The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down

by Sophie Ranald

  Boots on, I’ve got my make-up bag, Oyster card, phone, keys – right, I’m going in! Or rather, out. I’m going out! I’ll see you guys later on. Mmmwah – byeee!

  It was a weird thing, I thought, snatching my camera off the chest of drawers and tucking it into my bag, how when I was filming, everything else seemed to kind of disappear. It felt almost as if there were real people watching me, people who cared about what I was going to wear on my first day in my new job, people who wanted to know whether my lip gloss was by Maybelline or Smashbox. People who cared about me. I knew that they were real, of course – they posted comments on my videos, followed me on social media, asked if I was okay if I hadn’t uploaded anything for a few days. They weren’t spambots, or anything like that. But when I was talking to them, it felt as if they were actually there in the room with me.

  Okay, that sounds creepy. But it meant that I totally lost track of time, the way you do when you’re having a good old chinwag with a group of mates. And on this occasion, it meant that I was going to have to get my skates on or be seriously late for work.

  I did the ten-minute walk to the station at almost a sprint, threw myself on to the train with seconds to spare and narrowly made it to the last remaining seat ahead of a man in a suit, who gave me a death stare. I smiled sweetly back and took my phone out of my handbag. Now that I was sitting still, with nothing to do except skim-read my social media for the next couple of hours, all my worries came flooding back.

  What if I fucked up at work? What if they all hated me, and Sarah called me into her office at the end of the day and told me she’d made a terrible mistake? And Jack – tonight would be the last time I’d see him for months and months. The thought made me feel all hollow inside, as if the space inside my heart that I kept for him had been torn open and left empty. It made me want to cry, but I’d cried so much in the past two weeks I was sure I didn’t have any tears left. Maybe that’s what the hollow feeling was, I thought – a reservoir of tears that had been soaked up by a succession of soggy tissues, my pillow, Jack’s shoulder and Stanley’s fur.

  I forced my thoughts away from Jack, away from crying, because if I thought about it I’d end up doing it, and checked my YouTube channel. The video I’d posted the previous day, showing off the new clothes I’d bought for work (actually, in the interests of full disclosure, some had been bought and others had been acquired during a stealth raid on Mum’s wardrobe while she was out), had been viewed almost a thousand times and had fifteen comments. I read them all, responding to the messages wishing me luck for my first day in my new job, answering the few questions about my purchases and admitting the “borrowing” from Mum.

  Most of the people commenting were familiar names – people I’d got to know over the two years since I set up SparklyGems (I know. It seemed like a great idea at the time), and even though none of us had ever met, they felt like friends. Some of them were vloggers too, mostly unsuccessful bottom-feeders like me who’d got all excited when we hit a thousand subscribers and then despondent when we seemed to stick there and our dreams of being followed by millions withered and died.

  I spent the rest of the long journey chatting online to them, watching their videos and posting comments of my own, and by the time the train snaked its way on to the platform at King’s Cross I’d forgotten all about being nervous.

  But when I got to Clickfrenzy HQ and realised that I was actually going to have to go up in the lift and face whatever unknown terrors the day had in store for me, I felt sick with apprehension again. I signed myself in at the reception desk, which was guarded by a suited man with a moustache – half receptionist, half bouncer – and walked reluctantly to the lift.

  At least I was the only person in the lobby, which meant I’d have eight floors on my own to compose myself and check my make-up on the way up to the office. I stepped in, pressed the button for the Clickfrenzy floor and turned to the mirror. But just as the doors were closing, I heard hurrying feet on the marble tiles outside and a voice called, “Hold that, please!”

  Shit. It was Sarah. I considered letting the door slam shut, leaving her to wait for the next lift – but what if this one stopped on multiple floors on the way up and hers didn’t, so we emerged at the same time on the eighth floor, and she knew it was me who hadn’t opened the door for her? The thought was too cringeworthy to contemplate. Hastily, I pressed the button and the doors parted again.

  Sarah stepped into the lift. I wondered anew how someone so tiny could be so imposing – even in her five-inch stiletto heels, she was shorter than me. Her make-up was heavily, immaculately applied. Her hair was expensively highlighted and styled in the kind of messy, beachy waves that I knew must have taken at least half an hour and a small ocean’s worth of sea salt spray to achieve. She wore leather trousers with over-the-knee boots, and didn’t look like a twat in them, even though it was the middle of summer. She impressed and intimidated me in equal measure.

  She gave me a look that was a bit like, who the hell are you, and then she recognised me. “Gemma! Welcome to Clickfrenzy, it’s great to have you on board.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m really excited to be here.”

  “I’ll just find Jim, who you met at your interview, and hand you over to him. He’ll show you where everything is,” she said.

  The doors opened and we stepped out into the huge office, where ranks of iMac-covered desks stretched off into the distance.

  “The writers are down the end,” she said. “And this is Daisy, who looks after our reception desk. Daisy, this is Gemma, who’s joining the team today.”

  I muttered a shy hello, then followed Sarah all the way to the back of the room, noticing how face after face turned to glance at us, then returned to staring at the screens. The room was totally silent, except for the tap of computer keys and a background hum that I supposed must be air conditioning, fans keeping the servers cool, or a mixture of the two.

  “Here we are,” Sarah said. “I’ll hand you over to Jim.”

  Half an hour later, I’d been shown around, introduced to what felt like hundreds of people whose names I was sure I’d never remember, and shown where the loo was and where to make coffee (I was desperate for caffeine, but too intimidated by the space-age machine to make any). I’d been assigned a desk at the end of a group of eight, next to a girl called Emily. I’d been given my email address, shown the company intranet and read through a load of stuff about annual leave and grievance procedures. I’d spent a few minutes staring in bewilderment at a huge leaderboard that seemed to show whose stories were getting the most hits and shares online, and wondered if my name would ever appear at the top, and what would happen if it remained at the bottom.

  No one seemed to be taking any notice of me. Did no one ever talk to anyone here? How did people know what to do? Everyone was focussed on their screens, only occasionally someone would stretch up and peer over the top, looking to see whether someone at the opposite end of the room was at their desk, looking a bit like the meerkats in that ad everyone was obsessed with a few years back. I watched as someone at the next-door pod of desks got up and walked the length of the office, returning a few minutes later with a tray carrying mugs of tea and coffee and distributed them, apparently without being asked. God, I could murder a cappuccino.

  Then a message popped up on my screen: Team meeting in ten. Coffee?

  I realised that I’d entered a world in which everyone was online all the time. Everyone was communicating constantly – they just did so digitally. This is going to suit me rather well, I thought.

  A few minutes later, cappuccino in hand, I stood up and followed my new colleagues back past the ranks of desks, though a door and into a meeting room furnished with a sofa as well as a normal table and chairs, a fridge full of soft drinks and a popcorn dispenser. Still in silence, everyone took their seats around the table.

  I looked at the other faces: Jim, with his sandy hair gelled into a pompadour. Emily, with her glossy dark ponyt
ail and thick-framed glasses. A girl with an amazing Afro, whose name I couldn’t remember. A chubby guy in a Bart Simpson T-shirt who I thought was called Tom. Three other girls down at the end of the table, all scribbling in notebooks. I’d be seeing them every day – I’d get to know their names and their habits and how they liked their coffee. Some of them might even become friends. But for now, they were all entirely strange and terribly intimidating.

  “Right,” Jim said. “Morning, all. Everyone here? Then let’s crack on. First, a warm welcome to Gemma, our new starter.”

  “Hello, Gemma,” everyone said, and I felt my face turn scarlet, praying that he wasn’t going to ask me to say a few words about myself and feeling almost dizzy with relief when he didn’t.

  “Right, on to some housekeeping.”

  Jim talked a bit about plans for the summer staff picnic, reminded us that we’d all need to get our August holiday dates booked ASAP, and assured us that the recent problems with the lifts seemed to have been sorted out. He gave us all a bit of a lecture about the importance of sticking to the coffee machine cleaning rota. He updated us on the forthcoming speaker event with a big cheese from Facebook, which had been postponed and would now take place next Wednesday.

  “Now, let’s talk a bit about some of the stories we’re working on. Ruby, you’ve been doing your CrossFit diary. How’s that going?”

  “Um, not so great, to be honest,” said one of the girls at the end of the table. I made a mental note: Ruby, blonde hair and braces. “I went to the first class, and it legit made me cry. It really did. I almost threw up it was so hard, and the next day I literally couldn’t get out of bed. And then last week I had really bad hayfever, so I thought I’d better give it a miss. So today is week three, but I’m really busy. I’m not sure whether I’m going to be able to get away in time this afternoon to…” She looked around the table. “Okay, okay, I’ll go. Jeez, you lot. It’s like living under the Nazis.”

  “No one even said anything, Ruby,” the girl with the Afro said.

  “You didn’t have to, Hermione,” Ruby said. “You just judged me with your judgey faces.”

  “We’ll look forward to reading about how it goes,” Jim said. “So, Hermione, what’s happening in politics?”

  “Brexit’s still a massive thing, obviously,” Hermione said. “And we’re continuing our series of columns by experts analysing what the impact of an Out vote would be. And everyone’s still talking about Donald Trump, but I kind of feel like we’ve done him to death. You know, the wall thing, The Apprentice – it’s all feeling a bit old.”

  “Especially since he’s never going to win,” Emily said.

  “Well, obviously he won’t win,” said Tom. “I mean, like, duh. As if.”

  “Yes, anyway,” Hermione said. “We did an in-depth comparison of his and Hillary’s policies last week, so I thought it was time for something a bit more light-hearted. A separated-at-birth thing. People who look more like Trump than Trump does. But I got as far as Biff Tannen from Back to the Future and then I got stuck.”

  “He is a bit special-looking, isn’t he?” Jim said. “Any ideas?”

  “He looks an awful lot like Mussolini,” Emily said, and I wondered what on earth Mussolini had looked like.

  “Grumpy Cat,” said Tom.

  “Chewbacca,” I suggested, then blushed again.

  “Boris Johnson,” said Ruby. “Only with better hair.”

  “Brilliant,” Hermione said, scribbling away in her notebook. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Good,” Jim said. “Spot anyone else who looks like a power-crazed Oompa-Loompa, let Hermione know. Callista, any celebrity gossip to share?”

  “Everyone’s totally obsessed with sideboob,” said Callista from the opposite end of the table. “It’s, like, the fourth most searched term on Google at the moment. So I’m doing a gallery. So much for my feminist principles.”

  “You can do celebrity feminists next,” Emily suggested.

  “Emma Watson,” said Hermione. “Serena Williams. JK Rowling. Florence Welch.”

  “That should redress the balance a bit,” Jim said. “Tom, what’s happening in lifestyle?”

  “Fried chicken,” Tom said. “Now that burgers are, like, totally over, it’s all about chicken. So I thought I’d do a roundup of the best.”

  Judging by Tom’s bulging T-shirt, he took his research seriously.

  “I’m not sure that’s really got the Clickfrenzy edge,” Jim said. “Remember, our stories aim to take a sideways look at life. Maybe something a bit more out there?”

  “Obviously, we’ve passed peak burger,” Ruby said. “But they’re still a thing, and people are doing weird shit with them. Crimes against burgers. I went on a date last week with this guy who turned out to be a raw food freak, and he took me to a place that did a raw burger. Literally raw mince between two pieces of lettuce. How gross is that?”

  “What did it taste like?” Tom asked.

  “God, I don’t know! I had a salad. Obviously.”

  “I’m sure I saw a tweet the other day about a ramen burger,” Hermoine said. “You know, with noodles instead of a bun. It looked foul.”

  “Horsemeat burgers,” Jim said.

  “I thought Tesco didn’t do those any more,” Emily said.

  “No, but there’s a place at Borough Market that does,” Jim said. “Proper, legit horsemeat, not, you know, horse pretending to be beef.”

  “Aren’t doughnut burgers a thing now?” I said.

  “Cronut burgers, surely?” Callista said. “Doughnuts are so 2015.”

  “Right, I’m sure you’ll have fun with that one, Tom,” Jim said.

  “I might just, like, research them online.” Tom looked downcast.

  “You do that,” Jim said. “Any more story ideas to share? No?”

  There was silence around the table.

  “Okay,” Jim said. “Gemma, we’ll start you off on cats.”

  “Cats?” I said.

  “You know,” Tom said, sticking his fingers out at the sides of his face. “Miaow?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I do know what they are. Honest. But what about them?”

  “Cat stories get clicks,” Hermione said. “You know, the internet is basically, like, made of cats.”

  “And there are more than six billion cat pictures online for you to choose from,” Callista said.

  “They get more views on YouTube than any other video category,” Emily said helpfully. They certainly get more views than my vlog, I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

  “You’ve heard of the cute cat theory of digital activism, right?” said Tom.

  “Of course,” I lied. “But I’ve forgotten what it is. Is it…”

  “Anyway, never mind about that,” Tom said, and I suspected that he had no more of a clue about what the cute cat theory of digital activism was than I did.

  “So we generate a lot of cat posts,” Jim said. “You’ll need to create at least one story a day. It could be a listicle, or a collection of images, or a quiz. Whatever you like. But remember, the goal is contagious content.”

  “Right, I get it,” I said.

  “Cool,” Jim said. “Put something together and let me know when you’re ready to run it past me. Any other business?”

  I looked around the table. Everyone shook their heads, so I shook mine, too. Then we all stood up, gathered our notebooks and coffee mugs, and made our way back to our desks.

  By the time half past five came, I’d looked at more pictures of cats than I ever thought I’d see in my life. Cute cats and cross cats. Sleeping cats and pouncing cats. Cats that looked like loaves of bread and cats that looked like bagels. Cats that looked like pin-up girls and cats that looked like Hitler.

  Don’t get me wrong, I like cats as much as the next person. But the knowledge that, for the foreseeable future, I’d be doing nothing else, every day, except finding pictures of cats and thinking of amusing captions for them, was daunting to say the least.


  Still, I thought, I’d survived my first day. I hadn’t made any awful mistakes. Jim had seemed happy with my first article (‘25 Reasons Why Your Cat is Cross’, since you ask). I’d made a round of coffee without getting muddled or spilling any. And now it was time to go to the airport and say goodbye to Jack.

  But no one was leaving. Around the pod of desks, my new colleagues were still transfixed by their screens, tapping furiously at their keyboards, as they’d been all day. I checked the company intranet – the hours were definitely half past nine until half past five. Why was no one going anywhere? I was new; there was no way I could be the first to leave.

  Surreptitiously, I checked my phone. Jack and Olivia had posted a selfie of themselves on the train with their backpacks. I felt a lump swell up in my throat and determinedly swallowed it. I couldn’t cry – not here. But I needed to go – I needed to say goodbye to Jack, to feel his arms around me one last time and hear him say again how much he loved me and would miss me.

  I read the email he’d sent me with his flight details again, even though I knew it off by heart. Their departure time was nine o’clock, which meant they’d need to check in by seven thirty at the latest. I’d have plenty of time to get there if I left soon. But I couldn’t leave yet.

  I tucked my phone into my bag and tidied my desk – not that there was much to tidy, just a pack of Post-it notes and a tube of hand cream. I looked around. No one was moving. Come on, I willed them. Come on! Don’t you have homes to go to?