When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae (34 page)

“Yes, only, Jillian—”

“We have, joining us now, photography expert George Wales. George is director of the Photodocumentation Institute in Miami. Welcome to Hey! America, George.”

“Thanks for having me on.”

“George, based on your analysis of the photos of Ms. Samson with her fairies, would you say they are genuine?”

George’s chuckle rattled through her earpiece. “No, Jillian. On the contrary. They are most definitely fake. They’re not even as good as the Cottingley fairy photos of 1917—a pretty successful hoax at the time. Pre-digital, of course.”

Libby’s stomach twisted and she wished, desperately, that she hadn’t eaten that morning.

“What makes you so certain they’re fake?” Jillian said.

“Keep looking at the camera,” Jack whispered urgently. “They may cut to you.”

Libby stared at the camera. As if it were possible to look relaxed and unconcerned while being pilloried on national television. And not only was it impossible, it was dreadful to have to even try.

“. . . mismatch of illumination,” George Wales was saying. “Note how the lighting on the so-called ‘fairy’ is more diffuse than that on Ms. Samson and her surroundings. You can also see variations in image contrast . . . ”

She wanted to break in. Shout, “Of course they’re fakes! I never said they weren’t—they aren’t my photos!”

But how could she?

Like Kendra had said, she was in them. They’d come from somewhere . . .

She jolted suddenly. Jillian had said her name. “. . . admit they’re pretty realistic.”

“I—I’ve never said that the, um, fairies were ‘real’ in the same way that, you know, this chair is real.” Libby leaned forward slightly and now she tapped the arm of her chair, realizing even as she did that it was probably out of view of the camera. “I’m not sure they are—I think it’s more that—”

“So are you admitting that you faked the photos?” Jillian asked.

Libby noticed the boredom in her voice had vanished.

“Oh no! I did
not
fake them!” Her voice had risen slightly. “What I’m saying is—”

“The angle of the lighting on the figure’s jacket is irrefutable,” George Photo Sleuth cut in. “These aren’t only fakes. They’re
bad
fakes.”

Jillian laughed heartily. “So there you have it, folks—they’re real, they’re fake, both sides of the story. But Libby, if they do lead you to that pot of gold, give us a call, and we’ll have you back on, okay? And thank you, George. Next up. They’re cousins. They hate each other. Why do their parents think they should marry? And still to come—”

Jack was chopping the air with his arm again.

Libby yanked the earpiece cord and slumped in her chair while he unclipped the microphone.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” she moaned softly.

“You did great,” Jack said.

47

Of course, the whole way home, the one person she was thinking about was Paul. Specifically, she was thinking pleeeeeeeeeeease pleeeeeeeeeease let me find out he spent the morning asleep, or painting, or on the phone with Josh. Anything but watching that awful interview.

The limo turned into the driveway.

Jade’s Prius was parked up by her house. So it was Gina, not Paul, who headed up the gauntlet, flying up to Libby as the driver opened her door, her eyes blazing.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had pictures?”

“Where’s Paul?” Libby said, and then turned to the driver to thank him.

“How dare you hide this from me?” Gina shouted.

A knot of campers had begun to form around them. “Oh yeah, I heard about them!” one of them said. “Can we, like, get copies?”

Libby turned back toward the house.

Paul was striding down her front steps.

She could see, even from that far away, that his face was white.

“Paul,” she said. “I don’t know anything about them.” Her voice caught as she said it, though, and he gave her a fierce look. “I swear,” she whispered.

“You’ll be lucky if Simon doesn’t pull out of this deal, Libby Samson,” Gina hissed.

“Why would he pull out?” Libby glared at her. “I thought he was so gung-ho on publicity.”

“Good publicity. Not . . . this kind of publicity” Gina snapped. “I’ve been an hour trying to figure out what I’m going to say to him about this—he’s not taking my calls. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me—”

“I didn’t know.” Libby looked at Paul again. “I don’t know what these are except that they are fa—”

Gina stopped her from saying it. Physically. She clapped her hand over Libby’s mouth.

The campers stared.

Then it was Paul’s turn, and both Libby and Gina knew better than to argue. “Gina, you and your . . . friends . . . need to leave. Libby, we have to talk.”

“We have to talk, too, Libby,” Gina was saying, but Libby was already halfway up the house, following Paul.

♦ ♦ ♦

“They’re fakes, Paul.”

“Of course they’re fakes,” he said angrily. “That’s not the point. The point is that every time things seem to calm down, you find a way to stir them up again.”

It was more than she could take. “But I didn’t
do
anything!”

He’d headed straight toward her office and was seated at her computer. “Look,” he said harshly, gesturing at the screen. “Look.”

It was like the original outbreak all over again. Seven sites. Which meant that there were probably more out there, or would be, soon. The rest of the iceberg.

Paul glanced up and saw Libby was crying and softened. “Okay, I’m sorry. But try to think. Where could these have come from?” He’d printed out copies of the photos and now spread them on the desk. “Obviously you posed for them.”

She pulled a tissue from the box on her desk and wiped her eyes. “I was . . . so shocked when they first showed them to me in the studio. But then on the drive back, I realized. They’re from when they interviewed me for that newspaper article. I mean, they’re different shots from the ones that ended up in the paper . . .” She picked one up. “They’re different. I’ve never seen these specific photos before. But they were taken on the same day, I’m sure of it.”

“You’re sure that’s who took them?”

“I’m positive. If you compared them to the newspaper photos, you’d see. I’m wearing the same clothes. That tee shirt.”

“Okay . . . but here’s the thing. I can’t see someone from the paper doctoring photos like this—”

Libby shook her head. “No. Me either.”

“So it has to be someone else.”

“Yes.”

“Gina,” he said.

“It doesn’t look like she was involved, though.”

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

He gathered the pages back up. “Well, we’re going to find out who did it.”

She nodded again.

“I’ve got a call into that new sys op at work—and hang on, I bet that’s him, now.” He pulled out his cell phone and took another Kleenex from the box while she listened.

At one point Paul looked at her and made writing motions in the air to signal he needed a pen and paper for making notes, so she dug through the stuff on her desk, and he started writing some things down.

Then he hung up.

“He traced one of them back to the IP address of a web hosting company called Jeepers Hosting. We are so going to sue the sonofabitch who did this—”

“Oh.” she said. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“I think that’s the company Ty uses for his blog.”

“You must be kidding me.” Paul stood up.

“Paul, maybe it’s just a coincidence,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

“No. I’m gonna talk to him. And it’ll be a conversation he won’t ever forget.”

“Paul!” She followed him down the stairs. “Paul, I don’t think—”

He’d reached the front door, and she broke into a trot to try to catch up with him. “Paul! Please let’s talk about this!”

She caught the screen door before it had swung closed.

Paul had stopped to root through his pockets for his car keys.

And Dean was standing at the foot of the front steps, holding a paint brush.

She tried to run past him but his hand flashed out, and he’d grabbed her arm and stopped her. “What’s going on?”

“Let me go! Paul, you need to calm down!”

“Libby! What happened?” Dean said.

“Some photos have turned up,” she said. “And we think maybe Ty’s involved. Paul!”

He was opening his car door.

Dean dropped her arm. “It wasn’t Tyler,” he said, turning to direct his words at Paul.

Paul shut his door and walked back over. “What did you just say?”

His jaw was jutting out and his eyes were narrowed.

“You want to sock somebody? Then you can sock me.”

“Dean!” she gasped. “What are you saying?”

He looked at Libby. “I did it, Libby. I posted the photos. To show these people, here”—the campers had gathered around again—“what a fake you are.”

“You S.O.B.,” Paul said, and his fist suddenly jabbed through the air toward Dean’s face.

Libby screamed.

Dean’s right hand flew up and he deflected the punch as easily as if he’d swatted a fly.

The campers gasped and backed away.

Libby could hear Paul’s breathing and then Dean was speaking to him in a low, hard, even voice. “I did it for Libby, you idiot. Because I happen to care about her.”

“So you publicly humiliate her. That’s your idea—”

“That’s all you care about, isn’t it? What people think. Not whether she’s happy. And you claim you love her? You don’t have a clue, buck-o.”

Libby had never seen Paul so furious. And she’d seen him plenty angry.

So he probably didn’t even realize he was punching out at Dean again until he’d done it. But this time, Dean just stood there, and Paul’s fist connected with his jaw, hard enough that Dean’s head snapped back.

She screamed again, then clapped her hand over her mouth in horror. And just stood there with the campers behind her muttering “whoa!” and “holy shit,” and Paul stood, too, looking at Dean, and then at Libby. His face was purple and his breath was fast and hard. “There,” he said. “There.”

Then he turned and walked to his car.
 

“I’ll call you later,” he said to her as he shut the door.

He backed out of the driveway, and then when he was on the road and pointed toward Rochester he jammed the gas hard, his tires squealed and gravel spurted up and pinged off the campers’ cars.

And then he was gone.

“I didn’t have to let him hit me,” Dean said.

She looked at him. He was rubbing the red mark on his jaw. “Well then, why did you?”

“He needed to hit me more than I needed to duck.”

“I see. Suppose you get out of here.”

“Libby—”

“Get out.” And she left him standing there and went into her house, shut the door, and locked it.

And even after she’d heard his truck drive off, she didn’t come out again.

48

She supposed it should have been comforting, the next morning, to be back into her old routine—up before it was fully light out, dragging baskets out to her gardens, picking produce, packing it in her coolers to drive to Susan’s.

But it wasn’t comforting. Not at all. For starters, she’d barely slept the night before, and she felt sick to her stomach and light-headed. Yeah, there was that.

And there was the little thing about her life being in a complete shambles, besides.

Susan hadn’t seen the interview. But she knew about it. And was feeling for Libby in such a genuine and sorrowful way that Libby wanted to ask if she could just move in with her. Please adopt me and let me live with you forever.

But she didn’t. She didn’t even take a nap like Susan offered. Instead, she helped her sort and bag produce for her subscribers’ weekly pick-up, and then finally about 2:00 in the afternoon she dragged herself to her car and started home.

The first thing she noticed, when she drove up, was that her road was empty of cars.

And then she pulled into her driveway.

And there were no tents. No campers. None.

They’d left.

And her house.

Spray painted across the front, across her brand new paint job, were the words “hoax hoax hoax” and “lying bitch.”

With bunches of exclamation points.

♦ ♦ ♦

She spent Sunday morning painting over the graffiti.

Then Paul phoned her and they agreed to meet at Highland Park, in the city, to talk.

She got there first, and parked on Highland Ave., and waited, and then five minutes or so later she saw him in her rearview mirror, walking up the sidewalk.

She got out and he pecked her lips with his, and they hiked up the hill through the lilac bushes to one of the blacktop paths that crisscross the park, and then after a bit they came to a bench and sat down and agreed that it was a gorgeous day.