skirts were called in and all the hours I’d logged wrapping and sending presents, and how
there was a little electronic ID card that tracked everything you did. It was hard to fit into
words the sense of urgency each of these had taken on at the time, how when I was at
work it seemed that my job was supremely relevant, even important. I talked and talked,
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but I didn’t know how to explain this world that may have been only two hours away
geographically but was really in a different solar system. They all nodded and smiled and
asked questions, pretending to be interested, but I knew it was all too foreign, too
absolutely strange sounding and different to make any sense to people who—like me
until a few weeks earlier—had never even heard the name Miranda Priestly. It didn’t
make much sense to me yet, either: it seemed overly dramatic at times and more than a
little Big Brother–esque, but it was exciting. And cool. It was definitely, undeniably a
supercool place to call work. Right?
“Well, Andy, you think you’ll be happy there for your year? Maybe you’ll even want to
stay longer, huh?” My mom asked while smearing cream cheese on her salt bagel.
In signing my contract at Elias-Clark, I’d agreed to stay with Miranda for a year—if I
didn’t get fired, which at this point seemed like a big if. And if I fulfilled my obligation
with class and enthusiasm and some level of competence—and this part was not in
writing but implied by a half-dozen people in HR, and Emily, and Allison—then I would
be in a position to name the job I’d like next. It was expected, of course, that whichever
job that may be would be atRunway or, at the very least, at Elias-Clark, but I was free to
request anything from working on book reviews in the features department to acting as a
liaison between Hollywood celebrities andRunway . Out of the last ten assistants who had
made it through their year in Miranda’s office, a full hundred percent had chosen to move
to the fashion department atRunway , but I didn’t let that concern me. A stint in
Miranda’s office was considered to be the ultimate way to skip three to five years of
indignity as an assistant and move directly into meaningful jobs in prestigious places.
“Definitely. So far everyone seems really nice. Emily’s a little, um, well,committed, but
otherwise, it’s been great. I don’t know, to listen to Lily talk about her exams or Alex talk
about all the shitty things he has to deal with at work, I think I got pretty lucky. Who else
gets to drive around in a chauffeured car on their first day? I mean, really. So yeah, I
think it’ll be a great year, and I’m excited for Miranda to come back. I think I’m ready.”
Jill rolled her eyes and shot me a look as if to say,Cut the bullshit, Andy. We all know
you’re probably working for a psycho bitch surrounded by anorexic fashionistas and are
trying to paint this really rosy picture because you’re worried you’re in over your head,
but instead she said, “It sounds great, Andy, it really does. Amazing opportunity.”
She was the only one at the table who could possibly understand, since, before moving to
the Third World, she’d worked for a year at a small private museum in Paris and had
developed an interest in haute couture. Hers was more of an artistic and aesthetic hobby
than a consumer one, but she still had some exposure, at least, to the fashion world. “We
have some great news, too,” she continued, reaching across the table for Kyle’s hand. He
had set down his coffee and extended both his hands.
“Oh, thank god,” my mother instantly exclaimed, slumping over as if someone had
finally lifted the two-hundred-pound dumbbell that had rested on her shoulders for the
last two decades. “It’s about time.”
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“Congratulations, you two! I have to say you’ve had your mother really worried. You’re
certainly not newlyweds anymore, you know. We were beginning to wonder . . .” From
the head of the table my dad raised his eyebrows.
“Hey guys, that’s great. It’s about time I get to be an aunt. When’s the little one due?”
They both looked dumbfounded, and for a moment I worried that we’d gotten it all
wrong, that their “good” news was that they were building a newer, bigger home in that
swamp they lived in, or that Kyle had finally decided to leave his father’s law firm and
was going to join my sister in opening the gallery she’d always dreamed of. Maybe we’d
jumped the gun on this one, been just a little too eager to hear that a future niece or
grandson was on the way. It was all my parents could talk about lately, incessantly
hashing and rehashing the reasons why my sister and Kyle—already in their thirties and
with four years of marriage behind them—had yet to reproduce. In the past six months,
the subject had progressed from time-consuming family obsession to perceived crisis.
My sister looked worried. Kyle frowned. My parents looked as though they might both
pass out from the silence. The tension was palpable.
Jill got out of her chair and walked over to Kyle, where she plopped herself in his lap.
She wrapped her arm behind the back of his neck and leaned her face next to his,
whispering in his ear. I glanced at my mother, who looked about ten seconds away from
unconsciousness, the worry causing the small lines near her eyes to grow as deep as
trenches.
Finally, finally, they giggled, and turned toward the table, and announced unanimously,
“We’re going to have a baby.” And then there was light. And shrieking. And hugging.
My mother flew out of her seat so fast that she knocked it over and, in turn, tipped over a
potted cactus that rested by the sliding-glass door. My dad grabbed Jill and kissed her on
both cheeks and the top of her head, and for the first time I could remember since their
wedding day, he kissed Kyle, too.
I rapped my Dr. Brown’s black cherry can with a plastic fork and announced that we
needed a toast. “Please raise your glasses, everyone, raise your glasses to the brand-new
Sachs baby that will be joining our family.” Kyle and Jill looked at me pointedly. “OK, I
guess technically it’s a Harrison baby, but it will be a Sachs at heart. To Kyle and Jill,
future perfect parents to the world’s most perfect child.” We all clinked soda cans and
coffee mugs and toasted the grinning couple and my sister’s twenty-four-inch waist. I
cleaned up by throwing the entire contents of the table directly into a garbage bag while
my mom tried to pressure Jill to name the baby after various dead relatives. Kyle sipped
coffee and looked pleased with himself, and just before midnight my dad and I sneaked
off to his study for a game.
He turned up the white-noise machine he used when he had patients during the day, both
to block out the sounds of the household from them and to keep anyone else in the house
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from hearing what was discussed in his office. Like any good shrink, my dad had placed
a gray leather couch in the far corner, so soft I liked to rest my head on the armrest, and
three chairs that angled forward and held a person in a kind of fabric sling. Womblike, he
assured me. His desk was sleek and black and topped with a flat-screen monitor, and the
matching black leather chair was high-backed and very plush. A wall of psychology
books encased in glass, a collection of bamboo stalks in a very tall crystal vase on the
floor, and some framed colorblock prints—the only real color in the room—completed
the futuristic look. I flopped on the floor between the couch and his desk, and he did the
same.
“So, tell me what’s really going on, Andy,” he said as he handed me a little wooden tile
holder. “I’m sure you’re feeling really overwhelmed right now.”
I picked my seven tiles and carefully arranged them in front of me. “Yeah, it’s been a
pretty crazy couple weeks. First moving, then starting. It’s a weird place, hard to explain.
It’s like, everyone’s beautiful and thin and wearing gorgeous clothes. And they really do
seem nice enough—everybody’s been really friendly. Almost like they’re all on serious
prescription drugs. I don’t know . . .”
“What? What were you going to say?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. There’s just this feeling that it’s all a house of cards that’s
going to come crashing down around me. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s ridiculous to
be working for afashion magazine, you know? The work’s been a little mindless so far,
but I don’t even care. It’s challenging enough because it’s all new, you know?”
He nodded.
“I know it’s a ‘cool’ job, but I keep wondering how it’s preparing me forThe New
Yorker . I must just be looking for something to go wrong, because so far it seems too
good to be true. Hopefully, I’m just crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, sweetie. I think you’re sensitive. But I have to agree, I think
you lucked out with this one. People go their entire lives and don’t see the things you’ll
see this year. Just think! Your first job out of college, and you’re working for the most
important woman at the most profitable magazine at the biggest magazine publishing
company in the entire world. You’ll get to watch it all happen, from the top down. If you
just keep your eyes open and your priorities in order, you’ll learn more in one year than
most people in the industry will see in their entire careers.” He placed his first word in the
middle of the board, JOLT.
“Not bad for an opening move,” I said and counted its worth, doubled it because the first
word always went on a pink star, and started a scorecard. Dad: 22 points, Andy: 0. My
letters weren’t showing much promise. I added an A, M, and E to the L and accepted my
paltry six points.
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“I just want to make sure you give it a fair shake,” he said, switching his tiles around on
his holder. “The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this is going to mean big
things for you.”
“Well, I sure hope you’re right, because I have enough paper cuts from wrapping to last
a long, long time. There better be more to the whole thing than that.”
“There will be, sweetie, there will be. You’ll see. It might feel like you’re doing silly
stuff, but trust me, you’re not. This is the start of something fantastic, I can feel it. And
I’ve studied up on your boss. This Miranda sounds like a tough woman, no doubt about
it, but I think you’re going to like her. And I think she’s going to like you, too.”
He placed the word TOWEL down using my E and looked satisfied.
“I hope you’re right, Dad. I really hope you’re right.”
“She’s the editor in chief ofRunway —you know, the fashion magazine?” I whispered
urgently into the phone, trying valiantly not to get frustrated.
“Oh, I know which one you mean!” said Julia, a publicity assistant for Scholastic Books.
“Great magazine. I love all those letters where girls write in their embarrassing period
stories. Are those for real? Do you remember reading the one where—”
“No, no, not the one for teenagers. It’s most definitely for grown women.” In theory, at
least. “Have you really never seenRunway ?”Is it humanly possible that she hasn’t? I
wondered. “Anyway, it’s spelled P-R-I-E-S-T-L-Y. Miranda, yes,” I said with infinite
patience. I wondered how she’d react if she knew I actually had someone on the line
who’d never heard of her. Probably not well.
“Well, if you could get back to me as soon as possible, I’dreally appreciate it,” I told
Julia. “And if a senior publicist gets in anytime soon,please have her call me.”
It was a Friday morning in the middle of December and the sweet, sweet freedom of the
weekend was only ten hours away. I had been trying to convince a fashion-oblivious Julia
at Scholastic that Miranda Priestly really was someone important, someone worth
bending rules and suspending logic for. This proved significantly more difficult than I
had anticipated. How could I have known that I’d have to explain the weight of
Miranda’s position to influence someone who’d never even heard of the most prestigious
fashion magazine on earth—or its famous editor? In my four short weeks as Miranda’s
assistant, I’d already figured out that such weight-throwing and favor-currying was
merely part of my job, but usually the person I was attempting to persuade, intimidate, or
otherwise pressure yielded completely at the mere mention of my infamous boss’s name.
Unfortunately for me, Julia worked for an educational publishing house where someone
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like Nora Ephron or Wendy Wasserstein was much likelier to get VIP treatment than
someone known for her impeccable taste in fur. I inherently understood this. I tried to
remember all the way back to a time before I had ever heard of Miranda Priestly—five
weeks earlier—and couldn’t. But I knew that such a magical time had existed. I envied
Julia’s indifference, but I had a job to do, and she wasn’t helping.
The fourth book in that wretched Harry Potter series was due to be released the next day,
a Saturday, and Miranda’s ten-year-old twin daughters each wanted one. The first copies
wouldn’t arrive in stores until Monday, but I had to have them in my hands on Saturday
morning—mere minutes after they were released from the warehouse. After all, Harry
and the crew had to catch a private flight to Paris.
My thoughts were interrupted by the phone. I picked it up as I always did now that
Emily trusted me enough to speak to Miranda. And boy, did we speak—probably in the
vicinity of two dozen times a day. Even from afar, Miranda had managed to creep into
my life and completely take over, barking orders and requests and demands at a rapid-fire
pace from sevenA .M. until I was finally allowed to leave at nineP .M.
“Ahn-dre-ah? Hello? Is anyone there? Ahn-dre-ah!” I jumped out of my seat the moment
I heard her pronounce my name. It took a moment to remember and accept that she was
not, in fact, in the office—or even in the country, and for the time being, at least, I was
safe. Emily had assured me that Miranda was completely unaware that Allison had been
