Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (43 page)

‘Really, you sound horrible. Are you sick?' I tried valiantly to interject a touch of sympathy in my voice, but the question came out sounding aggressive and accusatory.

‘Oh yeah,' she rasped before breaking into hacking coughs. ‘Really sick.'

I never really believed it when anyone said they were really sick: without a diagnosis of something very official and potentially life-threatening, you were well enough to work at
Runway
. So when Emily finished hacking and reiterated that she was really ill, I didn't even consider the possibility that she wouldn't be at work on Monday. After all, she was scheduled to fly to Paris to meet Miranda on October 18 and that was only slightly more than a week away. And besides, I'd managed to ignore a couple strep throats, a few bouts of bronchitis, a horrific round of food poisoning, and a perpetual smoker's cough and cold and hadn't taken a single sick day in nearly a year of work.

I'd sneaked in a single doctor's appointment when I was desperate for antibiotics with one of the cases of strep throat (I ducked into his office and ordered them to see me right away when Miranda and Emily thought that I was out scouting for new cars for Mr Tomlinson), but there was never time for preventative work. Although I'd had a dozen sets of highlights from Marshall, quite a few free massages from spas that felt honored to have Miranda's assistant as a guest, and countless manicures, pedicures, and makeovers, I hadn't seen a dentist or a gynecologist in a year.

‘Anything I can do?' I asked, trying to sound casual while I racked my brain thinking of why she'd called to tell me that she didn't feel well. As far as we were both concerned, it was completely and entirely irrelevant. She'd be at work on Monday whether she felt well or not.

She coughed deeply and I heard phlegm rattling in her lungs. ‘Um, yeah, actually. God, I can't believe this is happening to me!'

‘What? What's happening?'

‘I can't go to Europe with Miranda. I have mono.'

‘What?'

‘You heard me, I can't go. The doctor called today with the blood results, and as of right now, I'm not allowed to leave my apartment for the next three weeks.'

Three weeks! She had to be kidding. There wasn't time to feel badly for her – she'd just told me she wasn't going to Europe, and it was that thought alone – the idea that both Miranda and Emily would be out of my life – that had sustained me through the past couple months.

‘Em, she's going to kill you – you have to go! Does she know yet?'

There was a foreboding silence on the other end. ‘Um, yeah, she knows.'

‘You called her?'

‘Yes. I had my doctor call her, actually, because she didn't think that having mono really qualified me as sick, so he had to tell her that I could infect her and everyone else, and anyway …' Her sentence trailed off, and her tone was suggestive of something far, far worse.

‘Anyway what?' My self-preservation instincts had kicked into overdrive.

‘Anyway … she wants you to go with her.'

‘She wants me to go with her, huh? That's cute. What'd she really say? She didn't threaten to fire you for getting sick, did she?'

‘Andrea, I'm—' a deep, mucousy cough shook her voice and I thought for a moment that she might very well die right there on the phone with me ‘—serious. Completely and totally serious. She said something about the assistants they give her abroad being idiots and that even you'd be better to have around than them.'

‘Oh, well, when you put it like that, sign me up! Nothing quite like some over-the-top flattery to convince me to do something. Seriously, she shouldn't have said such nice things. I'm blushing!' I didn't know whether to focus on the fact that Miranda wanted me to go to Paris with her, or that she only wanted me to go because she considered me slightly less brain-dead than the anorexic French clones of, well … me.

‘Oh, just shut up already,' she croaked in between fits of now annoying coughing. ‘You're the luckiest fucking person in the world. I've been waiting two years – over two years – for this trip, and now I can't go. The irony of this is painful – you realize that, don't you?'

‘Of course I do! It's one giant cliché: this trip is your sole reason for living and it's the bane of my existence, yet I'm going and you're not. Life is funny, huh? I'm laughing so hard I can barely stop,' I deadpanned, sounding not the least bit amused.

‘Yeah, well, I think it sucks, too, but what can you do? I already called Jeffy to tell him to start calling in clothes for you. You'll have to bring a ton since you'll need different outfits for each of the shows you attend, any dinners, and, of course, for Miranda's party at the Hotel Costes. Allison will help you out with makeup. Talk to Stef in accessories for bags and shoes and jewelry. You only have a week, so get on it first thing tomorrow, OK?'

‘I still don't really believe she expects me to do this.'

‘Well, believe it, because she sure wasn't kidding. Since I'm not going to be able to come to the office at all this week, you're also going to—'

‘What? You're not even going to come into the
office
?' I might not have taken a sick day or spent a single hour outside the office while Miranda was there, but Emily hadn't, either. The one time it had been close – when her great-grandfather had died – she'd managed to get home to Philadelphia, attend the funeral, and be back at her desk without missing a minute of work. This was how things worked. Period. Short of death (immediate family only), dismemberment (your own), or nuclear war (only if confirmed by the U.S. government to be directly affecting Manhattan), one was to be present. This would be a watershed moment in the Priestly regime.

‘Andrea, I have mononucleosis. I'm highly infectious. It's really serious. I'm not supposed to leave my apartment for a cup of coffee, never mind go to work for the day. Miranda understands that, and so you'll need to pick up the slack. There will be a lot to do to get both of you ready for Paris. Miranda leaves on Wednesday for Milan, and then you'll be leaving to meet her in Paris the following Tuesday.'

‘She understands that? C'mon! Tell me what she really said.' I refused to believe that she'd accepted something as mundane as mono for an excuse to not be available. ‘Just give me that small pleasure. After all, my life will be hell for the next few weeks.'

Emily sighed, and I could feel her eyes roll over the phone. ‘Well, she wasn't thrilled. I didn't actually talk to her, you see, but my doctor said she kept asking if mono is a “real” disease. But when he assured her that it was, she was very understanding.'

I laughed out loud. ‘I'm sure she was, Em, I'm sure she was. Don't worry about a thing, OK? You just concentrate on feeling better, and I'll take care of everything else.'

‘I'll e-mail you a checklist, just so you don't forget anything.'

‘I won't forget anything. She's been to Europe four times in the past year. I've got it down. I'll get the cash from the basement bank, change a few grand into euros, buy a few more grands' worth of traveler's checks, and triple confirm all of her hair and makeup appointments while she's there. What else? Oh, I'll make sure the Ritz gives her the right cell phone this time, and I'll speak to the drivers ahead of time to make sure they know they can't ever leave her waiting. I'm already thinking of all the people who'll need copies of her itinerary – which I'll type up, no problem – and I'll see to it that it gets passed around. And of course she'll have a detailed itinerary as to the twins' classes, lessons, practices, and play dates, and full listings of the entire household staff's work schedules. See! You don't have to worry – I've got it all under control.'

‘Don't forget about the velvet,' she chided, singing the last couple words as if on autopilot. ‘Or the scarves!'

‘Of course not! They're already on my list.' Before Miranda packed for anything – or rather, had her housekeeper pack her – either Emily or I would purchase massive rolls of velvet at a fabric store and bring them to Miranda's apartment. There, we'd work with the housekeeper to cut them in the exact shape and size of every article of clothing she was planning to bring, and individually wrap each item in the plush material. The velvet packages were then neatly stacked in dozens of Louis Vuitton suitcases, with plenty of extra pieces included for when she inevitably threw the first batch out upon unpacking in Paris. In addition, usually one half of a suitcase was occupied by a couple dozen orange Hermès boxes, each containing a single white scarf just waiting to be lost, forgotten, misplaced, or simply discarded.

I hung up with Emily after making a good effort to sound sincerely sympathetic and found Lily stretched out on the couch, smoking a cigarette and sipping a clear liquid that was definitely not water from a cocktail glass.

‘I thought we weren't allowed to smoke in here,' I said, flopping down next to her and immediately putting my feet on the scuffed wooden coffee table my parents had handed down to us. ‘Not that I care, but that was
your
rule.' Lily wasn't a full-time, committed smoker like yours truly; she usually smoked only when she drank and wasn't one to even buy packs. A brand-new box of Camel Special Lights peeked out of the chest pocket of her oversize button-down. I nudged her thigh with my slippered foot and nodded toward the cigarettes. She handed them over with a lighter.

‘I knew you wouldn't care,' she said, taking a leisurely drag off her cigarette. ‘I'm procrastinating and it helps me concentrate.'

‘What do you have due?' I asked, lighting my own cigarette and tossing back the lighter. She was taking seventeen credits this semester in an effort to pull up her GPA after last spring's mediocre showing. I watched as she took another drag and washed it down with a healthy gulp of her nonwater beverage. It didn't appear that she was on the right track.

She sighed heavily, meaningfully, and let the cigarette hang suspended from the corner of her mouth as she spoke. It flapped up and down, threatening to fall at any moment and, combined with her wild, unwashed hair and smeared eye makeup, made her look – just for a moment – like a defendant on
Judge Judy
(or maybe a plaintiff, since they always looked the same – lack of teeth, greasy hair, dull eyes, and propensity for using the double negative). ‘An article for some totally random, esoteric academic journal that no one will ever read but I still have to write, just so I can say I'm published.'

‘That's annoying. When's it due?'

‘Tomorrow.' Total nonchalance. She looked completely unfazed.

‘Tomorrow? For real?'

She shot me a warning look, a quick reminder that I was supposed to be on her team. ‘Yes. Tomorrow. It really blows, considering that Freudian Boy is the one who's assigned to edit it. No one seems to care that he's a candidate in psych, not Russian lit – they're just short copy editors, so he's mine. There's no way I'm getting that to him on time. Screw him.' Once again, she poured some of the liquid down her throat, making an obvious effort not to taste it, and grimaced.

‘Lil, what happened? Granted, it's been a few months, but last I heard, you were taking things slow and he was perfect. Of course, that was before that, that thing you dragged home, but …'

Another warning look, this time followed by a glare. I'd tried to talk to her about the whole Freak Boy incident a few dozen times, but it seemed like we were never really alone and neither of us had much time lately for heart-to-hearts. She immediately changed the subject whenever I brought it up. I could tell that more than anything she was embarrassed; she had acknowledged that he was vile, but she wouldn't participate in any discussion whatsoever about the excessive drinking that was responsible for the whole episode.

‘Yes, well, apparently at some point that night I called him from Au Bar and begged him to come meet me,' she said, avoiding eye contact, instead concentrating intently on using the remote control to switch tracks on the mournful Jeff Buckley CD that seemed to be on permanent replay in the apartment.

‘So? Did he come and see you talking to, uh, to someone else?' I was trying not to push her away even more by being critical of her. There was obviously a lot going on inside her head, what with the problems at school and the drinking and the seemingly limitless supply of guys, and I wanted her to open up to someone. She'd never kept anything from me before, if for no other reason than I was all she had, but she hadn't been telling me much of anything lately. It occurred to me how strange it was that we hadn't bothered to discuss this until four months after the fact.

‘No, not quite,' she said bitterly. ‘He came all the way there from Morningside Heights only to find me not there. Apparently he called my cell phone and Kenny answered and wasn't all that nice.'

‘Kenny?'

‘That
thing
I dragged home at the beginning of the summer, remember?' She said it sarcastically, but this time she smiled.

‘Ah-hah. I'm guessing Freudian Boy didn't take that well?'

‘Not so much. Whatever. Easy come, easy go, right?' She scampered off to the kitchen with her empty glass and I saw her pour from a half-full bottle of Ketel One. A very small splash of soda, and she was back on the couch.

I was just about to inquire as gently as possible why she was inhaling vodka when she had an article due the next day, but the buzzer rang from downstairs.

‘Who's there?' I called to John by holding down the button.

‘Mr Fineman is here to see Ms Sachs,' he announced formally, all business now that other people were around.

‘Really? Um, great. Send him up.'

Lily looked at me and raised her eyebrows, and I realized that once again we weren't going to have this conversation. ‘You look psyched,' she said with obvious sarcasm. ‘Not exactly thrilled that your boyfriend is surprising you, are you?'