“I have absolutely nothing to do with the fashion side of this place,” she declared
proudly, “so it’s best to save those questions for someone else.”
When I told her that it was really her job that sounded appealing, that I had no particular
interest or background in fashion, her smile broadened to a genuine grin. “Well, in that
case, Andrea, you might be just what we need around here. I think it’s time for you to
meet Miranda. And if I may offer a piece of advice? Look her straight in the eye and sell
yourself. Sell yourself hard and she’ll respect it.”
As if on cue, Knockout Girl swept in to escort me to Miranda’s office. It was only a
thirty-second walk, but I could sense that all eyes were on me. They peered at me from
behind the frosted glass of the editor’s office and from the open space of the assistants’
cubicles. A beauty at the copier turned to check me out, and so did an absolutely
magnificent man, although he was obviously gay and intent on examining only my outfit.
Just as I was about to walk through the doorway that would lead me to the assistants’
suite outside of Miranda’s office, Emily grabbed my briefcase and tossed it under her
desk. It took only a moment for me to realize that the message wasCarry that, lose all
credibility. And then I was standing in her office, a wide-open space of huge windows
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and streaming bright light. No other details about the space made an impression that day;
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
Since I’d never seen so much as a picture of Miranda Priestly, I was shocked to see
howskinny she was. The hand she held out was small-boned, feminine, soft. She had to
turn her head upward to look me in the eye, although she did not stand to greet me. Her
expertly dyed blond hair was pulled back in a chic knot, deliberately loose enough to look
casual but still supremely neat, and while she did not smile, she did not appear
particularly intimidating. She seemed rather gentle and somewhat shrunken behind her
ominous black desk, and although she did not invite me to sit, I felt comfortable enough
to claim one of the uncomfortable black chairs that faced her. And it was then I noticed:
she was watching me intently, mentally noting my attempts at grace and propriety with
what seemed like amusement. Condescending and awkward, yes, but not, I decided,
particularly mean-spirited. She spoke first.
“What brings you toRunway, Ahn-dre-ah?” she asked in her upper-crust British accent,
never taking her eyes away from mine.
“Well, I interviewed with Sharon, and she told me that you’re looking for an assistant,” I
started, my voice a little shaky. When she nodded, my confidence increased slightly.
“And now, after meeting with Emily, Allison, and Cheryl, I feel like I have a clear
understanding of the kind of person you’re looking for, and I’m confident I’d be perfect
for the job,” I said, remembering Cheryl’s words. She looked amused for a moment but
seemed unfazed.
It was at this point that I began to want the job most desperately, in the way people yearn
for things they consider unattainable. It might not be akin to getting into law school or
having an essay published in a campus journal, but it was, in my starved-for-success
mind, a real challenge—a challenge because I was an imposter, and not a very good one
at that. I had known the minute I stepped on theRunway floor that I didn’t belong. My
clothes and hair were wrong for sure, but more glaringly out of place was my attitude. I
didn’t know anything about fashion and I didn’tcare . At all. And therefore, I had to have
it. Besides, a million girls would die for this job.
I continued to answer her questions about myself with a forthrightness and confidence
that surprised me. There wasn’t time to be intimidated. After all, she seemed pleasant
enough and I, amazingly, knew nothing to the contrary. We stumbled a bit when she
inquired about any foreign languages I spoke. When I told her I knew Hebrew, she
paused, pushed her palms flat on her desk and said icily, “Hebrew? I was hoping for
French, or at least something moreuseful .” I almost apologized, but stopped myself.
“Unfortunately, I don’t speak a word of French, but I’m confident it won’t be a
problem.” She clasped her hands back together.
“It says here that you studied at Brown?”
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“Yes, I, uh, I was an English major, concentrating on creative writing. Writing has
always been a passion.”So cheesy! I reprimanded myself.Did I really have to use the
word “passion”?
“So, does your affinity for writing mean that you’re not particularly interested in
fashion?” She took a sip of sparkling liquid from a glass and set it down quietly. One
quick glance at the glass showed that she was the kind of woman who could drink
without leaving one of those disgusting lipstick marks. She would always have perfectly
lined and filled-in lips regardless of the hour.
“Oh no, of course not. I adore fashion,” I lied rather smoothly. “I’m looking forward to
learning even more about it, since I think it would be wonderful to write about fashion
one day.” Where the hell had I come up with that one? This was becoming an out-ofbody
experience.
Things progressed with the same relative ease until she asked her final question: Which
magazines did I read regularly? I leaned forward eagerly and began to speak: “Well, I
only subscribe toThe New Yorker andNewsweek, but I regularly readThe Buzz .
SometimesTime, but it’s dry, andU.S. News is way too conservative. Of course, as a
guilty pleasure, I’ll skimChic, and since I just returned from traveling, I read all of the
travel magazines and . . .”
“And do you readRunway, Ahn-dre-ah?” she interrupted, leaning over the desk and
peering at me even more intently than before.
It had come so quickly, so unexpectedly, that for the first time that day I was caught off-
guard. I didn’t lie, and I didn’t elaborate or even attempt to explain.
“No.”
After perhaps ten seconds of stony silence, she beckoned for Emily to escort me out. I
knew I had the job.
3
“It sure doesn’t sound like you have the job,” Alex, my boyfriend, said softly, playing
with my hair as I rested my throbbing head in his lap after the grueling day. I’d gone
straight from the interview to his apartment in Brooklyn, not wanting to sleep on Lily’s
couch for another night and needing to tell him about everything that had just happened.
I’d thought about staying there all the time, but I didn’t want Alex to feel suffocated. “I
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don’t even know why you’d want it.” After a moment or two, he reconsidered. “Actually,
it does sound like a pretty phenomenal opportunity. I mean, if this girl Allison started out
as Miranda’s assistant and is now an editor at the magazine, well, that’d be good enough
for me. Just go for it.”
He was trying so hard to sound really excited for me. We’d been dating since our junior
year at Brown, and I knew every inflection of his voice, every look, every signal. He’d
just started a few weeks earlier at PS 277 in the Bronx and was so worn down he could
barely speak. Even though his kids were only nine years old, he’d been disappointed to
see how jaded and cynical they already were. He was disgusted that they all spoke freely
about blow jobs, knew ten different slang words for pot, and loved to brag about the stuff
they stole or whose cousin was currently residing in a tougher jail. “Prison connoisseurs,”
Alex had taken to calling them. “They could write a book on the subtle advantages of
Sing Sing over Rikers, but they can’t read a word of the English language.” He was
trying to figure out how he could make a difference.
I slid my hand under his T-shirt and started to scratch his back. Poor thing looked so
miserable that I felt guilty bothering him with the details of the interview, but I just had to
talk about it with someone. “I know. I understand that there wouldn’t be anything
editorial about the job whatsoever, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do some writing after a few
months,” I said. “You don’t think it’s completely selling out to work at afashion
magazine, do you?”
He squeezed my arm and lay down next to me. “Baby, you’re a brilliant, wonderful
writer, and I know you’ll be fantastic anywhere. And of course it’s not selling out. It’s
paying your dues. You’re saying that if you put in a year atRunway you’ll save yourself
three more years of bullshit assistant work somewhere else?”
I nodded. “That’s what Emily and Allison said, that it was an automatic quid pro quo.
Work a year for Miranda and don’t get fired, and she’ll make a call and get you a job
anywhere you want.”
“Then how could you not? Seriously, Andy, you’ll work your year and you’ll get a job
atThe New Yorker . It’s what you’ve always wanted! And it sure sounds like you’ll get
there a whole lot faster doing this than anything else.”
“You’re right, you’re totally right.”
“And besides, it would guarantee that you’re moving to New York, which, I have to say,
is very appealing to me right now.” He kissed me, one of those long, lazy kisses it
seemed we had personally invented. “But stop worrying so much. Like you said yourself,
you’re still not sure you have the job. Let’s wait and see.”
We cooked a simple dinner and fell asleep watching Letterman. I was dreaming about
obnoxious little nine-year-olds having sex on the playground while they swigged forties
of Olde English and screamed at my sweet, loving boyfriend when the phone rang.
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Alex picked it up and pressed it to his ear but didn’t bother to open his eyes or say hello.
He quickly dropped it next to me. I wasn’t sure I could muster the energy to pick it up.
“Hello?” I mumbled, glancing at the clock and seeing that it was 7:15A .M. Who the hell
would call at such an hour?
“It’s me,” barked a very angry-sounding Lily.
“Hi, is everything OK?”
“Do you think I’d be calling you if everything was OK? I’m so hungover I could die, and
I finally stop puking long enough to fall asleep, and I’m awakened by a scarily perky
woman who says she works in HR at Elias-Clark. And she’s looking for you. Atseven
fifteen in the freakin’ morning. So call her back. And tell her to lose my number.”
“Sorry, Lil. I gave them your number because I don’t have a cell yet. I can’t believe she
called so early! I wonder if that’s good or bad?” I took the portable and crept out of the
bedroom, quietly closing the door as I went.
“Whatev. Good luck. Let me know how it goes. Just not in the next couple hours, OK?”
“Will do. Thanks. And sorry.”
I looked at my watch again and couldn’t believe I was about to have a business
conversation. I put on a pot of coffee and waited until it had finished brewing and
brought a cup to the couch. It was time to call. I had no choice.
“Hello, this is Andrea Sachs,” I said firmly, although my voice betrayed me with its
deep, raspy, just-woke-up-ness.
“Andrea, good morning! Hope I didn’t call too early,” Sharon sang, her own voice full of
sunshine. “I’m sure I didn’t, my dear, especially since you’ll have to be an early bird
soon enough! I have some very good news. Miranda was very impressed with you and
said she’s very much looking forward to working with you. Isn’t that wonderful?
Congratulations, dear. How does it feel to be Miranda Priestly’s new assistant? I imagine
that you’re just—”
My head was spinning. I tried to pull myself off the couch to get some more coffee,
water, anything that might clear my head and turn her words back into English, but I only
sank further into the cushions. Was she asking me if I would like the job? Or was she
making an official offer? I couldn’t make sense of anything she’d just said, anything
other than the fact that Miranda Priestly had liked me.
“—delighted with this news. Who wouldn’t be, right? So let’s see, you can start on
Monday, right? She’ll actually be on vacation then, but that’s a great time to start. Give
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you a little time to get acquainted with the other girls—oh, they’re all such sweeties!”
Acquainted? What? Starting Monday? Sweetie girls? It was refusing to make sense in my
addled brain. I picked a single phrase that I’d understood and responded to it.
“Um, well, I don’t think I can start Monday,” I said quietly, hoping I’d indeed said
something coherent. Saying those words had shocked me into semiwakefulness. I’d
walked through the Elias-Clark doors for the very first time the day before, and was being
awakened from a deep sleep to listen to someone tell me that I was to begin work in three
days. It was Friday—at seven o’clock in the goddamn morning—and they wanted me to
start on Monday? It began to feel like everything was spiraling out of control. Why the
ridiculous rush? Was this woman so important that she needed me so badly? And why
exactly did Sharon herself sound so scared of Miranda?
Starting Monday would be impossible. I had nowhere to live. Home base was my
parents’ house in Avon, the place I’d grudgingly moved back to after graduation, and
where most of my things remained while I’d traveled during the summer. All of my
interview-related clothes were piled on Lily’s couch. I’d been trying to do the dishes and
empty her ashtrays and buy pints of H.agen-Dazs so she wouldn’t hate me, but I thought
it only fair to give her a much-needed break from my unending presence, so I camped out
on weekends at Alex’s. That put all of my weekend going-out clothes and fun makeup at
Alex’s in Brooklyn, my laptop and mismatched suits at Lily’s Harlem studio, and the rest
of my life at my parents’ house in Avon. I had no apartment in New York and didn’t
particularly understand how everyone knew that Madison Avenue ran uptown but
Broadway ran down. I didn’t actually know what uptown was. And she wanted me to
start Monday?
“Um, well, I don’t think I can do this Monday because I don’t currently live in New
York,” I quickly explained, clutching the phone, “and I’ll need a couple days to find an
