Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (31 page)

There was a moment of silence, followed by a hyena-like howl. ‘Oh, that's just f-f-f-fucking perfect!' she screeched, doing some sort of simultaneous laugh-choke. ‘Does she lock you in your West Village studio apartment and deprive you of all things G-g-g-gucci until you're brainwashed enough to actually say shit like that? F-f-f-fantastic! That woman is really a piece of work! Well, Miss Learning Experience, I'd heard through the grapevine that Miranda had actually hired herself a thinking l-l-l-l-lackey this time around, but I see that the grapevine, as usual, is wrong. You like Michael Kors t-t-twinsets and all the pretty fur coats at J. Mendel's? Yes, sweetie, you'll do just fine. Now put that skinny-ass boss of yours on the phone.'

I was conflicted. My first impulse was to tell her to fuck off, tell her she didn't know me, that it's easy to see she tries to compensate for her stuttering with a major attitude problem. More than that, though, I wanted to press the phone close to my lips and urgently whisper, ‘I am a prisoner, more than you can imagine – please, oh, please, come and rescue me from this brainwash hell. You're right, it's just the way you describe, but I'm different!' But I didn't get the chance to do either, because it finally occurred to me that I had no idea who owned the raspy, stuttering voice on the other end of the phone.

I sucked in my breath and decided to hit her point for point – on every subject but Miranda. ‘Well, I do adore Michael Kors, of course, but I must tell you that it's certainly not because of his
twinsets
. Furs from J. Mendel's are wonderful, of course, but a real
Runway
girl – that is, someone with discriminating and impeccable taste – would probably prefer something custom made from Pologeorgis on Twenty-ninth Street. Oh, and for the future, I'd prefer if you used the more casual “hired help” instead of something as stiff and unforgiving as “lackey.” Now, of course, I'll be happy to correct any more incorrect assumptions you'd care to make, but maybe I could ask with whom am I speaking first?'

‘Touché, Miranda's new assistant, touché. You and I m-m-may be friends after all. I d-d-d-don't much like the usual robots she hires, but it's fitting because I don't much like her. My name is Judith Mason, and in c-c-case you aren't aware, I author your travel articles each m-m-m-month. Now, tell me this, since you're still relatively new now: Is the h-h-honeymoon over?'

I was silent. What did she mean by this? It was like talking to a ticking bomb.

‘Well? You're in that fascinating window of time w-w-w-where you've been there long enough for everyone to know your name, but not long enough that they uncover and exploit all your weaknesses. It's a really sweet feeling when th-th-th-that happens, trust me. You're working in a really special place.'

But before I could respond, she said, ‘Enough f-f-f-flirting for now, my new friend. Don't b-b-b-bother telling her it's me, because she never takes my c-c-calls anyway. Stuttering pisses her off, I think. Just be sure to put my n-n-n-name down on the Bulletin so she can make someone else call me back. Thanks, l-l-love.' Click.

I hung up the phone, dumbfounded, and started to laugh. Emily looked up from one of Miranda's expense reports and asked who it was. When I told her it was Judith, she rolled her eyes so deeply they almost didn't resurface and whined, ‘She's such a supreme bitch. I have, like, no idea how Miranda even speaks to her. She won't take her calls, though, so you don't even have to tell her she's on the phone. Just put her on the Bulletin and Miranda will have someone else call her back.' It seems Judith understood the inner workings of our office better than I.

I double-clicked on the icon on my sleek turquoise iMac called ‘Bulletin' and glanced over its contents so far. The Bulletin was the pièce de résistance of Miranda Priestly's office and, as far as I could see, her sole reason for living. Developed many years before by some high-strung, compulsive assistant, the Bulletin was simply a Word document that lived in a shared folder both Emily and I could access. Only one of us could open it at a time and add a new message, thought, or question to the itemized list. Then we'd print out the updated version and place it on the clipboard that sat on the shelf over my desk, removing the old ones as we went. Miranda would examine it every few minutes throughout the day as Emily and I struggled to type, print, and clip as quickly as the calls came in. Often we'd hiss at each other to close the Bulletin so the other could access it and write a message. We'd print to our separate printers simultaneously and dive for the clipboard, not knowing whose was the most recent until we were face to face.

‘Judith's the latest message on mine,' I said, exhausted from the pressure of trying to finish it before Miranda entered the suite. Eduardo had called from the security desk downstairs to warn us that she was on her way upstairs. We hadn't gotten a call from Sophy yet, but we knew it'd be only seconds.

‘I have the concierge from the Ritz Paris after Judith,' Emily near-shouted, triumphantly, while clipping her sheet to the Lucite clipboard. I took my four-second outdated Bulletin back to the desk and glanced over it. Dashes in phone numbers were not permissible, only periods. There were to be no colons in the time, only periods. Times must be rounded up or down to the nearest quarter-hour. Call-back phone numbers always got their own lines to make them easier to distinguish. A time listed indicated that someone had called in. The word ‘note' was something that Emily or I had to tell her (since addressing her without being first addressed was out of the question, all relevant info went on the Bulletin). ‘Reminder' was something Miranda had most likely left on one of our voice mails sometime between one and five A.M. the previous night, knowing that once it was recorded for us, it was as good as done. We were to refer to ourselves in the third person – if it was absolutely crucial for us to refer to ourselves at all.

She often asked us to find out exactly when and at what number a particular person would be available to speak. In this case it was a tossup whether the fruits of our investigation would go under ‘note' or ‘reminder.' I remember once thinking that the Bulletin read like a who's who in the Prada crowd, but the names of the superbigmoney, the superhighfashion, and the generally superimpressive had ceased to register as ‘special' on my desensitized brain. In my new
Runway
reality, the White House social secretary held little more interest than the vet who needed to speak to her about the cat's vaccinations (fat chance of him getting a call back!).

Thursday, April 8

I crumpled the sheet and tossed it in the basket under my desk, where it immediately soaked up the leftover grease from Miranda's third morning breakfast that I'd already thrown out. So far, a relatively normal day as far as the Bulletin was concerned. I was just about to click ‘inbox' on my Hotmail account to see if anyone had e-mailed yet when she cruised into the office. Damn that Sophy! She'd forgotten the warning call again.

‘I expect the Bulletin is updated,' she said icily without making eye contact or otherwise acknowledging our presence.

‘It is, Miranda,' I replied, holding it up to her so she needn't so much as reach for it.
Three words and counting
, I thought to myself, predicting – and praying – it wouldn't be more than a seventy-five-word day on my part. She removed her waist-length mink, so plush I had to restrain myself from burying my face into it right there, and tossed it onto my desk. As I went to hang that magnificent dead animal in the closet, trying to rub it discreetly against my cheek, I felt a quick shock of cold and wet: there were tiny bits of still-frozen sleet stuck to the fur. How fabulously apropos.

Pulling the lid from a lukewarm latte, I carefully arranged today's greasy pile of bacon, sausage, and cheese-filled pastry on a filthy plate. I tiptoed into her office and carefully placed everything unobtrusively on a corner of her desk. She was concentrating on writing a note on her ecru Dempsey and Carroll stationery and spoke so softly I almost didn't hear.

‘Ahn-dre-ah, I need to discuss the engagement party with you. Get a notebook.'

I nodded, simultaneously realizing that nodding doesn't count as a word. This engagement party had already become the bane of my existence and it was still more than a month away, but since Miranda was leaving for the European shows soon and would be gone for two weeks, planning this party had occupied the vast majority of both our recent workdays. I returned to her office with a pad and pen, preparing myself to not understand a single word she'd say. I considered sitting for just a moment since it'd make taking dictation much more comfortable, but wisely resisted.

She sighed as though this were so taxing she wasn't sure if she'd make it and tugged on the white Hermès scarf that she'd woven into a braceletlike thing around her wrist. ‘Find Natalie at Glorious Foods and tell her that I prefer the rhubarb compote. Do not let her convince you that she needs to speak with me directly, because she does not. Also talk to Miho and make sure they understand my orders for the flowers. Get Robert Isabell on the phone for me sometime before lunch to go over tablecloths, place cards, and serving trays. Also that girl from the Whitney to see when I can go over to make sure everything is set up properly, and tell her to fax over the table configurations so I may do seating charts. That's all for now.'

She had rattled off that list without a single pause in her note writing, and when she finished speaking she handed me her newly crafted note to mail. I finished scribbling on my pad, hoping I'd understood everything correctly, which, considering the accent and the rapid-fire cadence, wasn't always simple.

‘OK,' I muttered and turned to go, bringing up my Total Miranda Words to four.
Maybe I won't break fifty
, I thought. I could feel her eyes examining the size of my butt as I walked back to my desk and briefly considered whipping around to walk backward like a religious Jew would do when leaving the Wailing Wall. Instead, I tried to glide toward the hidden safety of my desk while picturing thousands and thousands of
Hasidim
in Prada black, walking backward circles around Miranda Priestly.

The blissful day I'd been waiting for, dreaming of, had finally, finally arrived. Miranda had not only departed the office, but she'd left the country as well. She'd jumped into her Concorde seat less than an hour before to meet with a few of the European designers, making me at present the indisputably happiest girl on the planet. Emily kept trying to convince me that Miranda was even more demanding when she was abroad, but I wasn't buying it. I was in the middle of mapping out exactly how I was going to spend every ecstatic moment of the next two weeks when I got an e-mail from Alex.