Once Upon a Time...

Part Six

 5- Amelia

            The next day I was woken by a harsh knock on my door, but didn’t answer it. Instead, I just mumbled from under the covers for her to “start.”

            This didn’t faze my mother a bit. She started off, like every morning, but this time it was through the door.

            “The Clarks are coming at noon for our lunch appointment. I gave Anastasia the orders of which dress to put you in, and she and Antonio are coming over at ten. At two you have a PR meeting, and then after that filming for the newest commercial promoting the new marathon series we’re launching in October. You should be home by four after that and you need to start writing thank-you notes. We’ve been getting presents all day from far-away places like India. Who do you know from India? You’re going to be unwrapping for a while, Amelia. We need to be present in the Magic Kingdom at six to make sure everything’s in order, and the party starts at six-thirty. Now, at the celebration, there will be many cameras, and from what I understand, part of your commercial will be filmed there. That means no crazy dancing with your friends, and Antonio will be milling around in case you need him to fix your hair or make-up. Let’s try to get everyone out of there by about ten because it would be bad for the publicity if we had a huge party in the park that lasted much later than that. Also, no indecent clothes. I picked out a rack of option you could wear that Anastasia will go through with you this morning. Antonio wants you to do your own make-up, and if he needs to fix anything once we get there he will. Now get up and try writing some thank-you cards.”

            I thought sensibly then. How can you write a thank-you card if you don’t know what you got? I changed and went into the living room to begin on the mountain of presents waiting there for me. It was probably the highlight of my morning, which wasn’t saying much.

            The first thing I unwrapped was a vase from the Prime Minister of Great Britain that was made of pure crystal. Pretty, but not very functional. I set it in the Goodwill pile. Randy Jackson gave me a T-shirt and tickets to the next American Idol finale, and the Reds baseball team sent a season pass. I got a nice make-up kit from Perez Hilton and a few pieces of clothes were sent by Miley Cyrus. Bill Gates gave me a laptop and even the first family got me a teddy bear. I put most of these things in a pile to donate them; I didn’t need another make-up case, even if it came from Perez Hilton. I did, however, keep the Reds tickets and the teddy bear though. They may come in handy later for an excuse to go someplace, like Cincinnati, for example.

            I made a pretty big dent in the pile, but more presents just kept coming. Bill, at concierge, sent at least ten people in just one hour, each laden with more packages than the last. I finally decided to attack the pile with a different strategy: only open the smaller packages. The big ones were mostly stupid things I didn’t really need, and I would handle them later. The small things were usually pieces of jewelry or bundles of cash or gift cards or concert tickets. I got a $200 gift card to Forever 21, another for Sephora, multiple subscriptions to magazines I didn’t really care about. I got backstage passes for five concerts (I only kept the Hillary Hahn one) and roughly ten thousand dollars’ worth in jewelry and another three grand in cash. My mother walked in once and said airily, “These are the ones you’re donating, right?” Of course, the small stack of things I wanted to keep was the one to which she was referring.

            “No, that’s what I want to keep,” I said, without taking a break from sorting through a box of chocolates from Bill Clinton.

            “What in the world are you planning to do with this scarf?” she asked, picking up a beautiful hand-stitched thing made by Martha Stuart herself.