The Devil Wears Prada (17 page)

 So far,
the week after New Year’s had been easy. We were still unwrapping and
cataloging presents—I had gotten to unveil the most stunning pair of
Swarovski-encrusted stilettos this morning—but there were none left to
send and the phones were quiet since many people were still away. Miranda would
be returning from Paris at the end of the week but wouldn’t be in the
office until Monday. Emily felt confident that I was ready to handle her, and
so was I. We’d run through everything, and I’d taken nearly an
entire legal pad full of notes. I glanced down at it, hoping I’d remember
everything. Coffee: Starbucks only, tall latte, two raw sugars, two napkins,
one stirrer. Breakfast: Mangia delivery, 555–3948, one soft cheese
Danish, four slices bacon, two sausage links. Newspapers: newsstand in lobby,New
York Times, Daily News, New York Post, theFinancial Times, theWashington Post,
USA Today, theWall Street Journal, Women’s Wear Daily, and theNew York
Observer on Wednesdays. Weekly magazines, available Mondays:Time, Newsweek,
U.S. News, The New Yorker (!),Time Out New York, New York, theEconomist . And
on and on it went, listing her favorite flowers and her most-hated flowers, her
doctors’ names and addresses and home phone numbers, her household help,
her snack preferences, her preferred bottled water, every size she wore in
every article of clothing from lingerie to ski boots. I made lists of people
she wanted to talk to (Always), and separate lists for people she never wanted
to talk to (Never). I wrote and wrote and wrote as Emily revealed these things
throughout our weeks together, and when we were finished, I felt there was
nothing I did not know about Miranda Priestly. Except, of course, what exactly
made her so important that I’d filled a legal pad with likes and
dislikes. Why, exactly, was I supposed to care?

 “Yeah,
he’s amazing,” Emily was sighing, twisting the phone cord round and
round her forefinger. “It was the most romantic weekend I think
I’ve ever had.”

 Ping!
You have a new e-mail from Alexander Fineman. Click here to open. Oooh, fun.
Elias-Clark had firewalled instant messenger, but for some reason I could still
receive instant notifications that I’d received a new e-mail. I’d
take it.

 Hey
baby, how’s your day?? Things are crazy here, as usual. Remember I told
you that Jeremiah had threatened all the little girls with a box cutter
he’d brought from home? Well, it seems he was serious—he brought
another one to school today and sliced one of the girls’ arms at recess
and called her a bitch. Not a deep cut at all, but when the teacher on duty asked
him where he’d gotten such an idea, he said he saw his mom’s
boyfriend do it to his mom. He’s six years old, Andy, can you believe it?
Anyway, the principal called an emergency faculty meeting tonight, so I’m
afraid I can’t make dinner. I’m so sorry! But I have to say,
I’m happy that they’re responding to this at all—it’s
more than I had hoped for. You understand, don’t you? Please don’t
be mad. I’ll call you later, and I promise to make it up to you. Love, A

 Please
don’t be mad? I hope you understand? One of his fourth-graders hadslashed
another student and he was hoping I’d be OK with him canceling dinner?
I’d canceled on him my first week because I’d thought my week of
riding around in a limo and wrapping presents had been too demanding. I wanted
to cry, to call him and tell him it was more than OK, that I was proud of him
for caring about these kids, for taking the job in the first place. I hit
“reply” and was just about to write as much when I heard my name.

 “Andrea!
She’s on her way in. She’ll be here in ten minutes,” Emily
announced loudly, obviously struggling to remain calm.

 “Hmm?
I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what—”

 “Miranda
is on her way into the office this moment. We need to get ready.”

 “On
her way into the office? But I thought she wasn’t even coming back to the
country until Saturday…”

 “Well,
clearly she changed her mind. Now, move! Go downstairs and get her papers and
lay them out just the way I told you. When you’re done, wipe down her
desk and leave a glass of Pellegrino on the left-hand side, with ice and a
lime. And make sure that her bathroom is stocked, OK? Go! She’s already
in the car, so she should be here in less than ten minutes, depending on
traffic.”

 As I
raced out of the office, I could hear Emily rapid-fire dialing four-digit
extensions and all but screaming, “She’s on her way—tell
everyone.” It took me only three seconds to wind through the hallways and
pass through the fashion department, but I already heard panicked cries of
“Emily said she’s on her way in” and “Miranda’s
coming!” and a particularly blood-curdling cry of
“She’sbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack !” Assistants were frantically
straightening clothes on the racks that lined the halls, and editors were
racing into their offices, where I could see one changing from her
kitten-heeled shoes to four-inch stilettos while another lined her lips, curled
her lashes, and adjusted her bra strap without so much as slowing down. As the
publisher walked out of the men’s room, I glanced past him and saw James,
looking frenzied, checking his black cashmere sweater for lint while
spastically popping Altoids in his mouth. Unless the men’s room was wired
with loudspeakers for these very occasions, I wasn’t even sure how
he’d heard yet.

 I was
dying to stop and watch the scene unfold, but I had less than ten minutes to
prepare for my first meeting with Miranda as her actual assistant, and I
wasn’t going to blow it. Until then I’d been trying not to appear
as if I’d been actually running, but upon witnessing the utter lack of dignity
everyone else had demonstrated, I broke into a sprint.

 “Andrea!
You know Miranda’s on her way here, don’t you?” Sophy called
from the reception desk as I flew by.

 “Yeah,
I know, but how do you know?”

 “Sweetie
pie, I know everything. Now I suggest you get your butt in gear. One
thing’s for sure: Miranda Priestly doesnot like to be kept
waiting.”

 I leapt
onto the elevator and called out a thank you. “I’ll be back in
three minutes with the papers!”

 The two
women on the elevator stared at me in disgust, and I realized that I had been
screaming.

 “Sorry,”
I said, trying to catch my breath. “We just found out that our editor in
chief is on her way to the office and we weren’t prepared, so
everyone’s a little edgy now.”Why am I explaining myself to these
people?

 “Ohmigod,
you must work for Miranda! Wait, let me guess. You’re Miranda’s new
assistant? Andrea, right?” The leggy brunette flashed what must’ve
been four dozen teeth and moved forward like a piranha. Her friend instantly
brightened.

 “Um,
yeah. Andrea,” I said, repeating my own name as though I wasn’t
entirely sure it was mine. “And yes, I’m Miranda’s new
assistant.”

 At that
moment the elevator hit the lobby and the doors opened to the stark white
marble. I moved ahead of the women and bolted through before the doors had
opened entirely and heard one of them call, “You’re a lucky girl,
Andrea. Miranda’s an amazing woman, and a million girls would die for
your job!”

 I tried
not to slam into a group of very unhappy-looking lawyers, and nearly flew into
the newsstand in the corner of the lobby, where a little Kuwaiti man named
Ahmed presided over a sleek display of glossy titles and a noticeably sparser
array of mostly sugar-free candy and diet sodas. Emily had introduced Ahmed and
me to each other before Christmas as part of my training, and I was hoping he
could be enlisted to help me now.

 “Stop
right there!” he cried as I began pulling newspapers out of their wire
racks by the register. “You are Miranda’s new girl, right? Come
here.”

 I
swiveled to see Ahmed lean down and ferret under the register, his face turning
a bit too red under the strain. “Ah-ha!” he cried again, springing
to his feet with all the agility of an old man with two broken legs. “For
you. So you don’t make a mess of my display, I keep them aside for you
each day. And maybe to make sure I don’t run out, too.” He winked.

 “Ahmed,
thank you. I can’t even tell you how much this helps me. Do you think I
should get the magazines now, too?”

 “I
sure do. Look, it’s already Wednesday and they all came out on Monday.
Your boss probably don’t like that so much,” he said knowingly. And
again he reached under the register and again he rose with an armful of
magazines, which, after a quick glance, I confirmed were all the ones on my
list—no more, no less.

 ID card,
ID card, where the hell was that goddamn ID card? I reached inside my starched
white button-down and found the silk lanyard that Emily had fashioned for me
out of one of Miranda’s white Hermès scarves. “Never
actually wear the card when she’s around, of course,” she had said,
“but just in case you forget to take it off, at least you won’t be
wearing it on a plastic chain.” She had practically spit out the last two
words.

 “Here
you go, Ahmed. Thank you so much for your help, but I’m in a big, big
rush. She’s on her way in.”

 He
swiped my card down the reader on the side of the machine and placed the scarf
lanyard around my neck like a lei. “Run, now. Run!”

 I
grabbed the overflowing plastic bag and ran, pulling my ID card out again to
swipe against the security turnstiles that would allow me to enter the
Elias-Clark elevator bank. I swiped and pushed. Nothing. I swiped and pushed
again, this time harder. Nothing.

 “Some
boys kiss me, some boys hug me, I think they’re okay-ay,”Eduardo,
the round and slightly sweaty security guard, began singing in a high-pitched
voice from behind the security desk. Shit. I already knew without looking that
his smile, conspiratorial and enormous, demanded again—as it had every
single day for the past few weeks—that I play along. It seems he had a
never-ending supply of annoying tunes that he loved to sing, and he
wouldn’t let me through the turnstiles until I acted them out. The day
before was “I’m Too Sexy.” As he sang,“I’m too
sexy for Milan, too sexy for Milan, New York and Japan,” I had to walk
down the lobby’s imaginary runway. It could be fun when I was in a decent
mood. Sometimes it even made me smile. But it was my very first day with Miranda,
and I couldn’t be late getting her things set up, I just couldn’t.
I wanted tohurt him for holding me up as everyone else breezed past the
security desk in the turnstiles on each side of me.

 “If
they don’t give me proper credit, I just walk away-ay,”I muttered,
allowing the words to stretch and fade, just like Madonna.

 He
raised his eyebrows. “Where’s the enthusiasm, girlfriend?”

 I
thought I’d do something violent if I heard his voice again, so I dropped
my bag of papers on the counter, threw both arms up in the air and thrust my
hips to the left, while pursing my lips into a dramatic pout.“A material!
A material! A material! A material… WORLD!” I all but screamed, and
he cackled and clapped andwhoosh ! He buzzed me through.

 Mental
note: Discuss with Eduardo when and where it is appropriate to make a complete
ass of me.Once again, I dove onto the elevators and raced past Sophy, who
kindly opened the doors to the floor without my even asking. I even remembered
to stop in one of the minikitchens and put some ice in one of the Baccarat
goblets we kept in a special cabinet over the microwave just for Miranda. Glass
in one hand, newspapers in another, I peeled around the corner and smashed
directly into Jessica, a.k.a. Manicure Girl. She looked both annoyed and
panic-stricken.

 “Andrea,
are you aware that Miranda is on her way to the office?” she asked,
looking me up and down.

 “Sure
am. I’ve got her newspapers right here and her water right here, and now
I just need to get them back to her office. If you’ll excuse me…”

 “Andrea!”
she called as I ran past her, an ice cube flying out of the glass and landing
outside the art department. “Remember to change your shoes!”

 I
stopped dead in my tracks and looked down. I was wearing a pair of funky street
sneakers, the kind that weren’t designed to do anything but look cool.
The rules of dress—unspoken and otherwise—were obviously relaxed
when Miranda was away, and even though every single person in the office looked
fantastic, each was wearing something they would swear up and down that
they’d never, ever wear in front of Miranda. My bright red, mesh sneakers
were a prime example.