The Devil Wears Prada (30 page)

 The
Closet wasn’t really a closet at all. It was more like a small
auditorium. Along the perimeter were walls of shoes in every size and color and
style, a virtual Willy Wonka’s factory for fashionistas, with dozens of
slingbacks, stilettos, ballet flats, high-heeled boots, open-toe sandals,
beaded heels. Stacked drawers, some built-in and others just shoved in corners,
held every imaginable configuration of stockings, socks, bras, panties, slips,
camisoles, and corsets. Need a last-minute leopard-print push-up bra from La
Perla? Check the Closet. How about a pair of flesh-colored fishnets or those Dior
aviators? In the Closet. The accessories shelves and drawers took up the
farthest two walls, and the sheer amount of merchandise—not to mention
its value—was staggering. Fountain pens. Jewelry. Bed linens. Mufflers
and gloves and ski caps. Pajamas. Capes. Shawls. Stationery. Silk flowers.
Hats, so many hats. And bags. The bags! There were totes and bowling bags,
backpacks and under-arms, over-shoulders and minis, oversize and clutches,
envelopes and messengers, each bearing an exclusive label and a price tag of
more than the average American’s monthly mortgage payment. And then there
were the racks and racks of clothes—pushed so tightly together it was
impossible to walk among them—that occupied every remaining inch of
space.

 So
during the day Jeffy would attempt to make the Closet a semi-usable space where
models (and assistants like myself) could try on clothes and actually reach
some of the shoes and bags in the back by pushing all of the racks into the
halls. I’d yet to see a single visitor to the floor—whether writer
or boyfriend or messenger or stylist—not stop dead in his or her tracks
and gape at the couture-lined hallways. Sometimes the racks were arranged by
shoot (Sydney, Santa Barbara) and other times by item (bikinis, skirt suits),
but mostly it just seemed like a haplessly casual mishmash ofreally expensive
stuff . And although everyone stopped and stared and fingered the butter-soft
cashmeres and the intricately beaded evening gowns, it was the Clackers who
hovered possessively over “their” clothes and provided constant,
streaming commentary on each and every piece.

 “Maggie
Rizer is the only woman in theworld who can actually wear these capris,”
Hope, one of the fashion assistants—weighing a whopping 105 pounds and
clocking in at six-one—loudly announced outside our office suite while
holding the pants in front of her legs and sighing. “They would make my
ass look even more gigantic than it already is.”

 “Andrea,”
called her friend, a girl I didn’t know very well who worked in
accessories, “please tell Hope she’s not fat.”

 “You’re
not fat,” I said, my mouth on autopilot. It would’ve saved me many,
many hours to have a shirt printed up that said as much, or perhaps to just
have the phrase tattooed directly on my forehead. I was constantly called on to
assure variousRunway employees that they weren’t fat.

 “Ohmigod,
have you seen my gut lately? I’m like the fucking Firestone store, spare
tires everywhere. I’m huge!” Fat was on everyone’s minds, if
not actually their bodies. Emily swore that her thighs had a “wider
circumference than a giant sequoia.” Jessica believed that her
“jiggly upper arms” looked like Roseanne Barr’s. Even James
complained that his ass had looked so big that morning when he got out of the
shower that he’d “contemplated calling in fat to work.”

 In the
beginning I’d responded to the myriad am-I-fat questions with what I
thought to be an exceedingly rational reply. “If you’re fat, Hope,
what does that make me? I’m two inches shorter than you and I weigh
more.”

 “Oh,
Andy, be serious.I am fat.You’re thin and gorgeous!”

 Naturally
I thought she was lying, but I soon came to realize that Hope—along with
every other anorexically skinny girl in the office, and most of the
guys—was able to accurately evaluate other people’s weight. It was
just when it came time to look in the mirror that everyone genuinely saw a
wildebeest staring back.

 Of
course, as much as I tried to keep it at bay, to remind myself over and over
that I was normal and they weren’t, the constant fat comments had made an
impression. It’d only been four months I’d been working, but my
mind was now skewed enough—not to mention paranoid—that I sometimes
thought these comments were directed intentionally to me. As in: I, the tall, gorgeous,
svelte fashion assistant, am pretending to think I’m fat just so you, the
lumpy, stumpy personal assistant will realize that you are indeed the fat one.
At five-ten and 115 pounds (the same weight as when my body was racked with
parasites), I’d always considered myself on the thinner side of girls my
age. I’d also spent my life until then feeling taller than ninety percent
of the women I met, and at least half the guys. Not until starting work at this
delusional place did I know what it was like to feel short and fat, all day,
every day. I was easily the troll of the group, the squattest and the widest,
and I wore a size six. And just in case I failed to consider this for a moment,
the daily chitchat and gossip could surely remind me.

 “Dr.
Eisenberg said that the Zone only works if you swear off fruit, too, you
know,” Jessica added, joining the conversation by plucking a skirt from
the Narcisco Rodriguez rack. Newly engaged to one of the youngest vice
presidents at Goldman Sachs, Jessica was feeling the pressures of her upcoming
society wedding. “And she’s right. I’ve lost at least another
ten pounds since my last fitting.” I forgave her for starving herself
when she barely had enough body fat to function normally, but I just
couldn’t forgive her fortalking about it. I could not, no matter how
impressive the doctors’ names were or how many success stories she
prattled on about, bring myself tocare .

 At
around one the office really picked up pace, because everyone began getting
ready for lunch. Not that there was any eating associated with the lunch hour,
but it was the prime time of day for guests. I watched lazily as the usual
array of stylists, contributors, freelancers, friends, and lovers stopped by to
revel in and generally soak up the glamour that naturally accompanied hundreds
of thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes, dozens of gorgeous faces, and
what felt like an unlimited amount of really, really, really long legs.

 Jeffy
made his way over to me as soon as he could confirm that both Miranda and Emily
had left for lunch and handed me two enormous shopping bags.

 “Here,
check this stuff out. This should be a pretty good start.”

 I dumped
the contents of one bag onto the floor beside my desk and began sorting. There
were Joseph pants in camel and charcoal gray, both long and lean and
low-waisted, made from an incredibly soft wool. A pair of brown suede Gucci
pants looked as though they could turn any schlub into a supermodel, while two
pairs of perfectly faded Marc Jacobs jeans looked like they were custom cut for
my body. There were eight or nine options for tops, ranging from a skintight
ribbed turtleneck sweater by Calvin Klein to a teeny, completely sheer peasant
blouse by Donna Karan. A dynamite graphic Diane Von Furstenburg wrap-dress was
folded neatly over a navy, velvet Tahari pantsuit. I spotted and immediately
fell in love with an all-around pleated Habitual denim skirt that would fall
just above my knees and look perfect with the decidedly funky floral-printed
Katayone Adelie blazer.

 “These
clothes… this is all for me?” I asked, hoping I sounded excited and
not offended.

 “Yeah,
it’s nothing. Just some things that have been lying around the Closet
forever. We might have used some of it in shoots, but none of it ever got
returned to the companies. Every few months or so I clean out the Closet and
give this stuff away, and I figured you, uh, might be interested. You’re
a size six, right?”

 I
nodded, still dumbfounded.

 “Yeah,
I could tell. Most everyone else is a two or smaller, so you’re welcome to
all of it.”

 Ouch.
“Great. This is just great. Jeffy, I can’t thank you enough.
It’s all amazing!”

 “Check
out the second bag,” he said, motioning to where it sat on the floor.
“You don’t think you can pull off that velvet suit with that shitty
messenger bag you’re always dragging around, do you?”

 The
second, even more bulging bag spilled forth a stunning array of shoes, bags,
and a couple of coats. There were two pairs of high-heeled Jimmy Choo
boots—one ankle- and one knee-length—two pairs of open-toe Manolo
stiletto sandals, a pair of classic black Prada pumps, and one pair of Tod
loafers, which Jeffy immediately reminded me to never wear to the office. I
slung a slouchy red suede bag over my shoulder and immediately saw the two
intersecting “C”s carved in the front, but that wasn’t nearly
as beautiful as the deep chocolate leather from the Celine tote that I threw on
my other arm. A long military-style trench with the signature oversize Marc
Jacobs buttons topped it all off.

 “You’re
joking,” I said softly, fondling a pair of Dior sunglasses he’d
apparently thrown in as an afterthought. “You’ve got to be
kidding.”

 He
looked pleased with my reaction and ducked his head. “Just do me a favor
and wear it, OK? And don’t tell anyone that I gave you first pick on all
this stuff, because they live for the Closet clean-outs, you hear?” He
bolted from the suite when we heard Emily’s voice call out to someone
down the hall, and I shoved my new clothes under my desk.

 Emily
came back from the dining room with her usual lunch: an all-natural fruit
smoothie and a small to-go container of iceberg lettuce topped with broccoli
and balsamic vinegar. Not vinaigrette. Vinegar. Miranda would be in any
minute—Uri had just called to say he was dropping her off—so I
didn’t have my usually luxurious seven minutes to beeline to the soup
table and gulp it down back at my desk. The minutes ticked by and I was
starving, but I just didn’t have the energy to weave through the Clackers
and get examined by the cashier and wonder if I was doing permanent damage by
swallowing piping hot (and fattening!) soup so fast that I could feel the heat
coursing down my esophagus.Not worth it, I thought.Skipping a single meal
won’t kill you, I told myself.In fact, according to every single one of
your sane and stable coworkers, it’ll just make you stronger. And
besides, $2,000 pants don’t look so hot on girls who gorge themselves, I
rationalized. I slumped down in my chair and thought of how well I had just
representedRunway magazine.

11

 The cell
phone shrilled from somewhere deep in my dream, but consciousness took over
long enough for me to wonder if it was her. After a stunningly fast orientation
process—Where am I? Who is “she”? What day is it?—I
realized that having the phone ring at eight on a Saturday morning was not a
good omen. None of my friends would be awake for hours, and after years of
getting screened out, my parents had grudgingly accepted that their daughter
wasn’t answering until noon. In the seven seconds it took to figure all
this out, I was also contemplating a reason why I should pick up this phone
call. Emily’s reasons from the first day came back to me, though, and so
I started my arm in a floor sweep from the comfort of my bed. I managed to click
it open just before it stopped ringing.

 “Hello?”
I was proud that my voice sounded strong and clear, as though I’d spent
the past few hours working hard at something respectable rather than passed out
in a sleep that was so deep, so intense, it couldn’t possibly have
indicated good things about my health.

 “Morning,
honey! Glad to hear you’re awake. I just wanted to tell you that
we’re in the sixties on Third, so I’ll be there in just ten minutes
or so, OK?” My mom’s voice came booming over the line. Moving day!
It was moving day! I’d forgotten entirely that my parents had agreed to
come into the city to help me pack my stuff up and take it to the new apartment
Lily and I had rented. We were going to lug the boxes of clothes and CDs and
picture albums while the real movers tackled my massive bed frame.

 “Oh,
hi, Mom,” I mumbled, lapsing back into tired-voice mode. “I thought
you were her.”

 “Nope,
you’ve got yourself a break today. Anyway, where should we park? Is there
a garage right around there?”

 “Yeah,
right under my building, just enter right from Third. Give them my apartment
number in the building and you’ll get a discount. I’ve got to get
dressed. I’ll see you soon.”