Strictly Confidential Read online

  Then, of course, there are the Teenage Brides. These junior publicists and admin assistants are best known for parading in the office environ looking like they’re off for a day at the races. Clad in skin-tight dresses, short skirts, pink lipstick and the odd fascinator or beret, the Teenage Brides make for easy prey.

  So that’s who’s who in the zoo. Of course, when it comes to PR – Public Relations, Press Reps, Promo & Rumour, whatever you want to call it – we’re all fighting for the same space on the same social pages and in the same gossip columns of the very same newspapers. Not to mention the fact each and every one of us is trying to nab each other’s clients in order to climb the slippery rungs of the PR career ladder. In the dog-eat-dog world of publicity, it really was a wonder I got out of Wilderstein alive each day.

  There was only one thing Diane hated more than failing to achieve quality media coverage for a client, and that was losing her luggage.

  Me? I could think of at least half a dozen worse fates that might befall a person in the name of work. Losing a night’s sleep babysitting a cokehead celeb in the Cross. Or losing your dignity impersonating said celeb. Even losing the will to live when your boss found out. But losing your luggage? Not even in my top ten.

  Diane, however, was neurotic about it. So much so that she refused to take any luggage on her flights and instead had all her belongings couriered between destinations when travelling. Regardless of location. Just one month into my job my sweaty palms had had to sign for a $987.35 express delivery from Diane’s summer holiday in Spain (complete with duty-free cigarette and alcohol purchases). A fee Diane hadn’t batted a Botoxed eyelid over. In fact, Diane habitually had her bags picked up the night before she boarded a flight, ensuring nothing but a Louis Vuitton carry-on and her handbag (the label of which depended on the day; given today was Thursday, my money was on her large quilted aged-calfskin Chanel tote, from the Paris-Byzance collection) was at the mercy of our international airline services.

  So it was no surprise, then, to see a FedEx courier turn up at the frosted-glass double doors of the office shortly after I arrived at work. Even before I signed the release I knew what the delivery was. Diane’s luggage from Melbourne. Of course, whichever minion accepted the delivery was duly obliged to go through the luggage and send certain items off to the drycleaners. However, contain your excitement. This wasn’t nearly as voyeuristic as it sounds. Not risking our grubby fingers fondling her fashion valuables, Diane put everything in specially ordered vacuum-sealed bags labelled CLEAN, KEEP AWAY and NEVER! I’d only once peeked inside NEVER! and had been disappointed to discover the Pandora’s box of Diane’s luggage simply held a selection of not-yet-released age-resistant face creams. Creams I hopefully didn’t yet need and would NEVER! be able to afford anyway.

  Deciding to dump Diane’s laundry on my way to the Look shoot with Raven, I left her luggage to one side and turned my attention to my emails. Only one hundred odd since last night. Fantastic. I scanned through them and pulled out the relevant ones.

  From: Caroline Monae

  Title: Stylist, Look magazine

  Time: 07.52 am

  Hey Jasmine. All prepped for today’s shoot. Clothes have arrived, all in ‘rock chic’ as requested and we also received the underwear you sent over. Just confirming Raven will be on site at 9 am. And will she need anything else?

  Reply: Caroline, hi. All good for today. Should be on time. Yes there are extra requirements, unfortunately. My apologies. Double the water, triple the Berocca and can we please have some vodka on standby just in case? We all know the transformative power of hair of the dog, right? Most importantly, I need to collect all confidentiality agreements from staff before we start, please. See you soon!

  From: Will

  Title: Boyfriend

  Time: 8.07 am

  Hey babe. Just got up and saw your text. Why you up so early? Let me guess – at the office already? Wanna grab a quick bite tonight before you start at the bar? Italian? Xxxxxx

  Reply: OMG. Long story. Text you later OK? Mwa xxxxxx

  From: Harry Serino

  Title: Client–Managing Director for Converse

  Time: 07.01 am

  Morning! Received the images from last week’s shoot but they are only hard copies. Is that strange? Can you please call the photographer, get the disk, talk them through with Diane and get back to me ASAP. We know which ones we like and are keen to see if you pick the same. I have total faith in you, kiddo. HS

  Reply: All over it, Haz. Just quietly, I don’t really trust your creative opinion. Kidding! Will come back to you in no time. JL

  PS How did Lisa go with finding a dress? And stop calling me kiddo!

  From: Marlita Nikolovski

  Title: Talent manager, Raven

  Time: 08.09 am

  Have just arrived at Raven’s room and she has not had a good night’s sleep. In fact, she’s feeling awful. Any chance of moving the shoot?

  Reply: Unfortunately, Marlita, it is impossible to move the shoot. Look is paying for this time and they’re on deadline and going to print this afternoon. I have a limo waiting downstairs for you two and there is a team of people ready to make Raven look a million bucks. Please tell her everything will be fine and she still has this afternoon off.

  Call me with any problems.

  From: Peter Middleton

  Title: Director of Communications, Havu Island Bali

  Time: 04.23 am

  Elle McFearsome has arrived! V exciting! V diva! Call for details.

  Reply: Fantastic. A certain reporter is gagging for the goss. Will call lunchtime your time, J

  My sortie into the scintillating world of Outlook was interrupted by a text from Diane. My butterflies flooded back with force.

  I trust you worked out last night’s situation. Have just landed. Car better be ready.

  Shit! I hadn’t triple-checked the hire car. Or checked at all! Gah! I madly dialled Sam’s number. A number, sadly, I know by heart.

  ‘Hello, Mizz Lewis,’ he answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hello, Sam. Please tell me you’re at the airport?’

  ‘It’s your lucky day, Jazzy baby. I am outside the closest exit to her gate right now.’

  ‘Are her cigarettes at the ready?’

  ‘Of course. Waiting on the seat with an ashtray I polished personally before leaving HQ.’

  ‘And her short black?’

  ‘Done. Sans lid, naturally.’

  Bless this man.

  ‘Once again, Sam, you’re the man of my dreams. Can you please tell her from me that everything is fine and both the client and I are en route to our appointment?’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Love your work. Have a great day!’

  My butterflies stopped their fluttering. But only for a minute. Realising the time, I launched myself from my desk, Diane’s dirty laundry in my arms. Pausing for a micro second by Anya’s desk, I asked if she wanted to come along with me to the Look shoot. Safety in numbers and all that. She didn’t need a second invitation. To Anya, celeb status was worth more than a final season McQueen. She collected famous encounters like other people collect Muse magazine. It was as if she harboured some bizarre notion that ‘celebrity’ might one day rub off on her if only she could rub up against enough stars. I, on the other hand, preferred to think of fame as a sexually transmitted disease. It didn’t matter how many vaccinations they introduced for teenage girls, when it came to celebrities: vote one abstinence, I said.

  Several years back, over two hundred and fifty stiletto-loving Sydneysiders put their best three-inch-heel-clad foot forward and ploughed up an eighty-metre race track at Sydney’s Circular Quay, breaking the world record for the most people running in a ‘stiletto sprint’. While I didn’t lace up my Louboutins and join them, if ever they repeated the stunt I was
in serious shape to take out line honours given the speed at which I ran – in heels – into the drycleaners to drop off Diane’s laundry that day. And then I was back in the taxi faster than you could say ‘blisters’.

  ‘Okay, the Ivy on George Street, please,’ Anya said to the cab driver as I rubbed my aching ankles.

  Look had chosen the Ivy Penthouse as the shoot location because it was decadent, a little retro and spacious enough to transform into anything you needed. Plus, as this was an underwear shoot, a bed was essential. Look’s emphasis on top-shelf products made them the perfect fit for our market. A glossy tabloid would have only cheapened the lingerie range, and by giving Look an exclusive shoot with Raven, we were on good ground to get the cover. An international celeb with a local angle in a mag focused near-exclusively on international fashion was an ideal situation.

  Opening the door to the Penthouse, we were greeted by three bulging racks of designer clothing. By the tranquillity of the room I knew Raven hadn’t yet arrived. After introductions with the stylist, her assistants, the fashion editor and some runners, I left Anya fawning over clothes that were to be touched (touched!) by Raven and called Marlita, Raven’s manager, to check our model was still on track (and not just crack).

  ‘We’re almost there, but Raven and I have just discussed this and we would like to cut the shoot time from four to two hours because Raven is unprecedentedly jet-lagged today and really needs to rest. Thanks!’ Then Marlita hung up.

  A response from me was clearly not required.

  Knowing full well that ‘jet-lagged’ means ‘big night out’ on a normal day, let alone one into which I had serious insight, I quietly began to panic. Raven’s pill-popping excursion to Kings Cross might yet cost us the cover of Look. Not to mention my job once Diane found out.

  You see, while Marlita, as Raven’s manager, was technically responsible for making sure the talent didn’t go off the rails, my role as publicist had the dubious distinction of having no clear distinction. As long as the client was happy, the talent was happy and Diane was not homicidal, I could rest easy. Easy, huh? In short, when Raven was in town and spruiking our client’s products, it was my job to make sure all headlines were good headlines. Whatever that might take.

  A text came through from Zoe, another of the senior publicists at Wilderstein: So Raven is headline news. Only the article fails to mention why she is here in Australia. Is this your fuck-up? Why was Raven even out in the Cross? Zoe attached a link to a US gossip site that I promptly pasted into the browser on my BlackBerry. The headline read: CAN’T KEEP AWAY FROM THE CLUBS BUT SEEMINGLY SOBER: RAVEN REMAINS A GOOD GIRL DOWN UNDER.

  I waited anxiously for the photo to load. It’s hard to describe the feeling of seeing a picture of yourself, one that is captioned as someone famous, on an American gossip website that is read by millions of people a day. I couldn’t stop staring at it and, with my eyes still glued to the screen, I raced straight out to the balcony to read the story.

  Reformed LA party princess Raven was spotted leaving an Australian nightclub earlier this morning. But don’t worry, the one-time off-the-rails singer has not returned to her bad-girl ways. Witnesses report the YouTube phenomenon was calm and collected when she left Sydney hotspot Kit and Kaboodle, despite the local time being 4 am!

  The photographer who took these photos said Raven kindly posed for pictures with a fan while smiling and waving for their own shots. Quite a world away from her regular behaviour, wouldn’t you agree? Unaided by any handlers, Raven even took a cab by herself back to the hotel, which is unheard of for a celeb visiting another country. Good to see you’ve got your feet planted firmly on Aussie soil, Raven.

  Wow. I did it! This was beyond! Aside from the fact the gossip site believed the person in the picture was Raven, Zoe was none the wiser and she sat next to me every day at work! Thank. God.

  Of course, our client hadn’t been mentioned, which Diane was not going to be happy about. But it was a helluva lot better than any kind of ‘Raven Goes Wild Again’ story, which would have dragged the name of our client’s underwear range through the mud. And then some.

  Anya spotted my celebration dance on the balcony and could tell there was more going on than just a retweet of one of my clients’ products. She wandered over to see. I simply held my phone out for her to read the article.

  ‘Gah! There’s not a single mention of Vixenary in that piece! Why are you smiling? Are you on crack?’

  I danced some more. ‘Can you tell it’s not Raven in that article but just a good lookalike?’ I asked.

  ‘Nooo,’ Anya said incredulously. ‘Who is it?’

  I stabbed my finger into my chest then held it up to my lips to indicate she should keep that quiet.

  ‘Holy shit!’ she whispered. ‘That’s you?’

  I nodded proudly.

  ‘I can’t believe you passed for a celeb, babe!’

  Typical Anya. She was more impressed by my brush with stardom than my brush with unemployment. I started smiling again but caught a glimpse of myself in one of the full-length mirrors that adorned the walls of the living room and realised I was still in a bad way. Raven, the skank, was cutting the shoot in half and Diane still hadn’t called. Usually I couldn’t escape her. I frowned and the creases on my skin looked ten times worse underneath the heavy foundation I had lacquered on earlier. However, like the strange gratification one gets from seeing Oxford Street revellers of a morning, once Raven actually arrived, I felt instantly better.

  She looked like total shit. Even in sunglasses.

  It was as if she hadn’t bothered to shower and had decided to hang on to the tow bar of the limo and be dragged through the city. The crown of her hair was stuck to her scalp, and was that cigarette ash I could see in there? Even Anya struggled to look impressed.

  Caz, the stylist, mouthed the magic word, ‘Airbrushing,’ before smiling and looking at Raven, who walked straight to the cans of Red Bull arrayed on of the catering table, her head down, her manager following, still on the phone.

  With the Look team standing around awkwardly, and Anya frozen like a deer in the headlights of fame, I decided to approach.

  ‘Morning, Raven. How are we feeling today? And how great is this location?’ I tried, smiling ferociously and waiting for the recognition to kick in.

  She stared at me blankly, her bottom lip so dry that it looked like it was about to snap off. ‘Who are you?’ she groaned.

  ‘I’m Jasmine, the publicist who has been looking after you all week,’ I said sweetly. ‘I saw you last night?’ I added, tilting my head meaningfully at her.

  ‘Riiiiiiiight. So I guess you’re the one who can explain why the fuck there are photos circling the fucking USA of me in dirty piece-of-shit sunglasses,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’ I replied, still smiling sweetly, when I remembered the knock-off D&Gs I had paid stupid money for. And I believe she meant ‘circulating’ rather than ‘circling’.

  ‘Are you deaf? There are fucking pictures of me from last night in these fucking fake Dolces and all my friends have texted me saying how fucking cheap I look. I mean . . . what the farrrk,’ she said. ‘As if I would ever wear those. What the farrrk?’

  I stood by silently, not quite believing what was happening. Sure, I didn’t expect her to name her firstborn in my honour, but a little gratitude would have been nice.

  ‘Raven, let’s get on with this,’ said Marlita, finally off the phone.

  ‘Fine. But I’m leaving in, like, two hours, no later, and there better be some good food. Faark this shit,’ she said, no doubt still under the influence.

  I glanced at the Look staffers. They just looked petrified.

  ‘Okay then.’ I clapped. ‘Raven, if you’d like to come with me and one of the runners, we’ll show you to the bathroom. The facilities here are five-star and will have everything you need. On
ce you’re showered, hair and makeup will be waiting,’ I said, winking at hair and makeup, who nodded in nervous agreement.

  Raven just shrugged and puffed her lips into a very unattractive pout.

  Guiding her to the shower I began to form a PR plan in my mind. I ran back through the penthouse bedroom to the lounge where everyone was assembled and went over to where the Look girls and Anya were huddled. I assured them the shoot was going to last the full four hours and, although Raven was undoubtedly going to be difficult, there would be an added bonus: an interview – ‘Raven’s fashion dos and don’ts’. This was not part of the original contract so was met with surprised enthusiasm. Especially from Anya. It was like telling them a dress they had initially assumed was from Katies was actually Roland Mouret.

  Now for the second part of the plan. Stalking over to Marlita I told her I had a solution to the bad press Raven was receiving at home because of those awful sunnies. ‘Who knows where on earth she got them. It’s a disaster,’ I added, throwing my hands about for emphasis. ‘Now, if Raven will agree to submit an interview to Look right now on fashion mishaps, like “Not borrowing your friend’s sunglasses” for instance, I can ensure the story is syndicated to the States. The problem will be cleared up before she even arrives home. Of course, if Raven is too jet-lagged to conduct the interview herself Wilderstein PR can come up with the quotes and send them through to you for copy approval . . .’