Chapter 6
Iam seething.
I’m also in the bathroom right now, responding to a message from a guy that I matched with, and now we have a coffee date scheduled for next week and all I know about him is that he’s attractive and available and his name is Bryce.
Well, I hope Bryce can handle someone in PR who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I’m not really. But I definitely need a break, which is why I’m in this single-stall bathroom, looking at kiss number fifty contenders. To get away from my reality for a moment.
My reality being Luke’s latest move. It took him nearly a week to respond, but boy did he. He got River on a podcast. Not just any podcast, but Full Disclosure. The most popular celebrity interview podcast out there.
Because I did the handover for Luke, I know River’s schedule, and this wasn’t on it. Which means Luke pulled some strings, and it was no small thing considering the host, Carter Voss, has a backlist of A-listers a mile long waiting for an interview.
I also know for a fact that it was orchestrated by Luke because I texted him asking him how he did it, and his response was “I pulled some strings.”
I had half a mind to walk the quarter of a mile to his building and poke him in the eye. But I held myself back.
Up until this point, the collective unfollowing from Bailey’s friends has been trending for the past week, according to Brandwatch.
Breakdown videos and entire live Q&As on social media have been dedicated to this supposed stunt.
Even though it wasn’t coordinated at all—merely friends supporting each other.
But it seemed orchestrated. And because Bailey had been taking the high road previously, this felt out of character for her, which made it all the more interesting.
I expected retaliation from Luke and River, but not at this level.
Now, clips of the podcast are being shared everywhere.
River never names Bailey or says anything disparaging, but lines from his interview like “learning to trust again” and “realizing some people aren’t who you thought they were” are going viral.
He sounds wounded and genuine, making Bailey’s accidental stunt seem like a mean-girl pile-on.
I feel like I’m in over my head.
I need help, but help isn’t coming. Simone is probably sitting on her back deck on a lounge chair, a tall glass of ice water in her hand while she gets some sun, her husband standing nearby waving a palm frond to keep her cool. And I’m in a bathroom. Spiraling.
I know I’m not to blame for the unfollowing thing, but part of me can’t help but wonder if it would have happened under Simone’s watch. It’s not like I could have predicted this. It didn’t even occur to me as a possibility. Would it have to Simone?
It doesn’t matter because right now I need to figure out what to do next. But I kind of want to stay in this bathroom awhile longer. Perhaps until next week. Or maybe forever.
I hear a light tapping on the door, interrupting my retirement plans.
“Someone’s in here,” I yell.
“Yes, I know it’s you, Claire,” Tessa says, which means my hiding spot isn’t a secret and probably never has been. “You need to come out. You have a call with Bailey in five minutes.”
What? I pull up my calendar app, wondering if someone added a meeting that I missed, but there’s no recent addition there. Just a block-out of time that says “FIGURE THIS OUT” in all caps that I added this morning.
I open the door and peek my head out to find Tessa pacing back and forth, her trusty notepad tucked under her arm.
“I don’t have a call on my schedule,” I tell her.
“That’s because she just scheduled it five minutes ago.”
I let out a groan, stepping out of my bathroom oasis. “I’m not ready to talk to her. I don’t have a plan.”
“Well, start thinking of one, because you have”—she looks at her watch—“four minutes.”
She puts a hand on my back and guides me toward my office.
Okay, Claire. You can figure this out. What would Simone do in this situation? She definitely wouldn’t be hiding in a bathroom, that’s for sure.
But nothing comes to me as I make my way to the office, and my phone rings as soon as I take a seat at my desk. So I’m just going to have to wing it.
I take a deep, cleansing breath and then press the speakerphone. “This is Claire,” I say.
“Hi, Claire.” The soft, lilting tones of Bailey Lockhart fill the room.
“Ms. Lockhart,” I respond, glancing quickly at Tessa, who’s sitting across from me, ready to take notes.
“Thank you for making time for me,” she begins. “I’m not the kind of person to expect people to drop things for me, but I’m . . . kind of panicking.”
You and me both, sister.
“I’m here to help,” I reassure her, even though I’m not much help at the moment. “I’m guessing you’ve heard the podcast?”
“Yes, I listened to half of it before making the appointment with you.”
And I was tucked in a bathroom swiping on men to self-soothe. Wow.
“What are your thoughts?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “This feels like it’s all gotten out of hand. I never wanted any of this to happen.”
“I’m sure. But we probably need to respond to this somehow,” I say, trying to ease her into doing something. Anything.
“Well, my manager is telling me to just wait it out.”
“Is that what you want to do?” I ask, holding in the irritation I feel toward her manager. I need to get her on the phone and tell her to stop with this do-nothing nonsense.
She sighs. “I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“You can definitely do nothing,” I say. “I would advise against that, though. The group unfollowing is still fresh, and being silent right now could read more like guilt.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“I know,” I say. She’d explained what happened in a text after it all came out online.
She lets out a breath. “So, what do you think I should do about the podcast?”
“It might be good if you did something that would take attention away from all this,” I tell her. “Something not related to River and the blind item.”
“What would that be?”
“Can I put you on hold for just a minute?” I ask. I need to gather my thoughts without her listening.
“Sure,” she says.
“What are you thinking?” Tessa asks once I’ve pressed the hold button.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Another statement?” Tessa offers.
“No one will believe it at this point.”
Tessa taps her pad of paper with the end of her pen. “What about posting something about the show?”
I shake my head. “Too soon. And anyway, the studio wouldn’t approve because it would look like she’s using it to save herself.”
We also don’t want this on their radar, although I’m sure they have people watching.
“Oh, right. Good point,” Tessa says.
I let out a breath. “We need something that’s completely separate from River, this war, and the show.”
“Maybe some volunteer work?” she asks.
“Tessa, you’re a genius,” I say.
“Bailey, are you there?” I ask after taking her off hold.
“I’m here,” she says.
“Are you still volunteering?” I ask, remembering seeing something in her file about it.
“At the Boys and Girls Club? Yes.”
My swirling stomach finally relaxes because this is the answer. This will remind people that Bailey is a real person with a real life outside of all this. It’s pretty hard to villainize someone who spends their Saturdays making a difference in children’s lives.
“But I don’t want anyone to know about that,” she says.
I pull my chin in, surprised. “Why not? It would be perfect.”
“Because it’s not something I want broadcast.”
“I get that, but—”
“There are so few things in my life that I have to myself,” she cuts me off. “I couldn’t even have a private breakup. Right now, this is the only thing that’s just mine.”
“That makes sense,” I say, feeling a mixture of emotions. I’m disappointed because Bailey’s selflessness could be just what we need to turn the narrative around.
But also, I’m impressed. Most people in this business do things to be seen, because that’s the point. The more you’re seen, the more people remember you, the more jobs you get. Bailey’s not that kind of celebrity. It’s refreshing even if it ruins my idea.
“What else can we do?” she asks.
I want to give her an answer, to take action right away, but the truth is, I’m backed into a corner. I’m sure Simone would have backup ideas for her backups and would just rattle off her next plan, but I’ve been trying that for two weeks and it’s not working. My brain doesn’t work that way.
What I need is more time, which is very un-Simone. But . . . I’m not Simone, as is becoming increasingly obvious.
“Can I think about it and get back to you?”
“Of course,” she says.
Two hours later, we have a plan. And some coffee. I sent Tessa out to grab some from the place down the street.
Is the plan good? I think so. Will it work? Hopefully. Would Simone do this? Probably not, but that’s because the whole thing hinges on one midsize fan account—one that’s not You Oughta Know and her whiny voice—to make it happen.
Translation: It’s risky.
After I hung up with Bailey, Tessa and I started brainstorming.
What we needed was something to make the internet recognize that Bailey is a human being.
Not just an actress they watch on TV or someone who used to be in a high-profile relationship that may or may not have ended with cheating. We needed something real.
We exhausted every idea. Tessa suggested finding old photos from before Bailey was famous and posting them, but that felt too calculated—like we were trying too hard.
I floated getting some candid footage of Bailey, something raw and emotional like her crying in her car, but anything we staged would get picked apart immediately. These fan accounts don’t miss anything.
And then, like the PR gods took pity on me, Bailey actually had something in her back pocket she’d completely forgotten about that could work perfectly.
Bailey was raised in the small town of Wooster, Ohio.
She left at nineteen and moved to LA, where she worked as a server, getting some smaller roles before landing the part of Elora.
No one knew who she was at the time, and the fans weren’t thrilled about that.
They had already cast other high-level actresses for the part in their minds.
But do you know who was thrilled? The people of Wooster.
They were so excited to have one of their own become famous that the local news produced a feature story about Bailey.
It’s absolutely what it sounds like: low budget, poorly recorded with a slightly awkward interviewer who kept calling her “our Bailey,” filmed in the gym of her high school with friends and family gathered behind her, waving and smiling at the camera. Her own personal small-town pep rally.
There’s nothing polished about it, nothing that screams A-list anything, and with a view count of just over three hundred, pretty much nobody has seen the feature. It’s perfect.
So how does the fan account come into play? Tessa will leak it to them under a fake name, with just the link and a quick note: Thought you might enjoy this.
“Done,” Tessa says, setting her phone down on my desk.
“Okay,” I say, finally taking a full breath. It’s late, the office is dark, and no one but Tessa and me are still here.
“This is going to work,” she says. But the quick nod of her head makes me think she’s also trying to convince herself.
“Let’s hope,” I say. “We just need it to be shared, and then the internet should do its thing.”
All we need is likes, shares, and reposts. I’m trusting my gut here, rather than following a formula. It could backfire. It could do nothing. Or . . . it could work.
But the hope is, this little video of a smiling Bailey and her proud small town will be just what we need to bring the focus back to what really matters. Not the breakup or the cheating. But Bailey.