‘Let’s get this straight.’ Max was addressing her boss, who was sitting at the other side of the showbiz desk at the Daily News offices. ‘You want me to walk down the Kings Road – one of the busiest places in London, littered with restaurants and shops – wearing only my bra and pants?’
Her boss stifled a laugh. ‘Sorry, Max, it’s not funny.’
‘Yes, it is. It’s fucking hilarious,’ piped up Simon, Max’s fellow showbiz reporter.
A few minutes earlier Claire had come out of morning conference with the various heads of department – news, features, sport, online – and the big boss, the editor of the paper, and gingerly told Max her name had come up.
‘There’s some woman in Sheffield,’ she’d explained to Max. ‘She’s in the paper today.’
Claire thumbed through the paper and opened it at a picture of a woman who looked like she’d seen better days. She was in a lacy black bra and pants in what appeared to be a changing room.
‘This woman, Betty, swears that the only way to go shopping for your summer wardrobe is to wear just a bikini or underwear – with a coat on top. That way she doesn’t have to take all her clothes off then put them all back on again every time she gets into a changing room.’
Max took in her words. ‘OK, so they want me to be the girl who tries out her theory?’
‘Why me?’
‘All the paper’s glamour girls are on location in Spain for a photo shoot and they want it in tomorrow’s paper so…’
‘Anyone will do?’
‘Yes, I mean no… you have the best figure in the office.’
‘Oh please.’ Max rolled her eyes skywards. ‘Well, it won’t be so bad – you said this woman wears a long coat to cover up, so I can too.’
‘Not exactly. As you know, the pictures have to tell the story and the best snaps will be of you in your bra and pants with all the builders ogling you.’
Not quite what Max had had in mind when she became a showbiz writer for the country’s second biggest-selling paper.
But she was smart enough – and fearless enough – to realize that, on a staff of hundreds of reporters, saying no to such a task would only count against her.
Not a black mark as such, but refusing would put her in the same category as the vast majority of writers who would never dare to do the daft things she found herself being asked to do on a weekly basis.
‘OK, I’ll ask the picture desk to assign a photographer and head down in a cab now.’
‘Good girl. Best of luck.’ Claire was suddenly businesslike again. Max was gone from her mind, replaced by thoughts of how she could prove that Madonna wanted to adopt her fifth African baby.
It was fine for Claire. Come tomorrow, it wouldn’t be her arse staring up at millions of readers around the country.