Welcome to the community, Alyssia! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:
Yes, she needs to add you as a collaborator with editing access. She should also be aware that there may be a cost associated with granting you this access, depending on the plan (free, Plus, Pro, etc) of the workspace where this base is stored. More on Airtable’s collaboration features and requirements are here:
Regarding the emoji display, are they only displaying as boxes when viewed inside of the built-in viewer in Airtable? How do they look when you download and open the file in Word?