Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (218 page)

She yanked the metal cage door of the elevator open, stepped inside, and closed it behind her, a move she had perfected even with an armful of hot coffees. Every day Andy swore she'd use the stairs; every day she stepped in the elevator and thought,
Tomorrow.
On the fourth floor she smiled at
The Plunge
's current receptionist, inevitably an overqualified recent college graduate who only stayed long enough to ensure she or Emily was forever interviewing new candidates.

It was nice getting in late every once in a while.

‘Morning, Andrea,' Agatha said. She was wearing a navy dress with cream-colored tights and chunky red patent heels, and Andy was left to wonder, as she always did, how her assistant kept, constantly, on fashion's cutting edge. It must have been exhausting.

‘Good morning!' Andrea sang loudly.

Agatha stood waiting like a guard dog as Andy walked past her into her office, a larger, glass-enclosed version of the cubicles near it, and said, ‘Follow me.' Immediately thinking that sounded too harsh and commanding, she added with a forced laugh, ‘If you have a minute.'

‘So listen, Emily's been calling for you, like, every three seconds. I promised her I'd send you right over there.'

‘I told her I'd be late this morning. It's the first morning in six months she gets in before me and she's hysterical, huh?' Andy said, thinking it had to be the Elias-Clark call that had Emily in a snit. ‘Okay, I'm headed there now. Will you please forward any calls from the Harper wedding people to her office?'

Agatha nodded. She looked supremely bored.

What
The Plunge
did have in common with
Runway
: long-legged, stiletto-favoring, designer-donning girls. Per their working agreement, Emily had been responsible for the office hiring, with the single exception of Carmella Tindale, Andy's part-
features
editor, part-managing director, whom she had poached from
Happily Ever After
and strongly felt she couldn't live without. Noticeably, Carmella was slightly overweight with unruly brown hair and inch-thick gray roots. She favored shapeless pantsuits paired with Merrell clogs in the winter and FitFlops in the summer, and her lone stab at style was a genuine (according to Emily) Prada backpack that she had bedazzled herself with an interesting array of puffy paint, rhinestones, and colored thread. Carmella was an undeniable fashion disaster of epic proportions, and Andy loved her dearly. The rest of them, though, were close cousins of the
Runway
Clackers, each leggier and skinnier and prettier than the next. It was downright depressing.

‘Good morning, Andy,' said Tal, a willowy Israeli with pale skin, jet-black hair, and a figure that could have stopped a tank. She was wearing a pair of skinny cargo pants paired with a cropped blazer and high-heeled suede booties.

‘Morning, Tal. Did you ever get in touch with OPI's people? We need a definite yes or no by the end of the week.'

Tal nodded.

Andy's cell phone rang. ‘Great. Let me know as soon as you hear.' She turned her attention to her phone. ‘Max? You there?'

‘Hi, love. How are you feeling?'

Until he'd said anything, she'd been feeling fine, but the moment she thought of how she felt, a wave of nausea rolled over her.

‘I'm okay. Just about to head into Emily's office for a meeting. What's going on?'

‘I was thinking. What if we invite my parents and sister, and your mom, and Jill and Kyle, and your dad and Noreen, over to our place for dinner? We can tell them it's to go over the wedding proofs and help us choose pictures for our album. And then we'll break the news.'

She'd wanted to tell her mother and Jill so badly when she last saw them, but now that Lily and Max knew – and Emily, too; she was planning to tell her right then – it somehow felt like enough.

‘Oh, I don't know …'

‘It'll be great. We have that first-trimester screening, what'd she call it?'

‘The nuchal translucency.'

‘Right. So we have that the beginning of next week and make sure everything's a go, which of course it will be, and then we make our families the happiest people on earth. I can have the company's party planner find a caterer. They'll bring everything, cook, clean up … you won't have to lift a finger. What do you say?'

Andy smiled at an art department Clacker who cruised by her wearing thigh-high boots and what must have been ten pounds of expertly knotted and twisted gold chains around her neck.

‘Andy?'

‘Sorry. Um … okay? That sounds good.'

‘It'll be great! Next Saturday night?'

‘No, Jill and Kyle and the boys head back to Texas that morning. Maybe Friday?'

‘Sure. I'll talk to everyone and figure out the details. Andy?'

‘Hmm?'

‘It's going to be great. They're going to be so happy for us …'

Andy couldn't help but wonder what Barbara would think. The dreaded daughter-in-law giving her a much-hoped-for grandchild. What a dilemma! Her hyper-Botoxed face would probably reveal nothing. But maybe the news of a baby would change everything for the better …

‘I love it,' she said. ‘It's a perfect way to tell them.'

‘I love you, Andy.'

She paused for just a moment, a fraction of a second really, and then said, ‘I love you too.'

‘Andy? Get in here!' Emily commanded from within her glass cubicle. It was a phrase that sounded eerily familiar.

‘I can hear you're being summoned. I'll talk to you later,' Max said and hung up. Andy could practically hear him smiling.

Andy entered Emily's office, took a seat in one of the leather sling chairs, and kicked off her moccasins to bury her feet in the fluffy sheepskin rug. Flouting the magazine's frugal decorating budget, Emily had spent a fortune of her own money to make her office look like something out of
Elle Decor.
The red lacquer desk, white leather chairs and sheepskin rug were just the beginning. A sleek, low-profile cabinet housed Emily's magazine and book collection, filmy white curtains adorned the dramatic windows, and canvas-stretched photos of all
The Plunge
's covers since the magazine's inception filled the single exposed-brick wall. On the two glass partitions that separated the office from the rest of the loft, Emily had hung a collection of stained glass figurines and ornaments that caught the light and threw beams of color in every direction. A modern, life-size sculpture of two Dalmatians frolicked in the corner and a miniature Sub-Zero fridge built into the side of a horizontal bookcase kept Emily's supply of Evian, rosé champagne, and Honest Teas well chilled. A dozen elegantly framed personal pictures perched on every surface. Andy was reminded that Emily had aspired to be Miranda's assistant from age twelve. Or perhaps she'd aspired to be Miranda?

‘Thank god, you're finally here!' Emily said, glancing up from her computer. ‘I'm just going to finish this e-mail, give me two seconds …'

Andy noticed a pile of proofs from her own wedding off to the side. She plucked the top one and studied it. She'd loved it when she saw it online, and she loved it even more in hard copy. It was perhaps one of the only pictures taken of the whole wedding where she felt her smile was entirely genuine. Just as the music began playing for their first dance, Max had come up from behind and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her on the side of her neck, which tickled, and she threw her head back onto his shoulder, laughing with surprise and delight. The photo was completely natural, totally unposed. It was a nontraditional cover choice, but both Andy and Emily were batting around the idea of doing something different.

‘Can you even believe we're getting ready to close the March issue?' Andy asked, staring at the photo of herself and Max.

‘Mmm,' Emily murmured, her eyes glued to her screen.

‘Do you really think we can use a candid for the cover? Is it too … flighty?'

Emily sighed. ‘It's still a St Germain. It's hardly something one of your cousins forwarded us from Shutterfly.'

‘True. I do like it …'

Emily opened the top drawer of her desk, extracted a pack of Marlboros and a lighter, took one for herself, and offered the pack to Andy.

‘This is our
office,
Emily,' Andy said, hating that she sounded like someone's mother.

Emily touched the cigarette tip to the lighter's flame, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a long, neat smoke stream. ‘We're celebrating.'

‘It's been six years,' Andy said, looking at the cigarette longingly. ‘Why does that still look so freaking good?'

Emily held out the pack again but Andy merely shook her head. She knew she should probably leave the office until Emily finished – she had the baby to think about now – but Emily would have killed her.

‘What are we celebrating?' Andy asked, transfixed by Emily's long, sensual exhalations.

‘You're never going to guess who I got a call from this morning,' Emily said, doing a strange little jig in her chair.

‘Beyoncé?'

‘No. Why her?'

‘More or less famous?'

‘Who's more famous than Beyoncé?'

‘Emily, just tell me.'

‘Guess. You have to guess. You're
never
going to guess, but just try.'

‘That sounds fun. Let's see … Jay-Z?'

Emily groaned. ‘You're so uninspired. Who would be maybe the last person in the known universe to call our office and request a meeting?'

Andy blew on her hands to keep them warm. ‘Obama?'

‘You're unbelievable. You have no imagination whatsoever!'

‘Emily …'

‘Miranda! Miranda fucking Priestly called for us this morning.'

‘No she didn't.' Andy shook her head. ‘Factually impossible. Unless there's been some sort of people's revolution at
Runway
that we haven't heard about, Miranda did not call here. Because Miranda doesn't call anywhere. Because last time I checked, Miranda was physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of dialing numbers on a phone without help from someone else.'

Emily took a quick inhale and stamped the cigarette out in an ornate stained glass ashtray she kept stashed away in her desk. ‘Andy? Are you listening?'

‘What?' Andy looked at Emily, who stared back at her in shocked disbelief.

‘Do you hear anything I'm saying?'

‘Of course. But tell me again. I'm having a hard time processing it.'

Emily sighed dramatically. ‘So no, she did not actually call herself. But her senior assistant, some South African chick named Charla, called and asked if you and I would come to the office for a meeting. In two weeks. She stressed that it would be with
Miranda
herself.'

‘How'd you know she was South African?' Andy asked, solely to piss off Emily.

Emily looked like she might explode. ‘Did you not hear what I just told you? We – you and I – are meeting with Miranda!'

‘Oh, I heard you. I'm trying to keep from hyperventilating right now,' Andy said.

Emily clasped her hands. ‘There's only one explanation. It's got to be to discuss a possible acquisition.'

Andy glanced at her cell phone and tossed her phone back in her bag. ‘You're crazy if you think I'm going.'

‘Of course you're going.'

‘I am not! My weak heart can't handle it. To say nothing of my self-respect.'

‘Andy, that woman is the editorial director of Elias-Clark. She's the final editorial arbiter over every single magazine at the company. For god knows what reason, she has requested our presence at eleven a week from Friday. And you, my friend and cofounder, are going to be there.'

‘Do you think she knows we use her name to book celebrities?'

‘Andy, I really don't think she cares about that.'

‘Didn't I read somewhere that she authorized that famous historian, the really intellectual one, to write her biography? Maybe she wants him to interview us?'

Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Uh-huh. That sounds likely. Of the three million people she's worked with over the years, she wants one she fired in front of thirty staffers for no reason and the one who told her to fuck off in Paris. Try again.'

‘I have no idea. But guess what? I'm really comfortable with never knowing.'

‘What do you mean, never knowing?'

‘Just what I said. I think I can live a full and complete life not knowing why Miranda Priestly suddenly wants to see us.'

Emily sighed.

‘What?'

‘Nothing, I just knew you'd be difficult. But I confirmed the meeting anyway.'

‘You did not.'

‘I did. I think it's important.'

‘Important?' Andy was aware she sounded vaguely hysterical, but she couldn't stop. ‘In case you don't realize it, we haven't been enslaved by that lunatic for years. Through lots of hard work and dedication, we have built our own successful magazine, and we did it without terrorizing our staff or wrecking anyone's life. I will never again step foot in that woman's office.'

Emily waved her off. ‘It's not the same office; she moved floors. And you can declare you'll never go there again
after
our meeting. I, for one, need to know what she wants, and I can't go alone.'

‘Why not? You're so enamored with her. Go by yourself and tell me about it. Or don't. I don't really care.'

‘I'm not enamored with her, Andy,' Emily said, clearly growing exasperated. ‘But when Miranda Priestly calls you in for a meeting, you go.' Emily reached her arm across the desk and held Andy's hand. She pouted and her eyes looked sad. ‘Please say you'll come.'

Andy snatched her hand back. She was silent.

‘Pretty please? For your best friend and business partner? The one who introduced you to your husband?'