Career Girls (23 page)

‘I know,’ she said shortly.

He smiled at her. She was crazy and mixed up, but he adored her.

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Nathan said, as she turned to go. ‘I love you. And by the way, Rowena Gordon is important, Topaz. If she makes something 0fthis new company, she’ll be in a very powerful position.’

Thursday, 6 July dawned muggy and overcast. Grey skies loomed over the city, hardly dissipating the heat that seemed to steam up from the crowded sidewalks and logjammed roads.

° The two candidates for editor of American Magazines’ new upmarket glossy, Economic Monthly, rode the elevator to the boardroom on the fifty-ninth floor, one floor down from Gowers’ glass cradle of power. Both were wearing suits and immaculately groomed, but Joe Goldstein looked by far the more confident and relaxed.

He was carrying a large canvas folder containing charts and statistics for his presentation. It was an understandable, witty and highly expert summary of macroeconomic conditions, designed to demonstrate once and for all how suitable he was to edit this title - if his existing magazines hadn’t already established that beyond doubt.

He glanced at Topaz, who’d come armed.with nothing at all. She was nervously tapping one hand against her thigh.

Joe hardened his heart. Little girls that bite off more than they can chew get hurt; if Topaz Rossi insisted on playing out of her league, she was just going to have to.learn her

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lesson the hard way.

He looked her over again, surreptitiously.

He’d been right about that cute ass, though.

The scnior committee watchcd Joe Goldstcin giving the most polished, urbanc performance of his life. They were fascinated, laughing and nodding from time to time. Nate Rosen glanced at the papers of the man seated next to him; he’d made a notc to call his broker.

Actually, Nate thought Goldstein was being pretty gracious about this. He was paying Topaz the compliment of giving it his best shot, not just showing up to have management rubber-stamp a decision which was basically already made.

He glanced at Topaz, sitting in a chair against the far wall, watching Joc with polite attentiveness. She was dressed soberly - navy Dior, rebellious red curls swept back in a severe bun “- and she seemed anxious. Rosen felt a pang. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her it didn’t matter, that she was only twenty-thrcc, therc’d be plenty more titles for her later. He noticed the way her full breasts rose and fell as she breathed, pushing against the stiff linen of her jacket. He wanted her.

Nathan turned resolutely back to Joe, embarrassed. He was supposed to be concentrating. Damn it, this whole situation was his fault. His judgment wasn’t sober or impartial, not these days. He veered too far one way, then too far the other. This go-called contest for Economic Monthl), for example. It was one instance where he thought she was totally off-track competin.g for it and Matt Gowers was just trying to look liberated by fielding a woman candidate. But it was his fault too. He had endorsed her for it, when she’d insisted on trying out. He’d sat there in the chairman’s office and told his boss it was between Joc and Topaz.

Who was he trying to kid? Joe was always going to destroy her, and now here he was, destroying her right on cue. He, Rosen, both as Topaz’s lover and her boss, should

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have been cruel to be kind and refused to put her name forward. Now his own judgment would be called into question.

But that was his mistake, his error. And he’d been making Topaz pay for it. Coming down on her like a ton of bricks in the editors’ meetings. Cutting her dead in front of their colleagues.

‘… if it’s dinars or dollars,’ Goldstein concluded to warm laughter and applause, and walked over to the chair next to Topaz, offering his hand tO her as he sat down. She shook it briskly, avoiding eye contact with him, murmuring congratulations. The board at the table in front of them had their heads down scribbling brief comments on their sheets of paper. But it was obvious from the genial smiles on their faces what they thought.

He did look terrific up there, Topaz admitted to herself. Absolutely terrific. It’s a shame he’s such a jerk, because that is one handsome, self-possessed sonofabitch.

‘And now,’ said the presiding secretary, ‘the board will hear Ms Topaz Rossi, editor of Girlfriend magazine and still a journalistic contributor to many of our other titles. Ms Rossi, if you please.’

Topaz got to her feet and regarded the seven pairs of eyes looking at her with little more than polite interest.

‘Mr Goldstein’s presentation was the best, and the funniest, piece of economic analysis I think I’ve ever heard,’ she began in a clear voice. ‘And if he were applying for the job of chief correspondent or senior features writer, I would give it

to him without hesitation.’

She paused.

‘But it isn’t the editor’s job to write the magazine. I had dinner with Mr Goldstein last month, and I admitted to him then that I was no expert in economics. I said that I was an expert in selling magazines. And that’s still true.’

The seven pairs of eyes now looked considerably more interested.

‘The job of editor - the editor, mind you - at Economic Monthly will not be to explain the General Agre.ement on

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Tariffs and Trade. It will be to take advertising and circulation away from The Economist, Forbes, Fortune and

Business Week. And this is how I would do that.’ ‘Holy Shit! thought Nathan Rosen. The board watched her, riveted.

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The public rivalry started with Marissa Matthews’ column, ‘Friday’s People’, published two weeks after the party.

Seeing Topaz with Nathan as a couple in public, and hearing what had happened at the Economic Monthly pitch,

Marissa didn’t pull any punches. On either of them.

Catfight at the most important party of the year… Musica

Records executive embarrassing her boss … Fiery redhead Topaz Rossi … innuendo about ‘sleeping with interviewees’.., do we remember the mysterious David Levine exclusive? … Watch out, Manhattan, here come the Career Girlst.

‘Ridiculous!’ said Topaz, annoyed. She flung the paper on to the kitchen table and dialled Marissa Matthews at home. What do you mean by this?’ she demanded.

‘Who is it, please?’ purred Matthews, as if she didn’t

know.

‘It’s Topaz Rossi,’ replied Topaz, furious.

‘Darling!’ Marissa crooned. ‘Are you a little bit upset

about the column?’

‘Marissa, I - ‘

‘Journalistic integrity, sweetie. You, of all people, should understand that. I mean, just look what you did to that ravishing film star.’

‘He was a woman-beater!’ Topaz snapped, incensed at the comparison.

‘Well, darling, I haven’t ruined your career, now have I? It’s simply the truth that you and your friend did make a scene at dear Elizabeth’s party, and it was so very dramatic! All that wonderful stuffabout territory, and sleeping with people to get interviews! Not that I personally believe it, of

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course, but one always wondered how you got that story … it did kick-start your career in the most fabulous way, and I do have a duty to my readers.’

She paused, then repeated with relish, ‘To my many millions of readers, especially in New York - I mean, sweetie, anyone who is anyone in this towu reads…’

Topaz slammed the phone down on her in disgust.

‘I thiuk it’s funny,’ Michael Krebs told her. ‘It’s a hell of a way to announce your arrival, though. You have some kind of history with this girl?’

‘I dou’t want to talk about it,’ Rowena answered wearily. Her phone had been going all day from reporters wanting to run a ‘Rivals’ story in various magazines.

Krebs nodded. A story like this was bad news.

‘Did Oberman have anything to say?’

‘Yes he did,’ she said shortly. Her chairman had the ‘Friday’s Pebple’ colunm faxed to him every week, and was none too pleased to see his newly appointed MD starring in what was described as a hitch-fight during the most important social event of the year. He’d given her a lecture of businesslike conduct, ending up with ‘You kuow what, Rowena? A lot of people in this industry don’t like me putting a womau in charge. Don’t make it harder for me by giving them ammunition.’

She had burued with shame at the rebuke, more so because he was right.

‘Forget about it,’ Krebs told her. ‘You’ve got euough to do setting up this label. I kuow it’s been tough.’

‘It has. It is,’ she said, under pres.sure and anxious.

‘I could help,’ Michael offered, brushing herhair out of her eyes. She felt the cool metal of his wedding ring against her temple.

‘It’s my problem. I’ll handle it,’ Rowena said, but already part of her was wondering if she could.

BOOM! Atomic Mass were everywhere. And that meant everywhere.

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Displays in the store windows. Ads in the music magazines. Billboards across the city, cleverly designed to show a picture of the boys, slouching togcthcr against a wall and looking meanly at the cameras, like five longhaired versions of James Dean. The one-word straplinc at the base of the posters said simply: COMING.

MTV had an exclusive right to show the video, and it was making good use of it. God, sometimes heavy rotation means heavy rotation, Rowena thought, delighted, as she switched on yet again and found it pumping away.

Zach Freeman, holding his guitar like an offensive weapon.

Alex Sexton, strumming hard at the bass and checking out the girls in the front, cute pieces ofjailbait with the darkly kohled eyes that were in fashion amongst the alternative music crowd right now. Despite the perfect

street’cred

calling cards, the camera showed all the women

in a very old-fashioned state of high sexual excitement.

Mark Thomas attacking his drumkit like it just in sulted his mother. Pan to shots of guys in the audience, screaming approval and hurling themselves into a raging fiaosh-pit.

Jake Williams, rhythm guitarist, grinding out a swing

that you wouldn’t believe.

And Joe Hunter, lead singer, six foot three of Lancashire muscle, with his tumbling brown hair and handsome, slightly slanted eyes, taking total control of the stage, prowling like a wild panther, all his youth and inexperience

counting for nothing. He didn’t need experience. He was a natural. He was a star.

‘But is it on the radio? We laced airplay,’ Josh fretted, ringing her the first day Warners had released the track to radio.

‘Oberman,’ his new managing director soothed him, ‘it’s

ou the radio. It’s on the playlist for every Top Forty station

in New York. The song is a fucking phenomenon.’

‘Is it getting out to the other markets? Dallas, LA,

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Chicago, Minnesota?’ Josh asked the next day. ‘Warners swear it is. But they would. You tell me.’

‘It’s breaking out like a rash. Like it was contagious,’ Rowena assured him.

‘You know what? This business is going to rot your brain,’ he told her. ‘Forget that Oxford education, your vocabulary is about to contract into two sentences- “It’s a hit.” “It’s not a hit.”’

‘This,’ said Rowena firmly, ‘is a hit.’

Oberman laughed, his grating roar reaching across the Atlantic, rich with satisfaction. ‘I think you might be right,’ he said. ‘That bastard Krebs! I thought he was doing us a favour, but he was just spotting talent. Now he gets five per cent off the top. Sonofabitch! I’ve known the guy for long enough, I should have guessed.’

Rowena couldn’t resist it. ‘If you’d come up with a million five in the first place, she pointed out, ‘we wouldn’t be getting royally screwed now. Anyway, why did you tell me to go and get Michael Krebs for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars? You must have known that was never gonna happen.’

‘I did,’ Oberman admitted. ‘I dunno, kid, it was an impulse. I wanted to send you in to get him with your back against the wall. See what you’d come up with. I had a sense that you two would be good together, and I wanted him to get interested in you. With the right amount of money, you’d have been just another client to him. And Atomic Mass would have been justanother band.’

Rowena put the phone down, feeling yet again that Josh Oberman was one of the most cunning, knowing men alive. How well he’d understood Michael Krebs. How well he’d understood her.

And the rise of Atomic Mass continued at full force. Barbara Lincoln had flown over and checked into the Paramount and Rowena was to meet her there every morning to begin the promotional round. Officially, it was none of her business. Rowena worked for Musica, and until they built up a distribution network Atomic Mass’s label in

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the States was Elektra. But Barbara and the band insisted, so that was that. Rowena, and usually Michael Krebs, too, piled into the limo with the guys as they headed off to the Warners building to start the day’s round of interviews, photoshoots and radio phone-ins.

She had no time to attend to the new label. Forget that, Rowena thought. It’ll wait.

‘Hey, Rowena! How’s it going?’ Barbara asked her, kissing her on the cheek. She admired the burgundy Donna Karan tunic, the Charles David pumps, the silk hose from Wolford’s. ‘You look terrific.’

‘So do you,’ her friend said, returning the kiss and the admiring glance. Barbara was dressed in a silk slip Armani dress, complete with beaded straps, Italian heels and a Hermes scarf. Every day she turned up in something impossibly glamorous and totally impractical. Barbara made no concessions to minor matters like the dirt of Manhattan or the fact that all the Warners people wore jeans.

Let’s face it, Rowena thought, smiling. Barbara makes no concessions to anything.

‘It’s the only reason we’re working with you,’ Mark teased them. ‘Can’t be surrounded by anything except beautiful women now. Bad for our image.’

‘Our image! You fucking prat,’Joe snarled, pushing his drummer in the shoulder.