The Spotlight

by Roxy Jacenko

  When it came to redecorating our $6 million home, I’m guessing that Michael would argue I had a little too much umph for my own good! You see, Jackson wasn’t the first interior designer I’d hired since the bomb scare. Almost a year had passed, and during that time the entire house had already been overhauled by two separate interior designers – one after the other.

  Okay, refurbishing an entire house twice in twelve months might sound excessive, but this was my sanctuary and I needed it to have the right feel. I’d made a mistake the first time around by placing my hopes – and my credit card – in the hands of a young designer called Jessica Salmon. You might remember her from the last series of The Block, where she turned a derelict semi into a property that sold for $4.5 million. In comparison to that I thought our palatial home would be a doddle, but it hadn’t lived up to expectations.

  It’s not that she did a bad job exactly, it’s just that she seemed to forget my house wasn’t the set of a television show. Yes, we do require that dividing wall, Jessica. I appreciate that it’s breaking up your ‘vision’, but it’s also holding up my ceiling. And no, I’m not prepared to sleep in a hammock because a bed doesn’t fit in with your safari theme.

  I’m all for aesthetic value, but it also has to be practical. Since when does a $2000 lamp not require a power socket? According to Jessica, the lamp with its plaited silk cord neatly coiled under the table didn’t need electricity. It was just a feature to be oohed and ahhed over. Presumably while I flicked through the pages of one of the coffee table books she positioned on the coffee table. Apparently I was meant to spend my evenings reading Valentino’s memoir in the dark.

  That lamp was the final straw. When my lah-di-dah decorator had suggested the lights were just as fabulous without power, I decided to quit while I was ahead and start over. Was Jessica offended when she found out I’d two-timed her with Jackson? I have no doubt. But she handled it graciously enough, thanks in part to my overgenerous tip, and moved out her ladders to let her competitor’s in.

  To be honest, I wish she’d trashed the joint in a jealous rage, as it would have been easier to explain to Michael why I needed a do-over.

  It’s not that Michael could quibble about the expense. The cost – now escalating rapidly – was coming out of my pocket and not his. As a wife, I do not believe in joint bank accounts (or joint Facebook accounts, just for the record). I was the one bearing the brunt of the outgoings, although I was trying to keep costs to a minimum as much as possible. I was pulling in favours left, right and centre for discounts on couches, wallpaper and the huge antique brass bathtub that Jackson insisted we have in the corner of our bedroom (yes, bedroom).

  We were also taking Michael’s needs into consideration and had ordered a custom-made ‘watch safe’ for his collection of Rolexes, which had a glass window at the front so you could see the watches spinning on miniature pedestals. I was slightly worried it wasn’t the safest safe, but Jackson insisted it was art, and any thief would respect that and therefore not steal it.

  So, if it wasn’t the cost, what was getting Michael’s back up? Well, it was more the inconvenience of sharing our home with a pack of builders (sorry, Jackson, I mean ‘house whisperers’). The first time around, under Jessica’s reign, my husband had taken to sleeping at the office because he said the paint fumes gave him a headache.

  He was only away one or two nights a week but it was another sign of chinks in our relationship. How different it was from the early days of our romance. When I’d first ‘acquired’ my husband from Belle we hated spending any unnecessary time away from each other. Now the incompatibility of our busy work schedules was sometimes a blessing, as it gave us less time to argue.

  Married life. What can I say? Every day is a challenge and it’s certainly not all a bed of roses. When you throw together two intelligent individuals with high-powered careers who deal in profits that look like telephone numbers, there is never a dull moment. Chuck in a toddler too, and you might as well set off a container of firecrackers in your living room.

  Perhaps I should have been more worried about the declining state of my marriage, but I had too many other distractions. My life was spinning around faster than a better-known Minogue sister. As well as the double house redecoration, I was putting plans in place to revamp Queen Bee PR, moving it firmly into the twenty-first century.

  A lot of businesswomen would be frazzled, but the truth is I’m comfortable with change – maybe a little too comfortable. This may sound harsh, but I don’t believe that anything is forever – even relationships. I’d just hoped that when I got married, I would be proven wrong.

  2

  ‘Lulu!’ I yelled at my long-suffering assistant. ‘Why do I have seventeen crates of guava-flavoured vodka in my office?’ Out of interest I opened a bottle, took a swig and then spat it across my desk. It tasted like cheap kiddies’ lip gloss. FFS! That aftertaste was going to stick.

  ‘Oh my god, Jazz, I’m so sorry.’ Lulu sprinted into my office, her blonde hair pooling around her shoulders. ‘I meant to have these moved by the time you got in. The couriers left them here by mistake. They’re from the Dutch Courage distillery in the Hunter Valley – an experiment gone wrong, apparently. They have litres of the stuff and want to know if we can think of a publicity stunt to shift it.’

  I groaned. It was only nine o’clock on a Monday morning and already I was in damage-control mode. ‘Okay, this is what you do,’ I barked. ‘Call that mixologist from the Star casino. The one who accidentally melted my Miu Miu clutch with his flaming martini. He owes me a favour. Tell him to start spruiking guava vodka cocktails to any celebrity who goes in there. I need to make this shit trendy.’

  Lulu, rapidly typing notes into her iPad, let out a whistle. ‘But Jazzy Lou, it tastes like expired Halloween candy,’ she protested.

  ‘Well, he’ll just have to get imaginative.’ I picked up a bottle and peered at the ingredients, then grimaced. ‘I don’t care if the cocktail is one percent guava vodka and ninety-nine percent orange juice. We just need to be able to say the coolest party people are drinking it: Delta, Jen, Joel Madden . . . We tip off the fashion mags that there’s a new It-drink in town and boom, it’s an overnight sensation!’

  As Lulu scurried off to guilt-trip the mixologist (that’s what you get for igniting my precious Miu Miu), I wondered how my career had come to this – flogging sickly-sweet liquor.

  When I started Queen Bee PR ten years ago, I had vowed never to represent a product that I didn’t genuinely love, or at least like. I wanted our headquarters to be an extension of my character. If I wouldn’t wear it, eat it, drive or drink it, then it didn’t have a place on my client list. I have integrity, dontcha know! Plus, as everybody in the PR world understands, it’s a doddle to make the world excited about something when you’re genuinely enthusiastic about it yourself.

  Since then, thanks to a lot of hard work, Queen Bee PR had grown into an unstoppable monster. It’s something I would never have thought was achievable as the student who had excelled in ticking every ‘absent’ column, was constantly described as ‘disruptive’, and scored fourteen percent in maths for her school certificate, before getting turfed out of school in year ten. I was proud of my unexpected success.

  Yet recently, a number of less-than-tasteful brands had been slipping through the net and onto our client list. The guava vodka was a good example. Why had I lowered my standards? One word – money! That thing that used to grow on trees in the fashion world was now disappearing faster than a Tasmanian rainforest.

  I blame the credit crunch, or an epidemic of stinginess, but some of the larger, global brands had slashed their publicity budgets to practically zero. Last week, a bigwig from the makeup brand L’Atitia had had the cheek to ask if she could pay for our services with free lipstick. Seriously! They made a profit of $8.3 billion last year, and they wanted to pay me in makeup. If I hear the phrase ‘contra deal’ one more time I’ll scream. Let’s not beat around the bush – yo
u just want me to work for nada.

  The interesting thing was that while the big boys were slashing their budgets, the small fry seemed to be doing the opposite and were on a publicity drive. Okay, they weren’t all high-end products, but at least somebody still realised that a PR rep was a worthwhile investment. When a distillery that produces alcohol which tastes like kerosene is willing to pay you $20,000 a month to promote their products, it’s very hard to turn them away.

  Luckily, the magazine editors, who I needed to plug these products, were also lowering their standards. In the past, I would never have dreamed of sending Lillian Richard, the snotty editor of Eve Pascal magazine, anything but the finest Brut champagne. Now, though, she’d be getting a bottle of guava vodka – and she’d probably be thankful for it.

  Just as L’Atitia’s publicity budget had dried up, so had the endless freebies editors were once showered with. In the old days, an editor would screw up her nose at any gift that wouldn’t earn her more than $300 on eBay (those who say they don’t flog their freebies are lying – or missing an opportunity to make a fortune). In the old, opulent days, any editor would have at least two interns (referred to as fashion cupboard monkeys) who were employed just to unpack the gifts sent by fashion labels and designers. You’ve seen The Devil Wears Prada – it really isn’t much of an exaggeration. Now that times were tougher, fashion designers were happy to loan out samples but actually asked editors to send back the outfits afterwards – and even pay for them to be dry-cleaned.

  And it wasn’t just brands tightening the purse strings; publishers were too. At a recent party, I’d overheard Rochelle Crawford, the editor of Bizarre magazine, complaining that she’d been called into an emergency meeting with their finance department. ‘They’re monitoring my company credit card,’ she whined. ‘I’m only allowed to spend $200 on taxis per week.’ The Bizarre offices were split between two buildings at opposite ends of the same street, and it was a well-known fact that Rochelle hailed a taxi rather than walking the 500 metres between them. ‘They even said I should share a taxi with my staff if we’re going to the same event,’ she added. ‘Can you imagine? I don’t even like sharing an elevator with them!’

  The day after I overheard Rochelle’s rant, I received an email from the lifestyle editor of Bizarre just ‘letting me know’ they’d decided to add a monthly car review to the magazine. They’d just LOVE to include my client Porsche, who were apparently Rochelle’s favourite car maker. In fact, Rochelle would LOVE a long-term loan of the latest model . . . and could we cover petrol too?

  I feel like Santa freaking Claus sometimes, fulfilling the wish lists of journalists struggling to live upper-class lifestyles on working-class salaries. Oh, how I’d love to tell the fashion diva to stick it, but I’m a professional and I couldn’t pass up the publicity opportunity. I did fantasise for a moment about emailing her a link to Gumtree’s second-hand car section, with some ‘affordable’ transport options. Let her arrive at Fashion Week in a clapped-out rust bucket that leaks petrol over her Manolos.

  I’m not usually this vindictive (well, not often), but Rochelle would deserve it. This is the woman who once said to me, in front of the head of Gucci, ‘Everyone knows that PR is just the fallback plan for failed journalists. Right, Jasmine? If you can’t break into the world of fashion magazines, PR is your plan B. Every fashion publicist really wants my job.’

  I pride myself on my discretion, and so I bit my tongue. But it wasn’t easy, as I had a comeback locked and loaded. Little did Rochelle know that I’d been approached by her boss six months before to see if I was interested in editing a new weekly fashion magazine. I’d politely declined – even before he apologetically revealed the salary. To paraphrase Linda Evangelista, I wouldn’t get out of bed for that amount. Who was Rochelle kidding? My assistant Lulu was on practically the same wage, and my second-in-command Anya was on double that salary.

  I’ve been accused in the past of being a cut-throat boss with zero compassion (well, that’s how one ex-employee described me in a recent lawsuit). Yet Anya, my longest-serving Bee, is proof that if you keep your nose to the grindstone, working for me does pay off. Anya has just bought a $1 million house in Double Bay, where she stores her convertible Mercedes in the undercover car park. Her wardrobe is even bigger and brassier than mine (remember I also have a toddler with expensive taste in clothes).

  The Queen Bee headquarters, in the thriving suburb of Alexandria, is a twenty-minute drive from the centre of Sydney. Don’t be fooled by the warehouses that surround our building. Anyone who is anyone knows that Alexandria’s industrial estate is home to the hottest photography studios in the city, where every fashion magazine descends to shoot their editorials. Our leafy street is a thoroughfare for supermodels on their way to pose for Vogue (or whichever mag has booked out the studios that day). We’re in prime position, in the suburb where the magic happens and dreams are made.

  I like to imagine that our palatial office is what heaven will look like if God is a fashion fan. Within the clean white open-plan warehouse is rack upon rack of the latest ranges from the hottest fashion labels, ready to be loaned out for fashion shoots or to socialites who need a killer outfit for an event.

  Out of my thirty or so staff members, the majority are female, but it’s not because I’m sexist. Fashion PR is generally a female-heavy industry and it’s no coincidence that my office sometimes looks like a clone factory, with thirty blonde heads bent over their HPs. My staff arrive at Queen Bee PR as fat girls and go out as thin girls, with expensive cars and apartments in the most exclusive areas of Sydney.

  If I ever post a job vacancy on social media, we’re overwhelmed with applications from girls who follow my life on Instagram and think PR is all parties and schmoozing celebrities. They want to be me (poor cows!), but many of them only see the glitz and glamour. I work twelve-hour days, six days a week, and even when I’m technically off duty I’m still permanently ‘on’. I have ‘iPhone elbow’ from checking my emails while lying in bed, and have even asked Jackson to install a speakerphone in my shower as part of the makeover, so that I can multitask washing with conference calls (just for the record, it will not have video function).

  Speaking of telephones, I always carry two mobiles with me, and as Lulu left my office, one of them started ringing. All of my Bees have at least two mobiles. In any other industry this would seem somewhat suspicious, but we genuinely need to double-up our devices – one mobile for VIP clients, one for general business calls, friends and family.

  The phone currently trilling from my handbag was the latter, and the screen flashed with a photo of Shelley, blowing a kiss at the camera.

  ‘Jazzy, what are you wearing?’ This was my best friend’s standard greeting, like a caller to a late-night adult chatline. But the only salacious details Shelley was interested in were the names of the designers I was wearing.

  I looked down at my outfit and rattled it off from head to toe. ‘Balmain, Givenchy, H&M and Chanel ballet pumps. The cream ones.’

  I heard Shelley’s earrings rattle down the phone as she nodded. Now that I’d received her fashion approval we could start our conversation. This is how our relationship goes.

  ‘Babes, you are utter perfection,’ she enthused. ‘So, what’s new with you? You sound kind of down. Is everything okay?’

  This is why Shelley is my best friend. I’d spoken less than ten words but she knew me well enough to sense I wasn’t my usual perky self.

  I sighed. ‘Just a bad morning at the office. I don’t mean to complain, but I sometimes feel like I’m losing my mind . . . not to mention my dignity.’

  Case in point, I was currently wearing a product made by one of my clients. It was a new bra from a shape-wear brand, which claimed to make your boobs go up three sizes – instantly. I’d ordered all the Bees to wear them, so that we could become walking billboards for our product. PR can sometimes feel like prostitution without the sex (celibacy seemed to be an ongoing theme in my life rig
ht now). You spend every day begging, borrowing and stealing just to get some column inches at any cost.

  I recounted the guava vodka debacle to Shelley, who after a decade as my confidante has a working knowledge of PR by proxy. ‘Today has already been a freaking nightmare,’ I moaned. ‘How far can you massage the truth before you forget what you really believe in?’

  Don’t get me wrong, I still love working as a publicist, but being your own boss is not as alluring as it sounds. If Coca-Cola asked me to head their publicity department I’d jump at the opportunity. It would feel like a holiday representing one corporation, rather than juggling the ridiculous expectations of a hundred brands and countless B-grade celebs desperately seeking freebies.

  Shelley tutted sympathetically. ‘Babes, you’re just having a wobble. Is your blood sugar low? Why don’t you send Lulu out for some cronuts? Do you need a fashion pick-me-up? I just got a delivery from Net-A-Porter and those Chloé linen shorts I ordered have come up so small. They must be a faulty batch. Come over after work and grab them.’

  This was Shelley’s solution to any problem – high-calorie food and high-end fashion. The first unfortunately stopped her fitting into the second. My best friend has reverse body dysmorphia and is convinced that she’s a size six, even though she’s closer to a size fourteen. This is why most of her purchases find their way into my wardrobe, as she’s far too wealthy to know the meaning of the word ‘refund’ – and she’s also far too generous to send her purchases back when she can gift them to me.

  Sadly, neither fatty food nor fashion could solve my current career issues. ‘I’d love to but I can’t tonight, Shells. I have to work on my new business plan,’ I replied apologetically. ‘If my new venture is going to be ready to go next month, I’ve got some serious hard graft ahead of me.’