THE FAMOUS PERSON — SARAH LAYDEN
/(A)
The famous person likes being famous, duh, and hates it simultaneously. What she wouldn’t give to walk down the street without the eyes of the world upon her. What she wouldn’t give to eat at a restaurant without her choices being scrutinized and run through an online calorie counter. Her dress entered into a database where it is matched against others wearing the same dress, their measurements calculated and compared. Numbers which then are sized against other famous people from history. What would her dress have looked like on one of America’s founding fathers? On Joan of Arc? On Jesus? There will come a time when the photographers forget her, and even though the restaurant is empty, she will proclaim her catchphrase with conviction: I wore it better than Jesus.
(B)
The famous person doesn’t like me. I have sent her a deck of lucky playing cards from Vegas, cans of the name-brand electrolyte water she mentions on her daily blog, and a small pocketknife I once used in the Scouts. She sent back everything but the knife. Online, she posted a picture, blade open and caressing her throat, with the caption “Obsess much?” I favorited it and commented, “I do.” Electronics-wise, we are nearly but not quite at the point where this will constitute legal marriage. Videochat to consummate. But for now. For now.
Sarah Layden is the author of the novel Trip Through Your Wires. Her short fiction can be found in Boston Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Monkeybicycle, Booth, PANK, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Indiana Writers Center. Find her at http://www.sarahlayden.com/
