Read Online The Bag Lady Papers by Alexandra Penney - Free Book Online

which was a long stretch to be away from my family, but this was, according to the VV, a “most important portfolio” and therefore required an unusual amount of time.
    The French photographer turned out to be a maniac. Nothing I could do or say or provide was okay for him. The food (not French), the rooms (which were lovely), the hairdresser (one of the best), the clothes (edited by him), even the models (also chosen by him) were ruthlessly criticized. Within two days I’d had it with the whiny, moody creep.
    I’d been driven to the point that I didn’t care if we had no pictures to show the VV.
    I didn’t care if I was fired.
    I told P that I was stopping the shoot after lunch on the fourth day and I would book return tickets for all of us. I asked her if she could handle the shots that had already been planned for the morning.
    P said calmly that she could cope with the French photographer and that she could get the necessary pictures.
    â€œOkay, I’m not letting you utter another word,” I said. “If you really believe you can take over, I will depart on the next plane.” And I did. It was the first and only time I left a shoot before it was done.
    There was a lesson here for me: there is such a word as“no.” And although, to paraphrase the legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, “‘No’ means elegance,” “no” can also mean “no fucking way.” The French photographer was unreasonable and professionally out of his mind and I was fed up with him—and with the Viennese Viper as well.
    I weighed the situation carefully in my room that night. I didn’t think I would be fired—I hadn’t been in the job long enough for my boss to think I was a complete catastrophe as an editor—but obviously I was willing to risk it. If I were let go, I would find another job at another magazine company or I’d freelance. The decision would be the right one because I had fully dissected the options.
    A few days later P returned to New York. I did not know—and did not ask—how she did it, but she brought back enough pictures for a beautiful twelve-page portfolio. Today P is one of the most successful, most sought-after stylists in the business.
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    A few weeks later, I left my white office at Glamour and went to pick up my son at nursery school on Lexington Avenue at Eighty-first Street. As I walked from the subway I passed the brightly lit Rosedale Fish Market. A small hand-lettered sign in the window advertised help wanted. I didn’t need to be at school for another twenty minutes, so, on a whim, I ducked in and asked the cashier about the job.
    â€œYou have to speak to Robbie, the owner,” she said, pointing at a tall red-faced man in a white apron expertly carving fillets out of an enormous pink salmon.
    He wiped his hands on the towel that was folded over his apron strings and strode over to the cash register. We talked for less than five minutes and he offered me a job as daytime cashier. I took it on the spot. He said that I could read books if the store wasn’t busy. Three days a week I would have four hours off to attend the Art Students League, where I’d always wanted to go to learn how to draw.
    I had been trying to come up with a plan to leave Glamour since the disastrous trip to St. Maarten, and for god knows what reason, it had all gelled in the instant I walked into the fish market. My strategy was to work at Rosedale, to try my hand at freelance writing, to attend the Art Students League, and to apply to graduate school for a master’s degree in Studio Art.
    I picked up my son, and I was more thrilled than usual with the finger paintings he bestowed upon me as a present. I’d bought some fresh swordfish at Rosedale (from now on I would get a major discount there) and I cooked it with lemon and dill. Our son ate his dinner first, and we read him two Babar stories, and then two more. We