Thurs July 25

Bobbie woke with a start around 3AM and went into her bathroom and got a big drink of water and took some NSAIDS. She went back to bed and tossed and turned until about 6AM, then slept until noon. She woke feeling worn out. And hungry. She went over to her kitchen and put tea on. She was resting her head and arms on the cool slab of marble that was her island, when Johnny showed up at the door. She let him in.

He handed her a bag of Sipho’s warm carrot muffins and dangled her car keys in front of her. “What did you do to Rick? He’s a wreck and he said you guys were out at the yacht club and were too drunk to drive home so you took an Uber.”

“I wondered how we got home.”

“Jesus Bobbie, did you black out again? You do that every time you have more than a few drinks. Maybe it’s a problem.”

Bobbie sniffed. “I’m sorry Johnny, I’m going to have a shower now.”

Johnny looked longingly at the muffins and went over to Bobbie’s fridge and found some devilled eggs and grapes. Stupid gluten free diet he thought. Really, he was a little grumpy that Rick had asked him to Uber over to the yacht club and get Bobbie’s car. He felt like he missed a good party and they were taking him for granted. He went to the media room and turned on the morning news show. He popped a grape in his mouth and prepared to find something else to watch when a reporter came on and showed an image of Bobbie in front of the motel. They talked about the terrorist threat and the planned Parenthood party and then they showed the little GIF of Bobbie saying the show must go on. Johnny laughed and then he thought holy cow, this is the national news. They zoomed out to the chatty part of the morning show and they talked about how “show must go on.” was a hashtag and it was trending. People were trying to get selfies with the motel owner and post them with the hashtag. So far there were 40,000 pictures and counting. People were even using pictures of Bobbie and photo shopping her into their own selfies; for the hashtag.

Bobbie came out of her room all clean with her hair in a wet ponytail. “I’m sorry I got so messy last night. And thank you so much for getting my car…”

“Bobbie.” Johnny interrupted. “Don’t worry about it, I see why you were so messed up; it is all over the news, this is crazy. I should have brought you a bottle of Tequila instead of muffins.”

“No, I think I really want the muffins, what’s all over the news?”

Johnny told her about the hashtag.

Bobbie frowned and looked at her phone. She found the hashtag and scrolled through the images. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”

Her phone rang. It was the local Chamber of Commerce; they wanted her to speak at their next meeting. She read an email from the Conference Center and they wanted to book her as a motivational speaker for 3 events.

“This is crazy, you need an agent for all your upcoming events.”

“No Johnny. I need this to stop.” She showed him her phone and more and more of the pictures had photo shopped images of products and links to buy things in them. “I wonder who even owns hashtags. Surely, I can stop my image from being used to sell used cars and energy drinks. I have to call Brose about this.”

“I’ll go comfort Rick and tell him you’ve got your car and are fine. I think he might be a little smitten.”

Bobbie waved and went to her room, pulled out her ponytail and reclined on the bed. She called Brose. He didn’t answer. “Hi Brose, please call when you get this. There is some big hashtag thing associated with me and I want to it stop.”

She started to dry her hair and the phone rang. “Hi Brose, what’s new? I’m an internet meme and hashtag now.”

“Oh Bobbie, the national news picked this up and even my phone is ringing off the hook. On this end, everybody wants some piece of you and by association me. I don’t know what to think and my head is spinning too.”

“Well, I have thoughts. Who owns this hashtag thing. Did you know that the pictures of my face in there are being seeded with advertisements and links right in the pictures. Surely that’s not legal. And I think it’s only going to get worse and we should nip it in the bud.”

“We can’t stop the hashtag but they can’t use your face to sell stuff without your approval. This is still, great exposure. I think we could benefit a whole lot if we wanted too.”

“In 4 minutes, I got 4 offers for paid speaking engagements. They are practically begging me to take their money.”

“Do you want to do that?”

“Ten times no! I don’t want anything to do with any of it. Mind you looking at my website, the motel is full for the next few weeks. I’m so confused.”

“I see, I know this is a crazy time but I really need to see you in person. Can I arrange to get you on the red eye tonight?”

“I want to see you too. I guess the red eye is pretty quiet and really the best time to travel.”

“I’ll send you the boarding pass. Get some rest Bobbie.”

“Thanks Brose.”

She got up, thinking Brose didn’t understand how uncomfortable she was. He didn’t seem to be very concerned about it, and she looked out of the dining room window. There were people everywhere. The reception area and gallery were full and the closed terrace, SPOKES, was full of people. High tea was just ending. There were people milling around the pool and Bobbie was not going out there. She texted Mark. “Hi Mark. Did it go all right today? Are you all OK?”

“We’re catching our breath now that we’ve stopped serving, we sold everything, I was even serving breakfast sandwiches at tea. People aren’t really leaving. I’m going to wait until 5 to kick everyone out. Sipho had to go but Rose and Gina are here. Mink is out assessing things. They really like to be in the thick of things.”

Bobbie heard a knock and saw it was Mink. She opened the door and Mink came in.

Bobbie greeted them. “I sure wasn’t expecting all this. I’m trying to stop it but I don’t know how.”

“No, something like this is hard to predict. People can’t even do this kind of thing if they try; this is just like a lightening strike… You can’t really stop it. You just have to lay low and hope that people get bored. We can still generate enough interest to keep them coming to the motel but we can’t have this many people just hanging around with nothing to do.”

Eddie called an asked if she was all right and that he’d seen her on the news. She assured him she was fine.

Bobbie’s email pinged and she saw a first-class boarding pass for the early morning flight. “Brose thinks I should go to Cap City so he can help me there.”

Mink nodded. “It’s good for you to get away. I will let everyone know. Turn off your phone, get some rest and we’ll take care of things here this weekend. Good luck Bobbie.”

Around 6 Johnny showed up with food. “Are you sure you want to go to Cap City Bobbie? Won’t that draw more attention your way?”

“I need to get away from here. I really want to see Trixie too. She always helps ground me. I’m sure I’ll be all the fuss will have died down when I return. Can you feed Fosse and help keep and eye on things for me here?”

“I’ll do anything I can Bobbie.”

The next day she laid low, playing video games, knitting and doing laundry for her trip.

She ate and went bed around 9. She slept until 2 and got up to get ready for her flight.