Apron Anxiety Read Online Free Page B
Author: Alyssa Shelasky
because I didn’t have many friends from college, and my true pals—Anzo, Kates, Court, and Jean—were still living in Massachusetts. So the hustle and bustle became my life.
On my twenty-first birthday I splurged on a low-cut leopard-print Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress from Saks Fifth Avenue, and my sister threw a party for me, inviting all my acquaintances from my various workplaces to a groovy tiki lounge. I made her invite a bunch of her friends, too, as space-fillers, just in case. That night, about sixty people showed up; I felt like the star of my own movie. “Sorry, Lys, but you really can’t say you have no friends anymore,” toasted Rachel. Then, under a plastic palm tree, over a rum punch, Rachel introduced me to Gary, a great-looking guy with big green eyes and a starter job on Wall Street. He reminded me of my dad—not as playful and funny, but similarly good and honest. He was definitely on the square side, but he became my first serious postcollege boyfriend.
Speaking of my dad, around this time my mother had threatened to divorce him if he refused to move to New York City so they could be closer to me and my sister, who was attending college upstate. He put up a fight for a full three hours, and then closed his uniform shop and did as she said. Their plan was for her to sell real estate and for him to keep his regularuniform clients via a home office. They swapped our lovely home in New England for an apartment the size of an armoire, and arrived on the Upper West Side with no savings, one subway map, and not a second of regret.
Money became tight in my folks’ transition from Longmeadow to Manhattan, so I’d insist on comping meals for them a couple nights a week at Sarabeth’s. Like most of my customers, they’d salivate over the famous, velvety tomato soup, slurping up spoonfuls and spoonfuls with pure delight. I finally had an appetite again and drank the yummy soup now and then, but by in large, I remained uninterested in food. I would eat whatever didn’t sell from the Sarabeth’s bakery, or grilled chicken salads on dull double dates with Gary, or anything that I could find in the mini-fridge at my studio. Food didn’t turn me on or off, and it certainly didn’t make me moan. But the sexy struggling actor who worked the night shift at Sarabeth’s, while my oblivious boyfriend put in banking hours, took care of that.
Life was good, back in early 2001.
And then one morning, I got off the subway downtown on Fourteenth Street and saw a big crowd on the street. It sounds crazy, but my immediate reaction was
Sample sale?
I walked to the corner deli and ordered an egg-and-cheese sandwich, and everyone was acting strange in there, too. When I went outside, already unwrapping my breakfast, a woman had dropped her dry-cleaning bags and collapsed into tears in the middle of the street. And then I looked up. The second plane had just hit, and my mom was calling.
AT TWENTY-FOUR , I began my career as a professional journalist by way of a news editor at
Us Weekly
named Marc Malkin. I befriended Malkin while at ABC Carpet & Home, after I leakedto him a story about Julia Roberts’s shopping spree there. After I aggressively insisted that he give his staff the night off on New Year’s Eve 2002 and relinquish their red-carpet duties to me, I spent the night running around in the freezing cold, barelegged and beaming, interviewing an unknown named Scarlett Johansson and a little girl named Lindsay Lohan. My sister, who had finally broken out of her shell, tagged along and ended up making out with Mark McGrath. We jacked his yellow puffy vest and gave it to my dad for his birthday. The night was too magnificent to comprehend.
Soon after, in 2003, Malkin offered me a well-paid reporting job, my first real gig in magazines. Forever thankful for the position, I would have done anything to please him. I stalked Britney Spears in Kentwood, Louisiana (where I was warned, with a straight face, not to
On my twenty-first birthday I splurged on a low-cut leopard-print Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress from Saks Fifth Avenue, and my sister threw a party for me, inviting all my acquaintances from my various workplaces to a groovy tiki lounge. I made her invite a bunch of her friends, too, as space-fillers, just in case. That night, about sixty people showed up; I felt like the star of my own movie. “Sorry, Lys, but you really can’t say you have no friends anymore,” toasted Rachel. Then, under a plastic palm tree, over a rum punch, Rachel introduced me to Gary, a great-looking guy with big green eyes and a starter job on Wall Street. He reminded me of my dad—not as playful and funny, but similarly good and honest. He was definitely on the square side, but he became my first serious postcollege boyfriend.
Speaking of my dad, around this time my mother had threatened to divorce him if he refused to move to New York City so they could be closer to me and my sister, who was attending college upstate. He put up a fight for a full three hours, and then closed his uniform shop and did as she said. Their plan was for her to sell real estate and for him to keep his regularuniform clients via a home office. They swapped our lovely home in New England for an apartment the size of an armoire, and arrived on the Upper West Side with no savings, one subway map, and not a second of regret.
Money became tight in my folks’ transition from Longmeadow to Manhattan, so I’d insist on comping meals for them a couple nights a week at Sarabeth’s. Like most of my customers, they’d salivate over the famous, velvety tomato soup, slurping up spoonfuls and spoonfuls with pure delight. I finally had an appetite again and drank the yummy soup now and then, but by in large, I remained uninterested in food. I would eat whatever didn’t sell from the Sarabeth’s bakery, or grilled chicken salads on dull double dates with Gary, or anything that I could find in the mini-fridge at my studio. Food didn’t turn me on or off, and it certainly didn’t make me moan. But the sexy struggling actor who worked the night shift at Sarabeth’s, while my oblivious boyfriend put in banking hours, took care of that.
Life was good, back in early 2001.
And then one morning, I got off the subway downtown on Fourteenth Street and saw a big crowd on the street. It sounds crazy, but my immediate reaction was
Sample sale?
I walked to the corner deli and ordered an egg-and-cheese sandwich, and everyone was acting strange in there, too. When I went outside, already unwrapping my breakfast, a woman had dropped her dry-cleaning bags and collapsed into tears in the middle of the street. And then I looked up. The second plane had just hit, and my mom was calling.
AT TWENTY-FOUR , I began my career as a professional journalist by way of a news editor at
Us Weekly
named Marc Malkin. I befriended Malkin while at ABC Carpet & Home, after I leakedto him a story about Julia Roberts’s shopping spree there. After I aggressively insisted that he give his staff the night off on New Year’s Eve 2002 and relinquish their red-carpet duties to me, I spent the night running around in the freezing cold, barelegged and beaming, interviewing an unknown named Scarlett Johansson and a little girl named Lindsay Lohan. My sister, who had finally broken out of her shell, tagged along and ended up making out with Mark McGrath. We jacked his yellow puffy vest and gave it to my dad for his birthday. The night was too magnificent to comprehend.
Soon after, in 2003, Malkin offered me a well-paid reporting job, my first real gig in magazines. Forever thankful for the position, I would have done anything to please him. I stalked Britney Spears in Kentwood, Louisiana (where I was warned, with a straight face, not to
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