45. JULES
JULES
Tiago convinces me to let Ash and Minnie come around. I don’t feel strong enough to possibly lose my best friend, but I do feel strong enough to apologise.
I wait in the living room while he opens the front door for them. He offers drinks like I’m hosting a Galentine’s party, and when Ash says she wants ginger beer – which I’m out of – he insists on going out to the shop. He has a flight to Mexico in five hours, what’s he doing going to Morrisons?
‘Abs could never,’ Ash announces, padding into the living room as the front door thumps shut. ‘All he does right now is watch other people play board games online. He doesn’t even play them himself.’
‘Did Tiago really need two jackets?’ Minnie asks. ‘It’s sunny out.’
My heart clenches hearing her voice, though she doesn’t… sound angry.
‘He definitely has sisters,’ decides Ash, flopping on the sofa opposite me, kicking off her slippers and curling her feet underneath her. ‘Julesy. What’s with the radio silence?’
I mumble something about dealing with a lot.
‘We were really worried about you,’ says Minnie, sitting beside me.
‘I’m really sorry, Mins,’ I say, unable to look at her, my voice breaking halfway through.
‘What?’ she and Ash say in unison.
‘Did you kill one of her dogs? That’s what you look like,’ Ash adds.
‘What? No! I saw all the stick you were getting online and I… You were right. I should never have come to F1. I never meant to make things difficult—’
‘Shut up,’ she says, and I’m momentarily stunned. ‘I was never against you coming to F1. I love you being on the circuit with me. I’ve just never been fond of this whole fake dating thing. I want you to find a man for real, and it looks like you already have…’ She raises her eyebrows.
‘We’re not—’
Ash pffts. ‘Are you shitting me? That boy is so whipped, he could give Jack a run for his money.’
‘Hey!’ Minnie squeals.
‘My boyfriend prefers Monopoly to me. Get over it,’ Ash snaps.
Minnie pats my knee. ‘I could never be mad at you, Julesy. I love you. We’re a team.’
‘But what about all the comments blaming you? Undermining you?’
‘If you think I’m a stranger to keyboard warriors, think again. I’m on TV. It’s like a free pass for people to rip you to shreds. It actually makes a nice change from people saying my French is sloppy.’
I gasp. ‘Your French is stunning.’
She shakes her blonde hair. ‘It’s all meaningless. They’re just trolls.’
She’s not mad at me. This isn’t the end of a decade of friendship.
I could cry all over again but manage to hold it in.
The only constants through everything were these two.
I’ve never loved a man like I love Minnie and Ash, though someone (who’s been out so long I think he might be lost) is starting to make me rethink that.
‘Stop worrying about things that don’t matter, and start worrying about things that do,’ Ash says. ‘What are you going to do about your brand?’
I sink deeper into the sofa. ‘There’s nothing I can do. My brand was all about being who you are and true to yourself, and I wasn’t.’
‘Ash is setting you up,’ Minnie says in a bizarrely blasé way, and I feel like reminding her we’re talking about my career and future happiness here. ‘We’ve made you a plan.’
‘We’ve Jules Butler’d you,’ Ash chimes in with a mischievous grin. ‘There’s a PowerPoint and everything. I also drew up a mock NDA but Minnie made me leave it at home.’
I swivel my gaze between them. ‘What?’
‘We’ve emailed it to Nyla too,’ Minnie adds. ‘Poor girl needs some respite between all the fires she’s putting out.’
‘Make me feel worse why don’t you,’ I mutter.
‘Give her credit Jules, she’s excellent at what she does,’ says Minnie. ‘You need to get more comfortable with delegating.’
‘Enough chat.’ Ash flings a finger in the air. ‘To the study!’
Tiago has made it back, brought up drinks and snuck out by the time they’re ready to go. Ash insisted on closing the blinds like we do for Reveal Day, under the guise of there never being another one, and passed me a handout.
‘We did a little research and this is what we found,’ Minnie begins, and a slide comes up filled with charts, word clouds, and screenshots of Instagram comments.
It’s very impressive but I’m not surprised – we’re all excruciatingly Type A.
I blame our girls’ school. ‘We grouped your followers into three camps: the Disillusioned, the Cynical, and the Loyal. The Disillusioned are the most likely to unfollow. They’re hurt by this, they thought you were “real”, etc. They can get fucked.
‘The Cynical say things like, “Obviously influencers curate” and “I don’t get why everyone’s so shocked”, and the Loyal stand up for you and comment things like, “She never claimed to be transparent about her love life”. These two groups matter.’
‘We looked to similar PR crises to help inform our strategy,’ says Ash like she’s addressing court.
‘Predominantly, the defendant uses YouTube Live questions.’ I internally cringe at the idea.
‘They feel honest, they’re reactive, they receive good engagement – but they’re not for us.
They’re too uncontrolled which is not what you need right now – we don’t want you spiralling like you did after Damian.
Plus, publicists mainly use it when defendants want redemption.
You don’t want redemption: you want strategic survival. ’
She volleys it back to Minnie. ‘Believe it or not, you’re in a good place.
Your silence is starving the men of oxygen.
You’re letting the pile-on peak and, crucially, you’re not rising to anything.
But that can’t last forever. Your loyalists are desperate for your side, so we do it cleanly and controlled.
‘We recommend you release a pre-recorded video. Not too long, and not defensive. No names, no crying, no theatrics like stupid Logan. Then it’s business as normal. Release content, record podcasts, announce Evie & Co’s spring collection. Engagement will stabilise and the narrative will move on.’
‘Maybe your followers came for the WAG, but they stayed for you,’ says Ash, coming to sit beside me. ‘Your perspective means something to people, and that doesn’t change because an ex slandered you in public. Whose hasn’t?’
My bottom lip trembles. ‘You guys.’ I rub my watery eyes. ‘You did Jules Butler me.’
They laugh, and we’re suddenly a mess of arms and hair.
‘Everyone needs a Jules Butler sometimes, even you,’ Minnie says softly.