by Roxy Jacenko
Michael and I looked at each other, still a little stunned, and I winked ostentatiously, as much for our guests’ sake as for Michael’s. I was all about putting on a brave face.
‘Yes,’ we both said at the same time. This broke the ice.
‘Proceed,’ I shouted gleefully, to reassure everyone that this was not getting me down but inside I was in absolute turmoil. First, my impending birth threatened to upstage Fashion Week, and now my wedding was turning into a circus. Couldn’t I do anything right? I also thought that Michael may want to kill me when this was all over. He was all for taking the Jennifer Hawkins’ option and getting married on a beach in Bali with only our nearest and dearest.
All this kerfuffle was too much for one elderly woman in the back row, one of Michael’s relatives, who seemed to buckle over in her seat. But she was quickly revived before she actually fainted. Just as well, or she would have missed out on the next dramatic development. The service soon got underway again, to the cheers of the crowd – egged on by Shelley – but almost immediately, a surprised hush fell over the congregation. Images started to move on the white walls next to the celebrant, as though a film projector had been switched on. At first it was hard to make out what it was, and I stared at it blankly. But then the images became clear. Someone had surreptitiously filmed my undignified exit from Fashion Week when my waters broke.
After a few moments of murmured consternation, everyone turned around to see who was playing the video only to see a shadowy figure in a hoodie run off – his job done. Then this: ‘Fuckkkk!’ The bloodcurdling scream that escaped Diane’s Wilderstein’s lips as her ankle twisted was a dead giveaway.
Bugger those YSL Tributes, because they tripped up the culprit just as she was legging it towards the escalators, making her escape to the busy precinct below where a car was idling in wait. We found out later that the driver had been instructed to keep the motor running and under no circumstances to move away from the agreed pick-up point.
By the time a panting and puffing Churchill and the security detail caught up with her, Diane presented an even less dignified appearance than I had when my waters broke. With the blonde wig covering her trademark ratty black bob completely skewed and a split in her ‘vintage’ Chanel suit (since the decline in her business, she could hardly afford to keep up with the new collection), she looked downright tragic. Somehow, she had managed to camouflage herself among the guests and had got close enough to the action to play the video. Far too vain to wear flats with her best ensemble, in her deluded state she had somehow convinced herself that she was still young and sprightly enough to run in heels. But those days were over.
Diane Wilderstein’s misadventure left Churchill and the security team in a quandary. Who to call first – an ambulance (she definitely couldn’t get up), or the police? She could surely be charged with public nuisance and trespassing on a private event. There were also privacy issues to do with her relaying the Fashion Week footage. (But we would probably struggle to get this one up – after all, this was the sort of thing the Bees got up to most days in the interests of making money and keeping all of our journalism contacts happy.)
These close relationships definitely paid off, because in the newspapers’ online editions that afternoon and in the following day’s paper, the reports of the wedding were all about my breathtaking Vera Wang gown (rumoured to have cost a five-figure sum), my celebrity guests (including the gay couple du jour, Cleo and Chelsea), and the decadent wedding feast. By special arrangement with Luke and his mates, no mention was made of the process server or the unauthorised video of my waters breaking at Fashion Week. However, there was a separate piece about once-leading publicist Diane Wilderstein, who’d suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to crash the wedding, breaking her ankle in the process. The report noted that she was now recuperating in the psychiatric wing of St Vincent’s Hospital and receiving the very best care available. An anonymous donor had apparently come forward to pay for further rehab treatment for Wilderstein in a special facility in Far North Queensland when she was released from hospital.
Well, it was the very least Michael and I could do, seeing as Diane and her cohorts had given us a special day that would be talked about for years.
We were now setting off on a luxe honeymoon to the south of France and the Seychelles, and we were pleased to be able to help Diane out with her little sojourn to Far North Queensland. There was only one drawback to the clinic: the dry-out den was snake infested, with the operators reluctant to sort out this infestation since the aim was for all the patients to be at one with nature. Anyway, most of them were harmless carpet snakes, with only a few pythons and, very rarely, the odd deadly brown snake.
But, the way we looked at it, this was a good opportunity for Diane to tackle all her issues in one go, including her snake phobia. It was a delicious irony after all that the biggest snake in the PR world would get over all her addictions in a nest of vipers. And perhaps it would restore her to fight on for another day – who knows what miracles might occur.
As for me, the honeymoon with Michael and Fifi (we couldn’t leave her at home for that long, and Anna came along too) was both incredibly romantic and relaxing. This may have been because for two weeks I was banned from using my mobile or even glancing at my emails – although clearly something had shifted during this time.
I thought that when I returned there would be even more chaos, but the first thing I learnt was that the Russians had unexpectedly dropped the law suit (perhaps they had finally been convinced they stood to lose far more than they would gain). I still felt a little uneasy about this because it was not like Ivan and Svetlana to give up on anything. However, they were rumoured to have returned home (with more than a little help from the Department of Immigration). So I would have more time to devote to our projects, including Tod Spelsen’s massive launch.
Looking back on that period of time now, everything had seemed almost unnaturally calm but we hadn’t questioned it – we just got along with our lives as best we could. All that changed one afternoon when we all returned home at the same time. Fifi, Anna and I had been together at Queen Bee headquarters and Michael had insisted on picking us up. The plan was that we were going to put Fifi to bed and then leave her with Anna, while we went out for a quick bite to eat at Otto.
Usually we entered the house through the garage. I don’t know what made me look into the front courtyard. But there, waiting for us on the doorstep, was a beautifully wrapped present with a card addressed to us in what looked like oddly familiar handwriting. I remember noticing the Selfridges logo which was visible beneath the wrapping paper and feeling slightly excited. It’s funny the things that stick in your mind – like at the recent Myer show, remembering the freakin’ cellulite on a model’s thigh during a runway show and forgetting all about the label she was wearing.
Anyway, the reason that we didn’t go to pick up the gift straight away is because it was so unexpected to find anything there. How had it been placed so pristinely in the doorway when it’s almost impossible to get through the locked gate? How could anyone have lobbed the gift over the high wall and have it land like that?
Michael is always naturally suspicious, so he bent down to study the present without actually touching it. He put his ear to the box, signalling for us to be quiet. Then his face absolutely drained of colour. Lurching towards us – almost falling on top of us – he grabbed Fifi from a startled Anna’s arms and herded us out into the street, bellowing out a single word which reverberated through my body, ‘Run.’
ALSO FROM ALLEN & UNWIN
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
ROXY JACENKO
Meet Jasmine Lewis, the smart young publicist trying to work her way up from the bottom in Sydney’s hottest PR company. She’s done the coffee runs, the dry-cleaning pickups, the 5 a.m. starts, the 11 p.m. finishes. But still her evil boss Diane Wilderstein is never happy. So when Jasmine finds herself being summoned to Diane’s office early one morning, she k
nows something’s got to give. Luckily for Jasmine, fate lends a hand and helps her escape from the evil Diane to launch a fabulous new career.
That should be a dream come true, right? Or is it the start of a whole new world of nightmares?
‘Ever wondered what really goes on behind the slick facade of the PR world? Strictly Confidential will knock your Manolos off!’ Gemma Crisp, former editor of CLEO
ISBN 978 1 74237 757 5
