Revenge Wears Prada (40 page)

“I feel like we weren’t at the same dinner.” Andy said.

“I think she’s really made a change for the better, Andy. She couldn’t have been more gracious tonight.” Emily’s smile was beatific, as though she had just emerged from an indulgent full-body massage.

“Emily! Didn’t you hear her say, ‘I wouldn’t allow it!’ As though it were her magazine? And what about insisting that Nigel and Neil take the June cover? I wasn’t going to say anything tonight, but I have a possible lead on Angelina and Brad. Who are we going to give the June cover to? Nigel, flamboyant magazine editor and Priestly muse? Or
Brangelin
a
? I mean, seriously!”

Emily closed her eyes and exhaled luxuriously. “Did you not want to die when the assistant walked in?” she asked.

“I know, poor thing. She must have been panicked. Didn’t you see? She’s still the same Miranda. Treating her assistants like slaves. She barely acknowledged the girl except to dismiss her. I bet Miranda will fire her for letting Nigel follow her.”

“Yes, well what idiot allows anyone—even Nigel—to join her for drop-off? It’s positively asinine. We never would have done that. Well, you probably would have, but I’d have shut it down immediately. If Miranda knows what’s good for her, she’ll fire that girl first thing tomorrow.”

Andy looked out the window at all the gorgeous windows lit up on Fifth Avenue as the car hurtled downtown. So much had changed since she’d left
Runway.
It had taken years and so much hard work and heartache, but Andy finally felt like she had peace in her life: friends with whom she shared things, a loving sister and parents, a career that challenged and fulfilled her, and most of all, a family all her own. A husband. A daughter. It hadn’t happened the way she’d expected, but did any of that matter now?

“Wasn’t tonight just fab?” Emily sighed. Her eyes were still closed and her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.

Andy said nothing.

“I really think Miranda made a huge overture tonight. And I’m sure it’s not just for us. She’s definitely changed for the better, don’t you think?”

“Em, I—” Andy stopped, too exhausted for the conflict that would surely ensue once she uttered the words she knew she must say. “Let’s have lunch this week and come to a decision on the Elias-Clark offer once and for all, okay? We got sidetracked the last time we were supposed to discuss it. We’re clearly coming from different places on this, but we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to make a final decision. Okay?”

Emily opened her eyes. She smiled and poked Andy in the
side. “Fine, lunch it is. And I’m the first to admit that Miranda was a lunatic back in the day and very well may still be a little crazy , but we can totally handle her, Andy. I’m telling you, we make a kick-ass team, and we could accomplish amazing things over at Elias-Clark.”

“Lunch,” Andy said, the now-familiar feeling of dread beginning to settle over her. Tonight had left no room for negotiation, as far as Andy was concerned. It was over, finished, final. She’d worked too long and too hard to get where she was, only to sign her life away again to Miranda Priestly. She would tell Emily that week. There could be no other way.

The alarm blared. Disoriented, Andy rolled over to look at her clock and almost fell out of bed: eleven! How was it eleven o’clock?

“Relax,” Max said, placing a warm palm over her exposed arm. “We’re not late. We have plenty of time.”

“Late for what?”

“I just said we’re not late.”

“But where are we going? Where’s Clementine?”

Max laughed. He was fully dressed in a button-down and jeans, lying on top of the covers, reading on his iPad. “Clem’s napping but she should be up any second. You’ve been sleeping like a dead person for who knows how many hours. And we are expected for brunch at an as-yet-undisclosed location with your mommy group. Any of this sounding familiar?”

Andy groaned. The previous night’s dinner came rushing back to her.

Had Miranda Priestly really hissed at her? The mommy group was great, but getting herself and the baby up and dressed for a brunch across town sounded about as appealing as a trip to the gynecologist right now. “Unfortunately, yes. The husband brunch. We’ve spent the last three-plus months divulging the intimate details of all our lives, including yours. Time to meet the subjects of our collective analysis.”

“Sounds terrific. You said it starts at twelve thirty?”

Andy nodded. She was about to tell him about the Miranda dinner when his phone rang.

“I need to take this,” he said, walking out of the room.

Andy peeled off her nightshirt and stretched luxuriously under the covers. Her sheets felt silken and cool against her bare skin, and for a minute or two she was able to stop her mind from returning again and again to Miranda Priestly. As good as her bed felt, her shower was even better, and this gave her a few more minutes of calm. As she did at least once a day, Andy marveled at how their building’s combination of unparalleled water pressure and seemingly unlimited hot water made nearly all the other inconveniences of city life—the grime, lack of space, crowds, expense, and all-around general hassle—completely worth it.

She stepped out of the shower and toweled off. Max appeared in the bathroom and embraced her warm, naked body from behind. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply. “I wanted to wake you up so badly last night,” he said gruffly.

“Then why didn’t you?” Andy murmured. She didn’t want to admit that she was more relieved than disappointed when she’d come home to discover that Max was still out on his client dinner: she just didn’t have the energy to get into it.

“You’ve had a crazy couple weeks. You needed your sleep.” Max said, rinsing his razor under hot water. “So how did it go?”

Andy walked toward her closet and grabbed the first few things she saw. She brought them back to the bathroom and began to get dressed. “It was . . . interesting.”

Max raised his eyebrows at her in the mirror. “A little more detail?”

“Miranda definitely made a superhuman effort at being charming—it’s almost flattering how much she wants
The Plunge
—but then she reverted to her usual inhuman ways.”

“Meaning?”

“Just that she didn’t even try to disguise her plan to completely control the magazine and everything that went into it. If anything, I was almost shocked at how brazen she was about it.”

Something about Max’s expression irked her. “What?” she asked.

Max seemed to make it a point not to make eye contact. He studied his cheek stubble intently and gave a little shrug. “Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but that look said something. What?” Andy asked.

Max set down his razor and turned to look at her. “Andy, I know you think I don’t really understand how hard it was for you to work for Miranda, and truth be told, I probably don’t. No one does. But don’t you think you could put it behind you and make the right decision here?”

Andy suddenly felt self-conscious being topless and grabbed for a robe.

“I’m just saying, I don’t think Miranda’s out to wreck your lives, you know?”

Andy stared at him. “I know that. That’s not at all how Miranda operates. The life-wrecking is an unintentional consequence, although I’m not sure that makes it any better.”

“You know how to stand up for yourself against bullies, Andy. And when push comes to shove, that’s all Miranda really is. Your standard-fare, run-of-the-mill schoolyard bully.”

“Only someone who’s never worked for her could make that statement,” she said as lightly as she could manage despite her irritation.

Part of her wanted to avoid any more conversation, but Andy realized that in her effort to erase Miranda from her life over the years, she’d never really adequately described Miranda to Max. He knew she was curt, contrarian, a “difficult personality.” He was aware of her reputation as a tough and demanding boss. He’d met her enough over the years to see firsthand that she could be brusque and aloof. More than aloof—“unfriendly” was how he’d described Miranda the first time Barbara had introduced them. But for some reason—or really, because Andy could never bear to talk about it—Max didn’t seem to understand the true Miranda. The evil, nasty, even sadistic Miranda who, to this day, haunted his wife.

Andy took a breath and perched on the edge of the tub. “She’s not just a bully, Max. You’re right, I could probably deal with that now. It’s worse than that. Almost harder to deal with. She is single-mindedly focused on what’s best for her, at the exclusion of everything and everyone else. Her assistants, her editors, her so-called friends—because I don’t believe she has any real friends, only has acquaintances she needs or wants things from—they’re all just bit players in Miranda’s real-time video game, where the whole purpose is making sure Miranda wins. At all costs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer or Irv Ravitz or the editor of Italian
Runway
if you’re late for a lunch with Miranda Priestly. She’s not going to yell and scream and lecture you on courtesy and consideration. She’s merely going to order at the exact moment she’s ready, whether you’ve arrived or not, and then she’s going to eat her lunch and leave. Does it matter to her if your kid was sick or your taxi was in an accident? Not in the least. Does it bother her if you’re only receiving your soup as she’s calling her driver to come pick her up? Not for a moment. Because she doesn’t care about you at all—you don’t even register on her
radar screen as another person with feelings or needs. She doesn’t play by the same social rules as you and I. She figured out a long time ago that the quickest means to her end usually includes humiliating, critiquing, belittling, or intimidating other people into doing what she wants. On the rare occasion that doesn’t work—like for instance, with us refusing to sell her
The Plunge
—she immediately throws herself into an all-consuming charm offensive: extravagant gifts, solicitous phone calls, coveted invitations. Which is, of course, just another form of manipulating the bit players in her giant game.”

Max set down his razor and patted his face with a hand towel. “When you describe her like that, she sounds like a sociopath,” he said.

Andy shrugged. “I’m no shrink. But she is truly that horrible.”

Max enveloped Andy in a hug. He kissed her cheek and said, “I hear everything you’re saying. She does sound horrible, she really does. And I hate the idea of anyone making you unhappy. But I’d just ask that you think about the bigger picture here, Andy. There’s a lot—”

Clementine’s wails stopped him midsentence.

“I’ll get her,” she said, dropping her robe on the floor and pulling on her bra and sweater. Max didn’t seem any closer to understanding. Andy was relieved for an excuse to change the subject.

A half hour later they had miraculously made it to Stacy’s apartment on Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue, and between Miranda the night before and Max’s seeming inability to understand her this morning, Andy felt like her head might explode. How was she going to survive being pleasantly social for the next two hours?

“Who are these people again?” Max whispered as they waited for the doorman to clear them.

“Stacy is one of the mommies from my group. Her husband is Mark. I can’t remember what he does. Their daughter’s name is
Sylvie and she’s a few weeks younger than Clementine. That’s about all I know.”

The uniformed doorman motioned them toward the elevator, which they rode to the penthouse, where an overweight maid in an apron and orthopedic clogs greeted them at the door, parked Clementine’s stroller in the massive foyer, and directed them to the living room. Max and Andy exchanged a look as they followed the woman. They were deposited in a formal dining room with people milling about; Andy noticed nothing, absolutely nothing, but the twenty-foot-high wall of windows that wrapped around three sides of the room and offered the most spectacular south-facing views of Lower Manhattan she’d ever seen. Her new friends were saying hello and introducing their husbands and parking their babies in various swings and bouncy seats, but Andy couldn’t focus on anything except the apartment. A sideways glance at Max confirmed he, too, was taking it all in.

The double-height ceilings were interspersed with skylights, which, coupled with the outrageous wall of windows, made the entire room feel like it was floating. A polished stone fireplace the size of a small storefront sat to their left; above the sleek gas fire, an enormous mirrored flat-screen hung on the massive expanse of gray stone, where it caught the reflection of both the fire and the autumn sun and gave the entire room an aura of spectral, almost heavenly white light. The modern, low couches were done in a tasteful mix of gray and ivory, as was the reading nook with the built-in bookshelves. A rough-hewn reclaimed-wood coffee table matched the dining room table off to the side that easily seated sixteen and was flanked by gorgeous ivory leather and chrome high-backed chairs. The only color in the room came from an outrageously luxurious pile rug in abstract loops of cobalt, red, and purple and what appeared to be a hand-blown chandelier that descended nearly an entire story from the ceiling and whose shapes of glass—ovals, squiggles, spirals, and tubes—seemed to explode in a tangle of blue madness. Even the dog, a
Cavalier King Charles whose leather collar was stamped with “Harley,” reclined on a miniature midcentury-modern chaise with polished chrome legs and a tightly tufted leather cushion.

“Wow,” Andy murmured, trying not to stare. “This is not what I was expecting.”

“Pretty outrageous,” Max said, putting an arm around her shoulder. He whispered in her ear. “A far cry from the old Harrison pad. But amazing. This is the kind of apartment we’ll have one day when my wife becomes a media mogul.” He said it as a joke, but it made Andy squirm.

“Andy! Can I get you guys anything? Oh, you must be Max. It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Stacy said, sidling over to them, looking almost
Runway
-esque in her glamorous cashmere poncho, high heels, sleek blowout, and flawless makeup. Gone were the leggings and hoodies, the bad skin and the unwashed hair Andy had grown accustomed to seeing in meetings every week. It was an epic transformation.