“Great way to make use of your Twitter account!” Even from under the pillow I can tell that the words are fueled by high-octane anger. “Using your 140 characters for this little gem: Leaving Jonah K’s lame-o luau! Then, since you presumably had more characters to spare, you added the hashtag WorstPartyEver.” He pulls at the pillow and tries to remove it, but I just tighten my grip. “What the heck, Nick? You serious? Slamming another celebrity like that? What’s gotten into you?”
The honest answer is, I don’t know. Pieces of the night are just now starting to assemble in my brain—something about my phone being passed around so the girls could take selfies and…and send them out into the world.
At the time, it seemed like the best idea ever. The girls were enjoying it. Dougall thought it was hilarious. And when I sent that tweet about Jonah, didn’t everyone laugh so hard we practically fell off our seats?
“Meanwhile,” Ezer continues, adopting an overly dramatic tone, “over on Instagram, there’s a charming pic of you and Dougall with a bunch of half-naked girls who are old enough to babysit the both of you. What the heck were you thinking?”
“They weren’t half-naked,” I mumble. “They were wearing grass skirts and coconut shells—the party was luau themed…”
“What? I can’t hear you, Nick. Speak a little louder, please.” Ezer wrenches the pillow from my head, and I don’t try to fight him.
Images of the night are stampeding through my brain. So much stuff it seems impossible to fit all of that into one single night.
But according to Twitter, Instagram, and Ezer, we did.
“They kept all their clothes on the whole entire time, I swear.”
“Sure, but that’s only because they were barely wearing any to begin with!”
He’s glaring at me. I can feel it. But as of now, I can’t bring myself to look at him.
“And they weren’t nearly as old as you claim. Sixteen at most.”
“Sixteen, really? You sure? You check their IDs, Nick? Because in a town where thirty-year-olds are regularly cast to play teens on TV, that really means a lot.”
“What’s your problem, anyway?” I sit up so abruptly I forget my bed is not only round but set smack in the middle of my room, which means I nearly fall off the edge. And while I may recover quickly, don’t think he didn’t notice. “Sheesh, would you just relax? Nothing happened. We took some pictures, drove around for a bit, bowled a few rounds, what’s the big deal?” I climb out of bed, about to go into my closet to get dressed, when I see that I already am. Seems I slept in my clothes, and they don’t smell so good.
They smell like cigarettes—like secondhand smoke, which is what it must be, since I would never do something so stupid as smoke. It’s disgusting. Besides, I distinctly remember signing an antismoking pledge in sixth-grade health class.
“Nothing happened? You sure, Nick? Maybe you should take a look at your Twitter account, where you live-tweeted your night.”
I start to reach for the phone, wanting to get to the bottom of who’s responsible for making my T-shirt smell so bad, when Ezer yanks it away before I can reach it.
“And if that wasn’t enough, the entire pictorial was also posted to your Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook accounts.” He shakes his head, takes a deep breath, but the truth is, he looks like he’s about to implode. “What did I tell you about social media, Nick?” He pauses as though I’m seriously supposed to reply. “I said that it’s great for self-promotion—until it’s not. Until you lose control and decide to document your break with reality, which is exactly what you did here.”
“Okay, whatever. So I made a mistake. What are they gonna do, fire me?”
I roll my eyes and start to head for my bathroom, stopping dead in my tracks when he says, “No, Nick, no one’s going to fire you. They’ll just stop buying your CDs and watching your show. Oh, and as soon as your sales and ratings plummet, your endorsement deals will dry up. And then, in order to continue living your luxurious lifestyle, you’ll be expected to actually pay for it. But with your money stream gone, you won’t be able to afford it. And while you can ride it out for a few months, it won’t be long before the bank seizes your homes, your cars, all the stuff you hold dear. Your staff will be out of work, because you can’t afford to pay them. And your family will be out on the street, since you’ll lose the homes you bought for them too. But hey, that’s okay, you can all shack up together again in the same three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath that you all started in, with nothing left but the memory of your wild night on the town with your supposed friend Dougall and a group of grown women who were only using you to promote themselves.”
“You’re blaming Dougall?”
“Is that all you got out of that? Dougall is a problem. A very real problem. The worst kind of hanger-on. He’s riding your coattails. He’s nothing without you, and don’t think he doesn’t know it. But at the moment he’s only a blip on your list, because let me tell you something: that scenario I described is all too real. It happens all the time. There’s no inoculation for failure, especially the kind we bring on ourselves.”
I shake my head. It’s not like I didn’t hear, ’cause I did. I just don’t get why I’m still here.
Why I haven’t woken up already and found myself back in Greentree, frozen solid on the bus stop bench.