Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (52 page)

‘Ahn-dre-ah, leave a message at Horace Mann that the girls will be missing school on Monday because they'll be in Paris with me, and make sure you get a list of all the work they'll need to make up. Also, push back my dinner tonight until eight-thirty, and if they're not happy about that, then just cancel it. Have you located a copy of that book I asked you for yesterday? I need four copies – two in French, two in English – before I meet them at the restaurant. Oh, and I want a final copy of the edited menu for tomorrow's party to reflect the changes I made. Make certain that there will be no sushi of any kind, do you hear me?'

‘Yes, Miranda,' I said, scribbling as quickly as possible in the Smythson notebook the accessories department had thoughtfully included with my array of bags, shoes, belts, and jewelry. We were in the car on our way to the Dior show – my first – with Miranda spitting out rapid-fire instructions with no regard for the fact that I'd gotten less than two hours of sleep. The knock on my door came at 7:45 A.M. from one of Monsieur Renaud's junior concierges who was there personally to wake me up and see that I was dressed in time to attend the show with Miranda, who had herself decided she'd like my assistance just six minutes earlier. He had politely ignored my being quite obviously passed out on the still made bed and had even dimmed the lights, which had blazed all night. I had twenty-five minutes to shower, consult the fashion book, dress myself, and do my own makeup, since my woman was not scheduled to come this early.

I awoke with a minor champagne headache, but the real jolt of pain came when the previous night's phone calls came flashing back. Lily! I needed to call Alex or my parents and see if anything had happened in the last couple hours – god, it seemed like a week ago – but now there was no time.

By the time the elevator had hit the first floor, I'd decided that I had to stay for one more day, just one lousy day to tend to this party, and then I'd be home with Lily. Maybe I'd even take a short leave of absence once Emily returned, to spend some time with Lil, help her recuperate and deal with some of the inevitable fallout from the accident. My parents and Alex would hold down the fort until I got there –
it's not as though she's all alone
, I told myself. And this was my life. My career, my entire future, was on the line here, and I didn't see how two days either way made all that much difference to someone who wasn't yet conscious. But to me – and certainly to Miranda – it made all the difference in the world.

Somehow I'd made it to the backseat of the limo before Miranda did, and even though her eyes were currently fixating on my chiffon skirt, she hadn't yet commented on any one part of the outfit. I had just tucked the Smythson book into my Bottega Venetta bag when my new, international cell phone rang. It had never rung in Miranda's presence before, I realized, so I scrambled quickly to turn off the ringer, but she ordered me to answer it.

‘Hello?' I kept one eye on Miranda, who was paging through the day's itinerary and pretending not to listen.

‘Andy, hi honey.' Dad. ‘Just wanted to give you a quick update.'

‘OK.' I was trying to say the bare minimum, since it seemed incredibly strange to be talking on the phone in front of Miranda.

‘The doctor just called and said that Lily is showing signs that indicate she may come out of it soon. Isn't that great? I thought you'd want to know.'

‘That's great. Definitely great.'

‘Have you decided if you're coming home or not?'

‘Um, no, I haven't decided. Miranda's having a party tomorrow night and she definitely needs my help, so … Listen, Dad, I'm sorry, but now's not a great time. Can I call you back?'

‘Sure, call anytime.' He tried to sound neutral, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

‘Great. Thanks for calling. 'Bye.'

‘Who was that?' Miranda asked, still peering at her itinerary. It had just begun raining and her voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of water hitting the limo.

‘Hmm? Oh, that was my father. From America.' Where the hell did I come up with this stuff? From
America
?

‘And what did he want you to do that conflicted with your working at the party tomorrow night?'

I considered a million potential lies in the course of two seconds, but there wasn't enough time to work out the details of any of them. Especially when she had turned her full attention to me now. I was left with no choice but to tell the truth.

‘Oh, it was nothing. A friend of mine was in an accident. She's in the hospital. In a coma, actually. And he was just calling to tell me how she was doing and to see if I was coming home.'

She considered this, nodding slowly, and then picked up the copy of the paper the driver had thoughtfully provided. ‘I see.' No ‘I'm sorry,' or ‘Is your friend OK?,' just an icy, vague statement and a look of extreme displeasure.

‘But I'm not, I'm definitely not going home. I understand how important it is that I'm at the party tomorrow, and I'll be there. I've thought a lot about it, and I want you to know that I plan to honor the commitment I've made to you and to my job, so I'll be staying.'

At first Miranda said nothing. But then she smiled slightly and said, ‘Ahn-dre-ah, I'm very pleased with your decision. It is absolutely the right thing to do, and I appreciate that you recognize that. Ahn-dre-ah, I have to say, I had my doubts about you from the start. Clearly, you know nothing about fashion and more than that, you don't seem to care. And don't think I've failed to notice all the rich and varied ways you convey to me your displeasure when I ask you to do something that you'd rather not. Your competency in the job has been adequate, but your attitude has been substandard at best.'

‘Oh, Miranda, please let me—'

‘I'm speaking! And I was going to say that I'll be much more willing to help you get where you'd like to go now that you've demonstrated that you're committed. You should be proud of yourself, Ahn-dre-ah.' Just when I thought I'd faint from the length and depth and content of the soliloquy – whether from joy or from pain, I wasn't sure – she took it one step further. In a move that was so fundamentally out of character for this woman on every level, she placed her hand on top of the one I had resting on the seat between us and said, ‘You remind me of myself when I was your age.' And before I could conjure up a single appropriate syllable to utter, the driver screeched to a halt in front of the Carrousel du Louvre and leapt out to open the doors. I grabbed my bag and hers as well and wondered if this was the proudest or the most humiliating moment of my life.

My first Parisian fashion show was a blur. It was dark, that much I remember, and the music seemed much too loud for such understated elegance, but the only thing that stands out from that two-hour window into bizarreness was my own intense discomfort. The Chanel boots that Jocelyn had so lovingly selected to go with the outfit – a stretchy and therefore skintight cashmere sweater by Malo over a chiffon skirt – made my feet feel like confidential documents being fed through a shredder. My head ached from a combination of hangover and anxiety, causing my empty stomach to protest with threatening waves of nausea. I was standing in the very back of the room with assorted C-list reporters and others who didn't rank high enough to warrant a seat, keeping one eye on Miranda and the other scoping out the least humiliating places to be sick if the need arose.
You remind me of myself when I was your age
.
You remind me of myself when I was your age. You remind me of myself when I was your age
. The words kept reverberating over and over, keeping tune to the steady and persistent pounding of my forehead.

Miranda managed not to address me for nearly an hour, but after that she was off and running. Even though I was standing in the same room she was, she called my cell phone to request a Pellegrino. From that moment on, the phone rang in ten- to twelve-minute increments, each request sending another shock of pain directly to my head.
Brrring
. ‘Get Mr Tomlinson on his air phone on the jet.' (B-DAD didn't answer on his air phone when I tried calling it sixteen times.)
Brrring
. ‘Remind all the
Runway
editors in Paris that just because they're here does not mean they can neglect their responsibilities at home – I want everything in by original deadline!' (The couple of
Runway
editors I had gotten in touch with at their various hotels in Paris had simply laughed at me and hung up.)
Brrring
. ‘Get me a regular American turkey sandwich immediately – I'm tiring of all this ham.' (I walked more than two miles in painful boots and with an upset stomach, but there was no turkey to be found anywhere. I'm convinced she knew, since she'd never once before asked for a turkey sandwich while in America – even though, of course, they're available on every street corner.)
Brrring
. ‘I expect dossiers prepared on the three best chefs you've found thus far to be waiting in my suite by the time we return from this show.' (Emily hacked and whined and bitched but promised that she'd fax over whatever information she had on the candidates so far and I could make them into ‘dossiers.')
Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! You remind me of myself when I was your age
.

Too nauseated and crippled to watch the parade of anorexic models, I ducked outside for a quick cigarette. Naturally, the moment I flicked on my lighter, my cell phone shrilled again. ‘Ahn-dre-ah! Ahn-dre-ah! Where are you? Where the hell are you right now?'

I tossed out my still unlit cigarette and raced back inside, my stomach churning so violently that I knew I would be sick – it was just a matter of when and where.

‘I'm right in the back of the room, Miranda,' I said, sliding through the door and pressing my back against the wall. ‘Right to the left of the door. Do you see me?'

I watched as she swiveled her head back and forth until her eyes finally rested on mine. I was about to hang up the phone, but she was still stage whispering into it. ‘Don't move, do you hear me? Do not move! One would think that my assistant would understand she's here to assist me, not to gallivant around outside when I need her. This is unacceptable, Ahn-dre-ah!' By the time she'd made it to the back of the room and positioned herself in front of me, a woman in a glimmering floor-length silver gown with an empire waist and slight flare was sashaying through the reverent crowds, and the music switched from some sort of bizarre Gregorian chants to all-out heavy metal. My head began pounding almost in tune to the change in music. Miranda didn't stop hissing when she reached me, but she did, finally, flip her cell phone closed. I did the same.

‘Ahn-dre-ah, we have a very serious problem here. You have a very serious problem. I just received a call from Mr Tomlinson. It seems Annabelle brought it to his attention that the twins' passports expired last week.' She stared at me, but all I could do was concentrate on not throwing up.

‘Oh, really?' was all I could manage, but that clearly wasn't the right response. Her hand tightened around her bag and her eyes began to bulge with anger.

‘Oh,
really
?' she mimicked in a hyena-like howl. People were beginning to stare at us. ‘Oh, really? That's all you have to say? “Oh, really?”'

‘No, uh, of course not, Miranda. I didn't mean it like that.
Is there something I can do to help?
'

‘
Is there something I can do to help?
' she mimicked again, this time in a whiny child's voice. If she had been any other person on earth, I would have reached out and slapped her face. ‘You damn well better believe it, Ahn-dre-ah. Since you're clearly unable to stay on top of these things in advance, you'll need to figure out how to renew them in time for their flight tonight. I will not have my own daughters miss this party tomorrow night, do you understand me?'

Did I understand her? Hmm. A very good question indeed. I was thoroughly unable to understand how it was my fault that her ten-year-olds had expired passports when they, theoretically, had two parents, a stepfather, and a full-time nanny to oversee such things, but I also understood it didn't matter. If she thought it was my fault, it was. I understood that she would never understand when I told her that those girls were not getting on that plane tonight. There was virtually nothing I couldn't find, fix, or arrange, but securing federal documents while in a foreign country in less than three hours was not happening. Period. She had finally made her very first request of me in a full year that I could not accommodate – regardless of how much she barked or demanded or intimidated, it was not happening.
You remind me of myself when I was your age
.

Fuck her. Fuck Paris and fashion shows and marathon games of ‘I'm so fat.' Fuck all the people who believed that Miranda's behavior was justified because she could pair a talented photographer with some expensive clothes and walk away with some pretty magazine pages. Fuck her for even thinking that I was anything like her. And most of all, fuck her for being right. What the hell was I standing here for, getting abused and belittled and humiliated by this joyless she-devil? So maybe, just maybe, I, too, could be sitting at this very same event thirty years from now, accompanied only by an assistant who loathes me, surrounded by armies of people who pretend they like me because they have to.

I yanked out my cell phone and punched in a number and watched as Miranda became increasingly more livid.

‘Ahn-dre-ah!' she hissed, much too ladylike to ever make a scene. ‘What do you think you're doing? I'm telling you that my daughters need passports immediately, and you decide it's a good time to chat on your phone? Are you under the very mistaken impression that's why I brought you to Paris?'

My mother picked up on the third ring, but I didn't even say hello.