The store smelled of lavender and expensive, heavy perfume. The velvet on the pink upholstered couches had been worn in by some of the wealthiest bottoms in Manhattan. The most privileged buttocks and breasts from the Upper East Side to Battery Park shopped at La Petite Coquette. There, in that most expensive and luxurious lingerie boutique, I found my first employment in the City.
In an Old Navy dress and flip flops I filled out the application. My jittery and awkward smile quivered in the bizarre interview. Rebecca, the boutique’s owner, asked me two questions. She simply wanted to know if my breasts and southern accent were real. Upon confirming both to be totally natural, I was immediately hired. The following morning I returned to La Petite Coquette in jeans, a corset I borrowed from my roommate and three inch black heels.
My first months brought an intense lingerie education. I studied french cuts, boy shorts and thongs with more determination than academic assignments. I quickly learned the store had a definite hierarchy for sales-women, and I spent the majority of my days as the smallest microscopic organism in the La Petite food chain.
The most frightening of the sales-girls were the great Candice and Isabella. Candice was slender and moved with the grace of a ballerina. She spoke with a slight French accent that seemed to thicken when customers were in earshot. Isabella possessed a Marilyn Monroe physique —and sex appeal. Together, I believed, they could sell a G-string to a nun.
My domain was the stock room. Far below West 8th Street, I spent lonely hours steaming night gowns and trying to discriminate between the five shades of white bras. I hardly ever had visitors to my subterranean lair. The stock room was freezing and the walls were cement and rust stained. It was even home to a few scrawny rats. I teetered in painful stilettos and miniskirts to move giant boxes. But I understood the unspoken rules: I never removed my high heels.
One snowy February afternoon, in the heart of the Valentine’s rush, my time in the stockroom finally earned me a chance to move above ground. Isabella floated down the stairs and summoned me to the sales floor. My stomach churned and I smiled at my reflection as I left the stockroom. My hair was curled, my eyelashes painted and my lips perfectly glossed.
Upstairs my heart raced as Isabella guided me to the dressing room. There she pulled back the satin curtain with a grin. On the floor was a small golden dog that had just left a fresh, smelly deposit on the carpet. Candice handed me a roll of paper towels and I dropped to my knees and cleaned.
I returned to La Petite Coquette the following June. My hair was dyed and I wasn’t recognized. I bought a pair of cotton underwear from the sale bin. Leaving the store I smirked and walked down through Washington Square. I joined the crowds enamored with the familiar street performers. A man clad in red spandex maneuvered on a unicycle around the crowd. On his shoulders stood another performer, dressed in blue. Determined to maintain a broad smile, the unicycler never revealed the intense weight he was bearing. I chuckled and tossed a dollar in their hat. The New York summer sun felt warm and reassuring as I strolled away.
