The Collective(10)

I power up my laptop, open the folder of designs I worked up for GlynneBarrettCreations.com—one simple and classic, gray lettering on a white background; the other a little brighter, the red letters bringing out the colors in the painting she chose for the title page. Glynne is a skilled artist, and popular in our neck of the woods—a landscape specialist, very Hudson River School. She had been a fresh talent when we first moved up here—a break from all the nature photography and album cover art that filled most of the galleries. We bought one of her paintings, of a barn at sunset. It was the first new decorative thing we purchased for this house, and it still hangs in the den. I like to sit across from it, watch the changing light play on the painted sky. Some quiet days, I’ve gotten lost in it for hours.

Glynne doesn’t know any of that, but I had been hoping I’d be able to work something out with her—another painting, maybe in exchange for web optimization or two years of free updates. No such luck now, I suppose. I let out a long sigh. What would it be like to delete the past twenty-four hours from my life?

I don’t want to go online, but I have to. Luke was right—well, partially. I do need to watch the Brayburn video. Not so I can learn something about myself, as he suggested, but so that I know what I’m up against and how long it’s likely to last.

I have a Twitter account—zero followers, an egg for an avatar, a series of numbers for a name. I created it seven years ago in an effort to stalk my rebellious thirteen-year-old daughter, and I’ve used it only a handful of times. I tired of it quickly after discovering that Emily only used the platform to tweet heart-eye emojis at members of One Direction. But I do remember my password: 417Dumpling. Emily’s birthday, combined with my nickname for her when she was a baby.

I log in to Twitter now and search for “Brayburn Club” and the video pops right up, along with related searches (#PsychoMom, #KochMeltdown #MeltdownMom #MarthaMeltdown. #KochBlock. At least that last one is kind of clever).

Bitches be crazy, one of the first tweets reads. I click on the video link. It makes me freeze inside, but I watch it twice more, then three, four times. It’s like watching a stranger, a bad actor in a bad play I can’t take my eyes off of.

I scroll through the rest of the #PsychoMom tweets. Turns out someone’s made a GIF of me screaming “Murderer!” Over and over again on my laptop screen, the twisted face, the wild eyes. The first comments I read are from clueless teens:


What’s wrong with this lady lol?

Go home, Aunt Cheryl. You’re drunk.



But then I get to the people who do remember:


How sad for #HarrisBlanchard.

I’m cringing all over. I can’t even with what she’s doing to this LEGALLY EXONERATED kid.

If he were my son, I’d sock her in the face.

When you can’t tell the difference between legit rape and your own bad parenting.

Women like this make it harder for real victims of assault.



And then this one, accompanied by a “before” picture of me at the trial, coifed and curvy in an ill-advised pencil skirt: OMFG. THIS is Camille Gardener??!!!

There are the sympathetic tweets, of course, plenty of them, from bleeding hearts with hashtags like #Justice4Emily and #BelievetheWomen. In a way, these are even more upsetting, the users treating me as part of a public agenda, hoping I can get some inner peace and move past the outrage so the patriarchy won’t win.

One of them has tweeted out a personal message: Camille, please. This isn’t what Emily would want.

The presumptuousness of Twitter. The fucking nerve. But then again, look at me. Look at what I did. If ever someone demanded this type of attention . . .

I scroll up to one of the links, watch the video again. The scream from the back of the room, Harris Blanchard on the stage, ducking down fast, as though he’s been shot. My face, just before the rent-a-cop takes me down. The eyes. The teeth. “What is wrong with you?” I whisper at the lunatic on the screen. “Who are you?”


VIDEO LINKS ARE one thing, but GIFs last forever. That “The lies, the lies!” one with the Real Housewife, for instance. Nobody remembers what that was about, do they? But it doesn’t matter. It’s the incongruously formal dress, the way she flails her hands around, the flash of anger in her eyes. Most of all, it’s her face. I’d know that face anywhere, and I haven’t watched any of the Real Housewives shows in years.

After I’ve made my way through most of my Twitter hashtags, I go to the downstairs bathroom, gaze into the mirror, and see her gazing back at me. #PsychoMom. #KochBlock. I wince, and PsychoMom does too.

In the cupboard next to the sink are some of Emily’s things—a plastic tub full of brightly colored nail polish; another, packed with wild lipstick shades: glittery green, gothic black. And yet another full of hair dye. I’ve kept all these things because I still can’t bring myself to throw them out—these souvenirs of my daughter’s over-the-top preteen tastes, slumber parties, and school dances, the white marble sink tinged electric blue from boxed hair dye. . . .

I grab a box of dye in the most conservative color I can find, which happens to be called Raven’s Wing. Not great for my skin tone, but it beats trying to look for something more complimentary and getting spotted in CVS by people who used to know me. All I want is to look different from the woman in the video, and Raven’s Wing can do that job.