Strictly Confidential (2 page)

The upside of two hundred million people viewing Raven in her knickers was that her infamous derrière now fit perfectly the, ahem, brief for the new Vixenary underwear campaign. The downside was Vixenary was one of our key clients so I had to deal with all Raven’s shit. You see, Vixenary had just released their Sabotage collection of very risqué, very expensive g-strings which carried the advertising line:
It’s all you ever need.
A claim Raven had adroitly proved by her choice of attire in her YouTube clips, making her Vixenary’s model muse. Why the ill-advised Raven saw spruiking smalls as the obvious next step on her path to a redeemed public profile, I couldn’t tell you. But as to our side of the bargain? Easy. Raven was broke after literally blowing her bucks, so she came tantalisingly cheap. Which was how I found myself hurtling towards Kings Cross at 3.30 am, sporting pyjama shorts under a pair of tracksuit pants, in order to retrieve Raven.

Still, I was confused. Raven had been in town for two days now and besides all the predictable diva demands, the kid had turned out to be all right. Straight even (well, most of the time). From OBs (outdoor broadcasts) on Show FM, to in-store signings for Vixenary intimates, from morning TV performances to evening prime time, Raven hadn’t caused me, as her minder, a single headache – until now. In fact, the only blip on her charge sheet since Monday had been her suspiciously dilated pupils and unaccountable twitchiness when on stage at Westfield centre court, Bondi Junction. A twitchiness that couldn’t
quite
be explained away by having to front a crowd of hip-thrusting, booty-gyrating tweens. Although, granted, that was enough to make anyone jumpy.

Could it be that Diane had been given the wrong information? Had Raven really flown the coop? Is it possible Diane was sending me out on a wild-goose chase in the middle of the night? And if so, was it really a mistake or some perverted fun on her part? After all, the woman fired publicists like normal people got spray tans. Who knew what she did for kicks after hours.

Pulling up outside the club, I saw with a sinking heart that Diane wasn’t wrong. Four photographers lined the footpath, shooting the breeze with who I assumed was the owner of the club (and most likely the one who had alerted them). Due to the hour, and the fact it was midweek, there was no one on the door when I schlepped inside, leaving me free to run upstairs to the second level in the sixties-inspired club, all vintage furniture and black and white patterned carpet, where I began searching for our pill-popping protégée.

It didn’t take long to find her.

There, in a corner near the dance floor, was Raven. She was flicking her head as though trapped in a beehive, and her bottom jaw looked like it was about to detach and go and get a cocktail.

I stalked over. ‘Raven, hi. Remember me? Jasmine? I’m the publicist who’s been looking after you for the past few days,’ I said to the hot mess.

‘Someone has been, like, cutting off my fucking hair,’ she said by way of reply, still flicking her hair and ferociously licking her lips.

Aside from the sweat beads forming on her forehead, both Raven and her allegedly hacked-off hair looked fine to me.

‘What the fuck have they done?’ she shouted, looking around for the rogue hairdresser while pulling long blonde locks out herself.

People were starting to stare. This kid was attracting way too much attention here. Bloody Hollywood exhibitionist; she couldn’t go anywhere without demanding an audience.

Nervous about potentially catching something from touching her, I reached out and removed her hands from her head, where she was fast giving herself alopecia. Next, I brought my face up close to hers and spoke loudly and clearly, trying to avoid any polysyllabic words: ‘Look, you are fine and you are hot. In fact, why don’t we go to the bathroom so you can see for yourself?’

Raven smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

Grabbing her hand, I wheeled her around and was pointing out the direction of the bathrooms when I spotted her handbag lying nearby. It was a caramel Balenciaga behemoth that I’d drooled over just the day before. I snatched up the tote and dragged Raven towards the toilets when an ‘I Kissed a Girl’ megamix boomed from the dance floor.

‘Wooooo! Katy Perry is a pimp!’ Raven screamed, skipping and waving her free hand in the air.

Ushering her into the bathroom, I felt the butterflies in my stomach subside for the first time since Diane’s phone call. I could cross item one off my to-do list: I’d managed to locate Raven. Now all I had to do was smuggle her out of here. First, however, I’d need to scoop her up off the bathroom floor where she’d fallen over and was lying sprawled on the wet, toilet paper-strewn tiles.

Shit.

I fantasised briefly about the YouTube sensation this scene would create if I filmed it. Not to mention the price I could fetch from the tabloids if I whipped out my camera-phone right now. If shots of Britney Spears and her lover Jason Trawick in Australia scored snappers fifty thousand dollars as reported, surely a coked-up Raven spread all over a bathroom floor could cover my rent for the rest of the year? Tempting. But then, so was remaining gainfully employed, so I cast the idea out of my mind.

Eventually vertical, Raven looked to me for direction, so I led her to an empty toilet cubicle where I flipped the lid down, plonked her on top, locked the door and breathed out heavily. In front of me sat my diva-cum-detainee. This was not what I had planned for my night. Raven, meanwhile, snatched her handbag from my wrist and started riffling through it.

‘Where the fark is ma shit?’ she said, almost pitch-perfect to her YouTube video. Could this be the first time this kid had performed without lip-syncing?

I ignored her, knowing full well that if there was any coke left Raven would have been licking it out of the satchel when I arrived.

So what now? Our Vixenary cover girl could hardly just walk out of there. Hell, she could hardly walk full stop. We were in the middle of Kit and Kaboodle, in the heart of Sydney’s bustling Kings Cross; there was no back door and, on a quiet Thursday morning, the paps would simply wait it out until Raven appeared. And of course, carrying her out was out of the question. Much as I wanted publicity for my client, I didn’t want it in a Kate Moss kinda way.

I checked the clock on my phone. It was almost 4 am now and the club would be shutting in an hour. My BlackBerry had been going off as wildly and regularly as Raven’s hair flicks with calls and texts from Diane but I hadn’t answered any of them. Instead I focused on Raven. She needed water and lots of it if I was to get her to a magazine shoot at 10 am later today.

‘Where the fark is ma shit?’ Raven interrupted, still looking in her bag.

‘Outside,’ I lied. ‘If you promise to stay here I’ll go and get it.’ I spoke to her like I was speaking to a small child.

‘Promise,’ she responded in kind.

I went and found an ATM in the club and withdrew two hundred dollars from my work float. I was on my way back to the bathroom when a random chick stopped me. ‘OMFG! Are you Raven?’ she asked, just as off her head as the diva herself.

‘No,’ I said, battling to hide my disgust. Just what I needed, to be confused for a Hollywood wannabe. As if wandering round the Cross in my trackies wasn’t embarrassment enough.

‘You two totally look alike,’ she said and I hurried off considering plastic surgery.

Returning to the toilets with three bottles of water, I was relieved to find Raven where I’d left her.

‘Did you find any coke?’ She looked up hungrily.

‘Sure, there’s some in the water,’ I said. ‘Drink up. I’m getting more now.’

She started gulping down the water.

Staring at the drugged-up diva in front of me, I realised the chick outside was kinda right. We did look vaguely similar. Although Raven was slightly shorter than me (she was barely my height when she was in heels), we were roughly the same size with shoulder-length blonde hair. The only difference was hers was wavy and more golden, whereas mine was straight and lighter blonde. Our faces, however, were so completely different we could never be considered lookalikes. Happy days. Coked-up Cate was just hallucinating.

And then, of course, it hit me.

Propping Raven up, I started undressing her, desperately hoping she wouldn’t remember this in the morning. Clearly inspired by Katy Perry’s lyrics, and perhaps assuming I was undressing her because I found her irresistible, she tried to kiss me. But as flattering as that was, I doggedly kept going.

‘Fine then,’ she sulked.

Five minutes later I had managed to switch our outfits completely and I sat her back down, took her BlackBerry and logged onto my own Twitter account.

‘Raven, I’m going to find you some more coke. You have to promise me you won’t leave the bathroom though, okay? Here, you can go online and see what everyone is doing back home. Talk to your friends.’

She snatched the phone without saying anything.

‘Don’t leave,’ I stressed.

Whipping out of my bag a pocket-sized can of Schwarzkopf hairspray I went to the basin, wet my hair and gave myself an eighties quiff like hers. I also squeezed into her lilac-coloured Christian Louboutins which were at least one size too small. My feet hurt immediately.

Once again outside the bathroom, I looked around the club until I spotted the nearest drug dealer, instantly recognisable by the fact he was wearing sunglasses inside and was carrying a bumbag.

I went straight up to him. ‘How much for your sunglasses?’ I asked.

‘Say what?’ he replied.

‘I’ll give you fifty bucks for your sunnies.’

‘Don’t you want some gear, darlin?’

‘No, just the glasses, please.’ I smiled.

‘These are my Dolces, man. They were over five hundred bucks,’ he said loudly, looking around to see who had heard.

D&G is probably the easiest label to identify as a fake. Imitation branding is always much more square than the font for the real Italian stuff. These were more square than the gold caps on the guy’s teeth.

‘A hundred bucks, cash, right now,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ he said without hesitating.

I handed over the money and grabbed the sunnies, which had been shielding pupils the size of dinner plates.

Walking down the main staircase my butterflies returned with a vengeance.
How the hell do I get myself into these situations?
I wondered. Less than an hour ago I was lying blissfully unconscious in bed. Now I was battling to balance in a pair of too-tight Louboutins while being weighed down with a Balenciaga handbag the size of the average family car, and all as I tried to impersonate a celebrity who I was holding captive in a nightclub toilet. I felt duplicitous, demoralised, downright out of my depth. And all in an outfit I never would have chosen. This must be what a bridesmaid feels like at a wedding they’re not quite in favour of. Only worse, because at some point during the nuptials I seemed to have stepped into the bride’s shoes. I tried to concentrate on putting one squished foot in front of the other.

As I tottered towards the door of the club, people began to titter. Eyes bored into me as heads swung in my direction. ‘Raven!’ someone called. I tried to walk faster. ‘Hey, Raven!’ the voice came again. I pressed on. ‘Raven!’ they persisted as other voices joined the chorus. I put my head down and kept ploughing across the nightclub, faster than any shotgun wedding. My feet ached with every step. This whole ‘something borrowed’ malarkey was not my bag.

Then, just as I was gaining some ground across the beer-soaked carpet, I hit a snag. A big snag. A snag in the form of the random who had accosted me earlier in the night and accused me of looking like Raven. Only this time she had a point.

‘Wow! Raven!’ she cooed, stepping in front of me and blocking my already precarious path. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. In Sydney!’ I smiled grimly. I couldn’t believe I was there either. ‘Hey everyone, it’s Raven!’

Before I could stop her, my groupie turned and announced my star-studded presence to anyone who might just have missed it. I instinctively ducked my head, but there was no stopping my number one fan.

‘OMG. Raven, will you sing for us?’ she shrieked. Her friends cheered in support. It was like one big pop-star love-in. I half-expected Clover Moore to jump out from behind a pillar and offer me the keys to the city. Of course, spying our middle-aged Lord Mayor in a Kings Cross nightclub at four in the morning was about as likely as me giving an impromptu performance of Raven’s back catalogue.

Waving my hands to get the attention of my growing legion of fans, I shook my head regretfully. ‘Sorry!’ I whispered, pointing an index finger to my neck. ‘Sore throat!’ They looked downcast. This alone made me feel perversely upbeat. I waved again before continuing on my trek to the doorway.

Hesitating on the threshold, I pushed my hair forward one last time in a lame attempt to hide my face, before stepping onto the street outside.

Cue: pandemonium.

The paps that were lounging on the pavement perked up fast upon seeing me. ‘Raven! Raven!’ they started to shout. ‘Over here!’

I ran down the street as fast as my red soles would carry me so the paps’ first few frames could have only been of my retreating back (and
that
bag). Doing a sneaky sidestep in those damn tiny stilettos, I was fast leaving the flashbulb frenzy in my wake when I realised the major flaw in my hasty plan: how the hell was I supposed to get out of there?

I looked around desperately, my vision not aided any by the fact I was wearing plastic sunglasses in the dark.

Suddenly, a drunken woman stopped me in my tracks. ‘Oh my god! Raven! Can I
please
get a picture?’ she screeched.

I agreed to the star shot while frantically looking for an exit, a fatal pause that gave the snappers enough time to catch up.

‘Raven! Oi, Raven!’ they vied for my attention. The paps and my fan snapped away blithely as I stood frozen to the spot.

Shit.

Out of the corner of one UV-protected eye, I spotted an idling taxi. Rescue! I headed for it immediately, blisters forming on my feet as I ran.