My phone, faceup on my bed, keeps flashing blue with new notifications. They look like alarm sirens.
I burst into wails, loud and ugly, wanton like a toddler’s. My own volume frightens me; I’m scared my neighbors will hear, so I turn my face into my pillow, and that’s how I stay, muffled and hysterical, for hours.
THE SUN GOES DOWN. THE ROOM GETS DARK. AT SOME POINT MY adrenaline rush subsides, my pulse slows, my throat goes hoarse from sobbing, and I have no tears left to cry. My panic attack ebbs, probably because I’ve obsessed over the worst-case scenarios so many times now that they can’t scare me anymore. My social and professional implosion is now a familiar concept, and, paradoxically, that means I can think again.
I reach for my phone, and as I scroll through Twitter, I realize perhaps this situation isn’t as bad as it first seemed. There’s no way the person behind @AthenaLiusGhost knows what truly happened. They’re right about the central thesis, but wrong about all the other details. I’d never been to Athena’s apartment except for that first and final time. I met Athena in college, not in DC. And I certainly didn’t befriend her intending to steal The Last Front. Until the night Athena died, I didn’t even know it existed.
Whoever this person is, they’ve made a very lucky guess at the truth. But they’ve fabricated the rest. And that suggests they do not, in fact, have any concrete evidence.
Perhaps, if all they have are suspicions, there’s a way to clear my name. Perhaps there’s a way to exorcise this ghost.
My mind keeps wandering to the implications of that Twitter handle—Athena Liu’s ghost—and the memory of Athena’s face at Politics and Prose, her eyes glittering, her lips curled in a patronizing smile. I push it away. On that road lies madness. Athena is fucking dead. I saw her die. And this is a problem for the living.
I DON’T WANT BRETT TO HEAR ABOUT THIS FROM TWITTER, SO I SEND him a quick email: There’s something weird going on. Do you have a moment to get on the phone?
He must have seen the tweets already, because he calls me not even five minutes later, though it’s nearly nine in the evening. I pick up, trembling. “Hey, Brett.”
“Hi, June.” His voice sounds flat, though I can’t tell if I’m projecting. “So what’s going on?”
I clear my throat. “I’m guessing you’ve seen the tweets?”
“If you could clarify—”
“The ones that say I stole The Last Front from Athena Liu.”
“Well.” A long pause. “So, yeah. It’s not true, is it?”
“No!” My voice flies up in pitch. “No, of course not. I don’t know who’s behind it, I don’t know how this started . . .”
“Well, if it’s not true, then don’t make such a big deal of it.” Brett doesn’t sound nearly as upset as he should be. I thought he’d be angry, but he just seems mildly irritated. “It’s just some troll; it’ll blow over.”
“No, it won’t,” I insist. “All sorts of people are going to see it. They’re going to form opinions—”
“So let them form opinions. Eden’s not going to take the book off the shelves on the basis of some internet gossip. And most consumers don’t have their eyes glued to Twitter—trust me, it’s a very small fraction of publishing that’s going to care.”
I make a gross whining noise. “My reputation with that fraction matters, though.”
“Your reputation is intact,” he says breezily. “It’s all allegations, isn’t it? Totally groundless, right? Don’t issue a response. Don’t get entangled. If they’ve got nothing, they’ve got nothing, and soon enough people will see it for the nasty character assassination that it is.”
He sounds so confident, so wholly unconcerned, that I feel a flutter of relief. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this will get construed as bullying—the Twitterati are always vehemently against bullying. Maybe it’ll all be good press for me in the end.
Brett yammers on for a bit longer, citing examples of other famous authors who have been targets of online hate campaigns. “It never hurts sales, Junie. It never does. Just let the trolls say what they want. You’re going to be fine.”
I nod and bite back what I want to say. Brett’s right—there’s no point in escalating this, since any response only gives the allegations legitimacy. “Okay.”
“Okay? Good.” Brett sounds like he’s ready to be done with this call. “Don’t worry so much, all right?”
“Hey, wait . . .” The thought has just crossed my mind. “Have you heard anything from the Greenhouse people?”
“Hmm? Oh, nah. But it’s only been a week, they’re probably resting up from their trip. Give them some time.”
I feel a niggling dread then, but I tell myself I’m being silly. It’s not like these two things are connected. Justin and Harvey aren’t necessarily glued to Twitter, following the latest book gossip. They’ve got better things to do. “Okay.”
“Just relax, June. You’re going to get some haters. It comes with the territory. If it’s not true, then you have nothing to worry about.” Brett pauses for a moment. “I mean, it’s not true, is it?”
“No! God. Of course not.”
“Then block and ignore them.” Brett snorts. “Or better yet, block Twitter altogether. You writers are too online to begin with. This will blow over. These things always do.”
BRETT’S WRONG. THIS WON’T BLOW OVER. TWITTER SCANDALS ARE like snowballs; the more people that see it, the more who feel it necessary to weigh in with their own opinions and agendas, creating an explosion of discourse branching off the instigating conversation. Past a critical mass of visibility, everyone in the industry starts talking about it. And @AthenaLiusGhost, whoever they are, has nearly a thousand followers by now. They’ve reached that critical mass.
The Athena-June scandal, as it’s being now referred to, has become the Discourse of the Moment. This is wholly different from the Lily Wu discourse, which involved a dozen people at most. This time, there’s blood in the water. Silence isn’t an option. Everyone has to declare a side, or they’re accused of complicity. (SMH at so many supposed allies staying silent now that their friend’s been exposed, tweet anonymous accounts happily stirring the pot.) A lot of high-profile writers straddle the line, trying to cover their asses but also establish loyalties at the same time.
Plagiarism is terrible, writes one author. If Hayward really did plagiarize—and we don’t know yet if she did—then she owes her royalties back to Athena Liu’s family.
It’s awful if it’s true, writes another. But until there’s substantiated proof, I hesitate to join this lynch mob.
There’s then a heated debate over whether it’s appropriate to use the words “lynch mob” when describing a white woman, and it ends with dozens of people calling the above referenced author a racist. Said author’s account is locked within hours.
It’s the Twitter accounts that are non-notable public figures, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by digging their claws into me, that are most vicious.
She used to write as June Hayward, tweets a user named reyl089. But she published her book about China as June Song. Fucked up, right?
The literal definition of yellowface, writes one reply. I don’t think they know what “literal” means.
So pathetic, crows another.
And without fail, the evergreen Will white people ever stop whiting?
Someone else tweets a photo of me taken off my Instagram paired with a photo of Scarlett Johansson, captioned: Corporate wants you to find the differences between these two images LMAO.
The replies involve every mean-spirited observation about my appearance you can imagine:
I swear to God why do all white women look the same.
Ok aside from the fact that ScarJo could actually get it LOLLL
Is she squinting because she wants to look more Asian or cuz she’s not used to being out in the sun?