her caption,” Floss said. Color climbed from her clavicle upward. “That she should come meet me!”
Craig was at the sink, tearing the bagels to pieces, forcing the pieces down the drain. He whirled toward her. “But that isn’t how she fucking took it, Floss,” he said, “is it?”
Floss’s mouth was hanging open. She looked from each of them to the next. “It was a mistake,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Balls,” Aston said quietly. He pulled his cap down over his eyes.
“It wasn’t just about what Floss wrote,” Melissa said. “People just piled on after that. Kids she knew. Kids she didn’t know.” She showed them more comments, and Orla had to turn away.
Anna’s parents didn’t want to make her feel like they were checking on her, so Mrs. Salgado didn’t crack her daughter’s door till after 3:00 a.m., on her way to bed herself after dozing on the couch. Anna was in bed with the covers pulled up. Everything looked as it should, but a mother knows when things only seem right. Mrs. Salgado turned on the light and saw the empty bottles on the floor—the vodka that Anna, who never drank, was holding for a friend. Mr. Salgado’s post-root-canal Percocet. The doctor had prescribed more than Mr. Salgado needed.
Melissa turned to Orla. She picked up the remote like it was ticking. “Sometimes when details are slow to come out,” she said, “the media focuses on stupid shit.” She turned the television on. She told them she had gotten an email from the producer of a morning news show. The producer wanted to give her a heads-up: they were doing a segment on Orla, “the woman behind” the Instagram handle that Floss Natuzzi used to tell a girl to kill herself. “They’re hitting it hard,” Melissa said, “the whole angle of you writing about Floss while you were at Lady-ish. Exploiting the site to make her famous. Not that this is new information.”
Orla looked at the television, at the muted ad, innocent footage of an old man riding a chair lift up a flight of stairs. “It’s not new information,” she repeated. “Lots of people know this—people tweet me about it. Why is it a big deal now?”
“I suppose because it speaks to your character,” Melissa sighed. “And because now a girl is dead. Now everything’s a big deal.” She glanced down at her phone. “They say they’ve booked three major players from your life,” she said. “Who could it be?”
Orla had no idea. “I have to call my parents,” she said. But the show was already coming back from commercial.
“Turn it up,” Craig said dully.
On-screen, Ingrid and Yale Girl sat opposite a stern blonde anchor. Orla noticed that Ingrid had switched her bright lipsticks for tasteful nude, but Yale Girl seemed determined to stand out. She wore glittery eye shadow and a lime-colored blouse with a teardrop cutout above her cleavage.
The chyron at the bottom of the screen read: TEEN NATUZZI WANNABE CYBERBULLYING SUICIDE.
“This morning,” the anchor said, “in the wake of Anna Salgado’s suicide, Lady-ish published a statement saying that they will no longer cover Floss Natuzzi. Isn’t that a little like Weather swearing off thunderstorms?”
“It is, Kate,” Yale Girl said, nodding earnestly. “But Floss Natuzzi—she hasn’t released a statement yet, by the way, Kate—has, we feel, now proven beyond the pale to be damaging to young women out there. And that’s our core audience, Kate.”
On the TV, Ingrid cleared her throat. “We feel we have a special duty to take a stand here,” she said. “You see, Lady-ish—” She faltered for a minute, her mouth tightening, then started up again. “Lady-ish, unfortunately, played a pivotal role in the Floss Natuzzi phenomenon.”
Orla watched, feeling outside herself, as her own photo fell like grains of sand into place on the screen.
“The woman you’re looking at,” said the anchor in voice-over, “is Orla Cadden, a former Lady-ish blogger who now, what, costars on the reality show? Recognize her name? It was her Instagram handle Natuzzi used to encourage the girl to kill herself.”
“I think what she actually—” Ingrid began, at the same time Yale Girl said, “Exactly.”
A millisecond’s flicker of annoyance crossed Ingrid’s face. “Orla used to write for us,” she went on. “She wrote for us about Floss Natuzzi when, unbeknownst to us, she had already befriended Natuzzi and was colluding with her to help her get famous. She used her platform as a blogger to give Floss press when Floss was just starting out. Orla now appears on