promoted or I had been hired, that these were insignificant details lost on her. As long as
someone answered the phone and got her what she needed, that person’s actual identity
was irrelevent.
“I simply do not understand what takes you so long to speak after you pick up the
phone,” she stated. From any other person on earth that would have sounded whiny, but
from Miranda it sounded appropriately cold and firm. Just like her. “In case you haven’t
been here long enough to notice, when I call, you respond. It’s actually simple. See? I
call. You respond. Do you think you can handle that, Ahn-dre-ah?”
I nodded like a six-year-old who’d just been reprimanded for throwing spaghetti on the
ceiling, even though she couldn’t see me. I concentrated on not calling her “ma’am,” a
mistake I’d made a week earlier that had almost gotten me fired. “Yes, Miranda. I’m
sorry,” I said softly, head bowed. And for that moment Iwas sorry, sorry that her words
hadn’t registered in my brain three-tenths of a second faster than they had, sorry that my
tardiness in saying “Miranda Priestly’s office” had taken a fraction of a second longer
than absolutely necessary. Her time was, as I was constantly reminded, much more
important than my own.
“All right then. Now, after wasting all that time, may we begin? Did you confirm Mr.
Tomlinson’s reservation?” she asked.
“Yes, Miranda, I made a reservation for Mr. Tomlinson at the Four Seasons at one
o’clock.”
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I could see it coming a mile away. A mere ten minutes earlier she’d called and ordered
me to make a reservation at the Four Seasons and call Mr. Tomlinson and her driver and
the nanny to inform them of the plans, and now she’d want to rearrange them.
“Well, I’ve changed my mind. The Four Seasons is not the appropriate venue for his
lunch with Irv. Reserve a table for two at Le Cirque, and remember to remind the ma.tre
d’ that they will want to sit in theback of the restaurant. Not on display in the front.The
back . That’s all.”
I had convinced myself when I first spoke with Miranda on the phone, that by uttering
“that’s all,” she really intended those words to mean “thank you.” By the second week I’d
rethought that.
“Of course, Miranda.Thank you, ” I said with a smile. I could sense her pausing on the
other end of the line, wondering how to respond. Did she know I was calling attention to
her refusal to say thank you? Did it seem odd to her that I was thanking her for ordering
me around? I had recently begun thanking her after every one of her sarcastic comments
or nasty phone-in commands, and the tactic was oddly comforting. She knew I was
mocking her somehow, but what could she say?Ahn-dre-ah, I never want to hear you
thank me again. I forbid you to express your gratitude in such a manner! Come to think of
it, that might not be that much of a stretch.
Le Cirque, Le Cirque, Le Cirque,I said over and over in my head, determined to make
that reservation ASAP so I could get back to the significantly more difficult Harry Potter
challenge. The Le Cirque reservationist immediately agreed to have a table ready for Mr.
Tomlinson and Irv whenever they arrived.
Emily walked in a from a stroll around the office and asked me if Miranda had called at
all.
“Only three times, and she didn’t threaten to fire me during any of them,” I said proudly.
“Of course, she did intimate it, but she didn’t all-out threaten. Progress, no?”
She laughed in the way she did only when I made fun of myself, and she asked what
Miranda, her guru, had wanted.
“Just wanted me to switch around B-DAD’s lunch reservation. Not sure why I’m doing
that when he has his own assistant, but hey, I don’t ask questions around here.” Mr.
Blind, Deaf, and Dumb was our nickname for Miranda’s third husband. Although to the
general public he appeared to be none of those, those of us in the know were quite
confident he was all three. There was, quite simply, no other explanation for how a nice
guy like him could tolerate living withher .
Next, it was time to call B-DAD himself. If I didn’t call soon, he may not be able to get
to the restaurant in time. He’d flown back from their vacation for a couple days of
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business meetings, and this lunch with Irv Ravitz—Elias-Clark’s CEO—was among the
most important. Miranda wanted every detail perfect—as though that were something
new. B-DAD’s real name was Hunter Tomlinson. He and Miranda had gotten married the
summer before I started working, after what I’d heard was a rather unique courtship: she
pursued, he demurred. According to Emily, she’d chased him relentlessly until he’d
yielded from the mere exhaustion of ducking her. She’d left her second husband (the lead
singer of one of the most famous bands from the late sixties and the twins’ father) with
absolutely no warning before her lawyer delivered the papers, and was married again
precisely twelve days after the divorce was finalized. Mr. Tomlinson followed orders and
moved into her penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. I’d only met Miranda once and I’d
never met her new husband, but I’d logged enough phone hours with each that I felt,
unfortunately, like they were family.
Three rings, four rings, five rings . . .hmm, I wonder where his assistant is? I prayed for
an answering machine, since I wasn’t in the mood for the mindless, friendly chitchat of
which B-DAD seemed so fond. Instead, I got his secretary.
“Mr. Tomlinson’s office,” she trilled in her deep southern drawl. “How may I help you
today?”How mah I hep ya tuhday?
“Hi, Martha, it’s Andrea. Listen, I don’t need to talk to Mr. Tomlinson, can you just give
him a message for me? I made a reservation for—”
“Darlin’, you know Mr. T. always wants to talk to you. Hold just a sec.” And before I
could protest, I was listening to the elevator version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by
Bobby McFerrin. Perfect. It was fitting that B-DAD had picked the most annoyingly
optimistic song ever written to entertain callers when they were put on hold.
“Andy, is that you, sweetheart?” He asked quietly in his deep, distinguished voice. “Mr.
Tomlinson is going to think you’re avoiding him. It’s been ages since I’ve had the
pleasure of speaking with you.” A week and a half, to be precise. In addition to his
blindness, deafness, and dumbness, Mr. Tomlinson had the added irritating habit of
constantly referring to himself in the third person.
I took a deep breath. “Hello, Mr. Tomlinson. Miranda asked me to let you know that
lunch is at one today at Le Cirque. She said that you’d—”
“Sweetheart,” he said slowly, calmly. “Enough with all that plan-making for just a
second. Give an old man a moment of pleasure and tell Mr. Tomlinson all about your life.
Will you do that for him? So tell me, dear, are you happy working for my wife?” Was I
happy working for his wife? Hmm, let’s see here. Are little baby mammals squealing
with glee when a predator swallows them whole?Why of course, you putz, I’m
deliriously happy working for your wife. When neither of us is busy, we give each other
mud masks and gossip about our love lives. It’s a lot like a slumber party among friends,
if you must know. The whole thing is just one big laugh riot .
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“Mr. Tomlinson, I love my job and I adore working for Miranda.” I held my breath and
prayed that he’d give it up.
“Well, Mr. T. is just thrilled that things are working out.”Great, asshole, but are
youthrilled?
“Sounds great, Mr. Tomlinson. Have a great lunch,” I cut him off before he inevitably
asked about my weekend plans, and hung up.
I sat back in my chair and gazed across the office suite. Emily was engrossed in trying to
reconcile another one of Miranda’s $20,000 American Express bills, her highly waxed
brow furrowed in concentration. The Harry Potter project loomed ahead of me, and I had
to get moving on it immediately if I ever wanted to get away this weekend.
Lily and I had planned a movie marathon weekend. I was exhausted from work and she
was stressed out from her classes, so we’d promised to spend the whole weekend parked
on her couch and subsist solely on beer and Doritos. No Snackwells. No Diet Coke. And
absolutely no black pants. Even though we talked all the time, we hadn’t spent any real
time together since I’d moved to the city.
We’d been best friends since eighth grade, when I first saw Lily crying alone at a
cafeteria table. She’d just moved in with her grandmother and started at our school, after
it became clear that her parents weren’t coming home any time soon. They’d taken off a
few months before to follow the Dead (they’d had her when they were both nineteen and
were more into bong hits than babies), leaving her behind to be watched over by their
whacked-out friends at the commune in New Mexico (or as Lily preferred, the
“collective”). When they hadn’t returned almost a year later, Lily’s grandmother took her
from the commune (or as Lily’s grandmother preferred, the “cult”) to live with her in
Avon. The day I found her crying alone in the cafeteria was the day her grandmother had
forced her to chop off her dirty dreadlocks and wear a dress, and Lily was not happy
about it. Something about the way she talked, the way she said, “That’s so Zen of you,”
and “Let’s just decompress,” charmed me, and we immediately became friends. We’d
been inseparable through the rest of high school, had roomed together for all four years at
Brown. Lily hadn’t yet decided whether she preferred MAC lipstick or hemp necklaces
and was still a little too “quirky” to do anything totally mainstream, but we
complemented each other well. And I missed her. Because with her first year as a
graduate student and my being a virtual slave, we hadn’t seen a whole lot of each other
lately.
I couldn’t wait for the weekend. My fourteen-hour workdays were registering in my feet,
my upper arms, my lower back. Glasses had replaced the contacts I’d worn for a decade
because my eyes were too dry and tired to accept them anymore. I smoked a pack a day
and subsisted solely on Starbucks (expensed, of course) and takeout sushi (further
expensed). I’d begun losing weight already. The weight I’d lost from the dysentery had
returned briefly, but after my stint atRunway it had begun to disappear again. Something
in the air there, I suppose, or perhaps it was the intensity with which food was eschewed
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in the office. I’d already weathered a sinus infection and had paled significantly, and it
had been only four weeks. I was only twenty-three years old. And Miranda hadn’t even
been in the office yet. Fuck it. I deserved aweekend .
Into this mix leaped Harry Potter, and I wasnot pleased. Miranda had called this
morning. It took only a few moments for her to outline what she wanted, although it took
me forever to interpret it. I learned quickly that in the Miranda Priestly world, it was
better to do something wrong and spend a great deal of time and money to fix it than to
admit you didn’t understand her convoluted and heavily accented instructions and ask for
clarification. So when she mumbled something about getting the Harry Potter books for
the twins and having them flown to Paris, intuition alone told me this was going to
interfere with my weekend. When she hung up abruptly a few minutes later, I looked to
Emily with panic.
“What, oh, what, did she say?” I moaned, hating myself for being too scared to ask
Miranda to repeat herself. “Why can I not understand a single word that woman utters?
It’s not me, Em. I speak English, always have. I know she does it to personally drive me
crazy.”
Emily looked at me with her usual mix of disgust and pity. “Since the book comes out
tomorrow and they’re not here to buy it, she wants you to pick up two copies and bring
them to Teterboro. The jet will take them to Paris,” she summed up coldly, daring me to
comment on the ludicrousness of the instructions. I was reminded once again that Emily
would do anything—really, anything—if it meant making Miranda a bit more
comfortable. I rolled my eyes and kept quiet.
Since I was NOT going to sacrifice a nanosecond of weekend to do her bidding, and
because I had an unlimited amount of money and power (hers) at my personal disposal, I
spent the rest of the day arranging for Harry Potter to jet his way to Paris. First, a few
words for Julia at Scholastic.
Dearest Julia,
My assistant, Andrea, tells me that you’re the sweetheart to whom I should address my
most heartfelt appreciation. She has informed me that you are the single person capable
of locating a couple copies of this darling book for me tomorrow. I want you to know
how much I appreciate your hard work and cleverness. Please know how happy you’ll
make my sweet daughters. And don’t ever hesitate to let me know if you need anything,
anything at all, for a fabulous girl like yourself.
XOXO,
Miranda Priestly
I forged her name with a perfect flourish (hour upon hour of practicing with Emily
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standing over me, instructing me to make the final “a” a little loopier, had finally paid
off), attached the note to the latest issue ofRunway —one not yet on the newsstand—and
called for a rush messenger to deliver the entire package to Scholastic’s downtown office.
If this didn’t work, nothing would. Miranda didn’t care that we forged her signature—it
saved her from bothering with details—but she’d probably be livid to see that I’d penned
something so polite, soadorable, using her name.
Three short weeks earlier I would have quickly canceled my plans if Miranda called and
wanted me to do something for her on the weekends, but I was now experienced—and
jaded—enough to bend the rules a little. Since Miranda and the girls would not
themselves be at the airport in New Jersey whenHarry arrived the following day, I saw no
reason why I had to be the one to deliver him. Acting under the assumption and prayer
