Thirsty Read online

  Jeffery was very sweet and obliging. He would drop me at these meetings, go to Starbucks to work on a novel he was writing (I’m not plugging it, we have different publishers) and then pick me up afterwards. He’d ask how it went and I’d shrug and say, ‘Pointless.’ But I was so in love that I didn’t really care. I found the meetings irritating because I’d rather be spending time with him.

  I think it was starting to irritate him, however, that I refused to drive. I’m not a great driver at the best of times and the thought of driving in LA (still) makes me want to puke. I’d rather get an Uber. When we took trips to Palm Springs and Las Vegas, Jeffery drove, of course. My roles on those trips were simply ‘DJ’ and ‘wide-eyed tourist’.

  In Vegas we were invited to the opening of the US tour of Kinky Boots. We went for the night, but had to get back to LA the following evening as Jeffery was doing a stand-up gig. We left Vegas with plenty of time for the three-hour drive back to LA, but about twenty minutes out of Vegas we hit standstill traffic. Proper bumper-to-bumper, The Walking Dead-style, what-the-fuck, someone-better-have-died traffic.

  I frantically googled options for other routes we could take as I didn’t want Jeffery missing his gig. Otherwise I could’ve had an extra night in Vegas. I’m like an old lady when it comes to gambling . . . give me a glass of cheap wine and poker machines and I’ll be entertained for hours.

  I said, ‘I think I’ve found a side road a few miles back.’

  He said, ‘Really?’

  And I said, ‘Yeah, trust me.’

  He shouldn’t have. But he did.

  So we did an illegal U-turn across the ditch separating the two stretches of highway and headed back towards Vegas and this supposed side road I’d found online. We turned on to said road and hit a sign that said ‘Do not pass’. I thought, Oh fuck. However, as we sat there wondering what to do, a car that I’d seen in the traffic jam beside us earlier came flying past, drove past the sign and continued on down the road. Maybe they knew something we didn’t, so we risked it. Off we drove for a good half-hour, just us and the other car in the distance. We started to feel smug and laughed at how stupid the thousands of other drivers caught in the jam were for not thinking to try another route. We were even audacious enough to crank Taylor Swift’s 1989 for the forty-billionth time, the only album we’d brought with us.

  But our smiles were wiped off our pretty faces very quickly when we saw what must’ve been thirty cars parked all over the road, and people having concerned conversations. We pulled up and I got out to chat to some other drivers and find out what was happening. That’s when I saw the road had ended and there was a thirty-metre crevice separating where the road ended and started again with a twenty-metre drop in between. My first thought was, We could probably jump that if we got a good run up. I then remembered there was a reason I wasn’t driving in LA.

  I looked down the side of the embankment and saw a few people had taken matters into their own hands, deciding to navigate around the gap in the road, which meant driving down the hill, through what seemed like swamp, and up the other side. Nobody seemed to be having much luck, however – a Maserati was already stuck in the mud and, as I watched, I saw a big family van with about eleven people attempt the same thing and also get completely bogged. I’ve used the term ‘completely bogged’ before, but this is the first time it’s described a motor vehicle and not my Saturday evening.

  I was about to go back to the car and tell Jeffery we were probably going to have to go back and join the traffic jam (or, fingers crossed, cancel his gig and head back to Vegas to see if we could get tickets to Cher) when I saw the one thing you want to see in an emergency situation, a beacon of hope when times are tough: two lesbians, their border collie and their Jeep four-wheel drive.

  Gay men and lesbians rarely interact but come together like yin and yang whenever there’s a problem. Think Captain Planet: ‘With our powers combined . . .’

  I quickly approached and massively played the gay card. ‘Haiii, ladies.’

  After requesting I call them women, not ladies, they explained to me that they too were about to attempt the swamp crossing (again not a euphemism, although I have heard that phrase used in reference to lesbian sex). Apparently the key was to absolutely floor it. They said, ‘You boys can follow us if you like.’

  I immediately agreed, jumped back in our car and said words I had literally never uttered before: ‘Follow those lesbians!’

  I should point out the vast difference in our cars. The lesbians were in a spotless, ivory-coloured Jeep four-wheel drive. We were in the cheapest two-door sedan we could find at the local car rental back in LA. This didn’t stop us. We followed the lesbians, who flew down the side of the swamp. A crowd significantly bigger than any of our Australian showcase shows had attracted in Montreal had gathered to watch us attempt the crossing. Plus a few people had seen the confidence with which the lesbians got in their car and took off, so we had about another three cars following behind us.

  The lesbians flew across the swamp, past the bogged Maserati and people mover, where all eleven family members were now trying to push the car up the hill with no luck, and made it to the other side. Without even looking back, the lesbians flew down the road towards LA (and towards a protest march or working bee or whatever it is they had on that afternoon). Look, if their tattooed heads hadn’t been shaved their hair would’ve been billowing in the wind. I was completely infatuated and I will never forget them. Ladies – sorry, women – please adopt me.

  The rental car Jeffery and I were rocking was having a little more trouble, however. Lights were flashing as mud was getting stuck in the tyres and up the side of the car. Alarms I’ve never heard in a car were going off, Jeffery had his foot to the floor and I was providing crucial assistance by screaming hysterically at the top of my lungs. All the while Taylor Swift’s ‘Out of the Woods’ blared on the car stereo – ‘No, we are fucking not, Taylor!’

  If we’d had a metre more mud I have no doubt we’d have been stuck but with one last splutter, our car crept up the side of the opposite hill and starting flicking mud off the wheels like crazy as we built up speed. We’d made it! As we took off like lightning down the joining road, I looked back to see that the family immediately behind us had gotten completely bogged halfway, thus blocking the path for anybody else.

  A good day for the gays. Suck it, breeders!

  We headed down the road for another half-hour, laughing about how lucky we’d been and the hilarity of only the two gay couples making it through the swamp. We hadn’t seen a single other car in this time in either direction until, in the distance, I saw a large vehicle moving towards us.

  I turned to Jeffery and voiced still more words I never had before that fateful day, ‘Does that look like an army tank to you?’ What I actually thought was that of course the lesbians had gotten home, picked up their other car and were coming back to help us. He replied, ‘I think it is an army tank.’

  It was, in fact, an army tank . . . followed by about another fifty tanks full of men in army uniform, camouflage, guns – the whole get-up. I recognised it immediately because I’d seen an almost identical float at Mardi Gras eight months earlier.

  With the crazy traffic jam happening on the main highway and suddenly a convoy of military vehicles heading straight towards us, we turned to each other and said, ‘What the fuck do you think is happening? Is the world ending?’

  I frantically googled and realised the mistake I’d made. I sheepishly turned to Jeffery and said, ‘So . . . this road is closed for a reason.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Um . . . well . . . I think we’re on a military training road. Hence the “Do Not Pass” sign we saw earlier.’

  ‘Well, what the fuck do we do?’

  And I cannot believe these words actually came out of my mouth. I said, ‘Just blend in.’

  Blend in! Because two homos driving a dirty, rented, metallic blue two-door Ford Focus, both in singlets and Le Specs s
unnies were going to convince the army that we were meant to be there. We rolled past the tanks in silence (we decided it was best to turn Taylor down temporarily) and stared straight ahead.

  Oddly, not a single tank stopped us. We rolled straight on through, found a turn-off to the highway and jumped back on there. Irritatingly, the highway was flowing perfectly at this point, and seemed to have been doing so for some time.

  As we pulled in to a service station to fill up with petrol and clean off our mud-caked car, Jeffery got down on one knee. I thought, Odd time to propose but okay, I’ll go with it.

  But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at the car. He said, ‘Yep. I don’t think we’ll be getting our bond back.’

  All the way to Jeffery’s gig we laughed about the situation, the lesbians, and the Maserati probably still stuck on the Nevada/California border.

  A week or so after we’d gotten back from Vegas, I was down at the shops around the corner from Jeffery’s house buying ingredients for dinner. Jeffery had had some bad news about a gig he had been really hoping to score, so I’d decided to cook him dinner. Having said that, I’m a control freak, so in any relationship I will usually cook dinner regardless of the situation. Except when I’m in the African jungle and Julie Goodwin is around – I made an exception for that. I’m not an idiot.

  I love supermarkets in America – they’re so grand and full of things that a supermarket wouldn’t dream of selling in Australia, like cheesecakes the size of your head or catering packs of croissants that would feed a small country. Or cilantro, which is American-speak for coriander. Cilantro! Sounds like the pool boy in a Brazilian murder mystery. Brazilian as in the country – not the waxing technique. Although that is also a mystery to me.

  Usually my manager Andrew would only call me if I was on wifi but if it was urgent he’d make an international call to my US number. I was halfway down the ice-cream aisle, marvelling at the sheer variety of flavours, when he called me.

  ‘Hi. ITV Studios just called. They want you to be a contestant on the first season of Channel Ten’s I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! They reckon you could win it. What do you think? You’re not guaranteed in as yet but I need to tell them if you’re keen or not.’

  Without realising what I was saying, I said, ‘Sure. Why not?’

  Although it was the first Australian season, I already knew a bit about the show because of my British cousins and friends. In the UK, the show is in its billionth season and is truly their most popular show. People absolutely lose their shit for it. I also knew it involved torturing celebrities for the public’s enjoyment. I am not ashamed to say, however, that the thought of suddenly being called a ‘celebrity’ clouded any concerns I had about the torture aspect. As you’ll later read, it took twenty-four hours of life in the jungle for that to rapidly be reversed.

  I walked home with the shopping and almost felt guilty telling Jeffery my exciting career update when he had just had bad news about his.

  He laughed and in a very American way said, ‘So . . . you have to . . . eat bugs and shit?’

  I explained that there was more to it than that but yep, pretty much!

  He said, ‘So I won’t be able to talk to you for six weeks?’

  ‘I won’t be allowed to talk to anyone but the other celebrities.’

  ‘That sucks. I’ll miss you.’

  A few weeks later, when Jeffery drove me to the airport to return to Australia, it was a similar car ride to the one we’d had in Melbourne months earlier. Jeffery and I sat in a sad silence, knowing our incredible summer together was coming to an end and we were unsure when we’d see each other again. Jeffery had written me a note that he’d slipped in the front of one of his books, which he’d instructed me to read once I was on the plane.

  As I sat on the flight home to Australia I felt so many emotions: thrilled and already nostalgic for the incredible time we’d had together, so in love with him (confirmed by the sweet note he’d left me) and yet completely unsure of what the future held – apart from ‘the bugs and shit’, which were now looming (or should I say ‘buzzing’) on the horizon.

  10

  I’m a Celebrity . . . Haven’t You Heard?

  Back home, I busied myself for two months of I’m a Celebrity . . . preparations, which included many different interviews, doctors’ assessments and psych assessments. In early November I was told, ‘Good news – you’re not dying. And the better news is you’re not too crazy.’ (But I was just crazy enough, apparently.) ‘You got the gig. You’re going to Africa.’

  I was stoked. I knew this was by far the biggest career opportunity of my life at that time. And Channel Ten were already pouring tons of money into the promos, which were running around the clock and on every billboard and bus shelter, with people speculating who the celebrities would be. It was all very cloak and dagger. I had signed a contract to keep the secret to myself and a select few loved ones. I can’t keep a secret to save my life . . . just ask any of my now ex-best friends – I’d be a terrible spy. Give me two white wines and I’d give you the nuclear codes. Or a hand job. So the whole top-secret thing was incredibly difficult for me.

  On the day we shot different ‘in-studio’ elements, from the opening credits to our still shots, to the infamous ‘pressing the blue Channel Ten logo’ button, we were chaperoned through the rooms of a huge Sydney studio. It was weird knowing my future celebrity campmates were in the other rooms. I tried to look for sneaky clues and listen out for voices and quickly peek around corners when nobody was looking, but the production crew were hardcore and wouldn’t let us out of their sight.

  A week or so – and about sixteen vaccination shots later (I’m immortal now, just FYI) – I was walking through Sydney Airport in a discreet hat and sunnies, as per the network’s instructions, off to Africa. I was originally planning on getting a hat the size of a rural satellite dish like the one Andie McDowell wears to the first wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral because that’s my idea of discreet, but in the end I just went with a baseball cap. By then the excitement had also turned to a little bit of fear. I was starting to have nightmares about what I might have to do or experience – or eat, for that matter. And whether the Australian viewing public would like me or not, and if they’d vote me out straight away.

  All this was vastly outweighed by my determination. I kept reminding myself that I was funny, and that I had a strong management team looking after me, great friends running my social media and a handsome boyfriend in America who, thanks to the healthy pay cheque from this show, I would get to see more often.

  Oh, and as I always forget to mention . . . the chance to make some money for my charity!

  That sounded genuine, right? Selfless and giving, remember?

  Without doubt the weirdest, most surreal and physically exhausting day of my life was the day I was thrown into the African jungle with nine other celebrities and nothing more than the clothes on my back. That’s not actually correct (I also had some spare undies, socks and a framed picture of Harry Styles as my ‘luxury item’), but when am I ever going to be in a situation again when I can say that again?

  Before going into the jungle I truly had no idea who the other celebrities were – although, like all of us, I’d made some educated guesses based on newspaper articles. There were some wilder guesses too – Pamela Anderson, Kevin Rudd and Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) were all mentioned. Ugh, imagine having to eat okra and loin of wildebeest with those three? I’ll pass. But I knew that Barry Hall was going to be there because the driver who picked me up at the airport in South Africa told me. He didn’t realise he wasn’t allowed to, of course. Because, fair enough, the Johannesburg locals weren’t quite across the logistics of an Australian reality television series. The driver simply said, ‘I picked up this footballer earlier . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, what was his name?’

  ‘Barry Hall.’

  And I thought, Oh, shit! I really believed there was no wa
y in hell I was ever going to be getting chummy with a footballer, maybe because of my previous run-in with the Sydney Swans. I think that’s what the producers thought as well, because early on, Barry and I were very much pitted against each other – which of course I completely understand: it makes for great TV. I’m someone who absolutely judges a book by its cover (by the way, just quietly – how good is mine?). I’ll happily judge you before I’ve even spoken to you. And all I knew about Barry Hall was that he was famous for punching people on the football field. Team that with my previous experience of footballers – which is guys I went to high school with and my short-lived career playing for the Applecross Hawks in Grade 4 – I predicted a bromance was not on the cards for us.

  I entered the jungle on a Friday morning, having already been placed in lockdown in a luxurious African lodge for five days. I remember thinking at the time how glamorous and decadent the whole thing was, not realising that the producers were letting us have a last taste of being spoiled and indulged before dumping us in the harsh reality of camp. I was woken up at 3 am by my chaperone to go into hair and make-up. It was such a strange feeling, getting dolled up for TV so early – I felt like Karl Stefanovic getting ready for The Today Show! I put on an outfit I had spent weeks choosing, wondering if Barry Hall had done the same. We were told we had to wear a cocktail party outfit which ‘could get ruined’. I decided on a powder blue jacket, a white open-necked shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of tan shoes, which I’d had for quite a while and which, more importantly, I was therefore completely comfortable with getting destroyed.

  At 4 am the lodge ranger took me to the local air field in one of those open-top Jurassic Park vehicles. (I just re-read that sentence back to myself. How gay is it? I believe the straights call them Jeeps.) I dare you to go to Africa and not make a Jurassic Park joke. It’s very hard. I’m talking classic Jurassic Park, not that new-age Jurassic World shit with Bryce Dallas Howard running away from a T-Rex in Witchery pumps. That first day I was fully expecting a velociraptor to appear at any moment with Sam Neill in tow. Either that or a Channel Ten producer running over to apologise, saying they’d made a mistake and that they’d actually meant to book Josh Thomas.