Little White Lies Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Brianna Baker, F. Bowman Hastie III, and Soho Press

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Soho Teen

  an imprint of

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Baker, Brianna.

  Little white lies / Brianna Baker & F. Bowman Hastie III.

  ISBN 978-1-61695-515-1

  eISBN 978-1-61695-516-8

  1. Tumblr (Electronic resource)—Fiction. 2. Microblogs—Fiction. 3. Fame—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Humorous stories. I. Hastie, F. Bowman. II. Title.

  PZ7.1.B34Li 2016

  [Fic]—dc23 2015020055

  Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

  v3.1

  For Phyllis, Teresa, Wayne and my Kelly. Also for those who wandered off the beaten path. From what I can tell, the extra dirt is worth it.

  —Brianna Baker

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: January 8, 2014

  Part One: Fall 2013

  Chapter One: Karl (November 20, 2013)

  Chapter Two: Coretta (September 9–10, 2013)

  Chapter Three: Karl (November 20, 2014)

  Chapter Four: Coretta (September 25–November 18, 2013)

  Chapter Five: Karl (November 26 and December 3, 2013)

  Chapter Six: Coretta (December 3, 2013)

  Chapter Seven: Coretta and Karl (December 13–18, 2013)

  Chapter Eight: Coretta and Karl (December 18–24, 2013)

  Chapter Nine: Coretta (January 3, 2014)

  Part Two: Winter 2014

  Chapter Ten: Karl (January 6, 2014)

  Chapter Eleven: Coretta (January 8–10, 2014)

  Chapter Twelve: Karl (March 15, 2014)

  Chapter Thirteen: Coretta (March 15–18, 2014)

  Chapter Fourteen: Karl (March 15–29, 2014)

  Part III: Spring 2014

  Chapter Fifteen: Coretta (March 29–30, 2014)

  Chapter Sixteen: Karl (March 30, 2014)

  Chapter Seventeen: Coretta (April 4, 2014)

  Epilogue: Karl (Summer 2014)

  Appendix 1: Karl’s Cultural References

  Appendix 2: The Beyoncé Review (A Lengthy Excerpt)

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  OFFICIAL LITTLE WHITE LIES DISCLAIMER

  DEAR READER,

  PLEASE NOTE PRIOR TO PROCEEDING WITH THE REST OF THIS BOOK:

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN THIS WORK OF FICTION ARE PURELY FICTIONAL. HOWEVER, THESE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS EXIST IN A WORLD THAT ALSO INCLUDES PEOPLE WHO EXIST IN REAL LIFE (E.G., KANYE WEST, CORNEL WEST, ADAM WEST*). FOR THE SAKE OF OUR BOOK WE HAVE INCLUDED FICTIONAL ACTIONS BY “REAL LIFE” PEOPLE. WE ASSURE YOU THAT ANY FICTIONAL ACTIONS BY “REAL LIFE” PEOPLE WITHIN THIS WORK OF FICTION ARE PURELY FICTIONAL AND HAVE NO RELATION TO THE “REAL LIFE” ACTIONS OF THESE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE. WE LOVE YOU, WESTS!

  —THE AUTHORS

  *No version—fictional or nonfictional—of TV’s original Batman, Adam West, appears in this book, except within the disclaimer above and in this footnote.

  PROLOGUE

  January 8, 2014

  from: Coretta

  to: Mom, Dad, Mike, Rachel, Karin Skool, Anders Skool, Douglas Cornelius, Esther Cornelius, Alex Melrose, Karl Ristoff

  date: Tue, January 7, 2014 at 7:17 p.m.

  subject: Confidential

  Dear Valued Friend, Colleague, or Loved One whose trust I’ve betrayed:

  I am writing this letter to you with a very heavy heart.

  My confession: I, Coretta White, am not the author of every post on Little White Lies. For the past twelve weeks, I have been receiving assistance from a ghostwriter. You all know me to be a proud young woman who was raised to uphold a certain code of ethics. Today I must admit to you all—and most importantly, to myself—that I betrayed this code.

  At the beginning of my senior year, I felt as much on top of the world as I felt crushed by the weight of it. Little White Lies exploded the way viral things do, I guess, without warning and without any real reason, as far as I can tell. I mean, yes, it was funny and struck a nerve. But suddenly it was huge, and the explosion consumed me. It kept me from college applications, student council president duties, Spanish club president duties, law club president duties, upkeep of my hair (I know you noticed), and just being a good friend and girlfriend.

  While I thought my unraveling was going unnoticed, I was wrong. My most trusted source for just about everything knew I was suffering. So she approached me with an offer to lighten my workload. This led me to the services of Karl Ristoff, who helped me “keep up” with Little White Lies.

  Looking back, I am not quite sure why I thought that having a forty-one-year-old white man ghostwriting for me would help. But here we are.

  As much as I hate to admit it, once Karl took over Little White Lies, the blog went to a whole new level. You all know that it started as a way for me to laugh at my parents’ hasty generalizations. But then my teachers started cutting me slack. Then I was offered my own show on Pulse TV. Not to mention getting numerous perks that a seventeen-year-old would never dream of (well, maybe Beyoncé at seventeen).

  It started with Karl and me working in tandem. But it quickly veered toward becoming The Karl Show. I am to blame for that. And in the end, I know that my success wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Karl.

  At the start of my senior year, my biggest fear was that I would fail and let all of you down. That I wasn’t really as smart and talented as everyone thought I was or should be. That eventually one of the several plates that I was spinning would fall. That something would expose me for the impostor that I am.

  What irony that this fear is what led me to become an impostor.

  I would ask that you please find it in your heart to forgive me, as I, too, work to forgive myself.

  With love and regret,

  Coretta White

  Part One: Fall 2013

  CHAPTER ONE

  Karl (November 20, 2013)

  When the Real Money Phone rang that day, I knew the job was important, whatever it was. R$$P: the gold iPhone 5S with the Pink Floyd* ringtone. As opposed to the Fake Money Phone—F$$P—recently upgraded to a slime-green 5C but still with the “Two Tickets to Paradise”* ring. Hey, I’ve always liked to stay current, even while insisting that certain things never change.

  More on my money phones—fake and real—later.

  (Also, if you don’t get my cultural references*, that’s your failing. This handy asterisk, presuming failure, will urge you to consult Appendix 1, or proceed to your preferred Internet browser for further information.)

  I stared at the glowing face of Tony Robbins as he vibrated on my tidy communications table: a battered door resting on the tops of two stumpy old filing cabinets. Tony Robbins and Pink Floyd, what a winning combination. Once the bass line was established and the guitars came in, I reached for R$$P and went to speakerphone. Tony Robbins disappeared along with his smile, mere wallpaper. He never calls. Honestly, I’m not even sure who he is.

  “Bueno,” I answered, in the style of Mexicans.

  “Carlito!”

  It was Alex, of course, the only person on the planet who had the R$$P number. She’d given the phone to me.

  I honestly don’t like talking on phones at all. One reason I insist on speakerphone is because it annoys the caller, thereby shortening the call and discouraging the caller from calling again in the
future.

  With texts and emails, I respond immediately and without fail.

  I refuse to listen to voicemail. Therefore I never leave voicemail for others. I try to be consistent, and within reason, considerate.

  Oh, and just for the record, I’ve never done FaceTime and never been in a Google Hangout, and I intend to experience neither during this lifetime. Not that there’s anything wrong with it …

  When a Money Phone rings, I always answer. Even F$$P. But everyone—including Alex, to whom I owe my life and my livelihood—gets put on speaker.

  “Hey, Al. What’s shakin’?”

  “Karl, am I on speakerphone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take me off, please.”

  “Alex, darling.” I assumed one of my hackneyed accents, a treacly Anglo lilt I vaguely associate with Errol Flynn*. “You know that when I touch my iPhone with any part of my body, the likelihood of my losing your call goes up astronomically.”

  At the time, my communications table accommodated these two iPhones, an iPad, a Samsung Galaxy tablet, a MacBook Air laptop, and my cable and Wi-Fi setup. Still, the reception in my Bed-Stuy basement was deplorable. Another reason I hated talking on the phone.

  “Okay, whatever.” Alex always caved in to the speakerphone, but never without a fight. “Are you alone?”

  “Of course I’m alone. I’m always alone, babe. Ever since you walked out on me all those years ago.”

  “Hey, buddy, you walked out on me, remember?”

  “Ah, righto.” I resumed my Errol Flynn lilt. “So I did. But you didn’t exactly beg me to take you back, now did you, buttercup?”

  “No, I did not, Karl.” Alex delivered her line as if part of a well-rehearsed repartee, which in a way it was. “But I did insist that we remain friends, did I not?”

  “Yes, you did, dear friend.”

  “Even though you insisted that staying friends with exes was only, as you put it, ‘for sissies and sword swallowers.’ ”

  “Ah, sissies and sword swallowers.” My inflection made the words sing. “Did I say that, love? I haven’t the foggiest clue as to what it even means.”

  The truth: in spite of occasional doubts, staying friends with Alex was the best decision I had ever made in my life.

  Alex Melrose and I dated for thirteen weeks, which seemed like a really long time during college. Come to think of it, she was my first bona fide girlfriend at Harvard, and we didn’t even hook up until spring semester of our senior year. Or rather, my senior year. Al was finishing the first year of her MBA.

  We made sense. We liked the same stoner movies and the same twisted cartoons. We loved beer. We loved it in a way that we felt made us superior to others who loved beer. We laughed a lot, mostly at others’ expense. We had tons of fun. But fooling around never quite felt right. I suppose you could say we had intimacy issues. It’s hard to explain, but every time we made out I felt like I was kissing my stepsister or something.

  Having sex wasn’t much better. I mean, it was better. Because we were having sex. And I was really happy to be having sex with anybody, especially someone as smart and funny and beautiful as Alex Melrose. Someone I genuinely liked.

  But whenever we finished, I felt as if I had just had sex with my stepsister. Not a sin. Not entirely deplorable or completely disgusting. Just wrong.

  After thirteen weeks—a whole semester—I walked out on her. Or rather, broke up with her over coffee in a diner without giving much of an explanation.

  I don’t believe in giving explanations when breaking up. It never feels like anything I could say would do either party good. So I say as little as possible.

  Alex told me she wouldn’t insist on hearing my reasons for breaking up as long as I promised that we would remain friends. Forever. She knew me well enough to know that if I made that vow to her, I wouldn’t break it. I would keep my vow for the same reason I broke up with her: it would be wrong to do otherwise.

  And so here we were.

  “You’re right; that was a long time ago, Karl. And now I’ve got a job for you.” Alex was back to all business.

  I groaned, even though I’d been waiting for her to get to the point. “Another job? I got enough jobs already!”

  “Oh, I know you do, believe me. You’re King Twit, Dark Lord of the Twitterverse.” Alex probably thought she was massaging my massive ego. “But this isn’t just another ghost-tweet gig.”

  I sprang up on the big silver exercise ball that functioned as my office chair. “Now you’re talking.”

  “I know you’re suffering from some form of Twitter exhaustion, Karl. I can see it in your tweets.”

  I quickly turned defensive. “Have there been complaints?”

  “No, Karl. No complaints from clients. Not lately.” Alex took on a reassuring tone. “But I know you’ve been wanting to get back into longer-form writing. And besides, Twitter is not exactly the future.”

  “It’s a lot trickier to ghost an Instagram.”

  “Not that there won’t be tweeting involved with this new gig,” Alex continued. “But if you play your cards right, you may be able to let the rest of your top twits go.”

  “You mean, only work for this one client? You know I don’t do exclusives.”

  “Well, I’m sure you would consider it if I could only tell you who’s footing the bill.” Alex switched into smug mode. “She’s richer than God.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Sorry, can’t tell you.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She owns her own network.”

  Before I could utter, “Oh,” Alex cut me off.

  “Not Oprah.”

  “Not Oprah?” I was at a loss. “Who else could it be?”

  “You know I can’t tell you, Karl. All I can say is, not Oprah.”

  “Okaaaayyyy. So Noprah, that’s cool. Can’t tell me who the client is, not a problem. Richer than God? I’m in.”

  “Great. Now we’ve just got to put you in touch with Coretta …”

  Given who Noprah probably was, my mind only went to one place. “Coretta White?” I asked.

  Alex laughed. “You’ve heard of her?” Now she was surprised.

  “Of course I’ve heard of her. Little White Lies. That’s my shit!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Coretta (September 9–10, 2013)

  tumblr.

  LITTLE WHITE LIES

  September 9, 2013

  Little White Lie of the Day: Dante de Blasio, the fifteen-year-old son of New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, should “really shave that Afro down if he knows what is good for him and for his father’s campaign.”

  Dear Friends, Countrymen, and Strangers,

  Today I write from my dining room table. It is 7:15 A.M. on a humid Monday morning in Brooklyn. Now you might ask yourself, why is it so damn humid in Brooklyn today? And why is a well-adjusted seventeen-year-old girl hastily blogging for the first time in her life?

  While I can’t speak to the weather, though global warming is likely to blame, I’m writing this because I’ve been pushed to the brink this morning. Pushed to the brink of my sanity by the ones that brought me into this world.

  While I do still hold to the notion that (most) parents (usually) know best, I do think there are (A LOT of) exceptions.

  I can no longer idly sit by and consume the Little White Lies that my parents tell me each and every day.

  I know they don’t mean any harm, just as Miley Cyrus doesn’t when she walks outside each and every day without pants. Nonetheless, the harm is still being done.

  Today, while I squeezed frosting onto a nutritionally void, overcooked, yet somehow also half-frozen toaster strudel, a political ad featuring Dante de Blasio appeared on our kitchen TV.

  Dante is the handsome, fifteen-year-old (biracial) son of the white (errr … Caucasian) New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio. In the ad, Dante sports a rather fierce Afro and speaks against the NYPD stop-and-frisk policy.

  I
f you don’t know the ad, get with the program and YouTube it.

  My father’s response? Dante “really should shave that Afro if he knows what is good for him and for his father’s campaign.”

  My mother’s response? She agreed with him.

  Their justification: a fifteen-year-old’s Afro provides a reason for the city of New York (Bloomberg and the Snooze Brigade) to defend the NYPD police officers’ right to profile (based on Afros, of course), and to “stop and frisk” anyone at any time for any reason. Including Afros.

  I can’t. I just can’t.

  I would like us all to take a moment and ask ourselves a very important question: Is this what Rosa Parks would have done? Would she have said, “Hey, you know what? You’re right; I think I will give up my seat on the bus after all. It makes sense because Montgomery did pass a city ordinance in 1900, a city I’m not even allowed to vote in, that said bus drivers can make me give up my seat to white (err … Caucasian) people.”

  In case you’re Googling: 1.) No, she did not say that. 2.) You’re an idiot. 3.) Throw your computer out the window, because nothing can save you. 4.) I’m paraphrasing above, but yes, Montgomery (the state capital of Alabama) did pass such an ordinance in 1900.

  It may be 2013, and I might have the right to sit in a pee-ridden MTA seat just like anybody else, but the issue remains the same. Dante’s Afro isn’t just a handy excuse to get fondled by the police. It’s a bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. People need to see this white mayoral candidate in a commercial with his (dare I say) handsome African-American son.

  WITH HIS AFRO.

  They need to see that this young man is smart. He is aware that his father is a white politician, and he is also aware that when he is not with his father, he is just another young black man. That is what’s good for Dante’s father—and for his campaign. That is where progress and change are born. It is inspiring. In fact, it makes me want to have an Afro of my own.