Diary of a Working Girl (9 page)

But I’m not fine, and now I have to bend down to remove my shoe and jiggle it free. Only once I loosen my foot from the shoe, I step on something with my bare foot, and my stocking snags, and as I try to pull that free, I feel the distinct tickle of nylon tearing up my calf, as the run makes a warp-speed vertical climb.

“Always carry two pairs of stockings,” I’ve advised in articles.

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pairs that put together don’t even make you feel like fifty cents, you somehow convince yourself that the expensive ones never run.

Okay, I’ll just run into a store and grab any old pair of stockings.

That is, if I don’t die here, trying to pull my shoe from the grate.

Surely there’s a shop around. I’m trying to pull the gorgeous Jimmy Choo croc heel from the grate with the delicacy one would afford the crown jewels when all of a sudden, the shoe comes free, sending me sailing back to the ground on my butt.

I look at my shoe, ready to kiss it, really, for coming out in one piece, when I realize that it is not, in fact, in one piece at all. Well, rather
I
have one piece—and some subway rat is now scurrying off with the other piece—the quintessential piece—the heel, which has descended down into the disgusting depths of subway hell. I briefly hope that I haven’t hit a homeless person in the head with it. I have seen specials about the millions of people living down there. Maybe not millions, but lots. And a heel that sharp may be quite a useful weapon in the underworld. Great. Now I’ve (if fashionably) armed someone.

It is 8:20 A.M. and I have a heel-less shoe and a run in my stocking and may be responsible for the death of an innocent human being via stiletto stabbing. I am not off to the greatest of starts.

The only thing I do have is a cell phone and a number for my boss.

“Hello?” he answers.

I was hoping for his voice mail, and now he’s on the line, I’m not sure what to say. I opt for the truth. “Mr. Reiner. Hi. It’s Lane here.”

“Oh. Hi, Lane. You can call me Tom, you know. Everything alright?”

“Well, actually,
Tom
, I’ve had a bit of a mishap here with a subway grate and my shoe, so I’ve just got to pop back home and get 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 63

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another pair that actually has two heels, okay? I won’t be more than a half hour.”

I am pretty sure I hear a muffling sound, like when you put your hand over the receiver, and then a deep laugh in the background, before he says, “No problem, Lane. Do the best you can. We’re still getting everything all set for you anyway.”

“Thanks,” I say, and forget again to ask him how to get there. I’ll just have to take a taxi.

After I hang up, I realize I am pretty close to Century 21. Not around the corner close, but since I am all the way downtown, it will take me less time to get down there and buy another pair of brown shoes, than to go all the way back to my apartment and reconsider my whole outfit, which was built entirely around this pair of shoes.

I can’t believe how crowded this shop is so early in the morning.

People know how nuts it gets here and want to get a chance to scavenge the merchandise before everyone else. But since so many people have this same tactic in mind, it is not very effective anymore. I head straight for the shoe department and feel the electricity pulsing through my veins. I spot a pair of Clergerie platforms for only seventy dollars. It should be illegal to have so many beautiful things on sale for such little money. I am saddened that I can only buy a pair of work shoes, rather than fun platform sandals that would normally cost around $500. And they have the most adorable crystals embroidered on faux gold leafy-twisty things around the ankle (I know that this bohemian look is going to be HUGE this summer) and so, I just decide to try them on. They are spectacular.

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would really only cost—well, how much of it do you actually get back?—less, yes, much less than even the seventy dollars which is, undeniably, an extraordinary deal, anyway. I hold the box in my hands, because in this shop, people are eyeing what you’ve got, just waiting for you to put it back, under the idea that if someone else wants it, it’s got to be great, right? This is the sort of thinking that causes catastrophic trends like those humongous jeans guys started wearing years ago, and oversize sunglasses, and anything by Gaultier.

Halfway down the aisle, a miracle happens. A miracle in chocolate crocodile. The very same pair of Jimmy Choos I had broken is sitting right there. In a box. In. My. Size. It is a veritable miracle (since they are from this season) and makes me think that maybe, just maybe, miracles really do happen, and that the story of Hanukkah is actually true, and the oil really
did
last for eight nights.

And they are only eighty dollars. It’s a sign from God, and maybe I will found my own holiday to commemorate this day and this miracle. Someone is smiling down on me anyhow.

Perhaps the day will get off on a better foot now (no pun intended), I’m thinking as I pass by some adorable earrings at the checkout. They’re ten dollars so I toss them onto the counter with the rest of my purchases, which, after having scanned the clothing department, fill up two hefty shopping bags. I’ll be having lots of long days at the office, and who knows what I can expect in the sartorial disaster area, after today’s start? I’m just preparing. And I’ll be making so much money, I’ll be able to pay this credit card bill, no problem, I surmise as the cashier swipes my card through and I’m crossing my fingers that it won’t be declined.

The only problem, I realize, as the cab pulls up in front of a very large office tower with an adorable sculpture of a red umbrella outside, is that I now have two shopping bags from Century 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 65

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21, which, I’m not sure will make the greatest impression, especially now that I am late. How late am I? A quick glance at my cell phone tells me it is now ten o’clock. Not quite the half hour I implied.

I am waiting for my change and receipt when I really take in the scene at this building. There is a huge courtyard in front with trel-lised overhanging walkways and all form of greenery; to the side lots of benches are set up like a quaint little park. And on every inch of this property, and I do mean every single inch, there is something infinitely more wonderful than anything Mother Nature could ever produce. Something that would cause any living, breathing woman’s jaw to drop down to her ankles.

And that majestic, fantastic, utterly unbelievable something is men. Men in button-down shirts in various modes of buttoned—

all the way up, one open at the top, two open at the top. There are men in ties, men with no ties, men with ties tossed over their shoulders.

But wait, there’s more.

There are tall men, short men, men with glasses, men without glasses. I spy men in sports coats, long overcoats, suits. Men with briefcases, backpacks, messenger bags, holding files, plastic bags.

Some men are alone; some are in groups. There are men standing, sitting, walking, running,
bending over to pick things up.

And the best part?

There are very few women.

“Miss! Miss! Do you want your change or not?”

“Huh?” I wave my hand around to grab for the contents in his outstretched palm, unable to shift my gaze from this fantastic scene, and finally stand up gripping the spoils of my shopping spree, and slam the door shut.

Picture me, if you will, standing in front of this massive struc-21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 66

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ture, men literally oozing out all over the place (so this is where they have been all this time!), the sun shining, a gentle breeze blow-ing (and whipping hairs right into my gooey lip gloss, of course), just beaming at the fact that my hunch was one thousand percent correct. If anything, this phenomenon is more glorious than anything I could have ever hoped for when I’d pitched the article.

I do
know
this place though. I have been enraptured by its booty before. I have picked through its litter, so to speak. But at the time, I was in deep REM sleep. Only this Nirvana surpasses anything I have ever dreamed up (and I maintain a rather vivid dream life, mind you).

So, I do what any soon-to-be-famous magazine writer, who is now one and a half hours late, overflowing with inexplicable shopping bags, would do. I take note of the absolutely humongous smile that has formed on my face (and will probably necessitate a nimble surgeon’s removal), lower my sunglasses from my head to my eyes, run for a seat on the low wall that runs along one of the walkways and whip my phone out to call Joanne.

“Holy Fucking Shit!” I whisper-scream into the receiver.

“What? What?” she asks.

“You are not going to fucking believe how many men there are here. One just looked at me! Oh my God, and another one is checking me out right now! This is insane. Abso-fucking-lutely insane!” Now it is not like me to curse this much. Okay, yes it is, but I try to reserve the profanities for situations that truly require it.

But I’m sure I don’t need to make excuses to you for my fucking awe-inspired cursing. Can you just imagine? Can you just
fucking
imagine?

For a girl, who prior to this day, only had daily contact with the men on her block—the mailman, the FedEx man, a messenger, the guys at the deli, the superintendent, perhaps the odd delivery boy 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 67

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I’d scare as he attempted to shove a menu under my door—this is one utterly fantastic moment.

“Can I come meet you for lunch one day?” she asks.

“Ha!” I say, because I am so giddy and can’t think of anything else.

“You sound like you’ve just won the lottery.”

“I think I have,” I say. “Do you have a second to talk while I smoke a cigarette?”

“Sure, my boss isn’t here,” she says, not because her boss gets mad when she talks on the phone, but because he sits right across from her and has this annoying habit of asking “What? What did she say? What’s so funny?” every time Joanne laughs, replies or says virtually anything at all into the phone.

“Holy shit.”

“What? What?” she’s asking, sounding, I think, a bit like her boss. “What’s going on?”

“What isn’t going on?” I reply. “This is incredible. And I haven’t even gone inside yet.”

“Why not? It’s pretty late, isn’t it?”

“Well, I had a little incident with my heel and a subway grate this morning.” I’m talking kind of loudly now, because I’m sort of hoping some guy will overhear my conversation and think me wildly amusing and, well, sexy. One does, I’m guessing from the way his eyes rest on me as he’s walking past, and the way his head turns to look back at me after.

Now, lest you think this only happens to the most gorgeous women in the entire world, let me give you a bit of a clearer picture of me. I am a pretty girl. That is to say, in this world—the normal world, or rather, the one outside of the beauty and fashion businesses. And if you’re not familiar, “the industry,” as we insiders refer to it, is a microcosm in the universe where everyone has ac-21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 68

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cess to the best beauty services in the entire world: the hair color gurus; the biweekly blowout (daily in many instances); the BaByliss flatiron (bye-bye frizz); Paula Dorf makeup; lessons on how to use the Paula Dorf makeup (it’s all about contouring); the clothes (free!); the trainers; the wires to shut your jaw up with to drop twenty pounds; the Zone to deliver healthy meals to your home every day; the eyebrow artistes; and then, of course, the breast enhancements; the Ursule Beaugeste pocketbooks; the Chanel shades; the BOTOX; the endermologie; microdermabrasion; airbrushed self-tanner; laser hair removal; and on and on and on. And although I, through connections, have access to many of those things, there are many more women who have many more of those things (and, let’s face it, longer legs and smaller noses, tighter abs, skinnier arms). And so this causes me to fare on the bottom end of the spec-trum of their “fabulous, daahling” kingdom.

Press lunches at Barneys oftentimes bring on such raging attacks of ugliness and insecurity that I can’t even bring myself to go.

Those that serve cocktails normally allow me to at least take the edge off enough to speak to the goddesses whom I need to mingle with in order to succeed in my career.

But in this world, the world of finance, where the words

“remède” and “Decleor” are laughed off as overly exotic appetizers, and answered with “No, thanks, I’m allergic to fish,” and women are
just beginning
to understand the power of a pointy toe, I am truly beautiful. And I can tell from the way these men are looking at me that this is not just in my head. I feel taller, my nose barely visible, my legs are long, willowy branches gracefully sway-ing from my torso. My hair is long and smooth and doubtless re-flecting the rays of the sun in the majestic manner of Gueneveire riding through Camelot on a white horse. My hazel eyes are so 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 69

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green I may have to change their description on my license. People have always said I have great cheekbones (little do they know this is simply another shading trick), and when I remember this, I suck my cheeks in a bit now to make them even better. I glance down at my nails—slightly square shaped, and finished in a barely-there hue and even those are absolutely alluring. I have never felt more desirable in my life.