‘Wow, that’s really great,’ I said, all of a sudden feeling too tired to be witty or funny or cute. This guy was some big-time author – what the hell did he want with me, anyway? Probably just killing time before his girlfriend finished up her $10,000 per day modeling assignment and made her way over. And what does it matter either way, Andrea? I asked myself harshly. In case you conveniently forgot, you do happen to have an incredibly kind and supportive and adorable boyfriend. Enough of this already! I hastily made up a story about needing to get home right away, and Christian looked amused.
‘You’re scared of me,’ he stated factually, flashing me a teasing smile.
‘Scared of you? Why on earth would I be scared of you? Unless there’s some reason I should be …’ I couldn’t help but flirt back; he made it so easy.
He reached for my elbow and deftly turned me around. ‘Come on, I’ll put you in a cab.’ And before I could say no, that I was perfectly fine to find my own way home, that it was nice to meet him but he’d better think again if he thought he was coming home with me, I was standing on the red-carpeted steps of the Plaza with him.
‘Need a cab, folks?’ the doorman asked us as we walked outside.
‘Yes, please, one for the lady,’ Christian answered.
‘No, I have a car, um, right over there,’ I said, pointing to the strip of 58th Street in front of the Paris Theatre where all the Town Cars had lined up.
I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel Christian smiling again. One of those smiles. He walked me over to the car and opened the door, swinging his arm gallantly toward the backseat.
‘Thank you,’ I said formally, not a little awkwardly, while extending my hand. ‘It was really nice to meet you, Christian.’
‘And you, Andrea.’ He took the hand I’d intended him to shake and instead pressed it to his lips, leaving it there just a fraction of a second longer than he should have. ‘I do hope we see each other again soon.’ And by then I’d somehow made it into the backseat without tripping or otherwise humiliating myself and was concentrating on not blushing even though I could already feel that it was too late. He slammed the door and watched as the car pulled away.
It didn’t seem strange this time that even though I hadn’t so much as seen the interior of a Town Car two months earlier, I had personally had one chauffeuring me around for the past six hours, and that even though I’d never really met anyone even remotely famous before, I’d just rubbed elbows with Hollywood celebrities and had my hand nuzzled – yes, that was it, he’d nuzzled it – by one of the undisputed most eligible bachelors in New York City. No, none of that really matters, I reminded myself over and over again. It’s all a part of that world, and that world is no place you want to be. It might look like fun from here, I thought, but you’d be in way over your head. But I stared at my hand anyway, trying to remember every last detail about the way he’d kissed it, and then thrust the offending hand into my bag and pulled out my phone. As I dialed Alex’s number, I wondered what exactly, if anything, I would tell him.
It took me twelve weeks before I gorged myself on the seemingly limitless supply of designer clothes that Runway was just begging to provide for me. Twelve impossibly long weeks of fourteen-hour work days and never more than five hours of sleep at a time. Twelve miserable long weeks of being looked up and down from hair to shoes each and every day, and never receiving a single compliment or even merely the impression that I had passed. Twelve horrifically long weeks of feeling stupid, incompetent, and all-around moronic. And so I decided at the beginning of my fourth month (only nine more to go!) at Runway to be a new woman and start dressing the part.
Getting myself awake, dressed, and out the door prior to my twelve-week epiphany had sapped me completely – even I had to concede that it’d be easier to own a closetful of ‘appropriate’ clothes. Until that point, putting on clothes had been the most stressful part of an already really lousy morning routine. The alarm went off so early that I couldn’t bear to tell anyone what time I actually woke up, as though the mere mention of the words inflicted physical pain. Getting to work at seven A.M. was so difficult it bordered on funny. Sure, I’d been up and out a few times in my life by seven – perhaps sitting in an airport when I had to catch an early flight or having to finish studying for an exam that day. But mostly when I’d seen that hour of daylight from the outside it was because I hadn’t yet found my way to bed from the night before, and the time didn’t seem so bad when a full day of sleep stretched out ahead. This was different. This was constant, unrelenting, inhumane sleep deprivation, and no matter how many times I tried to go to bed before midnight, I never could. The past two weeks had been particularly rough since they were closing one of the spring issues, so I had to sit at work, waiting for the Book, until close to eleven some nights. By the time I would drop it off and get home, it was already midnight, and I still had to eat something and crawl out of my clothes before passing out.
Blaring static – the only thing I couldn’t ignore – began at exactly 5:30 A.M. I would force a bare foot out from under the comforter and stretch my leg in the general direction of the alarm clock (which itself was placed strategically at the foot of my bed to force some movement), kicking aimlessly until I had made contact and the shrieking ceased. This continued, steadily and predictably, every seven minutes until 6:04 A.M., at which point I would inevitably panic and spring from bed to shower.
A tangle with my closet came next, usually between 6:31 and 6:37 A.M. Lily, herself not exactly fashion-conscious in her graduate student uniform of jeans, ratty L. L. Bean sweaters, and hemp necklaces, said every time I saw her, ‘I still don’t understand what you wear to work. It’s Runway magazine, for god’s sake. Your clothes are as cute as the next girl’s, Andy, but nothing you own is Runway material.’
I didn’t tell her that for the first few months I had risen extra early with an intense determination to coax Runway looks from my very Banana Republic-heavy wardrobe. I’d stood with my microwaved coffee for nearly a half hour each morning, agonizing over boots and belts, wool, and microfiber. I’d change stockings five times until I finally had the right color, only to berate myself that stockings of any style or color were so not OK. The heels on my shoes were always too short, too stacked, too thick. I didn’t own a single thing in cashmere. I had not yet heard of thongs (!) and therefore obsessed maniacally over how to banish panty lines, themselves the focus of many a coffee-break critique. No matter how many times I tried them on, I couldn’t bring myself to wear a tube top to work.
And so after three months, I surrendered. I just got too tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally, the daily wardrobe ordeal had sapped me of all energy. Until, that is, I relented on the three-month anniversary of my first day. It was a day like any other as I stood with my yellow ‘I ♥ Providence’ mug in one hand, the other hand rifling through my Abercrombie favorites. Why fight it? I asked myself. Simply wearing their clothes wouldn’t necessarily mean I was a total sellout, would it? And besides, the comments on my current wardrobe were becoming more frequent and vicious, and I had begun to wonder if my job was at risk. I looked in the full-length mirror and had to laugh: the girl in the Maidenform bra (ich!) and cotton Jockey bikinis (double ich!) was trying to look the part of Runway? Hah. Not with this shit. I was working at Runway magazine for chrissake – simply putting on anything that wasn’t torn, frayed, stained, or outgrown really wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I pushed aside my generic button-downs and ferreted out the tweedy Prada skirt, black Prada turtleneck, and midcalf length Prada boots that Jeffy had handed me one night while I waited for the Book.
‘What’s this?’ I’d asked, unzipping the garment bag.
‘This,