you of parent-teacher conferences tonight at Horace Mann. He would like to discuss
Caroline’s history project with you before hand. Please call him after 2.00P .M. but
before 4.00P .M.
555.5932
9.15: Mr. Tomlinson called again. He asked Andrea to make reservations for dinner
tonight after parent-teacher conferences. Please call him. He is on cell.
Note: Andrea made reservations for you and Mr. Tomlinson tonight at 8.00P .M. at La
Caravelle. Rita Jammet said she is looking forward to seeing you again, and she’s
delighted you chose her restaurant.
9.30: Donatella Versace called. She said everything’s confirmed for your visit. Will you
be needing any staff besides a driver, a chef, a trainer, a hair and makeup person, a
personal assistant, three maids, and a yacht captain? If so, please let her know before she
leaves for Milan. She will also provide cell phones, but won’t be able to join you as she’ll
be preparing for the shows.
011.3901.55.27.55.61
9.45: Judith Mason called. Please call her back.
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555.6834
I crumpled the sheet and tossed it in the basket under my desk, where it immediately
soaked up the leftover grease from Miranda’s third morning breakfast that I’d already
thrown out. So far, a relatively normal day as far as the Bulletin was concerned. I was just
about to click “inbox” on my Hotmail account to see if anyone had e-mailed yet when she
cruised into the office. Damn that Sophy! She’d forgotten the warning call again.
“I expect the Bulletin is updated,” she said icily without making eye contact or otherwise
acknowledging our presence.
“It is, Miranda,” I replied, holding it up to her so she needn’t so much as reach for
it.Three words and counting, I thought to myself, predicting—and praying—it wouldn’t
be more than a seventy-five-word day on my part. She removed her waist-length mink, so
plush I had to restrain myself from burying my face into it right there, and tossed it onto
my desk. As I went to hang that magnificent dead animal in the closet, trying to rub it
discreetly against my cheek, I felt a quick shock of cold and wet: there were tiny bits of
still-frozen sleet stuck to the fur. How fabulously apropos.
Pulling the lid from a lukewarm latte, I carefully arranged today’s greasy pile of bacon,
sausage, and cheese-filled pastry on a filthy plate. I tiptoed into her office and carefully
placed everything unobtrusively on a corner of her desk. She was concentrating on
writing a note on her ecru Dempsey and Carroll stationery and spoke so softly I almost
didn’t hear.
“Ahn-dre-ah, I need to discuss the engagement party with you. Get a notebook.”
I nodded, simultaneously realizing that nodding doesn’t count as a word. This
engagement party had already become the bane of my existence and it was still more than
a month away, but since Miranda was leaving for the European shows soon and would be
gone for two weeks, planning this party had occupied the vast majority of both our recent
workdays. I returned to her office with a pad and pen, preparing myself to not understand
a single word she’d say. I considered sitting for just a moment since it’d make taking
dictation much more comfortable, but wisely resisted.
She sighed as though this were so taxing she wasn’t sure if she’d make it and tugged on
the white Hermès scarf that she’d woven into a braceletlike thing around her wrist. “Find
Natalie at Glorious Foods and tell her that I prefer the rhubarb compote. Do not let her
convince you that she needs to speak with me directly, because she does not. Also talk to
Miho and make sure they understand my orders for the flowers. Get Robert Isabell on the
phone for me sometime before lunch to go over tablecloths, place cards, and serving
trays. Also that girl from the Met to see when I can go over to make sure everything is set
up properly, and tell her to fax over the table configurations so I may do seating charts.
That’s all for now.”
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She had rattled off that list without a single pause in her note writing, and when she
finished speaking she handed me her newly crafted note to mail. I finished scribbling on
my pad, hoping I’d understood everything correctly, which, considering the accent and
the rapid-fire cadence, wasn’t always simple.
“OK,” I muttered and turned to go, bringing up my Total Miranda Words to four.Maybe
I won’t break fifty, I thought. I could feel her eyes examining the size of my butt as I
walked back to my desk and briefly considered whipping around to walk backward like a
religious Jew would do when leaving the Wailing Wall. Instead, I tried to glide toward
the hidden safety of my desk while picturing thousands and thousands ofHasidim in
Prada black, walking backward circles around Miranda Priestly.
12
The blissful day I’d been waiting for, dreaming of, had finally, finally arrived. Miranda
had not only departed the office, but she’d left the country as well. She’d jumped into her
Concorde seat less than an hour before to meet with a few of the European designers,
making me at present the indisputably happiest girl on the planet. Emily kept trying to
convince me that Miranda was even more demanding when she was abroad, but I wasn’t
buying it. I was in the middle of mapping out exactly how I was going to spend every
ecstatic moment of the next two weeks when I got an e-mail from Alex.
Hey babe, how are you? Hope your day is at least ok. You must be loving that she left,
right? Enjoy it. Anyway, just wanted to see if you think you’ll be able to call me around
three-thirty today. I have a free hour then before the reading program starts and I need to
talk to you. Nothing major, but I would like to talk. Love, A
To which I immediately worried and replied to ask if everything was OK, but he must
have logged off right away because he never wrote back again. I made a mental note to
call him at exactly three-thirty, loving the feeling of freedom that comes from knowing
that She wouldn’t be around to screw it up. But just in case, I pulled a piece ofRunway
stationery from the pile and wrote CALL A, 3:30 P.M. TODAY and taped it to the side of
my monitor. Just as I was going to call back a friend from school who’d left a message on
my home machine a week earlier, the phone rang.
“Miranda Priestly’s office,” I all but sighed, figuring that there wasn’t a single person on
earth I wanted to speak with at that moment.
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“Emily? Is that you? Emily?” The unmistakable voice filled the phone line and seemed
to seep into the air in the office. Even though she couldn’t have possibly heard from
across the suite, Emily looked up at me.
“Hello, Miranda. This is Andrea. May I help you with something?” How on earth was
this woman calling? I quickly checked the itinerary that Emily had typed for everyone
while Miranda was in Europe and saw that her flight had taken off a mere six minutes
before and she was already calling from the seat phone.
“Well, I should hope so. I’ve looked at my itinerary and I just noticed that hair and
makeup for Thursday before dinner is not confirmed.”
“Um, well, Miranda, that’s because Monsieur Renaud wasn’t able to get an absolute
confirmation from the Thursday people, but he said it was ninety-nine percent that they’d
be able to and—”
“Ahn-dre-ah, answer me this: Is ninety-nine percent the same as a hundred? Is it the
same asconfirmed ?” But before I could answer I heard her tell someone, most likely a
flight attendant, that she wasn’t “particularly interested in the rules and regulations
regarding the use of electronics” and to “please bore someone else with them.”
“But ma’am, it’s against the rules, and I’m going to have to ask that you disconnect your
call until we’ve reached a cruising altitude. It’s simply unsafe,” she said beseechingly.
“Ahn-dre-ah, can you hear me? Are you listening . . .”
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to insist. Now please, hang up the phone.” My mouth was
starting to ache from smiling so widely—I could only imagine how much Miranda was
hating being addressed as “ma’am,” which, as everyone knows, connotes old lady all the
way.
“Ahn-dre-ah, thestewardess is forcing me to end this call. I’ll call you back when
thestewardess allows me to do so. In the meantime, I want hair and makeup confirmed,
and I’d like you to begin interviewing new girls for the nanny position. That’s all.” It
clicked off, but not before I heard the flight attendant call her “ma’am” one last time.
“What did she want?” Emily asked, her forehead wrinkling in intense worry.
“She called me the right name three times in a row,” I gloated, happy to prolong her
anticipation. “Three times, do you believe it? I think that means we’re best friends,
doesn’t it? Who would’ve thought? Andrea Sachs and Miranda Priestly, BFF.”
“Andrea, what did she say?”
“Well, she wants the Thursday hair and makeup confirmed because clearly ninety-nine
percent isn’t reassuring enough. Oh, and she said something about interviewing for a new
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nanny? I must’ve misunderstood that one. Whatever—she’ll call back in thirty seconds.”
Emily took a deep breath and willed herself to endure my stupidity with grace and style.
It clearly wasn’t easy for her. “No, I don’t think you misunderstood at all. Cara is no
longer with Miranda, so obviously she’ll be needing a new nanny.”
“What? What do you mean no longer ‘with Miranda’? If she’s no longer ‘with Miranda,’
then where the hell is she?” I found it really hard to believe Cara wouldn’t have told me
about her abrupt departure.
“Miranda thought Cara might be happier working for someone else,” Emily said in what
I’m sure was much more diplomatic phrasing than Miranda herself had used. As if
Miranda had ever been attuned to other people’s happiness!
“Emily, please. Please tell me what really happened.”
“I gathered from Caroline that Cara had grounded the girls in their rooms after they
talked back to her the other day. Miranda didn’t feel it was appropriate for Cara to be
making these decisions. And I agree. I mean, Cara is not these girls’ mother, you know?”
So Cara had gotten fired because she made two little girls sit in their bedrooms after
they’d surely given her attitude? “Yeah, I see your point. It’s definitely not a nanny’s job
to look out for the well-being of her charges,” I said, nodding solemnly. “Cara was out of
line there.”
Emily not only didn’t react to my dripping sarcasm, but didn’t seem to detect so much as
a hint of it. “Exactly. And besides, Miranda never liked that Cara didn’t speak French.
How are the girls supposed to learn to speak it without an American accent?”
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe from their $18,000-a-year private school, where French was a
required subject and all three of the French teachers were native speakers? Or perhaps
from their own fluent mother who had herself lived in France, still visited a half-dozen
times a year and could read, write, and speak the language with perfect, lilting
pronunciation? But instead I said, “Hey, you’re right. No French, no nanny. I hear you.”
“Well, regardless, it’s going to be your responsibility to find the girls a new nanny.
Here’s the number of the agency we work with,” she said, sending it to me in an e-mail.
“They know how discriminating Miranda is—and rightfully so, of course—so they
usually give us good people.”
I looked at her warily and wondered what her life had been before Miranda Priestly. I got
to sleep with my eyes open for a little while longer before the phone rang again.
Blessedly, Emily answered it.
“Hello, Miranda. Yes, yes, I can hear you. No, no problem at all. Yes, I have confirmed
hair and makeup for that Thursday. And yes, Andrea has already begun looking for new
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nannies. We’ll have three solid candidates ready for you to interview on your first day
back.” She cocked her head to the side and touched her pen to her lips. “Mmm, yes. Yes,
it’s definitely confirmed. No, it’s not ninety-nine percent, it’s one hundred percent.
Definitely. Yes, Miranda. Yes, I confirmed it myself, and I’m quite positive. They’re
looking forward to it. OK. Have a nice flight. Yes, it’s confirmed. I’ll fax it right now.
OK. Good-bye.” She hung up the phone and appeared to be shaking.
“Why doesn’t that woman understand? I told her the hair and makeup were confirmed.
And then I told her again. Why did I have to tell her fifty more times? And do you know
what she said?”
I shook my head.
“Do you know what she said? She said that since this has all been such a headache for
her, she’d like me to redo the itinerary so that it will reflect that hair and makeup is now
confirmed and fax it to the Ritz so she’ll have the correct one when she arrives. I do
everything for that woman—I give her mylife —and this is how she talks to me in
return?” She looked ready to cry. I was thrilled for the rare opportunity to see Emily turn
on Miranda, but I knew that aRunway Paranoid Turnaround was imminent, so I had to
proceed with caution. Strike just the right note of sympathy and indifference.
“It’s not you, Em, I promise. She knows how hard you work—you’re an amazing
assistant to her. If she didn’t think you did a great job, she’d have gotten rid of you
already. She’s not exactly scared to do it—you know what I mean?”
Emily had stopped tearing and was approaching the defiant zone where, even though she
agreed with me, she’d defend Miranda if I said anything too outrageous. I’d learned about
the Stockholm Syndrome in psych, in which the victims identify with their captors, but I
hadn’t really understood how it all played out. Maybe I’d videotape one of the little
sessions here between Emily and me and send it to the prof so next year’s freshmen could
actually see it happening firsthand. All efforts to proceed carefully began to feel
superhuman, so I took a deep breath and dove right in.
“She’s a lunatic, Emily,” I said softly and slowly, willing her to agree with me. “It’s not
