The brief meeting with the two-faced ghost from my past isn’t even worth a roll of my eyes, and I hold the cigarette between my lips while I pull out my phone. With something like five million followers, I have so many notifications on social media that I don’t even check them. I just go straight to my own shit and skim the newest comments.
Mid-scroll, the little, brunette doll from the Austin show surfaces in my mind again, and I return to the top of the comments to scroll again, more slowly this time.
This is a post from a few days ago, and there’s no comment from her. And for years, she’s been one of the people who comment enough that I notice. She comments so much that Facebook applied a little “Top Fan” badge next to her name.
While finishing off the cigarette, I go back through every video and photo I’ve posted recently, and little missTop Fan Ava Heraldis conspicuously absent from the threads. I don’t see her name again until I get to the video I posted on the day of the Austin show. And while Gia’s little visit just now wasnotsurprising and wholly pissed me off, Ava’s sudden absence from my postsissurprising and manages to annoy me even more than having to see my backstabbing ex-girlfriend.
Well, I’ll just have to deal with that, and I know exactly what to do.
I pocket my phone and drop the cigarette butt on the sidewalk, then turn to head back inside the hotel. When I’m a few steps away from the glass doors, I notice a guy way off to one side, sitting on the concrete next to the corner of the hotel that flanks an alley. He’s filthy, ragged, and tattered, but I’m familiar enough with these types to recognize that he’s not much older than I am. Maybe in his mid-thirties or so.
Pivoting away from the door, I approach him while stuffing the pack of cigarettes, the lighter, and a wad of cash into the inside pocket of my suit jacket. I stop in front of him long enough to shrug off the jacket, and then hold it out to him.
“Here, buddy.”
We make brief eye contact before he takes it.
“Thanks, brother,” he mumbles passively.
I nod at him before turning away and marching back to the doors of the hotel. I know firsthand that simple acts of charity like this, while appreciated, are already humbling enough, and this guy has no use for me sticking around to shoot the breeze out of pity. That’s what it would feel like to him. I knowthatfirsthand, too.
AJ is obediently missing from my room when I return, and now the spacious suite is just silent. I can’t even hear the hum of the streets outside due to the thick, soundproof windows.
I hate silence.
Silence has the same flavor as isolation.
And isolation is like a virus that’s just waiting to infect me if I let my guard down.
After turning on a Duke Ellington playlist, I pour a drink and sit in a chair that faces the windows, even though there’s not much to look at on this particular street in St. Louis. And that’s fine because I’m just going to be staring at my phone again for a while.
I open the Facebook app and find the video that Ava last commented on, where she mentioned being so excited about the show.
You know, after actually meeting me, I would’ve expected her to be even more engaged on this friggin’ social platform. People usually are. I am a master at engaging my fans in person. I know exactly how to make each of them feel special, and then they leave with the sense that they have a real connection with me. That causes them to go nuts on social media afterward, which results in more views, more downloads, more followers, which ultimately results in more tickets sold for my shows and more merch soldatmy shows, andthatresults in padding my bank account. And after all, a fat, healthy bank account is the entire point of any of this.
But I digress. I fully expected Ava to go nuts on social media just like the rest of the folks I meet at the shows. I expected her to at least follow up and say something like, “It was so cool meeting you!”
But now she’s just missing, and I don’t like it.
So, I have to fix that.
Meyer, my manager and lifelong best friend, was planning to post the announcement for the contest when we got home tomorrow, but what’ll it hurt if I do it a day early?
I locate the file of the video we shot last week and upload it to Facebook along with a caption that reads, “Lucky’s First Annual Top Fan Appreciation Contest.”
And then I tag little missTop Fan Ava Herald. And only her. I’ve already decided she’s going to be one of the “randomly chosen” winners because I’m in the mood for a fun, little thrill. And I can’t think of anything more thrilling than spending a week pulling this shy little mouse of a girl out of her shell and making her come apart completely.
* * *
Ava
“Comeon, Ava girl,”Zoey pleads over a cacophony of background noise. “It’s Saturday night, and youhaveto come meet this guy. I think you’d really like him and—”
“It’s 10:30!” I meander from the kitchen to the small living room, carrying a bottle of white wine and refilling my glass. “I already took off my bra and everything.”
“Good! Your boobs are small and perky, and you don’t need one anyway. Put on a sexy top and get over here.”
I scoff. “Zoey.” I scoff again. “No. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to talk to some random guy you met in a bar.”
