‘Oh, come with me, please? It’ll be so fun, I promise. I’ll introduce you to some real hotties, Andy, you’ll see. I have some gorgeous straight friends. Besides, it’s Marshall’s party – it’s got to be great,’ James crooned, leaning against my desk as I checked my e-mail. Emily was chattering away happily on her side of the suite, detailing her rendezvous with the long-haired singer.
‘I would, you know I would, but I’ve had these plans with my boyfriend tonight since before Christmas,’ I said. ‘We’ve been planning on going out to a really nice dinner together for weeks, and I canceled on him last time.’
‘So see him after! Come on, it’s not every day you get a chance to meet the single most talented colorist in the civilized world, is it? And there will be loads of celebrities and everyone will look gorgeous, and, well, I just know it’ll be the most glamorous party of the week! Harrison and Shriftman is putting it on, for chrissake – you can’t beat that. Say yes.’ He squinted his face into exaggerated puppy eyes, and I had to laugh.
‘James, I’d really, really like to – I’ve never even been to the Plaza! But I really can’t change these plans. Alex made reservations at this little Italian place right by his apartment and there’s no way I can reschedule.’ I knew I couldn’t cancel, and I didn’t want to – I wanted to spend the night alone with Alex and hear how his new after-school program was shaping up, but I was sorry it had to be the same night as this party. I’d been reading about it in the papers for the past week: it seemed that all of Manhattan was ecstatically waiting for Marshall Madden, hair colorist extraordinaire, to host his annual post-New Year’s blowout. They were saying that this year was going to be even bigger than usual because Marshall had just published a new book, Color Me Marshall. But I wasn’t going to cancel on my boyfriend to go to some star party.
‘Well, OK, but don’t say I never asked you to go anywhere. And don’t come crying to me when you read in Page Six tomorrow that I was spotted with Mariah or J-Lo. Just don’t.’ And he huffed away, half joking that he was angry, half not, since he seemed to be in a perpetual snit anyway.
So far, the week after New Year’s had been easy. We were still unwrapping and cataloging presents – I had gotten to unveil the most stunning pair of Swarovski-encrusted stilettos this morning – but there were none left to send and the phones were quiet since many people were still away. Miranda would be returning from Paris at the end of the week but wouldn’t be in the office until Monday. Emily felt confident that I was ready to handle her, and so was I. We’d run through everything, and I’d taken nearly an entire legal pad full of notes. I glanced down at it, hoping I’d remember everything. Coffee: Starbucks only, tall latte, two raw sugars, two napkins, one stirrer. Breakfast: Mangia delivery, 555-3948, one soft cheese Danish, four slices bacon, two sausage links. Newspapers: newsstand in lobby, New York Times, Daily News, New York Times, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Women’s Wear Daily, and the New York Observer on Wednesdays. Weekly magazines, available Mondays: Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, The New Yorker(!), Time Out New York, New York, the Economist. And on and on it went, listing her favorite flowers and her most-hated flowers, her doctors’ names and addresses and home phone numbers, her household help, her snack preferences, her preferred bottled water, every size she wore in every article of clothing from lingerie to ski boots. I made lists of people she wanted to talk to (Always), and separate lists for people she never wanted to talk to (Never). I wrote and wrote and wrote as Emily revealed these things throughout our weeks together, and when we were finished, I felt there was nothing I did not know about Miranda Priestly. Except, of course, what exactly made her so important that I’d filled a legal pad with likes and dislikes. Why, exactly, was I supposed to care?
‘Yeah, he’s amazing,’ Emily was sighing, twisting the phone cord round and round her forefinger. ‘It was the most romantic weekend I think I’ve ever had.’
Ping! You have a new e-mail from Alexander Fineman. Click here to open. Oooh, fun. Elias-Clark had firewalled instant messenger, but for some reason I could still receive instant notifications that I’d received a new e-mail. I’d take it.
Hey baby, how’s your day?? Things are crazy here, as usual. Remember I told you that Jeremiah had threatened all the little girls with a box cutter he’d brought from home? Well, it seems he was serious – he brought another one to school today and sliced one of the girls’ arms at recess and called her a bitch. Not a deep cut at all, but when the teacher on duty asked him where he’d gotten such an idea, he said he saw his mom’s boyfriend do it to his mom. He’s six years old, Andy, can you believe it? Anyway, the principal called an emergency faculty meeting tonight, so I’m afraid I can’t make dinner. I’m so sorry! But I have to say, I’m happy that they’re responding to this at all – it’s more than I had hoped for. You understand, don’t you? Please don’t be mad. I’ll call you later, and I promise to make it up to you. Love, A
Please don’t be mad? I hope you understand? One of his fourth-graders had slashed another student and he was hoping I’d be OK with him cancelling dinner? I’d cancelled on him my first week because I’d thought my week of riding around in a limo and wrapping presents had been too demanding. I wanted to cry, to call him and tell him it was more than OK, that I was proud of him for caring about these kids, for taking the job in the first place. I hit ‘reply’ and was just about to write as much when I heard my name.
‘Andrea! She’s on her way in. She’ll be here in ten minutes,’ Emily announced loudly, obviously struggling to remain calm.
‘Hmm? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what—’
‘Miranda is on her way into the office this moment. We need to get ready.’
‘On her way into the office? But I thought she wasn’t even coming back to the country until Saturday …’
‘Well, clearly she changed her mind. Now, move! Go downstairs and get her papers and lay them out just the way I told you. When you’re done, wipe down her desk and leave a glass of Pellegrino on the left-hand side, with ice and a lime. And make sure that her bathroom is stocked, OK? Go! She’s already in the car, so she should be here in less than ten minutes, depending on traffic.’
As I raced out of the office, I could hear Emily rapid-fire dialing four-digit extensions and all but screaming, ‘She’s on her way – tell everyone.’ It took me only three seconds to wind through the hallways and pass through the fashion department, but I already heard panicked cries of ‘Emily said she’s on her way in’ and ‘Miranda’s coming!’ and a particularly blood-curdling cry of ‘She’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!’ Assistants were frantically straightening clothes on the racks that lined the halls, and editors were racing into their offices, where I could see one changing from her kitten-heeled shoes to four-inch stilettos while another lined her lips, curled her lashes, and adjusted her bra strap without so much as slowing down. As the publisher walked out of the men’s room, I glanced past him and saw James, looking frenzied, checking his black cashmere sweater for lint while spastically popping Altoids in his mouth. Unless the men’s room was wired with loudspeakers for these very occasions, I wasn’t even sure how he’d heard yet.
I was dying to stop and watch the scene unfold, but I had less than ten minutes to prepare for my first meeting with Miranda as her actual assistant, and I wasn’t going to blow it. Until then I’d been trying not to appear as if I’d been actually running, but upon witnessing the utter lack of dignity everyone else had demonstrated, I broke into a sprint.
‘Andrea! You know Miranda’s on her way here, don’t you?’ Sophy called from the reception desk as I flew by.
‘Yeah, I know, but how do you know?’
‘Sweetie pie, I know everything. Now I suggest you get your butt in gear. One thing’s for sure: Miranda Priestly does not like to be kept waiting.’
I leapt onto the elevator and called out a thank you. ‘I’ll be back in three minutes with the papers!’
The two wom
en on the elevator stared at me in disgust, and I realized that I had been screaming.
‘Sorry,’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘We just found out that our editor in chief is on her way to the office and we weren’t prepared, so everyone’s a little edgy now.’ Why am I explaining myself to these people?
‘Ohmigod, you must work for Miranda! Wait, let me guess. You’re Miranda’s new assistant? Andrea, right?’ The leggy brunette flashed what must’ve been four dozen teeth and moved forward like a piranha. Her friend instantly brightened.
‘Um, yeah. Andrea,’ I said, repeating my own name as though I wasn’t entirely sure it was mine. ‘And yes, I’m Miranda’s new assistant.’
At that moment the elevator hit the lobby and the doors opened to the stark white marble. I moved ahead of the women and bolted through before the doors had opened entirely and heard one of them call, ‘You’re a lucky girl, Andrea. Miranda’s an amazing woman, and a million girls would die for your job!’
I tried not to slam into a group of very unhappy-looking lawyers, and nearly flew into the newsstand in the corner of the lobby, where a little Kuwaiti man named Ahmed presided over a sleek display of glossy titles and a noticeably sparser array of mostly sugar-free candy and diet sodas. Emily had introduced Ahmed and me to each other before Christmas as part of my training, and I was hoping he could be enlisted to help me now.
‘Stop right there!’ he cried as I began pulling newspapers out of their wire racks by the register. ‘You are Miranda’s new girl, right? Come here.’
I swiveled to see Ahmed lean down and ferret under the register, his face turning a bit too red under the strain. ‘Ah-ha!’ he cried again, springing to his feet with all the agility of an old man with two broken legs. ‘For you. So you don’t make a mess of my display, I keep them aside for you each day. And maybe to make sure I don’t run out, too.’ He winked.
‘Ahmed, thank you. I can’t even tell you how much this helps me. Do you think I should get the magazines now, too?’
‘I sure do. Look, it’s already Wednesday and they all came out on Monday. Your boss probably don’t like that so much,’ he said knowingly. And again he reached under the register and again he rose with an armful of magazines, which, after a quick glance, I confirmed were all the ones on my list – no more, no less.
ID card, ID card, where the hell was that goddamn ID card? I reached inside my starched white button-down and found the silk lanyard that Emily had fashioned for me out of one of Miranda’s white Hermès scarves. ‘Never actually wear the card when she’s around, of course,’ she had said, ‘but just in case you forget to take it off, at least you won’t be wearing it on a plastic chain.’ She had practically spit out the last two words.
‘Here you go, Ahmed. Thank you so much for your help, but I’m in a big, big rush. She’s on her way in.’
He swiped my card down the reader on the side of the machine and placed the scarf lanyard around my neck like a lei. ‘Run, now. Run!’
I grabbed the overflowing plastic bag and ran, pulling my ID card out again to swipe against the security turnstiles that would allow me to enter the Elias-Clark elevator bank. I swiped and pushed. Nothing. I swiped and pushed again, this time harder. Nothing.
‘Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me, I think they’re okay-ay,’ Eduardo, the round and slightly sweaty security guard, began singing in a high-pitched voice from behind the security desk. Shit. I already knew without looking that his smile, conspiratorial and enormous, demanded again – as it had every single day for the past few weeks – that I play along. It seems he had a never-ending supply of annoying tunes that he loved to sing, and he wouldn’t let me through the turnstiles until I acted them out. The day before was ‘I’m Too Sexy.’ As he sang, ‘I’m too sexy for Milan, too sexy for Milan, New York and Japan,’ I had to walk down the lobby’s imaginary Runway. It could be fun when I was in a decent mood. Sometimes it even made me smile. But it was my very first day with Miranda, and I couldn’t be late getting her things set up, I just couldn’t. I wanted to hurt him for holding me up as everyone else breezed past the security desk in the turnstiles on each side of me.
‘If they don’t give me proper credit, I just walk away-ay,’ I muttered, allowing the words to stretch and fade, just like Madonna.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Where’s the enthusiasm, girlfriend?’
I thought I’d do something violent if I heard his voice again, so I dropped my bag of papers on the counter, threw both arms up in the air and thrust my hips to the left, while pursing my lips into a dramatic pout. ‘A material! A material! A material! A material … WORLD!’ I all but screamed, and he cackled and clapped and whoosh! He buzzed me through.
Mental note: Discuss with Eduardo when and where it is appropriate to make a complete ass of me. Once again, I dove onto the elevators and raced past Sophy, who kindly opened the doors to the floor without my even asking. I even remembered to stop in one of the minikitchens and put some ice in one of the Baccarat goblets we kept in a special cabinet over the microwave just for Miranda. Glass in one hand, newspapers in another, I peeled around the corner and smashed directly into Jessica, a.k.a. Manicure Girl. She looked both annoyed and panic-stricken.
‘Andrea, are you aware that Miranda is on her way to the office?’ she asked, looking me up and down.
‘Sure am. I’ve got her newspapers right here and her water right here, and now I just need to get them back to her office. If you’ll excuse me …’
‘Andrea!’ she called as I ran past her, an ice cube flying out of the glass and landing outside the art department. ‘Remember to change your shoes!’
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked down. I was wearing a pair of funky street sneakers, the kind that weren’t designed to do anything but look cool. The rules of dress – unspoken and otherwise – were obviously relaxed when Miranda was away, and even though every single person in the office looked fantastic, each was wearing something they would swear up and down that they’d never, ever wear in front of Miranda. My bright red, mesh sneakers were a prime example.
I had broken a sweat by the time I made it back to our suite. ‘I’ve got all the papers and I bought the magazines, too, just in case. The only thing is, I don’t think I can wear these shoes, can I?’
Emily tore the headset from her ear and flung it down on her desk. ‘No, of course you can’t wear those.’ She picked up the phone, dialed four digits, and announced, ‘Jeffy, bring me a pair of Jimmy’s in a size …’ She looked at me.
‘Nine and a half.’ I pulled a small bottle of Pellegrino out of the closet and filled the glass.
‘Nine and a half. No, now. No, Jeff, I’m serious. Right now. Andrea is wearing sneakers for chrissake, red sneakers, and She’s going to be here any minute. OK, thanks.’
It was then I noticed that in the four minutes I’d been downstairs, Emily had managed to switch her faded jeans to leather pants and her own funky sneakers to open-toe stilettos. She’d also cleaned up the entire office suite, sweeping the contents of both our desks into drawers and stashing all of the incoming gifts that hadn’t yet been transferred to Miranda’s apartment in the closet. She had slicked on a fresh coat of lip gloss and added some color to her cheeks and was presently motioning for me to get moving.
I grabbed the bag of newspapers and shook them out in a pile on the lightbox in her office, a sort of underlit table where Emily said Miranda would stand for hours on end and examine film that had come in from photo shoots. But it was also where she liked her papers arranged, and once again, I consulted my legal pad for the correct order. First, the New York Times, followed by the Wall Street Journal, and then the Washington Post. And on and on the order went in a pattern I couldn’t distinguish, each placed slightly on top of the one before it until they fanned out across the table in formation. Women’s Wear Daily was the single exception: this was to be placed in the middle of her desk.
‘She’s here! Andrea, come out here! She’s on her way up,??
? I heard Emily hiss from the outer area. ‘Uri just called to tell me he just dropped her off.’
I put WWD on her desk, placed the Pellegrino on a corner of her desk on a linen napkin (which side? I couldn’t remember which side it was supposed to go on), and darted from the office, taking one last look around to ensure that everything was in order. Jeffy, one of the fashion assistants who helped organize the fashion closet, tossed me a shoe box with a rubber band around it and bolted. I pulled it open immediately. Inside were a pair of Jimmy Choo heels with straps made of camel hair going every which way and buckles nestled in the middle of it all, probably worth around eight hundred dollars. Shit! I had to get these on. I yanked off my sneakers and my now sweaty socks and tossed them under my desk. The right one went on rather easily, but I couldn’t work my stubby fingernail to free the buckle on the left one until – there! I pried it open and thrust my left foot into it, watching the straps bite into the already swollen flesh. In another few seconds I had it buckled and was returning to an upright sitting position just as Miranda walked in.
Frozen. I was absolutely frozen in midmotion, my mind working fast enough to understand how ridiculous I must look, but not quite fast enough to move. She noticed me immediately, probably because she was expecting Emily to still be sitting at her old desk, and walked over. She leaned on the counter that ran over my desk, leaned over it and even closer to me, until she was able to see my entire body as I sat, immobilized, in the chair. Her bright blue eyes moved up and down, side to side, all over my white button-down, my red corduroy Gap miniskirt, my now buckled camel-hair Jimmy Choo sandals. I felt her examine every inch of me, skin and hair and clothes, her eyes moving so quickly but her face remaining frozen. She leaned closer still, until her face was only a foot from mine and I could smell the fantastic aroma of salon shampoo and expensive perfume, so close that I could see the very fine lines around her mouth and eyes that were invisible from a more comfortable distance. But I couldn’t look too long at her face, because she was intently examining mine. There wasn’t the slightest indication that she recognized that a) we had, in fact, met before; b) I was her new employee; or c) I was not Emily.