Page 13 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
A woman spoke up from the corner of the room, an American this time. The source of the perfume?
“You post inane ramblings every day. Hashtag thoughts-from-Marcs-world. The missing apostrophe really bugs me, you know?”
“I understand that, I truly do. My publicist makes those posts, but apparently, you can’t put apostrophes in hashtags.”
She’d come up with the idea after he informed her he’d be taking a step back from social media. Something about keeping his profile trending, and he’d gone along with it because it was easier than arguing and nearly everything online was a lie anyway.
“They literally have photos of you in them.”
“Only my feet.” Just feet and the view beyond them, that was the hook. “Except they’re not actually my feet. She hires a foot double.”
“A foot double?” The scarf around the woman’s face twitched as she crinkled her nose, and she pushed stray blonde hairs out of her eyes. “That’s crazy.”
“Welcome to Hollywood.”
Havana cleared his throat. “Can we get back on track here?”
“Sure.” Whatever “on track” meant. Marc was just grateful nobody had picked up the gun. “You want me to record a voiceover?”
“More of an infomercial. The island of Malati is home to the endangered Malatian tarsier—Tarsius malata—as well as a colony of pig-tailed lemurs and a plethora of other wildlife. They’ve coexisted with humans for centuries, and now some wealthy American wants to bulldoze half the island and build a luxury resort there. A development of that nature would be catastrophic to local wildlife, not just on land but in the water too. Invasive construction, jet skis and powerboats, pollutants from sunscreen… We’re destroying our planet, and we don’t have another one. And you…you’re only contributing to the issue by publicising the place.”
“So you want me to…publicise it more?”
“I want you to tell the world about mankind’s destruction,” Havana snapped. “And filming has to stop. Do you realise how much damage was caused to Maya Bay when The Beach was set there?”
No, but Marc was sure the man would tell him. “Enlighten me.”
“They levelled the beach, removed the scrub bushes holding the terrain together with their root systems, and killed off native plants. And that’s before thousands of tourists began arriving to recreate scenes from the movie for social media. The place will never be the same again.”
“We didn’t level anything.” And the production company had done a hell of a lot less damage than all the bullets flying around. “We have a permit to shoot there, which is more than you did.”
“What do you expect people to do when every peaceful protest falls on deaf ears? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
“Didn’t Albert Einstein say that?”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “No, it was Rita Mae Brown. Is it really too difficult to give a woman credit?”
“I swear someone gave me a mug with that quote, and it credited Albert Einstein.”
“And because it was on a mug, it must be true, right?”
“You expect me to google every tiny thing?”
“If you did, maybe you’d realise the problems you’re causing for Malati.”
Havana held up a hand. “Let’s focus on the bigger picture here—we’re going to need the passwords for your social media accounts.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve been warning the world about environmental damage for a decade, and do you know how many followers we have? Thirty-seven thousand.”
“Actually, it’s more like thirty-eight thousand,” the blonde said. “37,642 as of this morning, and you always round up, don’t you?”
“Let’s not worry about the math today.” Havana rolled his eyes, and Marc couldn’t blame him. Mid-kidnapping, and she was quibbling over a few hundred followers? “We can’t compete with a Hollywood superstar.”
Megastar, according to Imagine magazine. Unfortunately.
“If you have our passwords, you won’t need us anymore, will you?”
