Where to Buy Shoes When You Have Really Small Feet

It wasn't until recently that I became aware of the fact that people with really tiny feet (i.e. any size smaller than a 6) have a particularly hard time finding shoes in their size. Call me ignorant, but I had always assumed that it was the people with larger feet (i.e. anything bigger than size 9) who had the difficult time. Sadly, both are true, but this story is focusing on the teensy-footed people of the world, and we are here to solve all of their problems (as far as shopping goes). 

My co-worker (and friend) falls under the category of "small feet," coming in hot with a solid size 5. I am always sending her links to shoes I think she would love, and time and time again, I manage to disappoint her, as I forget to check to see if they come in her size. While I have gotten slightly better at being considerate of her tiny-feet problems, I am still shocked at how few retailers actually sell shoes in sizes smaller than a 6. With a little research and a few tips from my friend, we were able to nail down a handful of incredible retailers that sell the small sizes you have been searching for in the cutest styles possible. Use these as your guide the next time you are in need of a new pair of shoes, instead of getting let down by a style you cannot have. 

Keep reading to discover the best retailers that sell some of the smallest sizes around and to shop our picks from each! 

The Disrupters: Making New York’s Cultural Boards More Diverse

"African-Americans do not have a long tradition of wealth like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts or Whitneys," said Faye Wattleton, one of more than a dozen black board members of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "We still are not at parity by any means. But there is an emerging class of significant wealth in the African-American community that is now in great demand."

A member of that class is Ray McGuire, the global head of corporate and investment banking at Citi. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, by his social-worker mother, he went to Harvard College in 1975, then continued to business and law school there, completing his studies in 1984.

"Three colleges, three degrees," said Mr. McGuire, who then went to New York, where he held jobs at a series of big firms and achieved business and philanthropic successes that amplified each other.

The first places he became a trustee were the International Center of Photography and the New Museum. In 1994, he was elected to the board of the Whitney, where he said he never felt like a token, despite being the board's only African-American.

"I always thought it was an assessment of my ability to add value," he said.

In addition to becoming friends with longtime Whitney patrons, the business titans Leonard Lauder and Thomas Lee, Mr. McGuire got to know a young curator named Thelma Golden, who is black and had interned at the Studio Museum in Harlem while she was a student at Smith College.

Photo Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

"She was who introduced me to collecting art," Mr. McGuire said.

He was later asked to join the boards of the New York Public Library, Lincoln Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, hosted chats with political figures ranging from Bill Bratton to Mr. Obama, and amassed one of the most significant collections of African-American art in the country, which Ms. Golden advised him on.

Today Ms. Golden is the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum, where Mr. McGuire is chairman of the board.

Diversifying the leadership positions at the big cultural institutions south of Harlem has proved more elusive.

"For many years, I said: 'This just doesn't go. We serve a population,'" said Agnes Gund, president emerita of MoMA, who is white and has helped lead efforts to make its board look more like New York. It wasn't a popular opinion.

In the last decade, MoMA has gone from having one black trustee to having five, though some — particularly those who come not from banking but from the arts or academia — talk of their experiences on the board almost as if they are Prep for Prep students at a ritzy private school, apart from the Park Avenu e kids.

In June, MoMA hosted its annual Party in the Garden fund-raiser, where two of the three artists honored — Mark Bradford and Huma Bhabha — are black and Pakistani, respectively. But Khalil Gibran Muhammad, an African-American trustee recruited to the board in 2015 by its chairman, Mr. Speyer, said he couldn't pay for a $2,500 ticket on an academic's salary.

"It looked lovely," he said. "I saw pictures."

On one hand, Dr. Muhammad, a professor of history at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard who formerly ran the New York Public Library Sch omburg Center for Research in Black Culture, said he is pleased that MoMA is having what he called a "very real and very frank conversation about the whiteness of its collections, both internationally and in terms of having African-Americans represented."

On the other, he worries about the focus on board diversity there and elsewhere obscuring the issue of what happens when a small group of wealthy patrons controls a large cultural nonprofit.

Photo Mr. Walker Credit Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

"I have not borne witness almost anywhere to people saying, 'This is not how things should be,'" Dr. Muhammad said.

Since joining the MoMA board in 2012, A C Hudgins, a black collector of African-American art, has flown on private planes in the company of fellow trustees, something he had never done before. He has invited trustees to his house for dinner, only to find himself amused and slightly disturbed when they told him how nice it was to clear their own plates afterward, as they had in their youths.

"I'm Negro rich, not MoMA rich," Mr. Hudgins said, laughing. "If you look at the billionaires that keep coming onto this board, it's mind-boggling. Just mind-boggling."

But Mr. Hudgins has clearly added value to the museum. The museum on West 53rd Street now includes a trove of pieces by African-Americans that he donated, including works by Senga Nengudi, Henry Taylor and David Hammons.

Last year, Mr. Hudgins helped recruit another black trustee, Edith Cooper (Harvard College, 1984), the global head of human capital management at Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Hudgins and his wife, Thelma, have grown close to H enry and Marie-Josée Kravis, who in recent years have added works by nonwhite artists like Mark Bradford, Kevin Beasley and Oscar Murillo to the walls of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the $51 billion private equity firm founded by Mr. Kravis and his partners.

And when Ms. Kravis met Mr. Murillo, it was Mr. Hudgins who introduced them.

"AC's really been an energizing force at MoMA," Ms. Kravis said. "He's a terrific addition."

How does she respond to Dr. Muhammad's concerns that too much power is in the hands of the benevolent rich?

Photo Ms. Lee Credit Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times

"Khalil is right," she said. "We are a private institution. We don't get any operating revenue from government, and it's expensive to operate, so we have to be sensitive to our financial needs. But we have three million visitors a year, and they're not all wealthy people. I've often said, we have to be an agora, not a temple."

Arm-Twisting

In addition to his work as head of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker is a vice chairman at New York City Ballet. A former investment banker and professor of urban development, he has a deep understanding of the interplay between the new class of African-American cultural heavyweights and the city's elite institutions, as both an observer and participant (if often an ambivalent one).

"The boards of all these organizations are receiving contradictory messages," Mr. Walker said. "On one hand, they're being told, 'You have to raise more private money.' On the other, they're being told, 'You need to diversify and elect people who may or may not be able to raise that money.'"

It was a balmy Sunday afternoon, and Mr. Walker, 56, was sitting in the lobby of the Hilton hotel on East 42nd Street, a location he selected because the nearby Ford Foundation's environmentally conscious air-conditioning had been turned off for the day.

"If there were more public money, there would be more public subsidy," he said. "Unfortunately, there's less public money. We d on't want ticket prices to go up. So where is this money going to come from?"

The problem has become more apparent as these organizations steer hundreds of millions of dollars toward capital improvements. "The capacity to give is becoming the sole criteria for membership," he said. "And it does a tremendous disservice to these organizations."

In 1992, when Mr. Walker joined New York City Ballet as its second African-American trustee while working in investment banking for the United Bank of Switzerland, he was something of an outsider.

"There was one black person on the board," he said. "And he had stopped coming to meetings."

Yet Mr. Walker, who now oversees a half-billion dollars a year in grant money to nonprofit institutions from his Ford Foundation perch, grew close to a number of his white colleagues at the ballet.

Photo Dr. Coles Credit Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

"That's where I met Agnes Gund," he said. "That's where I met Anne Bass."

Mr. Walker recently helped the organization's chairman, Jay Fishman, recruit prominent African-Americans like Debra Martin Chase (Harvard Law, 1981), a film producer who has worked with Denzel Washington; and Ursula Burns, the departing chief executive officer of Xerox.

"We went from one to five," he said of New York City Ballet's board. "And we went from one to five only because there was a commitment from the chairman and the leadership to increase diversity."

Today, Mr. Walker travels the globe with his supply of Oxford shirts and pocket squares, giving speeches about economic inequality and providing advice (if not always money) to seemingly everyone willing to fill out a 501(c)(3).

In 2014, Debra Lee, the African-American C.E.O. of BET Networks (Harvard Law, 1980), was offered the president of the board position at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. When she vacillated, Mr. Walker took her to dinner at SD26 in the Flatiron district.

"He didn't twist my arm too much," Ms. Lee said. "But he said, 'You need to do this.'"

Mr. Walker even communicates with Ms. Lee, Ms. Burns, Mr. McGuire and Ms. Chase on an email chain of prominent black philanthropists ("the blutocrats!" Mr. Walker joked) that includes Kenneth Chenault, the chief executive of American Express, and Dr. Tony Coles, a Met trustee and biotech entrepreneur who in 2013 sold his company, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, for $10 billion.

Years ago, while on the board of Newtown Friends School, in Newtown, Pa., which his children attended, Dr. Coles heard a proverb: "'Wealth or wisdom is usually the requirement,'" he said, "'and if you happen to have both, even better.'"

A Tussle at Carnegie Hall

By the spring of 2015, a number of the city's other cultural institutions were showing signs that they were making a conscious decision to diversify their boards. The Metropolitan Museum of Art appointed three new trustees to the board, two of whom were nonwhite. On Lafayette Street, at the Public Theater, it was four out of five.

"This was no accident," said Mr. Davis, a longtime Public Theater board member who credited Arielle Tepper Madover, the nonprofit's chairwoman since 2013, for making its board was more in sync with its championing of nonwhite playwrights and performers.

Photo Mr. Wilkins Credit Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

When Patrick Bradford, the first black partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, announced his plans to leave the Public Theater board, he suggested another prominent African-American replace him: Timothy Wilkins, who works in mergers and acquisitions at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who had served on the Public Theater's Partners Program.

"I always enjoyed the theater, but what really impressed me was the multiracial, multiethnic casting," Mr. Wilkins said.

Does the makeup of the board mirror what he has seen on the theater's stages?

"Not yet," he said, laughing. "But it does feel like there's a commitment to progress."

In January of this year, results of Mr. Finkelpearl's diversity study were released. Amid 41 pages of graphs and tables, the Ithaka analysis demonstrated that the higher the endowment of an organization, the lower its number of black and Hispanic board members and senior staff members. At Carnegie Hall, whose board was less than 20 percent nonwhite, all 10 of its officers were white, though six trustees are black.

For more than 20 y ears, its chairman was Sanford I. Weill, the former chief executive of Citigroup, who pushed for significant capital-improvements projects — very much like those that Mr. Walker and others are concerned that boards are now overly focused on.

And they were controversial for other reasons as well: In 2007, he handed what ultimately became a $230 million renovation of the concert hall's headquarters to the architect Natan Bibliowicz, who happened to be his son-in-law.

In February 2015, Carnegie Hall announced that the longtime trustee Ronald Perelman, a billionaire investor, would succeed Mr. Weill as chairman, with Mr. Weill taking the role of president.

Big change seemed somewhat unlikely, but Mr. Perelman had a n interest in the diversity issue. For one, he is on the board of the Apollo Theater, with his close friend Richard Parsons, the African-American former C.E.O. of Time Warner. He is also friendly with Mayor de Blasio.

Photo Mr. Muhammad Credit Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

In July, around the same time Mr. Perelman recruited Mr. Walker to the board of Carnegie Hall, Mr. Perelman's spokeswoman, Christine Taylor, went to lunch with Mr. Finkelpearl. There, they hatched a plan for the Carnegie Hall diversity symposium.

Then things went a little nuts at Carnegie Hall, when Mr. Perelman decided to really rattle the cage. He suspended the artistic director, Clive Gillinson, who had been managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra before joining Carnegie Hall.

In a letter later reprinted in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perelman wrote that Mr. Gillinson had failed to act with appropriate transparency by repeatedly denying him access to the company's financial records, among other things.

The board rushed to Mr. Gillinson's defense. Mr. Perelman resigned. When Mr. Perelman showed up at Carnegie Hall on Sept. 19 for the diversity symposium led by Mr. Finkelpearl, he and Mr. Gillinson sat as far apart as possible.

As people sympathetic to Mr. Perelman tell it, the board was a boys club that avoided tension and disagreement, while it rubber-stamped projects with clear conflicts of interest, and ignored efforts to diversify the audience and programming.

As people sympathetic to Mr. Gillinson cast the story, Mr. Perelman quit after making a Barnum-like play to alter Carnegie Hall's programming, reducing its focus on classical music and trying to sign R&B stars like Alicia Keys.

Ms. Taylor did not deny that Mr. Perelman hoped to update the offerings, but she framed it as part of a larger pro-diversity plan. "He didn't suggest Alicia Keys to dumb Carnegie Hall down," she said. "He did it to bring in new people who might patronize it in the future."

Mercedes Bass took over as acting chairwoman with the aim that she would eventually assume the role in a long-term capacity, according to three board sources.

Lawyers were brought in to investigate Mr. Perelman's claims and determined that Mr. Gillinson had acted in good faith. But that did not stop a number of its trustees that winter from voicing concern that Ms. Bass — a white Upper East Side socialite — may not be the person to carry Carnegie Hall into the future.

A better alternative, they argued, was Mr. Smith. For one, he had recently pledged $15 million to Carnegie Hall, as well as $50 million to Cornell Medical School.

He is also an African-American man with a love for classical music and sons named Hendrix (after Jimi) and Legend (after John), which positioned him to be a potential bridge between traditionalists and the more populist camp. The icing on the cake was that he had been recruited to the board in 2013 by Mr. Gillinson.

After the formal announcement, Mr. Walker praised Mr. Smith's selection as "a transformational moment in the life of the city." In a rare interview, even Mr. Perelman offered measured praise. "From my point of view, this is a step in the right direction," he said. "I think he can have a fabulous effect, if he is allowed to."

But Dr. Muhammad, the former director of the Schomburg center, cautioned against seeing Mr. Smith's entry into New York cultural life as a sign that things will change in a meaningful way.

"White people are going to be wealthier on average, wealthier people are going to be in leadership positions more often, and in those positions they're likely to be part of a network of people in the same social milieu," Dr. Muhammad said. "There'll continue to be people like Robert Smith, who happen to be African-American and do wonderful things, but there's a giant wealth gap between blacks and whites, and it's only widened in the wake of the great recession. Is this a sign of a trend that black people will be the heads of boards all over the country? I doubt it."

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This Under-the-Radar Korean Brand Is Delightfully Wacky

We've all fallen victim to what we'll refer to as the "Instagram spiral," when you click aimlessly through photos, tumbling down a virtual rabbit hole of #ootds and artfully arranged flat lays. But sometimes all that mindless double-tapping comes in handy, and you come across something really cool, like Korean brand Ader Error.

Consider the up-and-coming label a riff on the best the thrift store has to offer, with an almost Vetements-esque flair. For the brand, it's not about making something new, "but something special and different," and that's exactly what its doing. From statement socks, to cozy-cool jackets, you'll want to snap up these quirky pieces now before the brand really hits it big. We rounded up a few of our favorite pics from the brand's Instagram below, along with a few of our favorite pieces you can get shipped straight to your door (oh, the beauty of the internet). 

Read on to check it out and shop them for yourself. 

Arts | Westchester: Defying the Conventions of Fashion

Photo Some of the designs worn by the daughters of Jay Gould, the Gilded-Age tycoon, on view at Lyndhurst, his former estate in Tarrytown. Credit Clifford Pickett

Kris Jenner, Mariah Carey and Madonna are among the women who have been accused of dressing too young for their age. But they are far from the first. Anna Gould, the younger daughter of the 19th-century financier and railroad tycoon Jay Gould, was challenging the fashion status quo many decades before.

Fiercely independent like her father, who was a misfit in Gilded Age society despite his vast wealth, Anna Gould loved fashion and dressed as she wished, with little care for convention.

"She always dressed younger than she was," said Howard Zar, the executive director at Lyndhurst, the Gould family estate perched on a hillside just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge in Tarrytown.

Owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the 67-acre Lyndhurst estate is open for tours, which through Sept. 25 include a chance to see the captivating exhibition "Defying Labels: New Roles, New Clothes." It showcases gorgeous designs from premier French couture houses and from American seamstresses they inspired, as it delves into how fashions preferred by Mr. Gould's daughters and daughter- in-law tell a powerful story of seismic changes in women's lives.

Described by Time magazine in 1932 as "plain, plump and not much concerned with 'Society,'" Mr. Gould's older daughter, Helen, lived through a period of significant change for women and became a powerhouse in the world of philanthropy.

"She studied law at New York University before the passage of suffrage. She championed women's economic equality, helped finance the Spanish-American War and married for love at age 45," the exhibition's catalog says.

As the exhibition makes clear, her wardrobe was in step with the evolving life of a businesswoman who loved sports, built a bowling alley at Lyndhurst and traveled to the Middle East at a time when women never ventured beyond cultured European capitals.

The earliest piece on display is a traditional, voluminous and elaborately decorated purple silk dress from 1885 by the American seamstress M. A. Connelly. Providing contrast is a sleekly tailored travel outfit from 1912, with c lean lines, a chic simplicity and even a contemporary feel.

Photo Helen Gould's shoe trunk, which she used on trips to the Middle East. Credit Clifford Pickett

Edith Kingdon Gould, the wife of Jay Gould's eldest son, George, and a former actress, pursued a more traditional path with fashion. She patronized the House of Worth, preferred French couturier to American socialites and favored designs that accented her voluptuous figure. She pushed back by employing fashion and public image as weapons, helping the family compete with the Astors and others who had shunned Jay Gould.

Anna Gould was married to two French aristocrats. She divorced the first one, and following the death of the second, the Duke of Talleyrand, returned to the United States at age 64 as a refugee fleeing the Nazis.

She steals the show in "Defying Labels."

"She displays a continuing independence in her lifelong fashion choices and refuses to give up a fashionable lifestyle despite divorce, dislocation, widowhood and old age," the catalog says. "She embodies the modern female sensibility of dressing to please oneself."

At Lyndhurst, Anna Gould sought to recreate her luxurious French lifestyle, buying American versions of gowns she had bought in Paris. Her outfits on display are spectacular — ranging from a super-chic sidesaddle riding outfit from Busvine of England to the Orientalist flapper dress by Agnès on loan from Palais Galliera, part of a suite that chronicles Gould's life in Paris.

The exclamation mark is an evening gown by Maison Burano of New York from the late 1940s or early '50s. With a tucked Basque waist, and a spray of flowers descending diagonally across its wide crinoline skirt, the long peach-colored dress is perfect for a girl feeling the first blush of womanhood. Anna Gould wore it in her 70s — without apology.

As terrific as the exhibition is, the star attraction is Lyndhurst, so ahead of its time that Mr. Zar refers to it as "the shock of the new."

Designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, it was built for a former New York mayor, William Paulding. Around the time of the Civil War, Davis doubled the mansion's size for the second owner, the merchant George Merritt, who renamed it Lyndenhurst for the linden trees on the property.

Seven years after Merritt's death, Jay Gould bought the estate in 1880 as a summer home just as he was rising to the height of his power, controlling Western Union Telegraph, the New York Elevated Railway a nd the Union Pacific Railroad. (He changed the name to Lyndhurst.)

Photo A shoe worn by Anna Gould that was designed by Delman in the 1940s. Credit Bruce White

"Jay Gould could get to Wall Street in 45 minutes on his yacht. This is why he was here," Mr. Zar explained. "He came home every night."

Each of the mansion's rooms is impressive, and the most dramatic is the three-story art gallery. "At the beginning of the Gilded Age, this is what wealth looked like," Mr. Zar said. The collection includes such brand-name artists as Gustave Courbet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Charles Daubigny and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Helen Gould took over Lyndhurst after her father's death in 1892, and after she died in 1938, Anna Gould oversaw the estate until her death in 1961, when Lyndhurst went to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

"Lyndhurst had been languishing for a good decade," before his arrival approximately three and a half years ago, Mr. Zar said. Since then, roughly $2.1 million has been spent on restoration efforts.

One-hour guided tours of the Lyndhurst mansion are offered Fridays through Mondays, and a special Upstairs/Downstairs tour is available through Sept. 25.

In addition to visiting all of the rooms in the mansion, the tour takes visitors up the 79 steps to the observatory of the newly restored Merritt Tower — with a great view of Manhattan and the Hudson River — and down 99 steps to the butler's suite, kitchen and more. Next year, the restored bowling alley will also be to open to tours.

The grounds are as important as interiors at Lyndhurst, which in 2015 received a $500,000 state matching grant to help revitalize the lower landscape between the mansion and the Hudson River. The other $500,000 is in hand, and the project is poised to begin.

To show off the already gorgeous estate, a tour of the grounds will be offered from Sept. 4 to Sept. 25. In addition to 16 structures, including a Lord & Burnham steel-framed greenhouse, the property features an award-winning rose garden, a fern garden, a rock garden and specimen trees.

"Defying Labels" may be viewed as part of Lyndhurst tours or separately.

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The Fall Jewelry Trend Georgia May Jagger Predicts Will Be Big

Last week in a picturesque suite at The Bowery Hotel, I sat down with British model Georgia May Jagger over a cup of tea (well, I had water in a teacup, but we can pretend) to discuss her partnership with jewelry brand Thomas Sabo. I was admittedly a bit overenthusiastic to meet the daughter of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall (who wouldn't be?), and even though as editors we interview celebrities all of the time, this particular run-in was especially exciting. Jagger casually stepped out on the terrace to meet with me in a pink Reformation dress and her signature blond waves. She was down-to-earth, sweet, and had a thing or two to say about jewelry. Scroll down to read our interview and find out what her most prized jewelry possession is, he r prediction for fall's biggest jewelry trend, and more.

Modern Love: Words With (I Wish We Were More Than) Friends

The next night was no different, and I realized I had to start getting this down on paper. When a game ended, our chats from that game ended with it. Every 45 minutes or so, everything would disappear, and I wanted to preserve all of it, proof that such things are possible, and at any age.

After a week, I told my best friend back east what was happening. She told me a story about a co-worker who had an online relationship with a woman for two years. Now they were married. I laughed it off and thanked her, but I told her I had no illusions.

We were always brutally honest about our future, namely in agreeing there wasn't one. It wasn't even clear that she was coming back to Reno; she would go wherever she managed to land a job. We were a most pleasant distraction for each other, but school would eventually resume for her, and I'd eventually meet someone in Reno. On the Words With Friends board, we were both masters of the endgame, but there didn't seem to be any endgame for us in real life.

I also knew that it was the baked-in distance and the impossibility of a date that had allowed me to fall so deeply in the first place. In person, I'm typically so shy in romantic situations that I can barely make eye contact with someone I've just met. With her, I felt free to open myself up entirely.

Two weeks in, after playing and chatting four to six hours every night, she warned me that she was meeting her father in South Korea the coming weekend and wouldn't be around to keep up our nightly ritual.

It's strange to miss someone you have never actually met. In the morning, I awoke to a message she had sent from the airport, waiting out a delay. This single message meant more to me than the thousands of others we had exchanged.

When I took my first business trip as a single man a few years earlier, I remember wishing I had someone to text from the airport. I had internalized the idea that love is having someone who cares about every utterly benign detail of your travel.

"I made it!" I wanted to tap out. "Man, I think I parked in the furthest possible spot." "The line at security is insane — is it spring break or something?" "Ok, at my gate!" "Boarding!" "Shutting down now, about to take off :)."

All those imagined texts with no recipient. It stung even more when my plane touched down several hours later with nobody to tell I'd arrived safely.

Our three days "apart" didn't stall anything. After she returned, we slid right back into our routine of increasingly intimate disclosures. The times we each tried to rescue a hurt animal we came across. The worst thing I did as a kid that I still feel guilty about. Growing up in broken homes. Worst dating experience. Favorite sex position. Ever fake an orgasm?

She agreed with me that the biggest commitment either of us could ever make would be combining our libraries, and that we probably shouldn't take that step until we had at least two kids.

One night, I told her my memory is extremely selective: I'll remember she played the clarinet until sixth grade, yet consistently forget her birth day. It turned out that very day was her birthday. By that point, we had long stopped being surprised at the freakish number of coincidences. Fittingly and as promised, I don't remember what day that was.

Another night, I preemptively apologized and told her not to hate me, then played "eutaxies" — a triple word bingo with the "x" on a triple letter for 227 points. She messaged me a considerable growl, and five minutes later I went to bed with a smug grin plastered across my face. I took a screen shot of my play, printed it out and proudly showed my three interns the next day at work. It still hangs in my office today.

And then, as I had long feared, something shifted. Two games at once turned into one. Our six-hour chat sessions dwindled to five, then four, then three. Eventually we played a f ull game without either of us sending a message.

At one point, I gathered my courage and asked if I'd said anything wrong. She was quick to assure me I hadn't.

Yes, there were other factors at play. Her teaching break had ended, and she was back at work. That same day, my mother called to tell me her breast cancer had come back and she was having a mastectomy. Three days later, my father ended up in the hospital with a blood clot — a complication from leukemia. Still, if there was ever a week when I could have used six hours of nightly companionship, that was it.

We stretched it out for another few weeks, playing a single move per day accompanied by a single chat, neither of us willing to concede the end. One ni ght, I sent her a message thanking her for the last two months, letting her know that however unorthodox it had been, I had loved every minute. She told me she felt exactly the same.

One day, we started what would be our final game. We each played a move. The next day, she didn't play. Nor the day after. Ten days passed before Words With Friends automatically killed the game. The last time I saw her screen name was with the message, "They Timed Out."

Midsummer is when she was due to return to the States, but I don't know if she ever did. July was also my one-year anniversary in Reno. Yet my happiest memories here have nothing to do with Nevada or the mountains or the university. They are of me sitting on my couch furiously tapping away on a three-inch screen to a woman on the other side of the world, a woman I know both intimately and not at all.

I know how she felt when staring into the eyes of a buffalo up close. I know she would love to see "Owl Jeopardy," where every response starts with "Whoooo." I know she gets mildly aroused talking about compound miter saws and has a weird thing for hands and likes to sing songs about her cat.

But I don't know what she looks like when she sleeps. I don't know the sound of her voice or the feel of her hair. I don't even know her last name.

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The Heel Line Celebs Actually Buy for Themselves

When celebrities hit the red carpet in sky-high heels, you can usually bet that as soon as they're off the step-and-repeat, they're kicking off the stilettos. But, thanks to genius celebrity stylist Neil J. Rodgers (who has worked with everyone from Beyoncé to Gisele Bündchen), that's all changing. Though his eponymous brand launches today, stars including Mila Kunis, Jane Fonda, and Lauren Conrad have already been spotted in the classic designs.

What's more intriguing is that in a world where fame can get you plenty of things for free, Neil's clients are actually buying the shoes too. "It has been extremely rewarding to have celebrities who have worn the shoes on the red carpet for events or premieres come back to purchase styles because they have loved wearing them," Rodgers said. "I think that is a true testament to the comfort and versatility of the line."

Part of what sets Rodgers's shoes apart is the fact that they're designed specifically with comfort in mind. Thanks to special cushioning, along with a redesigned toe bed, you can spend an entire day in these shoes pain-free. Rodgers explains, "Your foot can spread more comfortably within the shoe and not feel pinched."

Inreagued? Read on to shop a few of our favorite styles from Rodgers's new collection! 

Trump and ‘Doonesbury’: The Comic Gift That Keeps On Giving

Photo A comic strip panel featured in "Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump." Credit G. B. Trudeau/Andrews McMeel Publishing

Sometimes, it seems, you can judge a book by its cover. And so it should be no surprise that "Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump," a recently published book by Garry Trudeau that collects Donald J. Trump-themed newspaper strips (and shows a glaringly stern Mr. Trump, his hair emanating an orange glow, on the cover) from over the years, does not pull any punches.

Mr. Trudeau's introduction sets the tone for his feelings about the G.O.P. presidential candidate, whom he describes as "the gold standard for big, honking hubris." Thus this collec tion comes across as a very opinionated time capsule of Mr. Trump's transformation from New York real estate mogul to presidential candidate, as seen, interpreted and drawn by Mr. Trudeau.

The journey begins Sept. 14, 1987, just after some musings from the real-life Mr. Trump, on the possibility of a presidential bid, and it ends on the campaign trail April 17, 2016, with the cartoon version of the candidate hawking Trump-brand insults.

Mr. Trudeau responded to questions about the book by email this week, including revealing one of his favorite strips, which ran July 26, 1988. It was part of a sequence about the Trump Princess, in which its owner informs the new captain of the 300-foot yacht's virtues.

"Quality means everything, captain!" the cartoon Mr. Trump says. "The gold fixtures! The tortoise shell ceiling! It's unbelievable this much quality exists outside my imagination. And over there, that's my wife! Look at that quality!"

Photo Garry Trudeau. Credit Maarten de Boer/Getty Images

Looking back, were you surprised by how often the Donald Trump character appeared in "Doonesbury"?

No, relieved. I needed enough strips to do a book. I wanted to remind people just how long he's been struggling with acute self-regard. Even though he's changed wives twice and party affiliation five times since I've been watching him, the underlying personality disorder has remained remarkably stable.

Does "Yuge!" include every appearance through April 17, 2016?

Probably not. We were in a hurry, and I think my editor was skimming. Who wants to read 30 years of "Doonesbury"?

Was there a single event that made you aware of him and think that he might be someone to incorporate into the cartoon strip?

I'd been aware of him for some years — he was inescapable in New York — but his "open letter" in 1987 to the American people was the tipping point. That's when we first learned that the world was laughing at us.

When you first started referencing him in September 1987, did you have any concerns that he was too local a figure for your national audience?

No. By 1987, he and his imaginary press agents had done a p retty good job of getting his name out. Besides, my Trump wasn't really a parody. He was an actual cast member, a fully formed toon who interacted with the other characters as a peer. It didn't matter if people knew he was commuting in from real life.

Photo A favorite strip of Mr. Trudeau's from July 26, 1988. Credit G. B. Trudeau/Andrews McMeel Publishing

What have you learned from covering Trump all these years?

Nothing. It's made me stupider, or at least I feel stupider. After he got a taste of double-digit poll numbers in 2011, I assumed he'd run, but just to burnish the brand, not torch the party. I never saw that coming.

Does he ever respond to his portrayal in the strips?

He used to respond like clockwork, but I think he's over me now. And I totally understand. Why waste a perfectly good tweet on some cartoonist when you could be sliming the pope?

Are there any other politicos or celebrities that you have featured who have responded as strongly, good or bad?

Frank Sinatra came the closest. During a performance at Carnegie Hall, he announced that I was "funny as a tumor." Fair enough. But then he took it too far and attacked my wife, breaking the first rule of the neighborhood. The audience booed him.

How has your approach to presenting him changed, in appearance or in dialogue?

What continues to evolve is my understanding of how he achieves his signature effects. The tangerine skin and raccoon eyes are easy to explain, but I've never been able to re verse-engineer the hair in a way that makes any sense. The understructure is completely baffling. If I could take notes and then wipe the image from my memory, I'd give anything to see Trump step out of a shower.

If he wins in November, what's your plan?

I don't know, but we'll all need one. In fact, there could be another book in that. Thanks, madman!

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PSA: Abercrombie & Fitch Is Looking Very Different These Days

The year: 2003, the jeans: Abercrombie & Fitch's super-low rise bell-bottoms. Those were the days when there was nothing quite like walking into your local mall (R.I.P) and taking in the sweet scent of Fierce wafting from out of the A&F store. Now, fast forward to 2016, and prepare yourself, the Abercrombie & Fitch you once knew is doing something very different. The brand has launched its new denim campaign "The Blues," and we have to say, we're really feeling the brand's fashion-forward take.

With the introduction of denim jumpsuits, wide-leg jeans, and of course, a good crop flare, the brand is moving in a new and exciting direction. Still, expect to see your favorite classics sticking around too. Plus, count celebrities including Gigi Hadid as fans of the brand this summer. Intrigued? Check out the new campaign video below along with shots of the denim headed your way (the collection launches on Thursday). 

Strong Start for Four Seasons Auction

Photo The restaurant's signage, designed by Emil Antonucci, was formerly mounted on the facade of a south-facing entrance to the Seagram Building. It was sold in a 10-minute spree of telephone bidding. Credit Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times

With water jets gurgling in the background at the Pool Room, auctioneers on Tuesday began the breakfast-hour dispersal of the contents of the Four Seasons, a restaurant storied as the birthplace of the power lunch.

First opened in July 1959, the Four Seasons was shut 57 summers later after a protracted and ultimately failed effort by its owners to preserve its lease. Expectations ran high for an auction of furniture and objects created in the middle of the last century by some of the pre-eminent names in architecture and design: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, Garth and Ada Louise Huxtable.

A marathon with hundreds of lots, many representing groupings of logo table settings and kitchen- and barware, the auction was stacked in its early hours with the choicest trophies — objects whose inherent worth exceeded the sentimental value that Wright, the Chicago auctioneer, anticipated would drive people to bid on saltcellars, logo ashtrays and a zabaglione server that, as the catalog noted, was the last remaining one of its kind.

Although it would be hours before the market for unique zabaglione servers was put to the test, early bidding was bracing for a bronze placard bearing the restaurant's logo of a tree in each of the seasons.

The sign, designed by Emil Antonucci, was formerly mounted on the facade of a south-facing entrance to the Seagram Building (the Midtown skyscraper considered a masterpiece of corporate modernism). It was hammered down in a 10-minute spree of telephone bidding. At $96,000 (in addition to New York State sales tax and a 20 percent buyer's premium), the prize fetched just over 14 times the auction house's high estimate, good news for the Canadian Center for Architecture, the beneficiary of that lot.

Correction: July 26, 2016

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of years the Four Seasons was in business. It was open for 57 summers, not 58.

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These New $60 Zara Boots Sold Out Immediately

Zara is already rolling out the first of its fall collection, and we couldn't be more impressed. It's full of expensive-looking, on-trend pieces, and as expected, some of them are already selling out. Case in point: a pair of shimmering gunmetal ankle boots that clock in at a mere $60—party boots, if you will (although they can easily be dressed up or down). These shimmering stunners feature a sock-like fit, making them a great option to pair with wide-leg and cropped denim flares.

We happened to sign up for email notifications on the boots last week, as they weren't yet in stock. As luck would have it, they arrived in stock over the weekend only to sell out in every size in just a couple of hours. It appears that we weren't the only ones mesmerized by the boots' sparkle (and price tag). In sellout situations like these, our best advice is to sign up for email notifications for your size and stalk the item in question until it appears again. Lo and behold, as of this morning, the boots are back in stock in every size, but who knows for how long!

Keep scrolling to shop the in-demand party boots and some of our other new (in-stock) ankle boots favorites from Zara!

On the Runway: Michelle Obama’s Dress May Have Looked Simple, but It Spoke Volumes

Photo Michelle Obama wore a dress by the designer Christian Siriano on Monday at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times

The first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday was, rightly, not about the clothes: It was about trying to unify the party, rise above the opponent and so on, as many of my colleagues have described. Which is not to say it lacked a fashion statement or two.

The loudest may have come early in the evening, courtesy of a video starring the economist Austan Goolsbee and the actor Ken Jeong in which Mr. Goolsbee reveals to Mr. Jeong that most of the Donald Trump-branded clothing line is not Made in the U.S.A., but rather in Bangladesh, China, Mexico and other countries (facts that seem to undermine Mr. Trump's assertion of America First but also seem to have had no impact on his supporters). But the most pointed came, not surprisingly, from Michelle Obama.

Not that you would have known it at first. Like her speech, in which she castigated Mr. Trump without ever saying his name, her dress spoke volumes while appearing, at first glance, to be entirely subdued.

Cobalt blue silk crepe, with cap sleeves, a flared skirt and a neat waist, it was by the designer Christian Siriano, and it pretty much matched the backdrop, playing down Mrs. Obama's appearance and playing to the patriotic theme, especially when contrasted with the bright red jacket that Senator Elizabeth Wa rren of Massachusetts wore during her speech.

But the simplicity and the color were just the beginning. See, Mr. Siriano is a former reality TV star — the only designer to really have emerged from the television show "Project Runway" (he won the fourth season competition) and carved out a place on the New York Fashion Week scene.

But unlike another reality TV star, Mr. Siriano has built his career on being inclusive: on catering to women regardless of size or age.

Most recently, he was, for example, the designer who stepped forward (via Instagram) when Leslie Jones, the late-40-something six-foot-tall star of the movie remake "Ghostbusters," complained recently that no designer wanted to dress her, making a custom off-the-shoulder red gown for her premiere that became something of an internet moment. He also has a collaboration with the plus-size store Lane Bryant, for which he held a runway show at the United Nations earlier this year, and has dressed other celebrities including Kate Hudson and Zendaya.

"I just don't think anyone should be excluded from having a beautiful dress," he said to me when we were talking about the Jones brouhaha, and why he had volunteered to play fairy godfather.

Lest you think all Mrs. Obama's wardrobe choice was happenstance, however, know that the convention appearance was only the second time she has worn Mr. Siriano; the first time was this month, at the funeral for the police officers killed in Dallas.

Throughout her time in the White House, the first lady h as made something of a secondary cause out of supporting new, independent American designers, and choosing her clothes not only because she likes them but because their back story has a certain resonance that goes beyond the aesthetic. Monday night was no different. Fashion is not known for its embrace of togetherness (more for its exclusion). But Mr. Siriano is.

Think that's just a coincidence?

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Kendall Jenner Conquered the Heat Wave in Summer's It Skirt

With much of the country currently seeking relief from a characteristically mid-July heat wave, Kendall Jenner's outfit of choice while strolling around New York on Saturday couldn't be more timely. Jenner wore a simple look consisting of a lightweight star-print halter top and high-waisted denim skirt, paired with combat boots. While the boots weren't exactly what we'd call summer-friendly, they added edge and are undoubtedly perfect for trekking around the city, no matter what the season.

We were especially excited to see that Jenner chose what we'd consider the It skirt of 2016: Re/Done | Levi's High Rise Mini Skirt, which has also been worn recently by her fellow stylish models Bella Hadid and Alessandra Ambrosio, and has been selling out at retailers since its launch. The one-of-a-kind skirt is made of repurposed vintage jeans and features a raw hem and flattering fit. 

Want to try the heat wave–friendly look? Simply pair with a crop top or tuck your top in à la Jenner. The skirt looks great with anything from white sneakers to mules to ankle boots (just avoid stilettos).

Keep scrolling to see Jenner wearing summer's It skirt, and shop it for yourself!

Following the Ancient Tea-Horse Road. Or at Least Trying.

Our route, which began in Shaxi, mostly followed horse paths and shepherds' trails that zigzagged through hilly pine forests and clusters of azaleas and rhododendrons. None were formally marked, and all were in a state of near-constant change from erosion and other natural or human disturbances.

So it was hardly surprising that, around lunchtime on the first day, we found ourselves at the edge of a cliff.

"Sorry about that," said Mr. Tollu, 34, the founder of the Yunnan-based adventure company Amiwa Trek, as we retraced our steps under a cloudless winter sky.

Around midafternoon, we entered Mapingguan, a village of the Bai ethnic minority group, along a freshly paved stone path. Mr. Liu, the villager, said the stones had been laid for tourism and that Mapingguan was emerging as a popular destination for Tea-Horse enthusiasts.

"Many more people this year than last," he said. After refilling our water canteens, he poured out complimentary shots of homemade baijiu, or rice wine, which burned as it went down.

From Mapingguan we followed another network of trails through some hillside farms where Bai villagers were planting potatoes and carting supplies to and fro on horses and mules.

The scenes had a timeless quality; Mr. Tollu said they reminded him of Dutch landscape paintings. But signs of change were everywhere, too. Mapingguan had a new cellular phone tower, for instance, and other villages were flanked by newish-looking roads, power lines and wind turbines.

On one dirt road, a villager pulled his truck over and asked if we needed a lift.

Thanks, Mr. Tollu said in Mandarin, but we were happy to walk.

Sixteen miles from Shaxi, we walked into Dong Zhuang, a cluster of traditional Bai homes in an isolated mountain valley. The temperature was falling sharply as the sun set, so I was delighted to smell wood smoke as we neared the gates of our village home-stay: a timber-frame house with a barn for pigs and chickens.

Photo Yang Jie Lang, 7, plays with her mother's phone as her grandmother, 65-year-old Si Jing, watches. The family lives in Dong Zhuang Village, in Yunnan province. Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times

Over an open fire, our hosts cooked a delicious meal of pork, chicken, mushrooms, rice and cubes of homemade goats' milk cheese. And after dinner, the family patriarch, Shi Jizhong, told us what he knew about the Tea-Horse Road.

Mr. Shi said local mule caravans had ended before he was born, a year after China's Communist revolution of 1949, but that his grandfather had seen muleteers carrying salt from a nearby mine to other villages.

How far afield, we asked, did those caravans travel?

"Far," he said, naming a village that I assumed was hundreds of miles away.

But Mr. Shi was speaking in horse, rather than car, distances: The village was at most 50 miles to the southeast, and the most direct route was not the multilane expressway that now passes within a few miles of the Shaxi Valley, but a horse path that once led directly over some rugged hills.

Mr. Tollu and I rose early the next morning, and I noticed that ice had formed overnight on the edges of some trail-side streams. The sun rose strong and clear, though, and before long we were peeling off layers and slathering our noses with sunscreen.

We entered a more remote stretch of trail, and the fragrant pines, ferns and wildflowers reminded me of the central California wilderness. But we also saw indications of human activity, including abandoned homes that may have once been way stations for passing muleteers; outdoor charcoal ovens that had fallen into disrepair; and bare patches of forest that recently had been logged for timber.

That afternoon, we walked into another Bai village, Shilong, and watched a group of men carting stones on horseback. One of them, Zhang De Ba, said the stone would be used to build a path to a local temple, about 20 minutes away by horse, and that the temple was important because it housed a protective spirit.

"It's the same in France, with churches," Mr. Tollu said.

Mr. Tollu said the temples of the Shaxi Valley illustrate a cultural diversity born from centuries of trade. Some have religious art inscribed with Tibetan script, for example, while others have white-elephant and reclining-Buddha statues, which are typically associated with Southeast Asian forms of Buddhism.

"You don't see these in the rest of China," Mr. Tollu told me, as we looked at a reclining Buddha in a temple that had been carved into a cliff face near Shilong village.

It was the third and final morning of our trip, and we had risen just after dawn and walked to the temple along a freshly paved road.

After descending its stone staircase, we sat in a nearby parking lot, eating noodles around an open fire with Li Quan Jin, 60, one of the temple's managers.

"Today we have cars but in the old days we had to use horses to get around," Mr. Li said, when I asked how the area had changed since he was a child. Even a village like Mapingguan, he added, had been without road access until very recently.

I told him we had just walked about 30 miles — from Shaxi to Mapingguan to Shilong — and joked that the journey might have been more comfortable on horseback.

He smiled.

"If you had told me before," he said, "I could have arranged some for you!"

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10 Summer Looks That Are Simple and StylishÂ

We recently came to the shocking realization that a whole month of summer has flown by—August is just a few days away. With that in mind, chances are you've probably already perfected your warm-weather wardrobe. But if you're anything like us, you're always trying to think of fresh ways to style the pieces you already own, whether that means trying an unexpected pairing, adding a new accessory, or even updating your beauty look.

Luckily for you, it's that time of month again where we share a roundup of our most stylish readers wearing pieces from the Who What Wear collection. Seeing how other fashion lovers dress is the best way to come up with new styling combos (especially for the variety of Who What Wear collection pieces we're sure you already own).

Below, see 10 covetable #MyWhoWhatWear looks our followers shared on social media in July.

The Unlikely Comeback of the ‘Pill-Popping Dermatologist’

"Some people would have wine," she says. "Me, I would come home and pop two Percocet. And then I'd peel the apples to cook, clean the house, do the laundry, I'd make my phone calls, write my papers. I'd do everything I needed to do. Then I'd crash. Next day, I'd wake up, do it all again."

This went on for several years, she says. By 2012 Dr. Karcher knew she had a serious problem. She wanted help, but in addition to being addicted, she was ashamed. She didn't want to go to the New York Health Committee for Physician Health, a program funded by the American Medical Association to identify and treat doctors with mental health or drug problems, she says, "because I didn't want anybody to find out."

Nobody wants to admit defeat or weakness; but only doctors (and airline pilots) thought to have drug problems have such rigorous drug-testing programs, according to Terrance M. Bedient, the director of the Committee for Physician Health. Some lose their livelihoods temporarily, some permanently.

Photo Dr. Karcher on the Upper East Side, near her office. Credit Andrew White for The New York Times

At first Dr. Karcher told her husband, Duncan Karcher, she was addicted, but he didn't quite believe her. "He works in risk management, he's obsessive-compulsive about playing by the rules, but he just didn't understand," she says, because he didn't see her behaving oddly. It took a while for him to realize that Superwoman needed a fix.

She tried to quit. Repeatedly. She failed. "I tried so hard to do it myself," she says. "I could cry when I think about it."

Dr. Karcher couldn't quite describe what it was like to go cold turkey, so I asked a friend who is a physician and is in the throes of quitting opiates, and who agreed to talk only if I did not name him. It's not just body aches and flulike symptoms.

"It's the feeling that life is pointless, that there will never be joy again," he told me. "What's worse is that it erases any memory of joy or even of the simple quotidian pleasures of everyday life." When my friend had written this to me in an email, he had stopped taking the methadone. A week later he wa s back on it and planning to spend a week by himself, leaving his friends and family "because it is simply too horrible being around me" during withdrawal.

"This is a chronic, progressive and fatal disease," Dr. Karcher tells me. "I have a friend of mine whose husband used to be an addict and she said, 'Cheryl, I really believe it would have been easier for him to kill himself than to get sober.'"

Not that Dr. Karcher always felt sympathy for addicts. Far from it. "I really felt they were lowlifes," she says. "Like, 'What is wrong with you, just don't drink that glass of wine' or whatever. A lot of doctors feel this way."

Growing up in Florida in a middle-class home that looked perfect on the outside but in reality was cold and tense, Cheryl was the family goody-two-shoes: great grades, great athlete and certainly no drugs, even though she went to the University of Florida (which has been ranked as one of the Top 10 Party Schools by The Princeton Review).

"I was afraid I'd ruin my brain cells," she says. "Everyone was out at the movies. I was studying." She was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (an article on vitamin E and the way it permeates the skin) even before she was in medical school. "A lot of stuff in my life has taken dedication," she says. "This isn't about being undisciplined. I have a load of self-control."

Enough, in fact, that when the SWAT team descended, Dr. Karcher had already been drug free for about a year and a half (a detail not reported in the articles about her arrest).

Around the end of 2012, with her habit out of control, she sought treatment with Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg, an addiction psychiatrist in Manhattan. She insisted he drug test her every week. She also joined Caduceus, a 12-step-based recovery program for people in health care. (The name refers to the staff entwined with two snakes that is a symbol of the medical profession.) While she was struggling, she still regularly appeared in many outlets, including T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Soon she was chairing weekly sessions of the group, and was the contact person for frightened newbies. It became, she says, "my secret life."

"Cheryl was at every meeting, and I've been going four years," says Reggie, a physician and an acquaintance of Dr. Karcher's who agreed to talk if he was allowed to maintain the anonymity provided in the recovery group. He treated his bipolar disorder with a variety of drugs, and had been hospitalized for attempted suicide. "The thing about addicts, and particularly those of us in medicine, is that we think we're somehow unique," Reggie says. "We are not unique, except maybe in our access to medi cation."

Still, when she was arrested, Dr. Karcher was not 100 percent surprised. She always had a feeling this day might come. After all, even though she had not sold drugs, which eventually the narcotics office acknowledged, she had an office worker who did. "Of course they thought I sold," Dr. Karcher says. "If I'd been them, I would have thought so, too."

Besides, even without the selling, hers was not a victimless crime. It was a form of identity theft. Citing privacy laws and the fact that the case is sealed, the New York City Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor would not put me in touch with the five people whose names Dr. Karcher mined for her own prescriptions.

Photo Dr. Karcher with her colleague Dr. Neil Sadick in 2006. Credit Chris Ford/Patrick McMullan

But with the change in the prescribing laws that require physicians to check a patient's controlled-substance records, these five people may have to explain to their future doctors why they were taking large quantities of Percocet (and Ambien and Adderall); they could be denied medications they actually need.

And there was one thing Dr. Karcher did, she says, that was unforgivable: She got her nanny — a woman who was not a United States citizen and could hardly say no to her — to pick up prescriptions written in the nanny's name and hand over the medication to her. "She was a part of our family, and I never saw her again after the arrest," Dr. Karcher says. "I go to bed many nights wishing I could apologize."

The post-arrest fallout was swift. Dr. Karcher had worked at Sadick Dermatology, a tony practice owned by Dr. Neil Sadick, with offices on Park Avenue, West 15th Street and on Long Island, and had to leave until her case was decided.

She also lost her lucrative consulting contract with Avon and was devastated when, within a week, two dermatologists she considered good friends tried to take the job. One other consulting gig remained: She is the dermatologist with the Miss Universe Organization, recently sold by Donald Trump.

"When I saw what happened with her, my theory was that someone was trying to get publicity," says Paula Shugart, the president of the organization. "I mean, why would th ere be media at the courthouse if someone hadn't alerted them?"

Why stick by Dr. Karcher? "First of all, We had a Miss USA who went to rehab in 2006, and Cheryl stood behind us," Ms. Shugart says. "Second, not to sound too clichéd, but we are an organization run by women that supports women, and standing up and doing what's right. This was a no-brainer for us."

The most painful memory of that time came when Dr. Karcher realized the effect on her children. Her daughter was too young to read the newspapers, and so would have been unaware were it not for the talk among friends' parents and older siblings.

"Soon after the arrest I was picking my daughter up from this little parade, and I heard her sa y, 'Where's my mommy?'" Dr. Karcher says. "And I started to say, 'I'm here, honey,' when the little girl standing next to her said, 'She's probably in jail.' And my daughter just lost it, crying and crying. Totally inconsolable."

A few weeks after the arrest, the initial shock wore off. Word got out to patients and colleagues that Dr. Karcher was not the person in her office who had been selling drugs for money but indeed had had a drug problem herself. That's when empathy began to kick in.

"She's so good, so professional," says Dr. Doris Day, a fellow dermatologist who considers Dr. Karcher a good friend. "I felt guilty, like I had let her down because I never noticed anything was wrong."

Wendy Lewis, a plastic surgery consultant who has run physician practices, says: "She's someone I would never hesitate to recommend. She's not a salesperson, not greedy, not dishonest. You never heard an unkind word about her from other doctors, in the field where unkind words are the norm."

But if they really liked her personally, they were still wary professionally. After her arrest, referrals, a large part of any dermatologist's business, dried up. Too risky to them, they said.

But with patients she already had, there was an enormous outpouring of support. "You have to understand, she took care of some of the most high-profile people in the city, in publishing and fashion," Dr. N eil Sadick says. "And they loved her."

"When I heard about this, the first thing I did was write a letter to the judge," says Ronna Lichtenberg, a business strategist and author who had been a patient for several years. "I have a lot of complex medical conditions, and often with doctors you have to choose between technical competence and bedside manner. With Cheryl, I didn't have to choose."

Was writing these prescriptions stupid? Of course, Ms. Lichtenberg says, and patients gossiped about it. "Maybe with another doctor, the end result would be different," she says. "But it doesn't surprise me that everyone I know is back. People have one question when something like this comes up: Are we safe? And the answer is yes."

"I don't think there is such a thing as a victimless crime, but this was about her personal pain," says Marie Komisar, the executive director of the National Association of Women Judges, who considers Dr. Karcher both her doctor and friend.

"I can tell you this: This is not a woman who's cavalier about drugs," Ms. Komisar says. "A few years ago, I called Cheryl to try and prescribe some medication for my daughter, who has terrible migraines. We live in Washington, D.C. And it was a weekend. Cheryl was very apologetic, but wouldn't do it. She had never examined my daughter, and she was worried she could make something worse. I didn't want to go to the E.R., but we did, and I totally respected that decision."

"I went to her for all the usual cosmetic thing s, but this was different," says Dee Dee Ricks, a hedge fund consultant and cancer-patient advocate who documented her battle with breast cancer in the HBO special "The Education of Dee Dee Ricks."

Ms. Ricks had a blister on her toe that wouldn't go away. Another dermatologist had told her it was probably nothing, but if it didn't heal in a few weeks she should come in and have it examined again. Ms. Ricks ignored it. Then one day, she was seeing Dr. Karcher for a Botox session and mentioned the blister.

"Cheryl looked at it, and I saw all the color drain out of her face," Ms. Ricks says. "'Let's biopsy this right now,' Cheryl said. It turned out to be Stage 3 melanoma." Ms. Ricks lost her toe, but says "Cheryl saved my life."

In March 2015, Justice Richard M. Weinberg of the New York State Supreme Court ruled on Dr. Karcher's case: She could enter a drug-treatment program without pleading guilty to the charges (which would have forced her to lose her license). "The consequences to this doctor if I make her plea to the counts of indictment would be exceptional circumstances that could destroy her career and destroy her life with no redeeming value," Justice Weinberg said.

The New York Post described the judge as "star-struck," and many saw the ruling as too lenient. Dr. Karcher is a pretty blond physician at the top of her game, with a lot of well-to-do clients. Would she have gotten this consideration if she weren't a person of means, or nonwhite, or both?

Dr. Karcher is well aware of the advantages of her position and race: "I was mistaken for a lawyer on more than one occasion." But at the same time, she thinks in her case her treatment had less to do with privilege and more to do with the fact that New York State is very much ahead of the curve in treatment of addicts who are not otherwise engaged in criminal behavior.

"I saw people with less privilege, less education, treated the same way I was," she says. "The judge in my case understood addiction so well. It's a disease."

And that is what many in the addiction field think we should remember: not that Dr. Karcher didn't have advantages — she did — but that she got the kind of treatment that more substance abusers should get. Physicians in New York State have some of the be st outcomes in the country, according to Brad Lamm.

"It's not that they're better people or better addicts," he says. "It's just that the oversight board gives you more leverage" over their behavior. Mr. Lamm treats a number of physicians at his Breathe Life Healing Center in West Hollywood, Calif., and says that given their access to opiates, he doesn't want to treat them unless an oversight board is involved. California doesn't have one like New York's; Mr. Lamm believes New York City should be the model nationwide.

Dr. Karcher has nothing but praise for the Committee for Physicians Health and the Office of Professional Medical Misconduct, which oversees medical malfeasance. "Somebody has to look out for the public interest," she says. "You know, when I went up to see them in Albany, they asked, 'Have you ever been arrested?' and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? A SWAT team came to my office!' and the woman said, 'I know, but believe it or not I've had doctors look me in the eye and say no.'"

Dr. Karcher is unequivocal that doctors who are using should lose their licenses, but there has to be a road back. "Some states are more progressive, more understanding and more educated than others," she says. "Nobody asks for this disease. Nobody wants to be addicted. But the go od news is there's a way out. And it can really turn a life into one of great gratitude, humility and joy. I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's."

It's been a lesson not just in breaking addiction, she says, but in overcoming shame. She had to fight the urge to isolate herself, to disappear from friends and colleagues and wallow.

These days, Dr. Karcher is not only back in the white-on-white office of Dr. Sadick, but she has also opened her own practice, offering "bespoke cosmetic care" in the Fifth Avenue digs of Dr. Virginia Wade, an anesthesiologist for plastic surgeons. It was Dr. Wade who took her in when no one else would. Even Dr. Sadick, her champion, would not let her practice in his office until she was cleared of all charges.

"Her story was so familiar to me," says Dr. Wade, who points out that there are many addicted people in health care. In anesthesia in particular, she says, "there seems to be a magnet on the door.

"I knew she was desperate. I said: 'You know what, you don't get the keys to the office, you've had an addiction that is more powerful than your will. I need to let you in every single time, and I need to be there with you.'"

Dr. Wade's colleagues warned her not to do it, that the liability was too great.

"But everyone deserves another chance," she says. "And also I would know in about two seconds if her behavior was altered."

The drug cabinets were locked; the file cabinets, where patient information is kept, were locked. "And Cheryl did everything, everything she needed to do to be acquitted: going through the court system, drug tests, hearings, all of it," Dr. Wade says. Eventually she got the key to the office.

But the habit of letting Dr. Wade know she is there has not left. "She walks in now, and the first thing she shouts out to me is 'Honey, I'm home,'" Dr. Wade says.

Dr. Karcher says she will never forget that kindness, nor the fact that it made her do something she wouldn't have had the courage to do otherwise. "I know this sounds strange, but before this happened I never had the guts to have my own practice," Dr. Karcher says quietly. "I thought I wouldn't make it."

As she excitedly tells me about some of the latest treatments she was offering — the ThermiVa, a laser for bringing back vaginal function; using platelet-rich plasma to encourage hair growth; a new fractional laser called the Halo — I notice she is rubbing her neck a bit.

The next day, it turns out, she was scheduled for another surgery. Her spinal cord was constricted, and she needed small bone grafts inserted to widen the channel. She would not be using opiates for this, or for any other surgery. Nor will she prescribe them anymore. Of procedures like liposuction, after which she once sent her patients home with Percocet, she now says (with a flicker of a smile), "Tylenol's enough because I'm that good."

"I am very, very lucky to be where I am today," Dr. Karcher says. "And also — well, this isn't true, but colleagues have said it, 'You're one tough bitch.'"

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