Further Under the Duvet Read Free Page A

bearings.‘Where…?’ I asked but got no further because a young man, about fifteen feet away from us, called, ‘Go right for twenty-two feet, then at Aqua go left and you’ll find Eileen Fisher on the third island.’ I stared at him nervously. ‘Go on,’ he urged. Uncertainly, with much looking back over our shoulders at him, we followed his instructions and found that the stand was exactly where he’d said it would be, but how had he known what we were looking for? Walkie-talkies was the only thing I could come up with; perhaps the man downstairs had radioed up and told him to expect us? Or maybe Bloomingdales just send their assistants on courses to develop their psychic skills.
Being laughed at by the Clinique girl
    I approached the altar of cosmetics – tier after tier of silver-cylindered loveliness – and explained my mission. I wanted brow highlighter. My sister had some, I’d admired it, she’d got it from Clinique. But the glossy-faced girl knew of no such thing and I told her I thought it was called Sugar Sugar. ‘Oh! Sugar Sugar!’ she said. ‘Oh yeah, I remember that.’ Momentarily, she was overcome with silent, shuddery mirth. ‘That’s a trend item.’
    ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘It is so, like, OVER.’
The scary woman in Prada
    I love Prada. Not so much the clothes, which are for malnourished thirteen-year-olds, but I covet, with covety covetousness, the shoes and handbags. Like, I LOVE them. If I was given a choice between world peace and a Pradahandbag, I’d dither. (I am not proud of this. I’m only saying.)
    Anyway, in Himself and myself go to the limestone palace on Fifth Avenue and up to the second floor to look at the accessories. I want to fling myself on the floor and sob at their beauty, but Himself reminds me of the Miu Miu debacle and I manage to contain myself.
    Then I saw it. The handbag.
The
handbag.
THE
handbag.
    Reader, I bought it. A Russian woman called Elena was my assistant and I think it must have been the quickest bit of commission she’d ever earned. Then I was kind of getting the hang of things and decided to see about matching sandals. But they didn’t have them in my size. Undaunted, Elena brought them anyway. It was no go, so she brought sandals that nearly matched, then sandals that didn’t match at all. And didn’t fit either. But she could not be faulted for leaving a stone unturned and, reluctantly, she let me go only when it was clear that I really wasn’t going to buy anything else from her.
    Downstairs I stopped and idly admired some luggage, and Elena suddenly popped up again, two inches from my nose. Somehow she’d managed to insinuate herself between me and the holdall. ‘You would like to buy?’ I told her no thanks, that we really were leaving, but then we noticed that there was a menswear department in the basement.
    Down we went, Himself picked up a shoe and a handsome young man approached and asked if he’d like it in his size. I had just opened my mouth to reply (Himself is too scared to speak in these places) when, out of nowhere, Elena appeared, did a ten-yard skid across the floor of menswear, shoved the good-looking man to the margins with her palm over his faceand arrived in front of us wearing a shark’s smile, not a hair out of place. ‘You would like to try?’
Nothing bad ever happens in Tiffany’s
    Oh, Holly Golightly, how could you! You try telling that to my credit card. See, what happened was, I had to buy a christening present for my god-daughter. But once I got into the cool gorgeous halls of Tiffany, something
happened
. I’m at a loss to describe it really, except that there were all these
beautiful things
. Pendants and bracelets and watches and earrings and little silver handmirrors and cute chunky key rings. Suddenly it made perfect sense to buy presents for everyone I knew for the rest of their lives. I decided to buy my sister a silver wedding-anniversary present. Even though she’s not actually married. Or