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“Of course.” She looked up with a tired smile.
“How was he tonight?”
“Better. He slept from seven until about fifteen minutes ago.”
It was almost three in the morning, so six hours and change wasn’t too bad. I’d hoped he would be sleeping through the night by now, but we hadn’t been that lucky.
“Hi, baby boy. Did you miss Mommy?” I leaned over and brushed a kiss across the top of his head. He had a full head of soft, silky dark curls and always smelled so good.
He stared up at me with his blue and brown eyes—heterochromia was definitely genetic in this case—and hiccupped.
“Why don’t you go back to bed?” I suggested to Aunt Meg, reaching for the baby. “I can take over.”
“I don’t sleep much these days,” she said. “And anyway, I have to show you something.”
“Everything okay?” I asked, settling onto the couch next to her and giving Jeremy the bottle.
She picked up her phone and held it out. “Maybe I’m reading this wrong. Does this say my last post has nearly fifty thousand views?”
I took her phone from her with my free hand and scanned her latest post on InstaPixel. Sure enough, she’d had quite the blowup in views and comments. She’d continued making videos for her page, simply called Eye-Lights with Aunt Meg, and had started getting dozens of makeup samples in the mail every month. It seemed lots of skincare and makeup companies liked what she was doing, and though it hadn’t turned into anything that could be considered a full-time job, she’d started making a little money from the a few advertisers. God knew we needed it.
“Fifty thousand…” I mused. “What was so different about this post?”
“I’m not sure, but I started looking at the comments and then I saw that this Lexi Rousseau person has half a million followers and—”
“Wait, did you say Lexi Rousseau?” I asked, staring at her.
“Yes. Why?”
“You know who she is, right? She’s the lead singer of that band I love—Nobody’s Fool.”
“Oh.” Aunt Meg’s eyes rounded, and she took back her phone, immediately typing into it. “Here’s her comment: ‘I love your skincare routine, Aunt Meg! And I’m ordering a bottle of No-Glo right now. It looks amazing. Thanks for doing what you do—it sure makes it easier to see a regular person using it first.’ And then she put some hearts.”
“Wow. That’s huge, Aunt Meg. She’s a big deal.”
“Is she?”
“Yeah. Her band’s new album just went platinum.”
“Oh.” Aunt Meg looked thoughtful. “So she’s a pretty big rockstar?”
“Absolutely. Nobody’s Fool is hot. And she used to be with an all-girl band called Special Kay years ago too.”
Aunt Meg smiled. “This is our chance for you to get your magazine up and running again.”
I sighed. “That ship has sailed.”
“No, it hasn’t. You still get the occasional message from someone asking who you’ll interview next. You need to do it. Those early interviews you did, when you were pregnant, were wonderful. Thought-provoking, insightful, and brutally honest. People loved them. If you can get someone like Lexi to talk to you, the magazine will take off. Then you can tell Dr. Russell to go pound rocks.”
I stifled a giggle. “I think it’s too late, and anyway, I don’t have the money to re-take the class, so what’s the point?”
“Doing something you enjoy that could potentially become a full-time job? Look at me. If I had the energy to do makeup tutorials regularly, I’d be making money at it. This influencer stuff is real.”
“Yeah, but mine is an online magazine. It’s totally different.”
“But what if it wasn’t? What if you combined the two? Get the magazine going with your articles and writing, but then promote it with videos and stuff? Start with Sam. He’s been a good friend to you. I bet he’d let you record a rehearsal or do an updated interview where you do edits highlighting the fun stuff and—”
“Aunt Meg.” I shook my head. “I’m tired. Between work and the baby, I don’t have the energy, not to mention the creativity, for any of that.”
