The late July sun sends amazing, playful rays, which seem to be dancing with the shadows next to me, onto the patio.
It’s a lazy Saturday. I open my e-mails just before I turn to my blog, as I’ve been doing every morning for the last few weeks.
Finally! I see I’ve received an answer from the manager of the blog site regarding all the mishaps they’ve been having with the numbers. I open it, read it, and my jaw drops.
Dear Miss Blum. We’ve looked into your request and found there is no problem with the number of your followers. The last number we have shows 17,021 readers. We’ve received quite a few inquiries from companies who would like to post in your blog. We’d be happy to have you contact us. Best regards.
I light up another cigarette and stare at the words on the screen. It’s unreal. 17,021 readers. 17,021 people who are interested in me, in my life.
Damn. I can’t believe it…
I’m simultaneously excited and petrified—it’s mind-blowing.
I go into my blog. I have to stop thinking about numbers and get back to what I love—no matter how many people think it’s interesting.
My blog is swamped with responses, just like it is every day, but this morning it’s more active than usual. What’s going on?
A response from Sandy Thorn: Well, what do you say about the article in The Mirror? You’ve become an attraction. Everyone wants to know who Talula is. You’re amazing!!! So, who are you?
What? What the hell is she talking about? An article in The Mirror? I carry on to the next response.
A response from Dorothy Nicks: Wow! They wrote about you in the newspaper! You’ve made it big time.
Who wrote what? An article in The Mirror?
I close my laptop and get dressed quickly. I don’t understand what they’re blabbering about. There’s a small grocery shop next to the house, they must have all the newspapers. I put on shoes, grab my purse, and leave the house in a rush.
The little shop is empty at such an early hour. I smile tiredly at the assistant and go over to the newspaper stand at the entrance. Daily, Sun, where is the damn Mirror? Ah, I find it, pull it out, open it, and start to page through.
“Are you buying that?” the pleasant sales assistant asks. Yes, I’m buying it, just let me understand what they want from me in my blog. I rush through it until I come across the middle section of the newspaper, and my eye catches an article in the center of a page. I read the title:
“The Blogger Who’s Driving the Net Crazy. Who Are You, Talula?”
Wow. Someone wrote about me in the newspaper. My heart is pounding.
“Are you buying that?” The pain-in-the-ass salesman asks again.
“Yes,” I mumble, pulling out my purse and paying for it. I go back to the relevant page and continue reading.
“A young and tell-all blogger is gaining popularity and has been accumulating readers in the past few months. She’s an Internet-sensation, sharing the most intimate details of her life with her followers. Without leaving out much detail, she describes her dilemmas, her bipolar and eating disorders, and her wild sex with her brother’s best friend, who also happens to be her boss…
“In a typical state of restlessness, she runs around the city, keeping herself busy with elaborate schemes, requesting original ideas from her readers, only to return at the end of each day to share with them her triumphs. And yes, sometimes her failures as well.
“You cannot help but get swept away by her. You find yourself being sucked into her descriptions, whether it is sex on the sofa or initiated vomiting in the toilet. Demons, fairies, love, and hope all mix together to form one intriguing and addictive being. And the question asked is: who are you, Talula?”
And there’s a link to my blog.
Fuck. Oh fuck. What the hell? I walk home quickly, close the door behind me, enter my room, lie down on the bed, open the newspaper, and read the article again.
I can’t believe it. Why would somebody write about me? This is really bad. The whole idea was that nobody would know who I am. I could be anyone. I could make it all up. I have to release some kind of a statement in the blog to calm down the storm.
* * *
Saturday
July 28th 2012
I’m not a celebrity. I’m not someone important. I’m a ghost, a shadow of myself. It doesn’t matter who I am. I can be the girl sitting next to you on the tube every day, or the guy sitting opposite you, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. I’m only my thoughts, my passions, and my love. I’m my fears and everybody’s primal need to be loved. My words are only a way to vent what may consume me if it stays closed inside. And you chose to be the audience. You even got a part in my play and an open invitation to suggest, share, and take part in my life. You came back each time to see the schemes, intrigues, and crazy ideas coming true in my life. A small article in the newspaper won’t change that. I’m still Talula, just the same old Talula. Whether I have two hundred readers or twenty thousand, I’m still Talula, who gets excited by her man’s green eyes, and whose heart still beats every day at the thought of seeing him. I’m still the same Talula, who is fighting to eat and fighting to feel loved and fighting to feel thin. I still paint and write and fear. That’s who I am—not my name, not the face behind the words. This is the real Talula. This, is me.
I post the listing, close my laptop, and go outside to smoke. Danny and John will be up soon. They mustn’t read the article. Nor Ben, either. God, I hope I haven’t gotten myself into trouble.
* * *
Ten p.m. Two knocks on the door and I wait. It’s been almost two months, and I still don’t enter his house without knocking. I’m just a random guest who comes to sleep in his bed, to feel his body inside me, to feel my heart filling up as I lie there, listening to him breathing on my neck. As soon as Danny and John went to sleep, I snuck out. Now, I’m standing in front of his familiar, white door, waiting for him to open it.
I hear the lock. The door opens. My man is standing at the entrance, barefoot, in jeans and a tight, white T-shirt. But one look at his face and I wonder where the smile I’ve become used to is. Sometimes he just opens the door without a word, and lets me follow him to the bedroom. But there’s something different in his look tonight, and I wonder if it’s something I’ve done.
“Hi.” I feel the tension.
“Hi.” He opens the door, lets me in, and closes it. Nevertheless, he continues standing there without moving, looking at me in a way that worries me. His eyes are troubled.
I stand before him, confused. “What’s going on?” My voice is faint and shaky.
He looks distressed, which frightens me even more. “We need to talk.”
Fuck. Did he read the article? I hope not. He won’t like it. Who would like to find himself spread all over the Internet in a way that leaves no room for imagination? A thousand hammers pound on my chest. Let him not be angry. Let him not get cross with me.
He looks away from me and goes to sit on the large sofa. This can’t be good. I walk toward him on shaking legs and sit next to him. He rests his elbows on his knees and buries his head in his hands.
“Talia, you can’t come here anymore.” His eyes are glued to the floor. He sounds wrecked.
My heart falls and crashes to the ground.
“Have I done something wrong?” I’m trembling.
He read the article, maybe even my blog. After all, the link was there.
“You haven’t done anything.” He lifts his head and looks at me sadly. “Something happened today, and you can’t come here anymore.”
I haven’t done anything? So it’s not what I think? What does he mean something happened today? It’s Saturday. He played football in the park the entire afternoon.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, feeling weakness spreading through my body.
He looks at me gravely and just says, quietly, “Jenny came to see me.”
I can’t breathe.
Jenny? Where the fuck did she come from? Wasn’t she in India? And anyway, after everything I’ve found out about her, why would he care that she came back?
“She was here?” I ask hysterically, as the choking feeling in my throat intensifies. I’m not going to cry in front of him. No way. But my heart…
“She came by this afternoon.”
What does he mean she came by this afternoon? And what difference does it make?
“I thought she was in India.”
“She came back not so long ago,” he says quietly, examining my reaction.
I look at him with miserable, panicked eyes. “Why did she come here?”
I can’t believe this is happening. Five minutes ago, I was standing before his door, anticipating another night in his soft bed, and now this?
“Talia,” he speaks softly, “she wants us to try again.”
I try to pull some air into my lungs, but they seem to be completely against the idea. I open my eyes wide, stunned. “She wants you to get back together?”
“Yes.”
My heart just shatters. And it hurts, in a way that is indescribable.
“What did you say to her?” I ask quietly, although I feel like screaming.
Tell me you threw her out the door. Tell me you told her you’re with me.
But he doesn’t answer. He just stares at me, looking confused and frightened.
“What did you say to her?” I ask assertively, taking us both by surprise.
What is he saying to me? After everything that happened between them, after what she did to him, after our two amazing months together…
“You want her back,” my voice breaks. I look at him, struggling to contain the pain I feel, and a tear manages to break through the barrier and appears at the corner of my eye.
“I need to try.” The damn tear falls down my cheek. He looks miserable.
“So everything you said in the past two months, about not wanting a girlfriend, about not looking for anything serious, you never really meant it? You do want something serious, just not with me?”
The realization only makes me more tearful. This isn’t really happening.
He looks tormented.
Don’t put on an act. You don’t care about me. At all.
“Talia, you need to understand, this is the girl I thought I was going to marry and have children with.”
“You don’t have children because she had an abortion, and ran away! And now you want her back?” I shout.
“You knew it was never going to happen between us. I never lied to you.” His voice wavers, but he doesn’t reach out to wipe away my tear. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t hug me and tell me that it’s me he wants. He just looks at me miserably.
“I don’t understand.” I cry silently, tiny tears falling down my cheeks, my heart bleeding in my chest.
“Talia, I was with her for two years. I need to know.”
“Need to know what?” I feel shattered.
“If there’s anything left there,” he replies, avoiding my eyes. He can’t deal with the tears tonight.
“If you love her?” I choke at the thought. He’s going back to her and throwing me to the curb.
“Yes…” he answers truthfully.
“Did you sleep with her?” I look at him, crushed.
“It doesn’t really matter,” he mumbles.
He didn’t answer the question.
“It matters to me. Did you sleep with her?” I insist, becoming more aggressive.
“Yes.”
And the final, poisonous arrow imbeds itself in me.