Page 12 of Locked Down In Watch Hill
And yet, she had.
I opened the message part of the app and sent her the photo she’d posted. “Thanks for doing this,” I typed right after. I had no reason to think she’d see it so late at night, as, like most normal people, she should have been sleeping.
But then one word,seen, showed up underneath my message.
Ashley was awake and scrolling Instagram just like me, probably in bed, trapped in quarantine for at least a couple more days in her apartment. And for whatever reason, a delicious feeling of anticipation snaked down my stomach.
“Hey,” she wrote back. “No problem.”
“Didn’t expect you to be awake right now,” I typed.
I didn’t care what time it was anymore. I was invested in this and didn’t want to hesitate to seize the moment to talk to her, even via messaging chat.
Ashley: I can’t sleep
Me: Me neither. Not since the pandemic. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night.
Ashley: Me too! And I’ve tried everything to fix it. Nothing works.
Me: Maybe we are just natural worriers
Ashley: I know I am. And then I doom-scroll on social media, which just makes it worse.
Me: Step away from Twitter
Ashley: I’m glad you liked the post. I guess it’s a small way I can support your local business.
Me: You didn’t have to do it, but you did a fantastic job. People really seem to like it.
Ashley: It always surprises me whenever people like certain photos. Like it always seems to be the one I just take on the fly, not the ones I agonize over. I’ll post the perfect one, which took hours, and maybe one hundred people will like it. Then I’ll post one thrown together...
Me: And everyone likes it. Just Murphy’s Law, I guess.
Sometimes I liked myself a lot better on chat than I did in real life. Typing things out made me seem smoother and more confident. Not that I was shy or inept, but sometimes it was hard to talk to a woman in a bar or at one of the parties Seth threw. This was simpler, and I liked that.
To a point.
Ashley: So, I was looking at the pizzeria’s account
Me: Oh, yeah?
Ashley: It’s good, but I can tell you don’t enjoy doing it. I mean, that’s you posting, right?
Me: It’s me. I’m a one-man social media machine
Ashley: Sound thrilled
Me: It’s just taxing. One more thing to do when I already have a mountain of other things on my plate.
Ashley: That’s the most common complaint I hear about it. That it adds a layer of admin to your life that people wish they didn’t have.
Me: You sound like you’re an expert at this.
Ashley: Well, I’ve been doing that and other things for a job for the last few years. I was doing it full-time until I go laid off and had to pivot. Now I write press releases and try to help where I can.
Me: If you want to help me, have at it. I can pay you in all the pizza and wings you want.
Ashley: Deal
