out. I wondered why we weren’t just going to leave the Book and the clothes with him.
As far as I understood—and it wasn’t a lot, especially when it came to this strange city—
that’s what doormen were for. As in, that’s their job. But Emily pulled a leather Louis
Vuitton key chain from her Gucci logo tote and handed it to me.
“I’ll wait here. You take the stuff up to her apartment, Penthouse A. Just open her door
and leave the book on the table in the foyer and hang the clothes on the hooks by the
closet. Notin the closet,by the closet. And then just leave. Whatever you do, don’t knock
or ring the doorbell. She doesn’t like to be disturbed. Just let yourself in and out and be
quiet!” She handed me the tangle of wire hangers and plastic and opened her cell phone
again.All right, I can handle this. Why so much drama for a book and some pants?
The elevator man smiled kindly at me and silently pressed the PH button after turning a
key. He looked like a battered wife, dejected and sad, as though he couldn’t fight any
longer and had just made peace with his unhappiness.
“I’ll wait here,” he said softly, staring at the floor. “You shouldn’t be more than a
minute.”
The carpet in the hallways was a deep burgundy color, and I almost toppled over when
one of my heels got stuck in the loops. The walls were papered in a thick, cream-colored
fabric that had tiny cream pinstripes running the length, and there was a suede cream
bench pushed against the wall. The French doors directly in front of me said PH B, but I
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swiveled and saw identical doors with PH A. It took every ounce of restraint not to ring
the bell, but I remembered Emily’s warning and slid the key in the lock. It clicked right
away, and before I could fix my hair or wonder what was on the other side, I was
standing in a large, airy foyer and smelling the most amazing scent of lamb chops. And
there she was, delicately bringing a fork to her mouth while two identical, black-haired
little girls yelled at each other across the table and a tall, rugged-looking man with silver
hair and a broad, face-encompassing nose read a newspaper.
“Mum, tell her that she can’t just walk in my room and take my jeans! She won’t listen
to me,” one of them pleaded of Miranda, who’d set down her fork and was taking a sip of
what I knew to be Pellegrino with a lime, from theleft side of the table.
“Caroline, Cassidy, enough. I simply don’t want to hear it anymore. Tomas, bring out
some more mint jelly,” she called. A man I presumed to be the chef hurried into the room
holding a silver bowl on a silver serving platter.
And then I realized that I’d been standing there for nearly thirty seconds, observing them
all having dinner. They hadn’t seen me yet, but would as soon as I moved toward the hall
table. I did so gingerly but felt them all turn to look. Just as I was about to offer some sort
of greeting, I remembered making a gigantic ass out of myself at our first meeting earlier
today, stammering and stumbling like an idiot, and I kept my mouth shut.Table, table,
table . There it was.Deposit book on table . And now for the clothes. I looked around
frantically for the place I was supposed to hang the dry cleaning, but I couldn’t focus.
The dinner table had grown silent, and I could feel them all watching me. No one said
hello. It didn’t seem to bother the girls that there was a perfect stranger standing in their
apartment. Finally, I saw a small coat closet tucked away behind the door, and I managed
to get every twisted, slippery hanger on the rod.
“Not in the closet, Emily,” I heard Miranda call out, slowly, deliberately. “On the hooks
that are provided for this exact occasion.”
“Oh, um, hi there.”Idiot! Shut up! She’s not looking for a response, just do what she
says! But I couldn’t help it. It was just too weird that no one had said hello or wondered
who I might be, or in any way acknowledged that someone had just let herself into their
apartment and was prowling around. AndEmily? Was she kidding? Blind? Could she
really not tell that I was not the girl who’d worked for her for over a year already? “I’m
Andrea, Miranda. I’m your new assistant.”
Silence. All-pervasive, unbearable, never-ending, deafening, debilitating silence.
I knew I shouldn’t keep talking, knew that I was digging my own grave, but I just
couldn’t help myself. “Um, well, sorry about the confusion. I’ll just put these on the
hooks, like you said, and let myself out.”Stop narrating! She doesn’t give a shit what
you’re doing. Just do it and get out . “OK, then, have a nice dinner. Nice meeting all of
you.” I turned to leave and realized that not only was the mere act of talking ridiculous,
but I was also saying stupid things.Nice to meet you? I hadn’t been introduced to a single
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one of them.
“Emily!” I heard just as my hand reached the doorknob. “Emily, let this not happen
tomorrow night. We’re not interested in the interruption.” And the doorknob turned itself
in my hand and I was finally in the hallway. The entire thing had taken less than a
minute, but I felt like I’d just swum the entire length of an Olympic-size pool without
coming up for air.
I slumped onto the bench and took long, controlled breaths. That bitch! The first time she
called me Emily could’ve been a mistake, but the second was undoubtedly deliberate.
What better way to belittle and marginalize someone than to insist on calling them the
wrong name, after you’ve refused to so much as acknowledge their presence in your own
home? I knew I was the lowest-ranking life-form at the magazine already—as Emily
hadn’t yet lost an opportunity to impress upon me—but was it really so necessary for
Miranda to make sure I was aware of it, too?
It wouldn’t have been outside the realm of reality to sit there all night and shoot mental
bullets at the PH A doors, but I heard a throat clearing and looked up to find the sad little
elevator man watching the floor and patiently waiting for me to join him.
“Sorry,” I said as I shuffled aboard.
“No problem,” he near-whispered, intently studying the wood-paneled floor. “It’ll get
easier.”
“What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you—”
“Nothing, nothing. Here you are, miss. Have a nice evening.” The door opened to the
lobby, where Emily was loudly chattering on her cell phone. She clicked it closed when
she saw me.
“How’d it go? No problem, right?”
I thought about telling her what had transpired, wished fervently that she could be a
sympathetic coworker, that we could be a team, but I knew I’d just be setting myself up
for another verbal lashing.So not interested right now.
“It was totally fine. No problems at all. They were eating dinner and I just left everything
exactly where you said.”
“Good. Well, that’s what you’ll do every night. Then just take the car home and you’re
done. Anyway, have fun at Marshall’s party tonight. I’d definitely go, but I have a bikini
wax appointment I just can’t cancel—do you believe they’re booked for the next two
months? And it’s the middle of winter, too. It must be all the people who are going on
winter vacations. Right? I just can’t understand why every woman in New York needs a
bikini wax right now. It’s just so strange, but hey, what can you do?”
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My head pounded to the tempo of her voice, and it seemed that no matter what I did or
how I responded, I was sentenced to forever listen to her talk about bikini waxes. It may
have been better to have her scream at me about interrupting Miranda’s dinner.
“Yeah, what can you do? Well, I’d better get going, I told James I’d meet him at nine
and it’s already ten after. See you tomorrow?”
“Yep. Will do. Oh, just so you know, now that you’re pretty much trained, you’ll still get
in at seven, but I don’t come in until eight. Miranda knows—it’s understood that the
senior assistant comes in later since she works so much harder.” I almost lunged at her
throat. “So just go through the morning routine like I taught you. Call me if you have to,
but you should know the drill by now. ’Bye!” She hopped into the backseat of the second
car that was waiting in front of the building.
“’Bye!” I trilled, a giant fake smile plastered on my face. The driver made a move to get
out of the car and open the door for me, but I told him I was fine to let myself into the
backseat. “The Plaza, please.”
James had been waiting for me on the stairs outside even though it couldn’t have been
more than twenty degrees. He’d gone home to change and looked very, very skinny in
black suede pants and a white ribbed tank top, which showed off his expertly applied
midwinter bottle tan. I still looked appropriately amateurish in my Gap miniskirt.
“Hey, Andy, how’d the Book dropping-off go?” We waited in line to check our coats
and I had immediately spotted Brad Pitt.
“Ohmigod, you’re joking. Brad Pitt’s here?”
“Yeah, well, Marshall does Jennifer’s hair, natch. So she must be here also. Really,
Andy, maybe next time you’ll believe me when I tell you to stick with me. Let’s get a
drink.”
The Reese and Johnny spottings had come back to back, and by the time oneA .M. rolled
around, I’d had four drinks and was happily gabbing away with a fashion assistant
fromVogue . We were discussing bikini waxes. Passionately. And it didn’t even bother
me.Christ, I thought, as I weaved through the crowd looking for James, flashing a giant
kiss-ass smile in the general direction of Jennifer Aniston when I passed by—this isn’t a
half-bad party. But I was tipsy, I had to be at work again in less than six hours, and I
hadn’t been home in nearly twenty-four, so when I spotted James making out with one of
the colorists from Marshall’s salon, I was just about to duck out when I felt a hand in the
small of my back.
“Hey,” said the gorgeous guy I’d spotted earlier lurking in the corner. I waited for him to
realize that he’d approached the wrong girl, that I must’ve looked the same as his
girlfriend from behind, but he just smiled even wider. “Not so talkative, are you?”
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“Oh, and saying ‘hey’ makes you articulate, I guess?”Andy! Shut your mouth! I berated
silently.Some absolutely beautiful man approaches you out of the blue at a party full of
celebrities and you tell him off right away? But he didn’t seem offended, and even though
it didn’t seem possible, his smile increased in size to an all-out grin.
“Sorry,” I muttered while examining my nearly empty drink. “My name’s Andrea.
There. I think that’s a much better way of beginning.” I stuck out my hand and wondered
what he wanted.
“Actually, I liked your way just fine. Name’s Christian. A pleasure to meet you, Andy.”
He pushed a brown curl out of his left eye and took a swig from a bottle of Budweiser.
He looked vaguely familiar, I decided, but I couldn’t place him.
“Bud, huh?” I asked, pointing to his hand. “I didn’t think they served something so
lowbrow at a party like this.”
He laughed, a deep, hearty laugh instead of the chuckle I’d expected. “You sure do say
what you think, don’t you?” I must’ve looked mortified, because he smiled again and
said, “No, no, that’s a good thing. And a rare thing, especially in this industry. I couldn’t
bring myself to drink champagne from a straw out of a minibottle, you know? Something
fairly emasculating about that. So the bartender dug one of these out of the kitchen
somewhere.” Another curl push, but it fell back in his eye the moment he took his hand
away. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his black sport coat and offered it
to me. I took one and proceeded to drop it immediately, seizing the opportunity to
examine him while I reached down to retrieve it.
It landed a few inches from his shiny, square-toed loafers that sported the irrefutable
Gucci tassel, and on the way up I noticed that his Diesel jeans were the perfect parts
faded, long, and wide enough at the bottom that they dragged a little behind the shiny
loafers, the ends frayed from repeated interaction with the soles. A black belt, probably
Gucci but thankfully not recognizable, kept the jeans riding in the perfect low spot below
his waist, where he had tucked in a plain white cotton T-shirt—one that even though it
easily could have been a Hanes was definitely an Armani or a Hugo Boss and was put in
place only to offset his beautiful complexion. His black blazer looked just as expensive
and well cut, perhaps even custom-made to fit his average-size but inexplicably sexy
frame, and it was his green eyes that commanded the most attention. Seafoam, I thought,
remembering the old J.Crew colors we’d loved so much in high school, or perhaps just a
straightforward teal. The height, the build, the whole package looked vaguely like Alex,
just with a whole lot more Euro style and a whole lot less Abercrombie. Slightly cooler,
slightly better looking. Definitely older, right around thirty. And probably much too slick.
He immediately produced a flame and leaned in close to make sure my cigarette had
caught. “So what brings you to a party like this, Andrea? Are you one of the lucky few
who can call Marshall Madden her own?”
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“No, I’m afraid not. At least not yet, although he wasn’t all that subtle in telling me that I
probably should be.” I laughed, noticing for a brief moment that I wasdesperate to
impress this stranger. “I work atRunway . One of the beauty guys dragged me here.”
“Ah,Runway magazine, huh? Cool place to work, if you’re into S&M and that sort of
thing. How do you like it?”
I wasn’t sure if he meant S&M or the job itself, but I considered the possibility that he
got it, that he was enough of an insider to know that it wasn’t exactly how it appeared to
those on the outside. Perhaps I should charm him with the nightmare involved in
dropping off the Book earlier that night? No, no, I had no idea who this guy was . . . for
all I knew he also worked atRunway in some far-flung department I hadn’t even seen yet,
