College Candy

Day thirteen at this cracked out music television internship and I can’t seem to find a mode of normalcy. I’d like to think of myself as a fairly spontaneous adventure-seeking type. The every day conundrum, mundane schedules and habitual routine I follow during the school year tends to make me delirious and in need of a strong drink at 10 am (no, not coffee), but this was just insane.

All week I’d been running around Manhattan delivering costume jewelry or picking up edited music video reels, though some days staying in the office and making phone calls and writing e-mails (Not to James Franco, but to his agent’s agent). Needless to say, I was starting to crave a more conventional daily grind.

Today I was scheduled to help with a wardrobe fitting. Figuring I’d be pinning blouses to mannequins in some broke down warehouse. I wasn’t that bothered when my alarm didn’t go off and I was forced to shower quickly, neglecting my usual primping and hair straightening ritual. I’m Persian, and not one of those blessed Persians with the silky dark hair. I got the fro. The frizzy kind.

Rushed to make it to work on time, (Pierre, my very talented and very flamboyant boss would undoubtedly stick me with phone duty if I was even a minute late), I figured I could just pull it back in a wet bun and hide it under a hat from wardrobe.

After memorizing rushed directions from Pierre’s secretary, I set out to wardrobe fitting, Prada dress in hand (Moreso in the nervous clutches of my little white knuckles. I’d never held something so expensive), looking around the city streets for some sort of hidden warehouse. Surprisingly, I found myself heading towards 5th avenue. Confused, I rechecked the directions as I opened the door to a lovely looking studio. There, in front of me, stood an A-list singer whose-name-I-am-forbidden-to-release. Think: rhymes with burger…or maybe turkey. THE Burgie Burg. Turkalicious, to be exact.

My jaw dropped as I raised a hand to pat down the unfortunate rat’s nest that was my hair. I cursed myself for not even thinking to put on some lip gloss. She asked me if I had her dress. I nodded, holding it towards her in my outstretched (shaking) arms. She told me she liked my updo. (Here’s one for the tabloids, Turkey’s a LIAR.)

This all was happening too fast, why had Pierre sent me here? Why did he assume I could handle this job? “I’m just an intern!” I thought out loud. She looked at me as though I must undoubtedly have tourettes.

Obvi, she didn’t care who I was. She just needed help zipping up the damn dress. I looked around trying to figure out where the dressing rooms were in this studio, but when I turned back to ask her I realized that she was stripping down right there in the middle of the studio. This is not at all what I imagined my internship to entail. J.Timberlake naked? Yes please. Her, here in her birthday suit? Cracked out internship had just turned into a gateway drug, it was fair to say the summer was on some kind of acid at this point.

I zipped the dress, (I zipped a famous singer’s dress!) and she looked in the mirror in silence for what felt like a decade. She turned to me, “What do you think? They want me to wear this on air this afternoon.” I nodded, smiling queasily. I realized I’d been holding my breath the whole while. “It’s nice, I like it!” I squeaked. (I could not have been more original.) I thought I was off the hook now, she’d take off the dress, I’d take it back to the studio, and then I’d quit this job and run back to Maryland and life could be just as dull and normal as ever because then at least I’d be COMFORTABLE and remember to do important things, like breathe.

But the worst was yet to come… she smiled at me and nodded, and I unzipped the dress. And that is when any paparazzi’s biggest fantasy came true for no one but me. The big whopper, the Janet Jackson…or maybe the Tara Reid, you could call it. I can proudly (In other words, red-faced and full of shame) tell you all, that I saw her nipple. The left one.

Of course she giggled and was graceful, blushing and realizing almost instantaneously, but surely that didn’t erase the look of horror on my face. I don’t know what was worse, that I, with two very well covered ‘lovely lady lumps’ could be more embarrassed than she, with ‘the one that got away’, or the fact that I didn’t snap a picture of it to sell to E! for some serious money. Either way, she packed up and left, off to make another hit album, and I gathered my things, bracing myself for what was shaping up to be a very interesting summer, and a completely mortifying internship.

But I’ll update you again, once I catch my breath. Inhale…exhale, yea?