but to hobble like an off-balance giraffe on my one flat, one four-inch heel arrangement.
A quick stop in the Closet turned up a brand-new pair of knee-high maroon-colored
Jimmy Choos that looked great with the leather skirt I grabbed, tossing the suede pants in
the “Couture Cleaning” pile (where the basic prices for dry cleaning started at seventy-
five dollars per item). The only stop left was a quick visit to the Beauty Closet, where one
of the editors there took one look at my sweat-streaked makeup and whipped out a trunk
full of fixers.
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
Not bad,I thought, looking in one of the omnipresent full-length mirrors. You might not
even know that mere minutes before I was hovering precariously close to murdering
myself and everyone around me. I strolled confidently into the assistants’ suite outside
Miranda’s office and quietly took my seat, looking forward to a few free minutes before
she returned from lunch.
“And-re-ah,” she called from her starkly furnished, deliberately cold office. “Where are
the car and the puppy?”
I leaped out of my seat and ran as fast as was possible on plush carpeting while wearing
five-inch heels and stood before her desk. “I left the car with the garage attendant and
Madelaine with your doorman, Miranda,” I said, proud to have completed both tasks
without killing the car, the dog, or myself.
“And why would you do something like that?” she snarled, looking up from her copy
ofWomen’s Wear Daily for the first time since I’d walked in. “I specifically requested
that you bring both of them to the office, since the girls will be here momentarily and we
need to leave.”
“Oh, well, actually, I thought you said that you wanted them to—”
“Enough. The details of your incompetence interest me very little. Go get the car and the
puppy and bring them here. I’m expecting we’ll be all ready to leave in fifteen minutes.
Understood?”
Fifteen minutes? Was this woman hallucinating? It would take a minute or two to get
downstairs and into a Town Car, another six or eight to get to her apartment, and then
somewhere in the vicinity of three hours for me to find the puppy in her eighteen-room
apartment, extract the bucking stick shift from its parking spot, and make my way the
twenty blocks to the office.
“Of course, Miranda. Fifteen minutes.”
I started shaking again the moment I ran out of her office, wondering if my heart could
just up and give out at the ripe old age of twenty-three. The first cigarette I lit landed
directly on the top of my new Jimmys, where instead of falling to the cement it
smoldered for just long enough to burn a small, neat hole.Great, I muttered.That’s just
fucking great. Chalk up my total as an even four grand for today’s ruined merchandise—
a new personal best. Maybe she’d die before I got back, I thought, deciding that now was
the time to look on the bright side. Maybe, just maybe, she’d keel over from something
rare and exotic and we’d all be released from her wellspring of misery. I relished a last
drag before stamping out the cigarette and told myself to be rational.You don’t want her
to die, I thought, stretching out in the backseat.Because if she does, you lose all hope of
killing her yourself. And thatwould be a shame.
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
2
I knew nothing when I went for my first interview and stepped onto the infamous Elias-
Clark elevators, those transporters of all thingsen vogue . I had no idea that the city’s
most well-connected gossip columnists and socialites and media executives obsessed
over the flawlessly made-up, turned-out, turned-in riders of those sleek and quiet lifts. I
had never seen women with such radiant blond hair, didn’t know that those brand-name
highlights cost six grand a year to maintain or that others in the know could identify the
colorists after a quick glance at the finished product. I had never laid eyes on such
beautiful men. They were perfectly toned—not too muscular because “that’snot sexy”—
and they showed off their lifelong dedication to gymwork in finely ribbed turtlenecks and
tight leather pants. Bags and shoes I’d never seen on real people shoutedPrada! Armani!
Versace! from every surface. I had heard from a friend of a friend—an editorial assistant
atChic magazine—that every now and then the accessories get to meet their makers in
those very elevators, a touching reunion where Miuccia, Giorgio, or Donatella can once
again admire their summer ’02 stilettos or their spring couture teardrop bag in person. I
knew things were changing for me—I just wasn’t sure it was for the better.
I had, until this point, spent the past twenty-three years embodying small-town America.
My entire existence was a perfect cliché. Growing up in Avon, Connecticut, had meant
high school sports, youth group meetings, “drinking parties” at nice suburban ranch
homes when the parents were away. We wore sweatpants to school, jeans for Saturday
night, ruffled puffiness for semiformal dances. And college! Well, that was a world of
sophistication after high school. Brown had provided endless activities and classes and
groups for every imaginable type of artist, misfit, and computer geek. Whatever
intellectual or creative interest I wanted to pursue, regardless of how esoteric or
unpopular it may have been, had some sort of outlet at Brown. High fashion was perhaps
the single exception to this widely bragged-about fact. Four years spent muddling around
Providence in fleeces and hiking boots, learning about the French impressionists, and
writing obnoxiously long-winded English papers did not—in any conceivable way—
prepare me for my very first postcollege job.
I managed to put it off as long as possible. For the three months following graduation,
I’d scrounged together what little cash I could find and took off on a solo trip. I did
Europe by train for a month, spending much more time on beaches than in museums, and
didn’t do a very good job of keeping in touch with anyone back home except Alex, my
boyfriend of three years. He knew that after the five weeks or so I was starting to get
lonely, and since his Teach for America training had just ended and he had the rest of the
summer to kill before starting in September, he surprised me in Amsterdam. I’d covered
most of Europe by then and he’d traveled the summer before, so after a not-so-sober
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
afternoon at one of the coffee shops, we pooled our traveler’s checks and bought two
one-way tickets to Bangkok.
Together we worked our way through much of Southeast Asia, rarely spending more
than $10 a day, and talked obsessively about our futures. He was so excited to start
teaching English at one of the city’s underprivileged schools, totally taken with the idea
of shaping young minds and mentoring the poorest and the most neglected, in the way
that only Alex could be. My goals were not so lofty: I was intent on finding a job in
magazine publishing. Although I knew it was highly unlikely I’d get hired atThe New
Yorker directly out of school, I was determined to be writing for them before my fifth
reunion. It was all I’d ever wanted to do, the only place I’d ever really wanted to work.
I’d picked up a copy for the first time after I’d heard my parents discussing an article
they’d just read and my mom had said, “It was so well written—you just don’t read
things like that anymore,” and my father had agreed, “No doubt, it’s the only smart thing
being written today.” I’d loved it. Loved the snappy reviews and the witty cartoons and
the feeling of being admitted to a special, members-only club for readers. I’d read every
issue for the past seven years and knew every section, every editor, and every writer by
heart.
Alex and I talked about how we were both embarking on a new stage in our lives, how
we were lucky to be doing it together. We weren’t in any rush to get back, though,
somehow sensing that this would be the last period of calm before the craziness, and we
stupidly extended our visas in Delhi so we could have a few extra weeks touring in the
exotic countryside of India.
Well, nothing ends the romance more swiftly than amoebic dysentery. I lasted a week in
a filthy Indian hostel, begging Alex not to leave me for dead in that hellish place. Four
days later we landed in Newark and my worried mother tucked me into the backseat of
her car and clucked the entire way home. In a way it was a Jewish mother’s dream, a real
reason to visit doctor after doctor after doctor, making absolutely sure that every
miserable parasite had abandoned her little girl. It took four weeks for me to feel human
again and another two until I began to feel that living at home was unbearable. Mom and
Dad were great, but being asked where I was going every time I left the house—or where
I’d been every time I returned—got old quickly. I called Lily and asked if I could crash
on the couch of her tiny Harlem studio. Out of the kindness of her heart, she agreed.
I woke up in that tiny Harlem studio, sweat-soaked. My forehead pounded, my stomach
churned, every nerve shimmied —shimmied in a very unsexy way. Ah! It’s back, I
thought, horrified. The parasites had found their way back into my body and I was bound
to suffer eternally! Or what if it was worse? Perhaps I’d contracted a rare form of late-
developing dengue fever? Malaria? Possibly even Ebola? I lay in silence, trying to come
to grips with my imminent death, when snippets from the night before came back to me.
A smoky bar somewhere in the East Village. Something called jazz fusion music. A hot-
pink drink in a martini glassoh, nausea, oh, make it stop. Friends stopping by to welcome
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
me home. A toast, a gulp, another toast. Oh, thank god—it wasn't a rare strain of
hemorrhagic fever, it was just a hangover. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t exactly
hold my liquor anymore after losing twenty pounds to dysentery. Five feet ten inches and
115 pounds did not bode well for a hard night out (although, in retrospect, it boded very
well for employment at a fashion magazine).
I bravely extracted myself from the crippling couch I’d been crashing on for the past
week and concentrated all my energy on not getting sick. Adjustment to America—the
food, the manners, the glorious showers—hadn’t been too grueling, but the houseguest
thing was quickly becoming stale. I figured I had about a week and a half left of
exchanging leftover baht and rupees before I completely ran out of cash, and the only
way to get money from my parents was to return to the never-ending circuit of second
opinions. That sobering thought was the single thing propelling me from bed, on what
would be a fateful November day, to where I was expected in one hour for my very first
job interview. I’d spent the last week parked on Lily’s couch, still weak and exhausted,
until she finally yelled at me to leave—if only for a few hours each day. Not sure what
else to do with myself, I bought a MetroCard and rode the subways, listlessly dropping
off résumés as I went. I left them with security guards at all the big magazine publishers,
with a halfhearted cover letter explaining that I wanted to be an editorial assistant and
gain some magazine writing experience. I was too weak and tired to care if anyone
actually read them, and the last thing I was expecting was an interview. But Lily’s phone
had rung just the day before and, amazingly, someone from human resources at Elias-
Clark wanted me to come in for a “chat.” I wasn’t sure if it would be considered an
official interview or not, but a “chat” sounded more palatable either way.
I washed down Advil with Pepto and managed to assemble a jacket and pants that did
not match and in no way created a suit, but at least they stayed put on my emaciated
frame. A blue button-down, a not-too-perky ponytail, and a pair of slightly scuffed flats
completed my look. It wasn’t great—in fact, it bordered on supremely ugly—but it would
have to suffice.They’re not going to hire me or reject me on the outfit alone, I remember
thinking. Clearly, I was barely lucid.
I showed up on time for my elevenA .M. interview and didn’t panic until I encountered
the line of leggy, Twiggy types waiting to be permitted to board the elevators. Their lips
never stopped moving, and their gossip was punctuated only by the sound of their
stilettos clacking on the floor.Clackers, I thought.That’s perfect. (The elevators!)Breathe
in, breathe out, I reminded myself.You will not throw up. You will not throw up. You’re
just here to talk about being an editorial assistant, and then it’s straight back to the couch.
You will not throw up. “Why yes, I’d love to work at Reaction!Well, sure, I supposeThe
Buzzwould be suitable. Oh, what? I may have my pick? Well, I’ll need the night to
decide between there and Maison Vous.Delightful!”
Moments later I was sporting a rather unflattering “guest” sticker on my rather
unflattering pseudosuit (not soon enough, I discovered that guests in the know simply
stuck these passes on their bags, or, even better, discarded them immediately—only the
most uncouth losers actuallywore them) and heading toward the elevators. And then . . . I
PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com
boarded. Up, up, up and away, hurtling through space and time and infinite sexiness en
route to . . . human resources.
I allowed myself to relax for a moment or two during that swift, quiet ride. Deep, pouty
perfumes mixed with the smell of fresh leather to turn those elevators from the merely
functional to the almost erotic. We whisked between floors, stopping to let out the
beauties atChic, Mantra, The Buzz, andCoquette . The doors opened silently, reverently,
to stark white reception areas. Chic furniture with clean, simple lines dared people to sit,
ready to scream out in agony if anyone—horror!—spilled. The magazines’ names rested
in bold black and identifiable, individual typeface along the walls that flanked the lobby.
Thick, opaque glass doors protected the titles. They’re names the average American
