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

by Sophie Ranald

  Obviously, I wasn’t at my most focussed. But I couldn’t be imagining the swivel of one pair of eyes after another towards me as I walked the length of the office to our pod, nor the way everyone’s gaze seemed to slide away from mine if I glanced in their direction, nor the wave of silence followed by almost-silent whispers that followed me.

  Reaching my desk felt like reaching the end of a swimming pool after a length under water. I dropped my bag and flopped into my chair with an audible exhalation.

  Emily was there already, a web page open on her screen, headphones in her ears. She glanced up when she saw me and actually blushed.

  “Hi Gemma.” She removed the earbuds.

  “Hi,” I said. “Is it just me or is it, like, really weird in here today?”

  Emily gave me a strange look. “You’ve seen your social media, right?”

  “No.” My mouth felt terribly dry, as if I’d tried to eat three cream crackers at once. “My phone’s dead. Why? What’s happening?”

  “I think you need to look,” Emily said. “I’ll get you a coffee.”

  I nodded mutely, switched on my computer, fumbled in my bag for my phone and plugged in the charger. I knew, already, what must have happened – but I didn’t know how, or the full extent of it. People must have seen the video I’d uploaded. But how? My YouTube channel wasn’t private, but it was tiny – no one except my few thousand followers ever watched it. No one at work had ever mentioned it, and nor had I – not since my interview with Sarah weeks before. Unless you searched for my name, there was no way you’d come across any of my posts among the millions of others that were uploaded every day, all over the world.

  While I waited for my computer to whirr to life, I glanced at Emily’s screen. She didn’t have the Clickfrenzy tab open; she was on Boredcubed, one of our main competitor platforms. She was looking at a headline that shouted, ‘This Girl Just Got Dumped, And Her Reaction Is EPIC’. And underneath it my face was silently moving, mouthing the words I’d said last night.

  I pressed the power button on my phone and waited while it started up. My hand was oddly steady, although inside every bit of me felt as if it was shaking. For a moment, my phone’s screen looked just the same as usual, its icons floating serenely over the photo of Jack and me on my twenty-third birthday. That was going in the trash, I thought. Then, one by one, little red tags started appearing. I had new notifications from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – it was just like the feeling I’d had walking through the office: the sense that eyes were watching me, people were discussing me, only this was online, not in real life, there were far, far more people, and they didn’t know me or care about me.

  I swiped my phone’s screen until I found the YouTube icon and tapped it. I didn’t want to know what I’d see there but I knew there was no point putting it off.

  Just the other day at work, some expert from Google had come in to give us a talk about managing social media disasters. As a lowly writer of stories about cats, I was pretty sure such responsibility would never fall to me, but it had made sense to show willing and, besides, I’d seen massive platters of cheese and bowls of biscuits being carried through to the boardroom. Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch didn’t work in an up-and-coming new media business, that was for sure. So anyway, I’d gone along and listened to case studies about Rio Ferdinand promoting Snickers bars and #AskELJames, and it had all been very interesting, and one thing I’d taken away from it (along with a massive wedge of Brie which I’d wrapped in a napkin and stashed in my bag, then forgotten about until a week later) was that if you suddenly find yourself the laughing stock of the internet, you can’t just ignore it.

  So I had to look. I had to see what people were saying about me, and decide what I was going to do about it. I’d already decided, actually. I was going to delete the video and delete all my accounts. I was going to do the social media equivalent of hiding in the loo until everyone had gone home. Then I realised the impossibility of erasing what I’d created. The genie was out of the bottle. Boredcubed’s three million subscribers had seen me in my bedroom, crying and ranting about my unfaithful boyfriend. People would have posted my video on their Facebook walls and Twitter feeds and Tumblr blogs.

  “Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever,” the guy from Google had said in our lunchtime seminar.

  My YouTube channel took a few seconds to load on my phone. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second while I waited, trying to force a deep breath down into my tight chest. Then I opened my eyes and looked at the screen.

  Last night when I went to bed, I’d had three thousand subscribers. Now, I had eighteen thousand. As I watched, the number jumped to twenty thousand, then up again. People had commented, too – loads of them.

  I let my eyes slip down the list of comments as my finger scrolled up the screen.

  You’re amazing, Gemma. You just said what we all think when we get dumped. Hope you feel better soon – he’s not worth it.

  You’re gorgeous and he’s clearly a loser. Chin up – you deserve better.

  You’re so brave to have posted this, and so honest. Well done – and don’t stop vlogging. The camera loves you.

  And so on. As I skimmed through them, I felt my face growing hotter and hotter, and the urge to cry growing stronger. But this time, it wasn’t tears of misery and mortification I wanted to shed, but of – not happiness, exactly. But you know the feeling you get when something bad has happened and your best friend touches your hand and asks if you’re okay – that, times thousands. I felt like I was being hugged by a bunch of strangers who liked me and cared about me. It was completely freaky and weird, but it was nice, too.

  Just then, I did feel the friendly brush of fingers on my shoulder, and Emily put a steaming cappuccino down next to me and said, “Are you okay, Gemma?”

  Predictably, her kindness tipped me over the edge. I felt tears streaming down my face, and dug in my bag for a tissue.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Just… how the hell did this happen? And have you seen what all these people are saying? Everyone’s being, like, really nice. I don’t get it.”

  “How the hell did what happen?” Emily said. “The video go viral? Someone shared it and then someone else did and… come on, Gemma. You know all this stuff.”

  “I do, obviously,” I said. “I just thought – I mean, my vlog’s so tiny. I never get new followers. Even when Tanya Burr retweeted me once, it didn’t make this much difference.”

  “Because you haven’t posted anything that’s resonated like this before,” Emily said. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but there are loads of people doing make-up tutorials and stuff. This is kind of different.”

  “Different? I guess it is. Shit, Emily, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  I sipped my cappuccino. It was true – I was mortified. I felt more stupid and more exposed and more embarrassed than I ever had in my life before. But still, amid the horrible, crawling sense of shame that made me feel like my whole body was blushing – the way you feel in those nightmares where you’re in Primark and you walk out of the fitting room and you’ve forgotten to put your clothes back on (it’s not just me, is it? Or is it?) – in spite of that, there was still a hint of happiness. Of pride, almost. That what I’d done, even though it was such a massive mistake, had been enough to make so many people like me and care about me, and maybe feel less alone themselves. That it had, as Emily said, resonated.

  “Look, Gemma,” Emily said. “I know this must feel really embarrassing right now. But it’ll blow over. These things always do. Chloë Sevigny once liked a photo I posted on Instagram and I got a load of new followers overnight. It was insane. But most of them have unfollowed me now. Tomorrow’s chip paper, innit?”

  “I suppose so,” I said. But I found my eyes drawn back to my phone. Every few seconds a new notification flashed up from Twitter or Instagram telling me I had a new follower, or someone had posted a link to my video
saying how much they related to it, wishing me well, or even, randomly, saying how much they loved my hair or my make-up.

  Katie and Nancy had sent me messages on Facebook, but I couldn’t face reading them – what if they took Jack and Olivia’s side, and were angry with me for shaming them so publicly? I pushed my phone aside and blacked the screen, but even as I turned to my computer and started scouring the web for posts to include in the listicle I was compiling (‘20 Cats Most Likely To Achieve World Peace’), I kept seeing my own name, my face, even quotes from my video flashing up on my feed.

  It made it almost impossible to focus, even on kittens curled up on top of babies.

  After gazing at my screen for over an hour and managing to write just a handful of words, I gave up and braved the long, long walk to the kitchen for a glass of water. Once more, I was conscious of my colleagues’ eyes following me. I couldn’t help tugging my skirt down, as if I was worried about it being caught in my knickers, even though I knew it wasn’t. My feet felt far too big for my body. I could feel sweat snaking down my back, even though the office was as cool as a Frappuccino. And, of course, when I reached the kitchen, there was Sarah, firing a second shot of espresso from the machine into her cup.

  I shot into reverse, but it was too late – she’d seen me. Actually, it was more like she’d smelled me coming, or divined my presence by some sort of sixth sense, because she didn’t even look up from the stream of coffee.

  She just said, “Good morning, Gemma.”

  “Good morning, Sarah,” I parroted like a six-year-old.

  The coffee machine gave a final gurgle. Sarah slid her cup – it was one of the special ones, reserved for client meetings, which mere mortals like me were forbidden from using on pain of a telling-off from Anthony, the office manager – off the metal drip tray and inhaled the steam like I imagine wine connoisseurs must do during the process of getting utterly shitfaced. I wanted to leg it – I really did – but now she’d acknowledged me I felt I had to wait for permission to leave. And besides, my legs appeared to have lost the power to move.

  Sarah lifted her face from her coffee and said, “Would you like a drink?”

  Hell, yes, I thought, a double vodka and anything would go down just brilliantly right now. But I said, “I just came to get a glass of water.”

  Sarah nodded. She reached into the fridge and took out a bottle of water (also normally reserved for clients – it was the water cooler for the rest of us), and handed it to me.

  Before I could stammer out a thank you, she said, “Next time you decide to break the internet, please let us know in advance so we can get the clicks, not those clowns at Boredcubed.”

  Then she winked at me, and swished away to her office.

  When I left work that afternoon, I didn’t go straight to the Tube station. Instead, I walked up Tottenham Court Road, past the vast construction site that would eventually become the new Crossrail station but for now was just a massive, fenced-off hole in the ground, the streets around it thronged with bewildered tourists and frustrated commuters. I found a photography store and bought a little tripod with a special clip to hold my phone, and a selfie stick as well. I even found myself looking longingly at the high-end video equipment and lights – but even if I could have afforded them, I hadn’t actually decided what I was going to do – had I?

  Then I went to Boots and bought a load of make-up, including some magic light-reflecting cream that promised photo-perfect, airbrushed skin. Because obviously I’d want to look my best for the viewers I wasn’t even sure I wanted.

  When I got home, I chucked all the carrier bags under my bed. I didn’t want to think about what I was going to do, and I certainly wasn’t ready to actually do it. I looked at my phone and saw that, as Emily had predicted, the flood of tweets and subscribers was easing off. I knew that if I ignored it, it would slow to a trickle and stop. But people were asking about me, wondering why I hadn’t responded to any messages, wanting to know if I was okay. A few people were even suggesting finding out my address and sending the police round, in case I’d ‘done something stupid’.

  I had, that was for sure. And now, somehow, I was going to have to deal with the consequences – but I didn’t know how. I found myself pacing around my bedroom – which was a challenge because it was only about six paces from the door to the window – sitting down and then standing up again, unable to focus on anything. I went downstairs and made myself a couple of bits of toast with peanut butter and sat in front of the telly, but when I tried to eat my throat closed up. Then Hannah arrived home from her knitting group, shortly followed by Richard arriving from work.

  “All right, Gemma?” Richard said.

  I said, “Yeah, good thanks. You?”

  “I bought takeaway,” Hannah said, dumping a greasy carrier bag on the table. “It’s buttermilk-fried chicken – seriously good. Want some?”

  The smell made my stomach rumble, but at the same time I felt a bit sick. I shook my head.

  “Sure?” Richard said. “It’s really good.”

  “So good,” Hannah said around a mouthful of batter.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said. “I ate earlier.” I hoped they wouldn’t spot my uneaten toast in the bin. “Think I’ll head for bed, actually. I’m knackered.”

  At least my flatmates appeared to be oblivious of my new-found fame – or notoriety – I thought, closing my bedroom door. The carrier bags under the bed seemed almost to rustle with anticipation. Come on, they said. You bought all this exciting new kit. Aren’t you even going to look at it?

  I thought, I’ll just look. See how it all works. Maybe try the magic blurry make-up stuff.

  And so, an hour later, I found myself with a full face of slap applied, perching on the bed with Stanley on my lap, looking up at the camera. Last night, I’d spoken into it without a second thought – but that was then. Now, I was acutely, terrifyingly conscious of the world that waited out there beyond my phone’s expectant screen. You can edit it, Gemma, I soothed myself. You don’t even have to post it at all. Just have a go, see whether it works.

  I licked my lips, which were sticky and sweet with gloss, and squeezed Stanley closer.

  “Hi everyone,” I said.

  I don’t know how long I spoke for, but it felt like ages. When I started, I said that I didn’t know what I was going to say, but once the words began to come, they just didn’t stop. I explained that I hadn’t meant my video to go viral, and that when I realised it had, all I wanted to do was delete it. I almost did, I said, but then I saw all the lovely things people had said about me – people who I’d never met in my life and never would – and I felt that to do so would somehow be a betrayal of them.

  I told them how they’d made me feel: like when you’re at a gig and somehow find yourself lifted up and crowdsurfing, held aloft by the hands of strangers, supported and safe, but exhilarated too. Or, on a more humdrum note, like when you go to the corner shop to buy a can of Coke and you realise haven’t got enough cash and their card machine’s broken, and the person behind you says, “Don’t worry, love,” and gives you 10p. Or when you’re wearing new shoes and you trip and fall over while you’re walking past a big group of teenagers, and instead of pissing themselves laughing at you and taking photos of your knickers to post on Snapchat, they come rushing over and ask if you’re okay and help you to your feet. (All those were things that had happened to me, which I’d forgotten all about until I started trying to describe what today had been like, and then the memories came rushing back.)

  I said that I hadn’t been sure about posting again, and that I still wasn’t – I was going to record a video, though, and watch it back, and see how I felt. I wanted to be sure, this time. And I wanted them – whoever they were, however many of them there were – to know that I wasn’t sure, right now, while I was speaking. And then I realised I’d used the word “sure” about ten times in one minute, and I started to laugh, because it was all so earnest and stupid, and there I was baring
my soul when I didn’t even know if anyone was going to see me doing it.

  Then I finally got round to the point, which was that, really, I’d been a dick – I’d done the emotional equivalent of accidentally releasing a sex tape (does anyone ever actually release sex tapes accidentally? Or is it always some calculated publicity stunt, or an angry ex wanting revenge?), and instead of mocking and vilifying me, the internet had been nice to me. I still couldn’t quite believe it, I said. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy and happy, this surprising proof of the kindness of strangers.

  So, I said, I wanted to say thank you to every single person who’d posted a message of support, and everyone who’d told the people whose messages hadn’t been supportive not to be mean. Oh, and by the way, I said, a lot of them had asked me if I’d heard from Jack. I hadn’t. And then I said I was going to have to stop talking or I’d cry, and I felt that the internet had seen more than enough of me crying already and I didn’t want to make a habit of it. So I said goodnight.

  And then I stood up and switched the camera off. My legs felt wobbly and strange and my throat was as dry as sandpaper. The house was in darkness – Richard and Hannah must have gone to bed, although I hadn’t heard their feet on the stairs passing my door on the way to their bedroom up in the loft. I really, really hoped that would mean they hadn’t heard me talking, either.

  I went to the bathroom and cleaned off every scrap of make-up and brushed my teeth. I filled a glass with water from the tap over the basin and took it back to my room. I unclipped my camera from its stand on the chest of drawers, downloaded the video on to my laptop and pressed play, careful that the sound was turned down low.