Mathilde

Mathilde is the art director at the advertising firm where Audrey Decker works, a notoriously fussy and demanding figure whose presence looms over Audrey's professional life and whose behavior is a source of comic exasperation for the Decker family.

Identity and Role

Mathilde is the art director of the advertising firm where Audrey Decker works, a firm that specializes in women's accessories. She is the daughter of a French fabric-importing magnate, a detail that underscores her cultivated, exacting taste. Mathilde is younger than Audrey and is known for being notoriously fussy, apt to throw tantrums if the car service or the catering isn't up to par. Her demanding nature is a constant undercurrent in the office, where she supervises photo shoots with an agitated and slightly vicious eye.

Interactions with Audrey and the Firm

Audrey's work life is largely defined by navigating Mathilde's expectations. The well-chosen gift is Mathilde's whole thing, a philosophy that creates anxiety among her staff. When Audrey needs a birthday present for Mathilde, she considers an art book from the museum gift shop, noting that it will be hard for Mathilde to complain about it without sounding stupid. Audrey's colleague Pru once panicked and spent fifty dollars of her own money on Tom Ford sunglasses for Mathilde, who still managed to get her crack in about Americans and consumer culture. Audrey's boss, Sergio, the multimillionaire owner of the firm, is seldom in the office, and his idea of an art book is a Helmut Newton or a Madonna coffee-table book, offering no help in the delicate task of pleasing Mathilde. Audrey herself is good at her job and prefers working behind the camera, but despite the gloss and sparkle of the work—champagne breakfasts and gift bags from Bergdorf's—there is a hollowness at its heart that makes her sad, a feeling exacerbated by the pressure from Mathilde.

Narrative Significance

Mathilde represents the demanding, often capricious world of high-end commerce that Audrey navigates. She is a figure of comic relief, a foil to Audrey's more grounded and genuine nature. The anecdotes about Mathilde's fussiness—her tantrums over car service, her critique of gifts, her disdain for American consumer culture—serve to highlight the absurdity and pressure of Audrey's professional environment. Mathilde also appears at the Barbour apartment after Audrey's death, a visit that underscores the surreal and intrusive nature of the aftermath of the tragedy, as people from her mother's work, including the very person who made her life difficult, come to pay their respects.