Chapter 7: The Video

By seven the next morning, the video had been watched more than a hundred thousand times.

Hazel read the numbers out loud from her phone while she unlocked the front door.

"Two hundred and six thousand," she said. "Somebody made it into a sound. The sound is just the word cake, over and over, with a drum under it."

"Delete it."

"I can't delete it. It's everywhere, Deirdre. It's on the Ventnor moms' group and the Atlantic City news page."

"Somebody in Pennsylvania wants to know if the wine was Malbec."

"It was Malbec."

"Of course it was."

I hung the green silk on the hook by the window.

The stain showed in the morning light.

The wine had dried in a dark map across my ribs.

I had slept three hours in my own bed, with my phone face down on the nightstand.

Strangers had sent me messages all night.

Some were kind, some were vile, and a few were both at once.

One woman in Cherry Hill wrote, "You didn't let her make you small. Good for you."

Another wrote, "Fat girls don't get men like that. That was a stunt."

A minute later she wrote, "Lol I'd like one too."

Hazel put a cup of coffee on the cutting table.

Then she sat down on the stool across from me.

"Your aunt's car is outside," she said. "She's been sitting in it for ten minutes, crying into a Dunkin' cup."

Gail came in with her keys in her fist.