The Brand (16 page)

Joelyn was deeply grief-stricken. In those
days of her grief, she moved back to her house in Malibu. The
paparazzi hounded her. Even venerable TV shows and print media
organizations made valiant efforts to interview her regarding the
sudden collapse of her marriage. Her people, upon her instructions,
fended off every approach, informing the press that they should
respect Ms. Smith’s privacy at this time of her personal tragedy.
They even thought it necessary to hire a team of bodyguards to
protect her from harassment by the paparazzi.

Ashamed of being seen in public, Joelyn hid
herself in the sanctuary of her Malibu home and spent three
consecutive weeks reflecting on her past and her future. She found
the unfairness of this life appalling. She found the despicable
actions of Jason even worse. The deepest cut of all was his
betrayal of her trust in him. Trust is a fundamentally fragile
thing. Once broken, it can never be mended. She had given him all
of her heart and held nothing back. And he had lied and cheated on
her. Joelyn reeled in the agony of heartbreak and almost lost her
mind. She found solace in alcohol. Cocaine, sought for her by a
select group of her people, provided her with a comforting hand
from the agony of pain and shame.

Joelyn sunk into a depression so severe and
brutal that she actually did contemplate suicide. In fact, she was
found one morning unconscious inside the bathroom of the main suite
in her home by some members of her people, after having plied
herself with generous amounts of cocaine and alcohol. After they
had administered First-Aid techniques and brought her back to life,
they swore themselves to silence and kept the secret from the rest
of the world.

There might be some truth in the statement
that thousands of people worldwide kill themselves each year as a
direct consequence of bad relationships. It might also be true that
this is so because lying is an inherent part of human nature. Human
beings are inconsistent creatures, therefore, they will not always
tell the truth. This inability to tell the truth about the faults
in one’s character to loved ones and family has led to lots of
damaged souls and minds, some of them never to heal properly.

Samantha Ashford, feeling compassion for her
friend, actually took some time off from her job at Deloitte &
Touché and got in touch with Joelyn’s mother. The two of them
caught a plane at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International airport and
went to Los Angeles to be with Joelyn at this time of her second
marital tragedy. Though Joelyn’s dependence on alcohol and
dangerous drugs was hidden from the two visitors, they did,
however, notice that she was worryingly psychologically unbalanced.
They suggested to her that it would be advisable to consult a
psychiatrist to help her deal with her grief.

Joelyn insisted that she was getting better.
To prove this, she threw herself into the making of the new film by
JOY-LINE PICTURES. This personal involvement in the film that she
was entirely financing from her own pocket was her first public
appearance since the shame of her husband’s multiple infidelities,
and it persuaded the visitors from South Africa that she was ready
to pick up the pieces and continue with her life. They bade her
farewell and returned to their respective lives in South Africa as
well.

For the people on the set of the new film,
having Joelyn’s personal thrust in the film’s production gave them
a torrid time. She cut and amended the script so many times that
the story took on a completely different form and character. She
abused the people working on the set and reduced them to obedient
subservience. She clashed with the film director several times
until he quit the job, following yet another heated exchange
between the two of them. Joelyn hired another director, who did not
add anything new to the already existing material, but re-worked
the project from scratch. These delays added more money to the
film’s production costs. When it was eventually packaged in its
final cut, the film had cost $89,5 million to make. It did not do
well at the box office, amassing only $8 million on its opening
weekend and eventually collecting a total of $34 million from
ticket sales worldwide. One does not need a university degree in
financial mathematics to understand that JOY-LINE PICTURES,
wholly-owned and financed by one Joelyn Smith, had made an
incredible loss of $50 million. Joelyn Smith sunk deeper into the
quagmire of drug
s
and
alcohol.

When Jansen Vermuelen resumed her tennis
career after a 12-month absence, she was a more mature specimen.
Gone was the caustic tongue. It was replaced by such superb manners
on court that a
New York Times Magazine
writer noticed and wrote an article about her. The first
tournament Jansen played in upon her return to the WTA professional
circuit was the French Open, and although she did not win the
women’s title, she did show her mettle and resolve by reaching the
final, where she lost 6-4, 4-6, and 3-6 to a Serbian victor. Jansen
played all her matches leading to the final in good spirits,
laughing and joking with her opponents, and making funny facial
animations when match-referees’ decisions went against
her.

The improved manners and controlled
temperament were due to the appointment of an anger-management
coach to her team. It was an appointment forced on her by her head
coach, Gary Speckman. Jansen had also made her own personal resolve
to be a better person, after taking time off tennis and realizing
the large number of tennis fans whose lives she touched. During her
forced hiatus, her multitude of followers on Twitter and friends on
major networking sites had sent in their condolences and wished her
well. Since her appearance on TV shows, her fan-base had expanded
to magnificent proportions. At the French Tennis Open, the
journalists gathered there awarded her the unofficial title of
Personality of the Tournament. She was interviewed on court by a TV
journalist after her women’s final defeat and she modestly
expressed her joy at being back playing tennis, and also gave
praise to God for answering her prayers and helping to heal her
previously broken wrist. The crowd loved her and gave her a
standing ovation.

Back in her hotel room, Jansen hugged her
coach again. He was excited, but he didn’t want to show it. But
Jansen knew him well enough to know that he was very proud of her,
even though he was all business. ‘Roland Garros is over. No point
in dwelling on the past. The future is waiting for us to live.
Wimbledon is next. Let’s focus our minds on that.’

He left the room, but stopped at the door and
looked back at her. They stared at each other for a long moment,
until Gary’s face broke into a wonderful grin. ‘You did great, kid.
I’m proud of you.’

‘Thank you, Gary.’ Suddenly, she was overcome
by an overwhelming surge of emotions that brought tears to her
eyes.

Gary Speckman quickly stepped out of the
room.

Jansen sat down and unconsciously rubbed her
left wrist. Tears flowed down her face. They were tears of joy. A
heavy load had been lifted off her shoulders. For two months now,
her coach had put her through rigorous training exercises, the
anger management consultant had worked on her mental strength, but
there lingered within her some self-doubt over her ability – or
inability thereof – to recapture the magic of her previous exploits
in the game of tennis. To her, Roland Garros had been the yardstick
which she would use to determine how rusty she had become and how
far she had to go. She had not expected to go all the way to the
final. But coming from the lowest ranks of seeded players to
reaching the final showed her determination and strength of
character.

Her impressive performance at the French Open
proved how hungry she was to lift a trophy. For her, it was not
about the money. She had been born into money, and her father had
further left her with too much money to care about this commodity
so crucially unavailable to others. No – it was not about the
money. It was about becoming the best tennis player in the world,
bar none. It was about lifting all the four Grand Slam titles. It
was about becoming the best there was and the best there ever would
be. And Jansen Vermuelen knew that to be the best in the world
required extra hard work.

In the morning, Jansen Vermuelen had a press
conference in the presence of her coach. It was a new arrangement
for Gary Speckman, who had previously been conspicuous by his
absence from the tennis star’s publicity shows. The press
conference was organized, for branding purposes, by the French
automaker Peugeot, part sponsors of both the French Open and the
brand known as Jansen Vermuelen. During the press conference, the
company presented Jansen with a brand new Peugeot RCZ two-door
convertible, a beautiful drop-top with amazing looks, perfect for
the image of a young, beautiful blonde woman. Soon after the press
conference, Jansen and Gary travelled in the first class cabin of
an Air France Airbus A380 passenger jet to Johannesburg, South
Africa, while her customized convertible was shipped by Peugeot to
an outlet in New York City, to be ready for Jansen’s collection at
any time she deemed convenient. In Johannesburg, Jansen and her
coach arrived together with a team of fifteen people who were all
under the employ of Miss Vermuelen and were all maniacally
dedicated to making every wish of hers their command. They all
settled at the famous mansion in Sandhurst.

Coach Speckman insisted on training his young
protégé at the mansion, which had a Clay court, a Grass court and
an all-weather indoor Hard court. All three were kept in good order
by a paid professional maintenance caretaker. Gary wanted Jansen to
return back to her roots and start where it had all begun for her,
before the glamor of a showbiz lifestyle had swayed the young
woman’s mind and swelled her ego. Judging by her performance at
Roland Garros, the return to basics had worked. Now, Gary focused
his mind and attention to training her for the upcoming Wimbledon
tournament.

While the world generally accepted Joelyn
Smith’s vanity and egoistic tendencies as hazards synonymous with
the nature of her occupation, it remained a closely-guarded secret
that Joelyn Smith was in the second half of 2012 a certifiable
alcoholic and drug addict with a dangerous affinity for Veuve
Clicquot champagne, Johnnie Walker Blue Label premium whisky, Krug
Grand Cuvée, Hennessy Private Reserve, and the finest quality of
cocaine originating from the vast opium fields of Colombia. Indeed,
of late, Ms. Smith had become an intolerably nasty piece of
work.

She had developed the unenviable habit of
being late for important appointments. She breached her contracts
with her major sponsors. She yelled abuse at her workers. Those who
couldn’t stand the heat got out of the kitchen. Those who
underestimated its intensity took up those vacant positions only to
learn of the horror of their mistakes. Joelyn Smith, affectionately
known as Jo S, was fast earning herself a reputation for bad
manners and rude etiquette. The tabloids detailed every bit of
juicy gossip about her; from causing a scene at an A-list celebrity
restaurant to being kicked out of hotels after trashing multiple
hotel rooms. Public opinion was divided regarding her behavior.

The only thing – at least according to
certified brand managers – that Joelyn had done right in the last
few weeks was to end her marriage to one Jason Kane in a civil
manner. To avoid a prolonged and protracted acrimonious dissolution
of their marriage, the two stars had instructed their respective
divorce attorneys to find common ground and speed up the process.
Indeed, Jason Kane and Joelyn Smith’s divorce was an occurrence of
such minor insignificance that it provided little or no
entertainment to the ordinary masses and in fact served as a
reminder to everyone that the two stars had married not for
financial reward but purely for love, however misguided they might
each have been.

In the second week of June, a lawyer
representing the business interests of one Joelyn Smith had filed a
lawsuit against a company that manufactured hair products for using
Joelyn Smith’s image in advertising some of its products. The
lawsuit claimed a $30 million compensation for “damages incurred”
to Ms. Smith. It further stated that the hair products manufacturer
had benefitted to a “possible” amount of “over $72-million” by the
unauthorized use of her images to market its products. The lawsuit
was filed at a Los Angeles County court. The judge who presided
over the case was an ambitious man who had dreams of a political
future. He saw the opportunity as a golden one to make his name
known. The case would definitely attract widespread attention,
because it involved the name of one of Hollywood’s current pop
idols.

The judge sped things up and bullied the
opposing teams of attorneys into making final presentations. In a
quicker-than-normal process, judgment on the case was heard in
August, barely two months before the November Presidential
Election. Joelyn Smith did not physically attend the court
proceedings, but her name was mentioned so many times by members of
the media that a group of her fans actually stood vigil outside the
courthouse from the early hours of the morning, hoping to catch a
glimpse of their idol. The judge, unable to control himself, seized
the moment of glory and actually permitted TV cameras into the
court. After a noisy and chaotic environment that lasted for the
better part of half an hour, the judge brought the court to order
and gave his final ruling.