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‘There are twenty million Instagram accounts in the UK,’ I said, picking up where she left off. ‘Our influencers alone have more than a hundred million followers between them. You couldn’t even dream of getting close to that many people with an advert these days.’
‘I know social media is important, but you don’t really think what you do is more powerful than what I do?’ Charlie said, his hackles somewhat raised. ‘I’m sure you’re very good at arsing about on the internet, but we all know real advertising, real marketing is still what matters most. Everyone knows social media is the paid-for opinions of kids.’
‘Arsing about on the internet?’ I repeated, almost sure he must be joking. ‘Paid-for opinions of kids? Is that really what you think we do?’
Charlie picked up a pink wafer biscuit and bit into it while responding to me with a very, very brave shrug.
‘Annie is a goddess,’ Miranda hurled a tea towel in Charlie’s general direction as Martin winced. ‘She could take any old man or woman off the street and turn them into a superstar. Or any tiny brand or business. She can get a million eyes on you without even trying, you write bad jingles and rip off movies to make shitty adverts for crap cars.’
Ooh, that one had to hurt. Fired-up Miranda wasn’t always very kind and throwing a hangover and a bad bank manager meeting into the mix, was just asking for trouble.
‘We had the idea for the talking raccoon first and you know it!’ Charlie said, turning beetroot red. ‘The only people who get famous online are either rich, fit or related to someone else who is rich and fit. Bonus points if you’re rich and fit and can afford to have lots of photos taken on sandy beaches while standing in a yoga pose so people can crank one out over your feed at bedtime.’
Miranda gagged as I wrinkled my nose.
‘Good to know what we’ll find when the police go through your search history,’ I muttered. ‘Tell me you clear it every single night, please.’
Charlie looked unimpressed, Martin looked as though he would like to be literally anywhere else on earth and Miranda was ready to draw blood. I couldn’t quite work out how things had escalated so quickly.
‘You can make anyone famous, can you?’ Charlie asked, steely eyed.
‘Yes,’ I said with all the confidence in the world. ‘We can.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Prove it. Make me famous.’
‘I could,’ I replied. ‘But even the internet doesn’t deserve that.’
’Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ he answered with a not-so-friendly chuckle. ‘You talk a good game, I’ll give you that.’
I pressed my lips into a tight thin line and planted my hands on my hips, fighting the urge to knock him out of the window. Charlie leaned against the fridge, a cocky smile on his handsome face that was seemingly designed to get me worked up in all the wrong ways.
‘Is it me,’ Martin muttered, breaking the silence, ‘or did things just get very tense in here?’
‘Oh, Annie, ignore them,’ Miranda said, tugging on my shirt sleeve. ‘Come on, you’re going to be late.’
‘I’m not done with this,’ I warned them as I abandoned my cup of tea. ‘Just so you know.’
Charlie threw me a thumbs-up as we left and my heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t work out if I felt more insulted, furiously angry, incredibly turned on, or all three.
Life could be so confusing.
‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m late. I’ve had the most ridiculous day,’ I said, barrelling through the door without knocking. It was already ten past one, I’d lost ten minutes of my time, we could manage without the usual pleasantries.
Rebecca held out her arms for my jacket as I threw myself on her chaise longue.
‘We’ll get it out of the way,’ I said as I stretched out. ‘You’ve heard about Matthew, obviously.’
She nodded.
‘Of course I’m happy for him,’ I said, lying back and focusing on the same crack in the ceiling as always. One day, I was going to have to bring some Polyfilla with me. ‘For both of them. Not that I know Karine at all, but she seems nice enough and Matthew is a good person. An OK person.’
I glanced over at Rebecca, who looked back in her steady, measured way with her notebook in her lap.
‘Matthew is a person,’ I said.
She pulled the cap from her pen and scribbled something down.
‘I’m not jealous,’ I insisted, running the pendant of my necklace up and down its chain. ‘Just because she’s younger than me and littler than me and she’s got the most perfect nose I’ve ever seen in my life. It doesn’t mean anything, my life is going brilliantly. I own my own company, I have amazing friends, I’m up for three big awards and what’s she? She’s engaged. Bravo, Karine.’
I rubbed the bare third finger on my left hand, I gave a very heavy sigh and counted all the framed certificates on the wall. Bachelor’s degrees, master’s degree, certificate of this, certificate of that. Everything you’d want to see on the wall of a therapist’s office.
‘Did I tell you we’ve been nominated for three awards? Three! I think it’s a record for a new company. I’m definitely doing so much better than when I was with Matthew. Don’t you think?’
Rebecca made a non-committal sound across the room.
‘Well? You’re the therapist.’ I sat up so I could see the expression on her face. ‘What do you think? In your professional opinion?’
‘In my professional opinion,’ Rebecca replied. ‘I thought you were bringing me lunch.’
I blinked at my sister before pulling two Prêt a Manger sandwiches out of my handbag.
‘They were out of hoisin duck, sorry,’ I said, chucking one of them in her general direction and unwrapping my own cheese-and-pickle baguette. ‘Got you this instead.’
‘They were out of duck so you got tuna?’ my big sister wrinkled her nose and abandoned the sandwich. ‘I can’t eat that, you dickhead. I’ve got patients all afternoon and no one wants to share their innermost thoughts and feelings with a woman who smells like Flipper.’
‘Sorry,’ I replied, trading her for my cheese and pickle. ‘I know you like tuna, I just didn’t think.’
‘Colour me shocked.’ She unwrapped the sandwich and took a big bite. ‘How many times do I have to tell you I am a therapist, not your therapist. You can’t treat your little sister, no matter how big a nutcase she’s turning out to be.’
‘But you’re so good at giving advice,’ I said, covering my mouth with my hand. A courtesy not extended by my elder sister, who I knew for a fact was not raised in a barn. ‘You’re trained in it. You’re a professional advice-giver. Advise me, please.’
‘That’s a lovely way to describe an agonizing five-year psychology degree,’ Rebecca muttered. ‘But since you asked, my professional opinion would be a diagnosis of FOMO. Get over yourself immediately.’
I swallowed and shook my head slowly. Becks loved to remind me her degree was far more advanced than mine. Me and my piffling BA in Psychology and English. Her with her fabulous doctorate.
‘Six years at uni and the best you can come up with is FOMO?’ I said, grinning when she finally cracked a smile. ‘Becks, you’re not even trying.’
‘I don’t even have to,’ she reminded me. ‘You’re not my patient.’
‘No, but I am your little sister and you’re stuck with me, so help.’ I gave her my best attempt at eyelash fluttering as I finished my sandwich. ‘Why do you think no one has ever delayed the start of a massive sporting event to propose to me?’
‘Oh dear god.’ She picked a fleck of mascara from her cheek and sighed.
As big sisters went, Rebecca was far from the worst. Too clever for her own good, obviously, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. She was five when I was born and she did not take the news of a little sister well. Apparently, she’d expressly requested a guinea pig. Instead, I came along to ruin everything. According to her.
‘I haven’t had sex in so long, I no longer own nice underwear,’ I said. ‘Shaving my legs above the knee does not occur to me. If I was confronted with a penis, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.’
‘If you are confronted with a penis, you should call the police,’ Rebecca advised. ‘And for your information, I have sex and I don’t shave my legs above the knee.’
I pulled a face and spared a thought for her poor husband.
‘Annie, if you really wanted to be in a relationship, you’d be out looking for one,’ she said. ‘I have never known you to fail at anything you set your mind to. Which isn’t necessarily a compliment, by the way.’
I looked at her, my puzzled cheeks full of tuna.
‘How is it not?’ I did not understand.
‘Are you still coming on Saturday?’ she asked, throwing me a paper napkin. ‘I’ll have wine on Saturday. This would be a much easier conversation if I had wine.’
‘I don’t know, I might have to work over the weekend,’ I replied quickly. ‘I’ve got an event with one of our vloggers next week and I’ve a feeling it’s going to take a fair bit of time.’
‘And an event with a vlogger is more important than dinner with your family?’ Rebecca asked, head cocked to one side. Definitely something she learned in therapist school.
‘Please don’t make me lie,’ I said. ‘Because you know the answer I’m going to give is not the one you want to hear.’
‘There’s something wrong with you,’ she replied. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Is that your professional opinion?’ I enquired. ‘Because if it is, it’s a shit diagnosis. I’m going to kill you on Yelp. My work is important to me. This event is important to me.’
‘Of course it is, but work shouldn’t be more important than spending time with actual humans who love you.’
Sometimes I wondered if we were even related at all.
‘It would be brilliant if you could be supportive right now,’ I told her. ‘I’ve literally just walked out of an argument with two idiots in the office making fun of what I do. Making the company a success is very important to me and you know that.’
‘As it should be,’ Becks said kindly. ‘But you need to find a balance. We both know how competitive you can be.’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ I said with a theatrical sigh. ‘I’m no more competitive than anyone else.’
‘Annie. You were banned from the school sports day for trying to take out that other girl in the sack race.’
I chomped into my sandwich and grimaced. ‘It was the three-legged race, and why do people keep bringing that up?’
‘You get it from Dad, you know,’ she said, nodding confidently. ‘This is classic Higgins behaviour through and through.’
There were some buttons that only family knew exactly how to push.
‘I ought to be getting back,’ I said, fishing for my phone in my handbag. Thirty-two unread emails in the last half hour. ‘I’ll text you about dinner.’
‘Have you heard from Mum this week? I need to give her a call.’
’I talked to her yesterday, she’s gone on that yoga teacher-training course,’ I reminded her. ‘No phones allowed.’
‘Your worst nightmare,’ Becks smiled. ‘Please try to make dinner on Saturday. The girls would love to see you and you know Dad always brings amazing booze.’
‘Dad also always brings Gina,’ I replied. ‘Which is why you need the booze.’
‘You need to be nicer to her,’ my sister said, shaking her head. ‘I think he’s sticking with this one.’
Only time would tell.
I stood up, stretched and looked out the window. Fantastic. It was raining. It had been blazing sunshine when I left the office, not a cloud in the sky. Now it looked like I’d be treating London to a solo wet T-shirt contest on the way back to work.
‘There’s an umbrella by the door,’ Becks said, finishing her sandwich. ‘Take it.’
‘Thank you,’ I kissed the top of her head, ignoring her protests. ‘You’re a good sister. Terrible therapist but a good sister.’
‘That’s because I’m not your therapist,’ she insisted. ‘And please don’t tell anyone that I am. I don’t want to be considered responsible for what goes on inside your brain.’
‘Love you too,’ I called as I left. ‘I’ll text you about dinner.’
‘You’ll see me Saturday,’ she corrected as I closed the door. ‘You knob.’
I knew she loved me really.
When I walked back into the building, Miranda, Martin and Charlie were sitting together in the coffee shop, finishing their respective lunches. I’d managed to convince myself, as I power-walked through the rain, to let go of our argument earlier on. They’d caught me at a bad moment. I was upset about Matthew, I was stressed about our financial situation, I wanted a pizza and I was ready and waiting for something to set me off. There was no point in letting a man’s ego get in the way of a little light flirting, was there? Besides, if everyone who got annoyed with the opposite sex stopped getting it on, the human race would be extinct within two generations. I knew how good I was at my job and I knew how hard I worked. I didn’t need Charlie bloody Wilder or Martin dickhead Green to tell me so.
‘Oh look, it’s the Meryl Streep of social media,’ Charlie said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Afternoon, Professor Higgins. Been out racking up the likes?’
And then everything went red.
I dropped my sopping wet umbrella on the ground, splashing everyone in a ten-foot radius, and slapped both my hands on the table. Martin and Charlie looked up at me with wide eyes while Miranda just cleared her throat as she swept droplets of rain off her leather trousers.
‘Pick anyone in this room,’ I declared. ‘And I will make them Instagram famous in thirty days.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Are you sure about this?’ Miranda asked as Martin got up to drag an extra chair over to our table. ‘You’re already working yourself to the bone.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said with steely determination. ‘I could do this in my sleep.’
‘If you’re sure,’ she replied, pulling a pen out of her pocket and grabbing a fresh napkin from the dispenser on the table.
‘We’ll need measurables,’ Miranda said, scribbling down some numbers. ‘There are roughly twenty million Instagram accounts in the UK and the average user over the age of twenty has three hundred followers.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a lot,’ Charlie said as he pulled up the app on his own phone. ‘Even I’ve got over nine hundred.’
‘And you own an advertising agency,’ she replied shortly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. Are you even verified?’
Shamefaced, he put his phone away.
‘Then to win the bet, you need to what?’ Martin asked. ‘Get them a million followers?’
‘That’s not possible,’ I replied. ‘Unless you’re going to knock up Beyoncé while starring in a new Star Wars movie, that is an impossible number. Generally speaking, twenty thousand followers makes you an influencer, meaning you can start making money off your feed. A hundred thousand, you can make a living from it, but that can’t be done in thirty days.’
‘Sounds like you’re doubting yourself, Meryl,’ Charlie clucked. ‘Twenty thousand is nothing.’
‘Says the man with fewer than one thousand,’ I argued. ‘All you’re doing is proving you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Before we agree to anything,’ Miranda interrupted, snapping her fingers in front of Charlie’s face. ‘Other than wiping the smiles off your smug faces, what’s in this for us, exactly?’
There was a reason she was in charge of driving the business.
‘In it for you?’ Charlie looked completely nonplussed. ‘I don’t know. When you lose, you buy me a pizza?’
‘Or, when we win, we get a month’s free rent?’ Miranda suggested. ‘Since you’re so certain we can’t do it.’
‘A month’s rent and a pizza,’ I added. I wasn’t about to turn down food.
‘Agreed,’ Charlie said, holding out a hand to shake on the deal. ‘And when you lose, I get pizza and you have to do a month of social media for Wilder.’
‘Hang on a minute, I’m the bloody landlord here, what’s in this for me?’ Martin yelped. ‘Who’s going to pay their rent if they win? I didn’t sign up to free rent.’
‘Keep your knickers on,’ Charlie said with confidence, never once taking his eyes off me. ‘They won’t. And you can have some of the pizza.’
I narrowed my eyes and glared back.
‘I’m not sharing it with you though,’ he said to me.
‘Ten thousand followers in thirty days?’ I replied. ‘Easy.’
‘Fifty,’ he countered.
‘Fifteen.’
Charlie stared me out for as long as his contact lenses would allow.
‘Thirty.’
‘Twenty,’ I said. ‘We’ll get twenty thousand.’
’Annie,’ Mir whispered. ‘Are you sure you’re sure?’
‘Positive,’ I replied, even though underneath the table, my legs were shaking.
‘Done,’ Charlie declared. ‘And I know you’d never do anything so underhanded, but for clarity’s sake: no bots, no promoted posts and no paid-for followers.’
‘As if I would,’ I agreed, blood thumping through my veins. Either I was very excited or I was having a stroke, I really couldn’t tell.
‘Now we get to pick the victim.’ Martin clapped Charlie on the back and the pair of them turned their attention to the world outside our table. The Ginnel’s coffee shop, cleverly named ‘Coffee Shop’, was packed. Everyone was hungover after last night’s game and stuffing themselves with tepid sausage sandwiches and floppy bacon butties. None of them looked as though they’d be a special treat to work with.
‘What about Jeremiah, my graphic designer?’ Charlie suggested, pointing at a small, angular man who was lining up sugar cubes along the counter and arranging them by size. ‘He’s … interesting.’
‘No one from your office,’ I said. ‘It has to be someone who is an actual tenant but no one who works for you. That’s cheating.’
‘Fine, no one from Wilder.’ He sulked and looked back out over the unsuspecting contenders. ‘Carl, the bloke on the ground floor who makes those weird cartoon things?’
‘Oh, the gorgeous Welsh artist guy?’ Miranda said, mooning at the dark-haired man in the corner. ‘Amazing pick.’
‘No, not him,’ Martin insisted, a flash of jealousy in his eyes. ‘Who else?’
‘I haven’t got all day for this,’ Mir said with an agitated sigh. ’We’re doing it with the next person who walks through the front door. Agreed?’
Everyone sat up a bit straighter. Miranda could be pretty intense when she wanted to be.
Charlie and I locked eyes for a moment, each daring the other to protest.
‘Fine with me,’ I said.
‘Fine with me,’ he echoed.
We all turned to stare at the door.
I reached for Miranda’s hand underneath the table but instead I got Martin’s thigh.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, wiping my palm on my jeans.
‘Never apologize,’ he insisted as the door flew open.
All four of us sucked in our breath at the same time.
It was Dave the Postman.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I grumbled, breathing out. ‘Get out the way, Dave.’
‘I think Dave could have a fascinating YouTube channel,’ Charlie reasoned. His brown eyes were laughing. ‘The Life and Loves of a London Postie. I might watch that. I bet he gets up to all sorts.’
Just as I was about to reply, Dave held the door open to let someone in. A strangely tall, skinny someone with an enormous beard and long blond hair, wearing baggy jeans and a grey T-shirt with a faded blue Jansport rucksack on his back. He paused next to our table as he passed, old-fashioned flip-phone in one hand, thermos in the other, then pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose and kept on walking.
I opened my mouth then shut it again.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,’ Charlie said, crossing his hands behind his head and leaning his chair back on two legs. ‘Game on, ladies. May the best man win.’
The room at the end of the hallway on the first floor had been empty for as long as we had been at The Ginnel. It was a tiny, awkward sort of space with a glass front and only one small, square window to the outside slightly above head height. It was too little to be a meeting room and too dark to be an office and, so far, no one who had been to look around had been interested in setting up shop.
Until today.
The first things I noticed as I approached the working home of my newest client were the panels of white paper that had been sticky-taped to the glass wall, effectively closing out the rest of his co-workers and pretty much defeating the object of being in a co-working space in the first place. The second was the sign on the door. It was a nameplate that appeared to have been pilfered from a 1970s polytechnic. Everyone else had identical signs in the same, slightly retro serif font but Dr S. E. Page MPhil PhD had got ahead of the game and glued a narrow blackboard with block white lettering onto the door himself.
Charlie and Martin had been positively joyous when our subject selected himself but what could they know from one look? There was no reason to think, just because he wasn’t some kind of Adonis he wouldn’t be interesting. For all they knew he could be an amazing photographer or he might have a dancing dog or any number of incredible, Instagram-worthy skills. He already had more letters after his name than anyone I’d ever met and my sister knew some truly insufferable academic types who seemed to have been put on this earth solely to rack up qualifications.
‘There could be any number of reasons he’s covered up the windows,’ I told myself, tracing the edges of the white paper through the glass. ‘This space would make a decent dark room. Or he could be super light-sensitive.’
Inside the office, I heard papers rustling. I knocked, stepped back and waited.
The rustling stopped but he made no attempt to answer the door.
‘Or he’s an actual serial killer,’ I suggested to myself. ‘Making himself a nice skin suit for the autumn.’
I knocked again. Louder.
Still nothing.
‘Once more for luck,’ I said under my breath, rapping as hard as I could for as long as I could.
My hand was still mid-air when the door opened. The tall, skinny man had tied back his long hair in a man bun. His beard was still enormous, and not in a cool, hipster way and though it was huge, it completely failed to disguise the annoyance on his face.
‘Dr Page?’ I enquired with a forced, friendly smile.
‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, looking me up and down.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘At least, it wasn’t the last time I checked.’
‘Right, you can go away then?’
He phrased it as a question but it definitely felt more like an instruction.
‘I’m sorry, I’m Annie,’ I said quickly before he could close the door again. ‘We’re office neighbours. I work upstairs? I came to say hello, welcome you to the building.’
He pushed his smudged spectacles up his nose with a long, slender finger.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Hello.’
And then he slammed the door so hard, I felt it rattle my fillings.
‘Bugger,’ I whispered, the door a fraction of an inch from my nose.
There was the slightest of chances this was going to be more difficult than I had hoped.
‘That was quick?’ Miranda looked surprised to see me back in the office so soon. ‘How’d it go?’
‘He only answered the door after I cut up my knuckles knocking for half an hour, asked if anything was wrong and then told me to piss off,’ I replied. ‘So not great.’
‘So, he isn’t a natural conversationalist,’ Mir shrugged. ‘How did he look?’
‘Think Tom Hanks in act two of Castaway, only without the social graces necessary to make friends with a volleyball,’ I said, punching the call button for the lift. ‘He’s the least likeable human I’ve ever met – and I’ve met Jeremy Kyle, Katie Hopkins and the man who plays the Fox in the Foxy Bingo adverts.’
Miranda grimaced.
‘We’ll work it out,’ she promised. ‘Or we’ll call it off. It doesn’t matter, it’s only a stupid bet.’
‘Oh, absolutely not,’ I replied. ‘There’s no way we’re not winning this. I’m not giving them the satisfaction.’