Page 7 of Who’s Playing You (In The Nick of Time #1)

SCOTTIE ANDERSON

I t’s nearing five o’clock by the time I leave my studio.

After the most bizarre encounter of my life this morning, I holed up in my studio and just…

couldn’t stop sketching and painting. I had the strangest wave of inspiration flow over me after seeing that guy.

I forgot to eat, and as a result of that I felt my blood sugar was now pretty low.

To be honest, that was the real reason for leaving the studio. Dehydration and malnourishment were not conducive to the creative process. Not for long at least.

But I suppose it was time to head home anyway. Not that much waited me there besides four white walls that were covered in photographs that I had taken and developed in the dark room. But, oh right, an empty fridge waited for me too.

Oh rats!

I guess I just had to make a pit stop at the Caffeinated Cock if that was the case. It was such a hardship, really.

I might be a simple girl, but I was high maintenance when it came to my caffeinated beverages. I also had a dangerous sweet tooth, so I for one loved a great pastry to go along with my drink of choice. Throw in a full-fledged bakery / coffee shop - well that was my definition of heaven.

The Caffeinated Cock was the absolute best coffee shop in the entire county. Fortunately for me, it was on the corner of the street I lived on. I was there so often that the staff knew my drink orders based on my attire.

Apparently how I dressed often reflected my mood and cravings. Or so they told me.

As I rounded the corner, leaving campus and nearing Main Street, I looked over my shoulder yet again - like I had been doing since I stepped outside my studio space. No one was there, just like twenty seconds ago when I had looked too.

By this time, hours had passed since I had that strange encounter. I had partially talked myself out of the whole thing - maybe he’d been looking at- and waving to someone who was behind me, but I’d been so caught up in the… whatever, that I hadn’t noticed.

I mean, I was a logical person and that made logical sense.

Right?

After all, what would some guy - a very hot stranger - be doing looking at me and then waving?

Nothing good, is the conclusion I came up with.

So unless I was looking to be on the next Friday night special episode of Dateline or 20/20 , I’d need to keep my wits about me.

I didn’t have getting kidnapped on my bingo card this year.

No thanks.

So I’d chalked the whole thing up to one of three things.

First, the scenario with someone being behind me and me stupidly thinking he was looking at me.

Second it could be a case of mistaken identity, like he mistook me for someone else.

Hey, that could happen! Or, thirdly, the whole kidnapping scenario.

I was waffling back and forth, trying to figure out which of those was most likely, but frankly, it felt like a three-way tie at this point.

Not willing to risk being the next star of Dateline , for all of fifteen minutes of fame, I decided that I should be more cautious. I mean, it couldn’t hurt.

With that thought, as I stepped into the street, I almost got hit by a passing car.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oh my God, what was I thinking? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I’m literally contemplating the ways in which to prevent being kidnapped and murdered, meanwhile I walk myself right into oncoming traffic.

Get it together, Scottie!

After looking around and seeing that no one witnessed my near-death experience, I quickly hustled myself down Main and pulled open the front door of the Caffeinated Cock, only to be met by a gust of chilled air from their amazing air conditioning.

Quickly following that was the aroma of my favorite coffee and the sweet, sweet smell of sugar and baked goods.

This was literal heaven. My nerves and embarrassment quickly dissipated.

But also… I just had a near death experience - sort of. So imagine… what if I were dead? What if this were heaven? Could I just exist here for eternity? I probably could.

“Hey Scottie! Late one today, huh?” Gina called from behind the counter where she had just taken an order and moved to the espresso machine.

I loved Gina and her no nonsense attitude.

She was your typical trendy barista with a Bass Pro Shops baseball cap on, black T-shirt with a quippy saying and baggy jeans.

“Yeah, I guess so. Later than normal I suppose,” I replied to her with a smile as I neared the counter to examine what was left of today’s pastries.

“Ron’s thinking about letting me try out a new end-of-summer drink. Can I make you one? You need to give me your honest feedback though. He’s not sold on it yet, but I think it could be a great weekend special or something, ya know?”

I nodded my head at Gina. “That winter drink you came up with last January was one of my favorites and did really well, so why’s Ron giving you a hard time now?” I replied.

She waved her hand in dismissal as she foamed the milk for the customer that was down the counter from me.

“You know him, he loves to give me a hard time. But underneath his rough exterior, he’s just a big ol’ softy.

He’ll let me do it, he just likes to think he’s making me work for it.

But we all know damn well that the last two drinks I’ve come up with really hit the spot and got people talking. They blew up our Instagram too.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. People were flocking here on weekends, making it impossible for regulars like me to…”

Before I could continue she cut me off, “Oh stop. That happened one time , and you know it! But you still got your latte without much of a wait, so technically you can’t complain.

Not too much at least. But we can’t control the power of the ‘Gram, and frankly we don’t want to when we have results like those. ”

“True… ish. I guess. And what do you mean, what’s ‘The Gram’, like a telegram?”

“Scottie, Jesus! What, do you live under a rock? Instagram !”

“Oh. Yeah. I knew that,” I lied.

She rolled her eyes and then looked down to finalize the design of the milk in the cup in her hand before taking a few steps to hand it to the customer, who promptly walked away.

“I sure hope you do, because by the sounds of it, you’re not sure. But also, you should know.”

I tilted my head in response to that comment, “What do you mean?”

“Well, considering your Instagram game is kind of on point, I guess you do know all about it.”

“My Instagram game is on point? Gina, I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“I mean, Scottie, that you’ve got like 50k followers on your Instagram.

So I’d hope that with that kind of following that you somewhat know what you’re talking about,” she said as she grabbed her phone from her back pocket and proceeded to unlock it and clicked an app that brought up what I assumed was Instagram.

Before long she was thrusting her new and shiny phone in my face, with her large and clear screen sans cracks, where - sure enough - was an account that had my name and art on it. And sure as shit, the account actually had 66k followers.

“Holy shit, Gina!”

“I mean, yeah. That’s kind of a big deal. Good for you girl.”

“No, I mean, holy shit - as in, I didn’t do that. I didn’t set that up.”

She pulled her phone back and looked back down at the account. “It says Scottie Anderson though…” She looked up at me, “And I’ve seen some of your art, Scottie. This is your work, right?”

I nodded my head. “Well shit, girl. I don’t know what to tell you.

You’re on the internet. And look,” she leaned on the counter and turned the phone so we could both look down at it.

“It’s not like it’s someone pretending to be you.

It has your name, your art, your photos, and all the contact info is to you, right? So I don’t know what to tell you.”

“What’s that there?” I asked as I pointed to the profile info.

“Oh, that’s a link to your website.”

“My website? I don’t have a website.”

“Umm, well, you do now!”

She clicked the link and it opened a browser and sure as shit, it opened to the most beautiful website where my art was plastered all over it, along with photos of me - some of which I don’t think I’d ever seen before.

As we navigated through the site, I realized that it was fairly minimal in that it only showcased a representative sample of my work. And when we came to the contact info page, it linked to my email address as well as the gallery that represented me on occasion.

I quickly realized that I had been naive to think that all the inquiries I’d been getting lately and the work I’d been selling as a result of it in the last few years, specifically in the last two since my divorce, was through word-of-mouth. Or maybe some of it was.

The more likely scenario was that it came through the gallery that represented me.

And likewise what would make the most sense is that the gallery set all of this up.

Oh! That made perfect sense. I’d have to give Marie a call to not only discuss with her the show she wanted to put on with my work in November and December, but I’d also have to question her about this.

Never did I remember her mentioning that they created social media or a website for their artists, but then again, they’d been representing me for years now. And together, we’d sold a lot of work. It’d make sense they’d do a little extra for their more established artists.

I’m sure this was the gallery’s doing.

“Oh you know, the gallery that represents me probably did all of this,” I said to Gina and brushed it off, while an uneasy and nagging feeling fell over me.

Gina turned her phone off while straightening from the counter, pocketing her phone, and then replied, “Well that’s one hell of a gallery you got yourself there then. They’ve got some top-notch folks doing God’s media work.” And she chuckled, and I joined her.

“So anyway, tell me more about this concoction of yours that Ron’s not sold on.”

Her eyes lit up and she immediately started animatedly explaining her new iced caramel and brown sugar explosion, while grabbing syrups, ice and cups. Looks like my dinner would be nothing but caffeine and sugar, in liquid format.

But what else is new?