“Right. Me, too.”
While Natasha killed the jets, I grabbed the empty wine bottle and glasses, and we headed inside, leaving puddles in our wake. A quick kiss good-night and we retired to our respective bedrooms. I enjoyed a long, luxurious rainfall shower before snuggling into the fluffy comfort of the pillow-top mattress. With the covers pulled up to my neck, I whipped out my phone to do a final presleep social media check.
No.
There was no way.
I refreshed my Instagram profile three times, just to make sure it wasn’t some bizarre glitch. But every time, the same number showed up. It was real. It was amazing.
@breebythesea had 25,223 followers.
Chapter 16
The follower count changed everything.
When I woke up the next morning, all my posts had hundreds of likes. Some of them even had thousands. There were dozens of new comments, many of the generic “Love your pics! ” variety (which were, admittedly, nice to read), but also several requests for collaborations from various brands. And no random Kissy Face lip glosses or FRANGELICO shoes, either—most of these were brands I’d actually heard of. I said yes to every offer because how could I say no? This was what I’d said I’d wanted. It was time to welcome the abundance.
Of course, my payment for all these collaborations took the form of free products, which was great and everything, but it wasn’t gonna pay the bills. So in the Lyft home from Natasha’s on Sunday afternoon, I signed up for a full week of HandyMinion jobs.
I mowed lawns. I filed papers. I scrubbed toilets. Once, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to wait in an hour-long line at the new PB Donut Shop before they sold out of those gourmet crullers that Eater.com had made famous. I performed each assignment with care and precision, and I earned five stars every single time.
I also got a text from Trey: Whenever you’re ready to paddle out, let me know...
The truth was, I didn’t feel ready, and I didn’t know if I ever would. But I did want to get back out there in the water, to recapture that feeling of weightlessness and delight.
Plus, I wanted to know what the hell was going on with that article I read in SurfBuzz. Naturally, I wouldn’t come right out and ask him, “Are you a rageaholic?” but I needed some sort of reassurance that he wasn’t going to go all green and hulky at the slightest provocation. I decided to take a morning off of work to find out.
How’s Friday again? Same time, same place?
You got it.
Midweek, the #collab packages started rolling in, so it was time for me to implement my newly updated and well-thought-out Instagram strategy.
Natasha had told me to focus on a “laid-back, coastal vibe,” so I decided to stage all my photos at the beach. It wasn’t quite a niche, but it was a theme, and that was good enough. My plan was to implement a content calendar, posting one picture per day at peak times of engagement as identified by the analytics app she’d installed. To use my time wisely, I would shoot photos in batches and edit them all at once, then schedule their uploads in advance.
Even though I intended to take all my photos at Law Street Beach, I was going to geotag them at different beaches around San Diego. Yes, it was another little lie, but it was an easy way to reach a wider audience. No one had to know I never actually went to Coronado Island or Oceanside Pier. For the most part, sand and surf looked the same in every town.
Late Wednesday afternoon, after a long day of scrubbing shower grout with a toothbrush, I slapped on a full face of makeup, blew out my hair, and dragged a big bag full of freebies to the beach. As I hustled down Beryl Street, eager to catch the golden hour for the brief period of perfect lighting, my phone buzzed with a text from Mari.
What’re you up to rn? Got something for you.
Omw to Law Street Beach. Meet me there in 15?
Will prob be more like 25.
Perfect. Instead of relying solely on precariously posed selfies, Mari could take a few full-body shots, too. I’d been worried about how to pose with those FRANGELICO shoes—turned out, in real life, they were pretty ugly—but a panoramic photo that minimized the shoes and maximized the setting would work wonders.
Hump day was busy as ever at the beach, with people lying on blankets, wading in the water, and jogging along the shore. Toward the far end, in the shadow of some big boulders, there was a fully dressed couple holding hands and leaning against a shopping cart filled to the brim with overstuffed bags. The beach was a haven for the homeless, and while the occasional uppity tourist complained to the lifeguards about their presence, for the most part, it was a place where everyone peacefully passed the time.
Like any good Instagrammer, though, I would have to pretend I was the only person here. That the beach was my private photo studio, with no other sign of human life for miles. I found a relatively untouched stretch of sand, well south of the lifeguard tower, and dropped my bag of collab goodies at my feet.
First up, I’d tackle the small nonwearable items, things I could hold in one hand while taking a photo with the other: a phone case, a tube of hand lotion, a bottle of kombucha. Those heavy-duty rubber gloves I’d worn all day did an excellent job of protecting my freshly painted manicure, an iridescent blue polish I’d chosen to go with my beachy theme.
I held up each item, angled correctly to get a good view of the label or pattern or whatever the brand manager asked me to feature, and I snapped a slew of photos. Some with waves in the background, some with sky. Then I put each product down in the sand, arranging shells and rocks around them in interesting patterns, and snapped some more. Sometimes, I included props of my own, like sunglasses and flip-flops. A particularly pretty piece of dried-out kelp accessorized the green tube of hand lotion nicely.
While setting the stage for the kombucha shoot, I spotted Mari trudging toward me over the sand, with a giant bag slung over one arm. She waved, smiling, but as she grew closer, her eyebrows knotted together.
“What’s all this?” Leaning down, she picked up the kombucha and read the label out loud. “‘Detox your adrenals with this powerful miracle elixir.’ What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know.” Feeling instantly defensive, I snatched the bottle back.
Her eyes traveled from the kombucha to the hand lotion to the half a dozen other items spilling out of my tote bag. “Oh. This is one of those nano-influencer shoots, isn’t it?”
“Technically, I’m not a nano-influencer anymore because I’ve gained more followers. I’m now a micro-influencer. But yes, it is a photoshoot.”
“Are you getting paid to shill this crap?”
“It’s not crap!” Well, not all of it was crap. That hand lotion was actually really luxurious. “And yes, I’m getting paid, if you count the free merchandise as payment.”