The real personal assistants of Toronto
The Show: The Real Housewives of Toronto, Season 1, Episode 7 The Moment: Elise!
“You look very business professional,” personal assistant Elise assures Real Housewife Roxy, her flamboyant boss, as they enter a “business meeting” with Somen Mondal, a pal of Roxy’s rich hubbie.
Roxy has an idea for an app to allow women to shop each other’s closets.
“Because I never want to wear something more than once and I imagine the general public is the same,” she says breezily. She has “entrepreneurship in my blood” — she just doesn’t know what that entails.
Mondal advises, “Step one, build a pitch deck.” Roxy’s face goes blank. “Are you getting this, Elise?” she asks. Elise scribbles in a notebook.
Mondal suggests a funding plan. “Did you get that down, Elise?” Roxy asks.
“Traction,” Mondal says. “Traction, Elise,” Roxy parrots, understanding nothing.
Dear millennial Elise, with your calm gaze and your pen, this is my ode to you.
This entire season had precisely one controversy: Joan got drunk, Kara gossiped about it. This just in: Canadians are polite.
But you, Elise, you are the one I wonder about. Do you have a BA from a worthy university mouldering in your bedside table drawer? Do you enjoy costuming your ostentatiously idle boss and then complimenting her, or was that “business professional” a secret slam?
Is this job a cash cow you’re happy to milk? Or do you lull yourself to sleep at night with fantasies of strangling Roxy with her head wrap, drowning her in her bubble bath, slipping cyanide into her champagne?
I see you, Elise. You are seen. The Real Housewives of Toronto aired on Slice and is available on demand. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.