Chương 3
“I remember.”
“He admitted it wasn’t our fault.”
“I remember that too.”
“And now Ohio is involved.”
Maya put the sandwich down.
Denise looked at her and started laughing.
It came out at the wrong time and for no good reason, which made Maya laugh too.
They stopped when the phone rang again.
That night, Maya parked the red car inside the shop instead of taking it home.
She drove Denise’s dented gray Corolla, which had been waiting two years for a new rear bumper because the owner of a collision shop never seemed able to schedule her own car.
At a red light, Maya checked her phone despite promising herself she would not.
The video had crossed four million views.
Ryan had deleted his social media accounts.
Noah’s account had gained eighty thousand followers.
Eli’s was private.
Maya’s name was trending locally.
Half the comments celebrated her.
The other half attempted to invent her.
Rich girl dresses poor to trick people.
Daddy’s car.
Lottery winner.
Influencer stunt.
Crypto money.
Trust fund kid.
One account posted an old photograph from Carter Collision’s page showing David beside the red car before it had paint, the rear quarter stripped away and the left wheel missing.
The caption said:
HER DAD OWNS AN EXOTIC CAR DEALERSHIP. THIS WAS ALL FAKE.
Maya almost laughed.
David Carter had owned exactly three vehicles at the time that picture was taken: a twelve-year-old pickup, a motorcycle that had not run since 2014, and a red exotic car that arrived at the shop on a salvage trailer looking as if someone had tried to fold it in half.
He had bought the wreck with money Denise had intended for a bathroom remodel.
That argument had lasted eleven days.
“What are you going to do with it?” Denise had demanded.
“Fix it.”
“With what money?”
“Very little.”
David had been standing in the kitchen holding a spoon.
Maya had been thirteen and pretending to do homework.
Denise had pointed at the spoon. “You are saying ‘very little’ while holding my cooking spoon like a microphone.”
David had looked down at it.
Then at Maya.
“Your mother is focusing on irrelevant details.”
Denise had taken the spoon away from him.
The memory came so sharply that Maya missed the light changing.
A horn sounded behind her.
She drove.
At home, Denise went straight to the kitchen and began wiping a counter that was already clean.
Maya recognized that habit.
Her mother cleaned when she could not control something.
David had rebuilt engines when he could not control something.
Maya drove.
Usually too far.
They were a family with expensive coping mechanisms.
“I’m calling Beth tomorrow,” Denise said.
Maya opened the refrigerator.
“Why?”
“Because she’s a lawyer.”
“She does divorces.”
“She is still more of a lawyer than either of us.”
“I don’t think we can divorce the internet.”
“I would if there were forms.”
Maya took out orange juice.
Denise pointed toward the cabinet.
“Glass.”
“I know.”
“You drank from the carton yesterday.”
“Allegedly.”
“I watched you.”
“Biased witness.”
Denise stopped wiping.
“Maya.”
The change in her voice made Maya put the carton down.
Denise folded the cloth into a small square.
“I need you to understand something.”
“I do.”
“No. You understand the funny part. You understand people are being stupid and the shop is getting calls. I need you to understand that strangers know where you work.”
Maya said nothing.
“They know the plate. They know your name. Someone posted your high school.”
“I saw.”
“People are asking what time you’re at the shop.”
“Who?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No. That is my point.”
Maya leaned against the refrigerator.
Denise looked suddenly tired.
Not frightened exactly.
Older.
“You’re nineteen,” she said.
“I know.”
“You are still nineteen if five million people decide they like you.”
“I know.”
“And you are still nineteen if five million people decide tomorrow that they hate you.”
Maya nodded.
Denise looked toward the dark window above the sink.
“I don’t want strangers turning your father’s car into something he didn’t build.”
That reached the place the rest had not.
Maya looked down.
The refrigerator motor hummed.
Somewhere outside, a dog barked twice and stopped.
“What did he build?” Maya asked.
Denise smiled without much happiness.
“A financial mistake.”
Maya laughed through her nose.
“True.”
“And something he was proud of.”
Maya ran one thumb along the edge of the counter.
“He was never going to sell it.”
“No.”
“Even when we needed the money.”
“Especially then.”
“That was stupid.”
“Very.”
Maya looked at her mother.
“You loved him.”
“That was occasionally stupid too.”
They stood there for a while.
Neither of them said good night.
They simply stopped talking and eventually went to bed.
Across town, Ryan Mercer sat on the closed lid of his parents’ toilet while his father watched the video for the eighth time.
Daniel Mercer did not raise his voice.
Ryan almost wished he would.
“You knew he was filming.”
Ryan stared at the floor tile.
“Noah films everything.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I didn’t tell him to.”
“You looked directly at the phone.”
Ryan said nothing.
Daniel held the screen toward him.
There he was in miniature, pointing at the cup.
Clean that up before the owner sees what you did.
The sentence sounded worse each time.
Not because it had changed.
Because Ryan could no longer remember what had been funny about it.
His father paused the video on the moment before Maya showed the key.
“What were you thinking?”
Ryan rubbed both hands over his face.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“We were messing around.”
“With a stranger.”
“She came over looking—”
He stopped.
Daniel waited.
Ryan hated that silence.
His father had spent Ryan’s entire childhood using silence as a way of making people finish bad sentences.
“Looking what?” Daniel asked.
Ryan stood.
“Forget it.”
“No. Finish.”
May you like
Ryan walked out of the bathroom.
His mother was sitting on the edge of his bed, reading comments on her phone despite having spent two hours telling him not to read comments.
