Page 37 of Everyone Is Lying to You

“So the police will be useless, but if anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s the women here. They know things. They hear things. But also…” She hesitates and then watches me in a way that makes it clear she wants me to prod her, so I do.

“What?” I lean in.

“If Rebecca didn’t do it—which I don’t think she did—I wouldn’t be surprised if someone very close to them had something to do with it.”

I must look genuinely shocked at her theory because she seems pleased when she clocks my reaction.

“Grayson Sommers made a lot of enemies in our community.”

“Tell me more,” I prod again. “We can be off the record. Who hated Grayson Sommers?”

“Some people looooooooved him.” She glances over her shoulder at the group of women huddled in the opposite corner,clearly watching us. “You know how Grayson and Rebecca had that big thing on their Instagram about a year ago. The one where they, you know…every day. The Whoopie with Your Schmoopie.” I have to give her extra credit for being able to say both of those words out loud with a straight face. I can hardly hear them without snorting so I simply nod.

“Well, I heard they did that because everyone was talking about Grayson maybe stepping out on Rebecca with one of the Smith triplets.”

The casual way she mentions it makes it seem like I should absolutely know who they are, that they are a household name. Smith triplets? I try to remember. The name Smith is as ubiquitous as air, especially out here. I’ve been here long enough to realize that. I glance around the room, as if the answer will appear in front of me if I squint hard enough.

“Look them up.” She nods to my computer.

I tap in the name. Millions of hits. Oh right. I’ve seen them before. One sister is a blonde, another a redhead, and the third a brunette, which doesn’t seem like it can possibly be natural, but it makes for an excellent aesthetic.

It’s the third one who stops me in my search. She’s the statuesque woman from the day I checked in. The one who said we should talk at some point, the fifties housewife clone with impeccable makeup and buttery voice who ran into me as I was checking in. Veronica.

“Did the Smith triplets all come to the conference?” I ask.

“They’re here somewhere. They were supposed to do a panel.”

“All three of them?”

“Yeah. It was how to use AI to increase output and engagement.They’re masters of it. They produce more content than everyone here combined and apparently they just have a bunch of robots doing it. Artificial intelligence is soooo confusing, but I was excited about going to the panel to learn about it.”

“Which triplet might have been with Gray Sommers?” I ask breezily.

“Veronica.” Bingo. Was that why she wanted to talk to me? Did she know I’m friends with Rebecca? Did she want to spill about the affair or maybe dig for her own dirt?

I glance at my computer, where I’ve pulled up one of the many Smith sister YouTube channels. They all have millions of followers and their videos are viewed hundreds of millions of times. More people watch them than the NFL. The blonde is named Betty. Who would have thought a family of missionaries would have a hard-on forArchiecomics? The redhead is Skipper. Yes, Skipper. It’s nearly as ridiculous as Cricket.

I toggle over to Veronica’s account now. “Wait a second,” I stammer in surprise. “Veronica is married to Marsden Greer?”

“Duh,” Cricket says.

The men in these accounts are all interchangeable Ken doll types. I’m not surprised I didn’t recognize him earlier. I don’t watch baseball and neither does Peter because he insists that soccer is the superior sport of all athletic pursuits and he won’t let our children be indoctrinated into the American cult of toxic sports masculinity.

I try to draw the spiderweb of connections in my brain. It’s a lattice of familial and carnal interdependence.

“Grayson and Marsden are best friends,” Cricket says. “They grew up together and then went to college together. They wereboth Phi Delts, I think, which makes it even crazier if it’s true that Grayson was being intimate with Marsden’s wife. But who knows. People like to talk.”And so do you, thank god.

I keep peeping on the triplets’ accounts with one eye. From what I can glean, Christ is king, birth control is the devil, and submission to your husband is paramount. No wonder Marsden felt so comfortable standing up in front of a room filled with women, women who apparently are making a shit ton of money, and telling them their highest calling is to serve their husbands.

How much of what the triplets say and do is real and how much is performance? How much do any of them believe about what they’re preaching to their millions of followers and how much of it is derived from what is trending and what an algorithm wants? Or, if what Cricket says is true and the triplets are such masters of artificial intelligence, how much of it is dictated by a robot?

I already know that Rebecca’s account is mostly smoke and mirrors, but are all of the accounts on social media?

And if Grayson, clean-cut, god-fearing Grayson, was sleeping with the modern-day Phyllis Schlafly, who, according to her Instagram profile, is married to both his best friendandJesus? Oh the scandal.

I can’t write about a rumor for the magazine, not without something else to back it up.Modern Womanis still hanging on to that shred of journalistic integrity, though probably not for long if Alana has her way. She recently tried to buy out an anonymous Instagram account that publishes nothing but salacious blind items about celebrities. Our lawyers stopped her, and our accountant assured her they couldn’t figure out a way to monetizeit, but I think they were wrong. Alana could monetize a funeral if she put her mind to it. In fact, she may monetize Grayson’s.

I need more proof. “Who else knows about it?”

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