One
Monday 17th May
‘Kat! ThankGodyou’re back. Can I grab you for a sec?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, forcing a smile. I’d only been in the office twenty minutes, and Heidi was already on me. I’d been mass-deleting emails with half a mind to ‘select all’ but didn’t want to miss any major news. Most problems had burnt themselves out but I liked to scan for red flags just in case, and I was only halfway through. I wasn’t sure if the team were being extra diligent or winding me up, but they’d copied me in on every single email – likeall of them. PR was the worst for overcommunication. Pre-meetings, post-meetings, meetings about meetings. It was a wonder we ever got any work done.
‘How’s everything been?’ I breezed, following Heidi into her office. I’d had a boozy fortnight in Los Angeles with my HIIT friends Sara and Abi – not that we’d done any exercise, obviously – and I was still in super-chilled holiday mode. ‘Any dramas?’
‘Just the one,’ she said, closing the door. ‘But a big one.’ My smile dropped as I sat down and braced myself for a bollocking. Heidi wasn’t one to exaggerate.
‘Excalibur have appointed a new chief marketing officer.’
Heidi paused to let the words sink in, but my mind was already three steps ahead at what that might mean for the agency and the team…and me. Excalibur Cruises was my account and the biggest in the agency, worth well over two million pounds a year. Twenty of us worked on it full-time to make sure they got their money’s worth in publicity, and any shift in the status quo was big news.
‘Havetheyyy?’ I said, slowly processing the information. ‘When? Why?Who?’
‘Greg called last week,’ Heidi said, quietly. Jesus. This was serious. Greg was the big boss and rarely spoke to us directly. ‘An American venture capitalist firm have come on board and the new CMO is part of the deal. Brooke Harris – quite the mover and shaker by all accounts – and she’s already made it clear she’ll be reviewing the terms of our contract.’
‘What’s Fran had to say about it?’ Excalibur’s marketing director had been there for five years – almost as long as I’d been at Northstar PR – and would give us the inside track.
Heidi slid a finger across her neck. ‘Gone. It was as much a shock to her as everyone else, by all accounts. Nothing she could do about it.’
I thought back to the missed calls while I’d been in LA and was glad I’d ignored her voicemails. There was always some crisis or other happening at work and I hadn’t wanted to get sucked into whatever it was. But this was next level. This was the kind of crisis that would have worried me to death and ruined my holiday entirely.
‘One thing I do know, is that our new client – andyournew best friend – has an impressive business background. Apparently she’s known in the industry as theQueen of the Cruisers.’
‘Now there’s a title,’ I said, arching an eyebrow.
‘Isn’t it. Ex-Sunseekers according to LinkedIn. She worked with them in Miami before the VCs sent in their head-hunters and her brief is to…’ she read off her notepad ‘…Popularise cruising among the British middle classes. So, the exact same brief we’ve always had: to acquire new customers and make them more money.’
I nearly laughed out loud. They already madetonsof money. Hundreds of millions in profit last year alone. The cruise ships were like floating cities, and Excalibur’s money was on display wherever you looked: thousands of stylish cabins, Olympic-sized swimming pools, multi-screen cinemas and a cabaret space on every ship. Money, money everywhere. Not to mention the food on board… there wasso muchfood. A never-ending buffet, fine dining, à la carte; Italian, Greek, French – every different type of cuisine you could imagine. No sooner had one meal service finished than the next one began. There were plenty of efficiencies to be made if Greg wanted to up his profits.Wewere not one of them.
‘Have you spoken to her yet?’
‘Very briefly on Friday but she wants to meet us both in person, so we’re going over at eleven.’
‘Today?’ My stomach clenched in panic. Talk about dropping me in it.
‘Yes, Kat, today. I did put it in your calendar – and I tried to call you several times over the weekend, but your phone was off.’
Heaven forbid I try and put some boundaries in place, but now wasn’t the time to say it. Heidi looked unusually pale, so I swallowed my own worries down and gave her a reassuring smile. These sorts of situations were always the big fear. We were only ever three phone calls away from having to shut up shop, but this was particularly bad timing as I’d been gunning for a pay rise, and it was meant to happen kind of now-ish. If my account went out the door, there’d be no money for a raise – more likely, I’d be going with it.
‘Let’s not panic yet,’ I said, already sweating.
‘No, there’ll be plenty of time to panic after the meeting,’ Heidi quipped. ‘Can you dig out the latest creds deck and be ready in half an hour? Jules has booked us a cab.’
I looked down at my jeans and sparkly boots, heart racing – I wasn’t really dressed for a client meeting. Especially not an ASAP-new-client-type meeting. Luckily there were a couple of dresses hanging on the coat stand, which doubled as my emergency wardrobe at times like these. Along with a freshly dry-cleaned jacket and my smart shoes. Such was the way in PR; you could be hauled in front of the client on a whim or asked to represent the agency at an event last-minute and suddenly you’re off to a champagne reception or a film premiere.
This glamorous London life was worlds away from my scouse roots, although my accent still popped up occasionally. I’d left school at sixteen to join a local PR firm in Bootle as an office junior, doing anything and everything I could to ingratiate myself with the team. I knew PR was going to be my industry from the moment I walked through the door. The wild ideas from the creatives were so excitingto my teenage self. Cleverly thought-through headlines with intricate illustrations and serious debates over how long a nose should be on a cartoon character. Was a bum crack inappropriate? Should she have boobs?
Then once I had my own client projects, I really started to fly. I was working on all sorts of products – cars, cereals, washing powder – my boss would point me at a brief and within weeks I’d be selling in ideas for a new campaign. I loved being part of the PR machine when it came to crisis comms as well: learning how to polish up a bad situation and spin a story in the clients’ favour. It was one of the many reasons Excalibur Cruises loved us so much – we did all that for them and more. At least I’d thought they loved us. Now I felt like I’d been cheated on while I’d been on holiday, betrayed by the only life partner I’d ever had. Fran must have been even more devastated.
I changed into my stretchy turquoise dress and stepped into my heels, then brushed my teeth and smooshed on some lipstick. Luckily, we had GHDs in the ladies’ loos, so I gave my ponytail a quick going-over to shine up the blonde and clip-clopped back to my desk. Andy, our head of design, gave me a whistle.
‘Look at you!’ he said. ‘Interview is it?’
I laughed. ‘No chance. You’re stuck with me here, I’m afraid.’
