by Roxy Jacenko
‘It’s not about saving face, it’s about our life together,’ Michael replied quietly.
They say that you have to bottom out before you can even contemplate climbing up again, and it was certainly true in my case. Each day took on a new rhythm of resignations from either clients or staff, who, despite their denials, were always heading to the same place – Wilderstein Public Relations. And besides the fact that it was all so bleeding obvious, I had to wait to read about it in a daily bulletin from Patsy’s News.
Patsy herself (aka Fabian Tarrington aka Fabs, a onetime event supremo who was well and truly plugged in when it came to hearing all about public relations accounts in Sydney) called me a couple of times to try to arrange a coffee meeting.
‘You know, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other and I can’t wait for you to update me on all things Fifi,’ cooed the reed-thin blonde over the phone. But of course I knew that the real reason she was ringing me was so she could report how I was coping with my agency disintegrating around me.
‘I can’t wait to see you,’ I lied, ‘but Queen Bee is operating at full speed at the moment as we prepare for a top-secret launch involving a US star.’
That made Fabs’ ears pick up. ‘Oh, really?’ she said. ‘I thought Tod Spelsen’s launch went over to Wilderstein PR.’ Oh right, thanks for that. When they were handing out lessons in diplomacy, Fabs was too busy having her hair extensions weaved in to read the memo. She had to be the most insensitive person in the industry. Only the celebrated columnist Pamela Stone could be more devastating, but at least Pamela knew when she was being bitchy. Fabs rarely did, she just said the first thing that came into her head.
‘Fabian, I think you’ll find that the star Queen Bee is launching in Australia is just a tad bigger than Tod Spelsen, who is just a schmutter cutter after all.’ I was stretching the truth a bit here because, when it came to the fashion industry, Tod Spelsen was neck and neck with Chelsea Ware. But by the time we had finished promoting her, this would not be the case – at least in Australia.
‘Now you’ve got me excited,’ said Fabs. ‘Are you sure I can’t write anything about it today, just a little line somewhere?’
‘Nope, sorry – that would spoil the surprise,’ I said. ‘But I promise to give you an exclusive the moment they’re in the air.’
Sure, I could promise her an exclusive on my part, but I planned to have Chelsea papped the moment she arrived at LAX en route to Sydney, along with a leaked story about the big launch; at the same time I would swear to Fabs that it hadn’t come from me. I could hardly control what happened with regard to the international media, could I?
One person who couldn’t hold back was Wally Grimes, who was having an orgasm each day I lost another client. Just a few days ago he posed the question that the charity event I was working on was one to raise some much-needed funds for my household. I never react to Grimes’ poisonous diatribes but this time I just couldn’t help myself. The words ‘vicious’, ‘bitter and twisted’ along with ‘badgering’ featured prominently, as well as a clear direction to look in the mirror, if he could manage to focus after all the bottles of free champagne he had sunk at lunch. As text messages go, it was something of a masterpiece but I shouldn’t have reacted at all because he was the newsprint equivalent of a troll. And you should never feed the trolls or give them any oxygen at all.
What did I tell you about everything having to bottom out before it got better?
It suddenly got a lot better at the Queen Bee office following one of the most bleak lunch hours in our short history. With both accounts and staff turning their back on the agency, the remaining Bees and I gathered around the conference table to eat a meal of stale Ryvitas with Vegemite and left-over Boca Lupo’s drinks from our last jeans’ launch, and at the same time to try to work out a plan of action. It was quite fitting the only drink left for me was grapefruit-flavoured, because I already had a bitter taste in my mouth from all that had been going on.
But then, just after lunch, I had a call from Marshall Coutts, our lawyer. ‘Jasmine, remember when we advised you not to have any business dealings with Ivan Shavalik?’ he said excitedly as soon as I had picked up the phone. As if I could forget.
‘Yes,’ I said simply.
‘Well, our information is that he has thirty days to stat dec on why he shouldn’t be deported, and in the meantime he’s banned from having any business dealings in Australia at all.’
OMG, I haven’t felt this excited since the new season of Balmain accessories landed at Cosmopolitan Shoes in Double Bay and Rose gave me first dibs on them. I’d tried to play nice with Ivan by hooking him up with Diane but the two of them had formed an alliance against me, which I definitely should have seen coming. Now I just basically wanted him and Svetlana to mosey on back to Moscow and leave Sydney’s PR landscape safe and secure.
‘That’s great, Marshall,’ I said at last. ‘But it’s my understanding that he’s currently backing the Diane Wilderstein PR company and has signed on as her business partner. So, what will that mean for that cosy little mutual-support group?’
‘Well, put it this way,’ said Marshall, ‘he better not have put anything in writing or transferred money into any banks associated with Wilderstein. Not only would this be against the law and may result in all of her accounts being frozen while both the Immigration and Taxation Departments take their time to follow the paper trail, but they could both also face prosecution for money laundering.’
It was a lot to take in, but an image immediately popped into my head of Diane Wilderstein, fag hanging from the corner of her mouth, standing over a sink filled with bubbles and with newly washed notes pegged on a line. I started to laugh out loud.
News travels exceptionally fast in our industry, and you don’t have to be a psychic to feel the sudden surge of electricity in the air. As the news of Diane and Ivan’s predicament percolated through the bitchy public relations industry faster than a turbo-charged espresso machine, suddenly Queen Bee’s phones started ringing all at once. The most honest of our clients informed us they had made a terrible mistake in moving to Wilderstein PR and asked if we could look after them again. Of course we took most of them back on, but we raised our fees by twenty percent. We weren’t so gracious with some of our old staff members, who a few weeks earlier couldn’t wait to move on to work with my nemesis. We had already started a massive recruitment drive through Power Brokers, one of the smartest new agencies, who were handpicking staff they guaranteed would be tomorrow’s leaders. I didn’t worry about that so much – I knew I could mould anyone who was savvy enough to realise that PR was not just about air-kissing and giving out goodie bags.
Besides, I had other things on my mind – like flying to LA to pick up my wedding gown and organising my new client Chelsea Ware’s CD launch in Sydney. Michael had been amazingly sweet about the return trip to LA, possibly because it involved our wedding. He had not only asked his mum to stay over and look after Fifi along with Anna for the best part of the week that I would be away, but he had also paid for three first-class seats on Qantas – for myself, Shelley and the wedding gown, because it was far too precious to try to stuff into a suitcase (unless I was in the habit of travelling with a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk. Perhaps that would come later).
The morning of our departure was typically frenetic. I wanted to spend as much one-on-one time with Fifi as possible, and there were loads of last-minute arrangements to put in place for Chelsea’s arrival. We had organised a press reception on the afternoon of day one in order to accommodate all the requests for interviews; Chelsea would have just a few hours to get over her jet lag before hair and makeup arrived to sort her out. The following day she was booked on all the breakfast TV shows, featuring a live broadcast of her performing her single from Martin Place. The actual launch party would take place the following night and, in between, Chelsea and her minders wanted to pack in as much of Sydney as possible before she was left to her own devices later in
the week. Very kindly, our high-profile financier mate, Don Dell, had offered us his magnificent yacht Basket Case to ferry her around the harbour in style.
In the end, with the phones in the office running hot, Shelley and I almost missed our flight. Although we were both excited about the trip, I wasted too much of the first-class luxuries out cold in my skybed; then again, sleeping is one of the greatest luxuries around.
Getting through LAX is never easy – even from the pointy end of the plane, which gives you special passes and a really good headstart on everyone else. Still, by seven thirty we were checked into The Peninsula and I was tucking into my usual breakfast of poached eggs, a slice of smoked salmon and one piece of toast.
We felt so fortified by this that Shelley and I were waiting outside on the pavement for Vera Wang to open up, and thankfully my gown was ready and waiting for me, just as beautiful as I remembered it. A dozen shots on your mobile phone cannot capture the beauty and mystery of a wedding gown. Seeing it, Shelley was on the verge of tears again. I had my final fitting, and the seamstress told us the dress would be ready for collection the following day.
‘Come on, we have to celebrate,’ said Shelley. ‘I don’t care what else you think you have to do – your immediate task is to drive us to the Polo Lounge. We’re having Dom and oysters.’
The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel is one of those places in LA where you’re guaranteed to see at least one celebrity if you wait long enough. Maybe the fact it’s almost inaccessible to paps in the hotel where some of the world’s biggest stars – including Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor – have cavorted that makes the Polo Lounge so special. It’s almost a living shrine to old-school Hollywood glamour. (The appeal definitely isn’t about the food, which is, at best, average.)
Shelley worked her magic and we were shown to one of the A-list booths facing the courtyard. At an adjacent table sat an elderly couple in head-to-toe white who were treated with so much reverence by the staff that you would have thought they owned the hotel. Shelley and I tried not to stare but we had never before seen a woman in a white tracksuit with a real diamond tiara on her head. It was an entirely different approach to sport luxe, but probably not one that was destined to catch on.
‘Here’s to you, Jazzy Lou,’ said Shelley, raising her glass of Dom. ‘May your marriage be everything you want.’
I toasted to that too, wishing that Michael and Fifi were here with us, but it’s bad luck for the groom to hang around when you’re buying the dress.
We took another sip of Dom. The bottle must have set Shelley back at least six hundred dollars, but as usual she insisted she was not being extravagant. ‘How many times will you get married, Jazz?’ she said, topping up my glass and nearly giving the over-attentive waiter a conniption as he tried to sprint back to our banquette to do it himself. (He needn’t have worried, we were always going to give him a big tip – after all, we want to return to the Polo Lounge.)
She went on immediately, ‘No, don’t answer that – just once, right? Michael is pretty spesh and you don’t wanna change baby daddies on Fifi anytime soon. And anyway, the guy would have to be an absolute saint to be more patient and accommodating than Michael.’
I laughed at the thought: besides Michael, the only thing I found deeply seductive at the moment was my bed – the sight of it meant that I got to recline for at least a few hours.
Both of our heads flicked around at once as we saw a familiar figure stride into the Polo Lounge as if he was taking a stroll down Woolloomooloo wharf during a packed lunchtime.
Russell Crowe, wearing a backpack and looking straight ahead with grim determination, was about to walk right past our booth with a couple of middle-aged men who looked as though they worked in the film industry. Since he purposefully wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, I shook my head at Shelley, who seemed hell bent on attracting his attention. If she wasn’t wedged into the booth beside me, I swear she would have bounced up and ran after him because the way she was waving (fruitlessly, I might add) to him suggested that they were old buddies. Russell’s body language alone made it very clear that he was a human no-fly zone. As Shelley leapt about behind the table, like the cheerleader from hell, I watched as he and his group made their way out to the garden terrace and sat with their backs to the window.
‘Maybe I should send over a bottle of Dom,’ suggested Shelley, already looking around for our hapless waiter to do her bidding.
‘No, no, no!’ I insisted, as the server almost skidded to a stop in front of us.
‘Did you need something, ma’am?’ he enquired hopefully.
‘Yes,’ I replied, swinging my leg at Shelley under the table. ‘May we have another bottle of sparkling mineral water?’
‘What did you do that for?’ asked Shelley, rubbing her leg, when the waiter had walked away.
‘Just to save you from making a fool of yourself when Russell refuses to accept your champagne or, maybe, takes it and doesn’t say thank you. How pathetic are we going to look then?’ Russell Crowe was just as unpredictable as any actor at the top of their game. The only thing for sure when it came to possible reactions from Russell is that he detested people who wanted to fawn all over him. And, after all, who could blame him? Russell Crowe is nobody’s performing seal.
‘Wait, really?’ she said doubtfully, as the waiter returned with our mineral water.
The problem with Shelley was that she could already visualise the Instagram shot of her and Russell Crowe cheering each other with the flutes of Dom. A shot like that would potentially bring in hundreds of followers. Shelley was particularly competitive when it came to social media, and wanted to be the queen of it among her tight circle of friends. She already had one advantage over them – she bought thousands of dollars worth of designer clothes on a regular basis and always found creative ways of shooting them next to their special bags or the Net-a-Porter packaging. She made them look so lustworthy, she could have worked in window dressing for Louis Vuitton.
Now we both watched as another waiter, no doubt the most senior in the Polo Lounge, delivered some cocktails and a beer to Russell’s group. Rusty was drinking the beer. Dom Pérignon? That was strictly for sissies.
In the absence of having her mug captured on Instagram next to Russell’s, Shelley set about filtering some shots she had taken of other wedding gowns at Vera Wang. That was what she had been doing while I was in the change room, Instagramming the shit out of everything.
As I looked at some of the gowns she had focused on, it suddenly hit me – I had no shoes!! Or rather, I had around forty pairs of designer heels at home but none of them suitable to wear with a thirty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang customised gown.
‘OMG, what the hell am I going to wear for shoes?’ I cried, so loudly that a very stylish woman who happened to be walking past our table glanced down at my feet. She probably expected to see me still in a pair of towelling pedi slippers or something.
Shelley almost choked on her champagne. ‘I knew we’d forgotten something but I couldn’t think what it was!’ she exclaimed. ‘And there’s nothing I like more than shopping for shoes, unless it’s finding the right handbag to go with them, which thankfully you won’t need because you will be carrying a bunch of flowers.’
Never had a bottle of Dom and a chef’s salad and oysters been consumed so quickly, but Shelley still insisted on picking up the tab and tossed a couple of the sesame-seed-covered grissini into her Birkin for later. She had immediately understood that the quest for the right wedding shoe would be so consuming that eating again might not fit into the schedule anytime soon.
In the end we split up just as we hit Rodeo Drive; Shelley went to Barneys and Saks while I went off to Christian Louboutin and Prada. For the first half hour we texted pictures of possible shoes to each other before I found the perfect pair of Louboutins that weren’t on display but were instore, with limited sizes left – luckily this included my size. They had my name written all over them.
> ‘Shelley, I’ve found them. Come meet me at Louboutin,’ I hollered into the phone. ‘And I just had a text, the dress is ready to pick up as well.’ (I guess there hadn’t been much to do and it was a slow day there.)
When we finally made it back to Vera Wang, with Shelley juggling the three pairs of shoes she had found along the way while she was looking for mine (for her to return empty-handed from a trip to LA was nothing short of sacrilege), our next problem was that my wedding gown didn’t fit in the hired car – or rather it did fit in but it meant there was no room left in the vehicle for Shelley and me – so we had the store ring The Peninsula to have the hotel’s Rolls sent around to pick it up.
Just getting the gown up to my suite at The Pensinsula was a major production, with two porters employed in delivering it. Only when it was hanging safely in its own cupboard did I turn around and notice that lying on the table was a package from Sprinkle, the Beverly Hills cupcake outlet that had people queuing up outside. Inside were enough beautifully created cakes to throw a first birthday party for Fifi – but who had sent them? Most of my friends were aware that I had a sweet tooth but that I would do almost anything to avoid temptation.
A pristine white card was perched beneath the ribbon, embossed with the letters TS – for Tod Spelsen. Let me know if you’re available for tea, it read. We have so much to discuss. A quick check with Lulu revealed that Tod had been calling the office and she had let him know I was in town and at The Peninsula. But what kind of a fashion designer sent women cupcakes? Perhaps he was branching into a plus size collection. Or perhaps he just thought that flowers had been done to death.
12
Tod Spelsen had been left with egg on his face. And not just any old oeuf but a freshly barn laid, supersized variety fit for a branch of Ralphs in Beverly Hills.
