Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (53 page)

‘Mom, I'm getting on the next flight I can. I'll call you when I get to JFK. I'm coming home.' I clicked the phone shut before she could respond and looked up to see Miranda, who appeared genuinely surprised. I felt a smile break through the headache and nausea when I realized that I'd rendered her momentarily speechless. Unfortunately, she recovered quickly. There's a small chance I wouldn't have gotten fired if I'd immediately pleaded and explained and lost the defiant attitude, but I couldn't seem to muster one single, tiny shred of self-control.

‘Ahn-dre-ah, you realize what you're doing, do you not? You do know that if you simply leave here like this, I'm going to be forced—'

‘Fuck you, Miranda.
Fuck you
.'

She gasped audibly while her hand flew to her mouth in shock, and I felt not a few Clackers turn to see what the commotion was. They'd begun pointing and whispering, themselves as shocked as Miranda that some nobody assistant had just said that – and none too quietly – to one of the great living fashion legends.

‘Ahn-dre-ah!' She grabbed my upper arm with her clawlike hand, but I wrenched it out of her grip and plastered on an enormous smile. I also figured it'd be an appropriate time to stop whispering and let everyone in on our little secret.

‘So sorry, Miranda,' I announced in a normal voice that for the first time since I'd landed in Paris wasn't shaking uncontrollably, ‘but I don't think I'll be able to make it to the party tomorrow. You understand, don't you? I'm sure it'll be lovely, so please do enjoy it. That's all.' And before she could respond, I hitched my bag higher up on my shoulder, ignored the pain that was searing from heel to toe, and strutted outside to hail a cab. I couldn't remember feeling better than that particular moment. I was going home.

‘Jill, stop shouting for your sister!' my mother screamed unhelpfully. ‘I think she's still sleeping.' And then, a voice came even louder from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Andy, are you still sleeping?' she screamed in the general direction of my room.

I pried open an eye and checked the clock. Quarter after eight in the morning. Dear god, what were these people
thinking
?

It took a few times of rocking from side to side before I could muster enough strength to pull myself to sit, and when I finally did, my whole body pleaded for more sleep, just a little more sleep.

‘Morning,' Lily smiled, her face coming within inches of my own when she turned to face me. ‘They sure do get up early around here.' Since Jill and Kyle and the baby were home for Thanksgiving, Lily had been forced to vacate Jill's old room and move onto the lower half of my childhood trundle bed, which was currently pulled out and nearly level with my own twin-size bed.

‘What are you complaining about? You look psyched to be awake right now, and I'm not sure why.' She was propped up on one elbow, reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee she kept picking up and placing down on the floor next to the bed.

‘I've been up forever listening to Isaac cry.'

‘He's been crying? Really?'

‘I can't believe you didn't hear him. It's been incessant since about six-thirty. Cute kid, Andy, but that whole early-morning thing has got to go.'

‘Girls!' my mother screamed again. ‘Is anyone awake up there? Anyone? I don't care if you're still sleeping, just please tell me one way or the other so I know how many waffles to defrost!'

‘Please tell her one way or the other? I'm going to kill her, Lil.' And then toward my still closed door: ‘We're still sleeping, can't you tell? Fast asleep, probably for hours more. We don't hear the baby or you screaming, or anything else!' I shouted back, collapsing backward on the bed. Lily laughed.

‘Relax,' she said in a very un-Lily-like way. ‘They're just happy you're home, and I, for one, am happy to be here. Besides, it's only a couple more months, and we've got each other. It's really not so bad.'

‘A couple more months? It's only been one so far, and I'm ready to put a bullet in my head.' I yanked my nightshirt over my head – one of Alex's old workout ones – and put on a sweatshirt. The same jeans I'd been wearing every day for the past few weeks lay rumpled in a ball near my closet; when I pulled them over my hips, I noticed that were feeling snugger. Now that I no longer had to resort to gulping down a bowl of soup or subsisting on cigarettes and Starbucks alone, my body had adjusted itself accordingly and gained back the ten pounds I'd lost while working at
Runway
. And it didn't even make me cringe; I
believed
it when Lily and my parents told me I looked healthy, not fat.

Lily slipped on a pair of sweatpants over the boxers she'd slept in and tied a bandana over her frizzed-out curls. With her hair pulled off her face, the angry red marks where her forehead had met shards of the windshield were more noticeable, but the stitches had already come out and the doctor promised that there'd be minimal, if any, scarring. ‘Come on,' she said, grabbing the crutches that were propped against the wall everywhere she went. ‘They're all leaving today, so maybe we'll get a decent night's sleep tonight.'

‘She's not going to stop screaming until we go down there, is she?' I mumbled, holding her elbow to help her to her feet. The cast around her right ankle had been signed by my entire family, and Kyle had even drawn annoying little messages from Isaac all over it.

‘Not a chance.'

My sister appeared in the doorway, cradling the baby, who currently had drool halfway down his chubby chin but was now giggling contentedly. ‘Look who I have,' she cooed in baby talk, bouncing the happy boy up and down in her arms. ‘Isaac, tell your auntie Andy not to be such a tremendous bitch, since we're all leaving real, real soon. Can you do that for mommy, honey? Can you?'

Isaac sneezed a very cute baby sneeze in response, and Jill looked as though he'd just risen up from her arms a full-grown man and recited a few Shakespearean sonnets. ‘Did you see that, Andy? Did you
hear
that? Oh, my little guy is just the cutest thing ever!'

‘Good morning,' I said, kissing her on the cheek. ‘You know I don't want you to leave, right? And Isaac's welcome to stay as long as he can figure out how to sleep between the hours of midnight and ten A.M. Hell, even Kyle can stick around if he promises not to talk. See? We're easy here.'

Lily had managed to hobble down the stairs and greet my parents, who were both dressed for work and saying their good-byes to Kyle.

I made my bed and tucked Lily's back underneath, making sure to fluff her pillow before sticking it in my closet for the day. She'd come out of the coma before I even got off the plane from Paris, and after Alex I was the first one to see her awake. They ran a million tests on every conceivable body part, but with the exception of some stitches on her face, neck, and chest, and the broken ankle, she was perfectly healthy. Looked like hell, of course – exactly what you'd expect for someone who'd danced with an oncoming vehicle – but she was moving around just fine and even seemed almost annoyingly upbeat for someone who'd just lived through what she did.

It was my dad's idea that we sublet our apartment for November and December and move in with them. Although the idea had been less than appealing to me, my zero-sum salary left me with few arguments. And besides, Lily seemed to welcome the chance to get out of the city for a little while and leave behind all the questions and gossip that she'd have to face as soon as she saw anyone she knew again. We'd listed the place on craigslist.org as a perfect ‘holiday rental' to enjoy all the sights of New York, and to both our shock and amazement, an older Swedish couple whose children were all living in the city paid our full asking price – six hundred dollars more per month than we ourselves paid. The three hundred bucks a month was more than enough for each of us to live on, especially considering my parents comped us food, laundry, and the use of a beat-up Camry. The Swedes were leaving the week after New Year's, just in time for Lily to start her semester over again and for me to, well, do something.

Emily had been the one who officially fired me. Not that I'd had any lingering doubts as to my employment status after my little foul-mouthed temper tantrum, but I suppose Miranda had been livid enough to drive home one last dig. The whole thing had taken only three or four minutes and had unfolded with the ruthless
Runway
efficiency that I loved so much.

I'd just managed to hail a cab and pry the left boot from my pulsating foot when the phone rang. Of course my heart instinctively lurched forward, but when I remembered that I'd just told Miranda what she could do with her
You remind me of myself when I was your age
, I realized it couldn't be her. I did a quick tabulation of the minutes that had passed: one for Miranda to shut her gaping mouth and recover her cool for all the Clackers who were watching, another for her to locate her cell phone and call Emily at home, a third to convey the sordid details of my unprecedented outburst, and a final one for Emily to reassure Miranda that she herself would ‘see to it that everything was taken care of.' Yes, although the caller ID simply said ‘unavailable' on international phone calls, there wasn't a doubt in the world who was ringing.

‘Hi, Em, how are you?' I practically sang while rubbing my bare foot and trying not to let it touch the filthy taxi floor.

She seemed to be caught off-guard by my downright chipper tone. ‘Andrea?'

‘Hey, it's me, I'm right here. What's up? I'm kind of in a hurry, so …' I thought about asking her directly if she'd called to fire me but decided to give her a break for once. I braced myself for the verbal tirade she was sure to let loose on me – how could you let her down, me down,
Runway
down, the wide world of fashion, blah, blah, blah – but it never came.

‘Oh yeah, of course. So, I just spoke to Miranda …' Her voice trailed off as though she was hoping I'd continue and explain that the whole thing had been a big mistake and not to worry because I'd managed to fix it in the last four minutes.

‘And you heard what happened, I'm assuming?'

‘Um, yeah! Andy, what's going on?'

‘I should probably be asking you that, right?'

There was silence.

‘Listen, Em, I have a feeling that you called to fire me. It's OK if you did; I know it's not your decision. So, did she tell you to call and get rid of me?' Even though I felt lighter than I had in many months, I still found myself holding my breath, wondering if maybe, through some dumb stroke of luck or misfortune, Miranda had respected my telling her to fuck off instead of been appalled by it.

‘Yes. She asked me to let you know that you have been terminated, effective immediately, and she would like you to be checked out of the Ritz before she returns from the show.' She said this softly and with a trace of regret. Perhaps it was for the many hours and days and weeks she was now facing of finding and training someone all over again, but there sounded like there might be something even more behind it.

‘You're going to miss me, aren't you, Em? Go on, say it. It's OK, I won't tell anyone. As far as I'm concerned, this conversation never happened. You don't want me to go, do you?'

Miracle of miracles, she laughed. ‘What did you say to her? She just kept repeating that you were crass and unlady-like. I couldn't get anything more specific out of her than that.'

‘Oh, that's probably because I told her to fuck herself.'

‘You did not!'

‘You're calling to fire me. I assure you, I did.'

‘Oh my god.'

‘Yeah, well, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the single most satisfying moment of my pathetic life. Of course, I have now been fired by the most powerful woman in publishing. Not only do I not have a way to pay off my nearly maxed-out MasterCard, but future jobs in magazines are looking rather dismal. Maybe I should try to work for one of her enemies? They'd be happy to hire me, right?'

‘Sure. Send your résumé over to Anna Wintour – they've never liked each other very much.'

‘Hmm. Something to think about. Listen, Em, no hard feelings, OK?' We both knew that we had absolutely, positively not a single thing in common but Miranda Priestly, but as long as we were getting on so famously, I figured I'd play along.

‘Sure, of course,' she lied awkwardly, knowing full well that I was about to enter into the upper stratosphere of social pariah-dom. The chances of Emily admitting she had so much as known me from this day forward were nonexistent, but that was OK. Maybe in ten years when she was sitting front and center at the Michael Kors show and I was still shopping at Filene's and dining at Benihana, we'd laugh about the whole thing. But probably not.

‘Well, I'd love to chat, but I'm kind of screwed up right now, not sure what to do next. I've got to figure out a way to get home as soon as possible. Do you think I can still use my return ticket? She can't fire me and leave me stranded in a foreign country, can she?'

‘Well of course she would be justified in doing so, Andrea,' she said. Ah-hah! One last zinger. It was comforting to know that things never really changed. ‘After all, it's really you who are deserting your job – you forced her to fire you. But no, I don't think she's a vengeful kind of person. Just charge the change fee and I'll figure out a way to put it through.'

‘Thanks, Em. I appreciate it. And good luck to you, too. You're going to make a fantastic fashion editor someday.'

‘Really? You think so?' she asked eagerly, happily. Why my opinion as the biggest fashion loser ever to hit the scene was at all relevant, I didn't know, but she sounded very, very pleased.

‘Definitely. Not a doubt in my mind.'