Sitting behind my new desk on the first day of my new job, I probably appeared self-assured. I was working at the offices of José Maligno, the renowned architect and interior designer. He was a man who "did" Valentino, Armani, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein and Ronald Pearlman–all boldfaced names. They hired him to create fantastic interiors for the baubles and toys that their 80's wealth had brought them.

        Not knowing entirely what to do when I arrived at 9:00, I began by straightening out my desktop. I was never a very neat person, and I didn't know how to organize very well, but I acted as though I did. I had to keep busy because I might have fallen apart if I hadn't. I would say you could have cut the tension in the room with a knife, but you would have had to stab me to do it because the tension was all inside me.

            Later I met my coworkers, who were a warm bunch even from the first moment. There was Megan, whose father was a big wig at Condé Nast Publications. She was short, had white blond hair and looked very pert and preppy in her plaid skirt and silk blouse with a large, flowing Windsor knot in the front. She greeted me, standing firm in her no-nonsense Ferragamos with their perfect grosgrain bows.

            Ruthie had raven hair, bushy and wild–half hanging, half standing to her shoulders. She was dresses in a black turtleneck and had looses crystals which were wrapped in a wire and held to a chain around her neck, held in place by a large safety pin. An ugly accessory, but oh so "gotta have it now" fashion item for 1989. I shouldn’t add, but will, Ruthie’s breath could stop a train! There were several others. Mega and Ruthie were Yankees, but some of the others (frankly, the nicer group) were southerners. Their initial friendliness may have been based on the fact that many of them shared my home state of Louisiana! That was indeed a pleasant surprise for me that morning, you meet the most interesting people from all over the place in New York City.

            There was a lovely girl named Beverly, who had a pretty face and lovely, upswept hair. Dressed in a Laura Ashley dress, I soon learned that she had been a maid at a couple of the Mardi Gras balls and had attended Sacred Heart, which was typical for that crowd. She introduced me to another man who had attended L.S.U. Oddly enough, he and I  knew a lot of the same people. Needless to say I began to feel a little more comfortable with the New Orleanean, and the person from Baton Rouge, there in my company.

        Then I met another girl who I thought was really rather nice. Her name was Sally. Her hair was blond and stylishly casual. Her face? Fresh and bright, and accentuated with tortoise frame glasses and a warm smile. She was from Alexandria, Louisiana, and I would soon learn that she was special (almost magical) indeed!

        We all gathered around my desk. Sally sat next to me, and behind me was Beverly. We were very chummy, and I grew even more at ease as we chatted and caught up on tales from the South. I felt safe.

        Then Brian, my supervisor and the person I was assisting, showed up. He  was in a good mood, but had arrived late, at around 11:00. Brian looked directly at me, smiled, and broke the ice by saying, "Oh, I hope you're an improvement over my last assistant–she couldn't even spell." He then froze and, facing me, asked, "Can you spell?"

        What a question to ask someone with dyslexia!

        Actually, just a few weeks after that infamous moment, I would find myself face to face alone with Mr. Maligno, and it would be the first time we ever interacted. We were stepping off a curb to get into a taxi cab and he said to me, "Charbonnet, what a lovely French name, and from New Orleans. You must speak French." I was a tad nervous, and feeling the need to respond with some sort of  gratitude at what had obviously been a compliment, I experienced one of those strange social moments where your brain and vocal cords temporarily short-circuit.

        I just looked him straight in the face and said, shocking even myself, "I was in a car accident and, not only did I lose my ability to speak French, but I can no longer spell."

        He had no response. The weird flub inadvertently granted me a warrant on spelling corrections in the office from him. This was pretty unique if you know Mr. Maligno. He would repeatedly return employee's memos and notes with red-inked corrections scribbled on them, as if they had passed through the English examiner's office. My notes and memos? He never once corrected me, as far as grammar and spelling was concerned.     

        During that first morning, though, Brian continued to drill me, "The last time I asked my previous assistant to spell anything," he said rolling his eyes, "she misspelled the word 'pedestal!' Why don't you spell the word 'pedestal!'"

        I was terrified. I couldn't imagine that someone could request such a thing of someone lacking in that talent–which was actually a natural and basic part of education: to know how to spell. But Mr. Dyslexia couldn't even figure his way out of a paper bag by spelling the word "stand," much less "pedestal."

        The favoritism Brian had shown me when he hired me, on that oh-so friendly day one week earlier, was not in the room at that particular moment. I would soon come to learn that Brian could be rather quick to get angry, depending on what he had done the night before. He just stood there with one arm tensely resting on his hip, and a stiffly arched eyebrow, waiting. Suddenly I noticed a slight pressure on my leg, almost under my desk. I looked down for a moment and saw a flash of yellow on my knee. It was a Post-It note. Without turning my head, I glanced casually at Sally–she was sitting directly to my left with notebook in hand. I had met her not even an hour before, but she shot back the most subtle, knowing smile possible. I glanced back down at the note again and saw that it had the word "PEDESTAL" written in black ball point pen.

        I spelled the word proudly. Brian then exhaled and said, "Thank goodness for that!" then sat down and made phone calls to people who had nothing to do with work. I looked back over at Sally, who sat there smiling at me, and I thought, "How sweet." We never spoke of it until years later.

        I took off for lunch that first day with Beverly, and we had a wonderful time. We drank margaritas at a Mexican restaurant that served a special price lunch. She was leaving the company that March, and I had arrived there the last day of  January so she wasn't really much concerned about what she ate (or drank). And there I was, just starting my new job, and acting like I was leaving too!

        We always had a good time, though. I became friendly enough with everyone to share in their company outside of the office. We'd go out at night and then we'd spend  all day laughing and doing the projects that we had to do. Being a shopper, I wasn't trapped in the office with the other employees. Sometimes I'd walk into the office briskly, widening my eyes and giving a few of my coworkers the "look" as I whisked past them, carrying a big package with both arms into one of the private side rooms. Then we'd all convene, shut the doors, and I would unfurl my latest discovery while telling the story of how I found it.

            On afternoons when I was in the office, I'd do free karaoke for everyone while I worked at the fabric table. We'd keep the pace of work as I crooned away, and the requests poured in. Back then, the hit parade included my unique renditions of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" or Diana Ross's "I Want Muscles All Over His Body," sung in a Judy Garland warble. Everyone laughed and loved it, sometimes joining in. They were Halcyon days, I was lucky.

        I soon discovered that part of my job was to attend the winter antiques show. Mr. Maligno always wanted me to go early, because that was obviously when the prime pieces were ripe for the picking. I decided that I would invite Sally to attend the opening of my first time at the show.

        We met at Eat Here Now diner on Lexington, behind the Armory. Our plan was to meet there that evening before our entrance to the show together. I had shown up early and had coffee, because I knew that Sally was sometimes late. Even though I knew my job hinged upon my prompt arrival to the show, I sat there thinking about how her lateness made me somehow like her even more. When she finally swung open the glass doors and entered, I gazed at her as she came waltzing in, smiling at me.

        Suddenly and without warning, I felt an epiphany. It was something I hadn't felt in a long time. I came to the realization that I liked myself. Perhaps I hadn't ever felt it before at all because, honestly, I was having a hard time understanding the emotion as it washed over me even though it was so clear. I guess that's the nature of epiphanies: having a hard time understanding what has just come into such sharp clarity. It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

        When we left the diner and walked towards the Armory, we noticed that there was quite a  crowd in front of the building. I took Sally's arm as we rounded the corner and realized that there was a clear path between the mob and the front door. As we went through the doors, what seemed like a million photographer's flash bulbs went off all around us. The paparazzi were in full attendance at the event! Sally laughed and glowed by my side as a heavenly explosion of camera flashes ignited all around us. I'll never forget that moment, light years couldn't have measured my smile.

        We showed our tickets and were ushered into the main event.

        "How odd," I thought to myself, to have such a feeling of elation at that moment. I had worked with this girl for several months, and I really had never thought much of her except that she was pleasant, and that she had helped me so much that first day at work. Her Post-It note had saved me from great embarrassment, and perhaps even losing my job on that first day back at the office with Brian.

        We mingled with the usual socialites (gossiping), spotted a few B-list celebrities (giggling), and then gawked at the treasures (gasping). We were drifting from booth to booth, looking at incredible pieces. Chinese export porcelain at $10,000 a tureen, a set of ten Regency chairs for $44,000. Mind you, these were 1990s prices.

        How the place shimmered. I've been to several shows there since, and the place doesn't shimmer anymore. It was Sally and the aura she cast. The kind of aura that happens to be contagious. Some had rubbed off onto me too and I found that I liked myself.

        Two or three days after that, I realized I had actually fallen in love. How odd to fall in love with a girl, when all I'd ever really been was "in-crush" with men.

            My feelings for her were piqued, and confirmed, when I realized that I felt jealousy the day Sally revealed to me that she had a secret crush on someone who frequented the office. It was one of Jose’s youngest and very handsomest clients. He really was a catch,  which is probably why I felt the way I did. He had a successful business, and was always going on about his high aspirations for America’s school children–a personal cause–and how his business would generate funds that could help our country's schools. Whenever he'd hang around the office and talk about this, Sally would gaze at him with this warm smile–while I'd look on and grind my teeth behind a friendly grin. But this man's wife was a real booby prize. She was classy, but a high-maintenance snob, as well as a mess. At one point we learned she'd been quoted in a high-end gossip column, stating, irony-free; "That reporter referred to me as a princess, while it’s true my cousins are princes, I am not a princess!" I remember  not feeling guilty about my joy when I heard Sally say something derogatory about the man's choice of a wife. One time, I was making a site visit to this couple's home in East Hampton, and met José there to review the renovation in progress. The twenty-acre estate smelled like a big wet fart. The malodorous odor covered the East Hampton property. At one point, Jose and I stood in the middle of the front drive and I finally said "It stinks!"

            "It smells like a chicken farm." José replied. I asked how he would know. He told me that his uncle owned a chicken farm and that his parents would send him there in the summers to "help straighten him out."  Basically, to make him more butch. I asked if it helped. "No," he said, "all I wanted to do was dress those chickens up."

            I remember when I returned, I told Sally about her secret dream man's smelly ranch and she scrunched her nose up in a funny way and said "No thanks!" Unlike one infamous evening we howled with laughter as we actually lit our farts all over her apartment (which cast a methane smell that lasted for two weeks). She could be such a scream. Sometimes on nights like that, we stayed in, getting stoned and drunk, and finding anything hilarious. But usually at night we were out riding New York City for all it was worth. It was amazing how we were not making much money at all back then, really it would amount to just a few thousand dollars a year. But we would go out almost every night, having an amazing time no matter where we were. The very next morning we were in the office, hard at work for Mr. Maligno. Then it would be right back out again. We drank too much, partied a lot, had so much fun. We would dance and sing the lyrics of "Just In Time:" "Hey you came along and changed my life that lovely day."

        She had such style. She had such warmth, and still does.

            I recall a video she made of herself acting silly and dressing in crazy get ups that, fifteen years later, would to this day be quite chic. She had a delightful laugh and a sparkle in her eye that was not used for manipulation–as well it could have gotten anything from anyone–but for sharing happiness. And how happy those times were. Completely innocent.

            One of my fondest memories was the afternoon that I put Sally's hair up into a "twist-bun" with several pencils. It was so outré that everyone in the office raved about it, and wanted one too (even some of the men). Sally was popular amongst the men, both straight and gay, who worked at José's office. I recall one particular suitor–he would later marry Megan–who was an architect who worked on large commercial projects. He had a real mad crush on her. One day he gave her a flower arrangement which was huge! As soon as I walked by it, I quipped to him, "Well I hope you provided additional car fare so she can haul that jungle home!" Sally just laughed.

            But our relationship wouldn't last, it couldn't. There I was, unsure of myself. I had always pretty much been intimidated by the thought of physical intimacy. There was this lovely girl, who actually had the same feelings for me. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, as it says, as it goes, as it is.

        Those are days and moments I will never forget. And times I will treasure forever. It reminds me of the antiques show: beautiful treasures placed on pedestals. Things that are never touched, gently dusted, but never really touched. Too precious to be handled. I had something so much more precious, and that was my first, and to date only love. So very magical!

        It was love on a pedestal.