3. Macey #2
Did I decide to glance at Noah’s content from the festival he attended in LA?
I did. But the decision was out of spite.
He posted a handful of Stories, a series of photos, and one video.
It was shocking how little he posted about an event.
I wondered if he was getting lazy after years as an influencer.
Noah was a lifestyle influencer—meaning he posted a little about a lot of things.
Local and national events, restaurants, gym workouts, daily routines, to name a few.
His good looks helped him get away with posting so many different things.
To me, it seemed like even though he influenced well, he didn’t actually know what he was doing.
Victoria, my boss, entered the office, an Hermès bag hanging off her shoulder. She zoomed toward me and the fear reappeared in my stomach. I was nervous it might come up my throat at any moment along with my coffee and bagel.
Her cropped brown hair looked freshly cut, and as always, her makeup was flawless. She drew her cat eyes sharp enough to kill me, if she wanted. Which based on the look on her face, she did. “What is this?” She flashed her phone, which was playing the video of me and Noah on repeat. Shit .
“Um…” Deny, Macey, deny! No, she had a video in her hands. That wouldn’t work. “Me enthusiastically interacting with a famous influencer?” Honestly, I was surprised Victoria even used TikTok.
“You just consider yourself lucky you weren’t wearing any Roamer’s Digest swag in this video.” No swag was worn that day at all, unless you counted a whale costume. “Or else you’d be out of this office like that .” She snapped her fingers.
My throat felt thick when I tried to swallow. “I’m sorry, but it’s really not fair that a random person shared a private moment of me on the Internet.”
“Life’s not fair, Macey,” she said. “Your article better be worth it. Send it to me by the end of the day.”
She turned to go, but I foolishly stopped her. “What about my photos?” I held up my Canon. “I got some great shots of the whales, and I thought we could use them in the article.”
It took standing by the ocean for four straight hours, but dang it, I got those photos.
Victoria didn’t bother giving me a second glance. “I’ll take a look.”
That was what she said every time. And every time, she rejected them.
My chair rolled backward when I crumbled into it.
I stuffed my head between my arms for a minute, leaning against the desk, trying to get a hold of myself.
I won’t cry. Big, scary bosses don’t deserve my tears.
At forty-four, Victoria was twenty years older than me, and she had no trouble beating down my self-confidence.
Usually, I took it in stride. Everyone in the office walked on eggshells, aware that she could snap at any moment.
One of the few things that kept me going after a particularly bad day was Victoria’s implication that she was training me to rise in rankings.
But the pace of the training was at snail’s speed and full of little-to-no constructive criticism.
I allowed myself a few shaky breaths, then moved forward.
The first thing I did on Monday mornings was check my column’s analytics. I pulled up my dashboard, intending to compare week-over-week analytics, and I nearly fell out of my chair.
It was a glitch. There was no other explanation.
Because somehow, my page views shot up by 5,000 percent over the last day.
Who did I go to about a glitch like this? I’d draft an email right now. Dear Google CEO, wtf is this?
I quickly scanned which articles attracted the interest, and that reaffirmed there was a problem. The majority of the views weren’t for my articles, they were for the About Macey page on the Roamer’s Digest website.
Once I confirmed that no nudes of mine had been leaked, it was back to confusion. Why would thousands of people suddenly be interested in…
No. It couldn’t be.
A single viral video couldn’t have brought all these people to me.
Right?
Someone dropped into the seat next to me. I glanced over at Calculator Cal. I didn’t know much about him except he owned his own tutoring business as a side hustle, had luscious hair, and used a blinged-out pink calculator.
Calculator Cal shoved his phone in my face. “Did you see this?”
“Technically, yes.” I pushed the phone away. “I’m too scared of the comments to watch it, though.”
“Scared?” He laughed. “Girl, people love you. ”
My heart stopped. Then it kicked up to a fast tempo, like I was in the middle of a marathon. “Really?”
“Really. Let me read you some of my favorite comments.” He cleared his throat before taking on high-pitched impressions.
“ She’s right, influencers get anything they want , and Whale girl spits nothing but facts , and my favorite, Glad Noah finally found someone who puts him in his place.
” Calculator Cal gasped like we were two teenagers in a gossip session. “Are you dating Noah Hansley?”
“Of course not!” I squeezed my coffee cup so hard the top flew off. “I don’t know how that can be the impression anyone gets from that video. Did you miss the part where I called him an asshole?”
And he called me a judgmental princess.
“Did you forget the part where you also said he had a pretty face and hot body?”
Did caffeine heighten or worsen anxiety? Too late. I downed the rest of the topless latte. “We only complimented the physical stuff. That doesn’t mean anything.”
I hated how gentle Calculator Cal’s voice was when he said, “He did say you were beautiful and witty. And he let you wear his jacket when he was obviously freezing.”
“…he was?”
“Whoever took this video has amazing camera quality. I mean, you can literally see the goose bumps on his arms.”
Guilt, the filthy traitor, grew stronger in my chest. I yelled at him while wearing his jacket? I never returned that jacket, either. It was buried somewhere in the bottom of my carry-on, which I inevitably won’t unpack for another week.
“I need to get back to work,” I hinted.
“Fine, fine.” He pushed out of the chair, then lowered his voice. “But you always complain about how Victoria closes doors for you instead of opening them. This looks like a new door that she doesn’t have the key to. Knock, knock, bitch. Time to open it.”
Once Calculator Cal was gone, I pulled out my phone and opened Instagram. I hadn’t checked it since stalking Noah’s posts in California, and I didn’t want to set any expectations now.
Fifteen thousand new followers.
The phone slipped out of my hand and onto the floor. Whispering a prayer to the gods of phone screens that it didn’t shatter, I picked it back up and double-checked the number. Yep, my follower count doubled overnight.
I had never bothered to focus on social media.
All I did was post the photos Victoria never let me attach to my articles, and I shared links to those articles.
But now, people were leaving comments about how good my photos were.
About how pretty I looked during a recent girls’ trip to Charleston.
About how they wanted to read my column.
And read it they would.
Knock, knock, bitch.