“Tessa just sent me a link to something, but I haven’t seen it,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m . . . on a date,” I say. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“A date?” he asks. “Is it another MLMer? Do you need me to save you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s been fine. Why are you calling?”
“Just fine?” he asks.
“Luke,” I say, feeling irritated.
“Right, sorry,” he says. “So, your client has gone off the rails.”
“What?” I put him on speakerphone so I can pull up the link Tessa sent me and pray he’s overexaggerating.
I click on it, and it sends me to Bailey’s Instagram. The top post is a picture of one of those grumpy-looking cats with the caption:This is Bella. The new love of my life.
I don’t even need to look at the comments to know what fans are saying right now. But I look anyway.
That’s right, girl! Cats are so much better than men.
This is such a dig at River. Wow.
Dogs are better than cats. This is such a pathetic move.
I stop reading, scrolling down the page with my thumb. There are probably hundreds of comments already.
“Crap,” I say, the word echoing in the bathroom.
“Yes. Crap. But I could think of other more appropriate words,” Luke says through the speaker. “What’s she thinking with this? She’s supposed to clear her posts with the studio.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
What I do know is that this is bad. We were clearly told in the meeting with the studio that if Bailey or River steps out of line, we could all lose our jobs.
My phone beeps, and I see Bailey’s name. “She’s calling me. I’ll call you back.”
I hang up on Luke and answer Bailey’s call.
“Hi, Bailey,” I say, impressed at how calm I sound under the circumstances.
“Did you see it?” she asks, panic in her voice.
“I did,” I tell her.
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s a shelter I volunteer with. I’m contractually obligated to post if I adopt, and I never planned to, but I saw this cat today, and I’ve been feeling lonely with everything and . . .” She trails off. I know what happens next anyway.
I pull up the post again, and under her caption just above the picture, she’s tagged a well-known animal adoption center.
That bodes well for our jobs. She’s allowed to post contractual things without clearing it. But it doesn’t mean Victoria won’t also see the unintentional dig and be angry about it anyway.
“Okay, take a breath,” I say for both of us.
“What do I do?” she asks. “I should edit it, right? I’ll just change the caption.”
“No,” I say, the single word coming out louder than I mean it to. “Sorry. Just don’t touch it. People have already taken screenshots. They’ll know you changed it.”
