The Accidental Socialite

by Stephanie Wahlstrom

  “Now it’s time for The Seal,” she said knowingly to everyone in the group except me.

  The women in the class moved in unison, obediently facing to the side, sitting with their legs out in front of them. Obviously, I didn’t follow suit quick enough, eliciting an “amateur” look from the instructor. She walked over to me and spoke like she was teaching a mentally challenged child.

  “Put your legs out with your feet facing inward and your knees slightly bent, then place your hands inside the diamond.”

  I followed her instructions and told her where she could go in my head.

  “See, there you go, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Everyone in the class was staring. She tilted me back so I was sitting on my tailbone and had me grab behind my ankles. This was not unlike the position that kids did when they were trying in vain to put their legs behind their head. I was worried about what was coming next.

  “Now, you all know what to do. Oh sorry, except for you, you’re new,” she told me as if I was unaware that I had never done this before. It must have slipped my mind. Silly me.

  Everyone began to rock back from their tailbones onto their shoulders and then clap their hands together three times with wrists still wrapped around their ankles. She must be, as the English would say, “taking the piss.” But then the instructor gave me dagger eyes. I was definitely going to the corner and putting on my Pilates dunce cap if I didn’t get to rolling and clapping in the next few seconds.

  So, I shifted my weight and rolled violently onto my shoulders, pushing myself a little harder than I should have in fear of not having enough momentum. I fell over on my side with a very loud thud and the room was silent save the delicate clapping of my fellow seals. I decided to try again. If these women could do it, so could I.

  I readied myself for the second time and placed my hands in the diamond made by my legs. Grabbing the back of my ankles, I slowly pushed myself off my tailbone, and rolled down my spine and onto my shoulders. I was balancing and thinking about trying to clap, but every movement threatened to disrupt this delicate pose.

  “You must clap,” said the passive-aggressive Pilates Nazi.

  I clapped three times. Very slowly and unsteady but dammit, I clapped.

  “Now move back down very slowly,” the Pilates teacher commanded me. All of the other seals had finished their reps already and were politely watching me struggle.

  In the silence of the room, I started to shift the weight from my shoulders onto the middle of my back and felt a strange pressure on my vagina.

  Pffft.

  Oh my god, my vagina just farted.

  Stuck uncomfortably half on my shoulders and upper back for fear of more, I weighed my options. Everyone in the room definitely heard that, but I could still probably blame it on the movement of the mat. I decided to test the situation again.

  Pfffffttttttt.

  So, this was happening.

  I figured the best approach was similar to ripping off a Band-Aid, just go all the way through quickly and take the pain.

  Pft pft pft pffffttttt pffffttttt pffffttttt. Pft pft pft.

  I was sending out S.O.S. in Morse Code through my nether regions. Even my vagina knew how embarrassing this was.

  I finished the class quietly, trying not to make eye contact with any of the women in the room, but I could still feel the weight of their judgment adding five pounds to my ass. I didn’t even bother getting changed, just found my way to the change room, collected my bag, and left in a hurry. Collapsing on the tube seat and hiding behind my gym bag, I proceeded to die slowly of embarrassment.

  I got off at Earls Court and briskly walked home, tossed my bag on my bed and my phone fell out. The red light was blinking. I opened it and read Lucinda’s text.

  Your pussy is trending on Twitter.

  Carlos was eagerly awaiting me the next day in the office.

  “How have you not jumped off a building yet?”

  Have I mentioned that he was a super-supportive frenemy?

  “Seriously don’t want to talk about it.” I sat at my desk, wishing London actually made buildings tall enough to ensure a quick death.

  “Sorry, doll, don’t mean to make it worse—”

  “Well, you are,” I snapped.

  “But have you seen Emma’s email?”

  “Of course I haven’t, Carlos. My computer is still deciding if it wants to turn on today.”

  It was 10:03 and I was significantly late for work, but that was mostly because I spent an hour this morning reading all of the articles written about my vagina. Then I Googled flights home only to find that all direct flights had been cancelled indefinitely and a connecting flight would cost more than my gross monthly salary. Even airlines thought my hometown was a shithole.

  This whole London thing had turned out to be a really bad idea and I was officially stuck here until Christmas.

  Watching the hourglass turn over and over slowly on my screen was hypnotizing and I stared out the large window next to my desk as my computer decided whether or not it was going to work. I wish I had that choice. It was grey and drizzly outside, basically like every other day since I’d been here.

  I knew it rained all the time before I moved to London, but nobody told me that it wasn’t the cool freaky rainstorms we got at home where it seemed as if the world was about to end, and then when it passed you were left with hail dents in your car. The glorious sunshine that followed told you that it was just a warning to do something meaningful with your life before the next storm rolls through. And on top of all that, it smelled like fresh rain.

  London was just constantly grey, with thick clouds and light rain, and it didn’t even smell nice. The only variation was the wind speed that would go from nothing to hurricane from one day to the next and make an otherwise miserable day totally unbearable. I didn’t care if I had to walk home, across the Atlantic and through Quebec, I really couldn’t do this anymore.

  Suddenly, I needed tea. It was one of the traditions I hadn’t really warmed to yet, but this morning the idea of waiting for the PG Tipps bag to turn the clear hot water in my mug into a tawny Jacuzzi was a welcome distraction.

  “I’m off to make tea, want one?” As much as Carlos was pissing me off, it was a pretty serious faux pas in the UK to get up and make yourself a hot drink without offering to make one for everyone in your general area, which is why I’d never done it before.

  “Oooh, I’d love a brew. Strong milky two, please.”

  “Do I look like a fucking Starbucks barista to you? English, please.” I knew I was being unforgivably rude, but something inside of me wanted to destroy my own happiness and that of everyone around me. Carlos was glaring like he was ready to rip my head off, but then glanced outside and his expression softened. He reached into his drawer, pulled out a box, and tossed it to me.

  “Vitamin D?”

  “Leave the tea bag in for quite a while, take it out, add a splash of milk, two sugars, stir it, take one of those pills, and get yourself to a sun bed you miserable mare.” He furrowed his perfectly sculpted brows in frustration and then returned to his typing.

  Standing in the kitchen, I watched the water boil and realized that I had probably only had three days of sunshine since moving to London, and totally underestimated what that did to my state of mind. At home you might freeze your tits off in less than three minutes but the sun came up almost every day, even if it was just for a few hours in the dead of winter. Screw skin cancer, humans needed sunlight and once I had made the tea and delivered it to Carlos with my sincerest of apologies, I was finding the nearest tanning salon and going on my lunch break.

  Back at my desk, I was greeted with a response to a first draft of that advertorial I’d written for the at-home laser hair removal machine.

  From: Emma Taylor

  To: Paige Crawford

  CC: Carlos Rivera

  Subject: Re: LazHair

  This is rubbish. If you two spent half as much time wo
rking as you did playing in the cupboard I wouldn’t have to write this email.

  Sent from my iPhone

  My stomach turned as I read it. Not just because I was about to lose my job and any chance I had of making enough money to buy an earlier ticket home. Being unemployed would be bad enough and I could just blame it on Emma for being an uber cow that hated young and beautiful free spirits like Carlos and me. I felt sick because I knew Emma was right. She was stern, and maybe a little cold, but she was fair.

  I read back the copy I had sent her riddled with spelling mistakes and was embarrassed. I had actually left the heading as “Bear Your Bits,” which was basically the opposite of what this machine was trying to do. She’d given me an opportunity and I wasn’t taking advantage of it at all. The McDonald’s employee I’d argued with on my first night here took more pride in his work than I did. He wasn’t taking his employment for granted, even faced with a drunk semi-famous belligerent Canadian girl.

  I went into Emma’s office at lunch after I got back from the tanning salon. Armed with a pickle sandwich made the right way to apologize for, well, basically existing, I was ready to face the consequences.

  “Here is your lunch, Emma,” I said quietly and placed the plate on her desk. She didn’t say anything, which I didn’t really mind because if she wasn’t talking, she wasn’t firing me.

  “Paige, I heard about yesterday—”

  “Emma, I’m so sorry about everything. I’m never going to that gym again. I know I need to work harder and you warned me about embarrassing Fashionista. I promise from the bottom of my heart that my job will be my first priority from now on.” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and see the headlines forming: “PAIGE CRAWFORD FIRED FOR BEING AN INCOMPETENT DRUNK AND VAGINA FARTER.”

  “What I was going to say before you interrupted,” she raised her eyebrow to punctuate the rudeness of my interruption, “was I’m very sorry something like that happened to you. Most of us have the luxury of making mistakes in private. I’m not going to fire you, Paige. Believe it or not, I didn’t just hire you because you were in the papers. Your portfolio had energy, personality, and potential. The pieces you have done for me here have been … well, less than that. So this is a warning. I want the caliber and respect for your writing at Fashionista you showed towards dog feces in Canada.”

  “Emma, I promise. From now on you will only get my very best.” I backed out of her office before she could change her mind.

  When I trudged home that night in the darkness and rain, I realized I’d been so enamored with my new-found friends and the situations I happened to find myself in, that I never stopped to think if it was a good idea. Maybe London wasn’t perfect, but neither was I and the idea that it might be taken away from me made me realize that I hadn’t really given it my all. Most of the time I’d just been going along with whatever came up, not actively trying to create my own destiny.

  This fame thing and my social life was so consuming to the point I wouldn’t go anywhere without the promise of free food and drink. I was so caught up in the illusion of fame, I forgot that I wasn’t actually famous for a reason and it was having a negative impact on my career. On my entire life, actually. I came to London to find a new path, to figure out who I was and at the moment, it appeared I was a drunk fame whore. Not exactly what I was going for.

  As soon as I got home I locked myself in my room and crawled into bed. Philip was upstairs in the midst of his dinner ritual, so on my way down to the dungeon I grabbed a box of Special K with Red Berries cereal from the kitchen and ate it by the fistful while I scrolled through the Facebook profiles of my friends back home.

  Everyone’s lives seemed so simple. Every other post was “we’re engaged/married/expecting/buying a condo.” I wasn’t ready to fall in between one of those forward slash categories yet, but I envied their sense of accomplishment and moving forward with their lives. They were actively becoming grown ups and at twenty-two, I was actively avoiding it.

  But not anymore. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be a forward-slash-anything, but I did want to accomplish something meaningful in my life this year that consisted of more than accidentally breaking up a celebrity couple.

  I was going to have a real article published in a real magazine.

  For days I thought about what kind of article I could write: what it’s like to be a foreigner here, how to get free stuff at parties, how to find a gay best friend … the list went on. But they all seemed so ordinary, nothing edgy, and definitely nothing that would get the attention of the editors. I had to think of something big. I had to be a trendsetter.

  What was London known for? Tights, punk music, Bridget Jones? What could I bring to the table from middle of nowhere, Canada? It physically hurt trying to think of something I could say, with my voice, my angle, and not only that, but something that would get past the gatekeepers.

  I stayed late and studied all of the show notes various people had written up for the upcoming season and that’s when I found it. This was something from home, unexpected and totally what fashionistas would eat up, ironically of course. I knew exactly what I had to do. The first step was persuading Emma to get me a meeting with the features editor.

  It was early on a Tuesday. I checked Emma’s calendar and knocked on her door at a time when I knew she would be totally free. I was carrying a plate full of delicious homemade chewy chocolate chip cookies. Everyone loves cookies, right?

  I stepped gingerly into her office. “Ummm, Emma, I don’t mean to bother you, but I’ve got some fresh cookies I made last night.” Smiling from ear to ear, I hoped my enthusiasm would rub off on her.

  “You mean biscuits,” she said quickly without even looking up from her computer.

  “No, these are chocolate chip cookies I made at home, see.” I thrust the cookies at her.

  “They’re called biscuits in this country. You are in this country, so I suggest you call them by their correct name.”

  So, this wasn’t exactly the way I had pictured the meeting going.

  “Yes, biscuits. Well, they are really nice and soft and chewy.”

  Emma sighed. “What would you like, Paige?”

  “Oh, uh, well, I was hoping you could get me a meeting with the features editor. I’ve got this great idea for one of the fall issues—”

  “You mean autumn.”

  No, I meant fall. If I had meant autumn, I would have fucking said autumn.

  “Of course, autumn. Maybe October?” I said as politely as could be expected after being corrected twice in ten seconds.

  “Fine.”

  What?

  “Really? Do you want to know what it’s about?” I asked.

  “Not really, I’ll find out at the meeting. It’s Fashionista policy to let every employee pitch for one feature. This is your chance. We can do tomorrow at three with Gisele.” She went back to her computer, which was clearly my cue to leave, quickly.

  Shaking with a combination of excitement and terror, I sat down at my desk where Carlos was already grabbing two cookies.

  “What happened to the diet?”

  “I don’t care if I get fat. My new boyfriend is into bears.”

  “What? Like he’s Russian? But more importantly, what do you mean new boyfriend? What happened to Louis?”

  “So last season, hun. I’ve moved on. He can stay in that silly little cupboard of his.”

  This was very upsetting, not so much for Carlos, because he’d clearly moved on to greener pastures, but because this effectively meant the end of me raiding The Cupboard.

  “Now what am I going to wear for my presentation?” As if I wasn’t nervous enough, I’d been counting on some clothing-induced confidence from Louis.

  “You selfish little bitch. Ya I’m fine, thanks for asking.” His expression softened as much as the Botox would allow. “Don’t worry, I got you a couple of dresses before I broke it off. These were going to go in the sample sale but I pinched them for you. Happy birthday.”


  It wasn’t my birthday but I wasn’t about to turn down free clothing that I could actually keep. I gave Carlos a big hug, took a deep breath, and got straight to work on my presentation. This was going to blow their minds.

  At precisely two forty-five the next day, I was standing outside the conference room waiting for Gisele and Emma to arrive. My lunch remained on my desk, untouched because I was too nervous to eat. I knew my idea was good. Ground-breaking, even. But at the same time it was definitely a risk. One I really hoped would pay off.

  All I could hear was light conversation and the clicking away of keyboards. No footsteps. I’m not sure why I was this early and why I expected them to be either; this was a courtesy meeting everyone got. My palms were sweating. The way Emma had said “one chance” made me think that I was rushing into my only opportunity.

  At five past three, I heard the distinctive click of Emma’s Jimmy Choos. She came around the corner with Gisele and the three identical interns. I wished Emma had brought Carlos.

  We all sat down and I put down my bag of props, which I was now second-guessing, because they hadn’t even brought a notebook. My eyes darted around to the two glass walls and I realized there was a very real possibility that not only would I embarrass myself in front of my boss, someone I hoped would be my boss, and three inane interns, but that privilege would also extend to everyone in the general area.

  “Well, Paige, what do you have for us?” asked Gisele. I knew she wouldn’t print anything unless it was the best thing she’d read up until that moment in her life and thinking of that made my non-fat latte bubble up my esophagus.

  “I want you ladies to sit back, and fall for fannies!” I said with probably a touch too much enthusiasm.

  Gisele’s eyebrows lifted so high they were practically in her hair and Emma was looking at her, clearly blown away. This had to be the best idea I’d ever had. I picked up the pink dry erase marker I’d raided the stationary cupboard for and wrote “Fall for Fannies” in big block letters, finishing it with a few hearts carefully positioned to give it sparkle, without seeming like I was trying too hard.