In a New York Minute(8)
“Can we contact the girl who posted it?” I said, trying to come up with some plan of attack for getting the photos removed immediately. “I need to get this taken down.”
“So I already sent her a DM. But if you just search the hashtag #subwayQTs, all the posts about you come up. They’re being shared.”
“There’s a hashtag?” I said, my voice teetering somewhere between panicked and horrified.
“You’re a hashtag. I mean, look, it’s not a bad thing. Maybe it will help you find a new job?” She was a slick saleswoman now, making her pitch.
“Oh yeah, because that’s what everyone looks for in their new hire,” I hissed.
“Influencers make a ton of money, Fran.” Lola’s voice had a schoolteacher edge to it. “You should see what contestants on The Bachelor make with their Instagram accounts alone.”
I ignored her lecture on Social Media Moneymaking 101.
“You okay?” Lola asked, but I was too stunned to answer. I clicked back through the pictures again. There was a photo of my face pressed against his chest. And even though I’d bumped into him so awkwardly, in the picture it looked like I was deliberately snuggling him, resting on him, smiling at him, enjoying him. A giant GIF of a cartoon face with heart eyes blinked in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. PLS LET THIS BE A SUBWAY LOVE CONNECTION!!!!! the caption screamed in neon pink.
I clicked again, and there I was with my hand on his chest, but now I was gazing up at him with wide doe eyes. I am watching 2 ppl fall in love on the subway and I am officially ded, she wrote. Next pic, me standing next to him with the jacket on, with a crude heart hand-drawn over both our figures. #SubwayQTs Forever, she’d written in bold pink lettering.
And finally, a photo of me calling out “Thank you” as he got off the train. Pretty sure they exchanged numbers and are going to live happily ever after, she wrote, covering the bottom of the photo in a sea of heart emojis. And then again, the hashtag. Jesus fucking Christ. Exchanged numbers? I snotted all over the guy, and he practically ran off the train to get away from me. But Lola wasn’t wrong; in the pictures, it did look like we were very, very into each other.
I clicked again and saw a series of screenshots of messages the NYU girl had received from people following her story. So many people love #SubwayQTs! she’d typed triumphantly. I clicked over to the hashtag, and there were more people sharing her story, commenting about #subwayQTs with heart emojis and crying-face emojis, and even one eggplant emoji. I mean, sure he was tall, but come on.
When I was done, I clicked back over to the girl’s account, which had been updated while I’d been searching the hashtag. The last image was now a black screen with OMG THE NY POST JUST CALLED ME ABOUT SubwayQTSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! written in giant red text. It was time-stamped three minutes ago.
“Ugh, the Post,” Lola muttered as she peered over my shoulder. “They love stuff like this.”
Just as she spoke, my phone rang.
“Let it go to voicemail,” she advised, her voice ominous. “And turn your ringer to silent.”
Crap.
It didn’t take long for people to find me. After all, like everyone my age, I’d been leaving an identity trail of bread crumbs on the internet since I was thirteen. When I was done listening to the voicemail from a reporter at the New York Post, I opened up my inbox to find messages from Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, and Bustle. I’d been easy to identify, my Instagram and Twitter had been set to public, and both listed Spayce in my bios. Someone had discovered my LinkedIn profile and used the photo there to confirm that I was, indeed, most likely one-half of SubwayQTs.
The owner of the suit jacket was still anonymous. Because of course. He was probably one of those “I don’t do social media” types, too busy helping people around the city, a Clark Kent who couldn’t be bothered to change out of his suit. Not to worry, though. Someone had figured out the exact brand and make of the jacket and had linked to it on Instagram, complete with info on where to buy it.
Cleo made it over after class with two bottles of wine in hand, I changed into sweats, and we moved to my blue velvet couch to discuss how to handle my newfound fame. As we talked, BuzzFeed published “SubwayQTs Is the Love Story We Didn’t Know We Needed but Now Can’t Live Without.” I locked my Instagram account, deleted my already dead Twitter page, and deactivated Facebook. We opened the second bottle of wine.
“I swear this will all be over soon,” Lola said reassuringly from the floor, where she sat on the giant gold throw pillows that doubled as chairs in my tiny space. “No one will remember this in a week.” She was using one of my hardcover books of Italian Renaissance art as a tray for a plate of crackers and cheese. My head was in Cleo’s lap, and she stroked my hair gently, raking her fingers along my scalp as if she could massage my infamy away.
“It’s just so embarrassing,” I moaned, shifting onto my back and pressing the heel of my palm against my forehead.
“Which part?” Cleo asked.
“Um, all of it?” I said rhetorically, as if it should be obvious.
“But I mean, what’s really upsetting you?” she pushed, shifting into lawyer mode. “Is it being fired, the fact that your ass was on full display, or slow-dancing with Hot Suit?”
“Losing my job, of course,” I replied honestly. I was out of work, and I basically lived paycheck to paycheck. I was screwed. “I know it’s just a job, but it felt like such a big part of my identity. Of who I am. And you know I already struggle with that stuff.”