One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell Read Free Book Online Page B

half inch of dark roots. This would, Lola decided, briskly turning the pages of the magazine, make the girl ineligible for employment—not that there was an actual job available. In the two months since her graduation from Old Vic University in Virginia, where she’d gotten a degree in fashion market-ing, Lola and her mother, Beetelle Fabrikant, had scoured the Internet, sent e-mails, and even made phone calls to prospective employers with no luck. In truth, Beetelle had done most of the actual scouring, with Lola advising, but even Beetelle’s efforts weren’t easily rewarded. It was a particularly difficult time to find a job in fashion in New York City, with most of the positions taken by interns who spent their summer vacations angling for these jobs. Lola, however, didn’t like to work and had chosen instead to spend her summers sitting by her parents’ pool, or the pools of her parents’ friends, where she and a gaggle of girlfriends would gossip, text, and talk about their fantasy weddings. On inclement days, there was always Facebook or TiVo or the construction of elaborate playlists on her iPod, but mostly there were trips to the mall and endless shopping sprees paid for by a credit card provided by her father, who, when he occasionally complained, was silenced by her mother.
    But as her mother pointed out, adolescence couldn’t go on forever, and as Lola wasn’t engaged, finding the boys in her hometown and at the university nowhere near good enough—an assessment with which O N E F I F T H AV E N U E
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    her mother agreed—it was decided Lola should try her luck in New York. Here, she would not only find interesting employment but meet a much more suitable class of male. Indeed, Beetelle had met her husband, Cem, in New York City and had been happily married for twenty-three years.
    Lola had watched every single episode of Sex and the City at least “a hundred times,” and adored the idea of moving to the city and finding her own Mr. Big. If Mr. Big weren’t available, she would happily take fame, ideally becoming the star of her own reality show. Either option was acceptable, the result, she figured, being much the same: a life of pleasurable leisure in which she might indulge in all the usual pamper-ings and shopping trips and vacations with girlfriends—the only real difference from her current life being the possible addition of a husband and child. But her mother insisted she at least make an effort to work, claiming it would be good for her. So far, her mother had been wrong; the experience was not good at all, merely irritating and annoying. It reminded her of being forced to visit her father’s relatives, who were not as well off as her own family, and who were, as Lola commented to her mother, “frighteningly average.”
    Having been blessed with the pleasingly uniform features of a beauty contestant—made more regular and pleasing by the subtle shaving of the cartilage on her nose—Lola considered herself most definitely not average. Unfortunately, despite several interviews with the human resources departments at various fashion magazines, her superiority had failed to impress, and when she was asked “What do you want to do?” for the fifth or sixth time, Lola had finally answered with a curt “I could probably use a seaweed facial.”
    Now, putting down the magazine and looking around the small waiting room, Lola imagined her next interview would go very much like the last. An efficient middle-aged woman would explain what the requirements would be if a job were to become available and if she were to get it. She’d have to get to the office by nine and work until six P.M.
    or later; she’d be responsible for her own transportation and meals; and she might be subjected to the indignity of a drug test, although she had never touched a drug in her life, with the exception of several prescription drugs. And then what would be the point of this job? All her time 38
    Candace