Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (10 page)

‘From the security camera,' she said when I stared at it. ‘They're everywhere around here, just so you know. They've had some major problems with people stealing stuff, the clothes and jewelry called in for shoots; it seems the messengers and sometimes even the editors just help themselves. So now they track everyone.' She slid her card down the slot and the thick glass door clicked open.

‘Track? What exactly do you mean by “track”?'

She moved quickly down the hallway toward our offices, her hips swishing back and forth, back and forth in the skintight tan Seven cords she was wearing. She'd told me the day before that I should seriously consider getting a pair or ten, as these were among the only jeans or corduroys that Miranda would permit people to wear in the office. Those and the MJ's were OK, but only on Friday, and only if worn with high heels. MJ's? ‘Marc Jacobs,' she had said, exasperated.

‘Well, between the cameras and the cards, they kind of know what everyone's doing,' she said as she dropped her Gucci logo tote on her desk. She began unbuttoning her very fitted leather blazer, a coat that looked supremely inadequate for the late-November weather. ‘I don't think they actually look at the cameras unless something's missing, but the cards tell everything. Like, every time you swipe it downstairs to get past the security counter or on the floor to get in the door, they know where you are. That's how they tell if people are at work, so if you have to be out – and you never will, but just in case something really awful happens – you'll just give me your card and I'll swipe it. That way you'll still get paid for all the days you miss, even if you go over. You'll do the same for me – everyone does it.'

I was still reeling from the ‘and you never will' part, but she continued her briefing.

‘And that's how you'll get food in the dining room also. It's a debit card: just put on some money and it gets deducted at the register. Of course, that's how they can tell what you're eating,' she said, unlocking Miranda's office door and plopping herself on the floor. She immediately reached for a boxed bottle of wine and began wrapping.

‘Do they care what you eat?' I asked, feeling as though I'd just stepped directly into a scene from
Sliver
.

‘Um, I'm not sure. Maybe? I just know they can tell. And the gym, too. You have to use it there, and at the newsstand to buy books or magazines. I think it just helps them stay organized.'

Stay organized? I was working for a company who defined good ‘organization' as knowing which floor each employee visited, whether they preferred onion soup or Caesar salad for lunch, and just how many minutes they could tolerate the elliptical machine? I was a lucky, lucky girl.

Exhausted from my fourth morning of waking up at five-thirty, it took me another five full minutes to work up the energy to climb out of my coat and settle down at my desk. I thought about putting my head down to rest for just a moment, but Emily cleared her throat. Loudly.

‘Um, you want to get in here and help me?' she asked, although it was clearly no question. ‘Here, wrap something.' She thrust a pile of white paper my way and resumed her task. Jewel blasted from the extra speakers attached to her iMac.

Cut, place, fold, tape
: Emily and I worked steadily through the morning, stopping only to call the downstairs messenger center each time we'd finished with twenty-five boxes. They'd hold them until we gave the green light for them to be fanned out all over Manhattan in mid-December. We'd already completed all of the out-of-town bottles during my first two days, and those were piled in the Closet waiting for DHL to pick them up. Considering each and every one was set to be sent first-day priority, arriving at their locations at the earliest possible time the very next morning, I wasn't sure what the rush was – considering it was only the end of November – but I'd already learned it was better not to ask questions. We would be FedExing about 150 bottles all over the world. The Priestly bottles would make it to Paris, Cannes, Bordeaux, Milan, Rome, Florence, Barcelona, Geneva, Bruges, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and London. Dozens to London! FedEx would jet them to Beijing and Hong Kong and Capetown and Tel Aviv and Dubai (Dubai!). They would be toasting Miranda Priestly in Los Angeles, Honolulu, New Orleans, Charleston, Houston, Bridgehampton, and Nantucket. And those all before any went out in New York – the city that contained all of Miranda's friends, doctors, maids, hair stylists, nannies, makeup artists, shrinks, yoga instructors, personal trainers, drivers, and personal shoppers. Of course, this was where most of the fashion-industry people were, too: the designers, models, actors, editors, advertisers, PR folks, and all-around style mavens would each receive a level-appropriate bottle lovingly delivered by an Elias-Clark messenger.

‘How much do you think all of this costs?' I asked Emily, while snipping what felt like the millionth piece of thick white paper.

‘I told you, I ordered twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of booze.'

‘No, no – how much do you think it costs altogether? I mean, to overnight all these packages all over the world, well, I bet that in some cases the shipping costs more than the bottle itself, especially if they're getting a nobody bottle.'

She looked intrigued. It was the first time I'd seen her look at me with anything other than disgust, exasperation, or indifference. ‘Well, let's see. If you figure that all the domestic FedExes are somewhere in the twenty-dollar range, and all the international are about $60, then that equals $9,000 for FedEx. I think I heard somewhere that the messengers charge eleven bucks a package, so sending out 250 of those would be $2,750. And our time, well, if it takes us a full week to wrap everything, then added together, that's two full weeks of both our salaries, which is another four grand—'

It was here I flinched inwardly, realizing that both of our salaries together for an entire week's work was by far the most insignificant expense.

‘Yeah, it comes to around $16,000 in total. Crazy, huh? But what choice is there? She is Miranda Priestly, you know.'

At about one Emily announced she was hungry and was heading downstairs to get some lunch with a few of the girls in accessories. I assumed she meant she would pick up her lunch, since that's what we'd been doing all week, so I waited for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty, but she never reappeared with her food. Neither of us had actually eaten in the dining room since I'd started in case Miranda called, but this was ridiculous. Two o'clock came and then two-thirty and then three, and all I could think about was how hungry I was. I tried calling Emily's cell phone, but it went directly to voice mail. Could she have died in the dining room? I wondered. Choked on some plain lettuce, or simply slumped over after downing a smoothie? I thought about asking someone to pick something up for me, but it seemed too prima donna-ish to ask a perfect stranger to fetch me lunch. After all, I was supposed to be the lunch-fetcher:
Oh, yes, darling, I'm simply too important to abandon my post here wrapping presents, so I was wondering if you might pick me up a turkey and brie croissant? Lovely
. I just couldn't do it. So when four o'clock rolled around and there was still no sign of Emily and no call from Miranda, I did the unthinkable: I left the office unattended.

After peeking down the hall and confirming that Emily was nowhere in sight, I literally ran to the reception area and pushed the down button twenty times. Sophy, the gorgeous Asian receptionist, raised her eyebrows and looked away, and I wasn't sure if it was my impatience or her knowledge that Miranda's office was abandoned that made her look at me that way. No time to figure it out. The elevator finally arrived, and I was able to throw myself onboard even as a sneering, heroin-thin guy with spiky hair and lime green Pumas was pushing ‘Door Close.' No one moved aside to give me room even though there was plenty of space. And while this would've normally driven me crazy, all I could concentrate on was getting food and getting back, ASAP.

The entrance to the all-glass-and-granite dining room was blocked by a group of Clackers-in-training, all leaning in and whispering, examining each group of people who got off the elevator. Friends of Elias employees, I immediately recalled from Emily's description of such groups, obvious from their unmasked excitement to be standing at the center of it all. Lily had already begged me to take her to the dining room since it'd been written up in nearly every Manhattan newspaper and magazine for its incredible food quality and selection – not to mention its gaggle of gorgeous people – but I wasn't ready for that yet. Besides, due to the complex office-sitting schedule Emily and I negotiated each day so far, I'd yet to spend more time there than the two and a half minutes it took to choose and pay for my food, and I wasn't sure I ever would.

I pushed my way past the girls and felt them turn to see if I was anyone important. Negative. Weaving quickly, intently, I bypassed gorgeous racks of lamb and veal marsala in the entrees section and, with a push of willpower, cruised right past the sundried tomato and goat cheese pizza special (which resided on a small table banished to the sidelines that everyone referred to as ‘Carb Corner‘). It wasn't as easy to navigate around the
pièce de résistance
of the room, the salad bar (also known just as ‘Greens,' as in ‘I'll meet you at Greens'), which was as long as an airport landing strip and accessible from four different directions, but the hordes let me pass when I loudly assured them that I wasn't going after the last of the tofu cubes. All the way in the back, directly behind the panini stand that actually resembled a makeup counter, was the single, lone soup station. Lone because the soup chef was the only one in the entire dining room who refused to make a single one of his offerings low fat, reduced fat, fat-free, low sodium, or low carb. He simply refused. As a result, his was the single table in the entire room without a line, and I sprinted directly toward him every day. Since it appeared that I was the only one in the entire company who actually bought soup – and I'd only been there a week – the higher-ups had slashed his menu to a solitary soup per day. I prayed for tomato cheddar. Instead, he ladled out a giant cup of New England clam chowder, proudly declaring it was made with heavy cream. Three people at Greens turned to stare. The only obstacle left was dodging the crowds around the chef's table, where a visiting chef in full whites was arranging large chunks of sashimi for what appeared to be adoring fans. I read the nametag on his starched white collar: Nobu Matsuhisa. I made a mental note to look him up when I got upstairs, since I seemed to be the only employee in the place who wasn't fawning all over him. Was it worse to have never heard of Mr Matsuhisa or Miranda Priestly?

The petite cashier looked first at the soup and then at my hips when she rang me up. Or had she? I'd already grown accustomed to being looked up and down every time I went anywhere, and I could've sworn she was looking at me with the same expression I would've given a five-hundred-pound person with eight Big Macs arrayed in front of him: the eyes raised just enough as if to ask, ‘Do you
really
need that?' But I brushed my paranoia aside and reminded myself that the woman was simply a cashier in a cafeteria, not a Weight Watchers counselor. Or a fashion editor.

‘So. Not many people buying the soup these days,' she said quietly, punching numbers on the register.

‘Yeah, I guess not that many people like New England clam chowder,' I mumbled, swiping my card and willing her hands to move faster, faster.

She stopped and turned her narrowed brown eyes directly toward mine. ‘No, I think it's because the soup chef insists on making these really fattening things – do you have any idea how many calories are in that? Do you have any idea how fattening that little cup of soup is? I'm just saying, someone could put on ten pounds from just looking at it—'
And you're not one who could afford to gain ten pounds
, she implied.

Ouch. As if it hadn't been hard enough convincing myself that I was a normal weight for a normal height as all the tall, willowy
Runway
blondes had openly examined me, now the cashier was – for all intents and purposes – telling me I was fat? I snatched my takeout bag and pushed past the people, and walked into the bathroom that was conveniently located directly outside the dining room, where one could purge any earlier bingeing problems. And even though I knew that the mirror would reveal nothing more or less than it had that morning, I turned to face it head on. A twisted, angry face stared back at me.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' Emily all but shouted at my reflection. I whipped around in time to see her hanging her leather blazer through the handle of the Gucci logo tote, as she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. It occurred to me that Emily had meant what she'd said three and a half hours before quite literally: she'd gone out for lunch. As in, outside. As in, left me all alone for three straight hours with no warning, practically tethered to a phone line with no hopes of food or bathroom breaks. As in, none of that mattered because I still knew I was wrong to leave and I was about to get screamed at for it by someone my own age. Blessedly, the door swung open and the editor in chief of
Coquette
strode in. She looked us both up and down as Emily grabbed my arm and steered me out of the bathroom and toward the elevator. We stood like that together, her clutching my arm and me feeling as though I'd just wet the bed. We were living one of those scenes where the kidnapper puts a gun to a woman's back in broad daylight and quietly threatens her as he leads her to his basement of torture.

‘How could you do this to me?' she hissed as she pushed me through
Runway
's reception-area doors and we hurtled together back to our desks. ‘As the senior assistant, I am responsible for what goes on in our office. I know you're new, but I've told you from the very first day: we do not leave Miranda unattended.'