The Devil Wears Prada (24 page)

 I
expensed twenty-four dollars more every day on coffee than necessary
(Miranda’s single latte should’ve cost a mere four dollars) to take
yet another passive-aggressive swipe at the company, my personal reprimand to
them for Miranda Priestly’s free rein. I handed them out to the filthy,
the smelly, and the crazy because that—and not the wasted money—was
what wouldreally piss them off.

 By the
time I made it to the lobby, Pedro, the heavily accented Mexican delivery boy
from Mangia, was chatting in Spanish with Eduardo near the elevator bank.

 “Hey,
here’s our girlie,” said Pedro as a few Clackers peered over at us.
“I’ve got the usual: bacon, sausage, and one nasty-looking cheese
thing. You only ordered one today! Don’t know how you eat this shit and
stay so thin, girl.” He grinned. I suppressed the urge to tell him he
didn’t have a clue what thin looked like. Pedro knew full well that I was
not the one eating his breakfasts, but like every one of the dozen or so people
I spoke to before eightA .M. each day, he didn’t really know the details.
I handed him a ten, as usual, for the $3.99 breakfast, and headed upstairs.

 She was
on the phone when I entered the office, her snakeskin Gucci trench draped
across the top of my desk. My blood pressure increased tenfold. Would it kill
her to take the extra two steps over to the closet, open it, and hang up her
own coat? Why did she have to take it off and fling it over my desk? I put down
the latte, looked over at Emily, who was too busy answering three phone lines
to notice me, and hung up the snakeskin. I shook off my own coat and bent down
to toss it underneath my desk, since mine might infect hers if they mingled in
the closet.

 I
grabbed two raw sugars, a stirrer, and a napkin from a stock I kept in my desk
drawer and wrapped them all together. I briefly considered spitting in the
drink but was able to restrain myself. Next, I pulled a small china plate from
the overhead bin and dumped out the greasy meat and the oozing Danish, wiping
my hands on her dirty dry cleaning, which was hidden beneath my desk so she
couldn’t see it hadn’t been picked up yet. I was theoretically
supposed to clean her plate each day in the sink in our mock-up kitchen, but I
just couldn’t bring myself to bother. The humiliation of doing her dishes
in front of everyone prompted me to wipe it down with tissues after each meal
and scrape off any leftover cheese with my fingernails. If it was really dirty
or had been sitting for a long time, I’d open a bottle of the Pellegrino
we kept by the case and dump a little bit on. I figured she should be thankful
I wasn’t using a spritz or two of desk cleaner. I was reasonably sure
that I had reached a new moral low—what was worrisome was that I’d
sunk to it so naturally.

 “Remember,
I want my girls smiling,” she was saying into the phone. I could tell
from her tone she was talking to Lucia, the fashion director who’d be in
charge of the upcoming Brazil shoot, about how the models should appear.
“Happy, lots of teeth, clean healthy girls. No brooding, no anger, no
frowning, no dark makeup. I want them shining. I mean it, Lucia: I will accept
nothing less.”

 I set
the plate on the edge of her desk and placed the latte and the napkin with all
necessary accessories next to it. She didn’t look at me. I paused for a
moment to see if she’d hand me a pile of papers off her desk, things to
fax or find or file, but she ignored me and I walked out. Eight-thirtyA .M.
I’d been awake now for three full hours, felt like I’d already
worked for twelve, and could finally sit down for the very first time all morning.
Just as I was logging on to Hotmail, anticipating some fun e-mails from people
on the outside, she walked out. The belted jacket cinched her already tiny
waist and complemented the perfectly fitted pencil skirt she wore beneath it.
She looked dynamite.

 “Ahn-dre-ah.
The latte is ice cold. I don’t understand why. You were certainly gone
long enough! Bring me another.”

 I
inhaled deeply and concentrated on keeping the look of hatred off my face.
Miranda set the offending latte on my desk and flipped through the new issue
ofVanity Fair that a staffer had set on the table for her. I could feel Emily
watching me and knew her look would be one of sympathy and anger: she felt bad
that I had to repeat the hellish ordeal all over again, but she hated me for
daring to be upset about it. After all, wouldn’t a million girls die for
my job?

 And so
with an audible sigh—something I’d perfected lately, so it was just
enough Miranda could hear but not nearly enough she could ever call me on
it—I once again put on my coat and willed my legs to move toward the
elevators. It was going to be another long, long day.

 The
second coffee run in twenty minutes went much more smoothly; the lines at
Starbucks had thinned a little and Marion had come on duty. She herself got to
work on a tall latte as soon as I walked in the door. I didn’t bother
overspending on a larger order this time because I was too desperate to just
get back and sit down, but I did addventi cappuccinos for both Emily and me.
Just as I was paying for the coffee, my phone rang. Goddamn it to hell, this
woman was impossible. Insatiable, impatient, impossible. I hadn’t been
gone for more than four minutes; she couldn’t possibly be freaking out
yet. Again, I balanced my tray in one hand and pulled my phone from my coat
pocket. I’d already decided that such behavior on her part warranted my
having another cigarette—if just to hold up her coffee a few minutes
longer—when I saw that it was Lily calling from her home phone.

 “Hey,
bad time?” she asked, sounding excited. I looked at my watch and saw that
she should’ve been in class.

 “Um,
sort of. I’m on my second coffee run, which is really great. I’m
really, really enjoying myself, just in case you were wondering. What’s
up? Don’t you have class now?”

 “Yeah,
but I went out with Pink-Shirt Boy again last night and we each drank a few too
many margaritas. Like, eight too many. He’s still passed out here, so I
can’t just leave him. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

 “Yeah?”
I was barely listening, since one of the cappuccinos was starting to leak and I
had the phone wedged in between my neck and my shoulder as I used my one free
hand to pluck a cigarette from the box and light it.

 “My
landlord had the nerve to knock on my door at eight o’clock this morning
to tell me that I’m being evicted,” she said with not a little bit
of glee in her voice.

 “Evicted?
Lil, why? What are you going to do?”

 “It
seems they finally caught on that I’m not Sandra Gers and that she
hasn’t lived here in six months. Since she’s technically not
family, she wasn’t allowed to pass down the rent-controlled apartment to
me. I knew that, of course, so I’ve just been saying I’m her. I
don’t really know how they found out. But whatev, it doesn’t really
matter, because now you and I can live together! Your lease with Shanti and
Kendra is just month by month, right? You subletted because you had no place to
live, right?”

 “Right.”

 “Well,
now you do! We can get a place together, anywhere we like!”

 “That’s
great!” It sounded hollow to my ears even though I was genuinely excited.

 “So
you’re up for it?” she asked, her enthusiasm sounding a bit
dampened.

 “Lil,
definitely. Honestly, it’s an awesome idea. I don’t mean to sound
negative, it’s just that it’s sleeting and I’m standing
outside and I have burning hot coffee running down my left
arm…”Beep-beep. The other line rang, and even though I almost
burned my neck with the lit end of the cigarette while trying to pull my phone
away from my ear, I was able to see that it was Emily calling.

 “Shit,
Lil, it’s Miranda calling. I’ve got to run. But congrats on getting
evicted! I’m so excited for us. I’ll call you later, OK?”

 “OK,
I’ll talk to—”

 I had
already clicked over and mentally prepared myself for the barrage.

 “Me
again,” Emily said tightly. “What the hell is going on? It’s
a fucking coffee, for chrissake. You forget that I used to do your job, and I
know it doesn’t take that long to—”

 “What?”
I said loudly, holding a few fingers over the microphone on the receiver.
“What’d you say? I can’t hear you. Well, if you can hear me,
I’ll be back in just a minute!” And I clicked my phone shut and
buried it deep in my pocket. And even though I had at least half a Marlboro
left, I dropped it on the sidewalk and ran back to work.

 Miranda
deigned to accept this slightly warmer latte and even gave us a few moments of
peace between ten and eleven, when she sat in her office with the door closed,
cooing to B-DAD. I’d officially met him for the first time the week
before, when I’d dropped the Book off that Wednesday night around nine.
He had been removing his coat from the closet in the foyer and spent the next
ten minutes referring to himself in the third person. Since that meeting, he
had paid me extra-special attention when I let myself in each night, always
taking a few minutes to ask about my day or compliment me on a job well done.
Naturally, none of these niceties seemed to rub off on his wife, but at least
he was pleasant to be around.

 I was
just about to begin calling some of the PR people to see about getting a few
more decent clothes to wear to work when Miranda’s voice shook me from my
thoughts. “Emily, I’d like my lunch.” She had called from her
office to no one in particular, since Emily could mean either of us. The real
Emily looked at me and nodded, and I knew it was OK to move. The number for
Smith and Wollensky was programmed into my desk phone, and I recognized the
voice on the other end as the new girl.

 “Hey,
Kim, it’s Andrea from Miranda Priestly’s office. Is Sebastian
there?”

 “Oh,
hi, um, what did you say your name was again?” No matter that I called at
the exact same time, twice a week, and had already identified myself—she
always acted as though we’d never spoken.

 “From
Miranda Priestly’s office. AtRunway . Listen, I don’t mean to be
rude”—yes, actually, I do—“but I’m kind of in a
hurry. Could you just put Sebastian on?” If anyone else had answered I
would’ve been able to just tell that person to put in an order for
Miranda’s usual, but since this one was too dumb to be trusted, I had
learned to ask for the manager himself.

 “Um,
OK, let me check and see if he’s available.”Trust me, Kim,
he’s available. Miranda Priestly is his life.

 “Andy,
dear, how are you?” Sebastian breathed into the phone. “I hope
you’re calling because our favorite fashion editor would like some lunch
today, yes?”

 I
wondered what he’d say if I told him, just once, that it wasn’t
Miranda who was looking for lunch, but me. After all, this wasn’t exactly
a takeout joint, but they made a special exception for the queen herself.

 “Oh,
yes, indeed. She was just saying how much she was in the mood for something
delicious from your restaurant, and she also said to send her love.” If
under threat of death or dismemberment Miranda wouldn’t have been able to
identify the name of the place that made her lunch each day, never even mind
the name of its daytime manager, but he always seemed so happy when I said
something like this. Today he was so excited he giggled.

 “Fab!
That’s just fabulous! We’ll have it ready for you as soon as you
get here,” he called with fresh excitement in his voice.
“Can’t wait! And give her my love, too, of course!”

 “Of
course I will. See you soon.” It was exhausting to stroke his ego so
enthusiastically, but he made my job so much easier it was well worth it. Every
day that Miranda didn’t have lunch out, I served her the same meal at her
desk, and she leisurely ate it behind closed doors. I kept a supply of china
plates in the bins above my desk for this purpose. Most were samples sent by
designers whose new “home” lines had just come out, although some I
just took directly from the dining room. It would have been too annoying to
have to keep stock of things like gravy trays and steak knives and linen
napkins, though, so Sebastian was always sure to provide those with the meal.

 And once
again I shrugged on my black wool coat and jammed my cigarettes and phone in
the pocket and headed outside, into a late February day that seemed to get only
grayer as it progressed. Although it was just a fifteen-minute walk to the
restaurant on 49th and Third, I considered calling for a car but thought better
of it when I felt the clean air in my lungs. I lit a cigarette and drew the
smoke in; when I exhaled, I wasn’t sure if it was smoke or cold air or
irritation, but it felt damn good.