The Fabulous Life of Alex Kuczynski Not So Fabulous in Los Angeles
Oh, Miss K., we know it hurts, but any high-flying woman will find shopping in Los Angeles — specifically, at the hipper-than-thou Fred Segal boutiques — to be quite the reality check. Driving up in a rented Jaguar simply isn't going to do it:
The entire time, a feral salesman loomed and stared but offered no help. He was the grand pooh-bah, I could tell, because he appeared to be the only clerk who was allowed to adjust the volume of the music. He spoke to me once as I circulated the boutique for an hour, which was to inform me that people weren't allowed to write in the store. He nodded at my notebook, which I usually try to conceal.
"But I'm a writer," I said. "I write notes wherever I go. What is this, a private club?"
He shrugged his shoulders and worked his face into a wince that was meant to convey both his ultimate lack of responsibility and his weary status as the true Boss Man: he would enforce the rules, and he couldn't explain them, but he stuck by them, by golly.
On the West Coast, you see, there's no such thing as "critical shopping." There is just shopping, and it is to be loved. And, my God, she brought a notebook? So very gauche. The mere suggestion of the written word is a scar upon even the smoothest face. Kuczynski may be the belle of the black AmEx ball on our island, but in Los Angeles she's no better than the rest of us plague-filled serfs.
Maybe we kind of like LA.
