One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [191]
“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.
“Mine?” he asked, surprised. “I thought this was what you always wanted.”
“I did. But not like this.”
“You shouldn’t have done it, then.” He shrugged. “You ever hear of ‘free will’?”
“You have to fix this,” Lola said.
“Can’t,” he said. He opened the bag of cheese doodles and stuffed four into his mouth. “Got a job today. Working for Mindy Gooch.”
“What?” Lola exclaimed in shock. “I thought you hated her.”
“I do. But I don’t have to hate her money. I’m getting paid a hundred thousand dollars a year. Working in the new-media department. In six months, I’ll probably be running it. Those people don’t know squat.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Lola demanded.
Thayer looked at her, unmoved. “How should I know?” he said. “But if you can’t make something out of all this publicity I got you, you’re a bigger loser than I thought.”
June arrived, and with it, unseasonably warm weather. The temperature had been over eighty degrees for three days; already the Gooches’ apartment was too warm, and James was forced to turn on the sputtering air conditioner.