by Sophie White
‘That is so exciting, Shelly, wow! Oh my god, it would just make my life to get that wild card!’
‘Well, you’ve got the heads-up on it anyway.’ Shelly winked and tapped her nose. ‘No ’gramming that now or I’d be in major trouble.’
Shelly continued onto set as Ali considered the news. Getting that nomination was a long shot but a long shot Ali’d been waiting for, a chance to get some notice and seriously up her Insta profile.
5
The next morning Ali began her Insta prep early. It was still dark out and the heating hadn’t kicked in yet as she sat in front of the ring-light, smoothing serum over her face. She was feeling super-positive about the wild-card nominations – this was the boost she’d been looking for. If she could just nail a spot in the Glossies everything else would fall into place. Glossie Life, the best-read women’s mag in the country, would be promoting her account; the other influencers would know who she was. It was going to be huge. She’d even swapped shifts with Ruairí, one of the other PAs, so she’d have the whole day off to prepare.
She’d also put Liv on notice, WhatsApping her the night before. She might hate Insta but Ali’s #OOTD shots had come on in leaps and bounds since she’d first started haranguing Liv to photograph them. Liv had replied:
I’ll do it but no lengthy location scouting, Ali. I am chained to my desk. Emer gave me an extension for the purposes of salvaging my thesis, not shooting 450 different options of you doing hip-pops and trying to ‘find the light’.
Yesterday’s meeting with Emer must have gone OK – maybe an unanticipated upside of being screwed (literally) by your tutor was that they didn’t really have an option but to give you an extension when you needed one.
Ali brought up her profile as she blended her foundation. Really, she wasn’t doing so bad for only having been around for a year. Nearly ten thousand was not terrible by any stretch. And she would surely double that by the time the awards came around in four months’ time. If she nailed the post today.
Interrupting her thoughts of 20K followers and Glossies glory, Ali’s phone buzzed to life and the words ‘Mini calling’ began flashing.
Ali felt sure no good would come of answering this call but her mother had a hold over her, a kind of nefarious force that meant Ali felt compelled to hit the green button.
‘I know you’re still mad at me so, believe me, I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t absolutely have to, but there’s been a disaster with Edmund in Paris and I have to get over there and do some damage limitation. Miles’s consultant is coming by today and one of us has to be there, and since I’m already on the plane, I’m afraid you have to, darling.’
At this Mini drew breath, giving Ali just about long enough to catch up with the fact that her whole day was being hijacked by her mother.
‘But, how’re you calling if you’re already on a—’ Ali tried to cut across her.
‘You’d swear a visit from the consultant,’ Mini steamrolled on, ‘who we effing pay a private fee to, by the way, was akin to a sighting of the messiah for all the advance notice we get. Anyway, anyway, anyway, you’re going to have to get up there, Alessandra. And the worst part is there’s no exact appointment. It’s like a DHL delivery – he’s coming between 10.30 and 4.30. You’re so good – let me know what he says. Bye, darling, thanks, thanks, bye, bye, bye.’
‘But—’ Ali tried again, however the call had already ended. ‘How about “Are you free today, Ali? Would you mind going up to your dad, Ali?”’ she hissed venomously at the silent phone, which then buzzed back to life, giving her a fright. It was Mini again, as though she’d heard Ali’s words.
Ali hit Accept and Mini’s voice rang out once more. ‘I’ve forwarded you an email with questions for the consultant.’ Then she was gone again, no hello or goodbye.
Ali felt like crying. The day had kicked off to a great start. She’d prepped outfits, and even nicked a roll of coloured paper the evening before from one of the studios at work to use as a backdrop so her outfit would really pop. Now she felt completely ambushed. It was hard work sometimes just getting into a good mood and then trying to preserve it. How would she do the Glossies wild-card post now?
She placed the phone on her dressing table and tried to compose herself. A single two-minute exchange with her mother was basically the equivalent of cardio and Ali’s heart was pounding furiously. The slight queasiness she experienced any time she had to visit her father in the nursing home was also kicking off in the pit of her stomach. Frustrated, she brought her fist down on the table, causing her phone to jump. It hurt a lot. And somehow that felt better.
‘Ali?’
She started at the sound of Liv outside the door. ‘Yeah, yeah, come in,’ she said, trying to sound normal.
‘Are you OK?’ Liv poked her head around the door, squinting as she peered into the semi-darkness.
Ali felt a shiver of slight self-consciousness – she really should tidy up; there were empty Bulmers cans on the floor right by the door. She hoped Liv wouldn’t look down. ‘All good, just Mini completely screwing me as per usual,’ Ali said, laughing lightly, hoping to distract Liv from the state of the place. ‘She says I have to go up to the home and sit there all day waiting for the consultant to come by, probably just to say all the stuff we already know.’
‘Aw, Ali.’ Liv made to come over for a hug but luckily caught her foot on a partially concealed bag on the floor and stumbled, the threatened hug mercifully scuppered. Ali was relieved – it was harder to keep it together when people were nice to her about Miles.
‘It’s fine, I just need to figure out how I’m going to do this outfit of the day pic.’ Ali started gathering up bits of clothes and make-up and stuffing them into a bag.
‘What? You’re still …?’ Liv looked mildly disturbed. ‘Maybe you just need to go and be with Miles and, you know, focus on the important stuff.’
‘This is the important stuff too. Hey, will you come with me for a bit and just take a few shots? It’ll only be an hour, I promise.’
‘Ali. Do some sponcon in a nursing home? That’s a bit … dark, like, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not sponcon – I wish.’ Ali laughed. ‘Come on, please! There are no good mirrors there to do it with myself.’
‘Eh …’ Liv looked deeply uncertain. ‘It seems creepy as fuck, no?’
‘It’ll take literally two minutes – nobody’ll notice even,’ argued Ali, pulling on jeans and a jumper over her stained pyjamas.
‘Well, I’m really sorry but I’m glued to the desk today, remember? I told you I have to go back to Emer today.’
‘Sure look, grand, I’ll swing it one way or another. Maybe I can ask one of the nurses.’ Ali swept the contents of her dressing table into a large make-up bag.
‘Is that a joke? I feel you’ve drifted far from reality here!’
‘You don’t understand. If I can just get this wild-card entry it’ll be a springboard to the next level.’
‘You sound brainwashed,’ Liv said flatly. ‘And I feel like you’re ignoring your dad—’
‘Liv!’ Ali’s voice momentarily hit a higher register before she collected herself and tried to breathe slowly. ‘I’m not ignoring him. I don’t mean to ignore him. Look, this is a healthy outlet for my creativity.’ Ali was trying to reassure herself as much as she was Liv. Liv didn’t understand the terrible guilt she felt any time she thought of Miles. ‘Good luck with Emer and stay strong. Remember, she made a huge mistake ditching you – you’re a hot bitch and she’s old as fuck! I’ll see you later and don’t forget to like my outfit of the day pic!’ Ali did some jokey air kisses, grabbed her bag and headed down the hall and out to the car.
Ali spent the drive to Ailesend enthusiastically bitching on speakerphone to Kate and layering on ever-more-bonkers amounts of contour crayons when stopped at traffic lights. Kate was the only one of the school gang who was in any way interested in the Insta-world. She was hatching her own Insta-takeover that would come into ef
fect whenever Darren/Dave/John (was it bad that Ali couldn’t keep track of the various boyfs’ names?) coughed up the ring. Kate had recently secured the handle @ShreddingForTheWedding and was set on capitalising on her #WeightLossJourney to the tune of a sponsored wedding.
Nothing mad, she’d pointed out, just a mid-size boutique festival-vibes wedding with glamping and strict Coachella dress code. Darren/Dave/John had actually already proposed in an impressively elaborate spectacle comprising a rowboat, a string quartet and fireworks. However, Kate had dispatched him to improve on the ring (a perfectly nice solitaire) and tone down the proposal. ‘It’s all about the bride-chillah this year,’ she’d scolded him. ‘I can’t feckin’ Instagram this Pride and Prejudice reenactment – the proposal aesthetic needs to match the wedding, which will be Norfolk bohemian with desert influences.’
Ali wanted to be supportive so hadn’t pointed out that the bride-chillah theme seemed strongly contradictory to the ‘shredding for the wedding’ buzz. It seemed likely that Darren/Dave/John would be returning with an improved ring any day now.
‘So have you seen the Crystal Doorley pics?’ Kate’s voice sounded gleeful.
‘No! Spill,’ demanded Ali as she inched forward in the morning traffic. She felt better already, even with the unscheduled Ailesend visit taking up most of her day off. With the Glossies wild card she actually felt like she had a purpose. Maybe she could do Insta-content up at Ailesend more often – it’d be a good use of the time there.
‘So you know how Crystal never shuts the fuck up about being so totally natural, and never uses tan and only uses products that are cruelty free? Well, someone sent vintage posts of hers to Bloggers Uncovered showing her coming out of some tanning boutique – so much for all natural,’ Kate brayed.
Bloggers Uncovered was an anonymous account that specialised in calling out the lowly crimes and mid-level misdemeanours any influencers might be engaged in.
As Kate read captions from old Crystal Doorley Insta-posts in which she had foolishly gloated about being able to tan naturally, Ali mused on the wedding and what would be her inevitable relegation to the singles’ table. Relationship content was a pretty un-mined area for Ali. She hadn’t had a serious boyfriend since college, she’d wasted most of her degree mired in an angst-ridden on-again off-again relationship with Harrison – a tortured thesp she’d met in Players. In the last year, she’d briefly seen a guy called Ian who worked in lighting on the show but things had been busy, with long days on set, visits to Miles and attending any and every PR event in a bid to keep her perfect record of appearing in the diary pages of every Irish glossy intact.
When he’d said he was heading to Oz, Ali wasn’t too perturbed. She even got a good couple of weeks out of the wine memes and inspo quotes the ‘break-up’ provided her. She did a bit of online dating here and there and made sure to get loads of shots for future use, to post on those nights in with Liv when nothing was going on but a bit of Netflix and Scroll. The guys were grand for a ’gram but she couldn’t say she was that interested in them – she had a habit of writing them off for the most minor of infractions. One guy kept using the phrase ‘bantz’ while another was a big fan of recounting his exploits with ‘the lads’ and after a while Ali, bored of his shite, began keeping count of how many times he used the word ‘lads’. This became a useful barometer on future dates. She now had a ten-‘lads’-and-you’re-out policy, which apparently ruled out huge swathes of the males on Tinder. The fact was it was hard to like people. And maybe Tinder just wasn’t the place to find funny, enlightened men – though there had been that vaguely promising one a few weeks ago, Sam. If only it hadn’t ended so disastrously …
Ali navigated the traffic in the weak winter sun as Kate continued to gleefully relate the ins and outs of Crystal’s public shaming.
‘Now there’s this hilarious voicenote doing the rounds from some girl saying Crystal’s all-natural body scrub gave her some fungal rash.’ Kate was giggling away. ‘I’ll send it on to you.’
Viral voicenotes were the latest gossip craze. They spread faster than HPV, and even though many had been exposed as hoaxes, they were still good for a laugh. A recent one about a well-known politician going on a Tinder date blew up so much his department had to release a statement refuting the claims. About twenty people had sent that one to Ali in the space of ten minutes.
Kate now segued into talk of her impending engagement. ‘We’re going to do it in the farmers’ market. I’m just trying to find the perfect collarless cheesecloth shirt for Paul …’ Of course, that’s his name! thought Ali triumphantly, Paul. ‘And I need to get the mani done and probably put on a few more pounds still.’ For the wedding-shredding plan, Kate reckoned she needed to be coming from a ‘slightly heavier place’, as she put it, so ‘the emotional arc would have more impact’.
Ali could see the turning for Ailesend and cut in. ‘Darl, I’ve gotta go – I’ll see you at the launch tonight. Keep me updated and remember “carb diem”!’
Ali tapped the phone to end the call and swung in through the large stone entrance that led to a long tree-lined drive up to the nursing home. It was always quiet here and a certain hopeless quiet always seeped over Ali too as she neared. Coming here to the grim place where the man who’d taught her to swim and drive – and, yeah, occasionally annoyed the crap out of her with his corny jokes – now lived was hard.
At the end of the avenue was a mostly empty car park. Ali nabbed a space and took a breath. Ailesend could suck her down on the best of days and she couldn’t go there today. She stuck in her headphones and delivered a little self-talk: ‘The wild-card nominations are a one-shot thing, Ali. Stay focused.’ She hit the Instagram icon then opened the front camera, gave her face a quick check and started a Story.
‘Hey Insta-fam, I have the most amazing project in the works – I just can’t wait to share it with you. I’m heading in to a top-secret appointment, but let’s just say that it’s going to be epic.’
Ali replayed the Story, appraising her look and delivery. Ugh, she sounded bloody constipated. She deleted the Story and began again. Many attempts later and it still didn’t sound quite right. She was about to hit Record once more when an incoming call interrupted the shoot. Mini. Oh, fuck. Ali checked the time – 10.45. That couldn’t be right. She hadn’t been trying to record the same Story for forty-five minutes, had she? Mini would freak.
Grabbing her bags, she hurriedly rejected the call, jumped out of the car and recorded her exciting-announcement Story one more time. She hit Post and started towards the main entrance, sending a rapid-fire series of one-line texts to Mini, giving the messages the urgency of a telegram, assuring her that she was just arriving at Miles’s room.
Mini responded ‘Fine’ and Ali slowed down, relaxed again. She signed in at reception and made her way down the hall to the ward where Miles resided, as a couple of DMs pinged in from followers excited about her exciting news.
Ali had only begun the exciting-news thing fairly recently. She’d endlessly watched other influencers liberally breadcrumbing pending news and announcements, envious that they had such exciting and exclusive projects in the pipeline. Then she began to twig that she rarely noticed any of the announcements panning out. Some months later, they might post something with a caption trilling about how delighted they are that they can finally reveal … whatever the hell it might be. That’s when Ali started lashing up the odd announcement Story (never a post, as that would be more trackable) and enjoying a little contact buzz, knowing that somewhere some other girl was jealous of her fabulous meetings and exciting projects.
She clicked into the first DM – ‘Hope you’re OK, hun?’ – and was puzzled. Ali stopped just short of the entrance to Miles’s room and replayed the Story. Shit, shit, shit. Just behind her chattering face was a sign pointing right for St Bridget’s Ward. Feck, feck, feck. Ali’s mind raced – they’d all think she was getting work done.
Ali went back to delete the Story but it alrea
dy had over a thousand views (stats that would usually delight her). Sometimes a deleted Story was worse, people could be very quick on the screen-grabs. When an influencer drunkenly posted Ali’d immediately send a screen-grab to Kate before the girl sobered up and deleted it. Screen-grabs in WhatsApp groups were like cigarettes in prison, a form of currency to barter with your friends. Or, for more committed bitching, to post on Rants.ie threads – which obviously Ali would never do. Someone could be screen-grabbing this Story right this second.
Just then the door to Miles’s room swung open and Tabitha, one of his nurses, came out. On seeing Ali clutching the phone to her chest and looking stricken, Tabitha’s face shifted from smiling to concern. ‘Ali, are you OK, dearie?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Ali squeezed past Tabitha’s immense boobs and into her dad’s room, eyes darting, her mind frantically scrambling for a solution. ‘Hi Dad,’ she chirped at the figure lying prone in the bed. ‘I’m just popping to the loo.’
She ducked into the bathroom that adjoined her dad’s room, studiously avoiding looking at all the depressing paraphernalia: wipes and latex gloves and worse.
She should say something on her Stories to explain or distract. But what?
6
‘OK, Glossies launch tonight – we need to talk strategy.’ Amy was perched, her highly decorated legs entwined, on a high stool in the corner of Shelly’s walk-in-wardrobe-cum-office. Amanda, Shelly’s full-time make-up artist, was priming Shelly’s flawless skin on a neighbouring stool.