Sixteen
ONE
The first time her phone buzzed, Faith Harris was too busy taking photos of a burlesque dancer’s pasties to notice. They were new. Bright red and covered in thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds. Betty Boom-Boom was very proud of them and swung them from side to side for effect as Faith pointed the camera.
‘Hang on, Bets, I just have to get you in focus—slow down.’ Betty stopped swinging as Faith’s phone beeped again. This time Faith plucked it from her back pocket and impatiently read the message on the screen.
Answer your damn phone. CA
Faith winced. He’d been calling all morning. She knew what it was about. Which was why she hadn’t answered any of his calls. Or his emails. But now he was angry and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to ignore him any longer.
‘Sorry, Bets. I’ve got to sort something out.’ Faith let out a breath as she slung the camera around her neck and stared down at her phone.
Cash Anderson.
The wheatgerm in her smoothie. The run in her stocking. The one bar on her phone.
The man who annoyed her, stressed her out and did her head in more than anyone else.
Cash-freaking-Anderson.
Who was calling her to give her the boot. The man had only been in the job for four weeks but so far he’d upset programming, annoyed advertising and turned the entire editing department into fruitcakes with his constant demands and changes. And now he had his sights set on her and her TV show, Sexy Sydney. A show she’d been building for two years. A show that had gained her a reputation for honest, thought-provoking journalism. A show that he now wanted to can.
Faith breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Calm. She needed to be calm. She remembered her yoga. Be a bee. She stuck her fingers in her ears, closed her eyes and hummed—just like Sri Sri Ravi had taught her.
‘Mmm...’ she hummed.
She was going to lose her job. She had no savings so she’d have to move out of her flat and then where would she go? She’d left most of her friends behind in England when she’d moved here to follow her dreams. She’d only managed to make a few friends here—her job had taken all her time these past two years.
‘Mmm...’
She’d have to move home. With her mad mother and her disappointed father and her layabout brothers who teased her incessantly about her job.
‘Mmm...’
Then she’d start drinking heavily. And take up smoking and adopt a load of stray cats. And she was allergic to cats so she’d probably end up wheezing and not being able to breathe from all the cigarettes and cats and she’d cark it and they wouldn’t find her until her parents noticed a strange smell coming from her room.
‘Mmm—bloody—mmm...!’
Then she’d be dead and Cash-freaking-Anderson would finally be happy.
She unplugged her fingers. Not helping. Sri Sri and his yoga were useless. As was avoiding this phone call. She dialled Cash’s number and waited, her gut clenched, her neck tense.
‘About bloody time. Where have you been? Where are you now?’ his gruff voice boomed through the phone.
‘I’m interviewing Betty Boom-Boom. I told you I’d be here all day.’
‘Forget Betty Boom-Boom. I need you here.’ Faith felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. His tone was abrupt and demanding. She was reminded of the principal of her boarding school. Unrelenting. Harsh. A man who was incapable of understanding, even when a young girl was miles from home—scared, lonely and unable to fit in. That principal had told her to ‘toughen up’. And she had—which was why she wasn’t going to let this man push her around.
‘I really can’t. I have to get these photos—the crew want to come and shoot tomorrow and I need to do the sheets up.’
‘Faith. I’ll expect you back here in twenty minutes.’ He hung up. Twenty minutes. Yet she was forty-five minutes away. She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell she’d got herself into. Only a few short years ago her dreams had seemed so clear. International travel and journalistic awards. They were the only two dreams she’d held her whole life. Ever since she was seven and found herself alone and unable to make friends in a new school full of girls with strange accents who seemed to consider her the resident freak. Back in those days her thick northern country accent, wild hair and outrageous comments made her the butt of many jokes. She’d learned to be small, to disappear and she’d gone to a lot of trouble to develop the thick, tough layer that now surrounded her. A layer she’d need to reinforce to deal with the abrupt, plain-speaking man who was determined to ruin all her plans. The Sexy Sydney show was her baby. She’d dreamt it up when she got her first station job back in Newcastle but no TV station in England would run it. Everyone called her bonkers; they’d snickered behind her back. But that was two years ago and everything had changed since then. Her dreams had come true. Escape. Freedom. Recognition. Finally. After being made fun of for so long, she was finally getting on her feet and now Cash Anderson was trying to take it all away.
‘I’ve gotta go, Bets.’
‘It’s not that gorgeous boss of yours again, is it?’
Faith groaned. There was no denying the man was handsome. You could cut a piece of cheesecake with his cheekbones. But looks meant nothing to her. This man was a hard-headed businessman who wanted to shut down everything that was good about the station and inflict his stupid ‘cost-cutting’ ideas on them all.
‘It’s the good-looking ones you have to watch, Bets. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to shut my show down.’
‘The bastard!’ Faith preened at Betty’s indignation on her behalf.
‘Right? It’s a good segment. Australia needs to know about this stuff.’
‘Of course they do. We’re artists, not strippers, and what we do is a valuable part of our culture.’
‘Yes! Exactly. But he doesn’t get that. Him and his prudish attitude. You know what