An Interview, A Department Store, And Some Very Expensive Shoes

When I got the call from Cardozo Law School asking me if I could come in for an interview that very afternoon, I figured that the gods of law school admissions were smiling down on me. 

I could have still been home in Florida for winter break, but the week before I had randomly decided to change my plans to detour through New York for two days before school started again. So when I got the call, I was sitting in my pajamas in my friend's living room on Long Island. 

The dean only had one slot available that day and I assured his secretary I would be there.

"But what will you wear?"

My friend's question burst my happy balloon as I suddenly remembered that I was on my way back to school with a suitcase full of jeans. A glance through her closet told me that we were nowhere near the same size, and a glance at the clock told me that I had approximately four hours to get to the interview.

Twenty minutes later I was on the Long Island Railroad speeding towards Manhattan. I deferred to my friend's expertise and headed straight for Macy's on 34th Street when my train pulled into Penn Station, where she assured me I could buy something presentable.

Standing in my underwear in a dressing room, surrounded by piles of discarded clothes, sweat slid down my back and my heart was beating fast and furious and I tried - and rejected - suit after suit.

With the interview drawing closer and visions of sitting in front of the dean stark naked racing through my head, I went out to the racks one last time. Having given up on the idea of a full suit, I headed for a rounder of skirts and pulled some out at random. I grabbed a handful of sweaters and ran back to the dressing room.

Once again, skirt after skirt ended up in the reject pile until there was only one left. It was brown and wool with a label that said Tahari, which didn't mean anything to me except that miraculously, the zipper slid up easily and it kind of matched one of the sweaters now sitting in a heap on the dressing room bench, so suddenly it was my favorite brand in the world.

Without a glance at either price tag I flew to the shoe department and circled the room four times before I finally found the one pair of brown heels in the store. They were Nicole Miller, which also didn't mean anything to me except that they fit and they matched and my interview was in 47 minutes, so I went straight to the check-out counter.

645 dollars, 30 minutes, a stop at Duane Reade for stockings, and a stop in a Starbucks bathroom to change later I walked into the dean's office.

Three weeks after the interview I got rejected from Cardozo.

But since I'm sitting in my law office wearing the skirt and the shoes right now, I figure I got my money's worth anyway.