When Val glanced at her in that cocky, arched-brow way of his, Rosie couldn't hold back from hissing 'bitch' oh so softly under her breath. She was distracted by the sight of Keith in uncomfortable proximity to his Network Three nemesis, Ashton Joel.
'Oh look, your boss is talking to my boss. Shall we make sure we're happy with what they're saying?' she said, grabbing Val's arm.
'Oh yes, let's do,' Val said, locking onto his arch-rival as though they were besties.
Rosie suddenly felt dirty but hoped her fixed smile disguised the utter disdain in her eyes.
'Good morning,' she said, throwing herself into the middle of a conversation Ashton Joel was having with her clearly uninterested boss. Rosie knew the Channel Three head had been spreading news of Keith's drinking habits to Tang.Inc head office, not to mention 'Secret Sydney', the Sentinel's daily gossip page.
'Excuse me for interrupting, Ashton. How are you, by the way? Looking trim.' Rosie felt sick listening to herself.
Ashton sucked his gut in and basked in the compliment. An exceptionally unpleasant man to look at, he had to make the most of any opportunity to believe he was anything but.
'Yes, I have lost a few pounds,' he replied, reaching out for Rosie's hand. 'And you, as always, an absolute fragrant delight,' he gushed, moving her reluctant fingers to his slobbering lips.
'Ashton, you charmer,' she replied, hoping the sarcasm she intended was recognised. Unfortunately it wasn't.
'I hope you're sitting beside me,' he said, leering down at her breasts. Rosie heard him groan softly. She didn't know what she wanted to do more at this moment – poke his eyes out or vomit all over his expensive double-breasted suit. Instead, she threw more enthusiasm into her smile.
'Oh yes, I would love to talk to you about your lovely wife Patricia's charity work,' she said, raising her voice so others would join the conversation. 'I hear she's doing great things for the children's hospital. Putting us all to shame. Excuse me, gentlemen,' Rosie said, turning her back on her tormentor and continuing, 'but I have to borrow the boss for one moment. I promise I'll only be five minutes and then we can begin.'
Rosie ushered Keith back to the anteroom. As she did, she tried to ignore what smelled like brandy on his breath.
'Keith, I'm sorry I'm late but the journo held me up. Still, everything seems to be going well?'
'How long do I have to stay?' Keith snapped.
'I'll need you to last at least an hour, two tops. Mae should have told you that. I blocked it out in your diary.'
'Fuck Mae,' he almost yelled, then lowered his voice. 'This is fucking torture.'
'It's once a year, so let's just grin and bear it,' Rosie replied.
'Why couldn't you have made this a lunch? At least then I could have a drink.'
'Yes, but I think you and I both know there's no such thing as one drink, Keith. Your lunches generally end up as dinners.'
'Get fucked.'
'Fine. I guess you've given up smoking today then?'
'Can I have a quick one now?'
'I'll let you have one, that's all. I won't have you dying on me with every TV head in the room able to dial in the story.'
'You're a hardarse. We should get you in news, you know.'
'So you keep saying and so I keep praying.'
Rosie took Keith to the cramped kitchen pantry, put a wet tea towel over the smoke detector and lit him up. After two massive puffs, Keith began to cough, making Rosie nervous. 'Enough!' she said, swiping the cigarette from his mouth. For a second, she thought she saw the big, ugly mass of a man pout his lip out in a sulk.
'Come on, I'll try to make this painless,' Rosie said, aware she was feeling somewhat maternal.
'How painless can having those arseholes in one room possibly be?'
'Like using a potato peeler on your todger then dipping it in salt,' Rosie said, nudging herself into the bulk of his shoulder.
'Raaark-raaark-raaaaark,' honked Keith.
'Come along, we both have a big day ahead. What time is the programming meeting again?'
'I moved it to two. Bettina Arthur has invited herself to that too! Woman knows nothing about television. Nothing! Fucking Korean owners sending me a sheila like her.'
With that, Rosie watched him enter the doorway to the boardroom, take a deep breath and turn on the Big Keith show.
'What the fuck is going on here then?' he bellowed into the room, causing all conversations to hush. 'Have you cunts come to fuck me or suck me? Raaark-raaaark-raaaark. And if you're going for my arse, can you at least give me the benefit of a reach-around? Raaark!'
Rosie looked around the room through splayed fingers, resting her eyes on the unmistakable look of horror on Bettina Arthur's face. The Kennedys circus had officially begun.
CHAPTER 6
By the time the meeting finished, Rosie felt like a war veteran – make that a Cold War veteran, as none of the missiles, barbs and snide comments thrown from all sides were considered actual strikes, merely good-natured banter between 'mates'.
Rosie was always amazed at how the executives from the competing networks acted like there really was no animosity between them at all when, in reality, they spent most of their waking hours trying to bring each other down in the most humiliating way possible. The look on Bettina Arthur's face as she watched the sick charade was one Rosie wouldn't forget in a hurry. Even though her smile was fixed, Rosie could see Munch's Scream in Bettina's eyes. She certainly wasn't at Tang.Inc's head office now. Rosie had to admit she too was appalled by the dick-swinging spectacle she had just endured, which was saying something, considering what she had already seen in her eighteen-odd months at the network.
It's only 11 am and I've been vomited on, screamed at, lectured, betrayed, warned, groped and grossly offended, she thought to herself. Good times!
With only four hours until the programming meeting, Rosie knew she was going to have to put out a lot of fires in a very short time, the first of which she hoped was waiting in her office: Graham Hunt. And what about Miss Portia 'Breakfast in the Boardroom' Richardson? she raged to herself as she passed the peering faces in the marketing department and continued down the dark, imposing corridor past the newsroom to her own offices. My number two is supposed to be helping me, not putting a knife in my back! From what Mae had told her, there might not be much room for another knife with all the cutlery she was supposedly carrying. Breathe . . . breathe . . .
Passing the awards, framed photographs and memorabilia lining the corridor walls, most featuring the now-deceased Willard Frost, Rosie shook her head in wonder. To think they're trying to replace Willard Frost with Graham Hunt of all people! It's like replacing Jana Wendt with Paris Hilton!
As much as Rosie admired Big Keith's boast that he could 'sniff out TV talent at five hundred paces', she couldn't grasp what he had seen in Hunt, other than those dodgy market research figures the advertising department had been wielding of late, trying to pressure management to target programming towards high-spending eighteen-to thirty-five-year-old women. Hunt was good looking, and perhaps Big Keith thought sex might help sell the slot. There had to be some method to his apparent madness.
As Rosie heaved open the massive glass doors to publicity, the first thing she saw was the harried face of her PA, Lisa. Lisa was Rosie's backbone and probably the clueiest twenty-three-year-old she'd ever met. Sighting her was a treat each day, seeing what Goth getup she was sporting and how her immaculately white make-up and batwing black eyeliner had been applied. Rosie loved the way Lisa looked, especially as it was such a turn-off to others. At the network, if an executive thought a colleague's PA was better than his or her own, a poaching war would erupt, everyone clawing to keep ahead of the pack. As Lisa wasn't the cleavage-flashing, eye-batting type male heads turned for, Rosie had managed to hold on to her treasure relatively unnoticed.
'Just tell me,' Rosie said, acknowledging Lisa's frown.
'Everyone's calling for comment about Graham Hunt.'
; 'Of course they are,' Rosie countered. 'What are you telling them?'
'I told them that you're out of the office but will return their calls personally,' Lisa said. 'By the way, he's on his way up as you asked.'
'He was supposed to be here now,' Rosie grizzled. 'What else?'
'Your mother rang. Twice.'
'Of course she did. Any message?'
'Yes, she asked me to say that when you have a window in your busy schedule you might like to enquire about your son's health. She asked me to say it in those words. You know I—'
'I know, lovely. Don't worry, she terrifies me too.'
Rosie spotted Portia craning her neck to see what was happening through the glass door of her office, but she wasn't about to waste a second on her right now. There was too much going on and it would do her some good to be out of the loop where Hunt was concerned. Rosie realised she could no longer trust Portia not to talk out of school.
'What else?'
Lisa scurried around her desk, picking up several yellow post-it notes in the process. 'I haven't had a chance to log all these for you yet, but let's see . . . oh, your husband.'
'Ex husband,' Rosie corrected.
'Yeah, well he called. Oh, and one other thing. Karen Day from news wants to see you urgently. Seems she's being moved from reporting for Up To Date to become G'day Australia's weathergirl and she's none too happy about it.'
'I had no idea. You'd think maybe the entertainment head or the news director would have mentioned it.'
'Why would you think that?' Lisa replied facetiously.
'Well, you'd better get Karen in,' Rosie continued, too distracted to respond. 'We'll need to get new G'day Australia team shots done with her in them. I wonder why the sudden change?'
'Well, they are looking to boost ratings at the moment,' Lisa said.
'Every program's trying to do that,' Rosie said. 'Ross Montague has been the show's weatherman forever.'
'Maybe that's the problem.'
'Well, let's just hope it doesn't become our problem. We have enough bad press to deal with as it is and Montague always comes up well in viewer feedback. Anything else urgent?'
'Alicia Charles's PA rang trying to book some time in your diary to discuss the new drama launch.'
'Hell, I really need to talk to Simon Nash about that first. See if you can fob her off until next week, will you?' Rosie felt a flash of guilt – but thankfully it was momentary.
'Sure . . . but it won't be easy. Oh, talking about Nash, he dropped in too. He's angry about a story in the Adelaide News that said the ratings are down on all of his shows.'
'Yeah, well, that's because they are down! Everything is bloody well down. What does he expect me to do – get editors to lie to their readers? Maybe if he spent a little more time fixing the shows under his umbrella rather than reading every damn story that might somehow mention him . . .' Rosie chastised herself for her lack of discretion but trusted Lisa to remain loyal and not repeat what she said. 'Sorry, Lisa, I'm having a bad day.'
'When is it a good one?' her PA countered dryly.
'Point!' Rosie said with a laugh. 'Can you hold all calls until I'm finished with Hunt? Then I'll reply to the reporters ASAP, promise. They have plenty of time until deadline. Anything else?'
'Oh, just the usual,' Lisa said, handing her a long log sheet of calls to be returned. 'I was going to put these in your not-vital-but-still-important pile.'
Rosie smiled at Lisa's filing system, a number of in-trays graded with varying levels of urgency from 'your life depends on it' to 'whenever you get a chance'. Somehow, it actually worked.
'Thanks, honey. You're a lifesaver.'
'That's okay. Just remember, call your mother first. Please?'
'Deal.'
Once in the relative safety of her office, Rosie logged on to her email only to be affronted by 312 new messages. Not knowing where to begin, she shifted the massive pile of newspapers (every edition from every state, which she was expected to read every day – before breakfast!) to the floor and then took a heavy load of magazines out of her fourth-in-priority tray, otherwise known as 'sometime soon', to see what else was lurking below, when Lisa appeared at her door gesturing urgently with a cradled hand to her ear. 'It's her,' she mouthed. 'Your mother.'
Rosie shot Lisa one of her defeated looks which, her PA knew, meant put her through, and attempted to muster a chirp in her voice.
'Mum, hi there. How's Leon?'
'Your son is fine, although I do wish you would call him Leonard. That was your grandfather's name, you know, not Leon.'
'Fine, Mum. Will do, even though he doesn't answer to that name.' Breathe . . . 'So, how is Leonard then?'
'Well, nice of you to ask. I've given him some of my special soup, so hopefully that should fix him up, but the poor little darling doesn't seem himself. You know, I think his tummy problems are a dietary thing. Too much takeaway, if you ask me.'
'I didn't ask you, actually, and I don't know what you mean by tummy problems – the kid is usually fighting fit. He was at his father's when he got ill, you know.' Any trace of perkiness in Rosie's voice was gone now.
'Well, you know that divorce can affect children's health. The poor child is probably a nervous wreck. I know you insist there's no chance of you and Jeff getting back together but for Leon's sake it would be great if you could at least try—'
Rosie cut her mother short. 'Is there a point to this conversation, Mum, or are you just going to continue making me feel guilty? And what part of "Jeff has a new girlfriend" are you missing here?' Rosie felt the all-too-familiar sensation of tears welling in her eyes.
'Sorry, I didn't realise there was a time limit on our conversation, Rosemarie. Well, best I go then if you're too busy to discuss your only son's health. Perhaps you would have the good grace to tell me when you might be picking him up tonight?'
Rosie knew exactly what Vera was up to. It was another chance to rub it in, knowing that Rosie would have no hope in hell of getting off work any time Vera would deem acceptable. Don't take the bait, just breathe.
'I doubt I'll be able to pick him up until seven at best, bridge traffic and all. But I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise. And thanks for looking after him at such short notice. I really appreciate it.'
'So I guess that means I should cook him some dinner too then, hmm?'
That 'hmm' noise her mother made when she was pissed off drove Rosie insane. It was so condescending, like saying 'with all due respect' when you were speaking to someone you had no respect for whatsoever.
Breathe.
* * *
'Graham, come in. I've been waiting for you.' Rosie gestured towards a visitor's chair, hoping the irritation in her tone had registered with Hunt. To her surprise someone else was behind him. 'Bettina, to what do I owe the pleasure?' Rosie hoped the woman's austere gaze would soften. It didn't.
'I need to speak to you about the Kennedy Awards meeting, but I see you are busy,' Bettina said, moving away from where Graham Hunt leant lazily against the open door. No doubt he smelt like a brewery at close range.
'I understand, Bettina, believe me,' Rosie told her, wishing Bettina would pick up on how she, too, had big problems with the way this year's Kennedys had kicked off.
'What's up, Toots?' Hunt interrupted. 'You got your knickers in a twist over Big Keith? I hear he put on quite a show this morning.'
The Boys' Club Page 5