Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (204 page)

Andy took a sip of coffee and pictured the signed copy of
Print Man
Max had been keeping in his bedside table since the day they'd met. He'd shown it to her after they'd been dating six, maybe eight months, and although he'd never said as much, she knew it was his most prized possession. On the inside cover Mr Harrison had merely written ‘Dear Max, see attached. Love, Dad,' and paper-clipped to the jacket itself was a letter, written on a plain yellow legal pad, four pages in total and folded in the classic over-under style. The letter was actually a chapter of the book Max's dad had written but never included for fear it was too personal, that it might embarrass Max one day or reveal too much of their lives. In it he began with the night Max was born (during a heat wave in the summer of '75) and detailed how, over the next thirty years, Max had grown into the finest young man he could hope to know. Although Max did not cry when he showed it to her, Andy noticed his jaw clenching and his voice getting husky. And now the family fortune was all but devastated due to a number of terrible business decisions Mr Harrison had made in the final years of his life. And Max felt personally responsible for restoring his father's good name and making sure his mother and sister were always cared for. It was one of the things she loved most about him, this dedication to his family. And she firmly believed Max's father's death had been a turning point for Max. They'd met so soon afterward, and she always felt lucky she'd been the next girl he dated. ‘The last girl I'll date,' he liked to say.

She picked up the paper again and continued to read.

The couple met in 2009 through a pair of mutual friends who introduced them without warning. ‘I showed up for what I thought was a business dinner party,' Mr Harrison said. ‘By the time we got to dessert, all I could think of was when I'd see her again.'

‘I remember Max and I sneaking away from the rest of the group to chat alone. Or actually, maybe I got up and followed him. Stalked him, I guess you could say,' Ms Sachs said with a laugh.

They began to date immediately in addition to developing a professional relationship: Mr Harrison is the largest financier of Ms Sachs's magazine. When they became engaged and moved in together in 2012, each pledged to support the other's career endeavors.

They will divide their time between Manhattan and the groom's family estate in Washington, Connecticut.

Divide their time?
she thought to herself.
Not exactly.
When the family's dire financial situation came to light after Max's father passed away, Max had made a series of tough decisions on behalf of his mother, who was too distraught to function and, in her own words, didn't ‘have a head for business like the men do.' Andy hadn't been privy to most of those conversations since it was in the very early days of their dating, but she remembered his anguish when the Hamptons house sold a mere sixty days after the perfect summer day they'd spent there, and she recalled some sleepless nights when Max realized he had to sell his childhood home, a sprawling Madison Avenue town house. Barbara had resided in a perfectly lovely two-bedroom apartment in an ancient, respectable co-op on Eighty-Fourth and West End for the last two years, still surrounded by a number of beautiful carpets and paintings and the finest linens, but she'd never recovered from losing her two grand homes, and she still harped on about what she referred to as her ‘banishment' to the West Side. The oceanfront penthouse in Florida had been sold to the DuPont family, friends of the Harrisons who played along with the charade that Barbara no longer ‘had the time or energy' for Palm Beach; a twenty-three-year-old Internet millionaire scooped up the Jackson Hole ski chalet for pennies on the dollar. The only property that remained was the country house in Connecticut. It was on fourteen acres of splendid rolling farmland, complete with a four-horse stable and a pond big enough for rowboats, but the house itself hadn't been renovated since the seventies and the animals were long gone due to their expensive upkeep. The family would have to invest too much money to update the property, so instead they rented it out as often as they could, weekly or monthly or sometimes even by the weekend, always through a trusted, discreet broker so no one would know they were renting from the fabled family.

Andy finished her coffee and glanced again at the announcement. How many years had she been reading those pages, devouring the photos of the happy brides and handsome grooms, evaluating their schools and jobs, their future prospects and their backgrounds? How many times had she wondered if she would be included among them one day, what information they would list about her, whether or not they would include a picture? A dozen times? More? And now, how strange to think of other young women, curled on couches in their studio apartments, sporting messy ponytails and torn sweats, reading about Andy's marriage, thinking to themselves,
A perfect couple! They both went to good schools and have good jobs and they're smiling in that picture like they're madly in love. Why can't I meet a guy like that?

There was something else. The note, yes. She couldn't stop thinking about the note. But there was another memory – of writing up her own
New York Times
announcement with Alex as the groom – that made her feel squeamish now. She must have devised a dozen different versions when they were dating. Andrea Sachs and Alexander Fineman, both graduates of blah, blah, blah. She'd practiced so many times that it was almost strange to see her name beside Max's.

Why couldn't she shake the past lately? First the Miranda nightmare, and now the Alex memories.

Still wrapped in her luxe hotel robe with a diamond wedding band on her left ring finger, Andy reminded herself not to indulge in revisionist history. Yes, Alex had been an amazing boyfriend. More than that, he'd been her confidant, her partner, her best friend. But he could also be astonishingly stubborn and not a little judgmental. He'd deemed her job at
Runway
unworthy almost as soon as she accepted it, and he hadn't been as supportive of her career as she'd hoped. Although he never said it, she couldn't help but feel he was disappointed in her for not choosing a more selfless path, teaching or medicine or something nonprofit.

Max, on the other hand, embraced her career. He had invested in
The Plunge
from day one and claimed it was one of the boldest and best business decisions he'd ever made. He loved her drive and her curiosity; he constantly told her how refreshing it was to date a woman interested in more than the next charity function or who was heading to St Barths over Christmas. He was never too busy to hear story ideas, introduce her to valuable business connections, lend advice on securing more advertisers. No mind that he knew nothing about wedding dresses or fondant cakes: he was impressed with the product she and Emily put out, and he constantly expressed his pride to Andy. He understood busy schedules and crazy hours: never once in all the time she'd known him had he given her hell for staying late or taking an after-hours call, or going in on Saturday just to make sure a layout was perfect before it shipped. Chances were he'd be at work himself, trying to drum up new business, checking on the dwindling portfolio of holdings Harrison Media still controlled, flying somewhere to put out fires or soothe jangled egos. They fit themselves around each other's work schedules, cheer-led for each other, and offered advice and support. They both understood the rules, and they agreed on them: work hard, play hard. And work came first.

The doorbell to her suite rang and Andy was catapulted back to reality. Not yet ready to deal with her mother or Nina or even her sister, Andy sat very still.
Go away,
she silently willed.
Just let me think.

It wouldn't stop, though. Whoever it was rang three more times. Summoning her final reserves of strength, she forced a huge smile and swung open the door.

‘Good morning, Mrs Harrison!' sang the manager of the estate, a portly, older man whose name she couldn't recall. He was accompanied by a uniformed woman pushing a wheeled room-service table. ‘Please accept this celebratory breakfast, with our compliments. We thought you and Mr Harrison might like something to nibble on before your brunch begins.'

‘Oh, yes, well thank you. That's lovely.' Andy pulled her robe tighter and stepped back to allow the table to roll past her. She saw the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign she'd hung the night before on the hallway floor. Sighing, she picked it up and placed it back on the door.

The server rolled the draped breakfast cart into the living room and set it up right in front of the picture window. They made small talk about the ceremony and the reception while the young woman poured the fresh orange juice, uncovered the little pots of butter and jam, and finally, blessedly, gave an awkward mini bow and excused herself.

Relieved that all wedding dieting was officially over, Andy picked up the bakery basket and inhaled the delicious scent through the napkin. She pulled a warm, buttery croissant from the pile and bit into it. Suddenly she was famished.

‘Look who's feeling better,' Max said, emerging from the bedroom with mussed hair, wearing only a pair of soft jersey pajama pants. ‘Come here, my little drunk bride. How's your hangover?'

She was still chewing when he enveloped her in a hug. The feel of his lips on her neck made her smile.

‘I wasn't drunk,' she mumbled through a mouthful of croissant.

‘What's this?' He reached for a blueberry muffin and jammed it in his mouth. He poured them each a cup of coffee, preparing Andy's just the way she liked it, with just a splash of milk and two Splendas, and took a long swallow. ‘Mmm, that is
good.
'

Andy watched Max, shirtless, drinking coffee, looking scrumptious. She wanted to crawl back under the covers with him and never come out. Had she imagined the whole thing? Was it an awful dream? Standing before her, holding out her chair and jokingly calling her Mrs Harrison as he laid her napkin in her lap with a flourish, was the man whom up until thirteen hours earlier she'd loved and trusted above all else. Screw the damn letter. Who cared what his mother thought? And so what that he'd bumped into an ex? He wasn't hiding anything. He loved
her,
Andy Sachs.

‘Here, look at the announcement,' Andy said, handing Max the Sunday Styles section. She smiled as he snatched it out of her hands. ‘It's good, isn't it?'

His eyes scanned the text. ‘Good?' he said after another minute. ‘It's perfect.'

He came around to her side of the table and knelt down, just as he'd done when he'd proposed a year earlier. ‘Andy?' he asked, looking directly into her eyes in that heart-stopping way of his that she loved. ‘I know something's going on with you. I don't know what you're jittery about or what's got you worried, but I want you to know that I love you more than anything in the world, and I'm always here for you, whenever you're ready to talk about it. Okay?'

See! He understands me!
she wanted to shout for everyone to hear.
He senses something's wrong. That alone means there's no problem, right?
And yet, the words were right there –
I read your mom's letter. I know you saw Katherine in Bermuda. Did anything happen? And why didn't you tell me you saw her?
– but Andy couldn't make herself speak them. Instead, she squeezed Max's hand and tried to push the fear out of her head. This was her one and only wedding weekend, and she wasn't willing to ruin it with insecurity and an argument.

Andy slightly hated herself for copping out. But everything would be okay. It simply had to be.

She unlocked the door to the West Chelsea loft offices of
The Plunge
and held her breath. Safe. Never had Andy seen another living soul at work before nine – in keeping with typical New York creative hours, most of the staff didn't roll in until ten, often ten thirty – and she was thrilled today was no different. The two to three hours before everyone else arrived were by far her most productive of the day, even if she did feel sometimes slightly
Miranda
-ish e-mailing and leaving voice mails for people before they'd woken up.

No one, including Max, had blinked when Andy suggested they cut short their post-wedding trip to the Adirondacks. After two days of Andy's puking – and, sadly for Max, no marital consummation – he didn't argue when Andy said they would both be happier back home. Besides, they had a proper two-week honeymoon in Fiji scheduled over the December holidays. It was a gift from Max's parents' best friends, and although Andy didn't know all the details, she'd heard the words
helicopter, private island,
and
chef
thrown around often enough to be very, very excited. Bailing on their three-day getaway in upstate New York when it was already getting too cold to be outside didn't seem like such a big deal.

Andy and Max had fallen into a routine when they'd moved in together the year before, right after he proposed. Weekday mornings they woke up at six. He made them both coffee while she fixed oatmeal or fruit smoothies. They would head to the Equinox on Seventeenth and Tenth together and spend exactly forty-five minutes there; Max did a combination of free weights and the stair treader; Andy bided her time on the treadmill, speed fixed at 5.8, eyes glued to whatever rom com she'd downloaded to her iPad, fervently wishing the time would pass faster, faster. They'd shower and dress at home together, and Max would drop her at
The Plunge
's office on Twenty-Fourth and Eleventh before zooming in the company car up the West Side Highway to his own offices in midtown west. Both were installed at their respective desks by eight each morning, and barring extreme illness or weather, the schedule was unalterable. This morning, however, Andy had set her phone to vibrate twenty minutes earlier than usual and slithered out from underneath the covers the instant her pillow started to shake. Forsaking a shower and coffee, she pulled on her comfiest pair of charcoal pants, her match-anything white button-down, and her most boring black peacoat and slipped out just as she heard Max's alarm beginning to sound. She sent him a quick text saying that she had to get to work early and that she'd see him later that evening for Yacht Party, although her stomach still felt unsettled and her muscles were achy, exhausted. Her temperature last night had been just over a hundred.