Strictly Confidential Read online

  ‘Wooooo! Katy Perry is a pimp!’ Raven screamed, skipping and waving her free hand in the air.

  Ushering her into the bathroom, I felt the butterflies in my stomach subside for the first time since Diane’s phone call. I could cross item one off my to-do list: I’d managed to locate Raven. Now all I had to do was smuggle her out of here. First, however, I’d need to scoop her up off the bathroom floor where she’d fallen over and was lying sprawled on the wet, toilet paper-strewn tiles.

  Shit.

  I fantasised briefly about the YouTube sensation this scene would create if I filmed it. Not to mention the price I could fetch from the tabloids if I whipped out my camera-phone right now. If shots of Britney Spears and her lover Jason Trawick in Australia scored snappers fifty thousand dollars as reported, surely a coked-up Raven spread all over a bathroom floor could cover my rent for the rest of the year? Tempting. But then, so was remaining gainfully employed, so I cast the idea out of my mind.

  Eventually vertical, Raven looked to me for direction, so I led her to an empty toilet cubicle where I flipped the lid down, plonked her on top, locked the door and breathed out heavily. In front of me sat my diva-cum-detainee. This was not what I had planned for my night. Raven, meanwhile, snatched her handbag from my wrist and started riffling through it.

  ‘Where the fark is ma shit?’ she said, almost pitch-perfect to her YouTube video. Could this be the first time this kid had performed without lip-syncing?

  I ignored her, knowing full well that if there was any coke left Raven would have been licking it out of the satchel when I arrived.

  So what now? Our Vixenary cover girl could hardly just walk out of there. Hell, she could hardly walk full stop. We were in the middle of Kit and Kaboodle, in the heart of Sydney’s bustling Kings Cross; there was no back door and, on a quiet Thursday morning, the paps would simply wait it out until Raven appeared. And of course, carrying her out was out of the question. Much as I wanted publicity for my client, I didn’t want it in a Kate Moss kinda way.

  I checked the clock on my phone. It was almost 4 am now and the club would be shutting in an hour. My BlackBerry had been going off as wildly and regularly as Raven’s hair flicks with calls and texts from Diane but I hadn’t answered any of them. Instead I focused on Raven. She needed water and lots of it if I was to get her to a magazine shoot at 10 am later today.

  ‘Where the fark is ma shit?’ Raven interrupted, still looking in her bag.

  ‘Outside,’ I lied. ‘If you promise to stay here I’ll go and get it.’ I spoke to her like I was speaking to a small child.

  ‘Promise,’ she responded in kind.

  I went and found an ATM in the club and withdrew two hundred dollars from my work float. I was on my way back to the bathroom when a random chick stopped me. ‘OMFG! Are you Raven?’ she asked, just as off her head as the diva herself.

  ‘No,’ I said, battling to hide my disgust. Just what I needed, to be confused for a Hollywood wannabe. As if wandering round the Cross in my trackies wasn’t embarrassment enough.

  ‘You two totally look alike,’ she said and I hurried off considering plastic surgery.

  Returning to the toilets with three bottles of water, I was relieved to find Raven where I’d left her.

  ‘Did you find any coke?’ She looked up hungrily.

  ‘Sure, there’s some in the water,’ I said. ‘Drink up. I’m getting more now.’

  She started gulping down the water.

  Staring at the drugged-up diva in front of me, I realised the chick outside was kinda right. We did look vaguely similar. Although Raven was slightly shorter than me (she was barely my height when she was in heels), we were roughly the same size with shoulder-length blonde hair. The only difference was hers was wavy and more golden, whereas mine was straight and lighter blonde. Our faces, however, were so completely different we could never be considered lookalikes. Happy days. Coked-up Cate was just hallucinating.

  And then, of course, it hit me.

  Propping Raven up, I started undressing her, desperately hoping she wouldn’t remember this in the morning. Clearly inspired by Katy Perry’s lyrics, and perhaps assuming I was undressing her because I found her irresistible, she tried to kiss me. But as flattering as that was, I doggedly kept going.

  ‘Fine then,’ she sulked.

  Five minutes later I had managed to switch our outfits completely and I sat her back down, took her BlackBerry and logged onto my own Twitter account.

  ‘Raven, I’m going to find you some more coke. You have to promise me you won’t leave the bathroom though, okay? Here, you can go online and see what everyone is doing back home. Talk to your friends.’

  She snatched the phone without saying anything.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ I stressed.

  Whipping out of my bag a pocket-sized can of Schwarzkopf hairspray I went to the basin, wet my hair and gave myself an eighties quiff like hers. I also squeezed into her lilac-coloured Christian Louboutins which were at least one size too small. My feet hurt immediately.

  Once again outside the bathroom, I looked around the club until I spotted the nearest drug dealer, instantly recognisable by the fact he was wearing sunglasses inside and was carrying a bumbag.

  I went straight up to him. ‘How much for your sunglasses?’ I asked.

  ‘Say what?’ he replied.

  ‘I’ll give you fifty bucks for your sunnies.’

  ‘Don’t you want some gear, darlin?’

  ‘No, just the glasses, please.’ I smiled.

  ‘These are my Dolces, man. They were over five hundred bucks,’ he said loudly, looking around to see who had heard.

  D&G is probably the easiest label to identify as a fake. Imitation branding is always much more square than the font for the real Italian stuff. These were more square than the gold caps on the guy’s teeth.

  ‘A hundred bucks, cash, right now,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ he said without hesitating.

  I handed over the money and grabbed the sunnies, which had been shielding pupils the size of dinner plates.

  Walking down the main staircase my butterflies returned with a vengeance. How the hell do I get myself into these situations? I wondered. Less than an hour ago I was lying blissfully unconscious in bed. Now I was battling to balance in a pair of too-tight Louboutins while being weighed down with a Balenciaga handbag the size of the average family car, and all as I tried to impersonate a celebrity who I was holding captive in a nightclub toilet. I felt duplicitous, demoralised, downright out of my depth. And all in an outfit I never would have chosen. This must be what a bridesmaid feels like at a wedding they’re not quite in favour of. Only worse, because at some point during the nuptials I seemed to have stepped into the bride’s shoes. I tried to concentrate on putting one squished foot in front of the other.

  As I tottered towards the door of the club, people began to titter. Eyes bored into me as heads swung in my direction. ‘Raven!’ someone called. I tried to walk faster. ‘Hey, Raven!’ the voice came again. I pressed on. ‘Raven!’ they persisted as other voices joined the chorus. I put my head down and kept ploughing across the nightclub, faster than any shotgun wedding. My feet ached with every step. This whole ‘something borrowed’ malarkey was not my bag.

  Then, just as I was gaining some ground across the beer-soaked carpet, I hit a snag. A big snag. A snag in the form of the random who had accosted me earlier in the night and accused me of looking like Raven. Only this time she had a point.

  ‘Wow! Raven!’ she cooed, stepping in front of me and blocking my already precarious path. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. In Sydney!’ I smiled grimly. I couldn’t believe I was there either. ‘Hey everyone, it’s Raven!’

  Before I could stop her, my groupie turned and announced my star-studded presence to anyone who might just have m
issed it. I instinctively ducked my head, but there was no stopping my number one fan.

  ‘OMG. Raven, will you sing for us?’ she shrieked. Her friends cheered in support. It was like one big pop-star love-in. I half-expected Clover Moore to jump out from behind a pillar and offer me the keys to the city. Of course, spying our middle-aged Lord Mayor in a Kings Cross nightclub at four in the morning was about as likely as me giving an impromptu performance of Raven’s back catalogue.

  Waving my hands to get the attention of my growing legion of fans, I shook my head regretfully. ‘Sorry!’ I whispered, pointing an index finger to my neck. ‘Sore throat!’ They looked downcast. This alone made me feel perversely upbeat. I waved again before continuing on my trek to the doorway.

  Hesitating on the threshold, I pushed my hair forward one last time in a lame attempt to hide my face, before stepping onto the street outside.

  Cue: pandemonium.

  The paps that were lounging on the pavement perked up fast upon seeing me. ‘Raven! Raven!’ they started to shout. ‘Over here!’

  I ran down the street as fast as my red soles would carry me so the paps’ first few frames could have only been of my retreating back (and that bag). Doing a sneaky sidestep in those damn tiny stilettos, I was fast leaving the flashbulb frenzy in my wake when I realised the major flaw in my hasty plan: how the hell was I supposed to get out of there?

  I looked around desperately, my vision not aided any by the fact I was wearing plastic sunglasses in the dark.

  Suddenly, a drunken woman stopped me in my tracks. ‘Oh my god! Raven! Can I please get a picture?’ she screeched.

  I agreed to the star shot while frantically looking for an exit, a fatal pause that gave the snappers enough time to catch up.

  ‘Raven! Oi, Raven!’ they vied for my attention. The paps and my fan snapped away blithely as I stood frozen to the spot.

  Shit.

  Out of the corner of one UV-protected eye, I spotted an idling taxi. Rescue! I headed for it immediately, blisters forming on my feet as I ran.

  As I opened the back door, the photogs were still calling Raven’s name, so I waved before jumping into the revving vehicle and burying my face in my hands.

  The cabbie didn’t need an explanation. Although he’d probably never heard of Raven, he sped us away from the pap pack. Once we were safely away from the club, I took off the sunnies and tied my hair back, instantly de-Ravenising myself.

  ‘Can you please go around the block a few times and then head back to the club?’ I requested, crossing my fingers that my hostage hadn’t high-tailed it in the meantime.

  As I had hoped, the photographers had dispersed as soon as they got their shot, so after a few laps in the taxi the coast was clear enough for me to venture inside to retrieve Raven. Slipping the driver a wad of notes to sit and wait out the front, I clattered inside Kit and Kaboodle for the second time that morning.

  Racing up the stairs and into the toilets, I tried to bury the awful scenarios that were racing through my head. What if Raven wasn’t there? What if Raven was there but in a coke-induced coma? What if Raven was there and was wondering why her publicist had cruelly stripped her down, stolen her clothes and left her locked in a dingy toilet?

  I needn’t have worried.

  ‘Did you find any coke?’ was her first question as I pushed open the cubicle door. Her pupils were the size of serving platters and the occasional droplet of blood from her nose stained Teri Hatcher’s face on my T-shirt.

  Relieved, I dragged Raven to her feet and bundled her out into the early morning air. Around us, addicts slumped in back lanes, while the young and the beautiful emerged from nightclubs all along the street. Raven, sans shoes, and me, sans sleep, fitted in perfectly. Never mind Wisteria Lane, this was one crazy neighbourhood.

  If ever the Sartorialist was likely to be in Sydney, today was going to be the day.

  I couldn’t tell you how many working hours I’d lost to planning what I’d wear the day the influential blogger popped up in the Pacific on one of his visits Down Under. (A Jil Sander maxi skirt in orange, with a tight white Bassike tee and toting a matching Chanel 2.55 was my current favourite ensemble, incidentally.) But Murphy’s law said the Sartorialist was never going to be around when I was at my Jil Sander best. Oh no. Just as buttered toast that will always land face down and Joan Rivers will always land face up (all that collagen must surely make her facial features the lightest, most buoyant part of her anatomy, right?), the Sartorialist was sure to be in town on the day I looked like a train wreck.

  As I sat slumped in the front seat of a taxi at 6 am, glancing furtively around for any signs of his iconic camera, I prayed today wasn’t my shot at internet infamy. Not the way I looked off the back of three hours’ sleep. Not having spent the remainder of my night wrestling Raven out of a cab and into her suite at the Park Hyatt, where I removed her makeup, fed her water and painkillers and put her to bed. Not when I had only a couple of hours to turn myself around and haul my arse back to the office to face Diane. I tried to push all thoughts of the Sartorialist out of my mind because, with my luck, just thinking about the style-savvy snapper would be enough to conjure him up.

  As we pulled up in my driveway that morning, I half-leapt, half-fell out of the taxi in my rush to get inside. Going to pay, I fumbled through my bag for my wallet and found . . . nothing. What the fuck? Smiling apologetically at the cabbie I sat back down on the front seat to rummage properly. Makeup bag? Check. BlackBerry? Check. Business cards, Raven’s publicity schedule, spare business cards? Check, check, check. ‘I know my wallet’s in here somewhere,’ I said aloud, trying to reassure myself as much as the driver. It’s not like Raven would bother pilfering from a non-celeb (or ‘street person’, as she preferred) like me. As my hands felt frantically around the interior of my oversized Louis Vuitton Speedy 40 I felt a slit in the iconic brown lining and my hand wrapped around my wallet. Perf! Cursing ole Louie for his intricate design work, I reefed my wallet out of my bag and slipped the cabbie his fare. And then some. ‘Sorry, bud,’ I said and finally headed for my front door.

  Once inside, I made a beeline for the bathroom and a steaming hot shower. No time later I was schlepping through Paddo with my laptop, pausing only to inhale a skim mocha. Takeaway coffee was an indulgence in which I rarely partook, preferring to put my spare change towards the eBay piggy bank, but sleepless nights chaperoning cokehead celebs was a sound excuse to splurge. Taking a swig of my mocha, I threw five Nurofen tablets down my throat for good measure. I know, I know, Nurofen tablets, like designer shoes, are generally best when they come in pairs. Not in odd numbers and certainly not in clusters of five. But, again not unlike designer shoes, I found the effect the pain-relief medication had on my mental state was both soothing and uplifting. Serenity in a tab, if you will. Even if there was no actual chemical reason for it, a small handful of Nurofen could calm my nerves and allay all tension much more effectively than booze or illegal pills could ever hope to do. Plus, of course, Nurofen wielded the added bonus of being a hell of a lot cheaper than the aforementioned designer shoes. And so I scoffed them regularly and excessively and had been doing so for four years now, the exact same four years that I had been working at Wilderstein PR. A fact that was no mere coincidence.

  At the thought of my employer, those butterflies took up residence in my stomach again. As I waited for my Nurofen panacea to kick in I contemplated what lay in wait for me at the office. Had I pulled it off? What was Diane going to say? Would everyone believe it was Raven in the photos?

  Thankfully, Oxford Street in the morning is always a welcome distraction and today proved no exception. Heading towards the imaginary but all-important barrier between Paddington and Darlinghurst I watched the prostitutes call it a night and hobble home, the bottoms of their acrylic heels worn down to a nub of plastic the size of a twenty cent piece. A man walked past talking vi
olently to himself; two guys in tight white singlets skipped down the footpath singing Kylie Minogue songs to one another. There were still people stumbling out of bars, with loosened ties and beer-stained shirts, making me feel marginally better about my own sorry state.

  Better, that is, until I reached Wilderstein PR.

  As I stared up at the imposing building before me, all metal and glass and as shiny and severe as Anna Wintour’s signature bob, I felt my stomach sink. Despite having worked there for almost four years, I would never get used to running the gauntlet of the Wilderstein wilderness each morning. It was a jungle in there. A jungle where every elevator stop and every encounter in the foyer was just another opportunity to be eaten alive.

  At the top of the food chain are the Wives. So called (in my mind, at least) because the treatment I receive from these women each day is not unlike the response you might expect if you’d just strolled into work having slept with each of their husbands. Repeatedly. And enjoyed it. The Wives are kings of the jungle here and you fuck with them at your peril. In fact, if David Attenborough ever got bored of stalking the savannas of the Serengeti and instead stumbled into the microcosm of Wilderstein PR, he’d probably classify the Wives thus: ‘As easily identified by the lavish designer handbags worn on their bony arms as by the ice-cold stares on their frozen faces, these women are the undisputed matriarchs of the industry. With BlackBerrys surgically attached to the sides of their heads and their bodies covered with distinctive luxury labels, these creatures habitually refuse to remove their sunglasses before midday. And only ever after imbibing an espresso or two.’

  And while the Wives don’t like to get their manicured hands dirty with the day-to-day drudgery of publicity schedules, these women run the business and provide the (very Botoxed) public faces of their company’s campaigns: schmoozing clients, pampering the press and lunching like it’s 1985.

  As for their prey? When not dining with potential clients, the Wives generally feast on the less experienced in the industry: the Young Wives. The Young Wives are power-hungry wannabes and are easily identified in the wild as they dress almost exclusively in fashion-slave black, as if headed to the older Wives’ funerals. Mostly made up of publicists and senior publicists, the Young Wives are partial to fronting up for work dripping in accessories in an attempt to make them appear larger and more threatening to the predatory Wives. As if trying to differentiate themselves from the older species, the Young Wives say things like ‘totes’ and ‘cute’, yet just like the more powerful predators, their facial movements never match their words.