Heads Will Roll

I

A single bar shows in the corner of my phone screen: just one line out of a possible four. If I were yesterday me, the woman who depended on connectivity to survive, the lack of service would flood my system with panic. It would make me pace back and forth until more bars appeared.

But I'm not yesterday me. I'm now me; the one hunched over in the back of a BMW wearing yesterday's clothes, and that single bar makes me damn near giddy with relief.

"Cut me off already," I whisper. "Please just cut me the hell off."

I'm aware that I could stow my phone in my carryall. I could power it off myself without waiting for bad cell coverage to disconnect me from whatever satellite is spinning around Earth firing data at anybody with a SIM card.

But I can't do it.

No matter how much I want to, the command doesn't reach my fingers. The phone has practically grown into my hand, and I need it forcibly removed, like a polished black tumor. Just looking at the screen makes me feel sick and pathetic and lost in a hundred different ways.

I shift my gaze to look out the window.

We drive between pine trees that are so tightly packed, they block out the midday sun. We entered the forest somewhere north of White Plains twenty minutes ago, driving in a black Beamer that smells like bleached lemongrass, and the road has showed no sign of letting up. It keeps going, like the winding Montana travelogue at the start of The Shining, tunneling endlessly into the forest dark of upstate New York.

The gloom is comforting, though. It feels womblike. Protective. Nobody can reach me here. Nobody can take my picture or yell at me in the street or slide into my DMs to tell me real quick just how they're going to take me apart, piece by dripping piece.

I'm breathless with anticipation.

I need this.

I'm so ready to disappear.

Soon, okay? Willow says in my mind. Soon you'll be free.

The car hits a bump and I only just keep hold of my phone.

"Sorry, ma'am," says the driver-forties, jowly and bushy browed. "Only one road in and out of this place, and it looks like they haven't resurfaced since the millennium."

"Which millennium?" I ask. My voice is as cracked as the skin around my nostrils, but still he laughs.

Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and I try not to shrink from his gaze, imagining what he must see. My Lululemon cardigan hangs off me, foraged from the bedroom floor this morning, and my white jeans are stained with the wine that I spilled last night while rushing to switch off the news. My shoulder-length auburn hair is scraped back from my face, tied in a messy bun.

I haven't slept in three weeks.

My eyes hurt.

They beg to close.

"You're on TV, right?" the driver says, and I flinch. Damn. I shouldn't have engaged. I want to revel in the silence as we travel farther from reality's reach. Besides, I'm afraid what I might say. My mouth has never been my friend.

"That show," the driver says. "The one about the girl."

I could pretend I'm getting a call-I've acted with fake phones enough to know I could pull it off-but the lie feels too big. He must have noticed that my cell hasn't made a sound since the airport.

"Willow," I say.

"That's it! We Love Willow! My daughter can't get enough of you."

A moth flutters in my chest, beating a fragile kind of hope. I can't help leaning forward in my seat.

"She's a fan?"

"Yeah, she was so into you," the driver says. "She had a poster on her wall. It got ripped or something a couple weeks ago, though. Teenagers, right?"

The moth crumples. I sit back, energy draining from my limbs.

"Right," I murmur. "Teenagers."

We Love Willow wasn't a teen show, but it was popular with the sixteen-to-twenty-four demographic. It hit that sweet spot between youthful optimism and knowing realism. Despite a shaky first year in which we struggled to find our audience, the show's title proved accurate by season three: everybody loved Willow McKenzie, the klutzy midtwenties New Yorker who was perpetually broke, single, and jobless but attacked every challenge with can-do enthusiasm, helped by her childhood imaginary friend, Eliza.

I loved Willow, too. I loved being that version of myself. Upbeat, smiley, and open. Most of all, I loved what she gave me. Not just steady work and financial security for the first time in my life, but a best friend in the shape of my co-star, Jenna. We became inseparable within a couple weeks of filming, real-life roommates by the time season one wrapped. We lived together for two years, until my fiancé, Matt, convinced me to move into his Santa Monica beach house.

In so many ways, Willow made me a better person.

But now she's gone. The show's canceled. All because I can't keep my mouth shut.

I check to see if the driver's still looking at me, and I'm relieved that his focus is back on the road. Still, the fact that he recognized me is unnerving. I should have made more of an effort to change my appearance. Dyed my hair and got a home tan kit. I haven't exactly been thinking clearly, though, and tomorrow never seemed certain. Suddenly I feel as exposed as a raw nerve.

There must be something in my carryall. I root around inside it, dragging out clothes, sandals, and books. I tug out a gray bucket hat that I don't remember packing. It's ugly and shapeless and perfect. I put it on, pulling it over my auburn hair as far down as it'll go. My reading glasses are oversized and ridiculous, an impulse buy that I never wear in public. Also perfect.

Adding these layers makes me feel stronger. Less exposed. If you've got no place to hide, hide in plain sight.

"There's the sign," the driver says, and I look up, just as a wooden placard passes the window, too fast for me to read. "Couple miles left. What is this place, anyway? Some kind of summer camp for adults?"

"Something like that," I say.

He looks at me a moment too long in the mirror.

Even after three weeks, it turns out I still care what people think. Every hate-fueled headline has left a bruise, so many of them that it hurts to breathe sometimes, and a part of me still can't believe that the terrible things people said were about me.

The scariest thing is how quickly it all fell apart.

The day after tweetageddon, Matt flew to New Mexico to shoot location work on his show, Crime: L.A. Nights, and he told me I should be gone by the time he got home. I'm still wearing the engagement ring, can't bring myself to take it off. Jenna was there for me for five days, brought me donuts and takeout while I ranted and dry-heaved, and then she ghosted me when it seemed she'd get canceled herself simply for associating with me.

I found myself alone in a house I'd always hated. I never understood why a couple in their twenties needed six bathrooms.

Dark thoughts crept in like rising damp.

Sitting in the back of the BMW, I feel the churn again in the pit of my stomach, and I can't tell if I'm going to throw up or cry.

The tweet was meant to be a joke. I didn't want to offend anybody. I was living in my cozy little Willow bubble, safe in the knowledge that I was loved and understood. That people knew me. They'd get what I was saying.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I force an inhale and remind myself where I'm headed. Into the calming arms of nature.

As I start to repack my carryall, I notice the tattered color pamphlet sticking out of it. The paper is as thin as silk, but it's all I have. There's no website for Camp Castaway. No Twitter account. No online footprint to speak of. That's sort of their deal.

"This place is so underground, Jason Bourne couldn't find you," my agent said as she handed me the literature two days ago, right after she found me lying facedown in the pool.

I don't remember how I got there. There was a cut on my forehead. I must have fallen and hit my head, then ended up in the water. The empty bottles on the counter were proof enough that I'd been drinking at four in the afternoon. It was sheer luck that my agent had decided to drop by with a care package and found me floating.

Even my lowest moment is a BoJack Horseman meme.

When the paramedics were gone, I sat at Matt's breakfast bar with its Victoria Arduino coffee machine and its Vitamix 5200, realizing that nothing in the kitchen was mine-nothing in the whole goddamn house-and clutched hold of the Camp Castaway pamphlet like a lottery ticket before the numbers are called.

The photographs of the forest are soothing. The cute little rough-hewn cabins look joyful in their simplicity. A woman laughs in a carefree way that makes my body ache. There's a map on the back-a rudimentary sketch of the lake, which is shaped like a kidney, squeezed in the middle. It talks about hiking, yoga, and games. It talks about disconnecting in order to reconnect, and right at the bottom there's the biggie, the single line that sealed the deal: You will be invited to hand over all electronic devices at check-in for a total digital time-out.

Sign me up, buttercup.

Because this is the thing. Camp Castaway isn't just a port in a storm-it's a lifeline. A retreat in the truest sense of the word. I'm already jobless after being fired from the show, and now I'm homeless, too, thanks to Matt. After tweetageddon, the studio took back a lot of the money I had left, cited breach of contract, and I used up the last of my rainy-day savings on Camp Castaway. Five thousand big ones for two weeks of isolation.

I reach under the brim of the bucket hat and touch the slow-healing scab on my forehead.

It was an easy decision.

I knew that if I didn't get away, I wouldn't make it through another rainy day.

Ping.

My phone vibrates in my lap, and I jump. I changed my number two days ago and my cell has been pretty much dead ever since. That hasn't stopped me from clinging to it like a junkie, praying somebody will reach out.

Ping. Ping.

I fumble with my phone, heart beating fast. It could be a text from Jenna. It could be Matt. It could be-

A number I don't recognize.

I frown, hunching over my phone, opening WhatsApp.

As I read the messages, I stop breathing. I feel the trees crowding in through the windows. They whisper and press against my face, pushing branches into my mouth, and it's suddenly too quiet in here. Too unbearably quiet, aside from the thud of blood in my temples.

Nice try, but you'll have to do more than that to get
rid of me.

You're going to beg to die.

See you soon, Red. 


Netflix billing for We Love Willow


S1E3 "Willow vs. Work"-Willow gets a job at a sushi bar but has to keep her shellfish allergy secret from her new boss, Marie (guest star Lucy Liu). Eliza gets assigned to a kid who refuses to believe in imaginary friends.

II

Hey there, you're early," the man says, smiling as he approaches the car. He has olive skin and is mid-twenties, wearing a light green shirt and cutoff jeans. His black hair is buzzed short, and his dark eyes are sharp but friendly.

I'm not sure how I managed to stand, but somehow, I'm out of my seat. One hand rests on the car door, the other presses my stomach. The scent of pine and dirt fills my nostrils.

"I heard there was an early-bird special," I say. "Don't tell me I'm wrong." The lame attempt at a joke works. The man laughs and shakes my hand, doesn't appear to notice I'm quietly freaking out.

"I'm Tye, camp groundskeeper. Great to meet you."

The human contact is a shock. Nobody's touched me since my agent dragged me out of the pool. Warmth floods my face, but I feel protected by the oversize glasses and the bucket hat. Eat your alien heart out, Clark Kent.

"Bebe apologizes for not being here to greet you herself," Tye says. "She's preparing for the party. But you'll meet her there. You'll meet everybody."

"Can't wait," I say, remembering that Bebe is the "Camp Mom" who's in charge of the place.

As much as I try to focus on Tye, I'm distracted by the knowledge that some threat-happy psycho has my new number. It's not the first death threat I've received. In the days following tweetageddon, my DMs filled up with graphic rants. My email and old cell number leaked online, and I watched as my safe spaces were swallowed up one by one. The majority of the messages were unrelated to the content of my tweet. People just wanted somebody to hate.

And now one of them has my new number.

I could report it to the police, but I can't risk the chance that they'll tell me to cancel my trip. I can't go back. I can't go home, and not just because there's no home to go back to.

"I'll grab those." Tye takes my suitcase and carryall from the driver.

"It's chill," I say. "I'm used to handling my own baggage-travel and otherwise."

Tye looks at me like I'm a college friend on vacation. "Please, let me. We're going to look after you here."

The kindness in his tone makes me tremble. Either my disguise is working or he's an even better actor than anybody I've ever worked with. There's no hint that he recognizes me from TV or the internet. Maybe even the staff here are off the grid.

I follow Tye to the wooden building nestled amid the trees. It resembles a ski lodge, part timber, part glass, with a peaked roof that points at an immaculate blue sky. As we climb the steps, I hear birds calling to each other, the faraway sound of laughter, and the hire car reversing out of the lot, leaving me behind.

Even here in the small clearing fringed by trees, I'm struck by the sense of space. The roominess of the great outdoors. The trees reach up, up, up into a limitless sky. I'm so accustomed to the congestion of L.A., the constant battle for air, it's easy to forget that L.A. isn't normal. It's a choice.