Lone Star Legend (22 page)

S
o, does this guy record
everything
you do?” Sandy’s latest interviewee said in a low voice, near her ear. “Or do you get to break away and have coffee, in private,
sometimes?”

She turned and gave him what she could feel was a radiant smile. Her subject, Tony Ojeda—Tony O. for short—walked her out
of his classroom and toward the side exit of the community college building. They were safe for now; they’d left Intern Marco
several yards back, still fumbling with his camera bag. Sandy had a few moments of privacy with Tony O., with his handsome
eyes and gorgeous Chilean accent.

“They do cut me loose, sometimes,” she said to him. “Why, would you like me to interview you again?”

He laughed, looking down at her face with his nice smile as they walked faster, as if in silent agreement to make it out the
exit door, down the steps, and to the relative intimacy of the parking lot alone together. “I’d love you to interview me again.
Actually, I’d like you to come back and talk to the kids, without the cameras. They really liked you, especially the girls.
You could tell them about yourself this time, and how you got this job. They really need mentors, these kids.” He glanced
back in the direction of the classroom where they’d just left his writers’ group—the group he’d started for underprivileged
kids. Sandy felt her heart melt a little at the thoughtfulness on his face. This guy was incredible. Was it at all possible
that he was single, too? And interested in her?

Right on cue, he turned back to her and said, “But I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee sometime with me. Just the
two of us. If you’re interested, I mean.”

“Oh, I’m definitely interested.” Smooth as someone onscreen, Sandy reached into her bag and pulled out one of her cards, then
handed it to Tony O. with a casual-but-electrifying brush of her fingers over his.

She felt like a person at a masquerade ball in Napoleonic times. Like she was wearing a sexy costume, along with a mask that
made her feel free to go farther—flirt harder—than she would have in her normal clothes.

Dominga Saavedra, for instance, never would have handed her card to a man like this. Hell, she didn’t even have any cards.
But Sandy S….
she
had cards, she had guts, and she had men hoping to catch her attention.

She held her mask in place, smiling and going so far as to wish him goodbye with a half-hug and intercontinental air kiss
very near the cheek. And then Intern Marco emerged from the building, ready to roll.

Perfect timing, Sandy thought. She wasn’t sure she could hold on to the façade any longer.

But, she told herself, she’d be ready with it again the next time they met. Sandy S. had confidence and courage. That’s who
she’d be when she spent time with Tony, and with everyone else she was going to meet.

As Marco drove her back to the office to film her news segment for the week, Sandy lay her head back on the seat and allowed
herself to daydream. Tony O. would go to her site—Nacho Papi—and read her words to find out more about her. He’d read her
posts about other writers and realize she had excellent literary taste. Her posts about pop culture would show him she was
whip-smart and didn’t waste her time with trash. He’d see her conversations with the Chupacabra and realize that she was a
good person.

He’d see the auction, eventually. He’d bid on a date with her. Sandy would have Angelica donate the proceeds to his teen writers’
group. And then she’d go out with him for free.

Marco tried to beat a light by taking a corner a little too fast. Sandy was jolted back into an upright position, back into
reality. It was too bad, she realized, that Angelica probably wouldn’t want to use this writers’ group footage for the show.
She’d been way pickier lately and had said the other day that Sandy needed to keep the “feel-good, do-goody stuff” to a minimum.

It’d go on the site at least. Eventually. After Sandy turned in a few pieces about teen pop star Heather Lopez’s sex tape.
And a few about how much Toro vodka she’d drunk over the weekend.

Sandy had a lot of work to do. Too much, she thought, as she and Marco pulled into their designated area of the parking garage.
She was taping segments, for the show and the site, five and six times a week now. Her post quota was higher than ever. Wasn’t
it time, she asked herself as she entered the office, for Angelica to show her a little appreciation? Maybe in the form of
a raise?

She would ask Angelica today, maybe. Maybe right now.

“She’s here,” Philippe said as Sandy walked through the door into their maxi-office. The staff table was strewn with more
laptops and interns than ever. Some of the interns looked at Sandy curiously, or with smirks on their faces. She ignored them.
They were all a bunch of wannabes, constantly fantasizing about taking the place of one of the real staff writers.

“Call her in,” Sandy heard Angelica say from the inner recess of her own office.

Philippe beckoned to Sandy and she walked the gauntlet of the silent, staring interns to Angelica’s door. What was going on?
she wondered.

As she passed Philippe, he put his hand on her arm and whispered, “Honey. Don’t freak out, okay?”

That scared her more than anything else he could have said, she realized. Holding her breath, she passed him and went through
the doorway to where Angelica waited, laptop open on her desk.

“Sandy, you need to see this,” her boss said.

Bad news about the site? About Levy Media? They were going to get laid off, Sandy thought. This was the end of Nacho Papi.

Angelica stood, indicating that Sandy was to take her chair. Philippe had come in and closed the door behind him, so that
the three of them would be alone. Angelica crossed over to where he stood. The two of them looked at the window. Then, looking
back at Sandy, they realized that she’d been watching them.

“Read,” Philippe said, pointing to the monitor in front of her.

Sandy looked down and saw a long block of black text on white. Then the headline caught her eye.

In sober silence, her boss and her co-worker stood and waited for her to take in the words on the screen.

Post on Buzz News, Friday, June 2

by George Cantu

AUSTIN, TEXAS. When Daniel Thomas first met fellow grad student Dominga Saavedra, all he saw was a shy smile and moderate
talent for writing prose. He had no way of knowing that he’d just met the girl who would eventually ruin his career.

“She was always asking for my help with her writing,” Daniel was to remember, later. “She acted so innocent. I had no idea
that she was writing all about me and our intimate relationship, all along.”

Under the pen name Sandy S, Dominga Saavedra writes for online gossip rag Nacho Papi’s Web Site. (Full disclosure: The author
of this piece formerly worked for the same site for a very brief period—long enough to find out enough about Dominga Saavedra
that the story told here doesn’t surprise him at all.) Concurrently, however, Sandy S has been writing her own blog under
another synonym, Miss TragiComic Texas.

“Apparently everyone at the University knew about it. It was an open secret, basically. Open to everyone but me,” Dr. Thomas
mused sadly when asked about the Web site where Sandy S systematically divulged every detail about her relationship with him
to an audience of literal thousands. “My friends, colleagues, and students had been reading about me on the site for months
before I found out about it. They knew she was going to break up with me before I did.”

Even the most personal and humiliating details of Sandy S’s planned break-up with Daniel Thomas were there for all to see.
At the same time, rumors swirled among readers of her employer’s site that Sandy S was romantically involved with fellow Nacho
Papi staffer Philippe Montemayor, providing further grist for speculation about her erstwhile victim.

“I never saw it coming,” says Daniel, who now faces his own coworkers and employers every day knowing that they most likely
know personal, embarrassing details of his life with a former University student. He hasn’t yet been laid off or otherwise
discriminated against, but knows that it’s only a matter of time before something like that could potentially occur.

Meanwhile, Sandy S continues to criticize other citizens of the city where she lives, as well as celebrities and fictional
characters alike, under the banner of Jacob Levy’s Latino-focused “entertainment” site. One can’t help but wonder if it was
all a giant publicity stunt, designed to gain readership for Levy’s media empire, with Dr. Thomas serving as an unwitting
victim. However, at the time of printing, neither Jacob Levy nor Nacho Papi’s editor, Angelica Villanueva O’Sullivan, could
be reached for comment.

“My advice is, never date a journalism major. Or anyone who writes for anyone else. Or any woman who seems shy but is drawn
to men who are successful in her chosen field,” says Daniel Thomas, who is now unfortunately older and wiser.

Good advice, Daniel. Readers, you’ve been warned.

S
andy’s eyes sped over the words on the monitor once, twice, then three times, absorbing more of the horror with each pass.
It was unbelievable. How had George interviewed Daniel? And
why?
Daniel’s colleagues had known about her personal blog all along, the article said. And now—Sandy re-read again, to be certain—now
everyone who read Buzz News knew about it too. Anyone who cared to could do a search for “Miss TragiComic Texas” and find
it.

“So I’m guessing you turned down George’s offer to rejoin our staff?” Philippe asked Angelica wryly over Sandy’s shoulder.

Angelica responded with a dry chuckle. “I’m guessing he had this idea up his sleeve for a while. He probably had the whole
thing written and was holding his mouse over the Send button while listening to me turn him down.”

The two of them laughed while Sandy sat at Angelica’s desk holding back tears of shame and rage that blurred her view of the
monitor on which the life-ruining words had been written. “How could he do this?” she heard herself say under her breath.

“Who, sweetie? George or your ex?” Philippe asked.

“I don’t know. Either of them. No one even knows about the site…. Hardly anyone even
knew
about my site, until now.”

Angelica put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder and gave it a little pat. “Well, you know what they say, then. No publicity is bad
publicity.”

Sandy sniffed to keep herself from sobbing aloud. “For Nacho Papi, you mean? Because this certainly isn’t going to be good
for me.”

“Sandy.” Angelica motioned above Sandy’s head and, with a parting shoulder-squeeze on her other side, Philippe glided out
of the office, closing the door behind him. Angelica pulled one of her visitor’s chairs across the office to her visibly shaken
employee’s side. “Listen, Sandy. I know this must be an awful shock to you at the moment. But, if you’ll take a few deep breaths
and just let your head clear…”

“Then what? I’ll find a way to delete all traces of my blog before it’s e-mailed to everyone I know? I’ll think of a way to
kill them both and hide the evidence?” Sandy heard her voice getting uncharacteristically, unprofessionally loud, but she
didn’t care. She was being stared in the face by one of the worst things that had ever happened to her.

“No.” Angelica tried to pat Sandy’s knee reassuringly, but she was obviously unpracticed at that sort of thing. “But you’ll
realize that this isn’t the end of the world. There are far worse things that can happen. You might even see this as a good
thing. It’ll definitely get you more exposure as a writer.”

“But I don’t want that kind of exposure!” Sandy said. “That site wasn’t supposed to be part of my résumé.”

“Why not? You have some good pieces on it.”

“What? You’ve read it?” Had Angelica gone to her blog already, Sandy wondered, since reading George’s article that morning?

“Not the whole thing—just bits and pieces, a while back,” her boss said in a soothing voice.

“But—how did you know about it?” Sandy was genuinely perplexed now.

Angelica narrowed her eyes as if trying to remember. “I think Lori or Oscar told me. Was it supposed to be secret?”

Sandy stared at her boss in horror. “Yes, it was supposed to be secret!”

Now it was Angelica’s turn to look puzzled. “Then why did you put it on the Internet?”

Angelica’s office door opened and Lori’s head poked through. She gave Sandy a quick look of sympathy before saying, “Angelica,
Jacob’s on the phone for you.”

Both women stood and Sandy gave a quick swipe under each eye with her finger, under her glasses. “I have to go. I’m going
to… work from home today.”

“Of course,” Angelica said, patting her one last time on the shoulder, this time more roughly, as if trying to encourage a
soldier back into the fray. “Do what you need to do. Go relax. We’ll see you Monday.”

Sandy felt the interns’ eyes boring into her back as she gathered her things. She pulled a pair of sunglasses from her bag
and put them on before making for the exit. She opened the door and almost ran into someone coming in. A young, tiny, blond
someone, with blue eyes and a tight, low-cut T-shirt stretched over a considerable expanse of bustline.

“Sandy S.! Hi! I’m so glad to finally meet you!”

Sandy smiled at the young woman and edged around her, trying to hide her immediate annoyance at being stopped by a fan.

“I’m Trisha MacLeod. La Sirena,” she said. Sandy stopped in her tracks, unable to keep from staring. The younger woman went
on. “I’m going to be working with you guys! I’m so excited! I’m such a big fan of your work!”

Sandy ended up mumbling something polite and shaking Trisha/La Sirena’s hand awkwardly—the girl had tried to hug her—before
getting out of there. She had enough drama going on already and simply couldn’t process any more.

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