Chapter 3
Have Shovel, Will Dig Giant Hole…
Vivian
“Did I just do that?” I ask. I ended the call a few seconds ago. Or it could be a few hours ago. I honestly have no idea how long I’ve been staring at the blank screen with my jaw unhinged.
“You did,” Paige whispers. “You really did. You told your management team that you and your nonexistent boyfriend are ready to take it to the next level. You said you’ve been talking about getting married for a while now and he’s definitely agreeable to finally appear on camera.”
My mind spins like a race car that just hit black ice. I let out a long rush of air that makes a whooshing sound. “Oh shit. Why did I do that?”
“I don’t know!” Paige yells. “But you have to undo it!” She pokes at my phone. “Call them back. Right now! Tell them you lied and … and you’re sorry and … you’ve been day drinking!”
My stomach lurches. “I can’t.”
“You can. You definitely can,” she hisses. “Because you have been day drinking.”
I stare at her until she continues. “Look, this might be done—this whole Vivian’s Blissful Life thing—but you can start over, build a new channel with a new following. It’ll be hard, but you did it once, you can do it again.”
“I can’t start over on social media,” I answer. “I’m almost thirty, for God’s sake!”
“You’re twenty-eight and of course you can. Look at Vera Wang! She was over forty when she designed her first wedding dress.”
I pull a face and shake my head. “Oh please, people always use her as the example of hitting it big late in life but Vera Wang was also the youngest ever editor at Vogue—where she worked for fifteen years before going to Ralph Lauren. She was connected up the wazoo before she ever put her first pin in a bridal gown.”
“Fine, forget Vera Wang, but trust me, lots of middle-aged people start over.”
I gasp and press my hand to my upper chest like I’m clutching my pearls. “Middle aged? I’m still in my twenties!”
“You’re the one who said you were too old, not me!”
“I’m too old to start over. And even if I weren’t, I can’t very well do it if everyone in the world finds out I’m a big, fat liar!”
“I’m not saying tell everyone in the world.
Just tell the Mighty Twins. Then find a new venture,” she says, standing up and pacing next to the lounge chair.
After a few seconds, she snaps her fingers.
“Got it! I read an article about a woman who makes a killing with videos of her feet. She squishes her toes in things like canned pumpkin and frozen corn.”
I scowl at her. “I’m not going to make foot fetish videos!”
“Why not? It’s easy money and it’s not like you’re hurting anyone.”
I point down to my bare feet and wiggle my unusually long toes. Paige stops. “Oh my God, have your toes always been that long?”
“No, they grow a quarter of an inch every time I lie,” I snap.
Paige gives me a dirty look, then glances back at my toes.
“Actually, that could be the thing you offer your audience that your competitors can’t—you could pick things up with them.
Maybe take up smoking cigarillos. Honestly that wouldn’t only be for the fetish people.
It would appeal to a much larger audience.
” Grinning, she adds, “You and your Pinocchio toes doing amazing feats with your feets.”
I stare at her for a second, dumbfounded by the conversation.
“Oh my God, can you forget about my feet, please? I’m not starting over.
I make a very good living already. I need to focus on how to save my existing career.
” I glance around the beach as if the perfect man is going to come strolling by.
“Look, I can find a guy. It’s not going to be that hard. ”
She nods quickly—it’s her sarcastic nod. “Sure, yeah, definitely. Easy peasy.” She points to a short, bald guy jogging along the shore. Paige waves her hands and shouts at him, “Hey, you! Yeah, you! Do you want to get married to my friend here?”
He glances at me, then wrinkles up his face (far more than necessary to make his point, thank you very much) and keeps on running. Well, that was a bit of a blow to the old ego.
Paige makes a tsking sound, then shouts, “It was just a question! You don’t have to be so rude about it!”
She turns to me with a sheepish look. “Sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
“I do. You were trying to make a point.”
She lets her shoulders drop. “Yeah, I was.”
“You’re saying this is an insane idea and it’ll never work and you don’t want me to get hurt trying to do the impossible.”
Nodding, Paige looks up at the umbrella, then back at me. “Pretty much.”
“But think about it—it’s not all that insane. People in Hollywood do it all the time—relationships of convenience to bolster the careers of both parties. No reason I can’t find someone who’ll need me as much as I need him.”
“There … there really are a lot of reasons you won’t find him. Especially since you’ve promised them a wedding by the end of October. Even if you had, like, a year to pull this off, it would be a huge challenge because you’re lacking a groom. Less than two months is impossible!”
“Not impossible. Improbable,” I tell her, as if that makes it any better.
“But seriously, Paige, if anyone can do this, it’s me, right?
I’ve already beat the odds once—small town girl from Wisconsin with zero connections makes it big as a lifestyle influencer?
Do you know how many people try and fail? ”
“Thousands.”
“Millions, but yeah, the point is, I did it once.”
She bites her bottom lip, then says, “You can do it again.”
“Exactly. I can make this work. We just need to brainstorm. Put our heads together and figure out the requirements, then where to find him, and how to keep it a big secret.” I gather up my Givenchy beach bag and pick up our drinks. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the room. We’ve got to get to work.”