The sparkling debut novel from Sophie White set in the online world of social media and Instagram.
Ali Jones is hell-bent on achieving her #lifegoals: 10,000 Instagram followers and a win at the upcoming Glossie Influencer Awards. So when she inadvertently leads people to believe she is sporting a baby bump and immediately gains thousands of followers, she realises that the Mummy Influencer wave could be her ticket to Insta-success, even if off-screen it feels like her life is falling apart with what's happening to her beloved dad.
But then Tinder Sam, Ali's one-night-stand, resurfaces and seems determined to take his new role as baby daddy seriously. And falling for Sam is definitely not part of Ali's plan.
Meanwhile, Ireland's biggest influencer (and Ali's idol) Shelly Divine has it all...at least on paper. But beneath the immaculately curated feed, cracks are appearing. Shelly harbours a secret from her followers and, more importantly, her husband - but who will be the first to discover what she's been hiding?
As the Glossies approach, what will it take for the women realise what's truly important before they lose what matters most?
Release date:
September 5, 2019
Publisher:
Hachette Ireland
Print pages:
320
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‘Oh my gaaawd, you guys! The big day has finally arrived. I have been dreaming about this moment since I was a little girl …’
Ali closed the front door behind her and ventured further into the hall. The peppy voice, which was coming from the kitchen, didn’t match their dingy house. It definitely didn’t sound like someone who’d be hanging out with Liv, Ali’s best friend and housemate. Dumping her bag by the hall table and chucking her coat on the stand, Ali peered into the kitchen.
‘First things first, I’ve got to take you all on a tour of the vendors without whom this magical and momentous day would not be possible.’
Liv was feverishly taking notes at the kitchen table in the cramped room, her phone propped against the fruit bowl in front of her.
‘The Aperol Fizz bar has been generously provided by the Cocktail Boys – because we all know mama needs her pep to partay.’ The woman on the screen gave a slightly randy wink to the camera and slapped her own ass.
‘What are we watching?’ Ali pulled up a chair to join her friend.
‘The disintegration of society,’ Liv muttered. ‘AKA Instagram.’
‘Ah, is this essay research?’
‘Yep. I’m thinking there’s actually so much more to be said, though, it may even be enough for a research master’s.’
‘Oh my god, gals!’ Liv was interrupted by the intensely blonde, intensely polished woman in the phone. ‘Would you look at this flower arch made by my fave pal @EmmasPetals – isn’t it ah-mazing? There’s a discount code for all my followers at the moment. Just use “MamasMiniMadams” at checkout for 5 per cent off all orders. And don’t forget to follow Emma – she is just so inspiring.’
‘Whoa!’ Ali laughed. ‘Just to clarify, Emma’s a florist, right? Like, she hasn’t found a way to eradicate thrush or anything?’
‘They all talk like that.’ Liv grinned. ‘Everything is “amazing” on there. Or “empowering”.’
As if on cue, @MamasMiniMadams was back. ‘The amazing team from @EmpowerGrooming gave me my intimate grooming for this incredible occasion. They’re all about empowering women to feel our best and most hair-free on our big days.’
Ali mugged. ‘I do feel empowered when I shave my pits. Love how she hasn’t even mentioned the lucky groom yet.’
‘Oh no, this isn’t her wedding day,’ Liv corrected. ‘It’s one of the mini madams’ First Holy Communions.’
‘Shut up!’ Ali laughed.
‘Seriously.’ Liv picked up the phone to tap back a few Stories. ‘Look, here’s the little bride of Christ here. In custom Vera Wang, no less.’
‘Jesus!’ Ali whistled at the sight of the little girl mincing up a red carpet leading to a festooned marquee. ‘This shindig is mega. It’s like My Super Sweet Sixteen only with more rose gold and selfie sticks.’
‘And sponcon,’ Liv added. ‘Every scrap of this thing is being paid for by brands. It is one long exercise in pluggery.’
Ali held the phone closer, peering at @MamasMiniMadams’ highly choreographed entrance to the party at the top of a sweeping staircase, her white dress managing to be both gigantic and highly revealing. It looked like a fairy tale. She looks like she’s moving through a dream sequence, thought Ali. ‘Why is she so blurred?’ Ali glanced at Liv.
‘Oh, she’s filtered to fuck.’ Liv shrugged. ‘How was work?’
‘Grand, the usual madness. Every scene ran long and Stephan made one of the extras cry. I’d better change – I’m heading up to my dad.’ Ali returned the phone and headed to her room.
Ali sat on a bench at the edge of the car park of the nursing home where her dad lived. She had to go in. She’d been fannying around on her phone for ages, staving off the inevitable. It was so hard to go in there these days. He didn’t know her anymore and answering his confused questions was unbearable.
‘And, tell me, have you worked here long?’ he asked her the week before. ‘I have a little girl who looks a little like you.’
I’m that little girl, Ali wanted to scream, but she’d long given up correcting him. It was futile.
A WhatsApp from Liv dropped in, providing welcome distraction.
Thought you’d like an update on the Super Sweet Communion Extravaganza. The Carter Twins are now doing a set.
Attached was a screen-recording of the Instagram account from earlier.
Ali shielded the late afternoon sun from her phone screen. @MamasMiniMadams was wearing a different dress from earlier – Do people do outfit changes at Holy Communions? – and was being fed champagne by a Carter twin while the crowd whooped and hollered. Wow, that escalated.
‘Here’s my mum and dad!’ @MamasMiniMadams indicated an attractive couple in their sixties slow-dancing among the chaos of the kids, all high off their tits on giant doughnuts, and their tipsy, well-heeled parents.
Everyone looks so polished. Ali glanced down at her own grungy tee and faded jeans. And not just the people – their whole world gleamed. The clip ended on the Carter Twins being urged to ‘Take it off’ by a rowdy crowd. The Aperol Fizz had evidently gone to their heads.
Absentmindedly, Ali checked Instagram on the app store. ‘Like, capture and share moments …’ announced the app description. ‘Express yourself by sharing your day, the highlights and everything in between.’
Highlights are pretty thin on the ground for me, Ali thought ruefully as she hit the Download button. A few taps and she’d set up a new account – @Ali_Jones. She hit the camera icon in the top left corner of the app and glanced around the car park, checking she was alone, before holding the phone up to her face. It was like a mirror. She could see her tired eyes and the beginnings of a spot on her chin. Behind her the sign read ‘Ailesend Dementia Care Home’. She swallowed – Insta-grim more like.
She messed with the little buttons on the bottom of the screen. One gave her kitten ears and heavy eyeliner. Another bathed her in a celestial glow. The next button set off a beautiful wreath of pink flowers blooming about her head. Her blotchy skin was transformed. She still looked like herself, but as seen through a prism of perfection. The filter showed blooms at the edge of the frame, obscuring the sign just past her right shoulder. She turned her head this way and that but neither her flowers nor her new-found perfection slipped even for a second.
She snapped the picture.
It looked good.
‘Get up!’ Ali was startled awake by Liv huffing at the door. ‘It smells like underboob sweat and curry chips in here.’
‘Name a more iconic duo!’ Ali shouted, grinning at her housemate’s retreating back as Liv stalked back down the hall towards the kitchen. Ali shook off the fug of sleep and was hit with the fug of … well, herself basically. Sitting up slightly, she took in the room brimming with shite, a pale January morning leaking in around the brown velvet curtains, and then noticed a deeply unnerving, moist sensation.
‘Ick … what the f—?’ Her left hand felt weird and she realised she’d fallen asleep with it partially submerged in a tray of curry chips, while in her right hand was her phone, of course.
‘Gah.’ She carefully retracted her hand and held it aloft, away from her and the, admittedly, already fairly gross bed sheets.
With her right hand, she hit the Home button and impatiently keyed in the security code (all the same number for ease) and assessed her updates since she’d last checked at about 1 a.m. Three new followers, 180 likes on the #selfcare yoga post she only dimly remembered putting up last night and one comment from Dee, which basically didn’t count. Dee was a sweet girl from the wardrobe department at work, but she just didn’t seem to get that she and Ali were not friends.
Ali threw the phone to the end of the bed and flexed her fingers. ‘The phone claw’ Liv called it whenever Ali complained about her stiff fingers.
‘Is it a sign that perhaps clutching your phone in a vice-like grip while sleeping is not the healthiest of behaviours?’ asked Liv in the voice she used when she was pretending to be joking but was, in fact, deadly serious.
Liv had taken up sending her links to articles like ‘How to Break up with Your Phone’ in the last six months. To prove a point, Ali had begun to make a big deal of leaving her phone charging in the kitchen at night. Though this display of abstemiousness had necessitated the purchase of a decoy phone with matching cover. Expensive and probably indicative of an even bigger problem that Ali didn’t feel particularly keen to explore further. And anyway, decoy phones aside, her Instagramming was a fairly innocent little pastime.
‘It’s not a big deal,’ she’d argued with Liv only the evening before as they watched Cold Case File for the umpteenth time while Ali absentmindedly stroked the phone like a beloved pet, one eye on her feed and one eye on the TV. ‘Instagram is pretty and it’s fun.’ It was also something that seemed to be paying off, however slowly – she was closing in on nine thousand followers. The same could not be said for her attempts at playwriting since finishing college, which had just been wall-to-wall rejection and left her feeling utterly worthless.
After Liv had ambled off to bed, Ali’d lain alone in her room with the phone propped on the pillow facing her – the stories of beautiful girls with perfect lives washing over her – when she’d felt the familiar spike of upset puncture her trance-like state.
Emma O’Brien, a fashion blogger from Cork, was getting ready for the Rebel Gin event – an event Ali hadn’t been invited to. I have the same amount of followers as her, Ali thought, peeved. She hit Emma’s smiling profile pic to bring up the girl’s account. ‘Hmm – 11K followers. That’s up from a month ago …’ An hour passed and Ali, completely engrossed in a deep Insta-dive on Emma, had barely noticed. That was when she’d gone for the chips. And bought the wine.
‘It is Tuesday after all,’ she’d reasoned when her body veered almost of its own accord towards the Esso garage for a bottle of white. ‘I’m days from cracking 9K followers – that’s worth celebrating.’
The wine had stirred a bit of optimism (the first few glasses always did) and that’s when she’d put out the yoga mat, crystals and candles for her #selfcare post and slurred out a few thoughts in the caption about looking after yourself and practising mindfulness.
Now, remembering the optimism of the previous evening, Ali retrieved the phone, reminding herself that one of her #goals was to be more mindful of the good things and three new followers and 180 likes is no bad feat. Consulting the time – 7 a.m. – she soothed her mounting anxiety: lots of people would be barely up yet. Speaking of, she needed to get going. She had to have coffee with the mothership, Mini, at 8.30 before she needed to get into the TV station for work.
Ali was a production assistant on Durty Aul’ Town, the top and only soap opera in the country. When she’d taken the job to get a foot in the door, as her drama-studies tutor in college had suggested, she’d assumed it would just be short term while she figured out her plan. Then quite rapidly three years had slipped by and she’d gotten no closer to the writers’ room, and the more time she spent adjacent to a career in TV and theatre, the more she wondered if it was what she really wanted after all.
She hauled herself out of bed and sat on the side, carefully avoiding the now empty bottle of Sauvignon lolling on the floor and setting the chip tray down alongside it. She frowned at her greasy hand, holding it away from her before wiping it on the carpet. The carpet’s minging anyway, she figured.
She hit the search function on Insta and entered ‘S’, prompting the app to supply her with the name ‘Shelly Devine’. Ali opened the profile (Shelly Devine, 255K followers: Happy wife of @DivineDanDevine, mama to @BabyGeorgie, Loving the journey but the juggle is REAL!) and checked on the last post. The picture showed a pristine Shelly with soft dark waves cascading over her shoulders captioned:
The post, barely an hour old, already had 5,736 likes and 54 comments. What must that even feel like? Ali wondered. She hit Home and opened the Notepad app, selecting one of her docs in progress, ‘Shelly stats’. She updated the info then reverted to Instagram, liked Shelly’s selfie, added ‘You look amazing’ and hit Post. Ali slumped back against the pillows but then, feeling troubled, abruptly snatched up the phone once more. She frantically unlocked the screen and brought up the post of Shelly’s irritatingly immaculate face again. Hunched over the phone, Ali found her comment and hit Delete. She retyped ‘You look amazing’ and added seven exclamation marks and a heart-eyes emoji. She hit Post again and settled back against the pillows.
Ali scrolled through Shelly’s feed absentmindedly while she engaged in a few minutes of deep, gut-churning loathing towards Shelly Devine. Ugh, she’s so basic – why does everyone love her so much?
Ali frequently wondered who the 255K followers even were. ‘Who even likes this? It’s so vanilla,’ she raged as she scrolled obsessively over coffee, lunch, dinner and on her pillow at night.
Ali’s own meagre following had been building steadily since she’d joined last year but it was an uphill battle. She’d tried every trick in the ‘how to become an influencer’ book but thus far her biggest fans seemed to be her own burner accounts (@JamieC, @SheilaMalloy and @KerryConnor) who, combined, had about sixteen followers but were frequent and enthusiastic commenters on all of Ali’s pictures.
Coming up in a few months was the social media event of the year, the Glossies, where Ali had hoped to be nominated for Best Newcomer but really, at this rate, she’d be more likely to be hit with another bout of cystitis than make a splash in the influencer pool in time for it.
Just then, a new post dropped into Shelly’s feed. The pic showed a radiant new mum Shelly cradling her baby, captioned:
#tbt when @BabyGeorgie was the most perfect baby and I was bathed in all the new mum love vibes, and #blessed with the most wonderful breastfeeding journey thanks to NaturPro9400 the #supplement with the most effective blend of vitamins to promote milk supply and bonus (!) it does wonders for your hair and nails too, ladies. #spon #ad #NaturPro9400 #workingmama #collab #brandambassador #supplement #lovethis #workwithshelly #georgiedevine
Georgie Devine was only three but she had her very own Instagram account (189K followers) and endorsement deals and was brand ambassador for several well-known products including, somewhat bafflingly, a de-icing agent for cars. At least, I don’t have to sell my baby on Instagram for a bogus supplement, Ali thought cattily.
Leaning in and peering closer at the picture, Ali could see it looked like Shelly had done a bit of photoshopping on a little rash on Georgie’s cheek.
Then Ali felt mean. She couldn’t blame Shelly for cashing in on that sweet baby dollar; you have to work with what you have in this game. The problem was Ali didn’t have much by way of aspirational fodder for Insta.
She lived with Liv, who’d been her best friend since Ali had mistaken her for a foreign-exchange student on day one outside St Margaret’s secondary in Killiney.
‘Where are you from?’ she’d asked the small girl with dark hair, brown skin and headphones around her neck.
‘Bray,’ Liv had responded flatly.
‘Ah.’ Ali had been thrown.
‘We have Indian people in Bray, like.’ Liv was sarcastic.
‘Yeah, alright. I’m not a racist.’
‘You just assumed I was foreign!’
‘Well I’m not the biggest racist here then.’ Ali indicated the other kids in uniform awkwardly milling, waiting for the doors to open at 8.15. ‘I’m talking to you, at least.’
It was a gamble, but luckily Liv had laughed and that had been that for them, friends ever since. Though, while she loved her, Liv wasn’t much of a one for Prosecco boomerangs. Ali usually called on Jess, Clara and Kate, their school gang, who were much more up for nights out, though irritatingly they’d all coupled up in recent months and were forever making arbitrary trips to Ikea with What’s-his-name-again and staying in for takeaways and Netflix.
You’re twenty-fucking-five, Ali wanted to scream. You’re supposed to be out making the most of your youth. Though now at the midway point, Ali felt her twenties had been a bit of a dud thus far. A useless degree in Drama Studies and English and a ropey economy meant Durty Aul’ Town was the only thing between her and all-out failure, aka an unpaid internship. Writing was lonely and hard and when her Insta started to take off with her #wellness posts, selfies, carefully curated #OOTDs and behind the scenes posts of #TVlife on Durty Aul’ Town, she’d switched her focus almost instantly.
She saw so many other girls being plucked from Insta to go on to TV-presenting gigs and modelling gigs, getting book deals, make-up deals, tan deals – surely it would get her somewhere, even if she wasn’t exactly sure where she wanted to go right now. It could only be a matter of breaking in. She made sure she went to all the media events in town, trawling for freebies to open on her ’gram and being snapped for the social pages.
Liv liked going out, but her tastes ran more to pints and experimental instrumental metal gigs than anywhere the influencer crowd flocked. If Ali wanted to do a selfie when they were out, she’d practically hide rather than face Liv’s ribbing. Anyway she much preferred staying in with Liv. Watching crap TV and offering their own sarky commentary was more fun.
They’d moved in together during the second year of college. The house had belonged to Liv’s granny and looked and smelled accordingly but it was close to Dublin City University, where Liv had studied sociology and psychology and, after a year’s break, had now plunged into a two-year master’s in sociology with a view to pursuing academia. Social media was, in fact, her area of research. Ali had a major trek out to work and her mum’s house on the south side, but Liv’s parents charged them next to nothing, plus it was close to Ali’s dad, Miles.
She waded through the sea of clothes that covered most of the carpet towards the far corner of the room, where she’d fitted a small section of pale laminate wood-effect flooring on top of the frankly offensive brown carpeting that Liv’s granny was so devoted to – it covered the floor of nearly every room in the house including, most creepily, the bathroom.
Ali cleared the faux-marble-topped dressing table in her ‘Insta-studio’, swept a face wipe over her face and scrubbed at last night’s smudged eye make-up. She switched on an enormous ring-light mounted to the wall to her right beside a large round mirror and appraised her face. The lasting effect of Esso wine meant her wide brown eyes were looking more than a little bleary and her dirty-blonde hair which fell in waves past her shoulders was attempting to form a single giant dreadlock. She consulted the time – 7.20. Better get going. Mini was never late and it’d be a terrible shame to cut into her berating time. She whacked in some eye drops and began the lengthy hair battle. Ali’s face had come good since the days when the boys at school had called her a ‘fugly dog’. She’d had a pretty intense awkward stage spanning about a decade – who didn’t? And options for self-improvement were limited back then; you couldn’t just filter yourself into oblivion in every pic. After such a shitty adolescence, Ali saw her creamy skin and high cheekbones as a form of karmic redistribution.
Of course, the definition of ‘pretty’ had changed drastically, even over the last couple of years, and Ali, like most of the influencer crowd, had made some subtle improvements. Her top lip had always seemed a little thin so she’d had it filled last year – which meant, of course, that her bottom lip definitely looked a little thin so she’d plumped that one up as well. A little filler in the cheeks and Botox around the eyes were all pretty standard but lately she’d been more and more concerned with her nose. It was more prominent than she liked, though that would be a different level on the surgery scale. Filler you could do on a lunch break but noses were an undertaking.
Liv, naturally, did not approve. ‘You’re looking more like that crazy cat face lady by the day,’ she’d erupted when she found Ali scrolling through #newnose on Insta one morning.
Mini hadn’t even mentioned the little adjustments. Either she thought they were an improvement or she was too preoccupied with work to notice. Mini Riordan was a key player in the Irish art scene – her gallery, Ait Art, represented the biggest artists and she chaired about a million boards. Plus Mini had Miles, Ali’s dad, to deal with, who they would no doubt be discussing over this coffee. Ali grimaced at the prospect.
Ali propped her phone up on the dressing table and hit View All on the Stories function while she moisturised her skin and began hurriedly painting her face.
‘Hey guys!’ A peppy, faux-American-by-way-of-Dublin-4 accent squealed out of the phone. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t been on for a while …’
Ali scoffed. ‘You were on last night, Laura! I think we can survive without you for a couple of hours.’
‘It’s been a crazy morning …’ Laura continued earnestly.
Already? Please. Ali rolled her eyes.
‘I’ve been visiting Pegasus Pilates and it just clears your head, ya know? I can’t wait to tell you how amazing it’s been for my day so far …’
Yeah, yeah your day’s already amazing. It’s not even fucking 8 a.m., Laura, chill out. Laura (a wannabe MUA from Shankill, 11,374 followers) had had a breakthrough lately and had started doing sponcon with a beauty subscription service, Bellabox Ireland, which was fairly major, and Ali couldn’t help it: she was jealous.
What did she have? Ali glared at the eerily flawless face filling the phone screen. It had a touch of the uncanny about it – it looked very close to human but also unnatural in a way that was hard to put a finger on. The filter had blunted the things that would have rooted the face in reality – things like normal unevenness in texture and skin tone, things that are suggestive of actual human flesh. Also the stripy, clunky shading and a heavy hand with the highbeam gave Laura a distinctly tigery look. I mean, really, thought Ali, if you’re claiming to be a professional make-up artist, there’s no excuse. But still, tiger face and all, Laura was doing well for herself.
The problem was Ali didn’t have the kind of commercial USP that would elevate her in the scene. She did the twenty-something thing, chatting about her Tinder dates. She did a bit of beauty, a bit of skincare, but she didn’t have any really good hook. Her content was a bit unfocused – like her life, she sighed. Why does everyone go on about your twenties? If this shitshow of crap jobs and no money are the best years, I wanna get off.
It definitely didn’t help that everyone else seemed to have it together. There were, of course, Instagrammers who didn’t go in for the Insta-bullshit, they kept things a little less rose gold on there. Posting funny videos and cool stuff. She followed several who used the app to show their creative work and campaign for causes they believed in. They were completely themselves but the fact was that Ali figured she had even less to offer being her real self on Instagram.
Laura was now prattling on about her plans for spoiling her dad on his birthday in a few days. ‘Are we all just major daddys’ girls?’ she’d written in pink over a pic of Laura and a middle-aged man in matching charity-run tees. Ali abruptly tapped forward on the Stories until the dad chats were done.
Glancing around her dismal room, her gaze came to rest on the Christmas card she had made and then neglected to hand over when the appointed day had arrived a few weeks earlier. What was the point? Miles wouldn’t know what she was giving him. Christmas, birthdays and Hallmark holidays were the bleakest of all the days she’d spent by his bedside.
What did they add up to now? Three Father’s Days since he’d known her name. Three depressing birthdays. ‘We’ll help you, darling,’ Mini’d say, holding a small cake and bravely making it through ‘Happy Birthday’. Ali’d leaned forward and blown out his candles while Miles stared at the wall, his empty eyes never registering their presence in the room. Then they sang the family favourite ‘Oh Why Was He Born So Beautiful’, the song Miles used to strum along to on his old ukulele.
She now kept the ukulele beside her bed and ran her fingers over it every night, pressing the strings he used to pluck during singsongs at her parents’ raucous parties. When one of the strings broke last year it took a month for her to finally replace it, feeling the loss so sharply it took her by surprise. Now the ukulele had one new string that Miles had never touched and Ali had lost another precious piece of her dad.
For his fifty-eighth and fifty-ninth he’d sat up in his chair in the nursing home and wordlessly accepted proffered morsels of the cakes Ali’d stayed up late the night before baking. By the last one, sixty, he just lay on the bed, still staring but by now unable for food that wasn’t puréed. Mini and Ali had eaten that cake.
As Laura breathlessly extolled the virtues of an early-morning Pilates session, Ali snapped back from the airless room at Ailesend Home where even now, as she sat in her bedroom and put on her make-up, Miles was trapped, suspended in some terrible limbo. Ali paused i. . .
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