by Roxy Jacenko
Evie tried again. ‘So, Josh, tell us about your next film project. Is it true that you’ve been cast in a Scorsese epic?’
Now it was Josh’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘I’m really, really sorry but it hasn’t been confirmed yet,’ he said.
Evie swallowed hard; this joint interview was proving to be the most difficult of her short career. In the next few minutes, Raelene refused to answer nearly every one of her questions on the grounds they were an invasion of privacy. Even an innocuous question about the direction of her next collection yielded a sharp ‘no comment’. It soon became clear that although Raelene wanted her photo to appear in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, she didn’t want it to be tagged with any more information than her name and the details of what she was wearing.
In desperation, Evie finally said bravely, ‘Okay, moving on. Can I ask you the name of your dogs?’
‘I would really like to avoid anything to do with my personal life,’ Raelene started, hitting her stride with her usual answer.
I had to step in. ‘Raelene, I really think you have to give them that one.’
Josh looked relieved and smiled gratefully at me, and I walked quickly away. Raelene, I decided, had dropped a few stitches in her brain and then some.
‘Chelsea and her party are on their way up,’ Anya said urgently over the two-way radio as I scurried to meet them at the lifts. A group of suave male models in tuxedos were already waiting there to escort her in. Marco had noticed the signal and was right behind me so he could get the precious candid arrival shots that nobody else would have.
Quite magically, just before Chelsea walked onto the terrace, the ubiquitous speakers began to play a track from her CD.
And didn’t she look drop dead in her Allison Palmer head-to-toe sequined gold gown.
‘Chelsea! Chelsea! Look this way,’ the photographers called out the moment they saw her, while Susie Solomon urgently moved everyone else off the red carpet.
‘It’s so great that you’re here,’ I whispered to Chelsea. ‘And you look sensational. Let me know if there’s anyone who takes your eye.’
We were running to a very strict schedule. Chelsea had approximately ten minutes at the photo wall and twenty minutes mingling with guests before Sydney’s seasoned Hollywood reporter, Lloyd Jenkins, helped her up onto a small dais to interview her, and then she would slip away to change into her Christopher Kane dress (as we had prearranged) and reappear to lip-sync her single with a band. All that was left to do was the Harper’s shoot with the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House below her like an enormous sculptural fashion backdrop, and then she would be out of there and on her way to a private dinner at Icebergs Dining Room at Bondi. By the time she was tucking into her exotic entree, many of the guests would be flying so high from all those martinis and champagne they would hardly notice she was gone. Well, that was the plan anyway.
Unbeknown to me, absolute mayhem was about to break out. You see, despite Juliet’s advice to the contrary, there were quite a few Atlas residents home on this particular night and they were not at all thrilled by the commotion on the roof.
As I would later discover, Aldo Pavoni, who once owned a chain of menswear boutiques with the hottest labels until he retired from the fashion industry to travel the world (keeping his Atlas apartment as his Sydney pitstop), had at first thought all the equipment being ferried up to the roof was for a magazine shoot. He had happily headed out to dine with a friend at the nearby Rockpool Bar and Grill but was appalled when he returned home to hear what he thought was a rock band on the roof as Chelsea performed her single to a rowdy crowd. After a frenzied ring-around to some of the other Atlas owners who were in town, he decided the most effective way to put an end to the commotion was to cut off the electricity for long enough to send a message to organisers.
Just a few moments before Aldo put his plan into action, Chelsea and Eric had stepped into the lift on their way out to dinner. Lulu was waiting on the ground floor to usher them into their car. But just before the doors closed, Eric discovered he had left his phone behind in the green room.
‘You go on down and sit in the car,’ he directed Chelsea. ‘I’ll be right there.’
Cleo was also heading towards the lift after completing her DJ sets and leaving her crew to pack up (she didn’t want to look as though she didn’t have anything to do either). She greeted Chelsea warmly as she stepped into the lift and pushed the button to take them down the fifteen floors.
Chelsea responded with a cool smile as she didn’t recognise Cleo. The ambitious DJ had seen Chelsea once or twice at the Chateau Marmont, and she was planning to remind Chelsea of this before they hit the ground level. But, as it turned out, she had a bit more time to make the TV star’s acquaintance than she’d expected, because they had only made it as far as the sixth floor when there was a huge whoosh and all the power went out, leaving the lift stranded somewhere between the fifth and sixth floors.
‘Oh my God, we’re going to die,’ screamed Chelsea, who had been knocked sideways by the sudden, grinding halt. So alarmed was she – believing that a terrorist attack was under way – that Cleo, who was usually hysterical in stressful situations, realised she had to remain calm and in control of the situation.
‘It’s okay,’ she told Chelsea, helping her to regain her balance and giving her a reassuring squeeze. ‘The lift has just got stuck. It’s fine. I’ll call the lift company.’ But when she lifted the receiver to her ear the line was dead.
Standing beside the electrical cupboard on the ground floor, Aldo Pavoni heard chaos breaking out all over the building and he quickly flicked the switch on again. Instantly all the lights came back on, including in the elevator. However, the elevator itself remained jammed.
‘Won’t be long now,’ Cleo assured Chelsea, who was crying so hard that her eye makeup had run and she looked like a member of Alice Cooper’s backing band.
‘I don’t think I can breathe,’ she cried, clutching at her throat.
‘Don’t be silly. There’s plenty of air in here,’ Cleo told her.
And then it happened. Moments after Cleo thought it would be a good idea to give Chelsea a comforting hug, she suddenly started to kiss her on the lips. At first it was soft and gentle, but when the DJ felt the reality star’s body almost involuntarily move towards her, it became more passionate, and Cleo found herself thrusting her tongue into Chelsea’s mouth, right in through those blindingly white, perfect Californian teeth.
Maybe it was the fact they were trapped together in such a potentially dangerous situation that also served to heighten emotions? In any case, it was at least five minutes before Cleo tried the phone in the lift again, and this time it was answered by an operator from the lift company who assured the women that help was on the way.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the art deco lift doors, all hell was breaking loose as Eric and Lulu were the first to connect the elevator alarm with the fact that Chelsea had failed to materialise from it. Lulu called me immediately on the two-way, and I went to join Eric outside the lift.
‘Another woman was walking into it with her just as I stepped out to get my phone,’ Eric told me. ‘I think it was the girl who was working the DJ booth. We’ve got to get them out of there. Chelsea suffers from claustrophobia.’
Of all the people to get stuck in a lift with, I thought, the edgy and slightly spiky Cleo wouldn’t be my first choice.
Several loud sirens from the street signalled that the fire brigade had arrived. This was later confirmed by Lulu. ‘The firies are here. The firies are here!’ she yelled into the walkie-talkie, sounding so excited that she could have been introducing the sexy entertainment at Coco Man of the Year. ‘Do you copy?’ she added, no doubt trying to impress the men in uniform.
‘Copy,’ I confirmed. ‘It’s all good in the hood.’
I looked around to find Juliet to ask her about getting the guests down via the fire stairs, but she was nowhere to be seen. I later discovered she had qu
ietly slipped away earlier in the evening so she could play an innocent bystander if the neighbours complained about the noise and the shit hit the fan.
Eric wasn’t prepared to wait until help arrived. ‘Which way are the stairs?’ he panted. ‘I gotta get to Chelsea and try to talk to her through the lift doors. She’s probably hyperventilating now. And Jasmine,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘if she suffers in any way, including developing a post-traumatic stress disorder, we’ll sue you, do you understand?’
What had happened to the sweet, good natured Eric – he had suddenly morphed into Entourage’s Ari Gold at his most lethal. Clearly he didn’t handle ‘situations’ well.
‘Copy!’ I replied again. ‘Loud and clear.’ I made a mental note to check out our on-site insurance policy. Surely this kind of contingency was covered – an American guest of honour developing a nervous disorder following what was clearly an act of sabotage? Surely . . .
Fortunately, what Chelsea was suffering from could hardly be classed as a disorder. In the short time before the lift suddenly lurched into life again – thanks to the engineers arriving at the scene – Chelsea and Cleo had discovered they shared such a hot, sexy attraction that they couldn’t wait until they had more privacy to explore it. It wasn’t Chelsea’s first girl-on-girl experience, TMZ had exposed a couple of those in the past but it had usually included some Hollywood hunk joining in as well. This time it was all about the other woman. Those few steamy moments with the tattooed, punky-looking DJ in the lift was the first time this sexual experimentation had moved her on a very deep level.
At first, Lulu thought nothing of the fact that the two young women came staggering out of the recesses of the lift entwined in each other’s arms. She just assumed they were helping each other over the trauma of being stuck there for seven minutes and forty seconds.
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ she cried when she saw Chelsea’s mascara-streaked face. ‘Is there anything I can get you? A cognac? A whiskey sour?’
‘No, that’s fine. But would you please tell the driver there’s been a change of plans,’ Chelsea began breathlessly, as the two of them piled into the silver Rolls-Royce Phantom which had been parked outside waiting. ‘We’re both going back to the hotel,’ she announced.
Lulu’s intuition now told her something was going on even before the words themselves formed in her head. For a moment she was stunned, but just as the driver was about to shut the door, she stuck her head in. ‘Shall I tell Maurice @ Icebergs you may be a little late?’ she enquired hopefully.
‘No, just cancel it altogether.’ Lulu heard both women giggling wildly as the car pulled away for the short drive.
A red-faced Eric arrived in the lobby five minutes later, hot and flustered. ‘Where is she?’ he almost shrieked at Lulu.
‘It’s okay. Chelsea’s fine. She’s just returned to the hotel to, um, freshen up.’
‘What, by herself?’ asked Eric, incredulous.
‘No, I believe Cleo the DJ went with her,’ Lulu responded diplomatically.
But Eric was hardly listening now. He was dialling her number over and over on his cell phone, swearing when she didn’t pick up. Then, without saying anything more to Lulu, he ran off into the night in the direction of the InterContinental.
15
It was another three days before Chelsea Ware and Cleo Jones staggered out of number 1560 at the Hotel InterContinental, slightly tender in certain areas but still deeply in lust. The ‘love-in’ had been awkward on many different levels for hotel management – not least because the corner suite with views over to the Opera House had been booked by another party. The hotel was forced to give the other guest an upgrade to a much bigger suite and throw in a bottle of French bubbles and a canapé selection to placate them. What else was the hotel’s flustered reservations manager to do? There had been no moving the two lovers – they simply could not get enough of each other. In fact, the only time they came up for air was when Cleo had a friend send over some of her clothes and toiletries, plus some of her favourite ‘toys’ and her laptop.
Her bestie had to leave them all with the wide-eyed bell hop because number 1560 had been declared a no-go zone.
Chelsea briefly got busy calling The Bel Air Life’s producers to tell them they would have to introduce Cleo into the scripted reality show because her new partner was returning with her to LA. They would both be there when shooting resumed the following week (good news for the Hotel InterContinental at least – an end was in sight). Cleo had just struck gold, and so had BB Productions, creators of The Bel Air Life, who knew a red-hot storyline when they saw one.
Chelsea and Cleo’s steamy hook-up in the broken-down lift was all over the gossip sites because, yes, the security camera had been still rolling inside the lift and there was footage, a copy of which I may or may not have had a hand in ‘moving on’ for an undisclosed sum to a top US gossip site (it pays to be best mates with a certain pap with all the right contacts inside Sydney’s most upscale apartment blocks). Chelsea and Cleo’s lift episode made Paris Hilton’s bloody ‘Night In Paris’ look like a cartoon, thank you very much. It went viral minutes after it was put up on the site. In fact, I had almost singlehandedly given both of their careers a major shot of adrenalin – strong enough to wake the dead.
‘Chelsea’s a genius. It’s just what the series needed – a lesbian love affair,’ gloated Melvin Good, executive producer at BB Productions. ‘Do you think she’ll try to hold out for more money now? At this rate we could be bigger than fucking Entourage. And, by the way, how much is her girlfriend going to want to do this? Has she got a manager we can deal with? Someone’s got to put us in touch with her people.’
Unfortunately, managing Cleo Jones was a skill that not many people in Australia had mastered. The problem was that she was super bright and actually knew far more than some of the people she paid to look after her career. She switched agents more often than John Mayer changed girlfriends, which is really saying something. Even I found it tough when it came to trying to achieve the most basic task with her – like booking her for a job. Queen Bee had been let down by Cleo pulling out at the eleventh hour with her signature heap of bizarre excuses. But, luckily, I had discovered her weak spot was flattery and, when it came to receiving it, her appetite was as big as it was for sex. Heavens knows she must have been starved of brownie points as a child – it was the only way you could explain her deep desire to feel appreciated. It never hurt to flirt with her either. (Flirtation with everyone – man, woman, child and even pet dog – was something all my Bees were across.)
Cleo’s main problem was an aversion to paying her managers a commission when she felt they had not been on top of their game. Plus she reserved the right to back out of jobs when the mood took her. Her most recent manager, Jon Ford, quit after she had left him in the lurch with a stack of deeply influential beauty executives. Ford had worked hard to land Cleo the role as The Face Of Me, a beauty collection targeted at women who thought they were too cool for the normal brands. Her role was to have been announced at a launch party held at the Ivy with journalists and industry powerbrokers who would all play a role in The Face Of Me’s marketing and promotion. No expense had been spared on the event, with Cleo given a Willow ensemble to wear and booked into a suite at the Westin. But, unexpectedly, once she’d had hair and makeup done, she suddenly developed a mystery illness. As the guests were arriving at the Ivy, John heard from Cleo that her doctor had forbidden her to step out of the hotel. Well, she must have had an amazing recovery because she was later spotted at the Back Room in the Cross in the early hours of the morning. When the incriminating shots of her, still in the Willow outfit, hit the pages of Sydney Confidential the next day, Ford immediately resigned from managing her. None of us could blame him. Cleo was now looked after by the newly formed agency Talent Inc, whose tough manager, Patrice Henry, took no rubbish from her clients.
Nevertheless, Melvin Good was really going to have his work cut out
for him when he attempted to sign Cleo Jones up to The Bel Air Life. She really was super talented at being a diva. In fact, she was in a class all of her own, but since he had worked with Lindsay Lohan, he was up for anything.
Cleo and Chelsea had become such hot property that there were almost as many paps hanging around the InterContinental as there had been when Kim Kardashian was the guest of honour at a party at Hugo’s shortly after she split with ‘Hum Dum’ – Kris Humphries, that Lurch-like husband of hers. Yes, when it came to getting a hundred percent recognition for Chelsea in Sydney, my work was done. At this rate, ‘Bel Air Babe’ (the first single from her lame CD) was set to become a gay anthem. If she played her cards right, she could be the opening act of Mardi Gras, and if she camped it up just two stops more, when it came to gay icon status, she could be the next Kylie Minogue.
All the paps were trying to get the first romantic picture of the lovebirds walking arm in arm out of their suite, because there were magazines and websites in the US who were willing to pay big bucks for a shot. One of Sydney’s most outrageous and aggressive paps, Roger Piper, had even booked himself into another suite on one of the executive floors so he could launch a drone over the side of the terrace with a camera and capture the action through the windows of 1560. But luck was not on his side, because each time he attempted this tricky manoeuvre the pair hadn’t even been in the room.
LA-based gossip website TMZ had tracked down Chelsea’s ex-boyfriend, Reggie Hunt, lead singer of nouveau-punk outfit The Rebel. Reggie had the following words of wisdom to share on video. ‘Chelsea can do anything she likes, ma-an. I just want her to be happy. I don’t think she ever sorta got over “the us” ending, ya know what I mean? But we both had different paths to follow.’
‘Are you surprised she’s taken up with another woman?’ asked the TMZ reporter.
