‘Shelly! Great to see you blooming! I’m @FiFiStyles. Amy’s just confirmed some particulars with Hazel and Ezra, so we’ve agreed a degree of bump for your shots. We have this sheer dress with a coral bikini for underneath. Our MUA, Jade, will be doing a little henna on the hands – can you believe it’s having a comeback?! – along with a super-glowy, no-make-up make-up and, the pièce de résistance, Hazel’s imported Caribbean sea water for the hair.’ @FiFiStyles’s eyes widened. ‘Apparently, there’s crushed pearls in it. We’ll do the fitting when Jade’ – who appeared on Shelly’s other side at that exact moment – ‘has done the face. My handle is spelled f-i-f-i-s-t-y-l-e-s BTW in case you wanted to tag me.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Shelly was feeling a bit cornered but tried to relax as Jade, who also oh-so helpfully spelled her Insta-handle for the all-important tagging, started removing the make-up she was already wearing.
Shelly closed her eyes but could sense Kate’s burning presence pressing in on her.
‘So, you’re Ali’s friend, Kate,’ Shelly said brightly to attempt to defuse the fandom and just be normal.
‘Well … kind of. I mean, if you can be friends with someone who has just completely lied to you. And then ignores you.’
‘Well, she was going through a very rough time.’ Shelly opened one eye to sneak a glance at Kate. She looked even more pissed off at hearing this.
‘Ugh, that’s what everyone’s saying now. Poor Ali. And she’s got more followers than ever, like. So typical.’
‘Well, they’re probably notoriety-follows, that’s what Amy says.’ Shelly didn’t know why she felt she should soothe this girl. She definitely wouldn’t be the kind of friend Ali would miss.
‘Yeah.’ Kate seemed to suddenly notice how she sounded and pulled herself together. ‘Anyway, my own account is going amazing and Hazel has just been the most incredible mentor on this journey.’
‘And what kind of journey are you on?’ Shelly was half smiling as Jade dabbed concealer under her eyes, but Kate answered in all seriousness.
‘Weight loss,’ she said firmly. ‘But it’s weight loss with a wedding! See, I’m getting married in a few months so I’m actually working two angles: the bride journey and the weight-loss journey. It’s been building steadily.’
Jade dusted highlighter on the tip of her nose. ‘OK, you’re done, Shelly! It was a pleasure to work with such a face. At least we know you’re not all angles on the ’gram.’ She winked. ‘Sometimes I work with these girls who look like completely different people IRL – it’s mad. Now you’ll tag me in your snaps, right, hun? Right?’
‘Sure, sure.’ Shelly gathered herself and hopped off the stool. She accepted the sheer dress and bikini @FifiStyles was proffering and ducked behind a wooden screen to change. Then it was back out to Amy, who was waiting in the hall. ‘All good?’
‘“Good” is a strong word.’ Shelly rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘This’ turned out to be fifteen takes of Shelly, sitting on an enormous piece of driftwood in front of a green screen with a wind machine blowing, saying the same line – ‘Beyond live, love, laugh is W Y N D’ – over and over again.
‘Great, Shelly, you are such a pro. Can we get just one more with a slightly breathier “W Y N D”?’ Shelly wearily obliged. They didn’t do this bloody many takes on Durty Aul’ Town.
Ezra clapped his hands together.
‘That’s a wrap on scene fifty-four. Thank you, everyone. We’ll take five. Kate, we’ll get Ali and Polly down from hair and make-up, OK? They’re leaving together at 2.45 so chop-chop, thanks.’
Where on earth would Polly and Ali be going together? Shelly couldn’t quite get her head around this strange new alliance.
Chapter 18
Driving away from the W Y N D promo shoot, Ali felt like a fugitive fleeing from captivity.
‘Christ, that was a bit of an ordeal,’ she muttered to Polly, who was behind the wheel looking stony-faced. Ali had now attended five CatAnon meetings and she’d never once known Polly to be late. She was like the mayor of the thing.
‘Well, there’s almost always a few strings attached to invites from Hazel,’ she responded primly.
It was so weird. Since starting CatAnon, Ali had gotten some fairly intense insights into Polly’s pretty out there past as a catfisher, but she couldn’t penetrate her studied front outside meetings. If anything, Polly was even more stiff and fake with her since they had this in common.
‘I think I pulled something in that dancer pose she had us do,’ Ali continued. ‘I don’t even do yoga normally, never mind when I have a whole other person stuffed inside me.’
‘Well, she’ll be happy to have got you. It’s all coming up Ali this weekend, isn’t it?’
Ali stole a look at Polly, but her face was inscrutable. She sounded pissed off.
‘What? Are you mad?’
‘Well,’ said Polly, pursing her lips as if she had a bad taste in her mouth, ‘I just think you’d better be careful. Of your recovery in CatAnon, I mean. All this praise and validation on Insta can be dangerous for us. You wouldn’t want to get sucked back into old habits.’
Ali rubbed the spot on her side where she’d twanged herself while being an obedient little influencer. Polly had looked perfectly at home in front of the green screen, Ali thought, miffed. Who’s she to lecture me? She was about to say as much, but she just had zero fight in her today. The pre-dawn ashes-scattering had left her feeling edgy and even though they’d managed to scatter at least some of the ashes in the sea, and she was jazzed about the breakthrough with My So-Called Best Life, she still had a niggling sense that she’d let Miles down yet again.
Why did it have to be so slapstick? He deserved better than that. She leaned against the car window and tried to focus on the passing housing estates to quiet the horrible little voice in her head. He deserved better than you for a daughter, it whispered. Running around doing sponcon while he lay there alone and dying. You’re a dumb, selfish bitch.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to silence the hateful words. Not easy, she’d found. Especially not when they were your own.
The day had gone from slapstick to surreal with Holistic Hazel’s stint as James Cameron. Why do any of us bother actually doing anything for real anymore? she mused. None of it needed to be real. Who needed a remote island when you had a sound stage built in the garden extension? Who needed to be beautiful for real when you could just stick a filter on your pix? Who needed to be smart or funny or any of those things when all that mattered was how it looked?
Her phone pinged with an email from Terry:
New direction is SPOT ON, Ali, I love it. Let’s aim for a new draft in the next two weeks. I think ditch the interactive element – it’s overly complicated and it doesn’t need it. We can make the same point through Rational Ali and Thirsty Ali. With the proposed added production elements, we want to stay ahead of ourselves. Nothing kills a show like a rushed development schedule – and we didn’t exactly have much time to begin with. Send over pages as and when you want feedback. Otherwise, I’ll expect the reworked script before the 19th.