The Devil Wears Prada (14 page)

 Le
Cirque, Le Cirque, Le Cirque,I said over and over in my head, determined to
make that reservation ASAP so I could get back to the significantly more
difficult Harry Potter challenge. The Le Cirque reservationist immediately
agreed to have a table ready for Mr. Tomlinson and Irv whenever they arrived.

 Emily
walked in a from a stroll around the office and asked me if Miranda had called
at all.

 “Only
three times, and she didn’t threaten to fire me during any of
them,” I said proudly. “Of course, she did intimate it, but she
didn’t all-out threaten. Progress, no?”

 She
laughed in the way she did only when I made fun of myself, and she asked what
Miranda, her guru, had wanted.

 “Just
wanted me to switch around B-DAD’s lunch reservation. Not sure why
I’m doing that when he has his own assistant, but hey, I don’t ask
questions around here.” Mr. Blind, Deaf, and Dumb was our nickname for
Miranda’s third husband. Although to the general public he appeared to be
none of those, those of us in the know were quite confident he was all three.
There was, quite simply, no other explanation for how a nice guy like him could
tolerate living withher .

 Next, it
was time to call B-DAD himself. If I didn’t call soon, he may not be able
to get to the restaurant in time. He’d flown back from their vacation for
a couple days of business meetings, and this lunch with Irv
Ravitz—Elias-Clark’s CEO—was among the most important.
Miranda wanted every detail perfect—as though that were something new.
B-DAD’s real name was Hunter Tomlinson. He and Miranda had gotten married
the summer before I started working, after what I’d heard was a rather
unique courtship: she pursued, he demurred. According to Emily, she’d chased
him relentlessly until he’d yielded from the mere exhaustion of ducking
her. She’d left her second husband (the lead singer of one of the most
famous bands from the late sixties and the twins’ father) with absolutely
no warning before her lawyer delivered the papers, and was married again
precisely twelve days after the divorce was finalized. Mr. Tomlinson followed
orders and moved into her penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. I’d only
met Miranda once and I’d never met her new husband, but I’d logged
enough phone hours with each that I felt, unfortunately, like they were family.

 Three
rings, four rings, five rings…hmm, I wonder where his assistant is? I
prayed for an answering machine, since I wasn’t in the mood for the
mindless, friendly chitchat of which B-DAD seemed so fond. Instead, I got his
secretary.

 “Mr.
Tomlinson’s office,” she trilled in her deep southern drawl.
“How may I help you today?”How mah I hep ya tuhday?

 “Hi,
Martha, it’s Andrea. Listen, I don’t need to talk to Mr. Tomlinson,
can you just give him a message for me? I made a reservation for—”

 “Darlin‘,
you know Mr. T. always wants to talk to you. Hold just a sec.” And before
I could protest, I was listening to the elevator version of “Don’t
Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. Perfect. It was fitting that B-DAD
had picked the most annoyingly optimistic song ever written to entertain
callers when they were put on hold.

 “Andy,
is that you, sweetheart?” He asked quietly in his deep, distinguished
voice. “Mr. Tomlinson is going to think you’re avoiding him.
It’s been ages since I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with
you.” A week and a half, to be precise. In addition to his blindness,
deafness, and dumbness, Mr. Tomlinson had the added irritating habit of
constantly referring to himself in the third person.

 I took a
deep breath. “Hello, Mr. Tomlinson. Miranda asked me to let you know that
lunch is at one today at Le Cirque. She said that you’d—”

 “Sweetheart,”
he said slowly, calmly. “Enough with all that plan-making for just a
second. Give an old man a moment of pleasure and tell Mr. Tomlinson all about
your life. Will you do that for him? So tell me, dear, are you happy working
for my wife?” Was I happy working for his wife? Hmm, let’s see
here. Are little baby mammals squealing with glee when a predator swallows them
whole?Why of course, you putz, I’m deliriously happy working for your
wife. When neither of us is busy, we give each other mud masks and gossip about
our love lives. It’s a lot like a slumber party among friends, if you
must know. The whole thing is just one big laugh riot .

 “Mr.
Tomlinson, I love my job and I adore working for Miranda.” I held my
breath and prayed that he’d give it up.

 “Well,
Mr. T. is just thrilled that things are working out.”Great, asshole, but
are youthrilled?

 “Sounds
great, Mr. Tomlinson. Have a great lunch,” I cut him off before he
inevitably asked about my weekend plans, and hung up.

 I sat
back in my chair and gazed across the office suite. Emily was engrossed in
trying to reconcile another one of Miranda’s $20,000 American Express
bills, her highly waxed brow furrowed in concentration. The Harry Potter
project loomed ahead of me, and I had to get moving on it immediately if I ever
wanted to get away this weekend.

 Lily and
I had planned a movie marathon weekend. I was exhausted from work and she was
stressed out from her classes, so we’d promised to spend the whole
weekend parked on her couch and subsist solely on beer and Doritos. No
Snackwells. No Diet Coke. And absolutely no black pants. Even though we talked
all the time, we hadn’t spent any real time together since I’d
moved to the city.

 We’d
been best friends since eighth grade, when I first saw Lily crying alone at a
cafeteria table. She’d just moved in with her grandmother and started at
our school, after it became clear that her parents weren’t coming home
any time soon. They’d taken off a few months before to follow the Dead
(they’d had her when they were both nineteen and were more into bong hits
than babies), leaving her behind to be watched over by their whacked-out
friends at the commune in New Mexico (or as Lily preferred, the
“collective”). When they hadn’t returned almost a year later,
Lily’s grandmother took her from the commune (or as Lily’s grandmother
preferred, the “cult”) to live with her in Avon. The day I found
her crying alone in the cafeteria was the day her grandmother had forced her to
chop off her dirty dreadlocks and wear a dress, and Lily was not happy about
it. Something about the way she talked, the way she said, “That’s
so Zen of you,” and “Let’s just decompress,” charmed
me, and we immediately became friends. We’d been inseparable through the
rest of high school, had roomed together for all four years at Brown. Lily hadn’t
yet decided whether she preferred MAC lipstick or hemp necklaces and was still
a little too “quirky” to do anything totally mainstream, but we
complemented each other well. And I missed her. Because with her first year as
a graduate student and my being a virtual slave, we hadn’t seen a whole lot
of each other lately.

 I
couldn’t wait for the weekend. My fourteen-hour workdays were registering
in my feet, my upper arms, my lower back. Glasses had replaced the contacts
I’d worn for a decade because my eyes were too dry and tired to accept
them anymore. I smoked a pack a day and subsisted solely on Starbucks
(expensed, of course) and takeout sushi (further expensed). I’d begun
losing weight already. The weight I’d lost from the dysentery had
returned briefly, but after my stint atRunway it had begun to disappear again.
Something in the air there, I suppose, or perhaps it was the intensity with
which food was eschewed in the office. I’d already weathered a sinus
infection and had paled significantly, and it had been only four weeks. I was only
twenty-three years old. And Miranda hadn’t even been in the office yet.
Fuck it. I deserved aweekend .

 Into
this mix leaped Harry Potter, and I wasnot pleased. Miranda had called this
morning. It took only a few moments for her to outline what she wanted, although
it took me forever to interpret it. I learned quickly that in the Miranda
Priestly world, it was better to do something wrong and spend a great deal of
time and money to fix it than to admit you didn’t understand her
convoluted and heavily accented instructions and ask for clarification. So when
she mumbled something about getting the Harry Potter books for the twins and
having them flown to Paris, intuition alone told me this was going to interfere
with my weekend. When she hung up abruptly a few minutes later, I looked to
Emily with panic.

 “What,
oh, what, did she say?” I moaned, hating myself for being too scared to
ask Miranda to repeat herself. “Why can I not understand a single word
that woman utters? It’s not me, Em. I speak English, always have. I know
she does it to personally drive me crazy.”

 Emily
looked at me with her usual mix of disgust and pity. “Since the book
comes out tomorrow and they’re not here to buy it, she wants you to pick
up two copies and bring them to Teterboro. The jet will take them to
Paris,” she summed up coldly, daring me to comment on the ludicrousness
of the instructions. I was reminded once again that Emily would do
anything—really, anything—if it meant making Miranda a bit more
comfortable. I rolled my eyes and kept quiet.

 Since I
was NOT going to sacrifice a nanosecond of weekend to do her bidding, and
because I had an unlimited amount of money and power (hers) at my personal
disposal, I spent the rest of the day arranging for Harry Potter to jet his way
to Paris. First, a few words for Julia at Scholastic.

 Dearest
Julia,

 My
assistant, Andrea, tells me that you’re the sweetheart to whom I should
address my most heartfelt appreciation. She has informed me that you are the
single person capable of locating a couple copies of this darling book for me
tomorrow. I want you to know how much I appreciate your hard work and
cleverness. Please know how happy you’ll make my sweet daughters. And
don’t ever hesitate to let me know if you need anything, anything at all,
for a fabulous girl like yourself.

 XOXO,

Miranda
Priestly

 I forged
her name with a perfect flourish (hour upon hour of practicing with Emily
standing over me, instructing me to make the final “a” a little
loopier, had finally paid off), attached the note to the latest issue ofRunway
—one not yet on the newsstand—and called for a rush messenger to
deliver the entire package to Scholastic’s downtown office. If this
didn’t work, nothing would. Miranda didn’t care that we forged her
signature—it saved her from bothering with details—but she’d
probably be livid to see that I’d penned something so polite, soadorable,
using her name.

 Three
short weeks earlier I would have quickly canceled my plans if Miranda called
and wanted me to do something for her on the weekends, but I was now
experienced—and jaded—enough to bend the rules a little. Since
Miranda and the girls would not themselves be at the airport in New Jersey
whenHarry arrived the following day, I saw no reason why I had to be the one to
deliver him. Acting under the assumption and prayer that Julia would pull
through for me with a couple copies, I worked out some details. Dial, dial, and
within an hour a plan had emerged.

 Brian, a
cooperative editorial assistant at Scholastic—whom I was assured would
have permission from Julia within a couple hours—would take home two
office copies ofHarry that evening, so he wouldn’t have to go back to the
office on Saturday. Brian would leave the books with the doorman of his Upper
West Side apartment building, and I would have a car pick them up the following
morning at eleven. Miranda’s driver, Uri, would then call me on my cell
phone to confirm that he’d received the package and was on his way to
drop it at Teterboro airport, where the two books would be transferred to Mr.
Tomlinson’s private jet and flown to Paris. I briefly considered
conducting the entire operation in code to make it resemble a KGB operation
even more, but dropped that when I remembered that Uri didn’t really
speak regular English that well. I had checked to see how fast the fastest DHL
option would have them there, but delivery couldn’t be guaranteed until
Monday, which was obviously unacceptable. Hence the private plane. If all went
as planned, little Cassidy and Caroline could wake up in their private Parisian
suite on Sunday and enjoy their morning milk while reading about Harry’s
adventures—a full day earlier than all of their friends. It warmed my
heart, it really did.

 Minutes
after the cars had been reserved and all the appropriate people put on alert,
Julia called back. Although it’d be a grueling task and she was likely to
get in trouble, she’d be happy to give Brian two copies for Ms. Priestly.
Amen.