The Rumour Mill

by Roxy Jacenko

  ‘Of course,’ was all I said, smiling sweetly and trying hard to exude the air of someone who regularly dined at Urth Caffe. Eric stood up and extended his hand to me, while Louise scurried out the door, only to return seconds later with a box wrapped in lurid purple paper. ‘We’ll be in touch,’ Eric said warmly, ‘and you may need this.’ Louise handed the box over to me with a little smile on her face that gave nothing away.

  ‘It’s an aura spray,’ Eric explained. ‘It helps to balance your chakra number four – harmony.’

  All the way down in the lift, I wondered whether good old Eric really thought that was what I needed. He could be right about that. By the time we reached the ground floor I had already had my first spray of harmony and felt it was time to find my wedding gown. Shelley had been texting me different styles she’d seen at Monique Lhuillier, but I had my heart set on a gown from Vera Wang I had seen the day before when Shelley was having her Goyard moment. I had asked the salesgirls to put it aside for me. Still, there was no harm in looking at her suggestions.

  Shelley’s choice at Monique Lhuillier was a corseted top and skirt, which I kind of loved. ‘It’s gorgeous and you’re right, it’s very me,’ I said after I tried it on. ‘But I also want to show you something I saw yesterday at Vera Wang.’

  Perhaps the staff at America’s top bridal designer have become a little blasé about people coming to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a wedding dress, because they seemed a tad casual in their approach. However, after one of their wedding gowns received a global audience of millions thanks to Kim Kardashian’s ill-fated marriage to Kris Humphries, maybe they don’t get excited by ‘civilian’ shoppers. (I got that from Joan Rivers, who refers to all non-celebs as civilians.) But when I finally stepped out in the dress, which just happened to be almost the same one that Kim Kardashian had worn during her wedding ceremony, Shelley burst into tears. I had suddenly morphed into the full princess bride.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘It’s definitely the one.’

  Both of us took photos of the dress and we kept high-fiving each other. Then all that was left to do was to choose the colour for the bow on the waist, pay the money and organise to return for another fitting in three weeks’ time, which would mean another trip to LA. Michael was going to be thrilled about that (not), but then he is always telling me about the importance of putting extra effort into everything and getting it right. Besides, if I didn’t manage to get Tod across the line on this trip, I would surely do it on the return. Have to think positive.

  Before Shelley and I returned to the hotel, we staged a toy-buying expedition for Fifi. My favourite purchase was a lush elephant with his trunk up. Actually I bought it as much for myself as my daughter because something told me we were going to need at least one lucky talisman for the few weeks ahead.

  10

  There was a note waiting for me back at the hotel, but once again it wasn’t the one I had been hoping for. Tod Spelsen hadn’t finally come to his senses and decided to see me after all; instead it was from Eric Lacey. It simply said, Dinner tonight at the Chateau Marmont at 7.30 to discuss all things Chelsea.

  Eric made no mention of whether the reality star would be there or not. However, since it wasn’t an invitation so much as a command, I had no alternative but to look in my closet for something to wear in order to fit in at the superstar hangout, where those without any sort of Hollywood pedigree or connections are seated inside the dimly lit restaurant while the real action takes place outside in the courtyard. In the end, I opted for a pair of J Brand jeans, Balenciaga heels and a Kenzo sports deluxe top. Perfect.

  I left Shelley the Merc and took the Four Seasons town car, a chauffeured Rolls, giving the driver a twenty-dollar tip to take me to Chateau Marmont – but of course no one saw me arrive in style because the driveway at the raffish hotel is so steep that the drop-off is on Sunset Boulevard. Only the members of Led Zeppelin had been outrageous enough to ride their bikes right into the reception area in a ‘fear and loathing’ moment right out of the seventies.

  Eric and Louise were already seated at one of the courtyard tables when I arrived and had almost demolished their vodka cocktails, but there was a pristine one waiting for me and I couldn’t wait to get into it. Hey, it had already been a life-changing kind of day – what with finding the gown I would be wearing to my wedding. It was still early but the place seemed pretty well packed. There was no way I could scout for stars: I need to be cooler than that – even though the blonde who had almost sent me flying as she pushed past when I walked in looked remarkably like Lindsay Lohan. Was she banned from the Marmont or back in as a valued guest? I couldn’t remember. Asking Eric and Louise to fill me in on the crowd would have been tacky, so I resisted that as well, but from Eric’s constant waves and smiles over my shoulder, it looked like he knew everyone, as might be expected from a big shot agent. Was it just coincidence that he had positioned me at the table with my back to the action?

  ‘Thank you for joining us,’ said Eric, who had shed his sleek ‘Ari Gold’ Zegna suit for an Armani shirt and jeans – not quite hip enough for the Chateau Marmont crew but serious enough to show that he was, after all, there on business. Louise was dressed in something that looked as though it had been snapped up in a Banana Republic end-of-season sale. It told me that she was very low down in the pecking order at Rufus – definitely not enough of a deal to earn a decent pay cheque. As I was always reminding my Bees, in our industry, clothes say it all; it is way better to be dressed in investment pieces than something from a chain store which will last a season at the most.

  Eric, Louise and I chewed the fat for twenty minutes as I filled them in on some of the social highlights of Sydney (they were both threatening to come down for the CD launch), when all of a sudden I could sense a seismic shift in the atmosphere in Chateau Marmont’s courtyard garden. It was as if all the wannabes there had suddenly sucked in their breath and then erupted as they excitedly informed each other that the outrageous reality star of The Bel Air Life, Chelsea Ware (whose real name I later discovered was the less exotic Mindy Reid), had just walked in. All those heads swivelled around in unison when the curvy, delectable blonde sashayed right up to our table. Good old Eric leapt to his feet faster than a Sydney gatecrasher at a black tie dinner who has just noticed a couple of beefy security guards heading his way. He was swiftly followed by Louise, and I rose too, pulling out my chair right onto a passing waiter’s foot. It was definitely not one of my finer moments.

  ‘Chelsea!’ exclaimed Eric, whose blue eyes I swear had moved up a couple of notches in brightness. (Did contact lenses come with an intensity switch in La La Land? If so, his were now on high beam.) ‘Do you have a moment to join us?’ he asked, seizing Chelsea by one of her undernourished arms.

  ‘This,’ he said, gesturing to me and catching me out gingerly lowering myself into my seat ready to bob up at once should the situation call for it, ‘is the Australian publicist Louise and I met with this morning, Jasmine Lewis.’ With my bottom now half suspended in the air, I gave good old Chelsea a healthy Aussie wave. Trying to shake hands with her in this position would have just looked wrong, but it was amazing how much LA brought out the Aussie in me. I had started to feel like one of the cast from Crocodile Dundee with my retarded mannerisms.

  If everyone at the table had been waiting for Chelsea to tell us to please be seated, I swear we would all still be in position, me with my bum all but airborne, but, thankfully, Louise came to her senses first and promptly plonked herself down. We all followed suit while a couple of waiters brought chairs for Chelsea and the tall, blonde Englishwoman with her, who seemed to be a minder. She was later introduced to us as ‘Rita’, with no other explanation given.

  ‘I can only stop for a couple of minutes because I have an important assignation in one of the bungalows,’ Chelsea said, winking at Eric.

  My mind ran wild. Who or what was waiting in one of the famed Marmont VIP suites? May
be the hotel’s owner himself, André Balazs, who wanted to host a party for her. Or might it be John Mayer, who was rumoured to have helped out on her CD? Probably the only way I would know for sure was by asking one of the paps at the end of the driveway. They always knew what was going on and were not at all shy in relaying it.

  Chelsea now turned her full attention on me. She wanted to know whether many people in Sydney knew of The Bel Air Life and whether they liked her or not.

  ‘Of course,’ I assured her. ‘You’re our favourite character from the show, and I promise you that when you visit Sydney you’ll be swamped by several brands, no doubt ready to pay you serious money to Instagram their products.’

  This made Chelsea Ware smile and it was good to see that, despite her fame, she was as motivated by making money as the rest of us. So much for all the hocus pocus about the chakras, but perhaps that would come later?

  ‘Put it this way,’ I told her, ‘as far as Queen Bee looking after you in Australia is concerned, it’ll be a win/win situation for all of us.’

  Another slight shift in the atmosphere told me that another famous person had graced the Chateau Marmont with their presence. Was it Sam Worthington, whom Lulu had informed me was booked into a suite there? (Perhaps he and Chelsea were dining together in the villa?) But no, I nearly spat out my olive pip when I saw that the tall handsome man who had just walked in, his dark mane freshly coiffured, was none other than the man I had come to LA to see, Tod Spelsen. Even more hilarious was the fact that he was led to an adjacent table to ours. However, Tod, who was accompanied by several other men (including one who seemed to be his boyfriend, judging by his proprietorial air), appeared reluctant to sit down straight away, instead hesitating beside our table.

  He nodded to Eric, who blanked him – clearly there was no love lost there – while Rita coolly nodded to him, and then finally, in desperation, Tod’s eyes rested on me. Perhaps he recognised me from the press cuttings he had been sent during the course of the past few weeks. He certainly didn’t address me by name, however it was obvious that he wanted an introduction to Chelsea. I should have looked away and left him squirming, but he was a fellow Aussie after all. I would just have to get to the bottom of what had gone down between him and Eric later on; I guessed it was some kind of dispute over a star not getting the right gown for a red carpet event.

  ‘Hello, Tod,’ I said loudly, as though he was hearing impaired – just put it down to overcompensating because of my nerves. ‘I’m Jasmine Lewis – hope you liked the flowers I sent you today.’

  For a moment or two Australia’s most famous export to LA since Nicole Kidman looked perplexed. Then he seemed to realise that I was the one he had pretty much done the dirty on. ‘Ah, yes, I was just going to have my assistant call you so we could set up a meeting and talk business,’ he said suavely. Yeah right, me and Jenna were absolute besties on the phone. Then Tod turned to Chelsea, who was regarding him with an expression on her face that said ‘what a wanker’.

  ‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ he said. ‘I’m Tod Spelsen and I’m a big fan of yours. I’d absolutely love it if we could send you some of our clothes.’

  Chelsea looked bored. ‘Lovely,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ll have someone call you,’ and then she turned her back on him before he could introduce the very effeminate man standing next to him whom I’d picked as his boyfriend. I discovered later that Chelsea had been trying to pull off some kind of exclusive deal with Dior, which she did not wish to jeopardise by wearing another designer’s clothes to high profile events.

  Tod was left staring blankly at me. He was clearly floored by this very public rebuff. I should have been more gracious and somehow put him at his ease, but I allowed myself the smallest smirk. Suck that up, Tod baby, and maybe next time you might take my calls.

  11

  The Queen Bee office was reality-star central with plans well under way for Chelsea Ware’s visit to Sydney and Melbourne next month. She had already been locked in to guest edit Point Blank and there was going to be a live performance in the Martin Place studio of Sunrise.

  But while one part of the office was thriving, our established client base was being seriously depleted, as one by one some of our best accounts were jumping ship.

  ‘What did Hugo from Lou Jeans have to say before he announced he was leaving?’ I asked Lulu when I had come up for air again after the trip to LA.

  ‘Just that it was time for a change,’ she said quietly. ‘I told him we would put a new account director on but he wouldn’t play ball.’

  Just a couple of days later it all became clear when the trade press announced several new additions to Wilderstein PR’s client list. Yes, at least ten of our clients had found a new home with her. The word in the industry was that Diane’s fees were undercutting everyone, and she was also offering Russian investment money and the possibility of her clients entering one of the biggest markets of all. It was no wonder so many brands were leaving us, because the financial climate could only be described as hazardous. But the big mystery was how Diane would handle so many clients without the staff and the PR intelligence to deal with them. Admittedly, few could beat the old girl in her day, but too many long lunches washed down with several vineyards of red wine had addled her brain. Unfortunately, we didn’t have to wait long to find out how she would manage.

  The first resignation letter was slipped into my letterbox at home by Imogen some time in the early hours of the morning. Just to ensure I had received it, Imogen sent me a text message alerting me to the fact that I had mail.

  ‘I just wanted you to know as soon as possible so you could find a replacement,’ she said in the office later that day, looking shamefaced but insisting she would be leaving at the end of the week in lieu of the holidays she had not yet taken.

  According to her resignation letter, she was leaving to go on a working holiday to London, but there must have been some mistake because the local PR update, Patsy’s News, had listed her as moving from Queen Bee to Wilderstein PR. I had Imogen escorted from the office just half an hour later, clutching her termination cheque in her hand and her belongings in a cardboard box. And, no, I would not be giving her a reference.

  No sooner had Imogen left the building than Yaz, another of my once-loyal Bees, asked to see me and sheepishly gave me her letter of resignation.

  ‘I understand that the timing isn’t ideal for you, but I’m leaving on an overseas trip at the end of the month and when I return I want to take the next steps in my career,’ she said, in a carefully rehearsed speech.

  I stared at her. ‘Would those next steps happen to be in the direction of Wilderstein PR?’ I demanded. ‘Am I going to be reading it in the next bulletin of Patsy’s News?’

  Yaz’s deeply scarlet cheeks told me everything I needed to know, and she just nodded her head.

  That was also her last day in the office, but not because I escorted her out (I couldn’t do that until I had proof she had signed up to my competition), but because that night Yaz apparently suffered a catastrophic health crisis. She developed a mouth ulcer.

  ‘I need to see my doctor ASAP today,’ she wrote in an email I received at seven o’clock the next morning.

  Soon another email arrived, this time from her dad, who said that he and her mum were worried sick about her. ‘Yaz is much iller than she is letting on and will need a minimum of another two weeks off. This is not how she imagined finishing up at Queen Bee but unfortunately she will not be able to make it back in there because her doctor will not allow it.’

  Had Yaz’s mouth ulcer become so inflamed that she could no longer speak for herself? Had she also lost control of her hands, which meant that she could now no longer write an email? What other twenty-four-year-old gets their parents to write their sick notes? This was just hurtful because Yaz was someone whom I had nurtured from the start.

  A few days later I wrote back to Yaz requesting her presence in the office to prepare with the handover for the Bee who wou
ld be replacing her. After this, Yaz, who had miraculously regained control of those hands of hers despite her illness, typed yet another email advising me that she’d sought legal advice and since she was entitled to ten sick days a year, it was definitely sayonara. She would do the handover, over the phone, from the couch at home. No, wait – the hospital. So much for loyalty. Was this the same Yaz who had pleaded with me for a job despite never finishing her course? The same Yaz who had basically offered to work for nothing if only we would give her a job? Not that I had ever taken her up on that freebie; I was definitely not into exploitation of labour. A courier was dispatched to pick up her thousand-dollar BlackBerry Z10 handset, pronto (all Bees had the best mobile technology because part of their job was to Instagram, tweet and Facebook the shit out of every event we put on and every new product to hit the showroom).

  That night when Michael and I were in bed, I told him the story of Yaz and how Queen Bee was unravelling fast.

  ‘Look, Jazz, why don’t you sell the agency now while you can still get a good price for it and just do nothing but organise the wedding and look after Fifi and me? You know I have enough money for all of us.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Michael, but I can’t,’ I said softly. ‘I haven’t worked hard my whole life just to let it all go like that. I won’t be defeated by Diane Wilderstein and a pile of dodgy Russians.’ The idea had only appealed to me when Ivan and Svetlana had seemed kosher and because I had arranged to still be involved in my business as a consultant.