Chapter 6

6

MEREDITH

It is harder than it seems to get rid of a guy who isn’t ready to leave, especially one as charming as Ben. The problem with Ben is that he and I are cut from the same cloth. Aspen is the sun, and we are flowers greedy for her light, wanting to absorb it all and leave the rest of the world in darkness. There isn’t room enough for both of us in Aspen’s life, and it soon became clear to me who was winning.

Aspen found her niche in Ben. How ironic is that? He wasn’t even an influencer in any capacity. Sure, he was on social media, but he was on it the way most people were—using it to share vacation photos and keep tabs on which of their high school friends got married or divorced or went bald. I’ll share a few Instagram snapshots to spare you the boring details.

Seven and a half years ago: Aspen and Ben making an apple pie from scratch, him behind her with his arms around her, kneading a ball of pie dough together while grinning at each other. They even went to an orchard to pick the apples. “The warm scent of apples at the orchard is better than any perfume. #AllNatural #HomemadePie #AllDayAspen #AsBen.” 117 Likes. 5,086 followers.

Seven and a half years ago: A Starbucks latte that Ben had gotten for Aspen. “You guys! He remembers every little detail. Tall caramel soy latte with extra foam and two lashings of caramel on top. This boy, I swear. #Love #Starbucks #Latte #AllDayAspen #AsBen.” 397 Likes. 8,913 followers.

Seven years ago: Ben down on one knee at the Griffith Observatory at sunset, Aspen covering her obviously gasping mouth, her wide eyes bright with tears. “HE PUT A RING ON IT!!! #Love #MarriageProposal #Engaged #AllDayAspen #AsBen.” 4,009 Likes. 26,127 followers.

Seven years ago: Aspen and Ben walking down the aisle, caught mid-laugh in a flurry of confetti. I’m in this photo, actually, in a sapphire silk maid of honor dress, a practiced I’m-so-happy-for-my-best-friend smile plastered on my face. “I married my best friend today. #Love #WeddingInspo #AllDayAspen #AsBen.” 24,813 Likes. 52,839 followers. (You married your best friend , Aspen? I thought I was your best friend.)

Six and a half years ago: Aspen’s finger with two tiny hands clutching it. (I did the math right; she was already carrying the twins when she walked down the aisle. Some people might say she shouldn’t have been wearing white. I am not one of those people. I don’t judge.) “The girls decided to come a little bit early. I didn’t think it was possible to love anyone this much, but my heart is overflowing. Guess what their names are? Let me know in the comments! Anyone who guesses correctly will get a surprise gift! #MomLove #Twins #AllDayAspen #AsBen.” 72,628 Likes. 139,276 followers.

Five and a half years ago: Noemie and Elea gaping at the camera in matching outfits, holding a sign that says: “ We Are One Year Old Today!” In the background, a huge, over-the-top birthday party. I’m in this one, too, a practiced I-love-my-goddaughters smile plastered on my face. “Where did the time go?? How can these two be one already!? Giveaway Thursdays! Today, we are celebrating the twins’ birthday by giving away TWO diaper bags from Nana’s Secret. To enter, follow the guidelines below! #Giveaway #Twins #NoemiElea #AllDayAspen.” 269,643 Likes. 427,821 followers. (I suppose I should be grateful that she dropped that dreadful couple’s hashtag. I mean, honestly? #AsBen? It sounds like an ass cream. Instagram should’ve banned her for having terrible hashtag judgment.)

Four years ago: A family portrait taken at a beach in Phuket, all four of them wearing matching fifties-style red-and-blue swimsuits. “GIVEAWAY! Guys, forget Hawaii and come to this part of the world. Crystal blue waters + private beaches + affordable, delicious Thai food? Yes please! To celebrate one million followers, we are partnering up with @ThaiAirways and giving away two tickets from the US to Phuket. How amazing is that?! To enter, follow the guidelines below! #Giveaway #Twins #AllDayAspen #ThaiAirways #Vacation.” 2,724,149 Likes. 1,108,468 followers. (I had hinted at tagging along so I could do some collaborative posts with her, but Aspen had shut me down so gently that I didn’t realize until much later that she’d rejected me. So much for gratitude. How quickly she had forgotten how much I’d done for her.)

Three years ago: Aspen and two other influencers, each one with at least two million followers, doing an outfit change video. The dresses are stunning, and though the three women cycle through outfits of the same colors, they’re all different, complementary styles. “How gorgeous are these outfits from @BeauHouse?? Besties @Aram1s and @Honeybelllle both agree that we can’t have enough of them! One lucky follower will be able to win a complete wardrobe makeover. Follow all of us, the details will be shared later this week! #Fashion #LookBook #AllDayAspen.” 3,819,231 Likes. 2,128,271 followers. (Interesting how she used to call me her bestie, but ever since she hit one million followers, it’s bye-bye Mer and hello other big influencers.)

Have you had enough? I certainly have. I’ve scrolled through Aspen’s accounts so many more times than I care to admit. I know her posts as well as my own. Better, even. Countless nights I’ve spent scrolling and scrolling, reading her captions over and over, zooming in on every picture. Was I trying to look for flaws? Or maybe secrets to how she grew so fast, practically overnight? Not really. I know all of Aspen’s flaws; she’s my best friend, after all. And logically, I know how she grew so fast. She did the thing I always told her to do—she found her niche, and that niche happens to be sharing her romantic journey, and with the arrival of the twins, sharing her motherhood journey. I know all that in theory. But still, on a deeper level, I fail to grasp it. Because there is still a huge part of me that refuses to see her as anything more than my understudy, my loyal sidekick, the one person I can rely on to squeal with me when my posts get over thirty thousand Likes. (Hah, thirty thousand Likes for Aspen now would be considered a failed post.)

I was happy for her, you must know this. I really was. I’d been so afraid that if her accounts continued staying stagnant that she would give up and go back to Bumfuck, Asia. So when #AsBen, as ass-cream-like as it sounded, started gaining traction, I was overjoyed. Aspen came to my studio, and we polished off a bottle of rosé, and at some point opened another one, and we kept watching her follower count grow in real time. It was incredible to watch; the numbers were ticking up before our very eyes. Like watching a magic show. Our endorphins shot up along with the number of followers, and I threw my arms around Aspen, and she pressed her cheek to mine, and we squealed at each other because we were both doing it; we were both in-fucking-fluencers! (And, as big as she was back then, she was still nowhere near my follower count. All was still right with the world.)

But she kept growing and growing. Like the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Over the following months, as her follower count crept up and up and up, I stopped grinning whenever I checked on her accounts. And as it neared my follower count, a lump formed in my chest, like a tumor pressing down on it. When Aspen surpassed me, the lump bore down, a boulder crushing me, not allowing a single sip of air to pass through my lungs. I couldn’t meet Aspen’s eye for a week. I felt, ridiculous as this may sound, like a complete fraud. Like her success was somehow directly correlated with my failure. Like I had led her wrong all this time, and it took Ben to pull her into the light. I was furious with myself at first. But then I noticed her starting to look at me differently. With pity in her eyes. She started giving me advice on how to grow online. I was humiliated. I’ve been in this industry far longer than she has, and let’s face it, she only managed to gain a foothold because she got lucky. Because she and Ben make a photogenic couple, and Ben was only too happy to go along with it because Ben had no clue how to do social media. It was a fluke. How unfair is that? My best friend became a huge social media star through a fluke. Meanwhile, I’m left behind in the dust, forgotten.

So you can’t possibly blame me for poring over Elea’s iPad like it’s alien tech containing knowledge that will save the world. I mean, it’s going to save my world, at least.

I pick up baby Luca from a grouchy Clara (“Give me advance notice next time you want to drop him off!”) and drive home with my heart thrumming excitedly in my chest like a hummingbird. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with Elea’s iPad, but it feels like a whole world of possibilities has just opened up to me. At the very least, I’m going to dig out Aspen’s secrets, figure out that magic recipe she has up her sleeves and sprinkle a bit of that onto my own career. I glance at Luca in the rearview mirror and smile. He ignores me, too busy looking at his own chubby hands. Once we get home, I plop him in his playpen and settle down on my couch with the iPad.

I open up Aspen’s TikTok. She has over forty videos in her Drafts folder. I go through each one. They’ve all been edited and are complete with captions, and they’re all so polished I could just die.

Take this one, for example. It’s one from Aspen’s Day in the Life series: A montage of her waking up (she looks effortlessly gorgeous, of course), making some Insta-worthy drink (today’s is cold brew, and she pours in the thick, creamy milk in front of the camera so we get an eyeful of the beautiful brown-and-white swirls), then waking the twins up (I notice she keeps the camera mostly on Noemie when the twins are involved) before getting baby Sabine out of her cot. She changes Sabine’s diaper, plops her in her high chair, and bustles about the kitchen to prep a perfect breakfast for her perfect family. Caption: “Come prepare for the day with me and the girls! Recipe for the cold brew is in the comments. #AllDayAspen #PalmerFamily.”

I snort. Nothing groundbreaking here. I used to do morning routine videos myself until Luca came along. Whenever I try to do one with Luca, the footage I end up with is awful—me looking harried and obviously lacking sleep, Luca screaming, throwing his pureed veggies everywhere, crying for me to nurse him. How the hell does Aspen make hers look so good and so relaxed?

With a sigh, I close TikTok and stare at Luca, who’s crawled to the side of the playpen and pulled himself up. He’s now calling out to me for attention. I sigh again and heave myself up from the couch. Ever since I had him, I’ve let my workout routine fall by the wayside, and now, even simple acts like getting up from the couch are reminders of how out of shape I feel. I really should get back to my diet, but like I said, breastfeeding leaves me ravenous, and Luca wakes up so many times throughout the night that I feel like a zombie in the daytime. All my photos are Photoshopped to hell to give me a more defined waistline.

“Hey, you,” I say, crouching outside the pen and resting my chin on top of the plastic fence. Luca coos, and drool dribbles down his chin. I pick up a wooden duck and hand it to him. “Play with duckie,” I say. He considers the duck for a second, then, without warning, he swings his hand back and wallops me across the face with the duck. “Ow! Fucking—” I fall onto my ass, clutching my nose, and smack the back of my head against the coffee table. “Goddamn it!” There is so much pain that, for a few seconds, I can barely register anything else.

When the initial shock passes, I realize I’m sobbing, and Luca is crying as well. I look at him balefully as I dab at my nose. No blood. Good. “You hurt Mommy,” I moan to Luca, still unable to bring myself to pick him up and comfort him. I mean, I need comforting, too, but no one’s picking me up and patting my back and telling me everything will be okay. The thought brings a fresh bout of tears. Why does everything have to be so fucking hard? A tiny, ridiculous part of me hisses, seething: It’s all Aspen’s fault. She was the one who made it all look so simple. She was the one who tricked me into thinking I could do this—that I, too, could be a momfluencer.

The screech from Luca hits a point where I can no longer bear it. I pick him up and bounce him, maybe a little bit too vigorously, desperate to quiet him. It takes a while, but eventually he calms down. He gazes at me and smiles, and my breath releases in a huge sigh. “You are a little stinker,” I tell him. “Is it time for your nap yet? It’s time for your nap.” I settle back on the couch and latch him onto my breast, and he sucks while gazing up at me. I wish I could say he’s looking at me with adoration, but his gaze seems more calculating. Or maybe I’m just losing my marbles. A six-month-old baby is anything but calculating.

I pick up the iPad once more, but can’t bear to look at Aspen’s TikTok again just yet. I swipe through the home page, scanning the downloaded apps idly. How many freaking STEM games can one kid play? I open Google Photos. Like me, Aspen is meticulous with syncing all of her photos and videos to the cloud. I scroll through the photos, glumly at first, but slow down when I realize that these photos are unedited. Aspen’s skin isn’t glowing as radiantly as it does on her socials, and her arms are definitely less toned, and Elea is openly scowling in most of them. So much for playing happy family. I open them one by one, my smile taking over my face as I absorb the reality behind Aspen’s social media accounts. So many videos are interrupted by Elea screaming, “Stop it! I don’t WANT to do a Reel!” and smacking the phone away. Those make me chuckle. God, I love that little firecracker.

Then I find a familiar video. Footage of her morning routine—the one I’ve just seen in her TikTok Drafts folder. Except this one is the uncut version. It starts off with Aspen checking how she looks on camera before lying back and closing her eyes. A moment later, she opens her eyes, yawns, and smiles at the camera. I snort. I knew she didn’t naturally look that good when she woke up. This is nothing new; I’m pretty sure that everyone who does these morning routine videos actually puts on makeup first before recording themselves waking up. But after Aspen gets out of bed, she pads down to the living room, where, to my surprise, I see the twins on their iPads. What the hell? They’re awake already?

“Girls, can you get in bed, please? Just for a second,” Aspen says to them.

Elea gives her a mutinous glare. “I’m busy.”

“It’ll take a second. I just need you to pretend that you’re waking up, okay? You’ll get a star for this.”

Noemie puts her iPad aside and slides down from the sofa, and Aspen says, “Good girl.” Then her voice sharpens. “Elea, come on.”

With a frustrated groan, Elea joins her sister. I watch, mouth agape, as they walk down the hallway and go into their bedroom.

“I am NOT putting on my PJs,” Elea snaps once she’s inside. “It’s four in the afternoon. That would be stupid.”

“Don’t say ‘stupid,’?” Aspen says. “And fine, you don’t need to change into your PJs. But pull the duvet up to your chin so we can’t see your clothes.”

Oh my god. What the fuck am I seeing?

The girls climb into their twin beds, and Aspen turns off the lights. She walks out of their room, then walks in again, the phone camera still in front of her. She turns on the lights and calls out, “Rise and shine, my beautiful babies!”

Noemie opens her eyes and smiles sweetly at the camera. “Morning, Mommy.” Elea opens her eyes and rolls them.

“Elea!” Aspen snaps. “You ruined the shot. Now we’re going to have to do it again.”

I gasp so hard that it startles Luca, who’s dozed off while still latched to my nipple. I shush him and continue watching as Aspen turns off the bedroom lights again before going through the same routine. “Rise and shine, my beautiful babies!” she trills.

This time, Elea refrains from rolling her eyes, though she refuses to give the camera a smile. Aspen’s prepared for it; the camera merely glances over Elea before settling on Noemie, who is smiling obediently and reciting her line: “Morning, Mommy.”

After a beat, Elea says, “Are we done yet?”

Aspen sighs audibly. “Yes. Thank you for humoring me.”

The girls jump out of their beds and run back to the living room. Aspen follows them there, where baby Sabine is in her playpen. She picks Sabine up, carries her to the nursery, and places her in the cot. She turns off the lights. Turns them back on. “Rise and shine, my darling!”

I hit Pause. Holy shit. What the hell did I just…

I—

It’s all fake. All of it.

I mean, okay, as an influencer myself, I’ve long known, of course, that a lot of what we post online isn’t necessarily true. We love to crow about being “authentic,” but our authenticity comes in a highly edited, extremely polished package. That’s okay. Everybody knows we do that, and they go along with it anyway. Kind of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink situation. But this? There isn’t even a shred of truth in her morning routine videos. They weren’t even shot in the morning! I look down at Luca. I put the iPad aside, unlatch my nipple from his mouth, pick him up gently so as not to wake him, and carry him into his nursery. I tuck him inside his cot and close the door, then hurry to the bathroom, where I slap on some foundation and swipe lipstick on my lips and cheeks. Then I rumple up my hair, put on my cutest pajama top, and get into bed with my phone. I start recording, close my eyes, and then open them with a yawn and a smile. “Morning!” I say to the camera. “Come get ready for the day with me.”