Career Girls (9 page)

‘A talent scout, of course,’ Oberman snapped. ‘What do you think?’

The first day Rowena walked through the doors of Musica Records as an employee was one of the happiest of her life. She took one look at the futuristic lobby, its black leather and polished chrome, the young, hip sccrctarics strolling in and out of reception with their Tshirts and attitude, and the wall-mounted TVs pumping out music videos, and knew she’d found her vocation.

Nothing could dent her mood. Not the surly, prim womaa in Personnel who filled out her details and insisted on calling’the president’s office to get confirmation that Rowena wasn’t making it up; not the way the other A&R scouts refused even a pretence of friendliness to the new competition when she was being shown round; not even her tiny cubbyhole of an office, or the minute amount of money she’d be getting paid, which meant she’d still have to keep her seedy apartment.

Rowena was preparcd to sweat blood for Musica Records. They had given her a chance.

‘Hi, welcome to the team,’ said Matthew Stevenson, with a total lack of enthusiasm. ‘Have a seat.’ He waved Rowena to a cavernous armchair in soft buttery leather at one corner of his huge office. Sun came streaming through the windows verlooking the Thames, illuminating the state-of-the-art stereo system and the framed gold and platinum discs that covered the walls.

‘I’m the head of A&R, or Artists and Repertoire,’ Stevenson said, sighing. He was a fat, bald, hook-nosed industry veteran and he liked to pick his own scouts. But Oberman got what Obcrman wantcd, and he’d taken a shine to this girl.

67

Stevenson had seen it happen before: some kid would impress Josh at a concert or write him a good pitch letter and Oberman, always hungry to discover a new David Geffen, would stick them in Marketing or International and there was nothing anyone could do about it. They usually lasted a few months, maybe even a year, and then lost interest and quit or got fired after a decent interval. He was sure this girl would go the same way. But what could he do about it? The old man was capricious.

‘That means we try and sign talented bands to the label,

and then we help them develop repertoire,
i.e.
songs. That used to mean we’d choose songs for them to cover, but these days it mostly involves helping a band choose the right producer. Is that clear?’

Rowena nodded eagerly. She knew all this stuff backwards, of course, but she didn’t want to look cocky.

‘Your job,’ her boss continued, ‘is to listen to tapes the hopefuls send in, mail them back with a rejection letter, and go out at night looking for bands.’

‘But what if someone sends in a good tape?’

‘If they’re good, they play live. Someone has heard of tlSem. They have a manager. Understand?’

Rowena crossed her legs. She didn’t want to annoy her

new boss, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Then why do we bother listening to them at all?’

‘Just in case I’m wrong,’ Stevenson answered with an unpleasant grin, and held out a clammy hand. ‘Welcome to the music business.’

He wasn’t wrong. After three days, Rowena was quite clear on that point. Every morning, the secretary she shared with four other scouts dragged a huge sackful of tapes into her cubbyhole and left Rowena staring at them in dismay. At first, wanting to be fair on everybody, she listened to half of each tape. When she discovered that one sack was replaced by two, and two by three, as she made no inroads at all on the mountain of work, she cut it back to one song. Eventually, Jack Reich, the scout who worked next to her,

68

ears. ‘Thirty seconds, OK? Thirty seconds. You’ve got hundreds of these suckers to go through, and all the paperwork, and all the bands that are serious enough to actually play gigs. Ninety per cent of these acts you’re making notes about have split up by now.’

He grabbed the tape she was listening to and held it up. ‘See the date of that? September. Five months ago. That’s

how long it takes to get round to unsolicited tapes.’ ‘Thirty seconds?’ Rowena repeated. ‘Thirty seconds,’ Jack insisted ‘is generous.’

He wasn’t kidding. Rowena was getting disillusioned about musicians. She’d had no idea how much bad music it was possible to make until she started looking for a band good enough to invest in. Her days were filled with tape after tape of utter rubbish - people would submit tapes of themselves’singing along to Karaoke machines. Her nights were filled with long, backbreaking drives around the country, watching a succession of lacklustre singers and laughably dreadful rock bands. She got to know every mildewed, dank little club from Oxford to Truro, and as the lowest scout on the totem pole she was never allowed within ten feet of more juicy chances.

It was difficult to make friends at work. Jack Reich treated her kindly, but he was an A&R manager with three signed acts, and always busy. The other scouts, all male and all younger than herself, refuged to give her the time of day. The secretaries made it clear that they preferred flirting with the boys to typing up her paperwork, and Matthew Stevenson called by her office every week like a circling vulture, Rowena thought, itching to sack her.

‘Found anything yet?’ he’d smirk, and she’d have to say, ‘No, not yet.’

God, she really wanted to! It was heartbreaking! Here she was, a rock fan, a music junkie, and now a talent scout for a major label, pleading, begging to be impressed. And she saw or heard hundreds of bands a month, all of.whom were

69

begging her to be impressed by them.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. There was no answer

to Matthew, because everything she checked out was so awful, every song was so dire.

She ploughed on, feeling more and more isolated and depressed. Maybe she should forget the whole thing, become a lawyer. Maybe there was a talent drought in Britain. Maybe there was nothing to find.

And then she stumbled across Atomic Mass.

to

Topaz was miserable. It was not supposed to turn out like this, she told herself for the millionth time as she huddled over the street brazier, frozen to the marrow of her bones. There is nothing on God’s earth so cold as a New York winter, and Topaz Rossi was catching the full brunt of it.

She stared across the river of grimy traffic, crawling though the slush, at the marbled Fifth Avenue skyscraper from which David Levine obstinately refused to appear. Persistence,oTopaz told herself, persistence is 99 per cent of what makes a good reporter. True, she could duck into Rockefeller Plaza and grab a cup of hot chocolate - with whisky-and a slice of warm sachertorte. But if she did, and God knows she was longing to, it was a hundred to one on that Levine would choose that exact moment to appear and she’d lose her shot at an interview with the hottest film star on the planet. Not to mention her]ob.

Topaz stuck her hands into the pockets of her snug black leans, cut to show offevery curve of her magnificently pert ass. She may have felt like shit, but she looked like a million dollars, even if the tips of her ears were so cold they matched her lipstick. The guy selling chestnuts on the brazier raked over the coals some more, in the hope .that it’d be warm enough to keep this incredible babe standing there for]ust a bit longer. Maybe if he got reall) lucky, she’d stamp her feet again to warm up, because when she did that she jiggled slightly under the clinging cashmere]acket, showing him a little bit of paradise right here on earth. He wondered, not for the first time, who she was waiting for. If it was a guy, he was one hell of a lucky sonofabitch.

71

Topaz let her mind drift back as to why she was there, answering her own questions as usual. This might be a cold fucking assignment but it was a lot better than none at all. She had a vision ofherselfjust three months ago, clutching a smart little leather folder full of neatly mounted examples of her work on Cherwell and letters of recommendation from her tutors, hawking herself around the New York magazine

houses until her feet bled. It was the same story everywhere. ‘I’m sorry, we have nothing for you.’

‘You do need some experience towrite for the New Yorker, kid. Sorry to have to break it to ya.’

‘We have no vacancies at this time.’ ‘He’s in a meeting.’ ‘She,s in a meeting.’ ‘He’s still in a meeting.’

‘What is this stuff?. You’re bringing me stufffrom school? We’re a national publications group, Ms Rossi. If you don’t realize that this isn’t good enough without me telling you, you aren’t cut out to be a journalist,’ said Nathan Rosen, not unkindly.

Topaz felt as though two or three big rocks were sitting leaden in her stomach. It was her sixth interview of the day.

‘I was commissioned to write a piece on student benefits for the London Times once,’ she murmured miserably.

Rosen brightened. ‘Well, that’s different. I’d like to see the piece, you got it with you?’

She shook her head. ‘It didn’t come off.’ Rosen looked at her sceptically.

Rowena Gordon, I hope you rot in the hottest corner of hell, Topaz thought, suddenly’ pierced with a white-hot anger. She pushed back her chair.

‘Mr Rosen, I’m obviously not suited for Westside. Thank you for seeing me. I won’t waste any more of your time.’

Hey, hey, wait up,’ Rosen said softly. ‘I.didn’t say you could go. One of the juniors in entertainment is offsick this month. You’d be pasting, setting, making coffee, typing.., it’s pretty menial stuff, but it’s a way in. You want the job?’

72

No I don’t want the lob Topaz scrcamcd sileutly. 1‘111 the most intell(ent goddamned woman that ever set foot in your stinking rathole q.’ce, and I’m nobod),’s.fitcking gqfi’r!

It was the only thing she’d been offered in more than a hundred interviews.

‘What’s the pay like?’

‘It’s shit,’ said Nathan Rosen.

Tll take it,’ said Topaz.

For the next two weeks she seemed to run ou adreualin, substituting the electric atmosphere of the office for more normal human fuels like food and sleep. She lost weight and lcarut how to gulp down a cup of coffee whilst ruuning from the art department to the uewsdesk with six differeut layouts in her hand. She typed up articles, corrected spelliugs, pasted photographs on to mockups, checked up ou facts for investigative pieces. She made coffee, typed letters, photocopied headlines and hated herself. She suggested cptions and ideas to the journalists and felt she

was making a mark. She pushed herself in everyone’s face. The first Saturday Topaz had off, she slept all day.

She learnt quickly because she had a fast eye and instincts about people. Jason Richman was writing a piece on the weirdest food in New York? Topaz had seen a guy selling chocolate pizza off West 4th Street. Josie Simous complained at the top of her voice that there was no one in the whole world with a fresh take on rock ‘n’ roll, and Topaz suggested she interview the doorman at CBGB’s. Josh Stein, the art director, couldu’t fit a long headline on to a page? Splice it across th.e diagonal, maybe, said Topaz. Write the article around it.

‘I need a title for this piece!’ bllowed Nathan Rosen across the: features desk, drowning out the incessant whirr of telephones, voices and computer typewriters.

‘What’s it on?’ asked Elise DeLuca, the deputy features editor.

‘Modern art at the Met … Heury Kravis is thinking of endowing a natioual collectiou Of American avautgarde stuff-its the lead story next week,’ Rosen yelled. ‘Biggest

73

thing sinccJ. P. Getty got the paiuting bug.’ ‘Modern Masters,’ said Elisc. ‘The Tate comes to NYC.’ ‘New York, New Pictures.’ ‘Cutting-Edge Kravis.’

‘All of those suck. They suck!’ bellowed Roseu. ‘All I’m asking for is one good goddamned line!’

‘How about “State of the Art, Art of the btate . murmured Topaz, passing his desk with two armfuls of photocopies.

Rosen looked at her. ‘That’s good. I’ll use that,’ he said quietly.

Later in the afteruoon Roseu stopped by her desk, where

she was typiug up sonic hack’s drastically edited play review for scttiug. ‘See if you can do something with this one, Rossi,’ he said, trying not to stare at the beautiful firm young cleavage positioned directly under his nose. ‘I got two pages in the business section on Hiagcn-l)azs ice cream and how good it’s doing in Europe-four hundred per cent growth a year, stufflikc that.’

‘I’m uot surprised,’ said Topaz, rememberiug the lqfiagcu-1)azs car6 in Cornmarkct and how it was full of undergraduates even in l)cccmber.

‘Yeah, well. This is a real smart piece of busiuess reporting but it’s just that-business. I’d like to get some feel of ice cream in there, remind people what HiagenDazs tastes like. Associatiou makes the figures a lot more iutcrcsting. So.’

He held up a sheet with the article, entitled ‘HiagenDazs Spearheads Growth of Upmarket Snacks’. It was one and three-quarter pages of close text, with a tub of rum-raisin filliug the upper left-hand corucr of the second sheet.

‘I need a killcr caption for the packshot,’ said Rosen. ‘OK. Gimmejust a second,’ said Topaz. She had the liue already, she’d thought of it the moment he explained the article, but she wanted to bask in Nathan Roseu’s presence for a few more seconds. Hey, any junior would be flattered to have the editor by their desk. The fact that he was so

74

good-looking had nothing to do with it.

‘No hurry,’ said Rosen impatiently.

‘Well,’ said Topaz slowly, ‘how about if you put “Hfiagen-Dazs: uot so much of an ice cream, more of a religious experience.” ‘

‘Could you say that again?’ asked Nathan Rosen, woudcring if he could have heard her right.

‘Not so much of an ice cream, more of a religious experience,’ Topaz repeated.

Nathan pulled himself together. The senteuce was perfect. ‘OK. Let me get a few other suggestions. You make sure you stop by nay office when you get offwork today.’

‘Whatever you say, boss,’ Topaz smiled. I’m,qetting there, she thought. ‘You won’t get a better Caption than that one!’ she shouted after his retreating back.