Diary of a Working Girl

21430_ch00.i-vi.qxd 1/26/04 10:00 AM Page i DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL

21430_ch00.i-vi.qxd 1/26/04 10:00 AM Page iii Diary of a

Working Girl

I

D A N I E L L A B R O D S K Y

b

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Diary of a Working Girl

A BERKLEY Book / published by arrangement with the author All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2005 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

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ISBN: 0-7865-6045-2

A BERKLEY BOOK®

BERKLEY Books first published by Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

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BERKLEY and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Electronic edition: December 2005

21430_ch00.i-vi.qxd 1/26/04 10:00 AM Page v For Aunt Tiny—

on behalf of everyone she inspired.

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O n e

Once Upon a Time

I am turning over a new leaf in life. Starting right now—at this very second in time—3 P.M., March 15, I will get out of my work rut, stop allowing fantasies of finding Mr. Right (and bouts of depression about not finding him) to invade almost every second of my life. I will start down the road to award-winning, top-notch freelance writer, rather than third-rate, barely-paying-the-rent freelance writer—as I have formerly been.

I know very well that I have said this before. And the reason I know this very well is because, when I called my friend Joanne a moment ago, she reminded me of just that. She called off specific dates and everything. “Well there was September fifteenth, and then October fifteenth, and then of course you swore this exact thing to me on November fifteenth . . .” and by the time she got all the way through to last month, she said, “Darling, isn’t that the 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 2

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D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

day you get your rent bill every month?” Okay, so there is a pattern. But what she doesn’t realize is that
this time
is different.

I. Am. Going. To. Change. My. Life.

I am ready.

Perhaps it took me a while to get here.

But,
now
, I am ready.

I can just feel creativity and energy oozing from every single cell in my body.

I am equipped with the essentials for embarking upon the path to success. My tools, as I sit down with them at my couch, are one brand-new red suede-covered journal, a purple gel pen, and my sharp-as-a-whip journalistic mind. You need a new notebook if you are going to begin your career anew. You can’t very well start fresh on a crinkled page in a notebook that has served as the palette for hundreds of rejected article ideas. For someone who does this for a living, a notebook like this is an investment. You need to surround yourself with beautiful, creative things if you ever hope to write beautiful, creative things. The government agrees with this, because you can even write those beautiful, creative things off on your taxes.

Gently, I turn back the spine to the first crisp, gold-leafed page to begin brainstorming article ideas. I breathe in. I breathe out. I pick up my pen and sit poised, like that famous statue,
The Thinker
, but with a pen—I am
The Freelance Thinker
. No,
The Creative
Thinker
. Perhaps I am not
The Thinker
so much as
The Writer
. Yes, that’s it, exactly. I am
The Writer
. I love the way that sounds.

I have to say that everyone loves the way that sounds. When I meet people, they are uniformly impressed with my profession.

And then, of course, they ask me exactly what I write, and this is where the men usually drop right out of the conversation. This is because they are completely uninterested in the new spring fash-21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 3

D i a r y o f a Wo r k i n g G i r l 3

ions, the fact that big belts have made a comeback, or that pink is
the
color for lips this season. But the next question is even worse, because that is inevitably, “So which magazines do you write for?”

It’s not that I write for
Penthouse
or something you need to be ashamed of in a moral way. It’s just that nobody has ever heard of the magazines I write for, like
Love Your Hair
, or
For Her
.

I’m sure you understand, then, that sometimes—not very often—I find myself embellishing the truth a bit. That is to say, rather than name the magazines that I actually write for, I name the magazines that I have most recently pitched for. But I always follow it up with, “Freelance writers are constantly pitching. You never know what’s just around the corner.” This makes me look like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl, rather than a how-sad-she-can’t-give-up-the-ghost girl. And then I can just go into all of the cool people that I’ve met along the way, and men, especially, get drawn into the exciting lifestyle I (supposedly) lead.

But after today’s work, I will never have to “embellish” again.

Never. I begin by putting today’s date at the top. Surely, when I look back at this page, from my new desk, in my new SoHo loft, which I will buy the moment
Vogue
hires me on as a permanent columnist, I will sit back, a vision in preseason Prada samples and custom-designed Manolo Blahniks, and remember this day with joy.

I peruse some old magazines I’ve got in hopes of stirring the creative juices and lose myself in admiration of a stunning charcoal bias-cut gown. The girl in the picture is draped over a velvet sofa, a mass of pearls twisted around her neck, one black beaded pump dangling from one very elegant foot. I can’t help it. I picture myself in the dress, only with crystal-beaded sandals to match (I think that would go much better), my highlights glistening in an explo-sion of paparazzi flashbulbs. I’m waving and smiling in that polite way I’ve noticed royalty do all these years. Yes, it’s all coming clear: 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 4

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D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

My purse will be one of those Lulu Guinness flowerpots, with the adorable sayings embroidered inside like a little secret only you know about.

My breath quickens, grows shallower, like I can’t get enough air.

My eyes go fuzzy. All at once I feel it, that overwhelming urge in my gut to know just how I can have this dress. Because if I get it, I’ll feel different than I ever have before. I’ll be glamorous in that everything-in-its-place way that has always managed to elude me in the past. When I open my silky flowerpot, I’ll know exactly where my lip gloss is for the first time in my life; and it won’t be that play-it-safe pink I always wear. It will be red, because once you’ve become that woman in that dress you’ll be that woman who can pull off crimson lips, too. If I want to pass a business card to someone, it will be precisely where it should be. I’ll be taller, more slender than ever before when I wear it; my eyes will somehow look greener than they ever have before. My eye makeup (always tastefully done) will be applied with a bit more drama, maybe with some smudging around the lash line and a shimmery bronze in the crease. It’s as if my whole life has been one big training session leading up to this one purchase. Now I feel this dress and everything it will mean so close in my reach; I am suddenly positive it will actually be mine—that it was destined to be mine—just because I want it that much.

I turn ravenously to the back of the book for the buying information. I estimate with sharp, rapid breaths of the sort only the

“have-nots” with serious “have” tastes are familiar with just how much the dress will cost with a description like “price available upon request.” I figure in the mile and a half of silk, and embroidered roses on each and every inch. Finally, I conclude I could definitely afford it if I exist solely on a diet of ketchup packets and 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 5

D i a r y o f a Wo r k i n g G i r l 5

free drinks and sell every item in my possession on eBay. I begin tossing said possessions into a “sell” pile. It is only after I estimate the value of most of my belongings that I realize the magazine is two years old.

Devastation overtakes me and I am ready to call it quits on the changing my life thing when it hits me. This sort of experience could make for a fantastic personal essay for a magazine like, say,
Bazaar
. “In Search of the Charcoal Gown,” I could call it. I begin writing, “When one woman falls for Badgley Mischka vintage, absolutely nothing less will do.” Those are the sorts of tiny descriptions you need to write with your pitch to explain what the article would be like and in what style you would write it. I leave out the part about the slight heart attack I suffered at learning the price was

“available upon request” as
Bazaar
readers somehow always have budgets for such things (“I bought one in every color!”), and instead take on the air of a wealthy society woman as I always do with such sophisticated publications.

These things come to me almost instantaneously. All I have to do is look at a pair of shoes, watch a television show, overhear a conversation and—
poof!
—there’s my idea. This is why I am positive that I will make it. But then I send out the ideas and nothing ever comes of them and then I am even more positive that I will
never
make it. Depending on the day, my outlook can vary drastically. Mysteriously, the outlook pattern has an inverse relationship to the chocolate intake pattern: outlook up, chocolate intake down and vice versa.

I make some mental notes about the cute adjectives used in lipstick descriptions: slick, pouty, glossy, shimmery—words that lend themselves to magazine writing, but most definitely not for everyday banter. Imagine being greeted pre-caffeination by some 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 6

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coworker with, “My you are looking so slick-lipped today!” It’s no mystery what you’d think of that person. Magazines should come with a disclaimer, “Kids, do not try these words at home!” Still, they are my words and I absolutely love mastering them despite the fact that I am more than aware of how dorky that is.

Twenty minutes later I am truly engrossed by a story of romance on page eighty-seven in the June issue of
Vogue
. It turns out this stunning princess (who can really pull off that tiara look like a star) and her debonair shiny husband have been married for fifty years and wanted to share their story with the world. Theirs—like all true loves—was born of the most star-crossed of circumstances.

She was meant to have tied the knot with some highly decorated, scarcely interesting older man from a neighboring nation. He was merely a dressmaker. For years and years, the princess had come to his atelier where he would admire the curve of her spine, the angle of her shoulder, and with every pin inserted, every tape measure pulled taut, she would shudder. Never a word was spoken between princess and dressmaker—yet he knew exactly which dresses to bring her each and every time she came to him. She always loved what he put her in—simple, long silhouettes that paid homage to shoulders, neck, long slender arms, and that is because he lovingly designed each with her in mind.

“Cutting patterns, slicing through the most rare crepe de chine with the precision of a surgeon to perfectly envelope a hip, a breast, I felt I was with her; we were making love in the most magical, mystical way. We were always together, even when apart. There was never another.”

He had no need for measurements or even to see her (these were merely excuses to be near her)—he knew the dresses would encase her ins and outs, rounds and straights with the delicate intricacy of a glove, as each was crafted from love and knowledge of her each 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 7

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and every inch. After fifteen years of silence, they fled to Madagas-car and there have lived ever since.

Under one photo in which the couple sits before a sparkling blue sea, the caption reads: “ ‘We love the mussels there!’ they both declare in unison. The ex-designer turns to the princess and with one brow raised in mock-suspicion admits, ‘But we cannot share them because she eats them up so quickly I never have a chance!’

The princess’s smile betrays her.”