‘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.’
Shelly turned the phone over in her hands. It had been forever since she’d really used this phone. She had another that they called the bat phone, for personal calls and texts. The SHELLY phone had pretty much been in Amy’s possession since her first day in the job, bar that overnight in Ballinahagh House – and look how that had turned out.
Shelly opened the camera and snapped a selfie of her tear-streaked face. It had practically been years since she’d taken her own selfie! Maybe this was going to be fun. She pretended to upload the crying selfie to Instagram – turning the phone around, she consulted Amy. ‘What filter should I put on this, d’ya reckon?’
Amy gasped and made a lunge for the phone. ‘Don’t even joke. A slip of the finger and that’d be up there for all to see. And there’s no deleting posts nowadays, Shelly. Everyone’s very fucking fast with the screenshots. You’d delete it and it’d be straight up on Rants.ie within minutes with a dozen wans all bitching about “why did she delete that?” “oh, she must have something to hide”. Seriously.’
Shelly laughed but then saw Amy looked perturbed. ‘I won’t do anything, Amy. It’s fine – I can be trusted with my own Instagram account.’
‘Look, there’s something else you need to know.’ Amy glanced back at the door, ensuring it was closed. ‘It’s—’ She stopped abruptly and walked to the door, yanked it open and checked the corridor outside. Deserted. She stepped back in and closed the door.
‘OK, you’re freaking me out.’
‘The night of Dan’s meltdown in Ballinahagh House,’ Amy began, ‘we tracked down every single person who was in the dining room but,’ Amy paused and sucked in a panicked breath – Shelly had never seen her so tense, ‘we couldn’t find one witness, a girl.’
‘Kelly’s Klobber,’ Shelly breathed. She felt her stomach drop. She just knew – she’d had a niggly feeling ever since that night. Even though Amy had insisted all was fine, she just couldn’t imagine a hungry blogger like that would let it go so easily without trying to capitalise on it for all it was worth.
Amy nodded, eyes down. ‘I’m so sorry, Shelly. I know I lied to you and that was unprofessional. I was just trying to keep it all contained. And I didn’t want to stress you out.’ Amy looked beseechingly at her. ‘I thought I could fob her off, get her onside with a few political likes. You gave her account a shout-out the week after the meltdown and I know she did well out of it – she gained about three thousand followers overnight, I checked.’
Amy looked despairing and Shelly couldn’t summon the will to be annoyed that she hadn’t told her. Amy had lived and breathed SHELLY for two years. Shelly knew she would’ve done everything in her power to neutralise Kelly’s Klobber. She checked the time – her scene was about to shoot. The timing of this couldn’t be worse.
‘What has she said so far?’ Shelly started pulling on a pair of flesh-coloured control pants to better suck in her first-trimester bloat and was suddenly flooded with pity for this poor unwitting baby soon to be lobbed into this mess – a dad living in a Seomra in the garden and a mother trying to appeal to a potentially psychopathic fashion blogger’s better nature. Not to mention the prosthetic nipples. She finished stuffing herself into the Spanx – it’s worse than bloody cardio – and put her ivory silk teddy and knicker set on.
‘So far nothing at all,’ Amy bit her lower lip, ‘which makes me more nervous than if she was coming at us with all-out threats. I feel like she’s biding her time. I’ve sent DMs saying how much we’d appreciate her discretion and how much you love her account and that we were giving her shout-outs and stuff, but nothing. I think she’s toying with us.’
‘What does she want?’ Shelly was fussing with the fake nipples and starting to stress about her lines – all thoughts of Imelda andDurty Aul’ Townhad been shoved to one side as she’d tried to absorb the idea that she had a potential blackmailer on her trail, and now she couldn’t even remember the opening words of the scene.
‘I dunno,’ said Amy helplessly. ‘It’s not Insta-likes anyway, I tried that. I think it’s one of two things – a) money, pure and simple. Which is obviously gonna be a major problem given Dan’s latest power move.’
‘What’s b) then?’ Shelly was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear the answer.
Amy shrugged. ‘Destruction? Mayhem? Wreck your life? Humiliate you?’
‘Oh c’mon.’ Shelly tried for a laugh. ‘Is that not a bit OTT?’
‘You never know with these internet people, Shelly. To quoteThe Dark Knight, some people just wanna watch the world burn.’
On this unsettling note, a sudden pounding on the dressing room door startled them both.
‘Fifteen minutes, Shelly. Thanks!’ It was Ruairí the PA doing the rounds, rousing the various players required for the next scene.
‘I have to get down to make-up to fix my face.’ Shelly gathered the day’s sides and gave her perky rubber nipples a final tweak. So typical of my life that in the midst of things falling apart, I’m wearing prosthetic nipples, she thought ruefully. ‘Let’s try not to assume the worst about Kelly’s Klobber – maybe when she knows she’s got my attention she’ll be satisfied.’
Amy looked doubtful and Shelly hated this new role reversal – usually she was the stressed one and Amy was in control. Nothing had ever got to Amy like this before, even that time they came under major fire for putting a tanning product on Baby Georgie for a #spon post to illustrate it could be used on even the most sensitive skin.
They headed to the door and Shelly paused, hand on the handle, and turned back to Amy. ‘Look, stay on set today, please? Maybe we can get more of a plan together between takes?’
‘Yeah.’ Amy seemed to be returning to her usual efficient self. ‘We do have more handover stuff to discuss beyond the bloody Kelly’s Klobber debacle.’
‘Oh?’ Shelly was not in the mood for any more revelations.
‘It’s just, ya know, it’s nothing, but I don’t want you getting complacent. Following has dropped off a little since the beginning of the year and you need to keep an eye on that. There’s more and more competition, that’s all. And they’re young and thirsty. Influencer of the Year is not in the bag yet and @AlisBaba is seriously gaining ground.’
‘So,’ Shelly grinned, trying to lighten the mood, ‘you’re saying I’m a dried-up old has-been whose most engaged follower is a stalker?’
‘Basically, yes.’
Well, fuck, thought Shelly, a rarity for her. Shelly never said the f-word and she certainly didn’t think it too often either. But, god, with the divine Dan putting her money on lockdown, a potential stalker out to ruin her in the wings and Amy going on hiatus, leaving her holding the baby, nothing in her life was looking too on-brand right now.
