Geoff was very miffed by this particular review, and he wrote up some long and embarrassing blog post about how he’d been misread, and how the Locus reviewer didn’t have the “intellectual range” to appreciate the complexity and radicalness of his racial critique. Twitter, predictably, dunked hard on this. Athena broke up with him shortly after (this we plebeians inferred from the fact that all of her “working from home” Instagram posts were suddenly shot from a new location).
The breakup might sound sudden, but we all saw it coming. One should also mention that before his debut flopped, Geoff published a series of short stories about an android girl named Xiao Li who puts up with a number of abuses from lecherous human clients before self-destructing in a blast that destroys over half of New Beijing. The stories, Geoff argued, were a scorching interrogation of colonial misogyny, AI rights, and Chinese patriarchy. Someone on Twitter asked him how he had researched all the Chinese phrases he’d littered through the text; Geoff blithely responded that he was dating a “long-haired dictionary.” (That made the Twitter rounds for days.) There were also allegations of drunk groping at bars and an account that looks suspiciously like Geoff’s on a well-known porn site with “got that yellow FEVER!” in the bio, but we’re all too polite to bring that up in company.
So Geoff’s book flopped. Athena did what everyone expected and distanced herself from that mess, and publishing’s most attractive young couple was reduced to publishing’s most attractive young author and a white boy whose career was over before it started.
At that point, Geoff should have licked his wounds and moved on. He still had a powerhouse literary agent, a second book under contract, and a chance to salvage his career. But then his Twitter presence took a savage turn. He started positing long screeds about how he’d been unjustly made a villain, how in fact it was Athena who had encouraged him to write that original post about Locus but had failed to stand up for him.
I got secondhand embarrassment from watching it all go down. Athena did the smart thing, which was to deactivate her Twitter and say nothing until the internet found something else in which to invest their prurient fascination disguised as care. Geoff kept pointlessly responding to scathing replies until his follower count dwindled to the double digits, at which point he, too, deactivated his account. His agent dropped him for “personal and private reasons.” The sequel to his first book remains under contract, but it’s unclear whether that will ever see the light of day, assuming Geoff is still trying to finish it.
Who really knows what happened? Twitter makes unqualified yet eager judges of us all. Depending on who you talk to, Geoff is either a manipulative, abusive, gaslighting, insecure leech, or a victim himself. Athena came out pretty clean, but mostly because no one could believe that dating the beautiful and talented Athena Liu was as awful as Geoff made it sound, and because it’s always easier to make the cishet white guy the punching bag.
As far as I know, Athena and Geoff hadn’t spoken for months.
So what on earth is he targeting me for?
After some more sleuthing, I’m certain he’s the one behind all this. His account has faithfully retweeted everything that the @AthenaLiusGhost account has ever tweeted. Sometimes he adds his own quote tweets: Can’t believe no one is talking about this. Eden, and Juniper Song, should be ashamed.
Before that, the only thing he’s tweeted was from over a month ago: Does anyone get weird looks when they ask for “real spicy, not just white people spicy” at Indian restaurants? (This got three likes, and the following response from one RichardBurns08: Me too. Been with my Thai wife for three years now, and they still think this gaijin can’t handle it. Love to prove them wrong!) The timing is too convenient.
I have to act fast. Geoff is an idiot, but he’s an unstable, unpredictable idiot. Best to nip this in the bud. I think I can hold my own against him, but I’d like to know exactly what he has up his sleeve.
I still have Geoff’s number from back when Athena invited us and several others on a writers’ retreat by the Potomac. The retreat never happened; we started bickering about the cost of the cabins, and whether it was heteronormative and regressive to insist on gender-separated cabins or if the people who weren’t in relationships would have to awkwardly share, and then suddenly everyone had scheduling errors and had to cancel at the last minute. But I meticulously saved everyone’s contact information, if only to differentiate from all the 202 and 401 area codes.
I send Geoff a screenshot of @AthenaLiusGhost’s first tweet, and then add: I know.
He’s one of those assholes who leaves read receipts on. He sees it right away. He doesn’t answer.
My heart’s pounding so hard I can feel it in my boobs. I type: Tomorrow, outside Coco’s in Tyson’s Corner, 3:30. Only chance. Show up or I’ll tell everyone it’s you.
Then I turn off my phone, hurl it across my bed, and scream.
I SHOW UP EARLY TO COCO’S COFFEE. I GET AN ICED LATTE, BUT I ONLY allow myself tiny sips; I don’t want to have to pee in the middle of this. It’s unseasonably hot, so I have the outdoor seating area to myself. I pick a two-seater table near the corner, which gives me a full view of the patio and easy escape routes in all directions. I don’t know why I’m scanning for possible exits like I’m a KGB agent in enemy territory, but that’s not a bad description of our situation: two people who’ve been trading lies on the internet, trying to decide how to ruin the other’s reputation.
I’m shocked when Geoff shows up. I see him coming from across the square, head down like he’s afraid of being recognized. He’s wearing a baseball cap and a massive pair of sunglasses. He looks ridiculous.
“Hi, Junie.” He yanks out the chair across from me, sits down, and removes his sunglasses. “Nice to see you again.”
I can see why Athena once adored him. Geoff is, superficially, very handsome. I know from his author photos how sharp his jawline is, how intensely green his eyes are. In person, these features are all so pronounced it’s a bit overwhelming. He looks like the love interest from some dark and steamy YA novel come to life, all mussed dark hair and rough stubble.
Only I’ve read his tweets, so I find him too pathetic to be sexy.
I take another sip of my latte. I’ve decided not to give him control of the agenda—I don’t want to let him think for a moment that he has the upper hand. I’m coming out the gate as aggressively as I can. “So what’s this nonsense about stealing Athena’s manuscript?”
He leans back and folds his arms across his barrel chest. (So this, I realize, is what people mean when they write “barrel chest.”) “I think we both know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t,” I say angrily. It’s not hard to conjure outrage. His relaxed superiority makes me want to hit him. “It’s ludicrous.”
“Then why’d you call this meeting?”
“Because what you’re doing is vile,” I snap. “It’s sickening, disrespectful—not only to me but to Athena. And if you were anyone else, I’d tell you to fuck right off, but given you—your history with my best friend, I thought I might as well do that in person.”
He rolls his eyes. “Really, Junie? We’re going to pretend?”
I smack my hand against the metal table. It’s dramatic, but I like that it makes him flinch. “The only one pretending is you. And I’m going to give you one chance to explain yourself before I sue you for defamation.”
His confidence slips, just for a moment. Did that work? Did I scare him off?
“We spoke about the manuscript,” he blurts. “Athena and I.”
My gut twists.
“She told me about it while we were dating. I saw her researching it. The migrant laborers, the forgotten voices at the front. I saw those Wikipedia pages.” He leans forward and holds my gaze with narrowed eyes. “And it strikes me as very convenient that shortly after her death, you come out with a book about the very same subject.”
“More than one person can write a World War One story,” I say drily. “There’s no copyright on history, Geoffrey.”