Bergdorf Blondes Read Free

education. Please don’t tell a soul that I said this, but I honestly think the only reason I got the grades Princeton required was because throughout the algebra and the Latin and the Romantic poets, the thing that kept me going was the thought of the oxygen facials you could get in New York. When I got the place at Princeton, all Mom could say was, “But how could you leave England for America? How? How? ”
    She obviously had no idea about the oxygen facials.
     
    It turned out there was a good reason Julie didn’t make it to Mimi’s. She’d been arrested for shoplifting from Bergdorf Goodman. People called late that afternoon to deliver the hot news, but when I tried to reach Julie her cell phone went straight to voice mail. I wasn’t surprised. Even though Julie swore to me she’d quit stealing when she’d come into her trust fund, it was the kind of crazy thing she’d do just because she was feeling bored for five minutes. Still, I was beginning to get a little worried when Julie herself called just after 7 PM .
    “Hey boo! It’s really funny, I’ve been arrested. Can you come get me? Bail me out? I’m sending my driver to pick you up right now.”
    When I arrived at the 17th Precinct on East Fifty-first Street forty-five minutes later, Julie was sitting in the shabby waiting area looking impossibly chic. She was dressed for the chilly October day in skinny white cashmere pants, a casual fox fur jacket, and huge sunglasses. She looked ridiculously sophisticated for a girl in her mid-twenties, but all the Park Avenue Princesses are. An adoring cop was just handing her a Starbucks latte that he’d clearly gone out to collect on her behalf. I sat down on the bench next to her.
    “Julie, you’re nuts,” I said. “Why have you started stealing again?”
    “Because, duh , I wanted that Hermès Birkin, you know the new ostrich one in baby pink with the white trim? I felt so depressed not having it,” she said, all faux innocence.
    “Why didn’t you just buy it? You could totally afford it.”
    “You can’t ‘just buy’ a Birkin! There’s a three-year wait list, unless you’re Renée Zellweger, and even then you might not get one. I’m already on the wait list anyway for the baby blue suede and it’s killing me.”
    “But Julie, it’s stealing and you’re kind of stealing from yourself.”
    “Isn’t that neat!”
    “You’ve got to stop. You’re going to be all over the newspapers.”
    “Isn’t it great ?”
    Julie and I must have been there for at least an hour before Julie’s lawyer appeared and told us that he had managed to get the police to drop the charges. He’d told them that Julie always intended to buy the goods, she just never usually pays in the store, the bills go straight to her apartment. This was simply an embarrassing mix-up.
    Julie was really very cheerful about the whole episode. She seemed almost reluctant to finally leave the precinct that night. Clearly she had loved the attention she got from the cops. She had charmed Detective Owen—who was obviously 100 percent in love with her the minute he arrested her—into letting her call in hair and makeup for the mug shot. I guess she was right to treat it like a fashion shoot. I mean, that picture could be reproduced for years to come.
    The media went a bit nuts about Julie after the arrest. When she left The Pierre (where Daddy had generously bought Julie the other corner apartment) the next morning to go to the gym, she was faced by hordes of photographers. Julie ran back inside and telephoned me, wailing, “Oh my god! They’re all out there! Paparazzi, press, and they got my picture! Ugh! I can’t handle it.”
    Julie was crying hysterically, but this happens all the time so no one did anything dramatic like call 911 or anything. I told her that no one would look at thepictures, or even remember what had happened the next day. Really, it didn’t matter if she was all over the papers.
    “It’s not being in the