Emmie
“Hello?”
“Em?”
“Oh, Stella! It’s so good to hear your voice again. Are you calling from the airport?”
“Yeah. I was able to get a flight, but it’s a lot of connecting and I don’t even take off until two forty-five.”
“Not till two forty-five? Can’t you go home and wait?”
“At this point, I’d rather just stay here.”
Emily sighed. “I feel like an asshole.” I didn’t say anything. “You could at least tell me I’m not.”
“You’re not an asshole, Emily. You’re just…I don’t know. We’ll talk when I get there. You know I wouldn’t be coming if—”
“I know. It’s like I told you earlier—you never have let me down. I just wish…”
“What?”
“It’s just that there are two sides to every story, and you never let me tell you why—”
“Drop it.”
“But, Stella, can’t I just—”
“How’s Emmie? You never told me how they liked her.”
Emily seemed to get the picture. “I couldn’t have asked for a better night,” she said proudly. “They did the nicest write-up in today’s style section.”
“That’s terrific. I knew you had nothing to be nervous about.”
“But, still, I always am. Anna’s really excited you’re flying out here, you know. I mean, she knows it’s not exactly going to be all roses and sunshine, but—”
“You tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her, too.”
I wasn’t exactly sure if this was true or not. Anna Fontanella and I really had zilch in common except for Emily, the only link in our completely unparallel worlds. I wasn’t exactly envious of her, despite the fact that she was gorgeous, rich, monumentally successful and my best friend’s absolute idol. Okay, perhaps I was slightly envious. Who wouldn’t be? But I still liked her. After all, she was the one who’d given Emily her start in the business.
Emily had followed Anna’s career like a religion throughout college. And after four years at the Fashion Institute of Technology, she’d put her design degree on the shelf to clerk at one of Anna’s swanky boutiques on the Upper East Side. She said it was more than just a “pay the bills” job because at Anna Fontanella (the name is the store) she could actually get up close and personal with the designs that had taken her idol from a young Italian woman with a dream and turned her into a legend within the industry. Emily said the environment inspired her, that being surrounded by Anna’s creations was like being surrounded by fine art that you got paid by the hour to touch and smell and fantasize about filling your life with. She was obsessed. But it wasn’t a bad thing because it gave her the drive to get ahead, even if it meant lying to unsuspecting event planners to get there.
Jenna Mazzarelli is the name of the charitable and faceless wonder who, to this day, can be credited with getting Emily to the right place at the proverbially right time. Perhaps it was only because Jenna wasn’t a skeptic, or maybe she was just too busy. Either way, Jenna never checked into Emily’s background, but instead believed that last-minute phone call from the “editor” of the hot, new online fashion magazine, Fad, who, for some mysterious and hurtful reason, had not received her press pass to Anna’s upcoming show. Emily’s name was added to the guest list, and Ms. Mazzarelli apologized for the oversight, citing that the Internet was a powerful arm of the journalistic community, blah, blah, blah. Emily didn’t care. She was finally going to see her idol in person.
They locked eyes after the show when the then twenty-nine-year-old Anna was talking to reporters. Emily told herself to memorize the moment, for it could be as close to her personal hero as she’d ever get. But she had no idea what she was in for, not even when she saw Anna cross the room and begin her steady approach. She said that Emily had a great look and wanted to know who she was wearing.
“Emily Martin,” my best friend replied, with the same poise and assurance an A-list celebrity would possess when crediting Armani or Chanel. Emily had always been that way. She figured if you could design clothes, then you were a designer, whether people had heard of you or not.
Anna looked down at Emily’s name tag and back into her starstruck eyes. “You designed this outfit yourself?” Emily nodded, mesmerized by Anna’s accent, her beauty, her being. “All right, little girl,” the great one said. “How would you like to come work for me?”
“I do work for you,” Emily said. “In your boutique—on the Upper East Side.”
“Doing what?” Anna asked, looking practically appalled.
“Sales.”
“No, no, no,” Anna said. “It’s wrong.”
“Wrong?” Emily asked.
“You say you designed this outfit yourself?”
“Yes.” Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Emily’s head and she began to understand where this was going. “I was a fashion design major at FIT. I graduated eight months ago.”
“Do you have a portfolio?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Emily patted the brown leather tote she was carrying and smiled. “I never leave home without it.”
They ended up going back to Anna’s place afterward for wine, cheese and a little old-fashioned ass-kissing. Emily told Anna how she had followed her amazing career ever since Anna came here from Italy armed with nothing more than a dream (and something like a million dollars left from the sale of her grandfather’s vineyard, which Emily naturally found it distasteful to mention). Anna, in turn, told Emily that she reminded her a lot of herself not too long ago (with the exception, of course, of the unmentioned denaro) and that she would’ve loved to have had an Anna Fontanella to light her way when she was just starting out—someone who could’ve served as her mentor and saved her from those fears of NEVER MAKING IT IN THE BUSINESS.
In short, she was offering Emily a deal, the absolute chance of a lifetime, the opportunity to create her own line and see her designs on the runway. Anna’s empire already included “Anna by Ashley” and “Anna by Zoe.” As with the other lines, “Anna by Emily” would be sold in all of her American boutiques, and my friend would retain a percentage of all profits. In addition, there would be media appearances, which would help her gain exposure and recognition in the design world, a wonderful break for anyone wanting to make it and especially for someone so young. Emily agreed on the spot.
The collaboration worked beautifully, and three-and-a-half years later, Anna decided to cut her name from the line and just call it “Emily,” awarding higher profits and more prestige to her protégé. It was a major high point in Emily’s career, but she had one minor stipulation—that they call her line “Emmie” instead, as a tribute to Laura Nyro and her mom. Under its new name, the line continued to flourish, and a little over one year later, Emily packed her bags for Europe.
In Europe, she would help Anna establish her fourth boutique abroad. She would debut her line in places like Rome and Paris, make promotional appearances, learn about business and fashion and the media and how everything fit together in a variety of other cultures. A golden opportunity. Fast paced and exciting. A little nerve-racking, too. She’d been especially anxious for Emmie’s London premiere which, according to today’s style section, had gone extremely well. And now she was back in the belly of the beast. With all that gold, all that excitement, the nerves, the motion of everything, I never thought she’d have time for trouble. But trouble had found her and worked its way back to me. And here I was.
“Listen, Em,” I said, “why don’t you write down my flight information?”
“Let me grab a pen.” As she rummaged around her hotel room for something to write with, she said, “I tried calling you at home a few hours ago, but you’d already left.”
“You must have just missed me.”
“Well, I left you a message in case you decided to check your voice mail from the airport. Anyway, I’ve got my pen ready, so go ahead.” Once she had all the details written down, she said, “You know, it’s crazy that it’s still gonna be a whole day until we see each other.”
“Well, multiple layovers will do that to you,” I said. “Not to mention the time difference. Just be there waiting at 11:03 tomorrow morning when I land.”
“Check.”
“Oh, and Emily?”
“Yeah?”
“Be alone.”
When we hung up, I realized I’d forgotten to ask her about getting a yahrzeit candle to light for Blanche. But I didn’t feel like calling her back. Besides, I didn’t expect Emily to know where to buy a yahrzeit candle here. How was she possibly supposed to know how to get one in a foreign country? It would simply have to be on the top of our list of things to do when I landed. But, we already had so much to work out when I arrived. And I still had plenty of time before my flight. I would just go buy the candle myself.
On my way out of the airport, I decided to call home and listen to Emily’s message.
“I’m calling to remind you about Blanche’s yahrzeit,” she said. “But if you forgot, don’t worry. I have a candle here. We’ll light it together.”