set to sitar music.
Emily’s next written instruction was to pick up a pair of white shorts that Miranda desperately needed for Pilates. I figured we’d be headed to Polo, but she had written Chanel. Chanel made work-out wear? The driver took me to the private salon, where an older saleswoman whose facelift had left her eyes looking like slits handed me a pair of white cotton-Lycra hot pants, size zero, pinned to a silk hanger and draped in a velvet garment bag. I looked at the shorts, which appeared as though they wouldn’t fit a six-year-old, and looked back to the woman.
‘Um, do you really think Miranda will wear these?’ I asked tentatively, convinced the woman could open that pit-bull mouth of hers and consume me whole. She glared at me.
‘Well, I should hope so, miss, considering they’re custom measured and cut, according to her exact specifications,’ she snarled as she handed the minishorts over. ‘Tell her Mr Kopelman sends his best.’ Sure, lady. Whoever that is.
My next stop was what Emily wrote as ‘way downtown,’ J&R Computer World near City Hall. Seemed it was the only store in the entire city that sold Warriors of the West, a computer game that Miranda wanted to purchase for Frederic and Marie-Élise Marteau’s son, Maxime. By the time I made it downtown an hour later, I’d realized that the cell phone could make long-distance calls, and I was happily dialing my parents and telling them how great the job was.
‘Um, Dad? Hi, it’s Andy. Guess where I am now? Yes, of course I’m at work, but that happens to be in the backseat of a chauffeured car cruising around Manhattan. I’ve already been to Ralph Lauren and Chanel, and after I buy this computer game, I’m on my way to Frederic Marteau’s apartment on Park Avenue to drop all the stuff off. The incredibly famous designer! No, it’s not for him! Miranda’s in St Barth’s and Marie-Élise is flying there to meet them all tonight. On a private plane, yes! Dad!’
He sounded wary but pleased that I was so happy, and I came to decide that I was hired as college-educated messenger. Which was absolutely fine with me. After leaving the bag of Ralph Lauren clothes, the hot pants, and the computer game with a very distinguished-looking doorman in a very plush Park Avenue lobby (so this is what people mean when they talk about Park Avenue!), I headed back to the Elias-Clark building. When I walked into my office area, Emily was sitting Indian-style on the floor, wrapping presents in plain white paper with white ribbons. She was surrounded by mountains of red-and-white boxes, all identical in shape, hundreds, perhaps thousands, scattered between our desks and overflowing into Miranda’s office. Emily was unaware that I was watching her, and I saw that it took her only two minutes to wrap each individual box perfectly and an additional fifteen seconds to tie on a white satin ribbon. She moved efficiently, not wasting a single second, piling the wrapped white boxes in new mountains behind her. The wrapped pile grew and grew, but the unwrapped pile didn’t shrink. I estimated that she could be at it for the next four days and still not finish.
I called her name over the eighties CD she had playing from her computer. ‘Um, Emily? Hi, I’m back.’
She turned toward me and for a brief moment appeared to have no idea who I was. Completely blank. But then my new-girl status came rushing back. ‘How’d it go?’ she asked quickly. ‘Did you get everything on the list?’
I nodded.
‘Even the video game? When I called, there was only one copy left. It was there?’
I nodded again.
‘And you gave it all to the Marteaus’ doorman on Park? The clothes, the shorts, everything?’
‘Yep. No problem. It went very smoothly, and I dropped it all off a few minutes ago. I was wondering, will Miranda actually wear those—’
‘Listen, I need to run to the bathroom and I’ve been waiting for you to get back. Just sit by the phone for a minute, OK?’
‘You haven’t gone to the bathroom since I left?’ I asked incredulously. It had been five hours. ‘Why not?’
Emily finished tying the ribbon on the box she had just wrapped and looked at me coolly. ‘Miranda doesn’t tolerate anyone except her assistants answering her phone, so since you weren’t here, I didn’t want to go. I suppose I could have run out for a minute, but I know she’s having a hectic day, and I want to make sure that I’m always available to her. So no, we do not go to the bathroom – or anywhere else – without clearing it with each other. We need to work together to make sure that we are doing the best job possible for her. OK?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Go ahead. I’ll be right here.’ She turned and walked away, and I put my hand on the desk to steady myself. No going to the bathroom without a coordinated war plan? Did she really sit in that office for the past five hours willing her bladder to behave because she worried that a woman across the Atlantic may call in the two and a half minutes it would take to run to the ladies’ room? Apparently so. It seemed a little dramatic, but I assumed that was just Emily being overly enthusiastic. There was no way that Miranda actually demanded that of her assistants. I was sure of it. Or did she?
I picked up a few sheets of paper from the printer and saw that it was titled ‘X-Mas Presents Received.’ One, two, three, four, five, six single-spaced pages of gifts, with sender and item on one line each. Two hundred and fifty-six presents in all. It looked like a wedding registry for the Queen of England, and I couldn’t take it in fast enough. There was a Bobby Brown makeup set from Bobby Brown herself, a one-of-a-kind leather Kate Spade handbag from Kate and Andy Spade, a Smythson of Bond Street burgundy leather organizer from Graydon Carter, a mink-lined sleeping bag from Miuccia Prada, a multi-strand beaded Verdura bracelet from Aerin Lauder, a diamond-encrusted watch from Donatella Versace, a case of champagne from Cynthia Rowley, a matching beaded tank top and evening bag from Mark Badgley and James Mischka, a collection of Cartier pens from Irv Ravitz, a chinchilla muffler from Vera Wang, a zebra-print jacket from Alberto Ferretti, a Burberry cashmere blanket from Rosemarie Bravo. And that was just the start. There were handbags in every shape and size from everyone: Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Giselle Bundchen, Hillary Clinton, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Annie Leibovitz, Nicole Miller, Adrienne Vittadini, Michael Kors, Helmut Lang, Giorgio Armani, John Sahag, Bruno Magli, Mario Testino, and Narcisco Rodriguez, to name a few. There were dozens of donations made in Miranda’s name to various charities, what must have been a hundred bottles of wine and champagne, eight or ten Dior bags, a couple dozen scented candles, a few pieces of Oriental pottery, silk pajamas, leather-bound books, bath products, chocolates, bracelets, caviar, cashmere sweaters, framed photographs, and enough flower arrangements and/or potted plants to decorate one of those five-hundred-couple mass weddings they have in soccer stadiums in China. Ohmigod! Was this reality? Was this actually happening? Was I now working for a woman who received 256 presents at Christmas from some of the world’s most famous people? Or not so famous? I wasn’t sure. I recognized a few of the really obvious celebrities and designers, but didn’t know then that the others comprised some of the most sought-after photographers, makeup artists, models, socialites, and a whole slew of Elias-Clark executives. Just as I was wondering if Emily actually knew who all the people were, she walked back in. I tried to pretend I wasn’t reading the list, but she didn’t mind at all.
‘Crazy, isn’t it? She is the coolest woman ever,’ she gushed, snatching the sheets off her desk and gazing at them with what can only be described as lust. ‘Have you ever seen more amazing things in your life? This is last year’s list. I just pulled it out so we know what to expect since the gifts have begun coming in already. That’s definitely one of the best parts of the job – opening all her presents.’ I was confused. We opened her presents? Why wouldn’t she open them herself? I asked as much.
‘Are you out of your mind? Miranda won’t like ninety percent of the stuff people send. Some of it is downright insulting, things I won’t even show her. Like this,’ she said, picking up a small box. It was a Bang and Olufsen portable phone in their signature sleek silver with all rounded edges and the capability to remain clear for something like 2,000 miles. I had been in the store just a couple weeks earlier, watching Alex salivate over their stereo systems, and I knew the phone cost upward of five hundred dollars and could do everything short of holding a conversation