by Sophie White
Ali was drawing a blank until the girl prompted, ‘Remember? The day you were talking about how pregnancy is like one big nine-month-long hangover?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Ali had actually been hungover for real that day and then realising the symptoms of early pregnancy were virtually identical to a hangover decided to run with it. It had proved very popular content.
‘Anyway,’ the girl glanced over at Holly and Shelly, ‘thanks for being so real about your life. I was really anxious when I first found out I was expecting and seeing you talking about you and Sam and stuff, it’s really, really helped me. Anyway, I’ll go now!’ She gave Ali another awkward little hug and then, as an afterthought, said to Shelly, ‘Oh, congrats on your new baby too, Shelly!’
Ali tried to stay composed as the girl hurried back to her friends but it was too much. Being singled out like that! And in front of Shelly and Holly! Ali was putting everything into not jumping up and dancing a little victory dance. She could see Shelly taking it all in and she didn’t look too pleased. She couldn’t wait to tell— well, she’d be pretty stuck to find someone that’d be interested TBH.
Kate had dropped off somewhat since Ali’s meteoric rise and things had been cool between them on WhatsApp.
Liv would listen alright but then she’d go and type it all up in her thesis to impress Emer Breen. She had, thank fuck, finally stopped berating Ali at every opportunity for lying about the pregnancy. She wasn’t happy about it but she was resigned to it. Also, she was now using many of Ali’s strategies (Liv called them ‘antics’) as fodder for her thesis. But Ali was just happy to have Liv talking to her again – Angry Liv was Scary Liv – and what did it matter if some elements of her life were being mined for the thesis. Her name was changed and the only people who’d ever read it were Emer Breen and a few academics.
This, Ali supposed, was the biggest drawback of her Insta-plan: even though she had gained more followers than she’d ever dreamed of, she was losing touch with Liv and Kate and was being forced to keep Sam at arm’s length. It was total fuckery, really – typical to get everything you’d always wanted and then not be able to enjoy it because of a pesky little lie. She’d said as much the week before to Miles on her routine visit. His silence felt vaguely consolatory somehow.
She’d taken to confiding in him more and more, especially since she was short of people who she wasn’t feeding some version of a lie, or avoiding altogether – she’d been giving Mini a wide berth. Mercifully, Mini was so far removed from the Insta-world that there was little danger of her hearing anything. Telling Miles seemed to take away the guilty feelings, momentarily at least. Thinking of Miles jolted her back into the moment. She was supposed to be at Ailesend before 4 p.m.
She tapped back into the conversation in time to hear Holly say, ‘Holistic Mama Retreat at Fannart Lodge – it’s very exclusive’.
Shelly was all ears. ‘How long are you thinking?’ she asked.
‘The retreat is seven days long – the programme is designed for that length of stay. I know it’s a big time commitment for you both but, between us, it is truly a luxury experience. Adrienne Mae, the woman who created it, is from California and apparently all the A-listers have gone to her retreats in Napa Valley. Reese Witherspoon, a few Kardashians. They want to launch in Ireland and we’ve hand-selected the clients who are attending.’ Holly dropped her voice and mouthed, ‘It’s two grand a night.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Ali blurted, then clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry – obviously I wouldn’t say that kind of thing at the mamas’ retreat.’
Holly continued, ‘You two are the only blog— ahem … mothers of influence who we’re inviting. Polly is going but she’s paying the full fee.’
Shelly looked keen. ‘Did you mention the dates to Amy?’
‘She says she can clear your commitments, but you might want to check with Dan first?’ said Holly and then, seeing Shelly’s disdainful reaction, immediately backpedalled. ‘I’m so sorry, my god. I didn’t mean that you’d have to check with your husband.’
Ali was intrigued – she’d never seen so much as a slight frown sully Shelly Devine’s immaculate features. And this looked like full-on annoyance. Ali flashed back to that night weeks ago when she’d been on her way to meet Tinder Sam and Shelly had been in her hotel room. Something about her faraway shots of Dan had seemed off.
Ali glanced across the lawn to where Amy had headed earlier but there was no sign of Dan now and the place was beginning to empty out. Was he waiting in the car obediently? She could see Sam standing over Polly and Hazel, speaking animatedly, and her stomach churned at the thought of what he might be saying to them.
Ali hadn’t felt immediately sold on the week-long retreat but maybe it’d be a good thing – she needed to slow things down with Sam. Soon he’d be demanding to meet her family and come to doctor’s appointments. Plus, he was dying to tell his sisters about the baby. Luckily Sharon was in Oz and wouldn’t be back for a couple of months, which Ali’d leveraged to convince him to hold off. But it was tricky when she was broadcasting it on her Stories ten hours a day. She’d blocked him once already and he’d texted her an hour later demanding to know why he couldn’t see her profile. She’d brushed it off as an accident and he’d seemed satisfied, but it was annoying having him on there. Also why the hell was he on Instagram?
‘Straight-man Instagram must be so weird,’ she’d remarked the previous night as he uploaded his pic of a burrito and captioned it with the burrito emoji.
‘Well, it’s no “I’ve tattooed my eyebrows on to look like a pair of leeches and my highlighter’s so bright, my face is glowing green”, but it has its own subtle charms.’
‘Do my eyebrows look like leeches?’
‘Yes, but in the most adorable way possible.’
Later he’d sent her a pic of her with little cartoon leeches drawn on her face. It got eighteen thousand likes. She’d hashtagged it #SamBeLike, as she did with most of her couples content. But she had hesitated right before sharing it. Would Sam mind? Would he think she was using him? The thought had rocked her and she’d felt breathless, her heart stuttering because, of course, this, sharing little texts and gifs he sent her, was nothing compared to the truth.
When the panic attack – though she could barely bring herself to call it that – passed she’d hit the Post button. You’re in too deep anyway, Ali, may as well ride the wave. A PR had DM’d an hour later inviting her and Sam to a hotel she repped for a couples’ weekend. ‘You guys are so cute!’ she’d written.
The irony that the one thing she wasn’t faking was the thing everyone had latched onto wasn’t lost on Ali. Her feelings about Sam were real – she knew this for certain. If they weren’t, every kiss and cuddle wouldn’t be so marred with regret and foreboding. Some time apart would be good. Ali knew it wasn’t a solution – it was just staving off the disaster that she knew lay ahead one way or another.
Going to the retreat would be like treading water on the Sam thing – they could text and Facetime and they wouldn’t need to do anything regarding the baby. She’d be a week closer to the Glossies and scoring the Influencer of the Year award – everything else could wait till after that. They’d go away. Or she’d, she’d – god knows what, emigrate? It didn’t seem like the worst idea at this point, but it still didn’t solve the Sam problem. Her mind was mangled just thinking about it. Stay in the day, Ali, she mantraed, reverting to the one thing that had worked to keep her chill since the beginning of all this. Don’t think too far ahead, like, beyond tomorrow. Large-scale lying could be so stressful – why didn’t anyone ever talk about that?
‘I can deffo make time, Holly,’ Ali piped up. ‘Count me in!’
The marquee was nearly empty by now and Ali, Shelly and Holly started to make their way back under the flower arch and out to the chilly car park, where Sam was waiting, holding a balloon animal and eating a cupcake.
‘Ali!’ Hazel bustled back over to them. ‘We do a gorgeous little
get-together every month, a little #MamaMorning. Shelly’s hosting the week after next. You should come – it’s a great chance to swap tips, give each other’s account a little boost, and it’s good for us Insta-mums to be seen to be friends.’
‘Right.’ Ali grinned.
Shelly was quick to jump in. ‘We are friends, Hazel!’
‘Oh, relax, Ali knows what’s up.’ Hazel winked at Ali. ‘She knows you don’t get to five digits without a little clever networking, never mind the six digits – though you’re getting there, aren’t you, Ali?’
‘I’m nearly at sixty thousand now,’ Ali said. ‘So hopefully a few more weeks.’
‘Well done.’ Hazel smiled a tad aggressively and started herding the kids towards the minivan her driver had just pulled up.
‘See you then.’ Polly waved in her meek fashion and headed after Hazel.
‘Hazel seems so … different to her Insta,’ said Ali carefully.
‘Hmmm,’ was apparently the best Shelly could come up with.
‘She seems really nice, though,’ Ali added hastily, unsure how close they all were.
‘Well—’ A commotion at the minivan interrupted whatever Shelly’d been about to say next.
‘We’ve done a head count. This is not one of mine,’ Hazel was roaring, shoving a kid back towards the assembled PRs. She hopped into the passenger seat and the car sped away, leaving the PRs to deal with the slightly dazed little girl.
‘Well, that makes me less worried about whether I’m actually fit to be a mother.’ Ali giggled and Shelly joined in. ‘I’d better grab Sam – he’s probably off his head on all the sweets!’
‘Ali, I hope you’re OK after what happened on set. I heard Stephan was being horrendous.’
‘Yeah.’ Ali didn’t want to sound worried. ‘Things are going fine so far. I’m picking up lots of bits with the Insta thing.’
‘Well, just be careful.’ Shelly looked tired as she scanned the car park for her car. ‘It can suck you in but don’t let it take over. The real things are what’s important.’ She sighed as a dark car pulled up. ‘See you week after next – I’ll DM you.’
Ali watched her go, with an eerie feeling in her tummy.
18
Shelly sat in her dressing room feeling apprehensive. The day’s filming involved her character, Imelda, throwing one of her regular lingerie parties, which naturally required Shelly to wear the wares. The wardrobe mistress, Dee, was holding up option after sheer, frilly option which Stephan was energetically rejecting while shouting down the phone in a corner of the dreary, windowless room. He vetoed every piece that would cover more than the barest minimum for their primetime, pre-watershed spot in the schedule.
‘If we can’t have a hint of a nip, can we at least go for some side boob?’ He was wrangling the head of drama on the phone and shaking his head furiously at a black silk teddy that Shelly felt slightly better about, seeing as it was pretty close to a nightie.
This is why I need to ditch this, thought Shelly bleakly – she wouldn’t be a prude about her body if the role actually meant something to her, but she hated Imelda. She hated having to ham up her Dublin accent, and the stories they gave her were always so weak. Imelda was the slapstick character, always up to stupid schemes like her lingerie parties and that time she and her brother tried to rig the bingo. She was rarely involved in any of the grittier storylines on the show, though Amy was adamant that this was for the best – if Imelda started doing anything too hard-hitting on Durty Aul’ Town, it could upset the SHELLY audience.
Finally, Stephan appeared to reach a détente with the department head – at least if his parting words were anything to go by: ‘Fine! She’ll look like she’s selling fucking burka-inspired knickers but whatever. Keep your precious family audience happy.’ He slammed down the phone and wheeled around to Shelly. ‘Looks like you can keep your tits to yourself then.’
‘You’re making it sound like I was the one desperate to flash them around!’
Stephan snorted at this and Shelly felt a bit better. Aggro Stephan was a nightmare to handle.
‘Right, your nips are off the hook, Shelly, but we still want a bit of titillation – OK? Dee? You have the prosthetic nipples?’
‘Ah, yes, I have them somewhere – now let me see …’
‘What is a prosthetic nipple?’ Shelly tried to hide her distress. Why did she have to fight this oafish loon for even a modicum of dignity?
‘I’m looking for a very specific look with this scene, Shelly.’ Stephan slipped into his ‘serious director’ mode, grabbing a chair and turning it backwards so he could straddle it while he talked his special brand of shite. ‘I’m thinking a kind of Bernardo Bertolucci feel.’ He was making a most unfortunate cupping motion with his hands.
Amy had walked in just in time to catch the prosthetic-nipple chat and was looking scathingly at Stephan. ‘What, like Rachel in Friends? Total nipple domination?’
Shelly was delighted to see Amy. Stephan hated her and on cue he dismounted the chair and headed for the door. ‘Make sure you go for a light-coloured dress, Dee, to show off those nips,’ he called back.
Dee looked queasy as she rooted in a large plastic crate filled with Imelda’s jewellery and general accessories. ‘I put them in with the willy hairbands from that time Imelda had a hen party,’ she said, straightening up and proffering the curiously realistic-looking nipples.
‘Cool.’ Amy feigned mild interest before snapping into business mode. ‘Dee, can you give us a minute, please?’ Shelly was fussing with the nipples as Amy shunted Dee out the door.
‘Shelly, we’ve got a problem,’ Amy began, sounding oddly brusque.
Her tone jolted Shelly out of the nipple reverie. She raised an eyebrow and Amy continued.
‘This is awkward.’ She fiddled with her iPad cover, opening it and closing it again.
Shelly was immediately alarmed. ‘Awkward? I don’t think I’ve seen you looking awkward ever. You sat in on my pelvic exam last week to get shots for the account and looked positively bored.’
‘Yeah, yeah …’ Amy waved the image away. ‘Look, I know this isn’t your fault but my pay didn’t go through this month.’
‘Oh. What?’ Shelly was stunned. ‘I’m so sorry. I can fix that straight away – just let me get up the online banking.’
‘I’m not sure that’s going to work, Shelly. I was at the house this morning. I was getting a few pics of Georgie in her new outerwear for that #KidsUnplugged campaign and I ran into Dan.’
The implications were slowly dawning on Shelly. Why had Amy’s pay not been debited when it was a standing order every month? It came out of Dan and Shelly’s joint account. The same account all the money Shelly made went into. Shelly’s only account, as it were. Plum’s sage words on the eve of her and Dan’s wedding were echoing in her mind. ‘Always have a running-away account,’ she’d advised, dragging on her cigarette in her worldly Plum way. But Shelly had thought nothing more about it. At the time, she’d made next to no money compared with Dan. Of course that had all changed.
‘Oh my god.’ Shelly eased herself down into a chair. ‘He’s … what? Frozen the account?’
Amy nodded slowly. ‘Looks like it. He told me that he wasn’t going to bankroll me exploiting his family for one more second. He was pretty upset.’
Shelly could feel the tears coming and, even though it was going to mean a trip back to make-up to be touched up, she let them fall.
‘Goddamn him,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, Amy. This whole thing is turning into such a mess. I have to get on to the solicitor – he can’t just do this.’
‘Yeah, I’m really sorry it’s going this way, Shel.’ Amy had never sounded so sincere – it was strange to see her so solemn. ‘Look, you never know, marriages go through phases. Like, my mam and dad went through a big phase of fighting with each other after the recession, and it definitely looked really dodgy for a while there, but they’re great now. I think Mam was on the verge of
kicking him out but then she went to have her cards read, which is her version of counselling, and had some kind of epiphany.’
Shelly sighed. ‘I dunno which Dan would hate more: counselling or tarot cards.’ She tried to smile but found she couldn’t. ‘It’s just a really difficult time. I can’t lose him. Not with this baby on the way. But he can’t just expect me to ditch SHELLY after all we’ve put into it.’
‘Look,’ Amy’s eyes were fixed on the floor to her right, ‘I reckon I need to disappear for the foreseeable. I know the money’s not an issue in the grand scheme of things, but I think Dan won’t ever come around if things stay the way they are.’
‘Please don’t go.’ Doing SHELLY without Amy suddenly seemed as daunting to Shelly as losing Dan.
‘I’m absolutely not going, Shelly,’ Amy replied calmly. ‘I’ll just be taking a step back – you need to take over the reins for a while. Luckily, in the early days, I put together a contingency plan for this exact eventuality. I’ve set daily reminders for all the things you need to post to Insta. There’s files with a huge catalogue of #OOTDs with corresponding captions ready to copy and paste. There’s a folder with evergreen content, inspo quotes, #TBTs, attractive acai bowls and charcoal pastries on marble tables. I’ve set you up with a lot of stock stuff that you can push out as and when you need it. All I ask is that you don’t mess with the consistency, Shelly, OK? It’s been a while since you’ve managed this thing and TBH the audience is so much more on it now – like, if I’m three minutes late uploading the Thankful Thursday post, they’ll be in the DMs straight away.’
Shelly was slumping ever lower. ‘This sounds … so overwhelming.’
Amy came over and put her arms around Shelly. It was so completely un-Amy that Shelly had to laugh. ‘Shit, now I know it’s a crisis if you’re hugging me.’ Shelly smiled through her tears.
‘Your face is wrecked,’ remarked Amy, pulling away and resuming her handover speech. Tapping around the iPad, she showed Shelly the various files and calendars. ‘I’ve emailed you a daily and weekly breakdown of the schedule. Plus a monthly calendar of brand collabs. There’re docs with stock answers to pretty much all the comments and DMs. Just keep an eye and make sure you change them up every time or the eagle-eyed Shell-Belles will be all over it, calling you out for not being real. There are a few new features as well – the IGTV is pretty straightforward.’ Amy showed Shelly a few more commands on the phone and then pressed it into her hands. ‘I’ve included a little step by step on how to upload. All the photo editing is easy enough in FaceFix.’