She headed down the hall to the bathroom, feeling bad for thinking such a horrible thought. Marni should clean the flowers because minders are supposed to do a bit of housework, not as some kind of punishment for showing up and enchanting Georgie with her big Disney Princess eyes and endless time for playing unicorns and whatnot. Shelly tried to convince herself that she would love to be playing unicorns and sticking glitter to stuff all day long but she had to work – especially now that Dan was sleeping in the Seomra in the garden and their marriage appeared to be hanging in the balance.
In the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and ruminated on the weeks since their return from Ballinahagh House. She’d arrived home to an empty house and learned from her mother-in-law that Dan and Georgie had gone to stay in her in-laws’ holiday home in Sligo. Shelly was bereft. She had known in her heart that things hadn’t been right between them for some time, maybe even since Georgie’d been born, but she’d calmed herself with articles about marriages having fallow periods and had even begun to believe her own Instagram narrative. How could her marriage be in trouble? Sure, there was a picture of them kissing on holiday right there on the grid (never mind that picture was taken three years before and being rolled out now as ‘fresh’ content by Amy).
She’d obviously worked hard to save face on her social channels, keeping up with her #spon commitments and doing posts that didn’t require her daughter or husband as props. Though there were only so many #metime #selfcare baths one could take to fill a feed. And with Dan’s words about her ‘sideshow of perfection’ echoing in her head, it had started to feel weird taking a bath for some me-time while Amy sat cross-legged on the floor, taking pics, horn-rimmed glasses pushed up on top of her head, and briefing her on forthcoming collaborations and updating her on what the other mumstagrammers were bringing out next. Podcasts, online stores, lifestyle magazines à la Oprah, a range of branded DIY tools, guest ‘curating’ the Aldi Special Buys, and on and on. Amy was adamant that the next SHELLY project be huge and, frankly, the thoughts of it all exhausted Shelly.
Dan and Georgie had returned a week later and Shelly felt things settle into a new normal of separate beds and civility. It was not a normal that Shelly liked. She felt she hadn’t had a chance to get a handle on the situation – there’d been so much on. Just yesterday Amy had brought the presentation for Q2 2019 to Shelly’s dressing room during her nail appointment.
‘Introducing Shelly’s Grow and Glow Pregnancy Roadshow!’
‘No,’ Shelly had responded flatly and they’d been bickering about it ever since.
Amy hadn’t seen Dan since the baby reveal had gone awry so it was easy for her to ignore that the SHELLY house of cards was dangerously close to collapsing. That very day they were about to attempt a subterfuge that went far beyond anything they’d ever tweaked in FaceFix. It was so bad Shelly felt another wave of nausea gathering pace just thinking about it. It was worse even than the time Shelly had posted a pic of a random baby she’d found on the internet when Baby Georgie was going through an unfortunate plain stretch as an infant.
‘Shel?’ Amy called from the other side of the door. ‘The Dans are here.’
‘Jesus,’ Shelly muttered, giving her clammy face a quick once-over in the mirror. ‘Is this too far?’ she asked her reflection. They were due at the Daddy Bears’ Picnic in an hour’s time and were in dire need of a ‘daddy’. Amy had lined up some Dan-a-likes for the Instagram coverage. Shelly felt deeply uneasy about the scheme but, as always, the SHELLY juggernaut was a law unto itself.
Amy had been emphatic. ‘We cannot miss this, Shelly. I know you think you’re safe up on your pristine pedestal at the top of the Insta-mummy shit pile, but, believe me, there are about a million wannabes just dying to topple you and they’re not afraid to get a little dirty in the process. Ali Jones is going from strength to strength – people are loving her budding romance with that Sam guy, she’s playing the whole knocked-up angle remarkably well for an amateur and her body isn’t as wrecked as yours. When you two shit out these babies, she’ll be bouncing back a hell of a lot quicker, so the best you’ve got to work with here is consistency and class. Green, Hilliard and Mason are massive – we need to show them you’re bankable. And that means showing up with a daddy bear and doing your nice girl thing. This world is moving very fast, Shelly – we need to adapt to keep up. In a few months SHELLY could be considered the untouchable heritage brand of the mumstagrammer scene – the Dior to Ali’s Isabel Marant – or it could be old hat. It’s up to you.’
Shelly agreed to the Dan-a-likes. And now they were streaming into the house like an odd parade of smart-casual clones. Shelly followed the identical haircuts as they made a left into the living room.
There were six almost-Dans to choose from and Shelly found a mad thought stealing through her mind: I could just let Dan go and pay one of these guys by the hour forever. The convenience of the proposition was verging on tempting. She’d go on date nights not having to hide her social media updates. Bringing out the phone mid main course wouldn’t set off a tsunami of sighs and clipped words for the remainder of the evening. Almost Dan wouldn’t give a shit about her phone – he’d be too busy watching the clock, counting down till he could knock off and head back to his real life.
‘OK, fellas, line up.’ Amy was herding the men around, demanding they turn this way and that. ‘We need to get a read on what you’ll look like on the phone from a distance, so could everyone do that, please?’ Some of the Dans were looking a bit perplexed. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Amy called encouragingly. ‘Put your phones up to your ears. Good boys.’
‘What’s, eh, this gig for?’ asked one of the Dans, who was using his hand to mime a phone.
‘Confidential,’ snapped Amy, moving down the line, turning the Dans this way and that.
Shelly hung back. She couldn’t bear to be too hands-on in this humiliating process. Amy joined her.
‘Chatty Dan’s talking into his hand,’ she remarked, arms crossed.
‘I can hear you,’ he huffed.
‘I don’t care,’ Amy called back. ‘He’s got a shitty attitude,’ she said to Shelly, making no effort to lower her voice. ‘And a flat ass.’
Chatty Dan looked incensed.
‘We should wrap this up,’ muttered Shelly. ‘I vote second from the left.’
‘Yeah,’ Amy agreed. ‘His tan is actually a better match with yours, tonally speaking. I always thought Dan’s was a bit clashy. And he’s actually taking the fake phone conversation seriously.’
Indeed, this Dan had gone quite method, channelling his inner Joaquin Phoenix for the assignment and conducting a heated conversation with his wallet. He concluded with the devastating parting words, ‘Well, I don’t care what you think, Mum,’ snapped the wallet shut flip-phone style and spun around with a flourish. ‘And … scene.’
The other Dans grudgingly applauded and Amy immediately started shouting them down. ‘OK, thank you, gentlemen. We’re going with James Franco here but thanks for joining us today and I’ll notify you if we require a stand-in at any date in the future.’
A stand-in for a stand-in, thought Shelly ruefully. What fresh hell is this?
Of course, the way things were going with Dan it didn’t seem like such a remote possibility. They’d reached something of a détente regarding the @DivineDanDevine Insta-account. Shelly and Amy would be honouring any outstanding contracts previously agreed upon and then phasing the account out altogether. The Daddy Bears’ Picnic was a bit of a grey area as it wasn’t strictly #sponcon, but Amy was trying to close a big deal with Green, Hilliard and Mason and didn’t want to rock the boat by not showing up with the prerequisite daddy bear in tow.
‘What Dan doesn’t know, Dan doesn’t know!’ she had exclaimed as she tapped furiously on her laptop, loading the calendar with fictitious Dan Devine brand contracts. ‘So long as we lash them in and save the doc, we can keep brokering deals. If it comes to it, you can always argue in court that they’d been agreed prior,’ she finished triumphantly.
Shelly was verging on awed by the sheer commercialism of it. She knew it was gross to be continuing to milk Dan during this rocky patch, but on the other hand, they would resolve this soon enough and it’d be madness to throw away all that they’d built with @DivineDanDevine. Amy was right – as long as they could explain it down the line, there was no need to be rash.
Shelly reflected on this as they gave the new Dan a spruce in the dressing room. Amanda, NDA signed in advance, was having trouble with the brief.
‘You want him to look like your Dan – why?’ She looked from Amy to Shelly to Almost Dan blankly.
