Geena Palmer was known. Her body, her teeth, the indent of her waist--they were all known--public and perceived. Not that she was “eminent” or “celebrated” or “famous” even, but she was known by many. She felt sometimes as though she had relinquished her foul-mouthed, oil-faced, corporeal form for some sleek digital woman fueled by diet gummy sponsorships and her 500k followers. She had reeled in that lofty number four years back when she and her Mom, Debby, made the rounds on daytime TV. With those appearances, Geena ascended to that grand internet eschelon populated primarily by Bachelor semifinalists and little kids who go viral singing Celine Dion at their local Publix.

Her followers had adored her. You may have been one such follower. You might have tuned in for 30% off cleansing smoothie deals. Your Mom might have double-tapped one of Geena’s perpetually positive posts--floral rompers in a country chic kitchen with label-facing-out-detoxifying beverage. Your Aunt might have lost $5k selling that same beverage online. Many did. 

Geena Palmer was still known today on this balmy Saturday morning, but she was uncharacteristically alone, peering down at the swollen, silvery carcass of a pinefish. It was a red tide: a putrid, natural phenomenon that sounds fake if you’ve never witnessed it. Basically, essentially, everything goes so horribly wrong in the aquatic depths that the ocean relinquishes all life within it and blushes crimson red in shame. Algae blooms aplenty. Fish float belly-up. Their eyes look up to the heavens, glossy with the look and consistency of vanilla jello. Slick, elastic seaweed clumps on the shore. All that normally goes unseen drifts up to the surface. Death teems in its many fleshy forms and meaty wafts. 

Geena took it in from the warped end of her weekend rental’s dock. It had seemed almost a deeper red last night when she’d arrived, but the algae bloom was still going strong. The briny scent ballooned bigger and bigger still. It overwhelmed. If the vacation house hadn’t been the only one on this bleached leg of road, little neighborhood kids might have pinched their pert, sunburnt noses and prodded the fish bellies with grounded palm fronds. But they did not. Spare the pufferfish and the kelp, Geena was alone.

Gulping down the last pulpy dregs of her orange juice, Geena turned, heading back inside the pale peach, one-storied vacation house. Through the sliding glass door, the kitchen awaited with its tall wood paneling. It looked like an off-brand version of a place she’d been before. Perhaps her childhood home back when her Mom worked at Home Goods? That old house seemed almost like a memory, a dusty palace only half filled-in. She could recall the wild daisies that sprouted beneath her Mom’s tires. No such petals sprung up here at this vacation house now, but lilac, perennial forget-me-nots somehow bloomed out-of-season. 

Most of all though, the rental property’s laminate, wooden kitchen table looked just like the one they used to have. Geena would watch her Mom pay bills there, rubbing the foundation clean off her forehead as she realized there would be no money for extracurricular activities that month. It was at that same table that Geena’s Mom devised her detoxifying elixirs and subsequent business plan. The neighborhood ladies would crowd around that table on Saturday afternoons while her Mom pitched the products with words like “cleansing,” “purifying” and “toxin-free.” Geena knew that it was really an emulsion of essential oils, caffeine, dehydrated blueberries, synthetic sugar and a little kick of powdered laxatives. Soon enough, her Mom was sending her off to school with a water bottle full of the stuff. In those days before the recipe was refined and manufactured on a larger scale, Geena’d grit her molars and breathe through the abdominal cramps, always making sure she was near the classroom door. 

The business grew. Geena’s Mom recruited neighbors who recruited aunts and cousins who recruited daughters and fellow parishioners. They chucked the old kitchen table and upgraded to high granite countertops. Geena’s Mom became known and Geena too became a kitchen-table-name. At just 17, she had a ready-made following of distributors curious about the founder’s daughter who occasionally appeared in promotional ads with her Mom and new Stepdad, Doug. 

But then some Mom in Pennsylvania plied her twelve-year-old daughter with the stuff and the girl got sick at school. She was physically fine in the end, but the story went viral. Headlines ran the gambit from “Geena Palmer Scandal Spurs FDA To Review Diet MLMs” to “EXPOSED: Scammer Gets OWNED In Public!!!” At first, Geena didn’t get the outrage. She’d swallowed her fair share as a teenager and kept smiling, always fearful of those lean years before the product started selling. At some point though, Geena started to feel filthy. Guilt gummed up her pores and she stayed up late thinking about the twelve-year-old who felt so sick she whimpered in her chemistry class. As the company crumbled, Geena too thought of all the Mothers sitting around those same wooden laminate tables, staring down at the defective product they’d stockpiled and the bills they couldn’t pay. The Palmer women were known and then they were despised.  

Geena deleted all social media from her phone. What you can’t see does not exist. Doug and her Mom left for a vacation--not running away, not fleeing, but vacationing--in Greece. From half a planet away, her Mom phoned her, seemingly during a dinner out with Doug. She assured Geena it would be alright, eventually,

“Listen Geenie, can you hear me?”

“Enough. Are you out?”

“I’ve got a consultant.”

“A consultant?”

“Mm-hm. She’s fantastic. Ms. Monroe,” Debby continued, pausing to speak to someone else, “Hi yes, I think we’ll go for another bottle for the--you’ll have some if I order, right? Okay, yes 1 more.” Debby turned her attention back to her daughter, assuring, “She’ll call you soon, okay? She’s the best. Best of the best. She’s worked with--honestly, I’m blanking on their names, but that’s how good she is! I mean, I don’t even remember what they did! See? Yes! Phenomenal, okay,” She wrapped up with another aside to the waiter, “Uh-uh, no, I’m still working on the spanokopita actually, yeah, thank you. Mm-hm.”

It was not a call, but an email that soon arrived. And the Great and Powerful Ms. Monroe’s solution? A weekend away. The cure to public villainy? Two nights of solitude in a one-story Florida ranch house with no wifi. No guests either. In fact, Geena had been strictly prohibited from inviting Milo though he’d probably not be able to get time off anyhow. Just Geena. No groceries to buy. The fridge was fully stocked. Everything she’d need lay in wait for her there.

Geena had picked a toothbrush on her way there. She’d stopped at a mini-market in town en route to the house. A kind older woman stood behind the counter. They’d somehow started talking about TV they’d seen and ended up trying to remember the name of that one Texan actor who’s in everything. 

“Matthew McConaughey?” Geena had wondered aloud.

“Uh-uh. He was in Cheers, I think. The one with the bald head and the nose, ya know? Handsome guy. I’d know it if I heard it,” the woman told Geena. Geena wanted a bottled iced coffee now and she soon made her way back to the market with the answer to the woman’s question. Checking out, she offered it up,

“So I thought about it more and it’s Woody Harrelson,” Geena noted, genuinely proud of her sleuthing skills. The other woman looked up. 

“Pardon?”

“He’s been in a bunch of stuff,” Geena continued.

“Uh-huh, you need a bag?” 

“From before--” 

“--We get a lot of people in and out every weekend, sorry.” 

“Yes, a bag would be great, thank you,” Geena responded quickly, embarrassed that she’d assume someone would remember her in passing.

“Mm-hm.”

“You know how long the red tide’s been going on?”

“Red tide?”

“Yeah, it’s real bad at the place I’m renting. Smells like death.”

“Big Grove Plumbing & Repair on 4th is good. Check with them.”

“No, the plumbing’s fine actually. I was just wondering about the red--”

“No red tide.”

Without turning, the woman nodded her head back to the rear window facing out on the marina. Geena’s eyes followed. The windowpane was slightly cloudy, but the water beyond was clear and Windex-blue.

“Oh.”

“Yep,” the woman nodded. 

Back in her car with the upholstery seats searing her thighs, Geena felt the nagging instinct to check her phone--to download all the apps she had deleted. She would have service here. She knew what awaited her though: pages upon pages of articles and commentary videos on the evil influencer who basically poisoned a tween. There would be reporters too. One particularly persistent journalist had called her Friday morning before she’d arrived. He wrote for one of those edgy, “we’re not like other journalists” gonzo publications where bespeckled Columbia grads ride ATVs with militia leaders. He was probably going to pen another thinkpiece casting her as a portrait of millennial greed. Geena made for exceptional clickbait. She’d get back to him tomorrow.

At the rental, Geena spent the rest of the afternoon swaying and sipping. She found a CD player atop a drawer stocked with the same Dolly Parton CDs she used to inhale as a child. The house seemed to expand as the noon slipped into night. She felt as though it were enveloping her or maybe she was shrinking? Geena sunk into the plump creme couch. She thought of Milo. If only he could be here too. He’d cook something warming like that earthy mushroom soup or a spicy homemade mac and cheese. It didn’t even have to be something complicated to cook though. He could make a PB&J soar. He was an exceptional cook. In fact, they’d met at her favorite deli where he worked behind the counter, slipping her free bags of salt and vinegar chips until he finally asked her out. 

That first date he’d showed up with massive Publix subs. Extra provolone. A splash of red wine vinegar to really put it over the top. They ate at a picnic table in the public park by Geena’s apartment, munching and laughing as a group of kids rolled down a grassy hill, staining the back of their shirts a dappled green. Compacting their little arms into their bodies, the kids sped up as they descended down the hill, hollering at how fast they were going. At the bottom of the hill, they’d pop up, tearing back up the hill and shouting that “100 miles per hour! That was so fast. 100 miles per hour!!” they’d swear to a chorus of “uh-uh”s from the other kids who all maintained that they had vroom-vroomed down the hill fastest. The spat escalated into a full fledged argument and a couple of the kids ended up in tears. Finishing up their sandwiches, Geena and Milo rolled down the hill themselves, loudly sighing at the end at how much slower they were then every single one of the kids.

Later, when she told him about how she tired of her online persona, he flared his nostrils, paused then burst out laughing, 

“that’s a big ole ‘yikes’ right there is what that is!” he concluded, calming down, “I’m sorry; I...I respect your hard work, but if you don’t like it you can just stop, but I like you either way, yeah?”

She could imagine them living together in a house like this one, curling into one another while watching something funny. That was all she wanted now. A home. A good dinner. Milo. A job she liked. She dreamt of a golden life with Milo where no one knew her but him and maybe a few kind-hearted friends.

Geena woke up late that next Sunday morning. It was almost time to go. Her stay was almost over. Packing her bags, Geena checked for the essentials: wallet, keys, toothbrush, phone. Phone? Yes, it was there on the counter. She turned it on and paused. There were three wee, brightly-lit bars. She had cell service. Wifi too. She opened her phone app, ready to call Milo, but first saw the reporter’s number. She needed to just get this over with. 

“Hello?” The reporter answered.

“Hi. It’s Geena getting back to you.”

“Regina?”

“No, Geena. From before? You called me about a piece you’re doing?”

“Oh yes, yes, you’re, um...” he hushed down, “you’re from the private prison?”

“No, actually I mean, I’m assuming you’re writing about the diet company?”

“Was this recently that you reached out?” He asked, confused.

“I didn’t reach out. You did. I’m sorry, just, so you’re not doing the story?”

“Story on who?”

“Me. Me, Geena Palmer.”

“Um, nope? I don’t...sorry, there’s a tip submission form on our website you can use?” They said an awkward goodbye and hung up. Geena paused. The reporter had been so persistent but now nothing? She knew the news cycle moved fast, but just a weekend? Opening a new tab, Geena googled herself, curious to see if her public disgrace had been superseded by someone more despicable. 

The internet connection was slow, but then it loaded. There was a Facebook page for a realtor in Phoenix by the same name. A Geena Palmer in South Carolina had won her county’s Miss Teen pageant. One Geena Palmer was being honored by the rotary club while another still self-published a bodice-ripper novel about some cowboy and a librarian. But no Geena “Disgraced Scammer” Palmer. There was nothing. It was as though someone had scrubbed Google clean of anything about her. She checked Youtube: nothing; Twitter: nothing; Instagram and Facebook too. 

Whatever the Consultant had done had worked. Or maybe it wasn’t the Consultant to thank, but the house. Now surveying the high wood paneling and deep red walls, Geena felt as though the house was winking at her. It had done this. It had wiped her from the public’s memory. Looking out the kitchen window at the water, it had faded over the course of the weekend from a deep red to a cleansing blue. Geena unclenched her neck muscles for the first time in months. She was at peace--as clean and right as a newborn. It was a fresh, raw start. Tabula Rasa. 

She phoned Milo, rushing to share the good news. He picked up on the third ring and she went right in,

“Milo, it’s insane, Milo, it’s all gone, but, but in a good way. Like I stayed at the house and now Google’s clean. There’s nothing about me. No one remembers me. It’s...I dunno...but it’s...we can just be. I feel so...good. We can get a place and maybe I could apply for a job at the deli with you and I dunno, maybe not the deli, but I can’t explain it but I feel so, so good,” Geena trailed off, dizzy with the hot, heady euphoria of starting over. Inhaling a clean, red-tide-free breath, she waited for the warm honeyed sound of Milo’s voice. And then he spoke,

“Sorry, do I know you?”