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infiniteshawn · 5 years

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Since We’re Alone | 2

a/n: 3k words. an opportunistic dilemma.

“I don’t know why I did it,” Phoebe sighed, keeping her voice low. The break room was always a setting for warmly welcomed gossip, but not when it revolved around her own pseudo-romantic relations with an A-list celebrity.

“I just knew, fuck,” she spoke, catching the eyes of a nosy member of the cleaning staff as he mindlessly wiped one of the round tables. Her voice was barely a whisper, “his reputation is really clean, and he was having an off-moment, and the only thing on television was literally his pissed-off face.”

“So,” Phoebe’s co-worker, Sophie, was an interesting being. Good advice, terrible ideas. Phoebe kept this in mind as Sophie spoke, “you thought kissing him on national television would,” she paused, “fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Phoebe’s head lowered into her dry hands, “I knew it was gonna be bad, and I knew it would be the cover of every snapchat-and-whatever-else news story, and I knew I’d be right there in the photo, sitting right be-fucking-side him.”

“Right,” she nodded, “so you thought it would be better to be on the cover of every snapchat-and-whatever-else news story right on-fucking-top of him. I see.”

Phoebe rolled her eyes. It was no use. The logic wasn’t all there, but something had told her to just do it in the moment. So, she did. And as annoying as the influx of backlash was, she had a hard time denying that she was enjoying herself.

“Would you just drop it?” Phoebe questioned with a sly grin, popping the last bite of her turkey sandwich into her mouth, “it’s over now, anyway.”

“Don’t speak so soon,” Sophie muttered, nodding her head in the direction of their boss, Margaret.

Margaret Adams. She was the bane of Phoebe’s existence. She was needy. She was demanding. She was everything a boss was supposed to be—and everyone hated her for it.

“Bray!” Margaret called from only a few feet away, causing Phoebe’s attention to leave her picked-at cuticle and land on Margaret, red-faced and flustered.

Phoebe didn’t have the chance to answer before Margaret began speaking—speaking about exactly what Phoebe did not want to talk about.

“Why the hell are you on Twitter moments?”

Phoebe took a deep breath. This really wasn’t going away anytime soon.

____________________

Remaining low-key had always been the goal. Letting them know what she was thinking—whoever “them” may have been—was never an option for Phoebe Rose. Silent but deadly. A wallflower, perhaps. She was a shark.

With a double-major in philosophy and English lit, Phoebe was a shoo-in for her position with Toronto Life Magazine. Unfortunately, the only opening was with Margaret’s department, which took pride in covering celebrity news stories. It made Phoebe sick.

It was invasive. It was greasy. Toxic, even.

But a position was a position, and anything was better than waitressing at Joey’s, a higher-end restaurant at Yonge and Dundas that was home to pretentious late teens and margarita-sipping wine moms.

As if on cue, Phoebe caught the 504A streetcar at 6:03. It was packed. It was always packed at this time. Especially on a Tuesday.

They stood like sardines holding onto the germ-ridden handles and she peered between the heads of two older women, mesmerized by the cookie-cutter financial buildings. They were all different. But the same.

They buzzed with the same aura, radiating stress and poise and money in the way each window stretched from floor to ceiling. Phoebe wondered what it took to become somebody in this grey, cubic city, miserable as that somebody may truly be. The bankers seemed to really hate it.

She liked to think of Toronto that way—cubic. She wasn’t quite sure why, but it made sense.

Phoebe thought back to her family trip to London when she was fifteen. It, too, was grey, but regardless of the weather it always seemed to be vibrating with life. Five-street intersections. The intense complexity of the tube. The history—Phoebe could have a field day just thinking about the past lives of all of those buildings.

It wasn’t until she returned home all those years ago, peeking out of the way-too-bright window of the 747 that she noticed how grid-like Toronto was. Every street was carefully engineered, the rest of the ground littered in houses and buildings that appeared to all be a uniform greying beige. It was lifeless. Modern. Cubic. Robotic, even. And Phoebe loved it.

She gazed out the window freely, now, as the two older ladies had gotten off at Spadina. Cars trailed behind the street car slowly, unable to pass as a result of the illegally-parked vehicles on King. Most restaurants were empty. Phoebe knew that Tuesdays in February were detrimental to the food industry. She wondered when exactly the calendar marked the beginning of patio season. April? May? She wasn’t sure. It reminded her of the way she always forgot she had Springtime allergies until spring rolled back around, or how often it rained in Toronto until winter ended and the arctic tundra that encapsulates the city melts away.

She realized she was going in mindless circles. Phoebe did this often.

The woman spoke. The bell that measured distance and location and stops sounded. Phoebe got off, stepping into the crisp whipping wind and again stepping into the lobby of her apartment building.

Chester had swung the glass vestibule door open before she could go fishing for her key card. She shot the doorman a crooked smile with something between a nod and a head shake, and then cursed herself for being so awkward. But it didn’t matter--the leftovers in her fridge seemed far more important.

So important that she hadn’t looked at the screen of her ancient iPhone 6 in an hour and a half. And she probably shouldn’t have.

She practically dropped the damn thing when she saw the twenty-seven-minute-old notification.

@shawnmendes has requested to follow you.

____________________

“I declined it,” Phoebe spoke sternly, trying her best to conceal her voice’s urge to waver.

“You,” Sophie paused, stopping dead in her tracks. Phoebe couldn’t help but giggle, slightly embarrassed that Sophie’s rigid frame was splitting the mass herd of tired commuters walking up Church Street. It reminded her of Moses liberating the Israelites—except this was not like that. At all. She finished her question, even though it was more of a judgemental statement, “declined it?”

Phoebe pursed her lips, sticking her hand out to pull Sophie along. A male passerby in a blue suit was seemingly very annoyed.

“Come on,” she giggled.

“Only because I’m at risk of being trampled,” Sophie spoke curtly, crossing her arms and continuing their morning sojourn. She rejected Phoebe’s outstretched hand.

“Accepting it would come with a wave of teenage girls also requesting, and I really don’t need to be sifting through that. Also, I don’t know that my phone could take it,” Phoebe explained, now stopped on the corner as they waited for the LED walking man’s permission to cross the street, “just looking at my Snapchat memories crashes the damn thing.

“Plus,” Phoebe added after a brief pause, sorting the short list of reasons-not-to-jump-into-this that she’d mentally drafted the night before, “if I messaged him, he wouldn’t see it. He must get millions of DMs. And how the hell did he even find me? Bet he’s a total creep.”

“Excuses, Pheebs,” Sophie whined. She didn’t really whine, but she did in the brain of Phoebe—who didn’t want to hear it. “Just admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“That you’re a pussy,” Sophie spoke, but this time with a sly grin. Phoebe was many things, but a pussy was not one of them.

“You’re saying that to piss me off and then guilt me into condoning this behaviour,” Phoebe replied, trying her best not to get defensive. She was independent. Self-sufficient. Quiet, but brave. Not a pussy.

“Might be,” Sophie teased, tossing her empty coffee cup in a city garbage can as Phoebe grabbed the door to their office building, “really, though, just think about it.”

____________________

Heads had turned in the lunch room. Only three days since the incident, and Phoebe was positive they’d all seen her face on the cover of Daily Mail. She cringed.

It was like she was having a slightly more intense déjà vu as she spotted Margaret barreling in her direction, leather pants whaling “please save me” with each stride. Phoebe clenched her thighs, bracing herself for whatever was coming.

“Blondie,” Margaret called, and Phoebe tried her best not to roll her eyes. She wasn’t even blonde anymore; the winter’s lack of sunlight had turned her hair a light golden brown. But the unfortunate nickname stuck. “Phone’s for you. My office.”

The walk to Margaret’s office was nerve-wracking and so incredibly exciting that Phoebe was trying not to lose her lunch. Her space was nice. Not twentieth-floor-nice, but they were the gossip department, after all. This was as good as it could get.

“Who is it?” Phoebe asked gently, barely a whisper. She knew better than to question Margaret.

But Margaret Adams was a self-proclaimed “slut for pop culture.” And that’s why she couldn’t contain that she was ecstatic when she exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Andrew Gertler.”

Phoebe almost choked on nothing in particular. This really wasn’t going away.

Margaret sat across from her when she answered the phone. Phoebe’s eyes were trained on the roof of Kensington Market—a place she didn’t particularly like, but wished she was at in this particular moment.

“Hello?”

“Miss Bray,” she recognized the voice. It was indeed Andrew Gertler, the man who encouraged Shawn to “sell” that he was just happy to be there. What a fucked-up industry.

“Speaking,” Phoebe replied, unamused. Margaret shot her a look.

“Listen,” the man spoke, “nobody’s mad at you. That stunt you pulled was, well,” he paused, and Phoebe scraped her chapstick off her lower lip with her teeth. “Impressive. You’re sharp. You know the business. And while your actions were,” he paused again, and Phoebe’s stomach churned, “unacceptable, really, it made sense and it saved Shawn’s ass. He’s grateful.”

Phoebe nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see her, and then opened her mouth to verbally agree but Andrew was speaking again.

“It’s left us with one problem, though.”

“Uh,” she answered, meeting Margaret’s wide gaze, “yeah?”

“Shawn Mendes doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

____________________

“So?” Margaret questioned, her almost-black hair bouncing as she spoke with such animation. Phoebe wanted to crawl in a hole.

“You heard, I said I’d think about it.”

“Miss Bray,” Margaret began, and Phoebe clammed up a bit. It felt like she was in trouble, “you’re an intern for a serious magazine. And this,” she motioned to the phone, its wire coiled into an upward curve as if it was smiling at Phoebe. Mocking her, almost. “This is your department. Don’t you want this?”

“Want what?” Phoebe asked, leaning in a bit, not quite understanding.

“Phoebe,” Margaret spoke, flattening her frizzy hair to her head. It sprang up again. “You’ve been presented with the opportunity to be a part of a publicity stunt. Don’t you know how many doors that would open?”

Phoebe stared back blankly. The idea made her feel a little sick.

“Honey,” it felt as if Margaret was guilting her, now, “you’d see the ins and outs of the business. You’d meet high-profile people—the kind of people we write about. And you’d come out of it with a damn good story. One that people could read.”

That woke her up a little. Margaret was insinuating that Phoebe, an intern, might come out of this with the possibility of being published. She kept listening.

“They fly you around. You become known, people start reading us more to learn about you. You do this, Phoebe, and you’ll leave here the girl who fetches my coffee. You’ll return as a member of the team.”

Phoebe nodded and left Margaret’s office. She wondered if kickstarting a career was worth the price of dishonesty.

____________________

Andrew Gertler’s mysterious phone call was haunting, almost. It echoed in Phoebe’s ears as she rode the elevator to the fourth floor, remembering what it was like to run around the same very building as a little kid.

Her parents had split when she was only three or four months old, and her dad worked every Saturday. He’d send Phoebe to spend the day with his sister--her aunt--downtown. They did things. Explored Toronto and all its crevices, ensuring weekly day trips to places like the ROM and the AGO and the very niche, expensive shops in the Distillery District. It was magic.

Phoebe was only nineteen when her aunt died. She’d left her the apartment.

Things were so simple, then, Phoebe thought to herself with a chuckle. She once walked the winding hall as a four-year-old with nothing but the museum gift shop on her mind, but things were different now. It was time to grow up.

Phoebe was shocked to discover that Andrew seemed to have researched her entire life. He’d mentioned that he contacted the event staff and obtained a list of the names of each seat filler (which was massive). He then realized he could have just asked Rita—the headset-wearing lady with the clipboard—who it was that had planted herself in the lap of Shawn Mendes. Then he began the deep dive.

Found her Facebook, magically knew she’d attended the University of Guelph and graduated a year prior. He found it oddly convenient that like Shawn Mendes, she, too, was a Toronto native. “It makes too much sense,” he’d said. Phoebe disagreed. It made zero sense. At all.

He’d asked her if she liked her job. She answered, “I like my path.” This only encouraged Andrew, as he began to explain the benefits to her projected career that a stunt like this would provide. Phoebe couldn’t deny it—it did seem very sound.

But something was deterring her. Dishonesty? Taking part in the slime that was Hollywood? Serving the unfulfilling purpose of being nothing but a piece of arm-candy?

“Like, a prop?” she’d asked, in search of justification for the degrading feeling that was eating her from the inside-out, “I’m sorry, I just don’t see the point.”

She didn’t want to feed the beast that was show business. She knew it was toxic and unacceptable and just plain bad. But she saw the possibilities, and they were endless. This was her department. This was her—unfortunately—area of expertise. And this was her career. She was ready to call him back when her phone lit up, the pink square making her nervous. Instagram.

@shawnmendes has requested to send you a message.

She took a deep breath. Upon opening it, she laughed.

I really hope Andrew didnt scare you was all it said. It was innocent, and the lack of an apostrophe was making her antsy but she was reminded of his naivety and probable sloppiness. He was just a goofy twenty-three-year-old. And he didn’t ask for any of this.

She wasn’t sure if she was going to respond. Decided she’d sleep on it, because making decisions was always a better idea a few hours later.

Phoebe picked up her book, and Atwood’s words freaked her out.

They look around, bright-eyed, cocking their heads to one side like robins, their very cheerfulness aggressive, and I can’t help staring.

The women teeter on their spiked feet as if on stilts, but off balance; their backs arch at the waist, thrusting the buttocks out.

She wondered what she was getting herself into. Hollywood. Magazines. Glitz and glamour. She questioned if it was worth it.

We are fascinated, but also repelled.

I bet, Phoebe thought. The industry was a repulsive one. She was hesitant to read further.

“Excuse me,” he says to both of us, politely enough. “They’re asking if they can take your picture.”

The foreshadowing was uncanny. She wondered if her dead aunt or the wizard in the sky or some impossibly higher power was laughing at her from their living room in the clouds.

Modesty is invisibility.

It is in this business.

“Excuse me,” says the interpreter again, to catch our attention. I nod, to show I’ve heard him.

“He asks, are you happy,” says the interpreter. I can imagine it, their curiosity: Are they happy? How can they be happy?

Phoebe wondered if she was happy, and if she was about to become far less happy. If stepping into the public eye would make her into the shell of a woman that she feared so deeply.

We are secret, forbidden, we excite them.

Phoebe’s plump lips turned upward at the corners. Somewhere deep down, she longed to be a muse. A puppet, something to get the people talking. She thirsted for that power.

“Yes, we are very happy,” I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?

Her thumbs were unlocking her phone and typing a reply faster than her brain could stop her.

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