Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (69 page)

‘Where do you live?' he asked, pulling a silver helmet out from underneath the seat of a Vespa, which was resting under a monogrammed tarp three feet from the building's entrance.

‘Murray Hill. Is that okay?'

He laughed, not nicely. ‘I don't know, you tell me.
I
sure wouldn't clamor to live in Murray Hill, but hey, whatever turns you on.'

‘I meant,' I said tightly, no longer even attempting to keep up with his psycho-style mood swings, ‘is it okay for you to drop me off? I can certainly take a cab.'

‘Whatever you want, love. No worries for me. My office is midtown east, so you're right on the way.' He occupied himself by fishing his keys from his pants pocket and securing his Hermè
s
bag to the back of the bike. Scooter. ‘Let's just get a move on, okay? People are needing me right now.' He swung his legs over the bike and deigned to look my way. ‘So?'

I was momentarily speechless, until he actually snapped his fingers. ‘C'mon, sweetheart, decision time here. Ride or not? It's not so difficult. You sure didn't seem this indecisive last night. …'

I've always harbored the classic girl fantasy of having a real reason to slap some jerk across the face, and the opportunity had just presented itself in Technicolor. But I was dumbfounded by the finger snapping and the suggestion that something actually
had
happened last night, so I just turned my back and began walking down the block.

He called out, sounding almost worried, ‘You don't have to be so sensitive, love. I was just kidding around. Absolutely nothing went down last night. Not you, not me. …' I heard him chuckle at his own cleverness, but I just kept walking.

‘Fine. Be that way. I don't have time for the drama right now, but I'll track you down. Seriously, it's not often a woman can resist my charms, so consider me duly intrigued. Leave your number with my doorman and I'll give you a call.' The Vespa's engine caught and he sped away, and although I'd just been insulted and abandoned, I still felt like I'd somehow won … if he was telling the truth, of course, and I actually hadn't slept with him in a wasted stupor.

The victory lasted all of forty minutes, during which time I jumped in a cab, raced home, took a washcloth-bath in the bathroom sink, and applied copious amounts of deodorant to my underarms, baby powder to my scalp, and scented moisturizer everywhere else. I raced around the apartment looking for clean clothes and wondered how I would ever manage to be a good mother when I couldn't even remember to care for my own dog. Millington was sulking in the corner under the coffee table, punishing me for abandoning her the previous evening. She'd also peed on my pillow for good measure, but there wasn't time to clean it up. I managed to wedge between the throngs of commuters and arrive at the office at exactly one minute after nine. I was fantasizing about devouring the only known hangover cure, a large street coffee and bacon, egg, and cheese on a buttered roll, when Elisa motioned me over. She'd saved a space near the sunniest window and appeared to be quite eager to talk to me.

The office was a giant rectangle, surrounded on all sides by sleek leather couches and sitting areas. There weren't technically individual desks, just two giant, half-moon-shaped tables that formed a circle with two small breaks where the half-moons didn't quite meet, allowing access to the shared faxes and printers in the middle. We each had our own laptop that we could either lock in the closet or take home at night, and workspace was doled out on a first-come-first-served basis every morning. We all scrambled to sit in the two or three spots around the circle where Kelly couldn't see your computer screen from her office, and Elisa had managed to snag a few feet of prime space. I dropped my laptop on the table and very carefully removed the coffee from its paper bag, taking care not to spill a single golden drop. Elisa was practically panting.

‘Oh, Bette, sit the hell down already. Tell me everything, I can barely stand it.'

‘Tell you what? I had a great time last night. Thanks for inviting me.'

‘Shut up!' she was squealing, which appeared to be her only method of communication. ‘How was …' Pause. Deep breath. ‘Philippe?'

‘Philippe? Don't you mean Philip? He sure didn't seem French to me.'

‘Oh, God, you are truly missing the point. He's absolutely fabulous, don't you think?'

‘Actually, I thought he was kind of a jerk,' I said, which was partially true. This also made him tremendously intriguing, of course, but it didn't seem necessary to admit that.

Elisa inhaled sharply and fixed her gaze on my face. ‘What did you say?' she whispered.

‘I said, I thought—'

‘I heard you.' She was nearly growling now. ‘I just can't imagine why you'd say something like that. You sure looked like you were having fun when you were all over him on the dance floor. He's pretty good, huh? Who said practice doesn't make perfect?'

She very well could've still been talking about dancing, but something in her expression, now dreamy and slightly far-off, indicated otherwise.

‘Elisa, what do you mean?'

‘Oh, Bette, come on! This is Philip Weston we're talking about here.'

‘And that should mean something to me?'

‘Ohmigod, Bette, this is
so
humiliating for you. Are you serious? You have no idea who he is?' She began ticking things off on her fingers, one by one. ‘Graduate of Eton and Oxford, with a law degree from Yale? Youngest lawyer
ever
to be named partner at Simpson Thacher? Grandfather is a duke; father owns the majority of land between London and Manchester, with additional large chunks in Edinburgh? Trust fund large enough to rival the country's national debt? Ex-boyfriend of Gwyneth, current boy toy of multiple Victoria's Secret models, and crowned “Nightlife Adonis” by none other than
Vanity Fair.
Any of this ringing any bells?' She was almost panting at this point.

‘Not really,' I said, trying to synthesize everything she'd said while the sound of blood rushed through my ears. A duke?
Gwyneth??

‘It's so ironic,' she mumbled to herself. ‘Every girl on the planet makes it her lifelong goal to have sex with Philip Weston and you go and do it without even knowing who he is? It's almost too much.'

‘Have sex with him? What?'
If by ‘having sex' you mean ‘listening as he fires the maid for gross neglect of $4,000 sheets,' then yes, we had a mind-blowing night.

‘Bette! Give up the “I'm so innocent” routine. We all saw you last night!'

At that exact moment, it was impossible to comprehend anything other than the fact that the same man who used to have sex with Gwyneth Paltrow had not only seen me naked, but had also witnessed period underwear, unshaved legs, and a viciously overgrown bikini line.

‘Nothing happened,' I muttered, wondering how quickly I could pack my bags, change my name, and move to Bhutan.

‘Riiiiight.' She smiled lasciviously.

‘No, really. Granted, I woke up at his place, and granted, I was wearing his clothes, but absolutely nothing happened.'

She looked dumbfounded and disappointed. ‘How is that even possible? He's much too gorgeous to resist.'

‘Did
you
sleep with him, Elisa?' I asked teasingly.

She looked as though she'd been slapped. ‘No!'

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest … I was just kidding, I didn't think you had—'

‘Way to rub it in, is all. I've only been lusting after him forever now, but he barely even glances in my direction. I see him out all the time, of course, and he, like, totally knows who I am, so maybe it's just a matter of time. …' Her voice once again took on a dreamy quality.

I coughed and she snapped back to attention. I was just about to be flattered by the fact that Philip had taken me home last night when he could have had Elisa instead, but I didn't have a chance to revel.

‘I mean, the boy will sleep with any decent-looking girl he can get his hands on, so I just don't understand what's wrong with me,' she said tonelessly.

‘Any girl?' I asked, still determined to hold on to the illusion that I might be his one and only.

‘Well, pretty much any hot girl, which is why I can't understand why he doesn't respond to me. Maybe he just doesn't like his women thin.'

Ouch. Unintentional, but painful. I waited while she continued with her stock-taking.

‘Let's see. Skye dated him, but that was years ago, way before he became who he is now. So did one of the List Girls – the pretty one – and that girl who was on the cover of
Marie Claire
last month, and a solid handful of the hottest girls at Condé Nast.' She continued to tick off names of beautiful and social girls, some that I recognized from years of idly reading the gossip columns and party pages, but I could barely hear her. Luckily, she only hit about a dozen before Kelly bounded from her office and called for me to enter her animal-print hell – the whole room was done in a hallucinogenic mixture of zebra, leopard, and tiger fabrics, replete with oversized furry pillows and a giant, spotted shag rug.

‘Hey there, Bette. How is everything?' she said happily, closing the door and motioning for me to take a seat on a chair covered in what felt like actual skin and hair.

‘Uh, great. It's been a great first week so far.'

‘I'm so glad! I think so, too!' Biggest smile yet.

‘Uh, yeah. Seriously, I'm so happy to be here, and I promise I'll get all this stuff down as quickly as possible so I can start actually contributing instead of just watching,' I said with what sounded to me like a reasonable level of sobriety and coherence.

‘Uh-huh, that's nice. So tell me about last night!' She clasped her hands together and leaned forward.

‘Oh, right, last night. Yeah, I went to dinner with Elisa and Skye and Leo and a couple others and we had such a nice night. It's a really great group of people you have here. Of course, I won't always let them keep me out so late. …' I laughed, trying to sound casual, since I wasn't exactly used to discussing nights out with my boss. Aaron most certainly hadn't been my go-to morning-after confidant, but Kelly seemed eager for it.

‘You mean, you won't let them keep you out until the next morning …' She grinned and let her words trail off.

Ahem. I suspected we were toeing the line between personal and professional, and I wasn't about to cross it. ‘It was a great dinner! I just love everyone who works here.' A slightly inane non sequitur, but it was the only thing that came to mind.

She leaned forward, brushing her side-swept bangs even more to the left, and placed her elbows on the rough-hewn wooden desk. ‘Bette, dear, you can't expect to, ah,
spend the night
with Philip Weston and not have the entire world know about it. Here, look.' She thrust a piece of computer paper across the table. My hands shook as I took it.

I recognized it immediately as that day's edition of the column that Abby and Elisa had been talking about the night before, New York Scoop. It had been printed from the Scoop's website and the headline read:
MYSTERY GIRL CHECKS INTO WESTON'S HOTEL.
The story went on to detail how Philip had been ‘accosted' at Bungalow 8 the previous evening by a ‘pretty young thing' who some sources ‘have fingered as a new hire at Kelly & Company. Keep it tuned right here to see if she resurfaces anytime soon …' The byline at the bottom of the piece read ‘Ellie Insider.'
That's a stupid name,
I thought.

Despite the ‘pretty young thing' semi-compliment that was undoubtedly supplied to fill space, my stomach dropped and I looked at Kelly in horror.

‘I'm working feverishly alongside half of Manhattan trying to figure out who Ellie Insider is. It's fucking brilliant. Do you believe how quickly they get things posted? I suppose that's the benefit of having it online, although I still can't help feeling that these, these,
blogs
are just little diaries for people who can't actually get published.'

‘Kelly, it's so not what it looks like. I can explain. It's just that after dinner, we—'

‘Bette, I know exactly what happened. And I'm thrilled!'

‘You are?' I was certain this was just her convoluted way of firing me.

‘Of course! Look, this is an ideal scenario. Philip Weston, Bungalow 8, a mention for the office. The only thing I ask is that next time you make sure the real Page Six is watching, too. This is a solid mention, but the column's still pretty new, and not completely up to par yet with its circ numbers.'

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. She didn't seem to notice, though.

‘He's amazing, isn't he? Just between you and me, I've always had a thing for him.'

‘You have? For Philip?'

‘Ohmigod, girl, who hasn't? He's splendid. Not only is he
all
boldfaced mentions
all
the time, he also happens to look amazing without a shirt.'

Her face had taken on the same hazy expression as Elisa's had earlier. ‘Did you date him?' I asked, praying with all my energy that the answer was no.

‘Good lord, I wish! Closest I ever came to sleeping with him was watching him take his shirt off at a charity auction where the organizers were selling a date with him. Three hundred other women and I went berserk when he yanked it over his head. Very
Coyote Ugly,
if you can picture it: wonderful and pathetic all at the same time.'

I let my guard down and forgot – for a split second – that I was talking to my boss. ‘I saw that chest when he got out of the shower this morning, and it was every bit as beautiful as you say,' I added before I could realize what this implied.

Kelly's head snapped around, and she stared at me with an odd combination of envy and urgency. ‘I'm assuming that when he calls you again, you'll go out with him, right?'