Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (40 page)

‘She'll meet you in the conference room at four forty-five,' Allison said when I picked up my extension. ‘You're wearing black, right? Insist on Chanel Ruby Red. Just tell her to bill us.'

The entire office had worked itself up to a nearly hysterical frenzy trying to make me look appropriate for the night's gala affair. It certainly wasn't because they all adored me so much and killed themselves trying to help me out; rather, they knew Miranda had mandated the makeover and were eager to prove to her the high level of their taste and class.

Lily finished her charity makeup lesson and I briefly wondered if I looked ridiculous wearing a floor-length Oscar de la Renta gown and Bonne Belle Lipsmackers in Fudgsicle. Probably, but I had turned down all offers of having a makeup artist come to the apartment. Everyone on staff tried to insist – and none too subtly – but I adamantly refused. Even I had limits.

I hobbled into the bedroom on my four-inch Manolo stilettos and kissed Alex on the forehead. He barely looked up from the magazine he was reading.

‘I'll definitely be home by eleven, so we can go get some dinner or drinks then, OK? I'm sorry I have to do this, I really am. If you do decide to go out with the guys, call so I can come meet you, OK?' He had, as promised, come directly from school to spend the night together, and hadn't been all that thrilled when I'd arrived home with the news that he could definitely have a relaxing night at home but that I wouldn't be a part of the plans. He was sitting on the balcony off my bedroom, reading an old copy of
Vanity Fair
we had lying around and drinking one of the beers Lily kept in the fridge for guests. It wasn't until after I'd explained that I had to work tonight that I even noticed he and Lily weren't hanging out.

‘Where is she?' I asked. ‘She has no classes, and I know she's not working Fridays all summer.'

Alex took a swig of his Pale Ale and shrugged. ‘I'm guessing she's here. Her door's closed, but I saw some guy walking around before.'

‘Some guy? Could you be a little more descriptive? What guy?' I wondered if someone had broken in, or perhaps Freudian Boy had finally been invited over.

‘I don't know, but he's scary-looking. Tattoos, piercings, wife-beater – the whole nine. Can't imagine where she met this one.' He took another nonchalant swig.

I
couldn't imagine where she'd found him, either, considering I'd left her at eleven the night before in the company of a very polite guy named William who, as far as I could see, was not a wife-beater-wearing, tattoo-donning kind of guy.

‘Alex, seriously! You're telling me there's some thug cruising around my apartment – a thug who may or may not have been invited over – and you don't care? This is ridiculous! We need to do something,' I said, getting up from the chair and wondering, as always, if the weight shift was going to cause the balcony to fall off the side of the building.

‘Andy, relax. He's definitely
not
a thug.' He flipped a page. ‘He might be a punk-grunge-freak, but he's not a thug.'

‘Great, that's just fucking great. Now are you going to come see what's going on, or are you just going to sit there all night?'

He still refused to look at me, and I finally understood how annoyed he was about tonight. Understandable, entirely, but I was just as irritated to have to work, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. ‘Why don't you call if you need me?'

‘Fine,' I huffed and made a big production of storming inside. ‘Don't feel guilty when you find my dismembered body on the bathroom floor. Really, no big deal …'

I stomped inside and around the apartment for a little while, looking for evidence of this guy's presence. The only thing that seemed at all out of place was an empty bottle of Ketel One in the sink. Had she really managed to buy, open, and drink an entire bottle of vodka sometime after midnight last night? I knocked on her door. No response. I knocked a little more insistently, and I heard a guy's voice state the very obvious fact that someone was knocking on the door. When still no one responded, I turned the doorknob.

‘Hello? Anyone home here?' I called out, trying not to look inside the room but only being able to hold out for about five seconds. My eyes skipped over the two pairs of jeans that were tangled up on the floor and the bra that was hanging from the desk chair and the overflowing ashtray that made the room stink like a frat house and went directly to the bed, where my best friend was stretched out on her side, back to me, completely naked. A sickly looking guy with a line of sweat above his lip and a head full of greasy hair blended into her sheets: his dozens of snaking, winding, scary tattoos acted as the perfect camouflage against her green and blue plaid comforter. There was a gold hoop through his eyebrow, much glittering metal from each ear, and two small, rounded spikes coming out of his chin. Thankfully he was wearing a pair of boxers, but they looked so dirty and dingy and old that I almost – almost – wished he weren't. He pulled on his cigarette, exhaled slowly and meaningfully, and nodded in my general direction.

‘Yo,' he said, waving his cigarette toward me. ‘You mind shuttin' the door there, m'friend?'

What? ‘M'friend'? Was this sleazy-looking Aussie actually giving
me
attitude?

‘Are you smoking
crack
?' I asked, no longer interested in manners of any sort, and not at all scared. He was shorter than me and couldn't have weighed more than a hundred thirty – as far as I could tell, the worst thing he could do to me at that point would be to touch me. I shuddered when I thought about the myriad ways he'd probably touched Lily, who was still sleeping soundly underneath his protective hover. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? This is
my
apartment, and I'd like you to leave. Now!' I added, my courage fueled by the time demands: I had exactly one hour to get gorgeous for the single most stressful night of my career, and dealing with this strung-out freak had not been part of the game plan.

‘
Duuuuuuuude
. Chill out,' he breathed and inhaled again. ‘It doesn't look like your friend here wants me to leave …'

‘She would want you to leave if she HAPPENED TO BE CONSCIOUS, YOU ASSHOLE!' I screamed, horrified that Lily had – in all likelihood – had sex with this guy. ‘I assure you, I speak for both of us when I say GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR APARTMENT!'

I felt a hand on my shoulder and whipped around to see Alex, looking concerned, checking out the situation. ‘Andy, why don't you get in the shower and let me take care of this, OK?' Although no one could call him a big guy, he looked like a pro wrestler compared to the emaciated mess that was currently nuzzling his facial metal against my best friend's bare back.

‘I. WANT. HIM.' – I pointed here, just to be clear – ‘OUT. OF. MY. APARTMENT.'

‘I know you do, and I think he's about ready to leave, too, aren't you, buddy?' Alex asked in the kind of soothing voice you'd use with a rabid-looking dog you were frightened of upsetting.

‘
Duuuuuuude
, no issues here. Just havin' a little fun with Lily is all. She was all over me last night at Au Bar – ask anyone, they'll tell you. Fuckin' begged me to come back with her.'

‘I don't doubt that,' Alex said soothingly. ‘She's a really friendly girl when she wants to be, but sometimes she gets too drunk to know what she's doing. So as her friend, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.'

The freak mashed his cigarette out and made a big show of throwing up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Dude, no problem whatsoever. I'll just take a quick shower and give m'little Lily here a proper good-bye, and then I'll be on m'way.' He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the towel that hung next to her desk.

Alex moved forward, swiftly removed the towel from his hands, and looked him directly in the eye. ‘No. I think you should leave now. Right now.' And in a way that I'd never seen him do in the almost three years I'd known him, he placed himself squarely in front of Freak Boy and allowed his height to insinuate the threat that was clearly intended.

‘Dude, no worries. I'm outta here,' he crooned after taking one look at Alex and realizing he had to crane his neck to look at his face. ‘Just get m'self dressed and out the door.' He picked up his jeans from the floor and located his ripped-up T-shirt from underneath Lily's still exposed body. She moved when he pulled it out from under her, and a few seconds later her eyes managed to open.

‘Cover her!' Alex commanded gruffly, now clearly enjoying his new role as threatening-man-in-charge. And without comment, Freak Boy pulled the cover over her shoulders so that only a tangle of her black curls was visible.

‘What's going on?' Lily croaked while willing her eyes to stay open. She turned to see me trembling in anger in her doorway, Alex hulking about doing manly poses, and Freak Boy scrambling to tie his blue and canary yellow Diadoras and get the hell out before things got really ugly. Too late. Her gaze stopped on Freak Boy.

‘Who the hell are you?' she asked him, bolting upright without even realizing that she was now completely naked. Alex and I instinctively turned away while she pulled the covers up, looking shocked, but Freak Boy grinned lecherously and ogled her breasts.

‘Baby, you tellin' me you don't remember who I am?' he asked, his thick Australian accent becoming less adorable with every passing second. ‘You sure knew who I was last night.' He walked over to her and looked like he was about to sit down on the bed, but Alex had already grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.

‘Out. Now. Or I'm going to have to carry you myself,' he commanded, looking tough and very cute and not a little proud of himself.

Freak Boy threw up his hands and made clucking noises. ‘I'm outta here. Call me sometime, Lily. You were great last night.' He moved quickly through the bedroom door toward the living room with Alex in pursuit. ‘Man, she sure as hell is a feisty one,' I heard him say to Alex right before the front door slammed shut, but it didn't appear that Lily had heard. She had pulled on a T-shirt and managed to pull herself out of bed.

‘Lily, who the hell was that? He was the biggest jerk I've ever met, not to mention absolutely
disgusting
.'

She shook her head slowly and appeared to be concentrating very hard, trying to remember where he'd entered her life. ‘Disgusting. You're right, he is absolutely disgusting, and I have no idea what happened. I remember you leaving last night and talking to some really nice guy in a suit – we were doing shots of Jäger, for some reason – and that's it.'

‘Lily, just imagine how drunk you had to be to agree to not only have sex with someone who looks like that, but to bring him back to our apartment!' I thought I was pointing out the obvious, but her eyes widened into surprised realization.

‘You think I had sex with him?' she asked softly, refusing to acknowledge what seemed certain.

Alex's words from a few months before came back to me: Lily did drink more than was normal – all the signs were there. She was missing classes regularly, had gotten arrested, and now had dragged home the scariest-looking mutant of a guy I'd ever laid eyes on. I also remembered the message one of her professors had left on our machine right after finals, something to the effect that while Lily's final paper had been stellar, she'd missed too many classes and handed things in too late to give her the ‘A' she deserved. I decided to tread carefully. ‘Lil, sweetie, I don't think the problem is the guy. I think it's the drinking that's causing it.'

She had begun brushing her hair, and it wasn't until now that I realized it was already six o'clock on a Friday night and she was just getting out of bed. She wasn't protesting, so I continued.

‘It's not that I have any issue with drinking,' I said, trying to keep the conversation relatively peaceful. ‘Clearly, I'm not antidrinking. I just wonder if it's gotten a little bit out of control lately, you know? Has everything been OK at school?'

She opened her mouth to say something, but Alex popped his head in the door and handed me my shrieking cell phone. ‘It's her,' he said and left again. Argghhh! The woman had a very special gift for wrecking my life.

‘Sorry,' I said to Lily, looking at the phone warily as the display screamed MP CELL over and over again. ‘It usually only takes a second for her to humiliate or reprimand me, so hold that thought.' Lily set down her brush and watched me answer.

‘Miran—' Again, I'd almost answered the line as though it were her own. ‘This is Andrea,' I corrected, bracing for the barrage.

‘Andrea, you know I expect you there at six-thirty tonight, do you not?' she barked into the phone without a greeting or identification of any sort.

‘Oh, um, you had said seven o'clock earlier. I still need to—'

‘I said six-thirty before and I'm saying it again now.
Siiiiix-thiiiiirty
. Get it?' Click. She'd hung up. I looked at my watch. 6:05 P.M. This was a problem.

‘She wants me there in twenty-five minutes,' I stated out loud to no one in particular.

Lily looked relieved for the distraction. ‘Let's get you moving then, OK?'

‘We're midconversation here, and this is important. What were you going to say before?' The words were right, but it was clear to both of us that my mind was already a million miles away. I'd already decided there was no time to shower, as I now had fifteen minutes to zip myself into black-tie and get into a car.

‘Seriously, Andy, you've got to move. Go get ready – we'll do this later.'

And once again I was left with no choice but to move quickly, heart racing, climbing into my gown and running a brush through my hair and trying to match some of the names with the pictures of the evening's guests that Emily had helpfully printed out earlier. Lily watched the whole thing unwind with mild amusement, but I knew she was worrying about the incident with Freak Boy, and I felt terrible I couldn't deal with it right then. Alex was on his phone with his little brother, trying to convince him that he really was too young to go to a movie at nine o'clock and that their mother wasn't cruel in forbidding him to do so.