Emily nodded. “I remember now. You just interviewed Victoria Beckham on what her favorite memories were of her wedding, and if she could advise a bride today to splurge on a single thing, what would it be? And she said the booze, because that’s what guarantees people have fun? Was that you?”
Andy couldn’t help but smile; it was still such a novelty realizing that people actually read things she wrote. “Yeah, that was my piece.”
“I wondered if that was you, and then I figured it must be another Andrea Sachs because you were definitely going to be some war correspondent or something. I totally remember it now. I have a Google Alert set up for Posh and I read everything about her. Did you actually get to meet her in person?”
Was Emily really asking Andy questions about her life? Showing interest? Impressed by something Andy had done? It was almost too insane to believe. “Just for fifteen minutes, but yes, I went to her hotel room when she was in New York a couple months ago. I even got to meet him.”
“No!”
Andy nodded.
“No offense, but how’d you get her to agree to give an interview to a wedding blog?”
Andy thought for a moment, considered how honest to be with Emily, before saying, “I called her PR woman, said I most recently worked at Runway directly for Miranda Priestly, and since Miranda was such a huge fan of Victoria Beckham, I was hoping she would grant me a quick interview about her wedding.”
“And she did, just based on that?”
“Yep.”
“But Miranda doesn’t even like Victoria Beckham.”
Emily spooned the sprouts and zucchini slices onto a plate and sat down on a work stool. Andy went over to the platter of cheese and crackers, loaded up a plate, and, placing the plate between them, took the seat next to Emily.
“Irrelevant. It works so long as Victoria—or at least her PR person—likes Miranda, which they always do. So far I have a hundred percent success rate.”
“What? You’ve done it before? Given the impression that you used to write for Runway?”
“I don’t lie,” Andy said, popping a cheddar cube in her mouth. “However they choose to interpret it is up to them.”
“It’s brilliant. Just brilliant. Why the hell not? It’s not like slaving for her is going to get you anywhere else. Who else have you met?”
“Well, let’s see. I got Britney Spears to do a top-ten first-dance playlist, Kate Hudson to tell us how she would elope one day, Jennifer Aniston to describe her dream princess dress, Heidi Klum to talk about wedding-day hair and makeup, and Reese Witherspoon to open up about the pros and cons of marrying young. Next week I’m interviewing J. Lo on how to have an appropriate second or third wedding.”
Emily reached over and created a little sandwich with two cheese cubes and two crackers, and Andy tried to keep her mouth from hitting the floor. Emily Charlton ate? “It sounds great, Andy,” she said through a crunch.
Andy must have been staring at her because she half smiled and said, “Oh yeah, I eat now. It was the first thing that came back after she fired me. My appetite.”
“Well, you sure don’t look it,” Andy said truthfully, and Emily half smiled again. “Will you tell me what you’re up to?”
The instructor materialized out of nowhere. “Ladies? What’s going on here? Because I’m pretty sure ‘sit around and snack’ isn’t in the class description.” He clapped his hands together and raised his eyebrows.
“And I’m pretty sure ‘be a complete jackass’ isn’t in the teacher description. We were actually just leaving,” Emily said, looking at Andy.
“Yes, we were. Thanks for such a terrific class.” The cheer in Andy’s voice made Emily shriek with glee and the rest of the class turn around to watch. The girls gathered their things and stumbled into the hallway before dissolving in laughter.
It should have been awkward a moment or two later, but it wasn’t. They may have hated each other before this, but they’d certainly spent enough time in each other’s company to feel comfortable. Andy tentatively suggested they go get a drink and continue to catch up, and Emily readily agreed. One margarita turned into three and three turned into dinner and dinner into plans two days later. Soon the girls were getting together regularly for happy hours and Sunday brunches and quick coffee chats in Emily’s office at Harper’s Bazaar, where they’d recently promoted Emily to junior fashion editor and given her a small but windowed space all her own.
Andy became Emily’s plus-one to all the fancy fashion parties; Andy invited Emily along as her “associate” to celebrity interviews. They weighed in on each other’s work situations, mocked each other’s clothes, and kept their cell phones turned on at all hours so whoever was out late on a date would have someone to call when she got home that night. She still missed Alex and Lily, still got sad thinking of her parents living apart, and still felt lonely and disconnected, but more often than not, Emily was calling or texting, wanting to check out the new sushi place that had opened in SoHo or go shopping for red lipstick or a new espresso machine or a pair of flat sandals.
It didn’t happen overnight, but the unlikeliest thing in Andy’s world had become reality: Emily Charlton, sworn enemy, was her friend. And not just any friend, but Andy’s best friend, her first phone call for all things good or bad. Which is why it felt so natural when, a couple years later—after Emily had left Bazaar and Andy was starting to get bored at Happily Ever After—the girls first had the idea for The Plunge. It was Emily’s idea, really, but Andy refined the magazine’s purpose and mission, brainstormed story and cover ideas, and sourced the first weddings they covered. With Emily’s business contacts and print magazine experience and Andy’s writing skills and expertise with all things wedding related, they conceived and designed a uniquely beautiful product. Enter Max, one of Emily’s husband’s best friends, as both investor and Andy’s future husband, and their lives had become so entwined that sometimes Andy could hardly remember a time when she and Emily had hated each other. With hard work and the passing of time, both she and Emily had managed to leave Miranda in the rearview mirror. Until now.
Andy could hardly believe the fear she felt as she sat in Emily’s office, still wearing her running shorts and sweatshirt, her sweaty hands clenched so tight her fingernails left marks on her palms, and listened as Agatha dialed the famous Elias-Clark switchboard.
“Are we really doing this?” Andy moaned, simultaneously desperate to know more and dreading finding out.
“Ah yes, I’d like to speak with Stanley Grogin, please. I’m calling from The Plunge.” Agatha nodded to herself, clearly pleased with being the center of the drama, and cleared her throat.
“Mr. Grogin? This is Emily Charlton’s assistant. She’s currently traveling, but she wanted me to get back to you and see if there was anything I could help you with?” Another nod.
Andy could feel a drop of sweat trickle between her breasts.
“Mmm, I see. A conference call. May I ask what it’s concerning?” Agatha made a face as though she’d tasted something disgusting and then rolled her eyes, Emily-style. “Sure thing. I’ll pass that along and get back to you. Thanks so much.”
Emily didn’t even wait for the girl to put the phone down on the receiver before leaning over and depressing the button to end the call.
“What did he say?” Andy and Emily asked in unison.
Agatha took a sip of her green smoothie and appeared to be enjoying herself. “He said that he’d like to schedule a conference call between himself and the two of you.”
“A conference call? About what?” Andy asked. Why on earth would an Elias-Clark lawyer be after them after all these years? Unless they really had heard about the ever-so-slightly misleading way in which Andy might still invoke Miranda’s name to secure celebrities?
“He wouldn’t say.”
“What do you mean he wouldn’t say?” Emily near-shrieked. “What did he say when you asked him?”
“Just that he’s free most mornings b
efore eleven and that he would only discuss the private matter with both of you . . . and a couple of his colleagues.”
“Oh god, she’s back! She’s suing us. She’s going to make our lives a living hell, I just know it . . . ,” Andy moaned.
“Miranda couldn’t care less about either one of us, I promise you that,” Emily said with her old authority as first assistant. “If you don’t remember a damn thing, remember this: we are dead to her, and she has far more important things to do than dredge up old crap. It’s got to be something else.”
Emily was right. It had to be something else. But Andy was struck by the fact that the Elias-Clark exchange popping up on their caller ID could thrust her back to a very dark place of sheer panic. It didn’t matter what Elias-Clark wanted. Miranda Priestly, Satan herself, waving her devil tail and her Prada bag, filled Andy’s world once again with painful memories and fresh anxieties. It was as if the past ten years hadn’t happened at all.
chapter 7
boys will be boys
It had been a week since the wedding, and if anything, Andy was starting to feel worse, not better. Her head throbbed regularly now, and she felt permanently foggy, sleep-deprived, and at times, queasy. Her fever came and went but never seemed to disappear entirely. It was starting to seem like she’d never get rid of this flu.
When she opened her closet to retrieve her rattiest fleece robe, Max’s head popped up. “Morning,” he said, giving her his cutest sleepy smile. “Come here and cuddle with me.”
Andy wrapped the magenta rag around herself and cinched the belt. “I’m not feeling great. I’m going to put on the coffee. I’m not up for working out today, so I think I’ll just get an early start at work.”
“Andy? Can you come here a minute? I want to talk.”
For one horrible moment she was convinced he was about to confess about Katherine. Maybe he’d realized his mother’s letter was missing. Maybe—
“What’s up?” she asked, perching at the foot of the bed, as far from his reach as possible. Stanley looked at her plaintively, upset his breakfast wasn’t as imminent as he thought.
Max pulled on the glasses from his night table and propped his head up with his hand. “I want you to see a doctor today. I’m insisting.”
Andy didn’t say a word.
“It’s been nine days you’ve been feeling like this. Nine days since we got married . . .”
She knew what he really meant. A week already and they’d only had sex once, after which Andy had soaked in the bath for an hour, claiming she felt chilled. Which she did. His patience had worn out, and so had her excuses. Mostly Andy was just desperate to feel better.
“I already made an appointment for this morning. Figured I could cancel it if I was feeling better, which I’m not.”
This seemed to please Max. “Great. That’s great news. Call me right afterward and let me know what he says?”
Andy nodded.
Max pulled the blankets closer around him. “Is everything else okay? I know you’re not feeling well, but you’ve been . . . I don’t know . . . off. This whole week. Did I do something?”
Andy hadn’t planned to have the conversation now. She kept waiting for the perfect time, when neither one of them was stressed or rushed or sick, but enough was enough: it was time to get answers.
“I know all about Bermuda.”
Andy didn’t realize it, but she was holding her breath.
Max’s eyes scrunched in confusion. “Bermuda? You mean, my bachelor party?”
“Yes,” Andy said. Was he going to lie to her? That was just about the only thing now that could make it even worse.
Max looked at her. “You must mean Katherine,” he said quietly, and Andy’s heart sank. So it was true. Barbara’s letter was right: Max had kept secrets from her; there was no denying it now.
“So you did see her there,” Andy said more to herself than to Max.
“Yes, I saw her there. But believe me when I tell you I had no idea she was going to be there. I mean, of course her parents own a house there, but I had no clue she and her sister chose that weekend—of all the weekends in a year—for a spa trip. They joined us for cocktails one night. It’s not an excuse, but please don’t think anything happened, because it didn’t. Nothing.”
Something about hearing even these limited details was more crushing than she could have imagined.
Then why didn’t you mention it? she wanted to scream. If it was all so sweet and innocent, what’s with the note? And the fact that you hid it all from me?
“How did you find out, by the way? Not that it was a secret, I’m just wondering.”
“I found the letter your mom wrote, Max. The one where she begged you not to marry me. It’s not just about Katherine, is it?”
He looked like he might be sick, which gave Andy a small moment of gratification.
“And it obviously is a secret, or you would have told me when it happened. Or shortly thereafter. It meant enough to mention it to your mom, just not to me.” When he said nothing, Andy scooped up Stanley and announced, “I better get in the shower if I want to make my appointment.”
“I was going to tell you, I swear I was, but I thought it was selfish to get you worried or feeling weird about something when there’s nothing on earth to worry about.”
“Worry? I wouldn’t have worried. I might’ve taken this ring off!” After so many days of quietly worrying and wondering, the yelling felt wonderful. “I might’ve refused to put on that white dress and proclaim my love for you in front of all our friends and families. Especially your family, since they don’t even like me. They think I’m beneath you. That may have been my choice. So don’t you dare sit there and say you were keeping this quiet out of concern for my well-being.”
Even as she said it, she knew she was being unfair. Of course she’d had a choice that day. She’d chosen to walk rather than embarrass herself or Max or their families with jealous histrionics. She’d walked down that aisle because she loved Max and trusted him—or at least wanted to—and she was certain there was some sort of logical explanation for everything. Was she supposed to delay a wedding mere minutes before the ceremony because of some undated letter and a bitchy mother-in-law? Did she even want to? Of course not. But Max didn’t need to know that quite yet.
“Andy, you’re overreacting—”
Clutching the dog to her chest, she slammed and locked the bathroom door behind her. Max knocked furiously and called through the door, but the sound of the shower soon drowned him out. When she walked into the kitchen fully dressed to grab a banana and a bottle of iced tea, Max leaped to his feet and tried to embrace her. “Andy, nothing happened!” She wrangled herself away so only his hand remained on her shoulder.
She looked around their apartment, a south-facing, three-thousand-square-foot split two-bedroom with home office on the fourteenth floor, with a terrace off the master and a newly renovated kitchen that opened up into a sprawling living and dining room space. The Harrisons had purchased the apartment for Max when he graduated from college, and as expensive as the place was, it didn’t come close to comparing price-wise with other Harrison properties. For this reason Barbara had persuaded Max not to sell it when he sold everything else: if nothing else, it was an investment. When he and Andy decided to move in together, Max immediately offered to put his beloved apartment on the market so they could choose somewhere new together, but Andy argued that it was ridiculous to incur all those extra expenses when the apartment was more than enough for the two of them. Max had kissed her and declared how much he loved her lack of materialism. Andy had laughed and announced she was still planning to throw out most of his furniture and hire a decorator. Now, as she glanced around, Andy thought about how beautifully the apartment had turned out, how lucky she was to live there. Thick Berber carpeting, plush velvet couches, and overstuffed chairs invited snuggling. Framed photographs of adventures from around the world she and Max had taken, alone and together, decorated the walls
. They’d combined their knickknacks (her slatted, wooden African frog that made a ribbit noise when you brushed a stick across its back; his reclining Buddha bust that he’d dragged back from a trip to Thailand) and all their books and their thousands upon thousands of CDs, creating a warm, welcoming home that felt like a respite.
“Call me as soon as you’re done, okay? I’m worried about you. I can pick up an antibiotic or whatever on my way home tonight, just tell me what you need. We have so much more to talk about, I know that, so I’ll be home as soon as I can. We’re going to get through this, I promise. I should have told you, Andy, I know that now. But I swear to you, I love you. And absolutely nothing happened in Bermuda. Zero.”
His palm on her shoulder felt like an assault.
“Andy?”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t respond.
“I love you so much. I’ll do anything to win back your trust. I made a bad decision not to tell you I saw an ex, but I didn’t cheat. And I’m not my mother. Please come home tonight and talk to me, okay? Please?”
She forced herself to look up and meet his gaze. There, peering at her through worried eyes, looking as anxious as she felt, was her best friend, her partner, the man she loved more than anyone else on earth.
This wasn’t the last of it, Andy knew that; they would talk that night, and she would need some more convincing—but not then. She nodded and squeezed his arm and without another word she hoisted her bag over her arm and closed the door behind her.
“Andrea? Good to see you again, dear,” Dr. Palmer said as he perused Andy’s chart.
He didn’t look up. After what, thirty, maybe forty years in practice, how could the man bear to hear another complaint about headaches and a sore throat? Andy almost felt bad for him.
“Let’s see here, you had your last physical almost two years ago—you’re due, you know that—but you made a sick appointment today, so what’s going on?”