CBS has replayed The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show twice this month. Thanks to the writer's strike, we again get to see Seal in silver glitter pants, Heidi Klum singing, and Brazilian model upon Brazilian model proclaiming how perfect their lives have become since joining the Victoria's Secret family. Oh, yes, and a few shots of Jeremy Piven and Mystery seated side by side, presumably giddy with excitement for the imminent Spice Girl reunion.
For a brief moment in time, years ago, I was a part of the Victoria's Secret family. I answered the phone when you called, I took your nervous, low-spoken orders. I recommended thongs in lilac, and lace garters, and told men what women wanted. I had just turned eighteen.
Working at Victoria's Secret Catalogue is nothing like working at the stores in the mall. The stores are tawdry explosions of pink satin and taffeta curtains. Near the cash registers, they sell cinnamon mints in the shape of tiny, pursed lips. They are full of buxom young women and confused, hopeful men and too much clotted mascara in the corners of saleswomen's eyes.
No, Victoria's Secret Catalogue is adult, sophisticated, operated out of a remote, sprawling complex on the outskirts of an Ohio suburb. Like all of Les Wexner's buildings that I'd driven by — he, the faceless owner and multimillionaire behind Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, The Limited, Bath & Bodyworks, half of Ohio, probably your car — it is a monolith of steel and black modernistic construction. Even though Victoria's Secret spells "catalogue" the British way — which always made me believe that a puffy, British fifty-something woman of great means and great sexual proclivity was behind the empire — it is made, manufactured, and headquartered in Ohio. Like so many things you don't expect — Katie Holmes, Sarah Jessica Parker, the invention of flight, Jeffrey Dahmer's childhood — it actually comes from Ohio.
It was Lisa Bevilaqua's idea that we work there over the summer. I was flattered to be invited. Popular, with a beautiful albino streak through her honey-blond curls, Lisa was one of the few non-Catholics at our sainted
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You could hang up on perv callers, but sometimes I'd stay on the line.
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high school (oh, the freedom!), had a car, and had achieved the perfect amount of sluttiness. (The stereotypes are absolutely true: all Catholic schoolgirls are either sluts, or desperately trying to become sluts.) She prepared me for giving blowjobs: "It's like eating vanilla ice cream with pickles."
It was our first job that didn't involve selling orthopedic shoes or carving turkeys at a buffet for the elderly. There were security guards and a gleaming reception desk. We were issued laminated ID badges and our own giant black folders with every recent incarnation of the catalogue, triple-hole punched inside, which we'd scour for the fabled transsexual model, though we never found an Adam's apple and they all had big feet. If you didn't want to eat in the spacious employee cafeteria (complete with fro-yo machine and glamorous, multigrain breadsticks), you could have your packed lunch in one of the upstairs lounges, sitting at small metal tables beneath billboard-sized photos of Stephanie Seymour lounging on satin pillows. So much Stephanie Seymour, the size of a Tyrannosaurus, looking down on your carrot sticks and dreams.
Before I worked there, I imagined the customers would be wealthy college graduates, professionals with expensive hair and teeth and pinstriped suits taking a few minutes out of their busy days to call the toll-free line and order teddies and satin chemises to pack for their weekends in Tahiti. I didn't think so many housewives would call in, or that so many housewives would work the phones: acres of housewives wearing mom jeans, as far as the eye could see, with a few of us teens scattered in, and — on the night shift — the goth couple whose matching nose piercings jingled when they walked by. But soon, I discovered that these mothers knew what women wanted. Unrattled, they could consult with clients on which bra best fit a double-D. They never suggested a customer buy a white suit to wear to a wedding, and so were never reprimanded by said customer.
Despite my Hooksexups and inexperience, I tried to answer every call with a low, sultry purr: "Thank you for calling Victoria's Secret Catalogue. My name is Nicole, how can I assist you?" I wanted my voice to convey, "I am a mature, confidant woman who knows what she wants, and how to get it."
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