The Girl With X-Ray Eyes

Chapter 5

It had been a few months since I had started working with Noel. He had been finishing up his album and had been at home more often. Sometimes Noel would ask me to come over. Im not sure why but every time I did he was by himself. Usually when I came over he would stay in some other room doing some music thing. I tried not to bother him when he was doing that. Though when he was finished he would sit on the couch near me. By my impression he didn't seem at all interested in what I did. Though sometimes I would catch a sneaky eye from him looking at my laptop.

I was going through Noel's social media pages as that was one if the areas that I was specifically hired for. I checked to see what he had: facebook, instagram, twitter, the usual three. They all looked the same but hadn't been active in a while. All they posted was tour dates and song announcements. This was something that definitely need fixing, which I could do.

As I was scrolling through twitter, I saw that Noel's brother Liam had an account. I looked through his tweets and saw that he was tweeting things himself and responding to fans. These tweets would get thousands of interactions and I noticed he had over 3 million followers. Noel's pages all had less than a million each.

"Noel, what do you think about Twitter?" I asked him.

Noel looked dead serious at me and said, "Twitter is the playground of fucking idiots."

I couldn't help but laugh, it was so funny. I don't know if he said it on purpose to be funny or he just naturally is.

"Well I think you should get into it. If you post pictures and interact with fans, more people will see it and maybe look into you and your music."

Noel didnt say anything but could tell he was thinking about it, which was good enough for me. As I continued looking through twitter an idea popped into my head.

"You know if you want to keep your social media pages all business, you could make a burner account."

"A fucking what account?" Noel looked at me confused.

I chuckled again, "A burner account, its like a separate account for famous people where they can be themselves without the media attention."

Noel raised an interested eyebrow at me so I continued.

"You are naturally funny, I think if you made like a gimmick thing about yourself people would love it. You can show off your personality and show your talent as well."

Noel just sat there still looking at me, "I'll give a think about it."

I smiled excitedly to myself as I knew I was getting through to him.

I had a few days off from work so I decided to go visit my mum. She was living by herself ever since my father died a few years ago. I liked to see her as often as I could. My mum wasn't happy that I had followed my fathers footsteps in the media business, but I always told her that I was trying to help people not suffer from what my father and others had done. I loved my father of course, but I knew what he did and how dangerous it could be. I had asked my mum if she had kept any of my fathers old photos. She said there might be some boxes in her closet, so I went to take a look. I walked into the closet and saw the boxes on the top shelf. There was 4 of them and brought them all down.

I knew my father had worked during the 90's as that was when I was a child but didn't know who, what, or where he followed for photos. I started looking through each box but I didn't recognize many of the people or places in the pictures. I had come to the last box and was starting to give up hope on finding anything. I don't know why was so intent on finding something to show Noel. I guess I thought maybe it would let me talk about something other than work related things with him.  I picked up the last stack of photos and went through them. I came down to the last few pictures when I saw it. I was shocked it was a picture of Noel. He was wearing a red and white jacket and was surrounded by people. I held the photo in my hands and stared at it. I was so excited, I definitely had to show this to Noel.

When I got home I placed the photo in a special folder so it wouldn't get ruined. I held the folder in my arms as I walked to Noel's place. I knocked in the door and Noel answered. He let me in and he sat down on the couch next to me. He must've known I had something to show him as he had never sat next to me before.

"What have ya got there?" Noel asked, his eyes pointing at my hands.

I opened the folder and took out the photo to show Noel.

"Why have you printed out a picture of me from the 90's?" Noel laughed.

"I didn't print it silly, its an original photo my father took." I said as I shook my head.

"Why does your father have a photo of me?"

"Well I was afraid to say after the whole yelling thing but my father worked for the tabloids." I said as I saw Noels face turn sour. "Thats why I'm doing this job. Although I loved my father very much, I saw how people in his work can ruin lives and careers. And I want to prevent that as much as possible by teaching new artists how to deal and learn from it."

I looked over at Noel. I wasn't sure he had heard what I said. He was still silent.

"Jessica, I think you are very smart and courageous. To learn from the past with your father and bring it to the future. I'm not sure why you are wasting your time here with me." Noel finally let out.

"Well thank you Noel and anyways I was hired to help you so thats what I'm going to do. I can help out others afterwards. And I like being here and working with you. You're not that bad after all." I winked at him.

Noel laughed a bit and smiled.

"Now tell me where this is at." I told pointing at the picture.

"Ah yes I can just barely remember, same as anything back then." Noel laughed tapping his nose. "This is at Heathrow in '96, I had left the tour from America. I was pissed off, as usual, at you know who." Noel raised his eyebrow at me. "I needed a break from it all so came home. As I got off the plane a hoard of people surrounded me. I was probably too out of it to care really." Noel told me.

Noel seemed fond of the picture so I told him to keep it.

"Ah no Jessica, its your father's im sure he wants it back."

"Well he's dead, so I don't think he needs it." I laughed.

"Oh . . sorry."

"It's fine. I want you to have it. Think of it as little thank you for letting me work here with you."

"Yes totally my decision, I was not forced into this at all." Noel said sarcastically, relaxing back into the couch.

"Ah, I think you like me being here." I rolled my eyes and slightly pushed Noel.

"Well, you are better and prettier company than Sara's friends."

I blushed as I heard those words. "Did I hear that right?" I thought to myself. I tried to ignore it for the moment.

"Anyways I think you've had enough of my company for now. I'll see you later."

Noel got up and walked me to the door. It was a bit weird as he'd never done that before but it was nice.