The Devil Wears Prada (41 page)

 “Andrea,
a pleasure to meet you,” Gabriel said, extending a hand and taking mine
in one of those annoyingly delicate
I’m-not-shaking-your-hand-as-I-would-a-man’s-because-I’m-sure-I’d-just-snap-your-girly-little-bones-in-half
clutches. “Christian has told me a lot about you.”

 “Really?”
I said, pressing a bit more firmly, which only caused him to loosen his already
slack grip. “All good, I hope?”

 “Of
course. He said you’re an aspiring writer, like our mutual friend
here.” He smiled.

 I was
surprised to hear that he actually had heard about me from Christian, since our
conversation about writing had sounded like just small talk. “Yes, well,
I love to write, so hopefully someday…”

 “Well,
if you’re half as good as some of the other people he’s sent my
way, then I look forward to reading your work.” He dug around in an
inside pocket and produced a leather case, from which he drew out a business
card. “I know you’re not ready yet, but when it does come time to
show your stuff to someone, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.”

 It took
every ounce of willpower and strength to remain standing upright, to make sure
that my mouth had not flopped open or my knees had not just given out.Hope
you’ll keep me in mind? The man who represented Christian Collinsworth,
literary boy genius extraordinaire, had just asked if I would keep him in mind.
This was craziness.

 “Why
thank you,” I croaked, tucking the card into my bag, from where I knew I
would pull it out and examine every inch of it the first chance I got. They
both smiled at me, and it took a minute for me to recognize this as my cue to
leave. “Well, Mr. Brooks, um, Gabriel, it was really great meeting you.
I’ve got to be getting home now, but hopefully we’ll cross paths
soon.”

 “My
pleasure, Andrea. Congratulations again on scoring such a fantastic job. Right
out of college and working atRunway . Very impressive.”

 “I’ll
walk you out,” Christian said, placing a hand on my elbow and motioning
to Gabriel that he’d be right back.

 We
stopped at the bar so I could tell Lily that I was heading home, and she
unnecessarily told me—in between William’s nuzzlings—that she
wouldn’t be joining me. At the foot of the stairs that would take me back
to street level, Christian kissed me on the cheek.

 “Great
running into you tonight. And I have a feeling I’m going to have to hear
Gabriel talk about how great you are now, too.” He grinned.

 “We
barely exchanged two words,” I pointed out, wondering why everyone was
being so complimentary.

 “Yes,
Andy, but what you don’t seem to realize is that the writing world is a
small one. Whether you write mysteries or feature stories or newspaper
articles, everyone knows everyone. Gabriel doesn’t have to know much
about you to know that you have potential: you were good enough to get a job
atRunway, you sound bright and articulate when you talk, and hell, you’re
a friend of mine. He’s got nothing to lose by giving you his card. What
does he know? He could have just discovered the next best-selling author. And
trust me—Gabriel Brooks is a good man for you to know.”

 “Hmm,
I guess you’re right. Well, anyway, I’ve got to get home since
I’ve got to be at work again in a few hours anyway. Thanks for
everything. I really appreciate it.” I leaned up to kiss him on the
cheek, half expecting him to turn his face forward and half wanting him to, but
he just smiled.

 “More
than my pleasure, Andrea Sachs. Have a good night.” And before I could
come up with anything remotely clever to say, he was headed back to Gabriel.

 I rolled
my eyes at myself and headed to the street to hail a cab. It had started to
rain—nothing torrential, just a light, steady stream—so of course
there wasn’t a single cab free anywhere in Manhattan. I called the
Elias-Clark car service, gave them my VIP number, and had a car screeching to
the curb exactly six minutes later. Alex had left a voice mail asking me how my
day was and saying that he’d be home all night writing lesson plans. It had
been too long since I surprised him. It was time to make a little effort and be
spontaneous. The driver agreed to wait as long as I needed, so I ran upstairs,
jumped in the shower, took a little extra time making my hair look good, and
threw together a bag with stuff for work the next day. Since it was already
after eleven, traffic was tame and we made it to Alex’s apartment in
Brooklyn in under fifteen minutes. He looked genuinely happy to see me when he
opened the door, saying over and over and over again how he couldn’t
believe that I’d come all the way to Brooklyn so late on a work night and
it was the best surprise he could’ve hoped for. And as I lay with my head
on my favorite spot on his chest, watching Conan and listening to the rhythmic
sound of his breathing as he played with my hair, I barely thought about
Christian at all.

 “Um,
hi. May I speak with your food editor please? No? OK, maybe an editorial
assistant, or someone who can tell me when a restaurant review ran?” I
asked an openly hostile receptionist at theNew York Times . She had answered
the phone by barking, “What!” and was currently pretending—or
perhaps not—that we didn’t speak a common language. Persistence
paid off, though, and after asking her name three times (“We can’t
tell our names, lady”), threatening to report her to her manager
(“What? You think he cares? I’ll put him on right now”), and
finally swearing rather emphatically that I would personally show up at their
Times Square offices and do everything in my power to have her fired on the
spot (“Oh, really? I’m not so worried”), she tired of me and
connected me to someone else.

 “Editorial,”
snapped another hassled-sounding woman. I wondered if this is what I sounded
like answering Miranda’s phone, and if not, then I aspired to it. It was
such an enormous turnoff hearing a voice that was so incredibly, undeniably
unhappy to hear from you that it almost made you just want to hang up.

 “Hi,
I just had a quick question.” The words tumbled out in a desperate
attempt to be heard before she inevitably slammed down the phone.
“I’m wondering if you ran any reviews of Asian fusion restaurants
yesterday?”

 She
sighed as though I’d just asked her to donate one of her limbs to science
and then sighed again. “Have you looked online?” Another sigh.

 “Yes,
yes, of course, but I can’t—”

 “Because
that’s where they would be if we’d done one. I can’t keep
track of every word that goes in the paper, you know.”

 I took a
deep breath myself and tried to stay calm. “Your charming receptionist
connected me to you since you work in the archives department. So it does in
fact appear that it’s your job to keep track of every word.”

 “Listen,
if I had to try to track down every vague description that everyone called me
with every day, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else. You really need
to check online.” She sighed twice more, and I began to worry that she
might hyperventilate.

 “No,
no,you just listen for a minute,” I started, feeling primed and ready to
lay into this lazy girl who had a far better job than my own. “I’m
calling from Miranda Priestly’s office, and it just so happens
that—”

 “I’m
sorry, did you say you were calling from Miranda Priestly’s
office?” she asked, and I could feel her ears perk up across the phone
line. “Miranda Priestly… fromRunway magazine?”

 “The
one and only. Why? Heard of her?”

 It was
here that she transformed from highly put-upon editorial assistant to gushing
fashion slave. “Heard of her? Of course! Is anybody not familiar with
Miranda Priestly? She is, like, the ultimate woman in fashion. What was it you
said she was looking for?”

 “A
review. Yesterday’s paper. Asian fusion restaurant. I didn’t see it
online, but I’m not sure I checked properly.” That was a bit of a
lie. I had checked online and was quite sure there hadn’t been any
reviews of Asian fusion restaurants in theNew York Times any day in the past
week, but I wasn’t telling her that. Maybe Schizophrenic Editorial Girl
here would work a miracle.

 So far
I’d called theTimes, thePost, and theDaily News, but nothing had turned
up. I’d plugged in her corporate card number to access theWall Street
Journal ‘s paid archives and had actually found a blurb on a new Thai
restaurant in the Village, but I had to immediately discount it when I noticed
that the average entrée price was only seven dollars andcitysearch.com
listed only a single dollar sign next to it.

 “Well,
sure, hold on just a second here. I’m going to check that right out for
you.” And all of a sudden, Little Miss “I Can’t Be Expected
to Remember Every Word That Goes in the Paper” was tapping away on a
keyboard and humming excitedly to both of us.

 My head
ached from the debacle the night before. It had been fun to surprise Alex and
amazingly relaxing to just laze around his apartment, but for the first time in
many, many months, I couldn’t fall asleep. Over and over and over again,
I had pangs of guilt, flashbacks of Christian kissing my neck and my then
jumping in a car to see Alex but tell him nothing. Even though I tried to push
it all out of my mind, they kept returning, each one more intense than the last
one. When I finally did manage to fall asleep, I dreamed that Alex was hired to
be Miranda’s nanny and—even though in reality hers didn’t
live in—he was to move in with the family. Whenever I wanted to see Alex
in my dream, I would have to share a car home with Miranda and visit him in her
apartment. She would insist on calling me Emily and send me out on inane
errands even though I told her repeatedly that I was just there to visit my
boyfriend. By the time morning had finally rolled around, Alex had fallen under
Miranda’s spell and couldn’t understand why I thought she was so
evil and, even worse, Miranda had started dating Christian. Blessedly, my hell
ended when I woke in a start after dreaming that Miranda, Christian, and Alex
all sat around in Frette robes together each Sunday morning and read theTimes
and laughed while I prepared breakfast, served everyone, and cleaned up
afterward. Sleep last night was about as relaxing as a solo stroll down Avenue
D at four in the morning, and now this restaurant review was wrecking whatever
hope I had of having an easy Friday.

 “Hmm,
no, we really haven’t run anything lately on Asian fusion. I’m
trying to think, just personally, you know, if there are any new hot Asian
fusion places. You know, places that Miranda would actually consider
going?” she said, sounding like she’d do anything to prolong the
conversation.

 I
ignored her transition into first-name familiarity with Miranda and worked on
getting her off the phone. “OK, well, that’s what I thought. Thanks
anyway, though. I appreciate it. ‘Bye.”

 “Wait!”
she cried out, and even though the phone was already halfway to the base, her
urgency made me listen again. “Yes?”

 “Oh,
well, I, uh, I just wanted to let you know that if there’s, like,
anything else I can do—or any of us here—feel free to call, you
know? We love Miranda here, and we’d, like, uh, want to help with
anything we could?”

 You
would’ve thought that the First Lady of the United States of America had
just asked Schizophrenic Editorial Girl if she might be able to locate an
article for the president, an article that included information crucial to an
imminent war, and not an unnamed review on an unnamed restaurant in an unnamed
newspaper. The saddest part of all was that I wasn’t surprised: I knew
she’d come around.

 “OK,
I’ll be sure to pass that along. Thanks so much.”

 Emily
looked up from preparing yet another expense account and said, “No luck
there either?”

 “Nope.
I have no idea what she’s talking about, and apparently, neither does
anyone else in this city. I’ve spoken to someone at every Manhattan paper
she reads, checked online, talked to archivists, food writers, chefs. Not a
single person can think of a suitable Asian fusion place that has so much as
been open in the past week, never even mind one that’s been reviewed in
the past twenty-four hours. She’s clearly lost her mind. So what
now?” I flopped back into my chair and pulled my hair into a ponytail. It
still wasn’t yet nine in the morning, and already the headache had spread
to my neck and shoulders.