When we got back to the office I met my new co-worker Jemma. She’s energetic, English, a redhead and a bit older than me—I think. She talks a mile a minute and her accent obscures some words I really think I need to know in order to do stuff.

Jemma helped me set up my desk which is a stone’s thrown from Ms. Banks office. There wasn’t much to set up, just a laptop. The first thing I learned was that my new boss likes her privacy, but also likes you being in her office even before she needs you. I didn’t have the courage to ask why she needed two personal secretaries—I mean other than the meeting when she was trapped off island.

That night I went home and had mojitos with my roommate Alicia and my friend Amber. I haven’t seen Amber in a while, she’s always on the move. She allegedly lives in Manhattan but is never in town. She drops by and has drinks and then is gone the next morning. Sometimes I mistake her for Cinderella—actually more like Tinkerbell.

The next few days were interesting, eye-opening and kind of embarrassing.

I guess I didn’t really think there was much to know to be a secretary—I was wrong. Jemma showed me the ropes and by ropes, I mean the ins and outs of the company. As the gate-keeper to one of the two most powerful people in the company, I got an accelerated course in how the company worked and who the major movers and shakers were. This included a small bit about Enrique and his pull. Jemma also noted my immediate interest when we got to his name. She reiterated what our boss had said, but in even less flattering terms. In short, great media guy, always on the prowl. I didn’t have the courage to ask if that was from first hand experience or not. Best to not know.

By the third day my head was hurting from the constant info dump I was getting. Worse I was barely doing anything, Jemma was pretty much carrying the show as I got up to speed. And just as I was getting what I thought was going one around here, we—both Jemma and I—were called into my boss’ office. Normally this would not have been noteworthy, but the meeting wasn’t about a trip or a meeting or anything business related. It was about me, or more particularly my clothes.

Apparently it had been noted by my boss (and later by my co-worker) that I had been wearing pretty much the same things in just slight variation. That was true, I have a very short wardrobe. I was given a backhanded compliment for effort, but that the assistant to the company president needed to present a better image. I really thought I was about to be fired after only two and a half days on this new job—or not even two weeks at the company.

Instead Ms. Banks authorized Jemma to use the corporate credit card to get a base wardrobe and to do it post-haste. I guess it was relieving and embarrassing that the only thing I was lacking to help run a world-class fashion company, was world-class fashion.

Jemma seemed very focussed on this like it was another assignment. On the other hand she was happy to be there to help me and the company. I realize now I didn’t really describe Jemma other than broad strokes and the devil is always in the details.

As we walked down to stores I had only walked by, but never had the courage to go into, I noticed something. On some level my co-worker and I were very similar. I mean she did her hair and make up a bit better than me, but rather we had similar starting points. Either of us could easily be the best looking girl in a room. Wow that sounds so conceited, but it’s honest. Also that may not be true at work with the astounding amount of people who were or still are models. And the co-owner of BCC are in a class all their own and… Anyways we weren’t all that different from each other.

And even if I was wearing a name brand dress and crazy expensive shoes, she just carried it off. Maybe the reason I thought she was older than me, which she is by 2 years, was because of her, all, everything. I realized this more particularly after this day. If I were to put on a Versace dress, I’d still be me in a Versace dress. Jemma rose up to the dress and the job. I was a competent as her, probably more skilled, but she had a bigger presence and sense of who she was and what she was dong. Also, she wasn’t a carrot top, she was actually more a strawberry blonde.

At first I was nervous trying on new things. I was trying to impressing my co-worker who was a proxy for my boss who wanted me to present myself as a representative of her company. I guess I missed that part and hence were on this field trip. Along 5th Avenue Jemma continued to teach me things nobody ever tells you. I had alway bought clothes for how they fit or how they looked, or so I thought. I was probably just buying clothes for how they looked on other people and pretending they must look good on me.

Jemma was very serious and shut down my witty deflections. Before I could know my job, I had to know myself—at least through clothes, she isn’t that big a thinker. So we started with the basics of my body and how things hung on me or didn’t. It was both anxiety inducting and quiet informative as to why I had a closet of clothes I didn’t like and didn’t fit.

It was painstaking and she was meticulous, department to department, store to store. I guess the real epiphany came when I made a joke about some clerk wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt in a fancy store—that will remain nameless to protect the guilty, as in me.

“What do a punk rock band have to do with fashion?” That was the question that doomed my uneducated overcompensating bravado. It was meant as I throw away line, but ended up showing how much I had to learn.

“Agent Provocateur, have you heard of it?” Her tone was mocking, particularly in a way that only an English accent can do.

“Lingerie. Really sexy lingerie.” The answer was so pathetic, it signalled that I knew I was about t o be schooled.

“Yes, sexy lingerie. Created by a wife and husband, Serena Rees and Joseph Corré, who thought underwear had become too boring. ” It was really starting to feel like a lecture…in the middle of Saks. “Serena was a model, her business partner/husband is the son of Vivienne Westwood.”

“I know who she is”, I said like someone who was being talked down to—which I was.

“Do you? What’s she famous for?”

“Gothic dresses?” Her eye rolling was her direct to my grasping at straws. Maybe I should have gone with bright orange hair instead.

“Seriously! What do they teach you in school here?” I didn’t get a chance to respond to that. “Dame Westwood was in business with Malcolm McLaren, who incidentally is Joseph Corre’s father.”

“OK, what does any of this have to do with the Sex Pistols and sexy lingerie?” If there was one moment that week I wished I could have had back or at least a moment to Google, it would have been that one.

“What indeed.” Jemma sighed. I’m pretty sure she thought I was a lost cause at this point. “Malcolm McLaren was the manager of”, I knew it the moment before she said it—and felt very dumb, “The Sex Pistols.” This was the point I realized half of my job had nothing to do with computers, phones, schedules or dealing with handsome guys like Enrique. A large part of my job was about the world I had just cannonballed into. A world that I knew only surfacey things about and had not really thought much off. This was my ‘colour of your sweater’ talk by not-Anna Wintour from The Devil Wears Prada. “Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne ran a store called Sex which sold bondage themed clothes and stylized The Sex Pistols and therefore what you think punk looks like.”

“Punk rock, Vivienne Westwood, Joseph Corré, Agent Provocateur.” I said sheepishly. I spent the rest of what should have been an amazing trip listening instead of talking. Not just to the things about me in particular, but to the little bits of fashion and style history Jemma just oozed with. I think I’l cut back on the hair and make up videos and hit up YouTube for more fashion history—or just record my coworker and listen to her on my subway commute.

After spending a cringingly large amount for what Jemma called a good start, we made our way back to the office. I honestly joked that I wasn’t sure how I could afford to build out my wardrobe on those prices. Funny note: I have still yet to be paid from my new job. So even though I just got thousands of dollars of free clothes—I sure hope this isn’t a taxable benefit—I’m still broke and eating Mr Noodles. Jemma laughed and told me I was about to get showered in crazy fashion either from cast offs of our bosses.

Jemma had put me together in a deceptively simple skirt and blouse ensemble and touched up my hair and make up before we returned to the office. Our trip had taken half of the day, which I really wished I had spent in the Black Hole of Clothes instead. That was until we made our way through the office.

The last time people looked at us, they were doing it for Nico, my boss’ partner. Now they were doing it for me. It was gratifying and a bit unnerving. The whole afternoon of running my smart mouth until I showed my ignorance and wanted to crawl under a rock was rendered forgettable as we approached the end of the hall. There stood Enrique Molinero, never a hair out-of-place and never in the same suit twice. He was standing next to an equally exquisite specimen on a man chatting about cars or women or who knows. I don’t know if anyone has given a double take to me before, but this is the first one that I remembered or even cared about.

Jemma said hi to Enrique and ‘Mr. Bidarte’. Apparently Enrique’s equally handsome friend was someone important, but somehow familiar to my co-worker. Mr. Bidarte asked her who I was. Now this Long Island girl was feeling a little giddy getting the attention of two men who probably had Calvin Klein on their LinkedIn page. “This is Alex, she is Ms. Banks’ other personal secretary.” She said with a fake smile. Good luck the new player wished me. This place just got better and better. I entertained unChristian thought of the handsome twosome on our short walk back to our office.

“Who is Mr. Bidarte?” I couldn’t contain myself.

“Ms. Castor-Cox’ husband.” Jemma seemed to revel in that belated piece of information. She later brought me tea and teased me incessantly about that, Enrique and all the things I still needed to know. Her last question before we left at like 8PM that night caught me off guard.

“What are you going to wear to the company’s monthly mixer?”

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