Stolen Power

a gross understatement.
If she could have married herself, I’m sure she would have done it.
She silently screamed ‘Me! Me! Me!’ all day long, constantly checking herself out in the windows of shops and cars, and boy did she like what she saw. It was funny, as although I could understand her physical appeal to some, to me she was ugly. An effortless grace, an intellect, and sharp wit was attractive to me, and she had none of the above. In fact, she had a downright deficit in those departments.
At mid-afternoon on a Sunday, the area around the Bean was filled with tourists and families. There were couples with strollers, the middle aged with their adult children, large extended families with grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins in tow, and lots and lots of sightseeing tourists. Sitting on the park bench, staring back at the city behind the Bean, it made me think about kids. As I entered my forties, the notion that I might have kids was becoming less of a possibility, still a chance, but less so. Did I even want kids? With Claire, absolutely. But the thought of letting the past go, leaving my deceased wife behind, was still heartbreaking.
She was killed in a school shooting, a teacher caught in the line of fire, trying to protect one of her students. It broke my heart every morning when I woke and reached across to her cold empty side of the bed. No one had been there since, nor did I expect or plan there to be.
The man who provided the shooter with the weapon, Hugh Guthrie, was due to be in court the next day, facing charges of murdering a fellow newscaster. I had a hand in that arrest, finally giving myself a sense of justice for Claire. Guthrie had set the school shooter up, pushed the shooter to the limits, and then armed him with the tools to make it happen, all for the purpose of making a documentary.
I could’ve sent Hugh Guthrie to the afterlife, but I decided to let the courts deal with the scum.
Claire wanted kids. She loved them and wanted to have two. A boy and a girl was her dream. I went along with it, I went along with most things she wanted, but never really gave it much thought. Now, with Millie, those thoughts were running through my head, running wild and tormenting me.
Deep down, I think the answer was yes, I did want kids. Or at least I would have liked to have had them with my Claire. But did I want them with someone else one day? I wasn’t so sure. Undecided, I guess. But if I did then that would mean moving on from Claire, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, if I ever would be. To do so would feel like a betrayal of her.
Ruby Jones was still striking poses in her low-cut yellow dress. She looked like an emaciated model to me, with long skinny legs that seemed to run on forever. Although most of her life was tracked via social media, there was a patch of radio silence yesterday, the day of the kidnapping, the first time she hadn’t posted on social media for a day in more than a year. It was a big red flag right there. Although correlation doesn’t automatically mean causation, it was extremely suspicious, that’s for sure.
I took a deep breath, patted down my hair, and made my way over to her.
“Do you know where the nearest Starbucks is?” I questioned when in range.
“Starbucks?” She looked annoyed that I interrupted her selfies, that I had dared enter the sacred space of one so great and that she was far superior to me.
She pointed down the road dismissively. “That way,” she said with a condescending flick of the back of her hand.
Before she could turn away, I followed up.
“One of my followers said that the Starbucks near the Bean was the best Starbucks in the country.” I tapped the metal structure with my right hand. “I hope it is, because I need a coffee right now.”
Ruby looked me up and down, clearly doubting I even knew what ‘followers’ were, let alone whether I actually had any.
“Followers?” she said with a marked air of disdain.
“Yeah. On Instagram. I’ve got over 500,000 followers, and whenever I travel, the locals are more than happy to give me advice. Normally pretty good advice too.”
“You have 500,000 followers on Instagram?” She was shocked, and rightfully so. I didn’t even know how to navigate Instagram, let alone post on it. “I don’t believe you, old man.”
I had to give her credit, she was forthright and to the point.
And I won’t lie, the ‘old man’ dig hurt.
I was feeling it more and more of late, picking up constant niggling injuries at the gym, most recently a sprained ankle, but I wasn’t going to let her know that.
“Ok.” I shrugged. “You don’t have to believe me. Thanks for the directions. Have a nice day.”
I began to walk away and that confidence caught her attention. Most men would have been intimidated by her looks but not me. And it clearly threw her.
“Wait. Do you really have that many followers?”
“I do.”
“What’s your handle?”
If an ‘old man’ said that he had that many followers, then I’ll admit, even my curiosity would be peaked. Luckily for me, the system could be manipulated easily and Casey knew how to do that. Followers could be bought, pictures backdated, and profiles set up within a few minutes.
While I was talking to Tanya, Casey set up a fake profile with my smiling mug on the front, and a range of pictures throughout LA, my face nicely Photoshopped into pictures with celebrities. The page would only be available for a day to convince Ruby of my celeb