Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (6 page)

I'd slept in my new room for three nights already and still felt like a stranger living in a very strange place. The room was minute. Perhaps slightly larger than the storage shed in the backyard of my house in Avon, but not really. And unlike most empty spaces that actually looked bigger with furniture, my room had shrunk to half its size. I had naïvely eyed the tiny square and decided that it had to be close to a normal-size room and that I'd just buy the usual bedroom set: a queen-size bed, a dresser, maybe a nightstand or two. Lily and I had taken Alex's car to Ikea, the postcollege apartment mecca, and picked out a beautiful light-colored wood set and a woven rug with shades of light blue, dark blue, royal blue, and indigo. Again, like fashion, home decorating was not my strong suit: I believe that Ikea was into its ‘Blue Period.' We bought a duvet cover with a blue-flecked pattern and the fluffiest comforter they sold. She persuaded me to get one of those Chinese rice-paper lamps for the nightstand, and I chose some preframed black-and-white pictures to complement the deep red roughness of my much-hyped exposed brick wall. Elegant and casual, and not a little Zen. Perfect for my first adult room in the big city.

Perfect, that is, until it all actually arrived. It seems simply eyeing a room isn't quite the same as measuring it. Nothing fit. Alex put the bed together and by the time he'd pushed it against the exposed-brick wall (Manhattan code for ‘unfinished wall') it had consumed the entire room. I had to send the delivery men back with the six-drawer dresser, the two adorable nightstands, and even the full-length mirror. The men and Alex did lift up the bed, however, and I was able to slip the tri-blue rug under it, and a few blue inches peeked out from underneath the wooden behemoth. The rice-paper lamp had no nightstand or dresser on which to rest, so I simply placed it on the floor, wedged in the six inches between the bed frame and the sliding closet door. And even though I tried special mounting tape, nails, duct tape, screws, wires, Krazy Glue, double-sided tape, and much cursing, the framed photos refused to adhere to the exposed brick wall. After nearly three hours of effort and knuckles rubbed bleeding and raw from the brick, I finally propped them up on the windowsill. It was for the best, I thought. Blocked a bit of the direct view the woman living across the airshaft had into my room. None of it mattered, though. Not the airshaft instead of a majestic skyline or the lack of drawer space or the closet that was too small to hold a winter coat. The room was mine – the first I could decorate all on my own, with no input from parents or roommates – and I loved it.

It was the Sunday night before my first day of work, and I could do nothing but agonize over what to wear the next day. Kendra, the nicer of my two apartment-mates, kept poking her head in and asking quietly if she could help at all. Considering the two of them wore ultraconservative suits to work each day, I declined any fashion input. I paced the living room as much as I could manage when each length only took four strides, and sat down on the futon in front of the TV. Just what does one wear to the first day working for the most fashionable fashion editor of the most fashionable fashion magazine in existence? I'd heard of Prada (from the few Jappy girls who carried the backpacks at Brown) and Louis Vuitton (because both of my grandmothers sported the signature-print bags without realizing how cool they were) and maybe even Gucci (because who hasn't heard of Gucci?). But I sure didn't own a single stitch of it, and I wouldn't have known what to do with it if the entire contents of all three stores resided in my miniature closet. I walked back to my room – or, rather, the wall-to-wall mattress that I called a room – and collapsed on that big, beautiful bed, banging my ankle on the bulky frame. Shit. What now?

After much agonizing and clothes-flinging, I finally decided on a light blue sweater and a knee-length black skirt, with my knee-high black boots. I already knew that a briefcase wouldn't fly there, so I was left with no choice but to use my black canvas purse. The last thing I remember about that night was trying to navigate around my massive bed in high-heeled boots, a skirt, and no shirt, and sitting down to rest from the exhaustion of the effort.

I must have passed out from sheer anxiety, because it was adrenaline alone that awakened me at 5:30 A.M. I bolted from the bed. My nerves had been in perpetual overdrive all week, and my head felt like it would explode. I had exactly an hour and a half to shower, dress, and make my way from my fraternity-like building at 96th and Third to midtown via public transportation, a still sinister and intimidating concept. That meant I had to allot an hour for travel time and a half hour to make myself beautiful.

The shower was horrific. It made a high-pitched squealing noise like one of those dog-training whistles, remaining steadfastly lukewarm until just before I stepped out into the freezing-cold bathroom, at which point the water turned scalding. It took a mere three days of
that
routine before I began sprinting from my bed, turning on the shower fifteen minutes early, and heading back under the covers. When I snoozed three more times with the alarm clock and went back for round two in the bathroom, the mirrors would be all steamed up from the gloriously hot – although trickling – water.

I got myself into my binding and uncomfortable outfit and out the door in twenty-five minutes – a record. And it took only ten minutes to find the nearest subway, something I should've done the night before but was too busy scoffing at my mother's suggestion to take a ‘run-through' so I wouldn't get lost. When I'd gone for the interview the week before I'd taken a cab, and I was already convinced that this subway experiment was going to be a nightmare. But, remarkably, there was an English-speaking attendant in the booth who instructed me to take the 6 train to 59th Street. She said I'd exit right on 59th and would have to walk two blocks west to Madison. Easy. I rode the cold train in silence, one of the only people crazy enough to be awake and actually moving at such a miserable hour in the middle of November. So far, so good – no glitches until it was time to make my way up to street level.

I took the nearest stairs and stepped out into a frigid day where the only light I saw was emanating from twenty-four-hour bodegas. Behind me was Bloomingdale's, but nothing else looked familiar. Elias-Clark, Elias-Clark, Elias-Clark. Where was that building? I turned in my place 180 degrees until I saw a street sign: 60th Street and Lexington. Well, 59th can't be that far away from 60th, but which way should I walk to make the streets go west? And where was Madison in comparison to Lexington? Nothing looked familiar from my visit to the building the week before, since I'd been dropped off right in front. I strolled for a bit, happy to have left enough time to get as lost as I was, and finally ducked into a deli for a cup of coffee.

‘Hello, sir. I can't seem to find my way to the Elias-Clark building. Could you please point me in the right direction?' I asked the nervous-looking man behind the cash register. I tried not to smile sweetly, remembering what everyone had told me about not being in Avon anymore, and how people here don't exactly respond well to good manners. He scowled at me, and I got nervous it was because he thought me rude. I smiled sweetly.

‘One dollah,' he said, holding out his hand.

‘You're charging me for directions?'

‘One dollah, skeem or bleck, you peek.'

I stared at him for a moment before I realized he knew only enough English to converse about coffee. ‘Oh, skim would be perfect. Thank you so much.' I handed over a dollar and headed back outside, more lost than ever. I asked people who worked at newsstands, as street sweepers, even a man who was tucked inside one of those movable breakfast carts. Not a single one understood me well enough to so much as point in the direction of 59th and Madison, and I had brief flashbacks to Delhi, depression, dysentery.
No! I will find it.

A few more minutes of wandering aimlessly around a waking midtown actually landed me at the front door of the Elias-Clark building. The lobby glowed behind the glass doors in the early-morning darkness, and it looked, for those first few moments, like a warm, welcoming place. But when I pushed the revolving door to enter, it fought me. Harder and harder I pushed, until my body weight was thrust forward and my face was nearly pressed against the glass, and only then did it budge. When it did begin to move, it slid slowly at first, prompting me to push ever harder. But as soon as it picked up some momentum, the glass behemoth whipped around, hitting me from behind and forcing me to trip over my feet and shuffle visibly to remain standing. A man behind the security desk laughed.

‘Tricky, eh? Not the first time I seen that happen, and won't be the last,' he chortled, fleshy cheeks jiggling. ‘They getcha good here.'

I looked him over quickly and decided to hate him and knew that he would never like me, regardless of what I said or how I acted. I smiled anyway.

‘I'm Andrea,' I said, pulling a knit mitten from my hand and reaching over the desk. ‘Today's my first day of work at
Runway
. I'm Miranda Priestly's new assistant.'

‘And I'm sorry!' he roared, throwing his round head back with glee. ‘Just call me “Sorry for You”! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hey, Eduardo, check this out. She's one of Miranda's new
slaves
! Where you from, girl, bein' all friendly and shit? Topeka fuckin' Kansas? She is gonna eat you alive, hah, hah, hah!'

But before I could respond, a portly man wearing the same uniform came over and with no subtlety whatsoever looked me up and down. I braced for more mocking and guffaws, but it didn't come. Instead, he turned a kind face to mine and looked me in the eyes.

‘I'm Eduardo, and this idiot here's Mickey,' he said, motioning to the first man, who looked annoyed that Eduardo had acted civilly and ruined all the fun. ‘Don't make no never mind of him, he's just kiddin' with you.' He spoke with a mixed Spanish and New York accent, as he picked up a sign-in book. ‘You just fill out this here information, and I'll give you a temporary pass to go upstairs. Tell 'em you need a card wit your pitcher on it from HR.'

I must have looked at him gratefully, because he got embarrassed and shoved the book across the counter. ‘Well, go on now, fill 'er out. And good luck today, girl. You gonna need it.'

I was too nervous and exhausted at this point to ask him to explain, and besides, I didn't really have to. About the only thing I'd had time to do in the week between accepting the job and starting work was to learn a little bit about my new boss. I had Googled her and was surprised to find that Miranda Priestly was born Miriam Princhek, in London's East End. Hers was like all the other orthodox Jewish families in the town, stunningly poor but devout. Her father occasionally worked odd jobs, but mostly they relied on the community for support since he spent most of his days studying Jewish texts. Her mother had died in childbirth with Miriam, and it was
her
mother who moved in and helped raise the children. And were there children! Eleven in all. Most of her brothers and sisters went on to work blue-collar jobs like their father, with little time to do anything but pray and work; a couple managed to get themselves into and through the university, only to marry young and begin having large families of their own. Miriam was the single exception to the family tradition.

After saving the small bills her older siblings would slip her whenever they were able, Miriam promptly dropped out of high school upon turning seventeen – a mere three months shy of graduation – to take a job as an assistant to an up-and-coming British designer, helping him put together his shows each season. After a few years of making a name for herself as one of the darlings of London's burgeoning fashion world and studying French at night, she scored a job as a junior editor at the French
Chic
magazine in Paris. By this time, she had little to do with her family: they didn't understand her life or ambitions, and she was embarrassed by their old-fashioned piety and overwhelming lack of sophistication. The alienation from her family was completed shortly after joining French
Chic
when, at twenty-four years old, Miriam Princhek became Miranda Priestly, shedding her undeniably ethnic name for one with more panache. Her rough, cockney-girl British accent was soon replaced by a carefully cultivated, educated one, and by her late twenties, Miriam's transformation from Jewish peasant to secular socialite was complete. She rose quickly, ruthlessly, through the ranks of the magazine world.

She spent ten years at the helm of French
Runway
before Elias transferred her to the number-one spot at American
Runway
, the ultimate achievement. She moved her two daughters and her rock-star then husband (himself eager to gain more exposure in America) to a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue at 76th Street and began a new era at
Runway
magazine: the Priestly years, the sixth of which we were nearing as I began my first day.

By some stroke of dumb luck, I would be working for nearly a month before Miranda was back in the office. She took her vacation every year starting a week before Thanksgiving until right after New Year's. Typically, she'd spend a few weeks at the flat she kept in London, but this year, I was told, she had dragged her husband and daughters to Frederic Marteau's estate in St Barth's for two weeks before spending Christmas and New Year's at the Ritz in Paris. I'd also been forewarned that even though she was technically ‘on vacation,' she'd still be fully reachable and working at all times, and therefore, so should every single other person on staff. I was to be appropriately prepped and trained without her highness present. That way, Miranda wouldn't have to suffer my inevitable mistakes while I learned the job. Sounded good to me. So at 7:00 A.M. on the dot, I signed my name into Eduardo's book and was buzzed through the turnstiles for the very first time. ‘Strike a pose!' Eduardo called after me, just before the elevator doors swept shut.