There was a good reason why I was standing in Mitch’s office wearing my pyjamas. Unfortunately, they weren’t even nice pyjamas. Not that the situation would have been made better if I’d been wearing Peter Alexander—you know, the fancy ones that presumably have magic sleep-inducing properties, otherwise why would you pay so much for sleep-wear? No, mine were baggy-arsed, threadbare, and covered in crazy monkeys and ripe bananas. Speaking of ripe, I’d been wearing them for approximately eight days.
I had really messed up. And I don’t mean something small. I mean epic. We’re not talking getting drunk at the office Christmas party and kissing your boss. We’re not even talking about walking out of TK Maxx without paying for a pair of sunglasses—not that I would ever do that. Except for that one time when I did, but it was honestly a complete accident.
My head was on the chopping block because I was singlehandedly responsible for the near death of a national icon. The entire country was baying for my blood and I’m not being over-dramatic. It was categorically the biggest fuck up of my entire life and I felt like the worst person in the entire world. Even Charles Manson would have shaken his head at me.
Pyjamas aside, a couple of concessions to basic decency had been made before leaving the house. My shoes were at least on the right feet, I’d thrown a stylish satin trench over my monkey pants and I’d attempted to brush the Cheezel crumbs out of my hair—it might have been dried Weetbix, I’m not quite sure to be honest with you.
Looking back, I could have tried to pass the look off as effortlessly shabby chic but to be fair I looked like I’d escaped from a commune somewhere and was still high. The dodgy outfit made dodging the paparazzi a little bit harder, but somehow I’d managed. After all, I knew how their brains worked. On any other day, you could’ve called me their fearless leader.
I wasn’t fit to be out in public really. I’d been hiding underneath my bedcovers for more than a week and—without my usual access to Channel Five’s make-up department and the office fashion cupboard—I was a mess.
But Mitch’s phone message had been unmistakable.
“Kat. My office. Today.” Clunk.
Mitch was the editor-in-chief of MeridianCorp’s entire stable of magazines, both print and digital. She was also my boss, which meant I didn’t have a choice. Personally, I would have preferred a dark room and a truckload of Tim Tams to Mitch’s office and the imminent threat of unemployment but ignoring the summons would have been a fatal mistake, and I didn’t fancy dying that day or any other.
STAR NOW, Australia’s highest circulation gossip magazine and my home away from home, took up the entire top floor of a big pink building on Sydney’s North Shore. The sprawling office was a maze of cubicles; the occupants’ crowded pin boards and screensavers a clear indication of who was hot or not—something that changed by the week, the day or even by the hour. Over the years the walls had witnessed Kylie and Jason, Brangelina, too many Kardashians to mention, the handing of the boy-band ‘traitor’ baton from Robbie to Harry and, more recently, everything Hadid and Delevingne.
The hush enveloping the space as I’d shuffled towards Mitch’s closed office door that morning was eerily reminiscent of that awkward scene in Jerry Maguire—the one where Tom Cruise has a conniption and adopts the office fish and Renee Zellweger.
A single kind person behind me—I think it might have been Dawn, our eager-to-please intern, with a penchant for socks-n-Birkenstocks and a teeny-tiny crush on me—squawked a self-conscious good luck. She was shushed with an audible elbow jab, right before I’d stepped through Mitch’s door. It had swung shut behind me with a hostile, metallic clunk. I now stood in front of her gigantic wooden desk like a wayward primary school kid, called up to the principal’s office for sticking chewing gum on the rungs of the monkey bars.
When I say in front of her gigantic desk, I mean in front of the yawning space in front of her gigantic desk. The room itself took up the entire corner of the building. All floor to ceiling glass and neutral paint, with the gargantuan desk the only real furniture, the room screamed success. Meanwhile, the sun bouncing off Sydney Harbour screamed through the banks of glistening windows to pierce my red and swollen eyeballs. I blinked painfully as my eyes adjusted to the glare and wondered momentarily whether eyeballs could actually explode.
Mitch sat at her desk, glowering at me from behind bony fingers, which were steepled sharply together like she wanted to stab me with them. With my stinky pyjamas and food-filled hair, I must have looked like a mucky blot on the shining ecru plush pile. Her carefully made-up eyes travelled slowly down to my fidgeting feet and back up again. She twitched one artfully-tweezed eyebrow.
“Wow, Kat, you look like shit.” She waved a hand at me. “Is this some kind of disguise to try to outwit the paps or have you finally lost your marbles?”
At the mention of the paparazzi, I hiccupped. And then hiccupped again. Over the past week, the stress had reactivated my teenaged nervous tic—chronic hiccups that broke out like a cuckoo clock on helium as soon as my heart rate went up.
“There was a photographer—hic—hiding underneath my car this morning. I nearly—hic—ran him over, for Christ’s sake.” I took a gulp of air and held my breath as Mitch pursed her lips.
“I’m glad you didn’t. We don’t need another law suit, courtesy of the great Katherine Alley.” Her deceptively soothing voice was loaded with disapproval. “It’s not much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?” I shook my head, still holding my breath in my best impression of a miserable puffer fish. “Cardinal rule of gossip, darling,” she continued. “Never become the story. Kelly is going to be fine, by the way, thanks for asking. They’ll release her from hospital tomorrow morning. Her agent called me.”
I exhaled with a rush and paused, waiting for a hiccup and hoping the breath holding had worked because the next step was standing on my head to drink water and I had a feeling that wouldn’t go down well. No hiccups were forthcoming so I risked squeaking a question.
“Are you going to fire me?”
Mitch was silent as she drummed her fingers on her desk. I waited, staring at the floor and cringing on the inside, until the silence became awkward. I peeked at her from beneath lowered and somewhat crusty eyelashes. She was studying me. Calculating. Maybe she wanted me to beg. “Mitch, please. You can’t fire me.”
“Actually, Kat—I can,” she snapped, before pausing and folding her spindly arms. “But luckily for you, I’m not going to.”
I was stunned.
“What?” After the public backlash from my three-pronged and ultimately unfounded exposé of pop-star, Kelly Craig, I was certain getting fired would be a fait accompli. Mitch motioned for me to sit and I did, my legs shaking with relief. Mitch eyed me like a hawk eyes a mouse before swooping in for the kill.
“The fact is you make me too much money and you’ve got too many contacts for me to lose you.” Wow, so heartfelt. “But… Kelly Craig is Australia’s darling. Everybody loves her. The fucking Prime Minister loves her. Christ, even that horrible radio jock who hates everyone thinks she’s Madonna incarnate and by that I don’t mean like a virgin. The fact is, Kelly’s in hospital because of you. Personally, I couldn’t give a shit. Circulation went through the roof last week—suicides are always massive sellers.” She shrugged. “Even if they don’t take.”
Ugh. I grimaced. I might have fucked up but at least I had the common decency to know how heinous that statement was. The horrid truth of the matter though, was she was right. Whenever anything like this happened—and it seemed to be happening more and more often—the public couldn’t get enough.
Celebrity death was big business; memorial covers, special editions, pages and pages of the life and times of, complete with insider stories from every person who ever loved them or simply did their dry-cleaning that one time. Not to mention the scores of secret offspring who would suddenly emerge from the woodwork.
And, if the death was self-inflicted? The morbid fascination ramped up a notch. Was it disbelief that a celebrity could have anything truly bad to worry about? Or was it the realisation that being rich and famous didn’t preclude you from having a shitty life? Either way, people wanted to know what had gone wrong. Maybe it made them feel better about their own lives, who knew.
“Of course, the public want your head on a platter. Hypocrites.” Mitch snorted and then echoed my thoughts, unnerving me slightly because Mitch is the last person you want inside your head. “Sure, there’s plenty of noise being made about how horrible you are, but that doesn’t stop them buying the magazine or watching the show or feeding into the whole bloody machine, does it?”
I still wasn’t quite sure where her train of thought was going. I wiggled my head, a confused cross between a nod and a shake, to cover all bases. “Look, I have to show that I’m doing something, otherwise there’ll be a fucking backlash and I need that like Donald Trump needs a spray tan.” She sighed heavily. “But I’m not going to fire you. Okay?” A loaded pause. “So? What do you have to say for yourself? Any explanation at all?”
I stared at her, caught off guard, then scrambled for words.
“Mitch, I swear I had no idea that guy was her psychiatrist. Honestly, they seemed way too friendly. Like get a room friendly. How was I to know she was so close to the edge; that she’d do something so—” I hesitated, grappling for the right word “— stupid?”
“So, she’s stupid now as well as being suicidal and a home wrecker?” Nope, definitely not the right word. “You’re on fire, Kat.”
“I didn’t mean that.” I backtracked rapidly. “Extreme. How was I to know she’d do something so extreme?”
“Here’s a start. Maybe you should have verified your story before you accused her of having an affair with a married man on your blog, in my magazine and on national television.” She glared at me. “Mental health issues, depression, they’re hot topics right now. We come out of this like heartless bastards. Channel Five is extremely embarrassed. So embarrassed in fact that they’ve dumped you from your Rise and Shine, Oz segment. They’ve replaced you with that agreeable little blonde girl that used to do Funniest Home Videos.”
“What? But The Kat’s Whispers is mine,” I squeaked, outraged. “I built that segment. How can they have The Kat’s Whispers without a Kat?”
Mitch shrugged.
“Sorry, they own it. I suppose they’ll change the name. Besides, you brought this on yourself, you need to take responsibility. Be thankful they’re not suing us. Two law suits would be, let’s just say unmanageable.”
I shrank.
“Two?”
“Mm-hmm. Kelly’s people are in talks with legal as we speak. That one shouldn’t be too bad. Like I said, circulation was way up and it counter-balances what we have to pay out. It’s a trade-off, everybody does it, you know how this works. You’ve been here long enough. If we end up in the black it’s worth running the story.”
I hugged myself tight, hands tucked into my sleeves like a little kid, and nodded at her. It might be worth running the story to her but for the first time in a long while it left a really bad taste in my mouth. How the hell did I end up here? I must have looked wretched because Mitch’s flinty countenance softened for once.
“Kat, I know you’ve been struggling since your Dad died, and I feel for you, I do. I had a lot of professional respect for your father.” A wry smile crossed her lips. “Even if it wasn’t exactly reciprocated. He was an exceptional journalist.”
“Yeah thanks, Mitch,” I muttered. “Can I have some tequila and lemon with that salt? It rubs into the wound better.” Sarcasm never went down well with Mitch and she straightened, her face assuming its regular stone-like visage.
The mention of my Dad stung like a Portuguese man-o-war but I wasn’t about to open up to her about that awful last conversation I’d had with him. The one that proved her words were on point. How could I tell her I was almost glad he wasn’t around to witness my spectacular fall from grace, being that it would have simply consolidated what I knew he already thought of me? I couldn’t tell her I had no doubt he’d be mortified, and more than a little pissed off that Mum had given me his two Walkley Awards in a fit of misguided sentimentality?
Like Oscars for Aussie journalists, Walkleys were only given to the best—not journalists like me. War crimes in Rwanda and shonky politicians—my Dad’s raison d'être—outranked celebrity sex tapes every time. The pointy metal trophies had been sitting in a box in my apartment since his funeral, like shiny, stabby reminders of how tarnished my personal interpretation of the word ‘journalist’ had become.
It hadn’t always been the case. When I first started out as a cadet on the Bayside Sun, I did everything by the book. Armed with a truckload of gleaming idealism, I knew my media law inside out. I was an ethical powerhouse. I would check and double check facts and sources; nothing was committed to paper that I didn’t know was absolutely true. Plus, I had great instincts. The award for my hard-hitting piece exposing the widespread bribery of the jam judges at the Benbridge Fete was still a high-point in my career.
Dad had always said my thirst for incontrovertible proof started when I was six and lost my first tooth. Excited to meet the much-lauded tooth fairy, I’d forced myself to stay awake long past bedtime by licking my fingers and repeatedly poking them in my eyes every time sleep threatened.
Hearing the door open, I’d lain perfectly still under my Care-Bears doona, feigning sleep and peering sneakily through the tiny gap between my scrunched eyelids and my eyelashes. Long story short, Mum was busted trying to sneak two dollars—that was pretty good in 1992—under my pillow and the jig was well and truly up.
In my six-year-old wisdom, if the tooth fairy wasn’t real it stood to reason the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas were a load of crap too. I had to be pulled out of Sunday School because I kept asking the nuns to prove God was real. My Mum was extremely embarrassed but Dad defended me by saying it showed I had an enquiring mind and strength of character. More recently he’d said it was a shame that character so easily went AWOL with the lure of a big pay check and my own fifteen minutes of fame. But to be fair, that wasn’t entirely correct.
I had fallen into celebrity gossip quite by accident, after an investigative piece I’d been working on went horribly pear-shaped. I’d been convinced that a particular high-profile lawyer was taking bribes and had been staking him out for weeks. My gut told me it was going to make my career, be my first really big break as a journalist. Unfortunately, my gut was wrong—very wrong—and to make it worse the lawyer accused me of stalking. I’d missed a key bit of info, something that apparently everybody knew. Except me, clearly. The oversight made me a laughing stock at the paper.
I’d thought my dad would be supportive – people make mistakes, don’t they? But I had overheard him in conversation with a colleague who was going on about the importance of procedure, of not running on instinct. He was a stuffy-looking bald man who wrote about real estate, and he’d said pointedly to my dad, “it would be much easier if women stuck to writing about things they know, don’t you agree?”.
My dad had made small murmurs of what sounded like agreement as the stuffy man continued, “Investigative journalism simply takes a particular level of intelligence.” I stood there, silently, waiting for him to stand up for me.
My dad had cleared his throat.
“Well, I think you’re right there, but—”
I’d turned tail before he’d finished the sentence, mortified. If my dad didn’t think I had the brain power for the job, what the hell was I thinking?
Fortunately, a silver lining presented itself soon enough. The photos I’d taken of the lawyer had also snapped Tim Bailey—a very famous television host—kissing his long-rumoured mistress in the background. I wouldn’t have picked it without the eagle eyes of my editorial coordinator—who was so immersed in pop culture she could have told you how many fillings Tom Hardy had—but, either way, Hello magazine paid me handsomely for the shots and asked me what else I had.
And the rest, as they say, is history. I discovered unexpectedly that I enjoyed writing about the entertainment industry; it was fun and the perks were fabulous. As a result, I never tried to write anything too serious again. I also never confronted my dad about the conversation I overheard, and things were never quite the same between us.
The more my career as an entertainment journalist took off, the more disappointed Dad seemed. He simply didn’t understand why I wanted to write what he called fluffy rubbish. He was never one to pull any punches. As far as I was concerned, I was simply playing to my strengths. Looking back, I think maybe I was also scared. I’m sure my dad could have told me the difference, but it was too late now, wasn’t it? His sudden heart-attack had seen to that.
I dragged myself out of memory lane as Mitch made her way around the desk. She perched on the edge and looked down at me.
“Kat, at the end of the day, these kinds of mistakes shouldn’t happen and it’s not the first time. Things have been shaky with you for a while. You’ve been so caught up with getting the scoops before anyone else—”
“But that’s my job—” I protested. She silenced me with a raised hand.
“—finding bigger scandals, playing celebrity. You’ve been sloppy. Legal is getting twitchy and I can’t ignore this one.”
“What if I publish an apology on the blog?” I was desperate to make amends.
“Pop Vulture’s gone.” Mitch could always be counted on to be blunt. “I’ve taken it offline. I’ve also deactivated all of your social media accounts.”
My eyes bugged in horror.
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Even Instagram? Snapchat?”
Mitch gave a curt nod and I reeled. Holy shit. Even I’d forgotten what I looked like without a filter.
“No,” I wailed, “Mitch, you can’t do that.”
“I can and I have.”
“What about Twitter? I hit half a million followers last month, the same on Instagram. It’s taken me years to build my platform.” A thought struck me. “Oh my god, my TikTok.”
“Also gone”.
“NO! Mitch, you don’t understand. I am an influencer. You can’t just delete me. And… and…” I floundered in complete panic at the thought of being cut off from my social network.
“Oh, for god’s sake, Kat, grow up. You are not an influencer. You’re a thirty-six-year-old journalist. You do not need to be making stupid voice-over videos like an attention-seeking twenty-two-year-old with too much lip filler and ridiculous eyelash extensions. Your followers are not your friends, I’m sure they’ll cope. Christ, I rue the day I ever suggested ‘cross-platform’ to you.”
“But, what are people going to read if Pop Vulture’s gone?”
Mitch’s icy glare nearly froze my eyeballs in my head.
“I would imagine they’ll read my magazine. You know, the one you write for?” She folded her arms. “You are not the celebrity here, Kat, despite what you might think. You’d be wise to start remembering that. Look, it’s temporary. The best thing you can do right now is lay low and wait until this all blows over. The public have very short memories. As soon as the next scandal comes along, you’ll be forgotten.”
It came out before I could stop it.
“What if I don’t want to be forgotten?”
“Pardon?”
I should have shut up then and there but for some reason my tongue kept flapping. Stupid tongue.
“I mean, if you think about it, I am sort of a celebrity. Even other famous people know who I am. Some of them are even scared of me. I mean, when I walk into a room people actually whisper that I’m there and if you ask anyone who the Pop Vulture is, I bet loads of people would—”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
I was. And I was disappointed. I sounded like one of those whiny, self-important ex-reality show kids who think they have something special and important to offer the world because they’d showered nude or performed impressive fellatio on a wine bottle on national television. All they had was bad grammar and a disturbing lack of self-respect. I puffed my chest out a little, defiant. At least I had good grammar.
“You’re treading a fine line here, Kat. If you would rather be fired, I can certainly oblige, just keep talking the way you’re talking. I’m offering you a chance because I like you, not because you deserve it. If I were you, I would shut up and take it and learn the lesson.”
“Fine,” I still couldn’t help sulking a little. “So, what now? Are you demoting me to the mail room? The switchboard?”
Mitch waved her hand dismissively as she moved back to the other side of her desk. “Don’t be so dramatic. I’m bumping you to staff writer for a while and sending you on assignment. You can get back to your roots.” The last bit was said with a definite smirk. There was no point in arguing so I slumped in my chair and chewed my nails as she reached into her desk drawer.
“Let me guess, you’re going to punish me by shipping me off to Gympie to write a ‘where are they now?’ about a soap-star turned llama farmer.”
“While that would be amusing… not exactly.” Mitch handed me a computer printout and a black and white photograph. The printout was an airline reservation, a return flight to Los Angeles. The photo was of a vaguely familiar face. I stared blankly at them both. “You’ll be writing a story on Xander Hill.”
Now I stared blankly at her.
“Huh?’
Mitch frowned, “Xander Hill, the actor.” She spelled it out slowly as if I was extremely thick then took a breath, about to repeat the name again.
“I know who Xander Hill is, Mitch.” I let out a laugh of disbelief as I tossed the photo on to the desk. “I get paid to know this stuff.” I rattled off the bit of trivia I knew. “Xander Hill, small-time actor in Hollywood back in the late sixties, early seventies. Died before he really made it big, allegedly slept with a lot of women, high profile affair with a movie star. Mitch, he’s been dead for a long time, he’s not exactly big news.”
She shook her head like you do when you can’t believe you are wasting time talking to somebody really dumb. I flushed.
“The point is, he’s been dead exactly fifty years this week. I want you to write a retrospective, how he got started, who he dated, who he shagged, the usual.”
“But, why?”
Mitch finally snapped, exasperated.
“Oh, for god’s sake Kat, stop arguing with me. He didn’t just die, you know that. And you know they never figured out who killed him. It’s interesting.”
I was still puzzled.
“But isn’t the anniversary of James Dean’s death coming up? Wouldn’t people be more interested in a big star rather than some obscure up-and-comer? Why aren’t we covering that instead?”
“Because everyone’s doing James Dean.”
“Would you like to rephrase that?” I winked at her, attempting a grin, and was rewarded with a withering look. Clearly not the time for double entendre. My face straightened as she continued.
“There’s nothing new about Dean. Everyone rehashes the same stuff. We’re going with something different. Think of it like this, Hill is to Dean what Mansfield was to Monroe. Not as big a star but still a fascinating story.”
“You’re the boss. Are you sure people will be interested enough to buy the magazine though?”
“If they weren’t interested there wouldn’t be more than one hundred Facebook groups dedicated to Xander Hill,” she said triumphantly.
“That’s not saying much, Mitch. There are hundreds of Facebook groups dedicated to “Which Sesame Street Character Are You?” and the difference between their, there and they’re”.
“Smart-arse.”
My chuckle screeched to a halt and I cleared my throat.
“Sorry. Look, okay, I get why you want me to write it but I still don’t understand why I need to go all the way to LA? Can’t I write it from here—you know, using the internet?”
She was losing patience with me.
“No. We have a scoop—an exclusive interview.”
“So? Surely I can do that by Zoom.”
“It has to be done in person. Not negotiable. My source is old school. Says he has some sexy new secrets about Xander Hill.” She waved her hands like an overenthusiastic game show host, “Never before revealed,” then dropped them as quickly. “So, you’re going and that’s that.” Her eyes were ringing dollar signs like a lit-up pokie machine and I admit my curiosity was piqued.
“So, who is it?”
“I’ll send you the details once you’re there, I’m still finalising some things. It could take a few days but let me assure you, it is a coup. If he tells us what I have a hunch he’s going to tell us, this could be really big. Kat, you’re lucky I’m not booting your arse out the door, be thankful this is getting you out of Sydney. Two birds, one stone and all that.”
I retrieved the photo and studied it intently. I couldn’t help thinking it was weird that the smiling face in the picture simply didn’t exist anymore. My dad came involuntarily to mind again and I squashed the thought. Today was hard enough. I snapped myself back to the present in time to hear Mitch wrapping up.
“—so, the basic whodunit theories, the scandal, but don’t get too serious. It’s the sexy stuff our readers want. Focus on that.”
That, I knew I could do.
“Well, I guess it’s a done deal then. So, when do I leave?” I started to flip to the reservation sheet, mentally calculating how many pairs of shoes I should pack.
“In three hours. You’ll need to head straight to the airport.”
“What?” I stared at the flight time in disbelief then glanced down at my crusty pyjamas. But—”
Mitch shot me a pointed look.
“Maybe you should have made more of an effort with your appearance today. Hmm?” She patted my hand across the desk. “Don’t worry kiddo, I took the liberty of packing you a bag from Sarah’s cupboard over in Style and I raided Miranda’s beauty trunk.” She nudged a grey hold-all from beside her desk with her foot. “Your passport is kept here anyway, you know that, there’s a proper camera in there—SLR—and I’ve booked you a room at the Chateau.”
My eyes widened.
“Marmont?”
She rolled her eyes at me as if to say what other Chateau is there?
“I don’t want you going home and I certainly don’t want you around when they release Kelly from hospital tomorrow. Clearly the press is still camped out. It’s best you’re gone and I don’t want anyone knowing where you’re going.” With that she plonked an archaic flip-phone on the desk along with a piece of paper. “Here’s your new email address and phone number.”
“Huh? My new what?” I nearly had to peel my eyebrows off the ceiling. This was all happening way too fast.
“This is all I want you to use. You won’t have your laptop either, you can use an internet café to check emails and file your story. Research only. Got it? I want you to stay off social media. Do not try reactivating your accounts. This phone has the main numbers you’ll need in it and I’ll send your temporary number to any important contacts for you. In the meantime, I’d like your iPhone please.”
She held out her hand and I stared at it, incredulous.
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.” She pushed a pen and notepad at me as I reluctantly put my iPhone on the desk. “It’s not going to kill you to unplug. This is damage control, Kat. Your number is public property, you’re easy to get hold of. You can’t tell me you haven’t been fielding unwanted calls 24/7 for the past week and a half. This way it all dies down. Nobody can photograph you, call you, talk to you and get some shitty comment out of context. You of all people know how it works. In the meantime, you get to keep your job and I get the story. Simple.”
“Are you sure that phone even works? It looks like it belongs in a museum,” I muttered, imagining answering the thing and copping an earful of dust.
Nausea washed over me as I jotted down a short list of names I wanted out of my contacts list. It was like a scene from a spy movie, your mission, should you choose to accept it, blah blah blah, except I wasn’t a spy and ‘choose’ was not the word for it. I’ll take ultimatum for a hundred, Alex. Although granted, ultimatums didn’t usually involve swanky, iconic hotels.
“And the Chateau? What’s with that? It doesn’t exactly feel like I’m being punished here,” I was more than a bit mystified.
Mitch made a little moue and hunched her shoulders. “If I want you in the thick of things, where better? Anyone who’s anyone stays at the Chateau. Keep your eyes open.” Was she deliberately trying to confuse me?
“But I thought I was supposed to lay low, steer clear of all that? Learn a lesson?”
The you’re an idiot expression crossed Mitch’s face yet again.
“We still have a magazine to fill. This is not some kind of intervention, Kat. I simply want you to check your facts. Focus on this story first but if you happen to see anyone of note behaving badly, you know the drill.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Would you rather I get you a room at the motor inn, downtown?” Images of grotty dumpsters flashed in my mind and I quickly shook my head. “Good.” Mitch stood and moved toward me, arms outstretched. She was definitely not a hugger so the overall impression, with her scrawny arms and emotionless face, was zombie-like and I flinched involuntarily. She stopped and patted me awkwardly on both shoulders instead. “Everything will be fine, Kat. Trust me. You’re not well-known in LA. Enjoy being a nobody, get the job done and then we’ll talk when you get back.”
Being a nobody? Ugh.
Before I could argue any further, she hoisted the hold-all onto my shoulder, shoved my passport, flight reservation and the photo of Xander Hill into my hand and bustled me out of her gleaming office. “I’ll email you everything else you need, Okay? Oh, and one final thing, Kat—” She shoved me unceremoniously into the lift and pressed the down button.
“What’s that?” I raised my eyebrows in query, expecting well wishes for a safe trip, considering my fragile state.
“Please wash your hair. You smell like Cheezels.”
The lift doors slid shut.
