“IF you’re not famous, you’re no one,” Scarlett Unger said to herself.

           In the town of Brookside, many people viewed her as a “down and outer” and little else. It had been the story of her life. Opulence had never been her reality. Many times throughout her twenty-one-years of living she had tried to forget the truth. People’s perceptions of her didn’t matter. She didn’t have time to care. She had far bigger things to worry about. Nor did she have any interest in replicating her mom’s life: working two, sometimes even three, low wage jobs just to make ends meet. It’s what can happen when you become a single-parent.

           With her limp brown hair hanging over pudgy, acne-ridden cheeks, she stood in front of her full-length bedroom mirror. The room was as boring as her appearance with nothing more than a single-sized bed, small dresser and a small closet – the lack of closet space didn’t matter, she had never been able to afford a grand wardrobe.

           Clad in only her bra and panties, she analyzed her body. She was soft around the middle, her stomach protruding out a couple of inches. Her arms had no definition: wide and flabby. The insides of her thighs touched. Her skin lacked the colour of a golden tan.

           A few zits speckled her upper chest and shoulders. She squeezed one on her chest between her fingers. It broke open, excreting slimy pus. She squeezed another one.    

           She leaned her face closer to the mirror. She ran a finger down her left cheek feeling the rough terrain of her acne. The girl with alligator skin. Those were the words that a select few would shove in her face in high school.

           She had never forgotten the name-calling—ALLIGATOR SKIN! ALLIGATOR SKIN!—and who called her it the most: Marika Goldbath, a cruel sort who relentlessly taunted Scarlett through high school. A few others joined in. Scarlett wasn’t surprised. When you are Miss Popular in high school, as Goldbath was, others easily follow you.

           But Scarlett did have a taste of revenge before her high school years ended. A week before the last day of Grade 12, Scarlett brought a utility knife to school, one with a brand new blade sharp enough to slice open human skin with one quick slice. When the bell had rung signaling freedom from the school day, Scarlett paid Marika a visit in the girl’s washroom. Scarlett pushed Marika into a bathroom stall, dug the utility knife into her calf, and left Miss Popular with a nice one-inch gash on her left calf. Scarlett had covered Miss Popular’s mouth to muffle her scream. Scarlett told her that if she said anything about the encounter, Scarlett would do a lot more cutting than a one-inch gash. Shedding tears, Marika promised to keep her mouth shut. And she had. No one ever questioned Scarlett about the bathroom incident.

           Scarlett.

           She loved her name. It was the best part of her. It was a movie star’s name, one that deserved attention.

           People will notice and adore me, she thought.

           She sat on her bed, heavy thighs pressing into the soft comforter. She grabbed her iPhone and laid down. It was time to scroll. She loved scrolling. Four to five hours a day, she scrolled the Internet. Of course, she was viewing the lavish lives of celebrities, ones who were the pinnacle of success. They were living the life she was supposed to be living. Her present didn’t have to be her future. Riches and fame. She could buy whatever you wanted; she could have throngs of admirers. People would die to be her friend. It was pure bliss.

            If you’re not famous, you’re no one. Over and over she repeated the thought in her head.

           She continued scrolling.

WORKING as a construction labourer had been Scarlett’s life since she’d graduated high school. Was it glamourous work for someone like her with a name like Scarlett? No, but it paid well. Paid a heck of a lot better than bagging groceries at Marty’s Food Mart, a job she worked a few hours a week through Grade 12.

           Working in construction had come out of nowhere. After finishing a shift at the grocery store, her mom mentioned Carlton Construction, a growing company. She’d heard it was flooded with work and was in dire need of carpenters and labourers. Scarlett wasn’t trained as a carpenter, but she could swing a shovel and get her hands dirty with the best of them.

           The next day she took a bus (her mom had the car, working at one of three jobs) to Carlton Construction’s main office in the city and applied. She was hired. They told her to show up at a specific address at 7:30 a.m. next Monday. And that’s exactly what she did.

           Did she love the work? No, but it wasn’t forever. Fame and glory was her future.

           On the job, suffering under the hot summer sun, and digging in the dirt, she zoned out letting her imagination come alive…she was walking the red carpets of Hollywood movie premiers; people rushed over to her on the streets, desperate for her autograph; the media couldn’t stop following her; she was –        

           “You swing that shovel real nice. Real nice.”

           The all too familiar, slimy voice coming from behind her yanked her back to reality. She’d heard it every work day for the last five months, ever since Helix Brown, a twenty-five-year-old misogynistic twit, started working for the company.

           She turned to see the asshole with his long, shaggy hairstyle dripping out from under his construction hat. He was a skinny prick, little more than skin and bone.

           His eyes were on her and her only. A couple of other guys were digging a few feet away from her, but Helix only had eyes for one.

           You swing that shovel real nice. Real nice. She knew what he meant.  

           Her shovel had nothing to do with it. It was how she looked in her jeans fitted against her lower half. He’d been ogling her with whatever sexual thoughts were running through his head.

           He stood fifteen feet away from her. She wanted him to come closer. Close enough so she could swing her shovel straight up between his legs. Hard enough that the edge of her shovel would slice his ball sack in two. He wouldn’t be looking at her the same way then.

           She liked to refer to him as Hormone Raging Helix. The name fit him well. He was sex hungry. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone.

           But Helix wasn’t stupid. He chose his words carefully. He knew not to cross too far over the line. He stepped too far and Carlton Construction would be throwing his ass right out the door. No, he wasn’t completely stupid. Just almost.

           Pathetic pervert, she thought. She didn’t have issues with anyone else at Carlton. No one but him. She made a complaint about him once, but nothing ever really came of it.

           George, an older man and a good man, stood near Scarlett, coming to her defense. “Hey Helix, why don’t you mind your own business and get back to work? That trench won’t dig itself.”

           The demoralizing sneer on Helix’s face – the one he reserved strictly for Scarlett – quickly evaporated. He did what he was told and went back to his digging.            

           Scarlett let her fantasy world overtake her again; the one thing that made it easier to get through the workday.

‍

AFTER work, Scarlett took the bus home. Driving herself wasn’t an option. There was only one car and her mom always needed it for work.

           Scarlett stood in her tiny front yard staring at her house. Damn, it was small. It really was. No basement. No second floor. Simplest of floor plans: two bedrooms, one bathroom, kitchen, and a living room. Plain. Simple. Boring. Out-of-date fixtures. Nothing modern. All these years it had been her life – one that severely needed change. It was okay. One day, she would go from living in this tiny home to a mansion worthy of a star.        

           She took a shower. Brown, dirty water swirled down the drain. She slipped into grey sweatpants and a loose, grey t-shirt and sat in the middle of her bed with her phone. It was social media time. Every day was social media time.

           In the beginning, she had been a bit of an outlier for a young person, having never created any social media accounts. No Snapchat. No Instagram. No TikTok. Nothing. But then she had to wake up. A few billion people across the planet had social media accounts. When garnering fame, you had to start somewhere. And so a couple of years ago, she finally created her accounts.

           And if you’re not famous, you’re no one, she reminded herself yet again.

           She would build her fame up through social media, then move into reality TV and so forth.

           When she dove into her Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok accounts her spirits came crashing down.

           Her follower numbers were still pitiful. The pictures of herself she had posted had barely any likes, barely any comments. One of her posts (a close up on her face) had a couple comments, neither of them kind, some just immature. One of them screamed out in all caps– “YOUR ZITS AND ALL WOULD BE PERFECT!I’M CASTING FOR A HORROR MOVIE!!”

           Her mood only worsened when she looked at Marika’s accounts. She wasn’t connected to the picture perfect twenty-one-year-old, but when a profile was made public, all could easily see it. Marika had everything Scarlett hungered for.

           And then an idea came to her.  

           Show some skin. Skin garnered online attention.

           Scarlett stripped down to her underwear. For the next two hours, she posed for her phone camera. She positioned herself and angled the camera, doing her best to present herself in the best light. She sucked in her stomach the best she could to make herself appear thinner. She took photos from the side, never straight on. It was all little tricks of the trade. She had read about it in a modeling article a couple of months ago.

           Then, after close to a hundred plus photos, she put her clothes back on and selected what she thought were the best ten images. She posted them to her social media.

           But she still didn’t love what her phone camera revealed.

           Her stomach and waist needed to be flat and toned. That’s what everyone wanted to see.

           She went to the floor and hammered out sit-ups until her stomach was burning and she could do no more. When she looked in the mirror the image staring back at her made her spit on the glass. Saliva slid down the surface a couple of inches.

           Maybe a personal trainer was the answer?

SCARLETT did her best to ignore Helix and his raging hormones. It was a difficult task when you were sitting at the same table (the only table) in the worksite trailer during your lunch break. It was a small space. On a construction worksite, there was plenty of space to avoid the ones you wanted to avoid; in a trailer, it was a far different scenario.

           They sat at opposite ends of the table. Things would have been fine if he had the courtesy to look at her with respect – one that made her feel like a human being, not just some piece of female meat to stick his thing in. But that wasn’t Hormone Raging Helix. She had lost count of how many times he’d given her the sleazy eye.

           The lunch break did nothing to help erase Scarlett’s bitterness.

           Her day had started off very poorly. She had expected follows, likes, and comments to have flooded in from the provocative photos she had posted. It had amounted to almost nothing. A couple of follows, a couple of likes, a pathetic and unwanted comment reading, “YOUR TITS COULD BE HOTTER!”

           “Hey Helix, why don’t you take a walk to the office trailer. Martin wanted to talk to you earlier,” George said.

           Helix didn’t budge from his seat. “He can wait until I’m finished eating,”

           “Don’t want to keep the superintendent waiting,” George said. “He’ll fire you before the end of the day.”

           “Whatever,” Helix grumbled. He took a couple more bites of his ham sandwich and then gave in, exiting the trailer in a huff.

           “And Helix has left the room,”George said. “At least we can enjoy some of our lunch break.”

           “Thanks,” Scarlett said quietly. She was thankful George was eating lunch with her. He knew Helix could have waited to go talk to their boss at the end of the day. She knew George was trying to provide her some relief.

           He said, with a kind smile: “No problem.”

AFTER work, back in Brookside, Scarlett stopped in at Sculpted, the town’s only gym. She was straight to the point, telling the front-end employee that she was looking for the best personal trainer they had. Ten minutes later, Scarlett was sitting down with a very physically well-toned woman in her thirties. They sat at small table near the front entrance.

           When Scarlett was asked what her fitness goals were, she pulled out her phone and showed her images of beautiful and slim young women. That was who Scarlett needed to become so the online attention would flow her way. It could even get me into starring in movies! she thought.

           It wasn’t long into their conversation that Scarlett found herself not liking what the trainer had to say.

           Scarlett didn’t want to have to sweat and train month after month after month. She didn’t like being told the images she showed were filtered and manipulated. That was how she need to look!

           “I need to look like that,” Scarlett repeated. “Just make me look like that.”

           “Scarlett…” the trainer started.

           “It’s your job to give me that body—just do your job.”

           “I really don’t think we’d be a good fit for training,” the trainer said, trying to let Scarlett down easy. “I can talk to Joey for you. He’s a good trainer. Maybe that’d be a better fit.”

           Scarlett shot to her feet. “Then why are we even talking? You’re wasting my time.” She gave the chair a kick, hard enough to knock it over on its side. She dashed out the door.      

LATER that evening, sitting on her bed, she was back on her phone.

           Nothing. There was barely any change from first thing this morning. Only one more follower on her Instagram, which still had a pathetically low number.

           If she couldn’t get her numbers up, that meant she’d never get the attention she craved. And without people’s attention, how could she be famous?

           And, of course, Marika was a whole different story; her followers were always increasing. And it never seemed to stop.

           All this time, after their encounter with the blade in the bathroom, Marika Goldbath was still a problem in Scarlett’s life. Marika posts a photo of herself in a bikini and gets likes and comments telling her how gorgeous she looks.

           She slipped under the covers, closed her eyes trying to let sleep consume her. After twenty minutes of tossing and turning, still all worked up and flustered, she gave up.

           Screw it. She was going for a drive. She had to clear her mind.

           Her mom was fast asleep. The car was available.

           It was time to get away from this pathetic excuse for a bedroom…for a little while at least.

THE temperature outside was perfect, not too warm, not too cool, just right.

           Scarlett could have driven around town, but why? She wanted to get away for a bit, not drive by the same old homes and buildings she’d been passing since the day she was born.

           Dirt roads and open fields surrounded the edges of town. There she would find some sense of tranquility. It was what she needed.

           Scarlett drove the 2008 Ford Ikon, with its blotches of rust infecting the wheel wells and a few more spots here and there on the hood, down Milford Avenue straight out of town.

           She let her mind wander. What would be her next move? What would garner her the attention she desired?

           A kilometre out of town, she took aright onto Road 32 East.

           The gravel, washboard surface rattled the car. It sounded like a piece of the engine was about to come loose. The shocks groaned and squealed as the car suffered the road.

           She slowed down a little. It wasn’t hard to hit a loose patch of gravel and lose control, zinging off the side of the road.

           And then something off in the distance made her slow down even more, some kind of light cutting through the darkness. Getting closer, it became obvious what it was – vehicle headlights.

           Scarlett stopped her car near the light source and took in the scene. A black Toyota Tundra lay in the ditch on the side of the road. The truck was flipped upside down.

           She left her car running and got out, using her headlights helping to illuminate the area. Walking over to the truck, she thought she recognized it. She was sure she’d seen it before. When she saw a decal on the rear bumper reading EAT MY DIRT!! she knew exactly whose truck it was.

           Skid marks chewed up the gravel and the grass leading directly to the turned over truck. It was obvious the driver had lost control.

           Scarlett became aware of the humming from the truck engine still running as she edged closer. The back windshield had been damaged, and the side paneling was scratched up and dented.

           Reaching the driver’s side window, which was blown out, she saw a single body lying in the cab. The front windshield was spider web or cracks.

           “You okay?” Scarlett called out overthe running engine.

           No answer.

           It didn’t matter. It was kind of a stupid question. A smash-up like this didn’t leave the occupant all fine and dandy.

           Hormone Raging Helix didn’t look like he’d be walking away from this crash.

           He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and had paid for it. Blood was smeared over the left side of his face. Drops of red covered the mangled windshield. His eyes were closed, his body dead still.

           Was he alive?

           Scarlett got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the truck. That’s when she saw the open and empty beer cans scattered near Helix; it seemed he had one too many and decided to stupidly get behind the wheel. She rested two fingers against the side of his neck and felt a pulse. He was alive, but damaged.

           She pulled her phone from her pocket and was about to call for help, then stopped. The guy didn’t deserve her help. He hadn’t respected her since the day they’d first met. Why should she help him?

           No, she had a better idea.

           She pushed in close to Helix and said to him, “Hey pervert, how was your ride?” She chuckled and smiled, framed a photo of the two of them and took a picture.

           “You got what you deserved,” she told him, then pulled her body out of the truck.

           She went back to her car and looked at the recent photo. Good enough. It worked for her.

           As for helping Helix Brown, someone else would come by eventually.

           She got back in her car and continued down the road.

SCARLETT didn’t see Helix at work for the rest of the week. The superintendent informed them all that Helix was lying in the intensive care unit in Barlow General Hospital. Helix would be back on his feet at some point, but it would be a slow recovery.

           That sucked. Scarlett had hoped that he would never be back on his feet.

           She still had the photo with Helix from the accident on her phone.

           When work let out for the day at 4:30 p.m., Scarlett took the bus to Catherine Street, a block away from Findlay Drugs. She was in need of Prima shampoo. It was pricier, but it made her hair look silky smooth and vibrant and was worth the extra few bucks. She had to look good for her online photos. Her future fans deserved it.

           Having been in the store a few times, she knew the layout well enough. Wasting no time, she headed straight for the hair care section.

           At one end of the aisle, she made a quick stop when she saw her main nemesis from high school. Marika was stocking the shelves (the shampoo section to be specific), looking as beautiful as ever and wearing a Findlay Drug Mart t-shirt. She had never seen Marika working here, so she must have started fairly recently. Scarlett eyed her with a disgruntled stare and kept her distance.

           A male customer walked up to Marika.They had a laugh, shared a smile. The guy appeared to be infatuated with the eye-catching employee.

           He’d probably become another one of her social media followers. Watching them, that’s the only thing Scarlett could think of. Marika had won another fan, and she didn’t even have to do anything. It was that easy.

           Scarlett backed away, disappearing out the store entrance. She could pick up her shampoo somewhere else. On the way back to Brookside, Scarlett sat in the back of the bus. She checked her social media accounts. She shouldn’t have. All it did was infuriate her off even more. Even showing plenty of bare skin wasn’t bringing in the numbers. Things had to change. She needed a new strategy.

           She forgot about the social media world, for now, and didn’t look at her phone again the rest of the way back to town.

WITH only a bedside lamp illuminating her darkened bedroom, the sunlight outside her bedroom window having fully vanished, Scarlett lay on her bed, glued to her phone, scrolling through the realm of social media and its influencers. She scrolled through online profiles made public for the world to see. It was impossible not to envy the number of followers that many people had obtained.

           Now what, Scarlett? she asked herself. What was her next move? She had to make one. She was tired of being a no one and working an everyday job. She needed to be someone. Waking up and going to work was becoming more painful each and every day.

           She put her phone down for a moment beside her, closed her eyes, and imagined…

           She smiled and chatted the director about her first upcoming major movie role, telling her how excited he was to be working with her, how her millions of online followers were just dying to see her on the big screen.        

           Her eyes popped open. From out of nowhere, the Nike brand slogan popped into her head – JUST DO IT!

           Okay, she would. She found the photo of her and Helix busted up in his truck. She posted it to her social media feeds. She knew it was risky, considering the content of the image, but she didn’t care. She needed to get some traction on upping her social media engagement. And the dark side of life fascinated some people. The world needed to know Scarlett Unger.

           But she needed more images, ones that would keep getting her the attention she craved.

           She needed others to help bring her into the spotlight – someone who she needed to face once again.

SCARLETT knew exactly where this specific “someone” lived, 255 Ashton Street, and she expected her to be home.

           It was close to 10:30 p.m. Scarlett’s mom had no idea where her daughter was, having fallen asleep on the couch while watching some slasher movie on TV. Scarlett pulled up to the front of Marika’s house.

           Standing at the front door, Scarlett didn’t hesitate to ring the doorbell. She was here for a purpose. She needed a popular girl at her side to pump her social media up, and sometimes you had to use people to get where you needed to go.        

           Of course, Marika might not be home,but Scarlett hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

           The wait at the front door was short,and thankfully she was greeted by who she wanted to see.

           Marika eyed her very cautiously.

           After all, Scarlett did give the young woman a nice cut to her calf, one that would have left a permanent scar on Marika’s perfect skin. And even though the cut happened long time ago, some memories always remained fresh.

           “Hello, Marika,” Scarlett said. She forced herself to sound as pleasant as possible.

           Marika took a step back.

           Don’t back away from me, Scarlett thought. But she slid her feet back a few inches creating a little more breathing room between the two, hoping to make Marika feel a little more at ease.

           “What do you want?” Marika asked, keeping her hand glued to the door handle, ready to slam it shut if needed.

           She doesn’t trust me. Scarlett would have to layer on the kindness. “You look good.” That was an understatement. The girl was dressed in an old t-shirt and mid-thigh length shorts, her hair was flat with no style, and she still was a knockout. It was no wonder her social media presence was amazing.  

           “I need to talk to you about something,” Scarlett said with a fake smile.

           “Get the hell away from me,” Marika demanded and started to close the door.

           Scarlett’s left hand clenched into a tight fist. You arrogant—

           And then Scarlett snapped.

           If Marika had gone along with it – just taken a couple of nice photos with Scarlett for her to post on her social media – there wouldn’t have been a reason for the police to show up. Instead, she tried to slam the door on Scarlett’s face. And then it was game on. Scarlett grabbed a handful of Marika’s hair and started pulling; she pulled her enemy right out of the house into the front yard. She had never heard someone scream for help so loud in her life. Of course, Scarlett recorded the event with her phone.

           When the police arrived on the scene, two male officers jumped into action, managing to pull Scarlett free of Marika. Scarlett had been so intoxicated with the moment, she hadn’t even noticed the flashing lights pull up to the house. And once Marika was loose, she ran nearly hysterical into her mom’s arms.

           Right before handcuffs were wrapped around her wrists, Scarlett had managed to shove her phone back into her pocket.

           As mother and daughter rushed back inside the house, Scarlett was led into the backseat of the police cruiser.          

           The drive to the police station gave Scarlett time to contemplate what had just happened. Was she sorry? No. Not even a drop of remorse.

           Why?

           Because, in her mind, becoming famous was no different from life itself – it was all just a game. You had to make your move, play your cards a certain way to get where you had to go. Move here. Move there. To make it to the top, one had to play to win.

           She spoke up from the back seat. “If you’re not famous, you’re no one.”

           The officers didn’t say a thing.They didn’t even glance her way.

           It didn’t matter.

           They were idiots who didn’t understand.    

           All she could think about was how many video views she would get of Marika being dragged around by her lush hair in her front yard. Scarlett felt a wave of excitement raging through her.

           “If you’re not famous, you’re no one,” Scarlett rep