The Rumour Mill

by Roxy Jacenko

  ‘I don’t know what to have,’ said Shelley, her eyes sparkling as she watched a waiter grate some fresh truffle over a plate of steaming risotto at the next table where a glammed up couple were ostentatiously holding hands. They didn’t look familiar but I’d have to covertly peer at them through my reading glasses to know for sure. Shelley, bless her, wasn’t taking any notice of them at all, she only had eyes for the pasta, weighed down with scampi and crab which the amorous couple was also being served.

  ‘I think I’m having pasta for an entree and a main,’ Shell announced. ‘Unless you order pasta too and we share?’ she suggested hopefully.

  But I just smiled and shook my head. I hadn’t even succumbed to pasta when I was pregnant and had an excuse for having a rounded belly, so I certainly wouldn’t be going there now. ‘Don’t forget all those designer clothes you bought, Shell,’ I cautioned. ‘Spanx can help but they can’t work miracles. Maybe a salad to start?’

  With a large glass of Californian wine each and a lull in the number of people coming through the door, we should have had time to talk about the wedding, but now there were much more pressing issues for me – like trying to fit Tod Spelsen’s launch into Queen Bee’s schedule. ‘And he also wants us to organise a massive fireworks display,’ I told Shelley, ‘because everyone knows that Sydney Harbour is famous for its New Year’s Eve fireworks.’

  ‘Don’t you think he would be happy with a few sparklers?’ she asked, twirling the grissini in her hand like a fiery wand.

  ‘Signora?’ One of Cecconi’s Italian waiters immediately appeared, thinking that she had summoned him. Shelley immediately took the opportunity to ask for two more glasses of wine; she works on the premise that you should never waste an opportunity to get a waiter to fetch something for you.

  The place was heating up as a parade of girls who looked like Victoria’s Secret models arrived toting oversized handbags and, almost knocking the bread stick out of Shelley’s hand as they glided past. Carrying an extreme handbag was very LA. Who knew what the hell they had in there. The bag du jour – the Céline Trapeze – could easily accommodate an entire wardrobe of LA mini dresses.

  ‘Oh my God,’ laughed Shelley. ‘Those girls should need licences to carry those ginormous things. They’re lethal weapons. Haven’t they discovered the clutch yet?’

  Never mind that we had capacious matching Birkins sitting beside us. We were tourists and on a mission – which reminded me, my call to the office was seriously overdue. Even though Cecconi’s was noisy, I had to find out what was going on.

  Lulu answered on the first ring. Before she’d even said hello, I started alerting her to the plans for Tod Spelsen’s launch and then asked how everything was progressing for Chelsea Ware’s arrival. The way things were going we would have to find a platoon of new staff.

  ‘So what else has been happening?’ I asked her finally.

  ‘Sooo much,’ said Lulu breathlessly. ‘The phone hasn’t stopped ringing with old clients and prospective clients. Meanwhile the word is that Diane Wilderstein has upped sticks and moved to Bali.’

  ‘What?!’ I screamed so loudly that Shelley almost choked on her wine. She looked at me inquiringly. ‘The dreaded Diane has supposedly fled Sydney,’ I hissed across the table, not really believing for a second that the old dragon would give up that easily. She probably took a long weekend in Bali to put everyone off the scent as she tried to regroup. You could never write off Diane Wilderstein – not when I was still around. It seemed as though her main mission in life was to try to bring me down, especially now that I had bequeathed her a dodgy business partner. But, hell, it had really put her name up in lights again. She should have thanked me instead of trying to kidnap all my clients.

  Just then, a familiar figure walked past us. OMFG, it was Dr David Gruber, plastic surgeon to the stars, resplendent in head-to-toe Dolce & Gabbana, which made him look far older than his fifty years. He actually resembled a walking comic strip.

  Famed for his exquisitely maintained eyebrows and extremely full lips, Dr Gruber’s other signature was his latest-model Bentley, navy blue with cream upholstery. It was a familiar sight going through the McDonald’s drive-thrus – because the good doctor, who’d had his stomach stapled in a bid to lose weight, could not shake his burger addiction. Although according to TMZ, the only order he made these days was for a Filet-O-Fish burger, because it was coated in mayo and slipped down easily.

  On previous trips to LA I’d had a few consultations with him to get some Botox, and we’d got along so famously that on my last consultation, which was on a Friday evening, he’d invited me home to have Shabbat dinner – the traditional Friday night Jewish meal – with his family.

  ‘Hello, Dr Gruber,’ I yelled above the din at Cecconi’s.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, and the bony blonde he had been following through to a more private room did a pirouette and came scampering back to his side. From memory, Dr Gruber’s wife Vivienne was dark and curvy – still, you never knew what miracles could have happened in LA in just a few months.

  Dr Gruber was staring at me now, one eyebrow cocked so theatrically in the air that I was worried about it coming down again. It appeared as though all of his features were on a ten-second delay.

  ‘Shalom. It’s me, Jasmine Lewis,’ I reminded him. ‘Remember, you invited me to your home in Bel Air for Shabbat dinner after our consult?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said smoothly and leant in for the kiss, while urgently signalling to his scrawny companion to go on to their table.

  ‘And this is my good friend, Shelley Shapiro,’ I continued. ‘We’re both on a flying visit from Sydney.’

  Dr Gruber looked as perturbed as his facial muscles allowed. ‘And you didn’t call me for an appointment?’

  Were my frown lines that pronounced? It was all Diane Wilderstein’s fault, and the Russians. It was a wonder I hadn’t aged at least ten years since I’d had Fifi. I wondered if I would have time for a quick consult tomorrow. It was probably the last time I would be in LA before the wedding.

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ I said, grinning at him. ‘Got anything around nine tomorrow?’ I looked at Shelley, who was kicking me under the table. ‘Make that a double appointment.’

  Dr Gruber consulted his iPhone. He looked doubtful, but was also obviously a little uneasy about being seen out with a blonde by a patient who had met his wife.

  ‘I’ll see if I can move something around,’ he promised, glancing in the direction the blonde had disappeared in. ‘Call me at eight.’

  ‘You didn’t have to kick me under the table,’ I assured Shelley as our meals finally arrived with a drop-dead-gorgeous Italian waiter who almost made Shelley forget about hers – a miracle.

  I Instagrammed a photo of my grilled bass fillet, which was so perfectly presented it almost belonged to a Hermès window display for a fishing expedition on Lake Como, then I tweeted up a line about Cecconi’s, linked in a mention of Dr Gruber (but not his companion), and finally turned my attention to my iPad, which was sitting next to me in my Birkin. Social media can be a bitch sometimes. A quick glance at my emails: Lulu had already responded to our phone chat by giving me more detail on exactly what was going down at Queen Bee.

  Hi Jazzy,

  Great to talk and you sounded so happy and relaxed. Now where do I start? As I mentioned, the phone has been ringing off the hook with clients wanting to rejoin the agency. I told them you would get back to them in a couple of days.

  You remember how we were asked to donate several crates of L’Eau sparkling water to that fashion designer, Claire Green’s, brand anniversary party? Of course, we agreed only if we could get lots of celebrity shots through. Well, unfortunately all the shots we got back showed the sparkly crew clutching Aqua Vert water. Claire herself had this big, cheesy grin on her face and was holding up a bottle of Aqua Vert like it was a trophy. We’ve asked for our water to be couriered back pronto or we’ll bill them.

  I groane
d. Since when was bottled water such a precious commodity that hosts had to find a water sponsor as well as every other bloody kind of sponsor for their events? It was all getting just a little ridiculous.

  ‘Bad news?’ asked Shelley.

  ‘No, just the usual petty stuff going on over us supplying bottled water for that designer Claire Green’s party – but it was nowhere to be seen in the shots.’

  ‘I never liked her,’ responded Shelley. ‘And her clothes – well, really, not my cup of tea.’

  Well, that’s it then: Australia’s most determined shopper had spoken.

  Shelley and I really did need that team of sherpas to help us check out of the hotel and check into LAX. My Vera Wang wedding gown seemed to take up more room in the town car than both of us and our bags combined because it couldn’t be crushed. Thank heavens for the porter and for the Qantas first-class check-in who managed to get us processed through US customs in double-quick time – even when the gown threatened to get stuck inside the hand luggage x-ray machine.

  ‘Have you just got married, ma’am?’ asked the operator suspiciously, looking hard at Shelley. WTF?

  ‘No,’ I replied, willing the gown to come through unscathed. What if security decided to cut it up to see if we were carrying drugs? I could just imagine myself taking it back to Vera Wang and asking them to fix it or re-create it. Or if it did make it through intact, would Florida in Double Bay be able to remove any possible grease stains from the inside of an American Customs office?

  Luckily the gown came through pristine and, less than an hour later, Shelley and I were on the plane exploring our first-class cabins and sinking a couple of glasses of Dom.

  It was fortunate that Chelsea Ware had delayed her trip because it allowed us both to relax on the flight home.

  ‘Jazzy,’ said Shelley, who had emerged from the bathroom in her Qantas pyjamas and already signalled for another two glasses of Dom, ‘let’s get this party started.’

  The problem with the overnight flight from LA to Sydney is that there is a small margin of time to sink a few glasses of champagne and sample Neil Perry’s first-class menu to really get your money’s worth of the outrageously expensive ticket before you have to start preparing yourself to hit the ground running at the other end.

  Shelley and I could always amuse ourselves in the air, but she became even more outrageous if there was a gay flight attendant or two to egg her on. She almost never disembarked from a plane without a ‘goodie bag’, which would include some vintage champagne carefully wrapped in the airline’s finest linen napkins with some expensive chocolates thrown in as well. Around Shelley even the bitchiest queens were transformed into Jewish mothers organising a care package just to ensure she wouldn’t die of thirst between the time she stepped onto the air bridge and when she arrived at her final destination.

  It happened again on this flight when I put an end to the drinking and asked for my bed to be made up. Shelley was disappointed but continued to sip her drink when the lights were turned off. Even with my B80 earphones on I could hear the clink of the bottle against her flute as she topped it up.

  All I could think about now that we were finally heading home was how happy I was going to be to see Fifi and Michael again. I had missed my young daughter so much – when I wasn’t with her it sometimes felt that her birth was something I had dreamt up and, as for Michael, well how lucky was this girl to find such a hot, understanding man. As we flew closer to Sydney, I prayed there wouldn’t be any delays because I couldn’t wait to see them on the other side of customs. Michael had promised me that he would be there and he was bringing the G63 so that he could fit us and all our bags in, plus the driver and car just to transport the dress (as there was no way we could all fit – even if the G63 was an eastern suburbs upmarket version of a tank!).

  13

  Sydney dines out on salaciousness. Gossip spreads faster here than Justin Hemmes in a new Aston Martin. People just can’t get enough of it, especially when it’s about someone who’s obscenely rich, successful, trashy or larger than life (bless you, Belle Single, for ticking three out of four boxes). Alas, I fitted two myself (not trashy – how dare you!). I’m wealthy and successful but, as a publicist, I believe in flying under the radar. I’m only there to enhance my clients’ reputations, not to enjoy myself at their expense. So don’t expect to see me dressed up to the nines, swanning around at one of Queen Bee’s events. When I’m working, I am everywhere and nowhere – you will never see me preening on the red carpet. In spite of this, I soon discovered there was a group of people who were out to get me – and no, not just the usual suspects. They shared the following characteristics: a sense of entitlement, an aversion to working hard, and greed. They thought that all it took to enjoy the trappings of success was just to be around it. It didn’t seem to dawn on them that you had to pull long hours and show true dedication to make it happen. The other thing they had in common, of course, was that they had all passed through the doors of the Queen Bee agency and not exactly enjoyed a happy landing. Can there be anything as potentially fatal as sacked staffers out to exact their revenge?

  There were around five staffers who had been relieved of their posts since Queen Bee had been formed. It was probably about the same level of staff attrition as many other companies in the media, but when you are dealing with young girls who want to be celebrities themselves, the bruises to their egos can sometimes be painfully inflated. I was soon to discover that at least three of them had joined forces to shoot me down as if I was one of those sideshow targets at the Royal Easter Show. Step right up, Jazzy Lou just became fair game. But remember that old cliché, when the going gets tough . . . ? Well, in my case, the tough become twice as effective.

  Gossip spreads so fast in Sydney you can almost see its trajectory from email recipient to mobile phone number before it continues to go buzzing around offices, cafes and launch parties. It positively pulsates in Divorcee Heights – those waterfront apartment blocks in Darling Point, home to the savvy second wives who are all ‘resting’ between very expensive ‘engagements’. (Only suitors bringing forth Cartier, Bvlgari or something very large, sparkling and hand-crafted from the Jewellery Concierge should think of trying to scale Divorcee Heights.) No wonder these women have so much time on their hands to spread slander.

  You can sense gossip’s vibration. It has its own force field of electricity – almost a power surge before it finally reaches the person who was the subject of it all. Then all the communication lines spring into life at once, and the person’s inbox instantly becomes fuller than Ajay Rochester’s bikini. This is the tipoff that life has suddenly taken a very twisted turn.

  Barely was I back in the office after LA when some of the newest Bees out in the main office seemed to become almost dizzy with excitement as they held their phone receivers up to their ears. I noticed them all glancing at me and whispering, but I thought they were just planning my top-secret hen’s party. I didn’t comprehend I had suddenly become a victim of gossip until Lulu walked into my office, her face white as a sheet. So much colour had drained from her cheeks that she looked as though she’d walked straight off the runway from a Romance Was Born show. She was clutching her BlackBerry as if it was contaminated. Poor Lulu’s hands were trembling so much she could hardly carry the device; she looked like Clarence, the alcoholic waiter who had recently been fired from uber-fashionable watering hole The Vineyard.

  ‘Jazzy, you really have to hear this,’ she said apologetically. ‘Someone has been leaving horrible messages about you on everyone’s mobile phone.’ She went on, speaking so rapidly that the words ran into each other. ‘None of us can work out whose voice it is but the message sounds really creepy, as if the caller is putting on a false accent.’

  My stomach did a neat backflip, as it always did when I found myself in trouble. Usually it was because I was guilty, but this time I really didn’t have a clue what I had done. For a moment or two I stared at Lulu without really looking at her – s
o powerful was the emotion, I felt like I’d just dropped from the height of Centrepoint Tower without stopping at the mezzanine.

  What was going on? Was it the Russians again, threatening to sue, or worse? ‘What is it, Lu?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you ready to listen? It really is quite strange.’ She sounded a little bit hoarse herself as her hand hovered over the ‘play’ button.

  ‘Go for it.’

  The voice that filled the room was spoken in an irritating whisper which grated and also sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  ‘This is a message for anyone who has ever had dealings with Jasmine Lewis, owner and operator of the Queen Bee Agency,’ it began. ‘This woman believes that slave labour is acceptable. Anyone who works for her will be subjected to pure torture. I should know, I’ve been there. Day in and day out I would march myself into the Queen Bee office knowing that at some point during the day, I would be brought to the brink of tears, or to a point where punching a wall seemed like a good idea. You might have called me a “Slave to Fashion”.’

  The caller then went on about the other ways that I had apparently made her life hell. She even mentioned the food which was banned from the showroom at lunchtime. And she was right; greasy food was out because I didn’t want to risk our high-end samples being marked. I also didn’t want anything to go out to the magazines reeking of eau de trans fats. Honestly, do you blame me?

  There were also some caustic comments about my Bees having to work around the clock. Well, welcome to the world of PR. My staff did have to pull late nights at some of our launches. And who wouldn’t want to be at one of the hottest tickets in town? They would be pissed if they weren’t there.