The Devil Wears Prada (38 page)

 “DON’T
‘NIGEL’ ME, HONEY. GO TALK TO JEFFY AND TELL HIM I SENT YOU. TELL
HIM TO GIVE YOU THE NEW CALVIN TANK WE CALLED IN FOR THE MIAMI SHOOT.
IT’S THE ONE THAT GORGEOUS BLACK MODEL—OH MY, HE’S AS TASTY
AS A THICK, CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE—IS ASSIGNED TO WEAR. GO ON NOW, SHOO. BUT
BE SURE TO COME BACK HERE AND SHOW ME WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE!”

 James
scampered off like a recently fed bunny rabbit, and Nigel turned to look at us.
“HAVE YOU PUT IN HER CLOTHING ORDER YET?” he asked no one in
particular.

 “No,
she won’t choose until she has the look-books,” Emily answered,
looking bored. “She said she’ll do it when she gets back.”

 “WELL,
JUST BE SURE TO LET ME KNOW AHEAD OF TIME SO I CAN CLEAR MY SCHEDULE FOR THAT
PARTY!” He took off in the direction of the Closet, probably to try to
catch a glimpse of James changing.

 I’d
already lived through one round of Miranda wardrobe ordering, and it
hadn’t been pretty. When at the shows, she went from runway to runway,
sketchbook in hand, preparing herself to come back to the States and tell New
York society what they would be wearing—and middle America what
they’d like to be wearing—via the only runway that actually
mattered. Little did I know that Miranda was also paying particular attention
to the outfits cruising down the runways because it was her first glance at
what she herself would be wearing in the upcoming months.

 A couple
weeks after returning to the office, Miranda had handed Emily a list of
designers whose look-books she’d like to see. As the usual suspects
rushed to get their books put together for her—their runway photographs
often weren’t even developed, never mind airbrushed and bound, before she
demanded to see them—everyone atRunway was put on alert that the books
would be arriving. Nigel would need to be ready, of course, to help her flip
through them all and select her personal outfits. An accessories editor should
be on hand to choose bags and shoes, and perhaps an extra fashion editor to
ensure that everyone was in agreement—especially if the order included
something big, like a fur coat or an evening gown. When the various houses had
finally pieced together the different items she’d requested,
Miranda’s personal tailor would come toRunway for a few days to fit
everything. Jeffy would completely empty out the Closet, and no one would
really be able to get any work done at all, since Miranda and her tailor would
be holed up in there for hours on end. On the first go-round of fittings,
I’d walked by the Closet just in time to hear Nigel shouting,
“MIRANDA PRIESTLY! TAKE THAT RAG OFF THIS SECOND. THAT DRESS MAKES YOU
LOOK LIKE A SLUT! A COMMON WHORE!” I’d stood outside with my ear
pressed to the door—literally risking life and limb if it were to swing
open—and waited for her to upbraid him in that special way of hers, but
all I heard was a quiet murmur of agreement and the rustling of the fabric as
she removed the dress.

 Now that
I had been there long enough, it seemed as though the honor of ordering Miranda’s
clothes would fall to me. Four times a year, like clockwork, she flipped
through look-books like they were her own personal catalogs and selected
Alexander McQueen suits and Balenciaga pants like they were T-shirts from
L.L.Bean. A yellow sticky on this pair of Fendi pencil pants, another placed
squarely over the Chanel skirt suit, a third with a big “NO”
plastered across the matching silk top. Flip, stick, flip, stick, on and on it
went, until she had selected a full season’s wardrobe directly from the runway,
clothes that had most likely not yet even been made.

 I’d
watched as Emily had faxed Miranda’s choices to the different designers,
omitting any size or color preference, since anyone worth their Manolos knew
what would work for Miranda Priestly. Of course, merely being made to the
correct size wasn’t enough—when the clothes did arrive at the
magazine, they’d need to be cut and tucked to make them appear
custom-made. Only when the entire wardrobe was completely ordered, shipped,
snipped, and delivered expressly to her bedroom closet by chauffeured limousine
would Miranda relinquish last season’s clothes and heaps of Yves and
Celine and Helmut Lang would find their way—in garbage bags—back to
the office. Most were only four or six months old, stuff that had been worn
once or twice or, most often, not at all. Everything was still so incredibly
stylish, so ludicrously hip, that it wasn’t yet available in most stores,
but once it was last season, it was about as likely to show up on Miranda as a pair
of pleather pants from Target’s new Massimo line.

 Occasionally
I’d find a tank top or an oversize jacket I could keep, but the fact that
everything was in a size zero was a bit of a problem. Mostly we distributed the
clothes to anyone with preteen daughters, the only ones who had a shot in hell
of actually fitting into the stuff. I pictured little girls with bodies like
little boys strutting around in Prada lipstick skirts and slinky Dolce and
Gabbana dresses with spaghetti straps. If there was something really dynamite,
really expensive, I’d pull it from the garbage bag and stash it under my
desk until I could smuggle it home safely. A few quick clicks on eBay or
perhaps a little visit to one of the upscale consignment shops on Madison
Avenue, and my salary all of a sudden wasn’t so depressing. Not stealing,
I rationalized, simply utilizing what was available to me.

 Miranda
called six more times between the hours of six and nine in the
evening—midnight to threeA .M. her time—to have us connect her to
various people who were already in Paris. I fielded them listlessly,
uneventfully, until I went to gather my things and try to sneak out for the
night before the phone rang again. It wasn’t until I was climbing
exhaustedly into my coat that I caught a glimpse of the note that I’d
stuck to my monitor just so this very thing wouldn’t happen: CALL A,
3:30P.M. TODAY. My head felt like it was swimming, my contacts had long before
dried to tiny, hard shards covering my eyes, and at this point my head started
to throb. No sharp pains, just that nebulous, dull kind of ache where you
can’t pinpoint the center but you know it will build and build in a slow,
burning intensity until you either manage to pass out or your head just
explodes. In the frenzy of all the calls that had produced such anxiety, such
panic, from across an ocean, I had forgotten to take the thirty seconds out of
my day and call Alex when he’d asked me to. Simply up and forgotten to do
something so simple for someone who never seemed to need anything from me.

 I sat
down in the now darkened and silent office and picked up the phone that was
still a little wet from my sweaty hands during Miranda’s last call a few
minutes earlier. His home line rang and rang until the machine picked up, but
he answered on the first ring when I tried his cell phone.

 “Hi,”
he said, knowing it was me from the caller ID. “How was your day?”

 “Whatever,
usual. Alex, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you at three-thirty. I
can’t even get into it—it’s just that things were so crazy
here, she just kept calling and—”

 “Hey,
forget it. Not a big deal. Listen, now’s not really a great time for me.
Can I call you tomorrow?” He sounded distracted, his voice taking on that
faraway quality of someone talking from an international payphone on the beach
of a tiny village across the world.

 “Um,
sure. But is everything OK? Will you just quickly tell me what you wanted to
talk about before? I’ve been really worried that everything’s not
OK.”

 He was
quiet for a moment and then said, “Yeah, well it doesn’t seem like
you were all that worried. I ask you one time to call me at a time that’s
convenient for me—not to mention that your boss isn’t even in the
country right now—and you can’t manage to do that until six hours
after the fact. Not really a sign of someone who’s genuinely concerned,
you know?” He stated all of this with no sarcasm, no disapproval, just a
simple summary of the facts.

 I was
twisting the phone cord around my finger until it cut off the circulation
entirely, making the knuckle bulge out and the tip turn white; there was also a
brief, metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the first realization that I had
been gnawing on the inside of my bottom lip.

 “Alex,
it’s not that I forgot to call,” I lied openly, trying to extricate
myself from his nonaccusatory accusation. “I simply didn’t have a
single second free, and since it sounded like something serious, I didn’t
want to call just to have to hang up again. I mean, she must have called me two
dozen times just this afternoon, and each one is an absolute emergency. Emily
took off at five and left me all alone with that phone, and Miranda just
didn’t stop. She just kept calling and calling and calling, and every
time I went to call you, it’d be her again on the other line. I, uh, you
know?”

 My
rapid-fire list of excuses sounded pathetic even to me, but I couldn’t
stop. He knew I had just forgotten, and so did I. Not because I didn’t
care or wasn’t concerned, but because all things non-Miranda somehow
ceased to be relevant the moment I arrived at work. In some ways I still
didn’t understand and certainly couldn’t explain—never mind
ask anyone else to understand—how the outside world just melted into
nonexistence, that the only thing remaining when everything else vanished
wasRunway . It was especially difficult to explain this phenomenon when it was
the single thing in my life I despised. And yet, it was the only one that
mattered.

 “Listen,
I have to get back to Joey. He has two friends over and they’ve probably
torn apart the entire house by this point.”

 “Joey?
Does that mean you’re in Larchmont? You don’t usually watch him on
Wednesdays. Is everything OK?” I was hoping to steer him away from the
blatantly obvious fact that I had gotten too wrapped up at work for six straight
hours, and this seemed like the best path. He’d tell me how his mom had
gotten held up at work accidentally or perhaps had to go see Joey’s
teacher for conferences that night when the regular babysitter canceled.
He’d never complain of course—that just wasn’t his
style—but he’d at least tell me what was going on.

 “Yeah,
yeah, everything’s fine. My mom just had an emergency client meeting
tonight. Andy, I can’t really talk about it now. I was just calling
before with some good news. But you didn’t call me back,” he said
flatly.

 I
wrapped the phone cord, which had begun to slowly unravel, so tight around my
pointer and middle fingers that they began to pulsate. “I’m
sorry” was all I could manage, because even though I knew he was right,
that I was insensitive not to have called, I was too worn out to present a huge
defense. “Alex, please. Please don’t punish me by not telling me
something good. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone has called
with good news? Please. Give me that at least.” I knew he’d respond
to my rational approach, and he did.

 “Look,
it’s not that exciting. I just went ahead and made all the arrangements
for us to go back for our first homecoming together.”

 “You
did? Really? We’re going?” I’d brought it up a couple times
before in what I’d liked to believe had been an offhand and casual way,
but in a decidedly non-Alex fashion he’d been hedging on committing to
our going together. It was really early to be planning any of it, but the
hotels and restaurants in Providence were always full months ahead of time.
I’d dropped it a few weeks earlier, figuring that we would figure
something out, find a place to stay somewhere. But somehow, of course,
he’d picked up on just how badly I wanted to go with him, and he’d
figured out everything.

 “Yeah,
it’s done. We have a rental car—a Jeep, actually—and I
reserved a room at the Biltmore.”

 “At
the Biltmore? You’re kidding? You got a room there? That’s
amazing.”

 “Yeah,
well, you’ve always talked about wanting to stay there, so I figured we
should try it. I even made a reservation for brunch on Sunday at Al Forno for
ten people, so we can each gather up the troops and have everyone in one place
at one time.”

 “No
way. You did all of this already?”

 “Sure.
I thought you’d be really psyched. That’s why I was really looking
forward to telling you about it. But apparently you were too busy to call
back.”

 “Alex,
I’m thrilled. I can’t even tell you how excited I am, and I
can’t believe you figured everything out already. I’m really sorry
about before, but I can’t wait for October. We’re going to have the
best time, thanks to you.”

 We
talked for another couple minutes. By the time I hung up, he didn’t sound
mad anymore, but I could barely move. The effort to win him back, to find the right
words not only to convince him that I hadn’t overlooked him but also to
reassure him that I was appropriately grateful and enthusiastic had drained the
last reserves of my energy. I don’t remember getting into the car or the
ride home or whether or not I said hello to John Fisher-Galliano in the lobby
of my building. Besides a bone-deep exhaustion that hurt so much it almost felt
good, the only thing I remember feeling at all was relief that Lily’s
door was shut and no light peeked out from under it. I thought about ordering
in some food, but the mere thought of locating a menu and a phone was too
overwhelming—another meal that simply wasn’t happening.