“What is this?” Gene didn’t mean to sneer, but he could kind of feel his lip do that thing Tracy hated. But so what? She was doing stuff she shouldn’t, too.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“That’s what you always say.” Gene groaned and kind of leaned into his hands with his elbows right in the middle of Mrs. H’s desk, right there in front of the computer screen.
“And it’s working. Look how popular it is. Look how many people commented on the Facebook wall? Market penetration? I’ve got it drenched.”
“Market? My guitar? When did I ever ask for that?” He didn’t worry about bursting her bubble. Tracy was on a roll. Nothing would get through to her. “And when did you take this?!” He pointed at the picture of himself holding the guitar in the Photos section.
“Oh! Yeah, that’s one of the best ones. Everyone loves it.” Tracy grinned. “No one’s inured.”
“Inured?” Gene didn’t even know what that meant, let alone what she was really trying to say.
“In… In… Um…” Tracy scrolled down through a bunch of comments, then pointed at a word on the screen.
“Immune?”
“Yeah. See. It says right here that no one is immune to your charm.”
“And you’re all right with that?” Gene looked hard at her face, trying to pick up anything like jealousy. It’s not like Tracy couldn’t get jealous, just that she tended to do it when he wasn’t expecting it and didn’t when he was.
“Well, yeah. Of course.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone might try to steal me from you?”
“Pft. How can they? All they know is that you have a guitar. And that your name is Gene, and that you live in Madison, Wisconsin.”
“Seems like that’s more than enough,” he said, po’ed that she hadn’t considered whether or not he wanted any of that on the internet. “And they know what I look like, and that I’m still learning to play it.”
“But no one knows how old your are or anything.”
“Yeah, I can tell. They think I’m older. Like this one.” He pointed to a comment. “ ‘He radiates sexuality. I just want to…’”
“Don’t read that! Read this one.” She pointed. “ ‘ Judging from the patina, those initials have been on that guitar for a while. It was probably done at least ten, maybe twenty years ago. That means any musicians in their twenties now would be too young.”
“Huh. Yeah.” That was a good point. Gene resisted the urge to go look at his guitar, maybe guess how old it is. Then he noticed the comment right under where Tracy pointed.
“You look very familiar. You’re name is Gene? And you’re from Madison? And you don’t have a family? I think I might be your mother.”
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