attention to it, but you got plenty of press. There was coverage of you out with actresses and models. Lots of articles about wild weekends in Vegas.”