Fashionistas by Lynn Messina Page A

booked. She can put me through to his voice mail.
    Crushing a sneer, I thank her for her help and think about other courses of action. Taking Delia’s advice would be the logical choice, but I don’t. Instead, I position myself in the supply closet across the hall and wait. I have calls to designers of outerwear to make, but I don’t let that bother me. I’m focused on one objective and one objective only—to have a face-to-face with Alex Keller.
    Five hours later I’m still waiting. Lydia has been in here twice to get padded envelopes and timesheets and each time, she looked at me funny. Each time she came in, I’d grab a box of staples and try to look casual as I stared at it with intense fascination.
    Constant surveillance demystifies Keller’s delivery system. After the second knock, Delia sticks her head out of her office and takes the item from Alex’s in-box. She does this quickly, with an economy of movement, as though each time she’s going for the world record. Blink and you miss it.
    I’m ready to call it quits when I hear Delia tell a senior editor that Alex is in an extremely important meeting, but he’ll give her a call as soon as he’s out. I perk up at this. If Alex is in a meeting now, then he has been in a meeting all day. This doesn’t sound right—there was no talk of meetings when I tried to make an appointment five hours ago—so Iwait until Delia leaves her desk. I watch her disappear into the ladies’ room and let myself into Alex’s office.
    I’m hoping to interrupt an extremely important meeting but the office is empty. He left the computer, the lamp and the stereo on. He even placed a half-finished cup of coffee on his desk. The coffee is a nice touch but it doesn’t fool me. I know exactly what he’s doing. I’ve done it myself many times but never on a scale this big. Whereas I light the candle and step out for a few hours, he’s stepped out for a career.
    Although I have nothing but a half-drunk cup of cold coffee to go on, I know I’m right. There is no other explanation for his phantasmal existence, for the way he is rarely seen but often heard.
    I exit the office before Delia gets back—Delia, the accomplice who tells lies and falsifies documents for him—and return to my desk. Staring up at me are twenty photos of engagement rings, a list of designers who make outerwear, and the telephone number for the Sanrio headquarters in San Francisco. I have thirty-two new e-mails, the message light on my phone is blinking and there are four Post-it notes from Dot, each one more illegible than the last. Thanks to my spy stint, I’m now hours and hours behind. I won’t leave here until after nine o’clock.
    I sit down with a heavy sigh, thinking that if I had an assistant who was willing to cover for me, it’s doubtful that I’d ever go to work either.

Phase One Continued
    C hristine is rhapsodizing about kumquats.
    “It’s like this,” she says, her voice full of wonder. “The soft-shell crab is to the lobster as the kumquat is to the orange.” She looks at me expectantly.
    I nod to show her I understand the analogy, but she just shakes her head at my tepid response. I don’t really understand.
    “One more time,” she says, “follow me here. The soft-shell crab is to the lobster as the kumquat is to the orange.”
    I shrug. “You eat the exoskeleton.”
    “Close enough,” she concedes before bursting out with the right answer. “You eat the skin! Isn’t that just the gosh-darniest thing you’ve ever heard?”
    I’d like to say that I’ve heard things gosh-darnier but that would be a lie. “Yes, it is.”
    “Here, have one.” She gives me a kumquat. “They’re a revelation.”
    It’s spongy and sweet and when I bite into it juice squirts onto my lips, but there’s nothing revelatory about it. “It’s good,” I say, underwhelmed and not trying to hide it.
    Christine’s disappointed with my reaction but she rallies. “Last night we made frozen