by Cat Marnell
BLLLLARRGGH. Shlosh. Those are the sounds of me vomiting. (Onomatopoeia! You can send my Pulitzer to my agent.)
I went through crazy phases. Like carrot cake. God, the carrot cake. Never has anyone eaten more fucking carrot cake than I did when I was twenty-three! The best was from a twenty-four-hour spot called Hot and Crusty on Lexington Avenue by the subway station. I was there so often that I eventually got embarrassed and started scoring it from other places (Starbucks, the supermarket bakery—anywhere I could find carrot cake). In rehab I’d learned that alcoholics switched up liquor stores to throw people off the trail of their addiction, so I gave it a shot. Which was a joke. Bulimics are very conspicuous! I mean, people are always telling me my face looks swollen on Instagram.
I binged during the day, too. Sometimes it was the first thing I did when I got up. Once I’d been to Food Emporium, Hot and Crusty, the Rite Aid junk food aisle, and the corner deli—my circuit—I’d hustle the two blocks home with my bags full and my heart pounding. Just so excited to binge. I couldn’t wait. And God forbid the streets be busy! Whenever people got in my way, or if the light at the crosswalk turned red and I was stuck at the curb for a minute—I’d feel just murderous. Same with when I was on a crowded elevator in my building with my grocery bags. Ping. Every time it stopped at a floor before sixteen I’d feel exponentially more homicidal.
Then, finally—I’d be home. I usually ate with the blinds closed—my Upper East Side Central Park view shut out—and the lights low, if they were on at all. The TV would be on but I wouldn’t see it or hear it, and sometimes my shirt would be off, so I wouldn’t get food all over it. I would go in on a hoagie like I was the monster ripping the head off that little man in the Goya “Black Paintings”—the murals he did on the walls of his house before he died.
Then I’d go into my bathroom—the vomitorium, if you will—kneel at the toilet, strip my tank top off if I still had it on, pull my long, blond hair back into a ponytail, and glug tap water from an old Poland Springs bottle I kept in there. Water helped. Then I’d throw it all up.
Some days, I’d resolve to stop and would dump all the food in the house down the trash chute in the hall. But the next day, I’d wake up feeling depressed and go buy it all again. I was allowed to use my parents’ credit card for groceries, which enabled me for sure. Bulimia is expensive—a real rich-bitch disease, quite frankly. All that waste! It’s so wrong; I knew it was. But that never stopped me. Bingeing straight-up anesthetized me, and I was hooked. I mean, you could’ve shanked me so long as I had a box of Entenmann’s chocolate frosted donuts in my lap. That’s how numb I got.
* * *
I’d been at Glamour for over a year when I got to go on my first press trip for the magazine. It was with Ralph Lauren fragrances, which was owned by the L’Oréal Group (who also owned Lancôme, Shu Uemura, Kiehl’s, and more). They were flying beauty editors via private jet to Memphis for a day to tour Sun Studios, the “birthplace of rock ’n’ roll”—where Johnny Cash recorded back in the day—and Elvis’s home, Graceland. And this was to celebrate the launch of a perfume called Ralph Rocks. Get it? No one on staff at Glamour could go—but Ralph was such a big advertiser, someone had to. That’s when Felicia and Mary called on me.
“Are you sure you can handle it?” Mary called me into her office to give me the spiel.
“I’m sure!” I said. I was so down. I’d never been on a private plane before. And this one would be full of the crème de la crème of beauty editors—the people I wanted to know and impress most in the world!
On the big day, a town car picked me up at my building on East Eighty-Sixth Street. I felt so special climbing into the backseat! It took me to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey—and dropped me off on the tarmac. Wow!
I felt very shy as I boarded. A few editors were seated already.
“Hi,” I said to a publicist. “I’m Cat . . . from Glamour.” I found a cushy, creamy leather seat to sort of . . . hide in. I watched cars arrive one by one on the tarmac.
Last to board was Eva Chen, the new beauty director at Teen Vogue (Kara had left to write a book). Everyone said young Eva was being groomed by Anna Wintour herself to be a Condé editor in chief someday.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” she exclaimed.
“No problem!” the publicists cooed.
I gawked from my little corner of the plane. Eva was wearing a tiny navy minidress over black opaque tights—she had long Edie Sedgwick legs—and a perfect little fur jacket. I wondered who made it. Probably J. Mendel.
We took off for Memphis. The day went well! I was shy at first, but it was fun seeing Elvis’s mansion, and I joked and chatted with the group as we took our tour and had lunch. I even talked to the vice president of Lancôme the whole flight back. The Ralph Lauren publicist thanked me warmly as she put me in a car home from Teterboro late that night. Playing editor for a day was like being Cinderella: the clock struck midnight, and it was over.
Someday, I thought as the car approached the Upper East Side, I’m gonna be a beauty editor for real. I couldn’t wait to be like Eva Chen. It was all going to happen for me; my dreams were going to come true. I mean, I’d been working so hard! I was sure of it.
* * *
When I graduated college that spring, I was officially on the job hunt. I liked Glamour and was freelancing there four days a week, but they weren’t about to put me on staff or promote me. It was time to move on.
Easier said than done! I wanted a staff beauty assistant job—a good one. But they didn’t open up often. My top ten choices were (in no particular order) Teen Vogue, W, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Lucky, Glamour, Jane, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and Allure. Vogue was never on my list because I wasn’t delusional. You had to be really together to work there! And I hated getting blowouts.
I interviewed and interviewed. And then I interviewed some more. I did informational interviews with Human Resources at Hearst Corporation, Condé Nast, and Hachette Filipacchi. I interviewed for nonbeauty gigs, like assisting Anne Slowey at Elle and Marvin and Jaclynn at Nylon. I interviewed for beauty assistant jobs at titles I didn’t even like, like Shop, Etc. It was Hearst’s low-rent knockoff of Lucky, the game-changing “magazine about shopping” that Condé Nast had launched to great fanfare in December 2000. Shop, Etc. offered me the position, but I turned it down. The magazine folded a few months later anyway.
My worst experience was at one of my top-ten titles. After our first interview, the beauty director asked me to write up a list of pitches for feature stories. I slaved over this fucking list! It was good, too: long, detailed, and creative. When I was done, I dropped everything off with reception at the magazine, along with a thank-you note. I was excited. I knew my test was strong.
I waited and waited, but I never heard from the beauty director again. No call, no e-mail—nothing! My follow-up messages went unreturned. Radio silence. I was crushed.
Less than a year later, I opened the magazine and saw a story I’d pitched. It was uncanny: the idea had been unique, and the specifics I’d laid out were all in there. The only thing missing was my byline. It was rotten business—all of it. I’d name the beauty director here, but the past is the past, dah-lings.
* * *
Then my dream job opened! Teen Vogue was hiring a new beauty assistant. The lucky girl would be working directly for the impossibly glamorous Eva Chen. Condé HR called to tell me I was on the short list and to schedule my interview. Whoa.
I took my “emergencies only” Discover card to Bloomingdale’s and bought two outfits: a $780 pleated Marni skirt (I wiggled the tags off the plastic chad, then fussed them back on again to return it) and a black, structured dress from DKNY with a chic silhouette and pockets. I got a neutral manicure. I got a blowout. I woke up the morning of the interview and did nude makeup. I arrived early. This job was mine.
Eva met me at reception.
“I have the
same skirt,” she told me. “I love Marni. Don’t you?”
“Totally,” I said. It was a sign!
The interview was great. Four days later, I was in the editor in chief’s office for round two. Now it was down to me and another girl.
“Who are your favorite designers?” Amy Astley asked, just like Holly told me she would.
“Rodarte, Dries, Miu Miu, Rick Owens, Marc Jacobs . . .” I didn’t miss a beat.
I called my mom the second I left the Condé Nast building.
“This is it,” I said. “This is it! I can feel it!”
“Oh, Caitlin!” She was as excited as I was. “Don’t jinx it!”
On Monday, I got the call. This was it! The first day of the rest of my—
“I’m so sorry . . .” the HR woman, Kirsten, began. I fell to my knees on the floor of my studio. They’d chosen the other girl. I didn’t mean to cry on the phone with the HR operative, but I couldn’t help it. She told me that I was at the top of her list for other beauty assistant openings. Still, I was shattered.
Later that month, I got a handwritten letter in the mail from Eva. It was long, covering both sides of her Teen Vogue stationery. She thanked me for interviewing and told me she just knew I’d find an amazing job soon—and that I was so passionate and smart that I clearly had a big future in the industry. I read that note about twenty times a day for a year! I have never forgotten her generosity. That Eva Chen is a class act.
* * *
Months passed. I was getting desperate. I’d been at Glamour for over a year and a half. But at least I was in the building every day. If I left Condé Nast, I feared, I might never get back in. So I stayed at Glamour, on autopilot, waiting for another “dream job” to open.
Every magazine I’ve ever worked for has had a “giveaway table”: a designated space in the office where editors deposited things like bedazzled Betsey Johnson thongs from Fashion Week gift bags (I still have one and let me assure you—wearing it is always a mistake) and nail polishes that are too fug to bother filing in the beauty closet. One day I was walking past Glamour’s giveaway table and spotted a galley—that’s an advance copy—of a book called Free Gift with Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup. It was by the beauty director of Lucky: Jean Godfrey-June.
I started reading it on the train home that night, and whoa! Jean Godfrey-June was so weird! And self-deprecating, and funny. Her writing was so glamorous. Like, the way she used words was glamorous. And I ate up her anecdotes about wearing a bonnet during an unhappy phase of her Northern California childhood, her strange encounters with JFK Jr. at Hachette Filipacchi, the terrifying French editors at Elle, the time Tom Ford gave her bedroom eyes at the Bryant Park Hotel, and supermodels who couldn’t answer easy questions about their own skin-care lines. By the time I finished the book, I was obsessed—obsessed—with Jean Godfrey-June.
“How was the Sephora lunch?” I’d ask Mary as she bustled in with a bag. “Was Jean Godfrey-June there?”
“Uh-huh . . .”
“Did she say anything funny?”
“I didn’t sit with her,” Mary would say. Then: “She’s just a person, Cat!”
“I know,” I’d answer dreamily.
I read Free Gift with Purchase over and over. I highlighted it, I dog-eared it. I kept it in my handbag at all times. I e-mailed Jean herself—we both had Condé Nast e-mail addresses, after all—telling her how much I loved it. She wrote back thanking me right away! I almost fell out of my chair.
I’d still never seen her in person, though. I was dying to!
JEAN, I would think, looking around in the elevator every morning. Would this be the morning I finally spotted her in the verbena-scented flesh? GODFREY. JUNE!
* * *
Do you believe in the Secret? I do. I had never thought more positively about anyone in my life than I did about Jean Godfrey-June and her book and her column in Lucky, and then, in August—a month before my twenty-fourth birthday—Condé Human Resources called. The beauty assistant job at Lucky was open. Did I want to apply? Was autoerotic asphyxiation sexy? Of course!
One week later, I was being escorted to Jean’s office on the sixth floor of the Condé Nast building to interview with the woman herself.
“Hello,” Jean greeted me. She looked just like I’d imagined, with long, wavy brown hair (Sally “founder of the thousand-dollar haircut” Hershberger had made Jean throw away her blow-dryer, she’d explained in Free Gift). She had a sun-kissed glow that I knew came from frequent applications of Lancôme Flash Bronzer for legs. Her desk was obscene with incredible beauty products, as well as art books, four floral arrangements, about nineteen lip balms, a Chanel boomerang, and—curiously—a rolling pin–size syringe full of chocolate pudding.
“Hi,” I said. Breathe.
The interview went well. Jean remembered my e-mail about Free Gift with Purchase, and she seemed impressed with my résumé. Both Felicia and Charlotte (who had once been her assistant) had sent recommendations. Then she sent me away with a mock-up page of Lucky. The photos of the products were in the layout, but there was “dummy text” (TKTKKTKTKTX OXLXOIJDSXOTJTOEDSMA OAFXTTL, $tktk, sephora.com) for heds (headlines), deks (subheadlines), and captions. I’d be filling in the blanks for my edit test.
It wouldn’t be too hard. The secret to nailing an edit test is familiarity with the publication for which you’re “auditioning.” I brought that page right home, took an Adderall, and went to town. JGJ was Lucky beauty, and I’d read her book so many times that her irreverent tone wasn’t hard to mimic. I also knew Jean’s rules; they were right there in Free Gift with Purchase. For example, she hated “locks” and “tresses”—goofy synonyms for “hair” that other magazines, obsessed with not repeating a word on any given page, used interchangeably. In Jean-world, you were allowed to use the word “hair” twice on one page. So I did.
Jean was also a playful writer, so I wanted to show her that I, too, could play. For a hair-mask item, I wrote something like, “This appealingly hefty brown tub looks like it’s just been fetched from a palm tree by a mischievous monkey—and the goopy, ultra-emollient deep conditioner inside smells fantastic and coconut-y, too.” The sentence structure and adding a “-y” to “coconut” was lifted directly from other Lucky stories: I had a stack of back issues in front of me. You’ve got to really pay attention! I took the “mischievous monkey” thing in and out forty times before deciding to keep it.
Then I sent in my test. A week went by, and I didn’t hear a thing.
I was walking home from the subway with headphones on, listening to—swear to God—“Lucky” by Britney Spears when the familiar number lit up my phone. It was the same Condé HR rep who’d called with bad news from Teen Vogue. But this time, she sounded happy! It was official: I was the new beauty assistant at Lucky magazine.
Chapter Nine
I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT MY new job. I loved taking the elevator to the sixth floor and walking past the three-foot-high, bright red Lucky behind the two heavy glass doors that only opened with my very special and exclusive pass. Beep. Then swish—I remember that swish—I’d be in, turning left, and heading down a long, gray-carpeted corridor, past the fashion closet filled with racks of clothes by obscure designers that I could borrow whenever I wanted. Then I’d hang right, past the edit conference room and the big beauty closet—which was full of the usual plastic bins and products, plus floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Times Square—and the mail room, which was stocked with heavy note cards and envelopes: Lucky stationery.
The business cards that eventually arrived for me were even more exciting:
Cat Marnell
Beauty Assistant
They were white and red, like Valentines. I sent a bunch to Mimi right away!
And then I was in the beauty department! It was L-shaped: three cubicles for the assistant, associate beauty editor, and
senior beauty editor, respectively, and then Jean’s glass-encased office was to the left. The beauty interns sat at a desk in the closet. That’s right—I had interns! Cute ones, too. It was the best feeling. I was in charge of hiring them, and I mentored them closely. (I’m still tight with a few of them to this day.)
I loved my desk, which was messy with Davines NouNou deep conditioners and MAC Cosmetics black eye shadows and Clean perfumes and press releases in chic Viktor & Rolf folders and little Kid Robot toys and dangly St. Mark’s Place earrings I was always taking out midafternoon when my lobes started feeling all throbby. The floor was piled up with black NARS bags and white Olay bags and brown-and-gold Gucci bags and white Fresh bags and hot-pink Alison Brod PR bags and bags and bags and bags and bags full of lipsticks, eye shadows, and perfumes. Did I mention that there were bags?
I loved my ugly black phone, which lit up when people called my very own CNP “(212) 286” extension—which I also loved—or to speak to JGJ. I was on that thing so much that I broke out in “phacne”—phone acne—underneath my chin, but I didn’t care.
“Jean Godfrey-June’s office,” I chirped like a Disney bird about ninety times a day. “This is Cat.”