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The Devil Wears Prada
Lauren Weisberger
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to the four people who helped make it happen:
Stacy Creamer—my editor. If you don’t enjoy the book, blame her . . . she edited out all
the really funny stuff.
Charles Salzberg—writer and teacher. He pushed me hard to keep this project going, so
if you don’t enjoy it, blame him, too.
Deborah Schneider—agent extraordinaire. She keeps assuring me she loves at least
fifteen percent of everything I do, say, or, especially, write.
Richard David Story—my former boss. Easy to love him now that I no longer have to
see him before nineA.M . each day.
And of course a huge thanks to all those who offered no assistance whatsoever but who
promised to buy multiple copies for a name mention:
Dave Baiada, Dan Barasch, Heather Bergida, Lynn Bernstein, Dan Braun, Beth
Buschman-Kelly, Helen Coster, Audrey Diamond, Lydia Fakundiny, Wendy Finerman,
Chris Fonzone, Kelly Gillespie, Simone Girner, Cathy Gleason, Jon Goldstein, Eliza
Harris, Peter Hedges, Julie Hootkin, Bernie Kelberg, Alli Kirshner, John Knecht, Anna
Weber Kneitel, Jaime Lewisohn, Bill McCarthy, Dana McMakin, Ricki Miller, Daryl
Nierenberg, Wittney Rachlin, Drew Reed, Edgar Rosenberg, Brian Seitchik, Jonathan
Seitchik, Marni Senofonte, Shalom Shoer, Josh Ufberg, Kyle White, and Richard Willis.
And especially to Leah Jacobs, Jon Roth, Joan and Abe Lichtenstein, and Weisbergers:
Shirley and Ed, Judy, David and Pam, Mike and Michele.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU,WALDEN,1854
1
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The light hadn’t even officially turned green at the intersection of 17th and Broadway
before an army of overconfident yellow cabs roared past the tiny deathtrap I was
attempting to navigate around the city streets.Clutch, gas, shift (neutral to first? Or first to
second?),release clutch , I repeated over and over in my head, the mantra offering little
comfort and even less direction amid the screeching midday traffic. The little car bucked
wildly twice before it lurched forward through the intersection. My heart flip-flopped in
my chest. Without warning, the lurching evened out and I began to pick up speed. Lots of
speed. I glanced down to confirm visually that I was only in second gear, but the rear end
of a cab loomed so large in the windshield that I could do nothing but jam my foot on the
brake pedal so hard that my heel snapped off. Shit! Another pair of seven-hundred-dollar
shoes sacrificed to my complete and utter lack of grace under pressure: this clocked in as
my third such breakage this month. It was almost a relief when the car stalled (I’d
obviously forgotten to press the clutch when attempting to brake for my life). I had a few
seconds—peaceful seconds if one could overlook the angry honking and varied forms of
the word “fuck” being hurled at me from all directions—to pull off my Manolos and toss
them into the passenger seat. There was nowhere to wipe my sweaty hands except for the
suede Gucci pants that hugged my thighs and hips so tightly they’d both begun to tingle
within minutes of my securing the final button. My fingers left wet streaks across the
supple suede that swathed the tops of my now numb thighs. Attempting to drive this
$84,000 stick-shift convertible through the obstacle-fraught streets of midtown at
lunchtime pretty much demanded that I smoke a cigarette.
“Fuckin’ move, lady!” hollered a swarthy driver whose chest hair threatened to overtake
the wife-beater he wore. “What do you think this is? Fuckin’ drivin’ school? Get outta the
way!”
I raised a shaking hand to give him the finger and then turned my attention to the
business at hand: getting nicotine coursing through my veins as quickly as possible. My
hands were moist again with sweat, evidenced by the matches that kept slipping to the
floor. The light turned green just as I managed to touch the fire to the end of the cigarette,
and I was forced to leave it hanging between my lips as I negotiated the intricacies
ofclutch, gas, shift (neutral to first? Or first to second?),release clutch, the smoke wafting
in and out of my mouth with each and every breath. It was another three blocks before the
car moved smoothly enough for me to remove the cigarette, but it was already too late:
the precariously long line of spent ash had found its way directly to the sweat stain on the
pants. Awesome. But before I could consider that, counting the Manolos, I’d wrecked
$3,100 worth of merchandise in under three minutes, my cell phone bleated loudly. And
as if the very essence of life itself didn’t suck enough at that particular moment, the caller
ID confirmed my worst fear: it was Her. Miranda Priestly. My boss.
“Ahn-dre-ah! Ahn-dre-ah! Can you hear me, Ahn-dre-ah?” she trilled the moment I
snapped my Motorola open—no small feat considering both of my (bare) feet and hands
were already contending with various obligations. I propped the phone between my ear
and shoulder and tossed the cigarette out the window, where it narrowly missed hitting a
bike messenger. He screamed out a few highly unoriginal “fuck yous” before weaving
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forward.
“Yes, Miranda. Hi, I can hear you perfectly.”
“Ahn-dre-ah, where’s my car? Did you drop it off at the garage yet?”
The light ahead of me blessedly turned red and looked as though it might be a long one.
The car jerked to a stop without hitting anyone or anything, and I breathed a sigh of
relief. “I’m in the car right now, Miranda, and I should be at the garage in just a few
minutes.” I figured she was probably concerned that everything was going well, so I
reassured her that there were no problems whatsoever and we should both arrive shortly
in perfect condition.
“Whatever,” she said brusquely, cutting me off midsentence. “I need you to pick up
Madelaine and drop her off at the apartment before you come back to the office.” Click.
The phone went dead. I stared at it for a few seconds before I realized that she’d
deliberately hung up because she had provided all of the details I could hope to receive.
Madelaine. Who the hell was Madelaine? Where was she at the moment? Did she know I
was to pick her up? Why was she going back to Miranda’s apartment? And why on
earth—considering Miranda had a full-time driver, housekeeper, and nanny—was I the
one who had to do it?
Remembering that it was illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving in New York and
figuring the last thing I needed at that moment was a run-in with the NYPD, I pulled into
the bus lane and switched my flashers on.Breathe in, breathe out, I coached myself, even
remembering to apply the parking brake before taking my foot off the regular one. It had
been years since I’d driven a stick-shift car—five years, actually, since a high school
boyfriend had volunteered his car up for a few lessons that I’d decidedly flunked—but
Miranda hadn’t seemed to consider that when she’d called me into her office an hour and
a half earlier.
“Ahn-dre-ah, my car needs to be picked up from the place and dropped off at the garage.
Attend to it immediately, as we’ll be needing it tonight to drive to the Hamptons. That’s
all.” I stood, rooted to the carpet in front of her behemoth desk, but she’d already blocked
out my presence entirely. Or so I thought. “That’sall, Ahn-dre-ah. See to it right now,”
she added, still not glancing up.
Ah, sure, Miranda,I thought to myself as I walked away, trying to figure out the first step
in the assignment that was sure to have a million pitfalls along the way. First was
definitely to find out at which “place” the car was located. Most likely it was being
repaired at the dealership, but it could obviously be at any one of a million auto shops in
any one of the five boroughs. Or perhaps she’d lent it to a friend and it was currently
occupying an expensive spot in a full-service garage somewhere on Park Avenue? Of
course, there was always the chance that she was referring to a new car—brand
unknown—that she’d just recently purchased that hadn’t yet been brought home from the
(unknown) dealership. I had a lot of work to do.
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I started by calling Miranda’s nanny, but her cell phone went straight to voice mail. The
housekeeper was next on the list and, for once, a big help. She was able to tell me that the
car wasn’t brand-new and it was in fact a “convertible sports car in British racing green,”
and that it was usually parked in a garage on Miranda’s block, but she had no idea what
the make was or where it might currently be residing. Next on the list was Miranda’s
husband’s assistant, who informed me that, as far as she knew, the couple owned a top-
of-the-line black Lincoln Navigator and some sort of small green Porsche. Yes! I had my
first lead. One quick phone call to the Porsche dealership on Eleventh Avenue revealed
that yes, they had just finished touching up the paint and installing a new disc-changer in
a green Carrera 4 Cabriolet for a Ms. Miranda Priestly. Jackpot!
I ordered a Town Car to take me to the dealership, where I turned over a note I’d forged
with Miranda’s signature that instructed them to release the car to me. No one seemed to
care whatsoever that I was in no way related to this woman, that some stranger had
cruised into the place and requested someone else’s Porsche. They tossed me the keys
and only laughed when I’d asked them to back it out of the garage because I wasn’t sure I
could handle a stick shift in reverse. It’d taken me a half hour to get ten blocks, and I still
hadn’t figured out where or how to turn around so I’d actually be heading uptown, toward
the parking place on Miranda’s block that her housekeeper had described. The chances of
my making it to 76th and Fifth without seriously injuring myself, the car, a biker, a
pedestrian, or another vehicle were nonexistent, and this new call did nothing to calm my
nerves.
Once again, I made the round of calls, but this time Miranda’s nanny picked up on the
second ring.
“Cara, hey, it’s me.”
“Hey, what’s up? Are you on the street? It sounds so loud.”
“Yeah, you could say that. I had to pick up Miranda’s Porsche from the dealership. Only,
I can’t really drive stick. But now she called and wants me to pick up someone named
Madelaine and drop her off at the apartment. Who the hell is Madelaine and where might
she be?”
Cara laughed for what felt like ten minutes before she said, “Madelaine’s their French
bulldog puppy and she’s at the vet. Just got spayed. I was supposed to pick her up, but
Miranda just called and told me to pick the twins up early from school so they can all
head out to the Hamptons.”
“You’re joking. I have to pick up a fuckingdog with this Porsche? Without crashing?
It’snever going to happen .”
“She’s at the East Side Animal Hospital, on Fifty-second between First and Second.
Sorry, Andy, I have to get the girls now, but call if there’s anything I can do, OK?”
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Maneuvering the green beast to head uptown sapped my last reserves of concentration,
and by the time I reached Second Avenue, the stress sent my body into meltdown.It
couldn’t possibly get worse than this, I thought as yet another cab came within a quarter-
inch of the back bumper. A nick anywhere on the car would guarantee I lose my job—
that much was obvious—but it just might cost me my life as well. Since there was
obviously not a parking spot, legal or otherwise, in the middle of the day, I called the
vet’s office from outside and asked them to bring Madelaine to me. A kindly woman
emerged a few minutes later (just enough time for me to field another call from Miranda,
this one asking why I wasn’t back at the office yet) with a whimpering, sniffling puppy.
The woman showed me Madelaine’s stitched-up belly and told me to drive very, very
carefully because the dog was “experiencing some discomfort.” Right, lady. I’m driving
very, very carefully solely to save my job and possibly my life—if the dog benefits from
this, it’s just a bonus.
With Madelaine curled up on the passenger seat, I lit another cigarette and rubbed my
freezing bare feet so my toes could resume gripping the clutch and brake pedal.Clutch,
gas, shift, release clutch, I chanted, trying to ignore the dog’s pitiful howls every time I
accelerated. She alternated between crying, whining, and snorting. By the time we
reached Miranda’s building, the pup was nearly hysterical. I tried to soothe her, but she
could sense my insincerity—and besides, I had no free hands with which to offer a
reassuring pat or nuzzle. So this was what four years of diagramming and deconstructing
books, plays, short stories, and poems were for: a chance to comfort a small, white,
batlike bulldog while trying not to demolish someone else’s really, really expensive car.
Sweet life. Just as I had always dreamed.
I managed to dump the car at the garage and the dog with Miranda’s doorman without
further incident, but my hands were still shaking when I climbed into the chauffeured
Town Car that had been following me all over town. The driver looked at me
sympathetically and made some supportive comment about the difficulty of stick shifts,
but I didn’t feel much like chatting.
“Just heading back to the Elias-Clark building,” I said with a long sigh as the driver
pulled around the block and headed south on Park Avenue. Since I rode the route every
day—sometimes twice—I knew I had exactly eight minutes to breathe and collect myself
and possibly even figure out a way to disguise the ash and sweat stains that had become
permanent features on the Gucci suede. The shoes—well, those were beyond hope, at
least until they could be fixed by the fleet of shoemakersRunway kept for such
emergencies. The ride was actually over in six and a half minutes, and I had no choice
