CHAPTER 2
‘Gregory,’ I pant. I’m now jogging to the car park because in these fight-or-flight situations my body feels most effective when it’s operating at high speed.
‘Morning Camilla, what can I do for you?’ Gregory is the Department of Education’s head honcho so he’s used to fielding calls from me at inopportune hours.
‘Gregory’—more panting—‘how quickly can we pull together the Education Infrastructure Fund?’
‘How quickly can we pull it together for what?’
‘To announce. Today. In the next few hours if possible. Archie Cohen just ran a terrible story on Boss. I need to create a distraction ASAP, but I also need to give the TV networks enough time to get interviews and footage before deadline. I want to send the release around eleven.’
‘So in three hours and, er, thirty-seven minutes?’ Gregory sounds bemused, as though he’s a plump nobleman trying to understand the concept of famine.
‘Correct.’
‘Camilla, can I ask what’s prompted the sudden urgency? When I last spoke with the minister, it was my understanding he wasn’t wholly on board with the policy.’
‘He’s changed his mind,’ I scrape out. I’m still breathing like a French bulldog.
A pause. ‘Really?’
There’s something in his tone I don’t appreciate.
Gregory has the luxury of thousands of staff and an Order of Australia.
He has the luxury of weekends. He’s probably about to tee off for a leisurely eighteen holes followed by a $28 sandwich in a clubhouse where mobile phones and skirts above the knee are forbidden.
The Gregorys of the world do not understand my world.
‘Actually, the minister has just texted. He reckons the media release should go out at ten.’
I hear Gregory cough. ‘Camilla, give me fifteen minutes. I’ll call you back.’
‘Thanks Gregory,’ I say curtly. ‘Appreciate it.’
I know that Gregory is smart enough to understand I’m lying, but I also know that he’s smart enough to play along, given Boss trusts me implicitly.
It’s hilarious how our political system has evolved to be so media-driven that for the sake of a good headline, a 29-year-old media staffer can boss around a man who was once named the seventh-most-influential person in Australia’s public service.
But it works in my favour, so I won’t be the one to complain.
I text Boss as I jump in the car: Going to announce the education infrastructure fund at 11 (10 if Gregory can swing it). You cool to do a presser this arvo? Or do you want an exclusive with Channel 4?
Sometimes I ask him questions like this so he feels like he’s in control.
Boss responds instantly with a heart reaction, then the words appear: Channel 4 please?
I send him back the thumbs-up and dancing-man emojis.
By the time I pull up at a beachside cafe twenty minutes later, I’ve confirmed the details with Gregory and organised the weekend camera crew for the Channel 4 exclusive.
I feel like I’ve conquered Mount Kilimanjaro in forty seconds with only a half-digested lemon for sustenance.
The headrush is so intense I think I’d almost fail a drug test. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window as I swan into the cafe.
I look like a slightly crazed Bratz doll.
‘Morning!’ I sing, squeezing between the green melamine tables to join my sister.
Jessie looks up from her menu. Her curly hair looks as wind-blown as the white-capped ocean across the road.
‘Woah,’ she remarks. ‘Are you okay?’
‘This is my resting joy face,’ I explain, dropping my phones onto the table and sliding into the seat opposite her. ‘And if I still look a bit beetroot coloured, it’s because I just went to spin class. It was epic. I went up to Level Eight.’
‘You are definitely adopted,’ Jessie says, flipping the menu over to check the specials. ‘But nice outfit.’
I glance down at my sweaty chest. I’m wearing a white tank top with black bike shorts and Jessie is wearing the same—only her neckline is trendier.
‘I’m not copying you,’ I say.
Jessie smirks. ‘It’s okay if you are. You always have.’
‘I never have.’
(I kind of have.)
‘Don’t worry, it’s cute,’ she says.
This feels patronising. It shouldn’t be a big deal that we’re wearing the same thing. We’re women of a certain age living in Sydney; we all wear the same thing.
‘Did you see my text?’ she asks, reaching for the water bottle to fill our tumblers.
This is a farcical question: she knows I always read my texts. This is a performative conversation designed to entrap me.
‘Yes, and I’m not coming.’
‘Milllll!’ Jessie wails. ‘You haven’t been to a festival in ages.’
Her tone makes it sound like I must be slowly dying from my own boringness; an implication I find offensive.
‘I don’t go to festivals anymore,’ I reply in a clipped voice.
‘Since when?’
‘Since I got a job.’
Jessie exhales theatrically. ‘Mill, this is ridiculous. You don’t prioritise fun anymore.’
‘My job is fun,’ I reply. ‘And in case I haven’t mentioned before, I am possibly the most effective early-career media director in the state of New South Wales. Look at the clips today.’
I pick up my work phone and start scrolling through today’s media monitoring bulletin.
‘Ooh! Here’s a riveting story I planted about the literacy framework. Ooh! And here’s the op-ed. Ooh! And here’s a great explainer on the policy advice—’
‘No sex noises for the policy advice, please!’ Jessie cries, sticking her fingers in her ears.
Unperturbed, I turn my phone screen to face her. ‘Look at this! Forty-seven media mentions of Minister Harcourt and it’s only eight a.m.’ I quickly scan the rest of the media clips.
‘This is what I was talking about,’ says Jessie, pushing my now-full tumbler towards me. ‘You’re always working. When was the last time you caught up with the girls?’
‘I have a phone,’ I retort, not bothering to make eye contact as I continue reading. ‘I catch up with them every day.’
‘By posting a few emojis in the group chat?’
‘It counts.’ I put my phone down and pick up my menu.
‘Your twenties is your time to be having fun,’ declares Jessie. ‘Seriously, when was the last time you got laid?’
‘Um.’ I cough. ‘That is none of your business.’
‘Of course it’s my business, Mill. Who else is looking out for your mental health? You’re not even looking out for it.’
‘I don’t think conflating sexual activity with mental well-being is healthy.’
Jessie groans. ‘If you could just accept that I am older and wiser, it would make this negotiation so much easier. You need to come to the festival. We must carpe the diems!’
I sigh. For the past week, all our conversations have looped back here, despite my efforts to change the subject.
Jessie has a spare ticket to SoulFest and has latched on to the idea that I should take it—an idea she won’t drop, no matter how many times I explain that I don’t have time and, frankly, don’t want to go.
I mean, yes, we used to go to festivals together but that was ages ago—before I got my shit together.
‘Jessie, have you completely forgotten there’s an election coming up?’
My sister huffs. ‘I guess if it’s on the same weekend …’
‘Oh no,’ I say brightly. ‘The election isn’t for eight weeks. But I’ll be on call until then.’
Jessie raises her palms to the sky. ‘You’re going to work every day for the next eight weeks? That’s a human-rights violation!’
My sister is always like this. Melodramatic, effusive, handsy.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, looking back to my menu. ‘It’s not like I have anything else keeping me busy.’
‘That’s because you don’t make space for anything else, Mill. You’re addicted to work, and you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of martyrdom.’
My work phone dings and Jessie lunges for it, but I swipe it from her grasp just in time.
I’m wondering if it will be Boss replying to my last text: a link to a Betoota Advocate article about the Strava habits of North Shore businessmen.
Since it’s not about us—or, rather, him—it’s not urgent, but I knew he’d appreciate the article.
But it isn’t a message from Boss, it’s a marketing alert from Cue. Ooh. Pencil skirts are thirty per cent off!
‘Gotcha!’ cries Jessie, swiping the phone straight out of my hands.
‘Jessica!’ I shriek. ‘That is a human-rights violation!’
‘Why? Is it a dirty pic? Is all this work stuff a cover for you having a secret Latvian lover?’
‘Latvian?’
‘Peruvian? Guatemalan? Greco–Roman? Am I getting warmer? OH MY GOD, are you getting back together with Bryan? I literally saw him the other day!’
I glare at my sister. Jessie is way too obsessed with the fact that Bryan and I still text.
She forgets that since he was always so lovely and I was the breaker-upper, I’m basically legally obliged to be nice to him for the rest of my life.
We dated years ago, for a paltry three months, and only because I was trying to be open-minded.
(Jessie was the one who convinced me to try dating him.
She said I needed to get back out there, though she used more graphic language.)
I point at my phone in Jessie’s hand. ‘I thought the text could be from my boss.’
‘So more work stuff?’
‘No, not really …’ I begin, before realising that it’s more embarrassing to explain that Boss and I text way too much on the weekends, even when we don’t need to. Jessie will see that as another blight on my seriously deprived social life. Better to keep it vague. ‘Kind of,’ I shrug.
‘Mill, we need an intervention.’ She grabs my personal phone.
‘I’m telling Dad.’ She’s holding the screen up to her face, hoping that the facial ID software won’t recognise the difference between us, which is ridiculous.
We look nothing alike. Jessie is a megababe.
Not in a try-hard way—more in a mermaid-hair, woodland-fairy-nymph-on-spring-break kind of way.
‘You’re dobbing on me?!’
‘Aha!’ she cries. ‘Your passcode is so easy to guess!’
‘Jessica!’ Before I can snatch my phone back, the FaceTime dial tone starts, and within seconds Dad’s forehead appears on the screen.