more aptly titled "not" meeting cathie black

It’s a wet Monday in New York City. I’m dressed in a snug navy woolen dress with an attached polka-dotted bow across the collar, covered by an orange military jacket from the 1940s. I’m a firm believer clothes just aren’t what they used to be. My blond hair is straightened, my teeth recently whitened. My heels are high and my tights are new.

I’m going to meet Cathie Black.

She’s giving an interview accompanied by a question and answer session at the 92nd Street Y, and I have been preparing my question’s wording, hand gestures, and meticulous placement of my hair for several weeks now. I feel with this question, the next step of my career is going to take off. I just feel it. I just know. Because I’m going to get advice about how to break back into the journalism world from Cathie Black, president of Hearst publishing.

I walk through the security gate at the Y, set off a small and apparently insignificant beep, and head to the counter to pick up my ticket. I bypass the elevator and walk the flight of stairs. I enter a medium sized room that is half-filled with older women and half-filled with younger journalist-types, and make my way as close to the stage as I can get. I sit. I wait. I think on my question and the hand gestures. The hair is already meticulous.

She walks into the room. She is dressed in a black skirt and shirt and a maroon blazer with textured gray-black tights and it’s somehow the perfect outfit for her. Her blond shag resembles my mother’s. I feel an immediate affinity towards her.

As she speaks, I sit silently practicing my speech and chewing a nail. I’m completely sure that the next few minutes are going to dictate my future. Will CB give me her card? Will she refer me to someone in the industry? Will she become my mentor? Will I become the cool older friend to her children? Will I one day be invited to her summer house in the Hamptons and attend polo matches where she will ask me to fetch her a bottled water and I will do so?

The question and answer session arrives. My big break.

As hands raise and women begin waxing poetic about husbands who don’t support career women, the job field, and the right dish soap to use in winter months, I sit and gain nerve until I finally raise my hand along with a myriad of other women.

Cathie Black thanks us all for coming. And its over before it began. I leave.

Since I spent my cab fare for the week on my ticket and copy of “Basic Black,” I begin my walk home, 17 blocks down and across the park. My heels are still high and my hair is now frizzy, but a depressing walk seems a far better option than public transit at this point. I follow the sign that points toward the West Side and wonder if I will be mugged. I decide no.

I eventually make it home with my purse, being, and belongings intact, and I sit down to pout. I do some dishes. I watch an old episode of Friends and I repaint my nail.

The end. But hopefully not.