Sad Desk Salad (20 page)

“Joellen, what do you think about Chick Habit’s decision to run this video?”

“Well, darlin’, I think it’s just a pathetic state of affairs. We should be building America’s children up online, not tearin’ ’em down. Certainly a gal like Becky West can’t expect the same level of privacy as a regular person, but it is the responsibility of our journalists and bloggers to be above this kinda thing.” She’s looking right at Savannah when she says this, and she’s tilted slightly away from me as if I’m not there. Joellen’s tone is think-of-the-children drippy.

“Alex, have you heard the news that Becky West has been receiving death threats?” Savannah asks me firmly but not aggressively.

Jesus. “No, I hadn’t heard that.” I’ve gotten death threats before, too—anyone who has worked on the Internet for more than a week has—but it sounds so much more serious when Savannah says it. I can feel my cheeks reddening with shame.

“Do you still stand behind your decision to run this?” Savannah sounds neutral like she always does, and I can’t tell what answer she wants to hear.

“I do,” I say, though my voice is wavering and I just know that my pit stains are showing. “This video would have made its way online whether or not I published it. Of course I think it’s awful that she has been receiving death threats, and in no way do I condone that behavior. But the fact of the matter is that Becky is a celebrity now, and she needs to consider that before she acts.” I can’t tell whether or not I actually believe what I just said, but I’m relieved that at least I came up with something coherent. I glance over at Joellen, who looks appalled.

“I’m sorry, I just think that is so darn terrible,” Joellen says, her voice becoming cloying and saccharine sweet. “Becky is a good kid who made a mistake, and you’re just a big ol’ cyberbully.”

“Becky is a grown woman who should be able to deal with the consequences of her actions. Don’t infantilize her!” I say, my voice rising. I fight to calm down because I know it’s a mistake to lose my temper—even though she’s the one calling me names, Joellen will come out looking better than me if she keeps her cool and I lose mine. I’m looking at her for a response when Savannah interrupts.

“I’m sorry, we’ve got ten seconds to go. The lesson here?”

Even though I see Joellen opening her lipsticked mouth I make sure I get the last word in. “No matter how old you are, you need to be aware that anything you record could end up all over the Internet.” Joellen lets the air run out of her and I detect a slight pout. Savannah is all business, moving fluidly to the next segment.

“Thanks to Alex Lyons and Joellen Maxwell. Next up, we’ve got Basil, the miniature dachshund who saved his owner’s life by dialing 911 with his paw!”

I hear the clip of Basil barking and panting start to run. Then I realize Basil is only barking—I’m the one breathing so heavily. Savannah finally makes eye contact with me and says a sincere, “Thank you for coming.”

I mumble, “Thanks for having me,” and I flee before I have to make nice to Joellen, who is still sitting smugly to my right. I scurry past Tammy, who’s standing near where she brought me onto the set. Then I head back the same way I came, through the maze of hallways to the dumpy greenroom, where my canvas purse is awaiting me. I plunge my hand in and grab my iPhone immediately, hoping no one I know—save Moira—decided to flip on
Today
this morning. Most important, I’m hoping BTCH hasn’t gotten wind of this yet. Deep down I know there’s no way the hate blogger won’t find out about my appearance on a national television show, but I can’t deal with any further threats right now.

There’s a text awaiting me from Moira.

Moira Fitzgerald (7:41 AM): All press is good press!

I’m not sure if Moira means that in a positive way. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all? I look down at my armpits, first the left, then the right. The dark circle on the left side is perceptible in person, though the right one is barely apparent (I’ve always wondered: What is the deal with disproportional pit stains?). Hopefully under the bright TV lights both stains disappeared.

There’s a junior producer loitering in the greenroom who looks about twelve. She takes me to the elevator and says, “Good job,” with as little enthusiasm as possible right before the doors close.

Tim is waiting for me where he left me off this morning. “How’d it go?”

“Okay, I guess,” I say as I climb back into the slick backseat.

Once I’m settled back into the car I log into my Chick Habit e-mail account to see if BTCH has contacted me again. I bet this Becky West death threat info has invigorated her. If nothing else it will give her some weird moral high ground: She might be harassing me, but I caused someone to fear for her life. And she wouldn’t be wrong. Even though death threats are almost always just a lot of hot air, if Becky’s life is actually in danger, I don’t know that I could ever let myself off the hook.

I don’t see any e-mails from the BTCH address, and there’s nothing in my inbox from Rebecca or Darleen or even any of their lawyers; what I do see is 532 unread e-mails, all from names I don’t recognize. I click on one in the 200 region, from a woman named Cheryl Carolla.

To:
[email protected]

From:
Cheryl Carolla

Subject:
You are a cyberbully!

Young lady, you should be ashamed of yourself. Darleen West is a god-fearing Christian woman and you have just defiled her on national television. Her daughter is a good girl at heart, and you had no place airing out their private family business on your smutty little website. That Joelene woman was right, you are a cyberbully!

Well, that was a pretty mild, literate piece of hate mail. I click through to the next e-mail.

To:
[email protected]

From:
Morris Saverin

Subject:
Die Cunt

U shold go fuck off and die u ugly cunt. Get ur teeth fixed first + take care of ur pit stainz too.

Ugh. This one stings. I only get this sort of response when our content appears in front of a wider audience than our Chick Habit regulars. The usual stable of readers might be tough to please, but they hardly ever attack our looks (it’s not very sisterly) or use derogatory words for vagina as an insult. And you
could
see my pit stains! Why didn’t Moira say anything?

I keep scrolling through the mail, my hope that I did a decent job on
Today
shrinking with each missive. The ratio of hate mail to support mail is about nine to one (typical subject line: “You’re An Asshole”). I pick one of the nice e-mails to see if reading it makes me feel any better:

To:
[email protected]

From:
Lisa Rodgers

Subject:
Way to go!

I’m so glad someone is out there showing what Darleen West is really like. I’ve known Darleen since high school, and let me tell you, she’s been pulling this shit since we were 16. Ever since we were on the cheerleading squad together and she forced me to be at the bottom of the pyramid, I’ve known she’s a phony. Good on you for showing the world that Darleen West is a hypocrite!

—Lisa

Nope, that just makes me feel worse. I’m only enabling sour old grudge holders. Deep down, even though I still feel conflicted about this whole debacle, I hoped that I might change the way some people think about the nature of privacy and celebrity, but I guess that’s a lot to ask from a five-minute TV segment.

At least I’m pretty sure that my mom hasn’t seen my performance this morning—not yet, anyway. In the grand tradition of academic parents, she doesn’t own a TV, and she’s such a Luddite that she only knows how to check her e-mail from our home computer, so if some well-meaning soul sent her the link to my appearance, she wouldn’t see it until tonight, which gives me some time to explain it to her. Hopefully with the right spin, I won’t be such a disappointment.

I remember the first post that BTCH did, the one with the photograph of me from the local Connecticut weekly and the quote about how much I loved Hillary. BTCH had wondered what had happened to that sweet little girl. That’s what my mom would be thinking if she had seen my morning show appearance.

But I can’t think about my mom too much longer, because just as Tim pulls up to my apartment, I get a text from Jane.

Jane Rivera (8:22 AM): Got the intel from Leon. Call me when u get this.

Jane picks up on the second ring. “I’m about to see a client so I need to make this quick.”

“Okay, go!”

“Leon says that the hate blogger is based in Fort Greene. He’s been able to pinpoint the address to a big collection of condos called the Phthalo on Carlton Avenue, but it’s unclear which of the seventy units the IP address is coming from.”

“Damn, Leon is amazing. I really appreciate your doing this for me, especially since I’ve been such a massive boil on your butt this week.”

“No problema. I’m over it already—just handle your shit, girl.”

“I will.”

“And by the way, I thought your hair was amazing on the
Today
show.”

“You saw it?”

“It was on in the kitchen at work when I was making coffee,” Jane says, a laugh in her voice.

“Besides my hair, was the rest of it a total disaster?” The line goes dead for a second and my heart stops. “Jane?”

“You really got into it with that Southern belle, didn’tcha.”

“I did.” I can’t tell if Jane thinks this is admirable or embarrassing. Her tone leans toward the latter.

“It made for very good TV.” Now I know she’s just trying to find the one positive thing to say so that she doesn’t have to lie to me about how great I was. I appreciate the kid gloves—not usually Jane’s style but she knows how rough it’s been for me this week. And hey, at least I seemed to entertain her.

“Thanks?”

“I gotta run, but check in with me later.” From the warmth in Jane’s voice here, I can tell she’s over our tiff from last night, and I’m so relieved. I need at least one person fully in my corner.

“Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hang up, thoughtful. I’ve never heard of the Phthalo before. It sounds pretentious and expensive—I can imagine the faux marble in the lobby without even seeing the joint. But hold on a minute: Didn’t Tina say the hate blogger lived in Greenpoint?

Chapter Eleven

By the time I get settled at my laptop it’s a little before nine. The air conditioner hasn’t been running since I left the house, so there’s an unbearably stale, fetid quality to the air, some combination of bathroom mold and Peter’s soiled workout clothes. I shed my cheap sweat-stained TV dress—surely made of some synthetic fiber of the devil; in fact, in college I once wrote about the horrid sweatshop labor that those fast-fashion emporiums use. Maybe my pit stains were just penance for wearing something from Forever 21.

I pull out the breezy cotton comfort of my eyelet muumuu from the depths of my bag and put it on. Though it’s been crumpled down there, when I yank it out, it has magically shed that old-sheep smell that was following it around. What to do first—ask Tina about the discrepancy, or Google “Alex Lyons + the
Today
show”? Am I an aggressor or a masochist? I guess I’m still slouching toward the latter because I decide to Google myself first.

The first thing that comes up is the
Today
show’s own page. But right below that, I see a link to the website of a TV show called
Chat Skewer,
which sends up all the daily talk shows. The headline I see through Google is ambiguous (“I Have a Secret for Chick Habit Writer Alex Lyons”), but when I click through to the post itself, it’s a freeze frame of my adolescent nightmares.

Chat Skewer
features a screen shot of my appearance this morning. My face is screwed up in a furious scowl, and a huge Photoshopped yellow circle with a big flashing arrow points to my armpit. The punch line, of course, is that the blogger’s “secret” for me is Secret deodorant. Hardy har. But below the screen shot and the easy joke is a blistering indictment of, well, me:

Perspiring Chick Habit writer Alex Lyons talked with Savannah Guthrie this morning about Rebecca West, the coked-up daughter of “Genius Mom” Nazi Darleen West. Lyons got into an impressive brawl with big-haired “Internet safety expert” Joellen Maxwell. Both these broads are pretty annoying, but Lyons said something that we here at
Chat Skewer
take as a personal challenge: “No matter how old you are, you need to be aware that anything you record could end up all over the Internet.” So, monsters, your task is to find embarrassing recordings of Alex Lyons. Here, I’ll start:

There are two videos below that scathing paragraph. One is the
Today
show appearance in full; the other is another blasted video from my freshman-year a cappella performance, poncho and clown hair and all. This video isn’t the one that BTCH put up; no, this time I’m belting my wee heart out to Wilson Phillips’s “Hold On.” During the chorus I am doing a particularly heartfelt fist-pumping motion as I hold the notes in “hoooooold oooooon.”

Chat Skewer
goes on:

Normally, we stay out of these sorts of Internet fisticuffs, but when we heard that Rebecca West was getting death threats we felt like it was our mission to give Ms. Lyons a taste of her own medicine. Here’s her e-mail—[email protected]—if you’d like to share your thoughts with her.