Chapter Fourteen
The Spree . . . Wheee!
Tuesday Mid-morning
She stepped into a place of golden light and subtle scents—scents of bergamot and sandalwood, of ambergris and lavender and musk—perfume fragrances that carried with them subtle hints of leathers and fine furs and tobacco. It was the scent of money. It stopped her in her tracks.
I’ve died and gone to heaven.
Like Dorothy, stepping into the Land of Oz, Annie knew she wasn’t in Laramie anymore. This was a long way from her usual western-wear store back home on Grand Avenue. This was a fantasy turned real.
As far as she could see, from inside the great glass doors where she was standing to the elevators along the back wall, there were rows upon rows of glass-topped vitrines displaying—most tastefully—jewelry and cosmetics and perfumes. Names she knew only from magazines. Lanvin and Patou and Lalique. Handbags and small accessories, gloves and scarves and belts by Chanel and Prada and Burberry, all enriched by that same seductive scent, all suffused with that same ethereal light.
She approached a perfume counter. A slim, black-clad, perfectly coiffed woman smiled upon her, appearing to have been placed on earth specifically to serve. Annie picked a crystal flacon from a mirrored tray.
“Would you like to try it?” The saleswoman’s voice was gracious, with a musical French lilt. “It is a lovely scent.”
Annie held out her hand, palm up, and the saleswoman placed a drop from the glass stopper on Annie’s wrist.
Annie sniffed at it. “Oh, that really is nice,” she said. “How much is it?”
“Three hundred twenty-five dollars. For the half ounce. Of course, there is a larger size, if you prefer.”
Annie gulped. It took a heartbeat or two to let that sink in. How easy it would be to rack up $50,000 worth of selections. But what a gloriously indulgent way to begin her spree. “Oh, yes. I’ll take it.” But, careful as always, she added, “The smaller size, of course.”
And Galliard’s tally-man made a note.
What next?
“Bags,” Liz had said. Yes, bags!
At the Chanel counter, she looked at bags. She picked up bags. She quickly scanned the interiors of a couple of bags. Back in Laramie, she and Liz had read about handbags that cost thousands, but couldn’t imagine such things really existed. Now, with a real specimen in her hand, she realized this was of a different species. The softness of the leather, the quality of the stitching, the beauty of the hardware, it began to make some sense. Not a lot of sense—but some.
She fell in love with a Burberry alligator bag, but at $24,000 it would have taken too much of her spree budget, so she went with two less expensive Burberry totes—one in black and one in the signature Burberry tartan—and she and Liz could fight later on over who got which.
And now, with her heart beginning to race, she realized that if she spent a lot of time on each item, she’d be turning this adventure into a leisurely shopping day, instead of a giddy “spree,” which is what this was supposed to be. The fun of it all would be to run and—sort of—grab. And later on, when it was all done, discover what she had.
And in that spirit, she sprinted for the escalator, pausing only to grab a rope of crystals from a display of costume jewelry, a cashmere Hermès scarf from a stack in a Lucite tray, and a pair of burgundy suede gloves, lined in silk, from Italy. The TV people had to run; the staff people jogged along, with Mitzi bringing up the rear, herding them hectically along. There weren’t any escalators in Laramie, so Annie needed a moment to adjust her pace, but a girl who’s ridden broncs can figure out a staircase that does the climbing for you, and in a minute, she was racing up the moving stairs, eager for the rest of this great adventure.
From there on it was a whirlwind of Louboutin and Jimmy Choo, of parkas lined with real fur, and skinny, gorgeous jeans, a Vera Wang dress in a soft fog-gray wool fabric so thin and fine it could have been silk, a long tweed coat from Finland, a short camel hair coat by Max Mara, a biker jacket lined with shearling by Alexander McQueen, and an absolutely-must-have black-and-white Chanel blazer. A spectacular sable coat brought her up short with its price tag of $80,000, so she gave it just a couple of obligatory reverent strokes and then moved on. In the kids’ section, she got a set of real drums for Liz’s Brandon and a brightly-colored go-kart for Buckley. Liz might not thank her, but the boys would love her forever, if they didn’t already. For Craig, she took a minute to choose between a brightly-colored Scandinavian-style heavy-knit sweater with images of reindeer and fir trees, and a plain but classic cable-stitched crew neck. She had a momentary vision of Liz’s husband’s dismay at the former and his genuine pleasure at the latter—and she chose the gray cable stitch.
She was feeling breathless, as though the whole world had gone into slow motion and she’d lost track of time, lost the feeling of her feet under her, lost her usual sense of centeredness. She’d almost forgotten that there were people right there, following her, paying attention to her. People for whom she was the center of attention. This was really a weird experience.
She turned to Mitzi, whose professional focus was looking a little frayed. A few strands of hair had slipped out of the French braid.
“How am I doing?”
“You still have a couple of thousand to go.”
“Okay. I want the baby department.”
“Baby?”
“A couple of the women I work with have new babies. I’d like to bring back something for them. And then I want to look at lingerie.”
“Lingerie is on this floor. Babies the next one down.”
“Okay. Let’s hit the nightgowns first.”
Lingerie at Galliard’s was not like anything she’d known about, and it wasn’t just the prices. She’d never seen a garter belt before. She hadn’t known there were things like low-beam adhesives and cleavage cupcakes, and she needed a little instruction from Mitzi as to their function. She’d never seen such exquisite lace as she saw on one pair of skimpy panties. And she hadn’t known a pair of panties could cost $380. Neither, apparently, had the TV producer. She heard him whisper to his cameraman, “Hell, for three eighty, I could buy the whole girl!” Which was a bit of New York cynicism that would probably fly in Wyoming, too.
But the nightgowns were beautiful, and she added an outrageously tiny teddy and a slinky, sexy, cleavage-to-the-navel bit of pale froth, both from La Perla, and a brilliantly red silk nightshirt from Donna Karan. In a moment of good sense, she added a totally sensible pair of flannel pajamas from Bedhead.
“Now to the babies,” she said.
Down one flight to the babies department, and there she selected a couple of silver baby mugs and a silver piggy bank.
“And you’ve done it!” Mitzi said. “Only seven minutes left! And you’ve just hit fifty thousand dollars!”
“Wait, Mitzi. I just want to take a couple of minutes here. Don’t say anything yet.”
Mitzi’s expression was quizzical, but she was willing to indulge her, at least for the last minutes.
Annie’s eye had been caught by the displays of tiny dresses for tiny little girls, and she needed to pause, if only for a few moments, to touch the sweet little frocks. Is there a woman on earth who doesn’t get drawn into the fun and fantasy of dressing a baby girl? Annie couldn’t just walk past all those precious little outfits. Even Mitzi recognized the dream that lay in that pause and she let Annie have her moment. “I know it’s silly—but I just love this little velvet party dress,” Annie said. “I’ll just pay for this one myself and put it away. Maybe someday—who knows—maybe—”
Mitzi smiled and whispered a couple of words to the salesperson.
And the TV’s on-air correspondent, who just couldn’t wait any longer, was almost breathless with excitement. “She’s done it, folks. Annie Cornell has had the spree of a lifetime. She’s going to leave Galliard’s with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of the most expensive, most glamorous, and most exciting items that any young woman could want. Tune in to the runway show on Friday when we’re going to show you everything she collected on this fabulous adventure, this spree of a lifetime.”
The spree of a lifetime? She was going to have to let it sink in. With all the hugs and kisses from Liz, and the cheering and fussing-over by Galliard’s people and assorted spectators, and Chanel-scented air kisses from Mitzi, it was clear this was supposed to be the most important day of her life. But she was numb with spent adrenaline and the never-before experience of being the center of so much public attention. And deep down inside her intelligent head, she knew that there must be more to life—to her life—than a day in the sun of television fuss and the accumulation of a truckload of fancy clothes.
And in the car, on the way back to the hotel, Liz said, “Honey, when you get back to Laramie, you’re going to have a really super story to tell everyone about this day. Not many people come to New York and have a story like this to tell everyone back home.”
“I know. Nothing for the rest of this week could top this day.”