by Gemma Crisp
‘He’s not my type, but I can see what you mean.’ Tess’s answer was like a double green light – not only did he get her tick of approval, she wasn’t interested, which cleared the path for Operation Seduce Jeremy. Sure, he lived in a hovel, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a fling while she was living at said hovel, did it? In fact, it might just make the hovel slightly more bearable . . .
‘Hurry up, would you? Just pick an outfit and be done with it – the ice in your vodka tonic has almost melted and I don’t know if there’s any more in the freezer,’ Tess warned, yanking a pair of distressed denim cut-offs and a loose pale pink tank from Nina’s hands and shoving them at her. She turned to the door then stopped suddenly and whimpered.
‘What? What is it?’ Nina spun around to look at where Tess was staring, her expression one of pure revulsion. Damp towels were strewn over the side of the scummy bath and the basin was caked with chunks of dried toothpaste, topped off by spots of grey mould around the taps. ‘Men,’ Nina thought in disgust, conveniently forgetting that she wasn’t exactly the neatest person in the universe. Just then, one of the mould spots moved. Then another. And another. Nina couldn’t help herself – she stepped forwards to get a better look, then recoiled.
‘Don’t tell me that they’re what I think they are,’ Tess begged her.
‘They’re slugs,’ Nina confirmed, trying not to gag.
‘Leo and Jeremy have slugs crawling around their bathroom basin?’ Tess asked disbelievingly.
‘Yep. This house is an absolute sty. I don’t know why the Department of Health hasn’t demolished it yet. I don’t want to think about how many roaches are probably crawling around that filthy kitchen.’ They both shuddered, then, as the full extent of the grossness sank in, Tess started giggling.
‘So, are you still keen on getting it on with Jeremy, now you know that he has pet slugs in the bathroom?’ she asked. ‘Imagine what his bedroom is like – he probably hasn’t changed his sheets in two years! Oh my God, I can’t believe this. I thought three girls sharing a one-bedroom flat back in London was bad enough, but this is place is hideous.’
‘You know what guys are like – they just don’t have the same standards of cleanliness that girls do,’ Nina said, wondering why she was making excuses for them while at the same time making a mental note not to walk on the carpet without wearing her Havaianas. ‘It just means we need to find our own place, stat.’
‘Totally,’ Tess agreed, helping Nina stuff her clothes back into her case. ‘See ya, sluggies,’ she said as she closed the bathroom door behind them.
They were still giggling as they walked into the courtyard to find Leo and Jeremy chilling out in the sun. Nina couldn’t help comparing the guys’ bodies – while Leo was tall, he was also skinny and pale, with blond fuzz coating his bony limbs. Jeremy’s broad chest was covered in a smattering of dark hair, with strong upper arms emerging from his impossibly wide shoulders. ‘Not too big, not too small,’ Nina thought. ‘As Goldilocks would say, he’s just right.’
Taking a long hit of her vodka tonic, she tried unsuccessfully not to splutter when the spirit hit the back of her throat.
‘Sorry, I should have warned you – Leo tends to mix drinks a little on the strong side,’ Jeremy said, leaning over to whack her on the back.
‘I did warn them!’ Leo protested. ‘Well, I warned Tess anyway. I don’t know where Nina was.’
‘I was in the bathroom, making friends with the wildlife,’ Nina retorted.
‘What wildlife?’ Jeremy asked, swigging from his long-neck of Coopers Pale Ale.
Nina and Tess looked at each other – maybe the slugs were a brand-new addition to the household that the guys hadn’t noticed yet? Maybe they weren’t as filthy as they thought?
‘I hate to break it to you, but there are slugs crawling around your bathroom sink,’ Tess said, clearly expecting the guys to flinch or at least look surprised. But there was neither.
‘Oh, those,’ Jeremy said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘Yeah, they eat the mould,’ he explained casually. ‘Saves us having to clean as often. I reckon every bathroom should have them. They’re more environmentally friendly than using chemical cleaners.’
Nina tried to work out if he was joking, but it seemed he wasn’t. She remembered Tess’s comment about the last time he changed his sheets and grimaced. He might look like sex on a stick, but even she drew the line at getting it on with someone who thought slugs were a better option than a liberal coating of Jif. She sighed, feeling slightly bereft as she mentally packed up her arsenal of flirtation tricks and put them back in their box for another time. It had been a nice idea while it lasted, but discovering how talented Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome was with his own slug had just been wiped off her ‘to do’ list.
nine
‘Hi, I’m Nina Morey – I have a nine o’clock meeting with Christina Hill from Modern Woman,’ Nina told the surly-looking receptionist sitting behind the rickety desk in the foyer of Words and Pictures Publishing – aka WaPP – Australia’s third-largest magazine publisher. Sinking into the pleather couch while the Incredible Sulk dialled the publisher’s PA, Nina hoped she looked more with it than she felt. How much sleep had she got last night? Not much, judging by the burning sensation every time she blinked.
By the time it had become too dark to see each other the night before, the vodka was long gone and the beer supply had been getting dangerously low. Jeremy had made the executive decision to order Thai takeaway and move inside away from the mozzies who were busily treating themselves to an eight-course degustation of Tess. Thankfully, Nina had been sensible enough to stop drinking after dinner, not wanting to make the same mistake of waking up on Struggle Street like she had on her first day of the Marie Claude internship. Even so, she wasn’t exactly feeling as fresh as a daisy. Although that probably had less to do with her booze consumption and more with making out with Jeremy for most of the past twelve hours instead of getting a decent night’s sleep.
Nina’s face flushed under her carefully applied make-up as she remembered how the two of them just happened to find themselves sitting next to each other on the pathetic excuse for a couch after polishing off the chicken panang and massaman curry. While Tess and Leo reminisced about their school days, catching up on gossip about people neither Nina nor Jeremy knew, they’d awkwardly started to chat. Or rather, Nina had panicked at the thought of having a one-on-one conversation with a guy she was instantly attracted to, remembering the stilted conversation during her date with Rob back in London, so had switched into journalism mode and started to pummel him with questions. Had he and Leo known each other before they were housemates? Was he Sydney born and bred? What did he do for a job? Was he a cat or dog person? It was only when Jeremy had interrupted her barrage of questions with one of his own – ‘So, what’s with the interrogation?’ – that she’d realised she was being a bit full on dot com, as Johan would say. When he had come back from the kitchen with another beer for him and a soda water for her, she’d expected him to hand over the drink then beat a hasty retreat, but instead he’d sat back down on the couch, this time in even closer proximity to her than before. Not that Nina was complaining. Even though she still had no intention of taking things any further, she wouldn’t be worthy of her XY chromosomes if she hadn’t appreciated sitting next to the hottest man she’d met in years.
Three hours later, they were still in deep conversation when a pissed-as-a-nit Tess and Leo called it a night, leaving beer carcasses littering the sticky carpet. By this time, Nina had stopped pretending that she wasn’t interested in throwing Jeremy around the bedroom and was busily formulating a plan to manoeuvre her way off the couch and into his bed – dirty sheets, be damned. She had an itch that needed to be scratched and by the way he was looking at her, Jeremy seemed like he’d be more than interested in taking care of it. In the end, she didn’t have to do a thing – he’d been flicking through the latest issue of Modern Women, insisting h
e wanted to check out the magazine where she’d soon be working, when he stopped at a quiz with an amused look. Nina hoped he hadn’t noticed her face could have given a beetroot a run for its money when she saw the headline ‘Is He The One?’ and played along as Jeremy read the questions and multiple-choice answers aloud so she could choose the most apt one, then added up her score at the end.
‘Forty-three out of fifty – congratulations! According to this, he is The One! But only by two points, so you’d better keep an eye on him,’ Jeremy joked. Before Nina could make a self-deprecating crack about some of the ridiculous content in women’s magazines, Jeremy’s arm had snaked around her waist, pulling her up against his chest before he lowered his mouth onto hers. As their tongues met, Nina found her arms had made their way around his neck, one hand buried in his hair while the other held onto his shoulder as if her life depended on it. As his free hand grazed her cheek, she pulled away, hoping he couldn’t see how turned on she felt just by one kiss. They’d spent the rest of the night together curled up in his bed, kissing, talking and touching, but as if by unspoken agreement, they didn’t go any further. Nina couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so comfortable wrapped in a guy’s arms.
‘Jesus, listen to yourself – you sound like some nineteenth-century idiot from a Mills and Boon novel,’ Nina chastised herself, forcing herself to stop thinking about Jeremy. ‘Focus, Nina! You need to knock the socks off the publisher of Modern Woman, so stop acting like a smitten kitten and pull yourself together.’
‘Nina Morey? I’m Christina Hill, publisher at WaPP – pleasure to meet you.’ Her accent was a hybrid of English and Australian, the raspiness giving away a cigarette habit that had crossed the pond with her when she’d emigrated to Australia more than a decade ago. Dressed in shapeless black pants covered in dog hair, with a white shirt that showed off remnants of her morning flat white, the older woman wore no make-up and her hair was pulled back off her face with a couple of bobby pins – and not in an effortlessly chic way, à la Chloë Sevigny. Charlotte she was not.
‘Ms Hill, thank you so much for meeting with me, Charlotte speaks very highly of you,’ Nina babbled as they waited for the elevator.
‘So she should, seeing she has me to thank for her first magazine job,’ came the dry response, followed by, ‘and call me Christina.’
Trotting behind Christina as she got out on the third floor and led the way to her office, Nina suddenly felt ridiculous in her yellow leather shift dress with the laser-cut geometric pattern, teamed with blue and white polka dot platform heels. Even though she guessed she was on the corporate floor, there wasn’t a power suit or killer heel to be seen. Everyone was dressed down – the women in flat sandals and the men without ties. ‘Toto, we’re not on Planet Fashion anymore,’ Nina thought, as she attempted to sit down on the only chair in Christina’s office before realising there was a stack of bulging manila folders in her way.
‘Uh, is it okay to move these?’ she said, looking around for a space to move them to, but failing. Piles of magazines, financial reports, ring-binders and loose pieces of paper covered every horizontal surface.
‘Here, give them to me. So Charlotte tells me you’ve just moved back from London and are looking for a job in the industry?’ Without waiting for a response, Christina continued. ‘As I think she may have told you, one of my titles, Modern Woman, is looking for an editorial assistant. It’s a fairly small team, so you’ll be doing everything from general office duties and financial stuff to helping out on photo shoots, with some writing thrown in, too. Great place to start, if you ask me. The editor, Clarissa, will be here in a minute to meet you. Now, the salary isn’t anything to get excited about, but as I’m sure you’re aware, you don’t work in editorial for the money – you do it because you love it.’ She glanced at the numerous awards that cluttered her bookshelf. Nina realised she was in danger of looking deaf, dumb and mute if she didn’t get a word in soon, so jumped in with, ‘Oh, I do absolutely love it – the three months I spent at Marie Claude in London was the best time of my life; I learnt so much and I know that working in magazines is what I really want to do . . .’ Nina trailed off, realising Christina had stopped listening and was eyeballing someone behind her.
‘Nina, this is Clarissa, the editor of Modern Woman. Clarissa, this is Nina, your new editorial assistant, fresh off the boat after living in London for two years.’
Gripping Clarissa’s outstretched hand, Nina clocked the small, bookish woman who was her new boss. Looking at least ten years older than the photo above her editor’s letter, she was wearing jeans, Birkenstocks and a black acrylic cardigan over a white t-shirt that had lost its shape several washes ago. ‘My, didn’t we put a lot of effort into our outfit today?’ Nina thought, then promptly flicked her bitch switch off before she accidentally said something out loud. ‘Stop comparing everything to London,’ she scolded herself. ‘Remember, Sydney is on the other side of the world, with a completely different lifestyle, so of course it’s going to be more Billabong than Balmain. Although apparently there is a suburb of the same name somewhere around here, so maybe people who live there cut the style mustard a bit more . . .’
‘Well, you two go and get acquainted, some of us have work to do around here,’ Christina said brusquely, her eyes already fixed on her computer screen. ‘Nina, Clarissa will give you a starter pack which has your contract in it – sign both copies, then return one to me and keep the other for your files. And welcome to WaPP.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘Charlotte sang your praises, so I hope you’ll work as well for us as you did for her.’
‘Thank you, I promise I will. It was lovely meeting you,’ Nina managed to reply before hurrying after Clarissa, who was already halfway down the corridor. ‘Surely getting a job shouldn’t be that easy?’ she thought. ‘I know Charlotte put in a good word for me, but I thought she’d at least ask a few interview questions instead of handing it to me on a platter. Not that I’m complaining . . .’
‘We’ll take the fire stairs, if that’s okay with you?’ Clarissa asked, peering down at Nina’s five-inch heels. ‘The editorial office is only three floors up.’
‘Sure, not a problem. Just show me the way. So how long have you been the editor of Modern Woman?’
‘Nine and a half years. I’ve got five months to go until I can take my long-service leave,’ Clarissa replied, not bothering to hide the fact she was counting down the days, much to Nina’s surprise.
‘And how many people are on the editorial team?’ Nina asked, even though she’d already checked out the staff list on the masthead.
‘There are five of us now, including you.’ It wasn’t the answer she was expecting. Five?! Nina remembered seeing at least fifteen names on the masthead, which she had thought was pretty small compared to Marie Claude’s forty-plus team. How could only five people produce an entire magazine?
‘We use a lot of freelancers, especially when we’re on deadline,’ Clarissa explained, as if reading her thoughts. ‘But most of the time, it’s just the five full-timers in the office – you, me, Jenny the art director, Lauren the features editor and Monica, our chief sub. We’re a tightknit team.’
Five minutes later, Nina had been introduced to her new colleagues and had stashed her Miu Miu bag behind her desk, which was adjacent to Clarissa’s. With no need for separate departments, everyone was crammed into the same small room, its windows looking straight across to another office block. Nina tried not to think about Charlotte’s enormous glass-walled office with its white leather Eames chairs, glossy coffee table books and Net-a-Porter delivery boxes stacked almost to the ceiling, or the Marie Claude features team’s view overlooking the Thames.
Making herself look busy, she opened her starter pack and read through her contract, trying not to eavesdrop on Monica and Lauren’s conversation, which revolved around the best time to plant tomato seedlings. While all the Modern Woman staff had been perfectly pleasant to her, she got the distinct feeling she would
n’t be bonding with them quite as well as she had with the Marie Claude girls. It wasn’t just that they were a lot older than Nina – after all, Saffy had been in her mid-thirties and had two kids, not that you’d know by looking at her whippet-thin figure – they seemed to be on a whole different wavelength. Nina doubted they’d have any idea who Anna Wintour was, let alone Carine Roitfeld or Emmanuelle Alt. Obviously there were more important things in life than knowing who the international magazine powerhouses were, but after her Marie Claude baptism, Nina had just assumed that everyone who worked on a women’s lifestyle magazine would be as obsessed with popular culture and industry gossip as she was. But as Clarissa joined Monica and Lauren’s gardening discussion with the same amount of enthusiasm as Taya used to have when dissecting Olivia Palermo’s latest outfit, Nina realised she couldn’t have been more wrong. Horrified to find the start of tears stinging her eyes, she clamped her tongue to the roof of her mouth to stop herself crying – a trick Annika had taught her after a particularly vicious tongue-lashing from an irate guest at the Bickford – and stared out the window while trying to pull herself together. When the phone on her desk rang, she snatched it up, grateful for the distraction, as everyone in the office jumped in surprise. ‘Something tells me the phone doesn’t ring a whole lot around here,’ she thought to herself while saying in her best professional voice, ‘Good morning, Modern Woman magazine, Nina speaking.’
‘Sorry, who’s this?’ said the voice on the other end.
‘It’s Nina. At Modern Woman magazine.’
‘Oh, sorry, wrong number.’ The line went dead and the staff resumed their conversation, having moved on to whether it was best to grow basil in a pot or in the ground. While she waited for them to finish so she could ask for something to do, Nina surreptitiously pulled her iPhone out of her bag to see if Jeremy had texted her, before remembering he didn’t have her number. ‘I wonder how Tess is getting on at the real estate agent . . . surely it’s almost lunchtime?’ she thought, as the day stretched endlessly before her. When she checked the time, it took all her willpower not to whimper out loud. It was only nine thirty-three.