Influence - Sara Shepard Page 0,1

mom had to make a scary merge onto an eight-lane highway. Delilah swallowed hard, then looked at her phone. On the screen was pretty much the most amazing thing that had ever happened to Delilah in her life: a direct Instagram message from @LuluJasmine, aka Jasmine Walters-Diaz, aka Lulu C from That’s Hot!, Delilah’s favorite dance show on Lemonade, which was the Netflix for tweens and teens. Delilah had the message memorized: Hey, Delilah! I’m a huge fan, and I live in LA, too! I’d love to invite you to a party for Wellness Beauty on Tuesday afternoon at the Evensong Hotel on the Strip! Let me know if you can make it!

She still wasn’t sure it was real.

Twenty million people followed Jasmine’s account on Instagram. The posts where Jasmine wore the rainbow skirt and lace leotard, the iconic outfit Lulu C was known for, practically broke the internet. Delilah had no idea how Jasmine found her page. Could it really have been from her Hey, I just moved to LA and I’m freaking out! she’d put on her Story a few days back? Delilah was suspicious of Jasmine’s message, but her account had the “I’m verified and you’re not” blue checkmark . . . so maybe it was true.

As if on cue, Delilah’s friend Busy, the only person Delilah did tell about her brand-new, über-delicate, maybe-celebrity-friendship, texted. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT JASMINE, she wrote. She’s going to replace me as your BFF because I’ll be marooned in France on a digital diet. Busy’s family was leaving for a five-week European vacation tomorrow, and her parents had decided that Busy and her younger brother, Brock, would be leaving their phones at home. Which sounded like a particularly torturous circle of hell.

You’re going to forget all about me! a new bubble from Busy read.

Oh stop, Delilah wrote back. No one can replace you.

She was just as heartbroken as Busy was that a) Busy wouldn’t be able to talk all summer, and b) they now no longer lived in the same city, thanks to Delilah’s father’s internal transfer at his environmental sustainability firm. Delilah and Busy had been friends since first grade, when they both carried matching One Direction backpacks. Busy introduced her to Instagram. They explored Snapchat together. They filmed videos on YouTube about how to make fluffy slime and how to apply Technicolor hair dye without it getting on the carpet. They did normal, non-internet things, too: volleyball tournaments, nights out for pizza, sleepovers, avoiding their pesky little siblings . . . but they weren’t as good at those things. As time went on, Delilah and Busy became masters at creating stylized, online versions of themselves—kids sought them out for advice on how to craft posts or light pictures or curate daily stories.

And then, just this past March, it happened. Delilah’s account went from a meager few thousand followers to hundreds of thousands. And from there, things just . . . exploded. Hence Jasmine’s DM . . . maybe. Hence Delilah’s jittery feeling like she was on the precipice of something . . . huge.

Soon, they pulled up to a concrete-colored hotel building flanked by guitar stores. Delilah had a very limited knowledge of Los Angeles, but she was pretty sure this wasn’t the coolest part of the Sunset Strip. Her mother wrinkled her nose as though the music shops were drug dens.

“Electric guitars are very high-end!” Delilah chirped brightly.

“I think it looks awesome!” Ava piped up. “You’re so lucky, Lila.”

Delilah glanced at her sister. Ava was small for her age; today, she was wearing a striped romper from Gap Kids. But her booties were fashionable, as was her black leather crossbody. Back in Minneapolis, Ava hung out with a sweet, well-behaved crowd of girls, but the first day they arrived in California, Delilah received a follow request on her Instagram from @AvaBLove, and there was a tiny thumbnail image of Ava’s face as the profile picture.

Bethany pulled into a parking spot and shifted into park. “I’m staying here, by the way. You can go in by yourself, but if you don’t send me an A-OK text every thirty minutes, I will assume someone is trying to abduct you into either child slavery or a rock band.”

“What about me?” Ava piped up. “Can I peek inside?”

“You’re not going anywhere. I’m conflicted enough about this as it is.” Bethany pointed to Delilah. “Have you tested your glucose recently?”

“God, Mom, yes.” Delilah had been given a diagnosis of Type