THE VOICEMAIL

The bottom line, Ms. Blue. Leave Mark alone. You crushed that man. Why not, you're just a drunk. Big media star, and you can't handle the booze. Gilead? Angels Flight? That's your excuse? Bottom line, Mark's mine now. Leave him alone. Neither of us need you. Ha! You, you trending on social media. Hash-tag Rita is what people say. Why don't you just crawl into a Bacardi's bottle and fuck off. If I see you in Montreal, if you get near us, I'll make you sorry. Mark's a good man, and you fucked around on him. At your age! How does that even work? Have you looked in a mirror? I guess the rum helps. What a bitch.

BUSY-WORK

At least June and Nick arriving in Canada gave me something else to think about.

I know why June hates me. I'm a poser and she knows it. She blows shit up. Tuello said that the jets didn't just blow up at the Airforce Academy, she'd rigged it so that it would take out part of the runway. June 'Maximum Impact' Osborne. That's our June.

I'd read one author updating the term 'Mayday' with 'Juneday'. God, I wish I'd thought of that. She was a one woman wrecking crew, making good on her vow never to heal. Fighting with anyone who would even try. June, she was going to burn Gilead to the ground, or die trying.

At this pace, probably both.

I'VE BEEN LYING

It's pathetic that I would lie here, tell untruths while typing. Yes, I've been lying to you. How sad is that? Lie, then conveniently omit both the sin - as well as the lie about the sin - at confession.

I've been drinking. I'd been drunk dialing Mark in Montreal. Apparently. As usual, I have no memory.

Mark has a new girlfriend. I want him to know that the fault is all mine. I can explain. I'd cheated on him - can't even remember with who. (With 'whom'?) There I was sitting in bra and panties in the back of a Toronto Police Service cruiser, slowly coming aware. Handcuffed in a police car gets one's attention, especially with no clothes on. Cops in the front giggling about my age, the guy had said, "She could at least have been 40 years younger. Yuck." The woman had told 'Ray', to 'shut the fuck up'.

I'd never told that to any priest.

I'd bragged that being chewed out by the legendary June Osborne had not sent me off into a bender. As my A.A. sponsor had said, "Whoo-fucking-ray for you."

Many other lies. But you, gentle reader, are not my priest. I'll make do.

I miss Mark. If we could just talk, we could make things the way they were. I can explain.

TRENDING

Me, I'm trending on social media. Me.

Whatever that means. Syl and Em's kids try to tell me what that even is.

Why now? Why not when Angel's Flight had landed? That's when I'd been on the fund-raising posters. The kids were trying to tell me that 'Angels Flight' had been in those 'MySpace days', when the dinosaurs roamed.

The disturbing thing, Mark's lawyer in Montreal has written that I was to 'cease and desist' from social media, or else it would be used in the divorce proceedings. Oliver had said, 'don't worry, Auntie, that's just a pro forma letter.' Easy for Oliver to say. I understood none of it, and didn't want the divorce to begin with.

So I pour myself into June and Nick.

Two pieces of big news for Syl and Em's daughter. First, she got the Chief of Staff position. That lasted all of three weeks.

Why? Well coincident to her elevation, her MP was made a parliamentary secretary for immigration and refugees. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship was widely regarded as weak, so needed propping up. It wasn't even the MP that the PM had been eyeing, it was his new Chief of Staff. The present Minister had many years ago been the one who'd waffled about baby-Nichole's status in Canada. Emily and Moira had spent a night in jail after 'bird-dogging' him. These days, his Chief of Staff was none other than Emily's daughter. She called it 'karma'. She was being eyed by the PM to keep Canada from making 'rookie mistakes' with regard to Gilead.

Although my priest preaches against it, let's face it - karma is a beast.

Second piece of news? Emily's daughter's elevation and visibility, combined with her resemblance to Serena Joy, had also been tending on social media. Now in the public light of her MP, her resemblance to her biological mother had a hashtag of its own. (Whatever that means.)

Her MP had held firm, he was not going to fire her. But sending her down here to Toronto to work with Tuello was a good cover. Much buzz circulated that as a result the PM was going to rotate him out of his parliamentary secretary position, but that was not true. None of it. The PM held firm. Why? Enter Mark Tuello. Ooooooooo, the intrigue. With this much going on, could June Osborne be far behind? June blowing shit up.

After a whirl-wind introduction to 'on-the-ground', cutthroat Ottawa politics, she was now taking a week here in Toronto with her moms. Or two. Or three. With Oliver. Oliver was taking a leave of absence from his law-firm too. The firm was a big contributor to the PM. She officially suspended, but unofficially with the most important file in the Canadian political arena.

As it was, it was now all hands on deck at Syl and Em's house. Exciting! Mark Tuello was there. He hadn't gone back to Kauai afterall.

When I came into their somewhat crowded living room, I was in time to hear Tuello conclude a long speech he'd been making.

"Ok, that's the skinny," Tuello had intoned. "You folks are considered to have the most potential impact on June Osborne. To rein her in. Get to her, you get to Blaine. She and The Commander are still at the Embassy. Osborne has gone out a couple of times - Canadian authorities have no cause to pick her up." He said that looking at Em's daughter, who herself held a file aloft with June's name on it.

Seeing me, he stopped, looked at me and smiled. "And here she is, Instagram's woman of the year." He then explained what I was all about. "As long as it is Rita Blue trending, we can deal with the Swiss. If a bright light gets shone on to Nick Blaine, all bets are off." He sat down and picked up the beer that Sylvia had brought him. "If Gilead manages to make Blaine trend instead of Rita, all bets are off. It'll spook the Swiss. Lives are at stake. If Blaine trends, don't buy him next year's calendar for his birthday. He won't need it."

Tuello repeated, "Ok, folks. How do we get to June?" He then sat back and drank his beer.

ME IN THE KITCHEN CLEANING

So there we sat, silently in the room. Even Tricia was there, silent behind her dark glasses. We were the group with leverage against June. Which explained why no one had any ideas. Emily's daughter was the link with the Canadian government, Tuello was the American. Me, apparently I was the distraction on social media. But the big question: how to get to June?

I asked Oliver to show me the hashtag that had both my Mark's and my name on it. Oliver said it would be better if I did not see it.

"Hey, Rita, how is it?" It was Tricia on Emily's arm, coming in to the kitchen with some plates from the gathering. Almost everyone was now gone. Me, I was at the sink. These plates simply would not come clean. My counselor told me simply to acknowledge the voices in my head telling me that stains on the china lead to nooses on the wall. So I acknowledged the voices and moved on.

Emily said, "I'll let you off just this one time, Rita. Next time, you don't set foot in here. Got it?" I smiled and told Em that, yes, I got it.

Tricia said, "That was pretty crappy what that Tuello-guy had said." I assured her that he had started with a sincere apology, even as he had spared no punches with the group.

Tuello had said that if Blaine/Gilead started trending, that that would set off Canadian nutcases, fringe people - en masse - who'd be motivated to help Gilead operate here - with the intent of 'getting to Blaine'. "Keep them from trending," Tuello had said, and it is harder for Gilead to occupy Canadian shadows. Gilead has no access to nutcases on the ground." Tuello said that our group needed to tame June, so as to be able to talk rationally with Blaine.

Ya, right. Talk to June about 'tactics' which didn't involve C-4. Right.

"What we could really use right now," he'd said dryly, "Is for Rita's divorce to get really ugly." I, apparently, now had the power to crowd Gilead out of cyberspace. Me.

My quip that no one laughed at? "Pass the Bacardi's and let's get started."