Southern Charm

by Tinsley Mortimer

  “On a Saturday morning?”

  “Minty, this is New York.”

  “Right.”

  I’d mentioned my desire to break into the fashion world to Emily at the Saks luncheon and she seemed to think it would be easy to find me something (which was surprising, seeing as I’d been on more interviews than I could remember in the last month). She said a friend of hers owned a PR firm and that she would check with her to see if they were hiring. I never thought she might actually make something happen.

  “Gosh, Emily,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

  “Give me a break, Minty,” she said, “I have been up since six A.M. for hot yoga and I’m currently alphabetizing my fall wardrobe by designer.”

  Her voice echoed like she was speaking through a bullhorn into a microphone. She must have had me on speakerphone.

  “Hot yoga?” I said. “That sounds like torture!”

  “It’s a necessary evil, Minty,” she explained. “Size two isn’t small enough anymore. Just the other day, Marchesa sent me some samples for the Whitney Art Party, and—hand to God—they were size double zero. What am I supposed to do, send them back and tell them that nothing worked?”

  “I think my left pinkie might be a size double zero,” I sighed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Anyway, this networking opportunity . . . well, I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn’t want you to get all nervous and overthink as you tend to do, but it could lead to an actual job.”

  At that point, my idea of a “job” had nothing to do with the reality of an actual entry-level position: twelve-hour days filled with constant coffee runs and standing in front of the paper shredder so long you go to bed with a buzzing noise in your ear. Instead, I thought the perfect job in New York would be something extremely glamorous and would signal my acceptance into the exclusive club of New York career girls who ruled the city. In my imagination, these girls did little more than sit inside large, glass-walled offices all day drinking skim lattes from Starbucks.

  “Meet me on Seventy-third and Lex at eleven. And don’t be late,” Emily said.

  She hung up the phone.

  Swifty’s was dark, with lots of oil paintings of dogs and pheasants and crisp white tablecloths.

  For the one billionth time, I felt completely out of place. Nearly everyone was dressed like they’d just come from a ride at the stables. I had never seen so many shades of brown! I, on the other hand, was wearing a floral-print tea-length dress, platform Brian Atwood pumps, and a white overcoat with a ruffled collar. As I approached Emily, who was already seated at a table in the back, I could tell from the expression on her face that I had swung at the fashion fastball and missed.

  Emily was wearing a camel cashmere sweater and khaki-colored stretch pants tucked into knee-high cognac riding boots. It worked on Emily but when I pictured myself in the same ensemble, all I could think was, Frumpety frump frump.

  “You look adorable,” she said.

  But her tone did not say “adorable.” It said “interesting.”

  “I have a hard time dressing for day,” I admitted.

  It was true. I don’t even own that many items of clothing that might be described as appropriate for day. Every once in a while I find J Brand jeans and a pair of Delman flats in my closet and wonder how they got there.

  “I remember,” Emily said, smiling. “It’s nothing a little trip to Bergdorf’s won’t fix.” She leaned in. “So, quickly, what happened with Ryerson? I thought for sure you’d be married by now. You two were like the perfect little couple.”

  I looked at the ceiling. “Ryerson decided he had some soul-searching to do,” I said. “That was over a year ago. The last I heard he’s still . . . searching.”

  “I see.”

  “We were young,” I continued. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  I had just picked up my menu, hoping for a change of subject, when I felt someone standing just over my shoulder.

  “So this is the perfect candidate you were referring to?”

  I turned around to see a woman as thin and spindly as a daddy longlegs, her wrists so slender they barely supported the weight of her Cartier Tank watch. Her hair was the palest silver gray, shaped into a perfectly symmetrical bob. She was probably in her late forties or early fifties, but her skin was smooth, without so much as a speck of sun damage. When she spoke, she pronounced each word in a loopy, soprano staccato, like one of those European ambulance horns. She was, in one word, intimidating. If I were allowed two words to describe her, I would add “hard.”

  “Ruth!” Emily exclaimed.

  Emily immediately stood up. She and Ruth engaged in some form of multiple cheek-kissing that happened so fast, it was almost as if it didn’t happen at all. When Emily turned to introduce me, I was already standing. From a very young age, I was trained to greet any new person at a table by standing up almost immediately and with as much enthusiasm as possible.

  “And yes,” Emily said, “this is your candidate—Minty.”

  I stared back at Emily, then Ruth, then back at Emily again. “Minty Davenport,” I said, smiling my best smile and making eye contact with my potential future employer. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. . . .?”

  “Vine,” Ruth said. “Ruth Vine. But please, call me Ruth.” She glanced at Emily and winked. “Makes me feel younger.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ruth,” I repeated, smiling.

  Ruth’s handshake was firm, a bit chilly. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I could instantly tell she was one of those New York power women my mother had warned me not to become: independent, unmarried, and proud of it.

  “Please, please, ladies, sit down,” Ruth said, motioning to the waiter to bring over an extra table setting. “Shall we order some wine?”

  Emily nodded and shrugged. “Why not?” She grinned.

  I agreed. In the South, drinking is an all-day affair, although it usually involves a little bourbon or Jack, not sauvignon blanc.

  Ruth grabbed the chair from the table behind her and plopped down, swinging her body sideways so that her impossibly long, Wolford-stockinged legs extended directly into the center of the room. The waitstaff, forced to step over Ruth’s legs, eyed her suspiciously.

  “Darling, how is Bruce?” Ruth asked Emily.

  Bruce was Emily’s boss, the CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue.

  “Oh, God,” Emily sighed. “What am I supposed to say these days? Cautiously optimistic? It’s a whole new landscape out there. We’re adjusting.”

  Ruth’s eyes twinkled. She leaned toward Emily, her shoulders squared, her whole body charged with conviction.

  “Resilience, Maplethorpe, resilience,” she said. She stopped and fiddled with the silverware at her place setting. “Jesus Christ, what am I saying?” she continued. “It’s a fucking nightmare out there right now. I’m lucky to have the means to hire an assistant”—she glanced at me—“let alone run a healthy business.”

  The waiter came over and poured a generous amount of wine into each of our glasses.

  “Which brings me to the blonde,” Ruth said, ignoring the waiter and turning in my direction, her eyes two sharp, inquisitive darts. “Minty, is it? You Southerners. You crack me up. So what are you all about, Minty? Tell me your story.”

  I began, my voice a little shaky and low. “Well—”

  Emily intercepted. “Minty’s a PBP girl. Chapel Hill, cum laude, Charleston born and bred. She was my little sister at PBP, so I’ve known her for years. Her mother is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and her father is the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of James Madison. Old-school southern-belle transplant, pretty much fresh off the plane.” She grinned at Ruth, who managed a brief smirk in return.

  I held up a finger. The James Madison part wasn’t entirely true—he was actually my father’s great-great-great-great-great-uncle—but Emily continued before I could get a word in edgewise.

  “She�
�d be perfect for RVPR,” she said.

  Ruth . . . Vine . . . Public . . . Relations, I spelled out in my head.

  “So, Minty.” Ruth turned to me. “How do you feel about fashion?”

  “Um, my all-time favorite thing?”

  Ruth laughed. “And events? How do you feel about parties?”

  “Tie for my all-time favorite thing?”

  Emily’s expression quickly turned serious and focused.

  “She’s one of the smart ones, though, Ruth. I can promise you, she gets it,” she said, implying that the majority of the girls who worked in fashion and events neither were smart nor got it.

  Ruth nodded and pursed her lips.

  “Let me have a look at you,” she said, motioning for me to stand up.

  I stood straight and proud, maintaining eye contact with Ruth as I smoothed down the skirt of my dress. I gave her another bright, sincere smile. I turned to the left, slightly, then to the right. I put my hand on my hip like a pageant queen.

  Ruth seemed to think the whole thing was hilarious, because she let out a howl and slammed her hand down on the table. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said, glancing at Emily, who started to slink lower in her seat. “She’s fucking adorable!” She motioned for me to sit down. “You’re like a Kewpie doll . . . Anyway, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts here. I’m assuming you can type?”

  “Um, yes?” I lied, placing my napkin back on my lap. “I type very well.”

  Ruth furrowed her brow. “Whaddayou call a dress where there’s a seam just below the bust?”

  “Ahm-peer,” I said, pronouncing “empire” correctly.

  Ruth grinned. “Nice. Well done.” She paused once more and thought. “Okay, last one. What was the name of Vivienne Westwood’s store on King’s Road?”

  Emily looked at me, bewildered.

  I knew the answer to this one! I’d studied Vivienne Westwood in a fashion history course.

  “Um . . .” I paused bashfully and whispered, “Sex.”

  “Excuse me?” Ruth turned her ear toward me.

  “Sex,” I repeated, slightly louder.

  “What was that?” Ruth leaned closer still. She was starting to laugh, thoroughly amused by my inability to say the word “sex” at a normal decibel level.

  “Sex!” I blurted.

  This time the entire restaurant heard. Two brunching ladies toward the front turned in my direction and lowered their large sunglasses in order to get a better look at the girl who cried sex.

  But the humiliation was worth it, because Ruth leaned toward me and said five fateful words.

  “When can you start, honey?”

  Emily and I released all the air in our lungs, filling the entire room with relief. Even the waiters, who were watching our table like we were the cast of a bad reality TV show, looked relieved. I wondered if they were going to start clapping or pouring glasses of champagne.

  I placed my hand on my chest, feeling it flush with excitement.

  I began, “Ms. Vine—”

  “Call me Ruth for Christ’s sake.”

  “Ruth,” I corrected myself. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work for you.” I had to catch myself from leaning over to hug her. “Thank you so much!”

  Ruth smiled, wrapped her fingers around her wineglass, and raised it in a toast.

  “To Minty,” Ruth said.

  I blushed as we each held up our glasses and clinked them together one by one.

  Be Cute and Quick

  Tripp did write me back. But it took him an entire week, and an entire week in southern belle time is a lifetime.

  The message itself was interesting. And by “interesting,” I mean ridiculous and terrible and lazy. It may have been one of the worst messages—including greeting cards and e-mails and text messages—I have ever actually received. I had waited a week to read the words: “Oh, hey.”

  No more, no less.

  I was so boggled by the nothingness of Tripp’s message that I instantly began to rationalize. There were so many possibilities: A fire drill! Short-term memory loss! Carpal tunnel syndrome! Or maybe he was just an idiot. There was also that possibility.

  Luckily, I was a busy girl. I was right in the middle of my first week as Ruth Vine’s assistant. I was so busy that I barely had time to breathe, let alone worry about Tripp and his terrible messaging skills.

  “Mintyyyyyy!”

  After just three days of working for Ruth, I had already learned to tune out the sound of Ruth’s voice screaming my name through the loftlike space of the RVPR offices. Lucky for me, the office intern, Spencer Goldin, sat next to my cubicle and seemed to have my best interests at heart.

  “Minty,” he hissed, elbowing me in the side. “Minty!”

  I jumped. I had been staring at my computer screen, nearly blinded by the Excel worksheet in front of me. It was filled with what seemed like a thousand yeses and nos and maybes and plus-ones and little notes in the last column marked by an asterisk that said things like, “May be filming in Vancouver but if in town will attend” and “Will only attend if hair, makeup, driver and stylist are provided.” I was already in charge of my very own RSVP list for one of RVPR’s most important launch events, which was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. Oh, and did I mention the event was happening that night? Gulp.

  “Oh gosh,” I said, jumping up from my desk. I could practically feel Ruth taking another breath in order to project my name through the loft. “Coming!” I shouted. “Coming, Ruth! So sorry!”

  I scampered through the loft in my patent-leather Mary Jane Louboutins, already sad and scuffed from the constant back-and-forth. I could only take tiny steps in my black Theory pencil skirt, and my starchy white blouse was tucked in so tightly I could barely turn my upper body. The only hint of color in my outfit was a large Kenneth Jay Lane statement necklace made up of a cluster of red and orange brooches. Emily had declared that this was the perfect New York career girl outfit, but I thought I looked more like a cater waitress with great taste in costume jewelry.

  “Minty, Jesus, you’ve got to get your ass here faster. My office is like twenty feet away.”

  Ruth liked to exaggerate. Spencer had actually measured the distance between Ruth’s office and her assistant’s desk, and it was closer to three hundred feet, or one hundred yards. So my constant back-and-forth was nicknamed the “hundred-yard dash,” which was funny to everyone in the office but me.

  According to office lore, Ruth purposely positioned her assistant’s desk on the opposite side of the loft so everyone could watch whatever poor soul it happened to be that year (or, sometimes, that month) running back and forth, desperately trying to please her. “We’ve got less than four fucking hours to get our shit together on this Hermès launch and I haven’t had a guest-list update from you since”—she paused, looking at her watch—“since something like almost a half hour ago.”

  She also liked to stress.

  “So sorry, Ruth,” I said. “I was just going through several new additions and I was just about to—”

  “Save it,” she said. “I don’t need to know why you’re not getting me the information I need. I just need to know the information.”

  “Okay . . . ?” I said, staring back at her blankly.

  She stared back at me blankly in return.

  “So?”

  “Um . . .” I pursed my lips together. Shit. What did she want from me? “Oh!” I exclaimed, my hands covering my mouth. “One minute!”

  I scampered back across the loft to retrieve the updated list. As I perched over my computer and pulled up the Excel sheet, my mind raced. I tried to skim through my e-mails. I knew there were several changes I still had to make, but there was no time! I could sense Ruth’s mouth opening and beginning to form the word . . .

  “Mintyyyyyy!”

  “Coming!” I yelled.

  Spencer looked up at me and frowned as I tiny-step sprinted back down the hallway.

  “Where is
it?” Ruth growled.

  I handed over the guest list. I knew very little about what was going on that evening. I knew that we were throwing a party for a new Hermès scarf at the boutique uptown. I knew that this scarf featured some sort of drawing commissioned by an up-and-coming designer and that the collaboration was supposed to be very “cutting-edge” for the brand and would help get a lot of “buzz.” Ruth used the word “buzz” a lot, as if getting buzz was the most important thing in the world. When I mentioned this to Spencer, he said, “Minty, for a publicist, getting buzz is the most important thing in the world.” And then he shook his head and walked away.

  According to Ruth, this “buzz” would then turn into press, which meant articles in magazines and newspapers, mentions on TV shows, write-ups on the most important blogs, tweets, and such. This, in a nutshell, was Ruth’s job. This was the job of RVPR as a whole. Because buzz turning into press often turned into sales, and the bottom line for any company was, well, the bottom line. Ruth was very proud that our efforts contributed to the bottom line.

  I only kind of grasped all of this, but the pace at RVPR was fast, and I had a feeling that if I didn’t “get it,” there would be no one holding my hand to make sure I was okay. So I opted for an approach I’d learned as an eager-to-please child: “Be cute and quick about it.” In other words, you may not feel comfortable or prepared or even willing, but always put your best game face on and forge ahead or you’ll be left in the dust.

  “All right,” Ruth said, “let’s get going. The car is here, yes?”

  The car . . . the car.

  “Oh! God. Ruth!” I felt like my stomach was turning three somersaults. “I totally forgot. Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” I stood there. Like an idiot.

  “Jesus Christ,” Ruth said, stomping over to her coatrack and grabbing one of the most gorgeous camel Max Mara cashmere coats I had ever seen. She threw it over her shoulders like it was a raggedy old sweater and motioned for me to start moving toward the door. “We’ll grab a cab. Get your things and make sure you have a clipboard.” She turned to face the office as I scurried toward my desk. “People!” she bellowed over the tops of the cubicles. “This is Hermès. I need your A-game. And I needed it yesterday.”