Influence

The brief was simple; sell a bleach pen. Cara stared at the bleach pen, which had arrived in a mini, tin washing machine, nestled on polystyrene bubbles. ‘Hi gorgeous Cara,’ began the slip of paper, in the PR specialist’s familiar handwriting (Izzy, Cara knew immediately) ‘here’s your pen, we can’t wait to see what you do with it!’ $25,000 was resting on what Cara did with her bleach pen. She flicked through her emails until she found Izzy’s initial reach-out about the bleach pen partnership. There was the deadline, the fact Cara’s post would be the fourth in line to go live, after @FallMomma, @BeachMamasbrood and @Mamaandherducklings, and the payment as based on Cara’s mediakit her husband had put together when things started to take off on the gram. Her husband was currently out location scouting; they had a photo shoot scheduled for tomorrow, of apple picking, in which Cara planned on wearing a few new recently gifted items she was running behind on showing.

Dashyll, Cara’s three-year-old son wandered into the kitchen. Dashyll was actually three and a half, but she was mindful of keeping his age quiet, and ensuring he wore rompers or was often nude. It maintained the baby image. For his third birthday, they had thrown a jungle-themed party and the photo of Dash in front of his silverback gorilla birthday smash cake (Cara liked the smash cake trend, it made for amazing photos, so she was setting the trend of having a smash cake for every birthday) reached 86,738 likes on Instagram. It was, at the time, a record high. Cara’s pregnancy reveal, however, had since topped it, with 139,122 likes. Her subsequent bump photos were doing well too. Her numbers were growing.

Dashyll pointed at the box the bleach pen had arrived in, and screamed. Dash couldn’t really speak yet, but Cara wasn’t concerned. He’d figure it out once he reached preschool. For now, the important thing was he came on all her work trips and experienced the culture of other countries, and remained cuter than Zoda, son of Jana, Cara’s main rival. Jana was ahead of Cara in their second pregnancies by two months, which was good for Cara; she would see where Jana failed, and not make those mistakes. Plus, followers always reached a frenzy when around a birth, refreshing for hours waiting for the first picture, then the name reveal, which was usually a redirect back to the blog, and then faded and went in search of another pregnancy to follow. Cara was confident she’d pick up some of Jana’s followers once Jana’s baby was there. And they had a trip to Japan scheduled about a month after the baby’s due date, so no way she wouldn’t gain new followers with her newborn beneath the cherry blossoms.

Dashyll screamed again and Cara handed him the bleach pen. She needed to brainstorm some ideas and he was getting in the way of her creativity. Dashyll took the cap off the pen and put it in his mouth. Adorbs, thought Cara, and pulled her phone out. She ran off a quick Instagram story, careful to put a scribble over the bleach pen so as not to breach contract, and captioned it ‘helping Mommy at work’.

Dashyll dropped the pen.

‘BAH. BAAAAAH.’ He used the back of his hand to wipe his tongue. ‘Cock, cock.’ Tall for his age, he easily used his stool to get the cookie jar down off the counter, and crammed several mini choc-chip cookies in his mouth at once.

Cara grabbed her phone and shot off another story. This one captioned, ‘who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?’ Dash grinned at her through crumbs and smears of choc chips.

Suddenly, Cara was struck by what her husband called, her creative genius. She rustled through some of the parcels on the kitchen table, certain somewhere in there was some leisurewear she’d been sent the other day. She found the charcoal leggings and mango crop top and changed into them, careful to fold the waistband of the leggings down so her smooth, tanned (spray) belly was clearly displayed.

She rustled again through the packages and found some kids’ clothes. She was always being sent kids’ clothes. She chose a white, organic cotton tee shirt, with a hand-painted crying deer on the front, and pulled it down over Dash’s blond bowl cut. Bowl cuts made cheeks look chubbier and kept little boys little. As soon as the new baby was here, she’d cut his hair. And probably try harder to get him out of diapers, even though just yesterday she’d taken delivery of 300 organic diapers made of repurposed bark.

She picked up her phone and shot off a quick story of her and Dash making kissy faces and captioned it ‘baking cookies with my baby (I love how he says the word ‘cookies!’)’ with a heart-eyed emoji. Obviously, she didn’t film Dashyll saying cookies, because he said cock. She rarely filmed Dashyll with the volume on these days, not after people had started commenting on his lack of speech around his third birthday. Cara had posted a photo of herself cupping a steaming mug of birch tea and captioned it ‘waiting for Dash’s tutor’ and let the commenters guess among themselves and ultimately conclude the tutor was actually a speech therapist. The tutor was in actual fact their next-door neighbour who was studying psychology at university and sometimes came over to observe Dash for whatever reason.

Cara WhatsApped her husband that she had had another successful brainstorm and was setting up a shoot for the bleach pen and she needed him home. Dashyll, satiated, had moved to the hallway mirror and was licking it with his crumb-coated tongue. Cara followed him and shot off a quick mirror selfie. The light was good, and she had caught Dash looking at her admiringly, and herself returning his gaze. She framed it up, upped the brightness, and posted it as a photo, captioned, ‘waiting for Papa (and baby! #ifeellikeihavebeenpregnantforever #gimmeallthebabies)’. She watched for a few minutes as the likes rolled in. She liked to get an idea of a photo’s initial popularity. The bump and Dash usually did well. Leisurewear helped. As did her boobs.

She heard a key in the front door, and quickly began filming a story. She usually got good material whenever Dash saw his Dad. The door opened and her husband walked in.

‘Papa!’ screamed Dash, and Cara felt mollified. It had been the right decision to film. Cute content, and Dash had spoken. Suck on it, haters, she thought, as she moved down the hallway. Her husband’s veneers flashed as he picked his son up, and the 15 seconds ran out. She posted it with the heart eye emoji and #papashome.

Cara did her makeup while her husband set up for the bleach pen shoot. She did a few quick stories on Instagram, to outline her go-to products. The light in the bathroom was good, particularly if she stood right in front of the window and tipped her head slightly to the left while raising her shoulders slightly and pinching her nostrils. The nostril pinch in turn made her top lip flare and her cheekbones pop.

When the shoot was set up, Cara picked through some of the packages on the dining room table again and found some organic cotton khaki shorts for Dash, and a small white tank top woven out of repurposed plastic bags. The crying deer tee wasn’t right, the repurposed plastic bag tank was better. It felt scratchy, but Dash wouldn’t have to wear it for long. She wrestled it on, despite his protests and clapped when he was dressed. Dash clapped with her, his standard trick that always made people hashtag goals on her posts, or tag a friend and say something weird like ‘you and your baby @gabz2392’, or ‘can this be us @bradfeckton?’ Mostly, Cara clapped to distract Dash, when he was on the verge of a meltdown, because it always distracted him. That and ice cream.

‘Dash, baby,’ she barked, pointing at the white wall that got the best light. ‘Come stand here for a photo with Mommy.’ She handed her phone to her husband who shot Dash and Cara laughing wholeheartedly in front of the white wall at nothing in particular. When Cara inspected his captures, she instructed him to shoot off another few, this time with more of her belly visible.

‘Babe, get my belly in more.’

‘Got it babe.’

When the final image had been chosen, Cara stretched it a little to lengthen her thighs - they always seemed to get squatter during pregnancy — and upped the brightness so their hair shone. She captioned it ‘about to do some baking with this little monster’ and uploaded it with various hashtags, including #repurposeplastic, #lovetheenvironment, #bemindful, #alwaysamama.

‘Have you got the food dye ready?’

Her husband indicated the set up. Pastel Kitchen Aid, oversized ceramic mixing bowels, paper sacks of flour, scattered pieces of brightly coloured candy, and a fan of food dye tubes.

‘Have you shot it already?’

Her husband handed her the digital camera and she flipped through his preliminary shots of the kitchen. He had even managed to get the bunch of peonies sitting in the sink. She only did that because Bryllyn always raked in the likes when she did it and Bryllyn was even more of a threat than Jana these days, particularly since the birth of her twins.

‘Okay. Dash baby, come to Mama.’ She liked how European ‘Mama’ sounded, and made sure her followers had seen multiple stories of Dash saying ‘Mama’, one of his five words. Dash scuttled over and she gave him the open tube of red food dye. She glanced up to make sure her husband was ready with the camera, gave Dash an enormous smile and shrieked, ‘squeeze!’

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