relationship with the people who repped the variety of media personalities her readers couldn t get enough of. It wouldn t be a particularly good idea to tell Sam the truth: that his asking fee was completely overpriced for a wedding in which only half the couple was famous; better to blame it on the nameless, faceless accounts department and hope he agreed to drop his original asking price to lock in the sale. Look, it goes without saying we have interest from the other weekly mags, but Lulu really wants to do this with Juice, so have a chat with your finance people and let me know, okay? Call me when you know what s what. Nina sighed as Sam hung up he was obviously pissed that she hadn t fallen all over herself to lock the exclusive in then and there, but the days of magazines blowing that
kind of money on one issue were long gone. She d have to make sure she buttered him up by taking him to Chiswick, his favourite restaurant, the next time they went on one of their power lunches where every course was doused in a heavy layer of schmooze. Since becoming the boss lady of Juice, Nina had worked hard to develop a good rapport with the most important celebrity managers in Australia s entertainment industry. She wasn t stupid she was fully aware that her first stab as a magazine editor had left her reputation in tatters so she set about proving to people that she meant business in ways she knew would work: take them out to the best restaurants in town, lay her cards on the table, lock in an exclusive with their client, get her staff to treat the celebrity like the Second Coming during the interview and photo shoot, make sure she put
in a personal appearance at the shoot to make the talent and manager feel special, then follow it up with some impressive sales figures. Staring out her office window at the afternoon storm clouds gathering over Sydney Harbour, Nina rewound the events of the past eighteen months in her crazy life and pressed play. After humiliating herself via a very public meltdown on live TV that had been helped along by the nasty drinking problem she d developed to cope with the stress of working under her heinous crime of a boss, she d quit her job as editor of the monthly women s magazine Candy. She had assumed her days of editing a magazine were over, with a capital obvious. At that stage, she was past caring she d been so miserable at Candy she d decided that being top dog at a magazine wasn t necessarily the prescription
for happiness she d thought it would be. After all, not everyone was cut out to be an editor surely it was better to acknowledge and accept it rather than trying to hop back on a glossy show pony that didn t want you in the saddle. But after six months of drying out, clearing all the debris from her head and getting her life back under control, she was surprised to get an email from Kat, a former boss with whom she d always got on well, asking if she was interested in a short-term stint as deputy editor while Kat s second-in-command was on maternity leave. Although Nina was worried about stepping back into MagLand after it had all gone so horribly wrong, she knew this could be the first and last opportunity she d ever have to give it another crack. She d figured as deputy editor, the stress levels wouldn t be as stratospheric, and
she knew Kat wasn t a bitch of a boss. Plus the role was on a celebrity weekly title, which would be something completely different. If Nina was honest with herself, she had to admit she missed the buzz, missed being part of a team, missed the satisfaction of seeing people on the train reading a copy of the latest issue of a magazine she had helped to create. What had she got to lose? She was fully aware that all the staff would have heard about the messy end of her time at Candy, but she d just have to deal with the raised eyebrows and surreptitious stares when she got there. So she bit the bullet and said yes and had been surprised at just how much she loved it and how easily she had slotted into the world of gratuitous gossip, red-carpet rundowns and juicy scandals. So much so that when the editorship of Juice came up just as she was about to finish her