Southern Charm (7 page)

“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

T
ripp
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.”

She turned dramatically and stomped toward the elevator. I met her there, out of breath and overwhelmed but smiling. The elevator door opened and we were off.

T
he Hermès store on Sixty-second and Madison Avenue smelled like money. There is no other way to describe it. I guess if I were forced
to break it down, I would say it smelled like a combination of leather, heavy brass hardware, and money. But mainly money.

Walking in behind Ruth, who kept her sunglasses on indoors much longer than necessary, I felt cool and important by association. The salespeople rushed toward her and took her coat. One of them nodded in her direction and then scurried to the back of the store. No more than two seconds later, he emerged with a chic-looking woman who spoke in a French accent. He introduced her to Ruth as Virginie.

“Zee caterers ahr heeeere,” Virginie explained.

Ruth nodded and flicked her finger in my direction with each bit of information. I stood to the side and jotted down notes.

“We are missing zee
fleurs
ahnd zee linens I dunno they are somewhere en route I am told,” Virginie continued, speaking so quickly that there were literally no breaths, no punctuation marks, between her thoughts. “All in all vee are not een such bad shape but vee are cutting eet close madame.”

“I see,” Ruth responded, her exterior calm and collected. She glanced around the imposing space, filled to the brim with every single luxurious item you could possibly imagine: waitlisted Birkin bags, silk scarves so gorgeous they begged to be matted and framed, Collier de Chien bracelets stacked one upon another, nearly jumping onto my wrist and begging,
Take me home!

“Why is the bar in the back corner, Virginie?”

“No clue,” Virginie said, waving her hand around. “You say better in zee front?”

Ruth frowned. “Let's put it over here.” She pointed at an area to the right of the stairs. “That way it's away from the chaos of the scarf display but still central. The point is to keep the traffic flowing. You don't want three hundred and fifty people beelining for the back of the store and ignoring Kevin's work,” she said. “Still, you don't want them so close when they take their first sip of rosé Moët that they're spilling it all over his gorgeous designs.”

There were so many details when it came to planning an event, all of which were second nature to Ruth. Did the cater waiters really
need to be wearing those ties? Were flowers even necessary? Where would we store the gift bags? I tried my best to answer these questions with educated guesses: Yes? Maybe? Under the stairs?

Before I knew it, we had solved all of the last-minute problems. The event was set to start in five minutes, my feet were already numb from standing and running all day in my once-precious Mary Janes, and little half moons of mascara had collected under my eyes. I stood in the corner and tried desperately to tidy myself up with the help of a cocktail napkin and a glass of Pellegrino.

“Mintyyyyyy!”

Ruth's voice came bellowing from somewhere in the back room of the store.