“Oh, really?”she mimicked in a hyena-like howl. People were beginning to stare at us.
“Oh, really? That’s all you have to say? ‘Oh, really?’ ”
“No, uh, of course not, Miranda. I didn’t mean it like that. Is there something I can do to
help?”
“Is there something I can do to help?”she mimicked again, this time in a whiny child’s
voice. If she had been any other person on earth, I would have reached out and slapped
her face. “You damn well better believe it, Ahn-dre-ah. Since you’re clearly unable to
stay on top of these things in advance, you’ll need to figure out how to renew them in
time for their flight tonight. I will not have my own daughters miss this party tomorrow
night, do you understand me?”
Did I understand her? Hmm. A very good question indeed. I was thoroughly unable to
understand how it was my fault that her ten-year-olds had expired passports when they,
theoretically, had two parents, a stepfather, and a full-time nanny to oversee such things,
but I also understood it didn’t matter. If she thought it was my fault, it was. I understood
that she would never understand when I told her that those girls were not getting on that
plane tonight. There was virtually nothing I couldn’t find, fix, or arrange, but securing
federal documents while in a foreign country in less than three hours was not happening.
Period. She had finally made her very first request of me in a full year that I could not
accommodate—regardless of how much she barked or demanded or intimidated, it was
not happening.You remind me of myself when I was your age .
Fuck her. Fuck Paris and fashion shows and marathon games of “I’m so fat.” Fuck all
the people who believed that Miranda’s behavior was justified because she could pair a
talented photographer with some expensive clothes and walk away with some pretty
magazine pages. Fuck her for even thinking that I was anything like her. And most of all,
fuck her for being right. What the hell was I standing here for, getting abused and
belittled and humiliated by this joyless she-devil? So maybe, just maybe, I, too, could be
sitting at this very same event thirty years from now, accompanied only by an assistant
who loathes me, surrounded by armies of people who pretend they like me because they
have to.
I yanked out my cell phone and punched in a number and watched as Miranda became
increasingly more livid.
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“Ahn-dre-ah!” she hissed, much too ladylike to ever make a scene. “What do you think
you’re doing? I’m telling you that my daughters need passports immediately, and you
decide it’s a good time to chat on your phone? Are you under the very mistaken
impression that’s why I brought you to Paris?”
My mother picked up on the third ring, but I didn’t even say hello.
“Mom, I’m getting on the next flight I can. I’ll call you when I get to JFK. I’m coming
home.” I clicked the phone shut before she could respond and looked up to see Miranda,
who appeared genuinely surprised. I felt a smile break through the headache and nausea
when I realized that I’d rendered her momentarily speechless. Unfortunately, she
recovered quickly. There’s a small chance I wouldn’t have gotten fired if I’d immediately
pleaded and explained and lost the defiant attitude, but I couldn’t seem to muster one
single, tiny shred of self-control.
“Ahn-dre-ah, you realize what you’re doing, do you not? You do know that if you
simply leave here like this, I’m going to be forced—”
“Fuck you, Miranda.Fuck you .”
She gasped audibly while her hand flew to her mouth in shock, and I felt not a few
Clackers turn to see what the commotion was. They’d begun pointing and whispering,
themselves as shocked as Miranda that some nobody assistant had just said that—and
none too quietly—to one of the great living fashion legends.
“Ahn-dre-ah!” She grabbed my upper arm with her clawlike hand, but I wrenched it out
of her grip and plastered on an enormous smile. I also figured it’d be an appropriate time
to stop whispering and let everyone in on our little secret.
“So sorry, Miranda,” I announced in a normal voice that for the first time since I’d
landed in Paris wasn’t shaking uncontrollably, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to
the party tomorrow. You understand don’t you? I’m sure it’ll be lovely, so please do
enjoy it. That’s all.” And before she could respond, I hitched my bag higher up on my
shoulder, ignored the pain that was searing from heel to toe, and strutted outside to hail a
cab. I couldn’t remember feeling better than that particular moment. I was going home.
18
“Jill, stop shouting for your sister!” my mother screamed unhelpfully. “I think she’s still
sleeping.” And then, a voice came even louder from the bottom of the stairs.
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“Andy, are you still sleeping?” she screamed in the general direction of my room.
I pried open an eye and checked the clock. Quarter after eight in the morning. Dear god,
what were these peoplethinking ?
It took a few times of rocking from side to side before I could muster enough strength to
pull myself to sit, and when I finally did, my whole body pleaded for more sleep, just a
little more sleep.
“Morning,” Lily smiled, her face coming within inches of my own when she turned to
face me. “They sure do get up early around here.” Since Jill and Kyle and the baby were
home for Thanksgiving, Lily had been forced to vacate Jill’s old room and move onto the
lower half of my childhood trundle bed, which was currently pulled out and nearly level
with my own twin-size bed.
“What are you complaining about? You look psyched to be awake right now, and I’m
not sure why.” She was propped up on one elbow, reading a newspaper and sipping a cup
of coffee she kept picking up and placing down on the floor next to the bed.
“I’ve been up forever listening to Isaac cry.”
“He’s been crying? Really?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t hear him. It’s been incessant since about six-thirty. Cute kid,
Andy, but that whole early-morning thing has got to go.”
“Girls!” my mother screamed again. “Is anyone awake up there? Anyone? I don’t care if
you’re still sleeping, just please tell me one way or the other so I know how many waffles
to defrost!”
“Please tell her one way or the other? I’m going to kill her, Lil.” And then toward my
still closed door: “We’re still sleeping, can’t you tell? Fast asleep, probably for hours
more. We don’t hear the baby or you screaming, or anything else!” I shouted back,
collapsing backward on the bed. Lily laughed.
“Relax,” she said in a very un-Lily-like way. “They’re just happy you’re home, and I, for
one, am happy to be here. Besides, it’s only a couple more months, and we’ve got each
other. It’s really not so bad.”
“A couple more months? It’s only been one so far, and I’m ready to put a bullet in my
head.” I yanked my nightshirt over my head—one of Alex’s old workout ones—and put
on a sweatshirt. The same jeans I’d been wearing every day for the past few weeks lay
rumpled in a ball near my closet; when I pulled them over my hips, I noticed that were
feeling snugger. Now that I no longer had to resort to gulping down a bowl of soup or
subsisting on cigarettes and Starbucks alone, my body had adjusted itself accordingly and
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gained back the ten pounds I’d lost while working atRunway . And it didn’t even make
me cringe; Ibelieved it when Lily and my parents told me I looked healthy, not fat.
Lily slipped on a pair of sweatpants over the boxers she’d slept in and tied a bandana
over her frizzed-out curls. With her hair pulled off her face, the angry red marks where
her forehead had met shards of the windshield were more noticeable, but the stitches had
already come out and the doctor promised that there’d be minimal, if any, scarring.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing the crutches that were propped against the wall
everywhere she went. “They’re all leaving today, so maybe we’ll get a decent night’s
sleep tonight.”
“She’s not going to stop screaming until we go down there, is she?” I mumbled, holding
her elbow to help her to her feet. The cast around her right ankle had been signed by my
entire family, and Kyle had even drawn annoying little messages from Isaac all over it.
“Not a chance.”
My sister appeared in the doorway, cradling the baby, who currently had drool halfway
down his chubby chin but was now giggling contentedly. “Look who I have,” she cooed
in baby talk, bouncing the happy boy up and down in her arms. “Isaac, tell your auntie
Andy not to be such a tremendous bitch, since we’re all leaving real, real soon. Can you
do that for mommy, honey? Can you?”
Isaac sneezed a very cute baby sneeze in response, and Jill looked as though he’d just
risen up from her arms a full-grown man and recited a few Shakespearean sonnets. “Did
you see that, Andy? Did youhear that? Oh, my little guy is just the cutest thing ever!”
“Good morning,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “You know I don’t want you to leave,
right? And Isaac’s welcome to stay as long as he can figure out how to sleep between the
hours of midnight and tenA .M. Hell, even Kyle can stick around if he promises not to
talk. See? We’re easy here.”
Lily had managed to hobble down the stairs and greet my parents, who were both
dressed for work and saying their good-byes to Kyle.
I made my bed and tucked Lily’s back underneath, making sure to fluff her pillow before
sticking it in my closet for the day. She’d come out of the coma before I even got off the
plane from Paris, and after Alex I was the first one to see her awake. They ran a million
tests on every conceivable body part, but with the exception of some stitches on her face,
neck, and chest, and the broken ankle, she was perfectly healthy. Looked like hell, of
course—exactly what you’d expect for someone who’d danced with an oncoming
vehicle—but she was moving around just fine and even seemed almost annoyingly
upbeat for someone who’d just lived through what she did.
It was my dad’s idea that we sublet our apartment for November and December and
move in with them. Although the idea had been less than appealing to me, my zero-sum
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salary left me with few arguments. And besides, Lily seemed to welcome the chance to
get out of the city for a little while and leave behind all the questions and gossip that
she’d have to face as soon as she saw anyone she knew again. We’d listed the place
oncraigslist.org as a perfect “holiday rental” to enjoy all the sights of New York, and to
both our shock and amazement, an older Swedish couple whose children were all living
in the city paid our full asking price—six hundred dollars more per month than we
ourselves paid. The three hundred bucks a month was more than enough for each of us to
live on, especially considering my parents comped us food, laundry, and the use of a
beat-up Camry. The Swedes were leaving the week after New Year’s, just in time for
Lily to start her semester over again and for me to, well, do something.
Emily had been the one who officially fired me. Not that I’d had any lingering doubts as
to my employment status after my little foul-mouthed temper tantrum, but I suppose
Miranda had been livid enough to drive home one last dig. The whole thing had taken
only three or four minutes and had unfolded with the ruthlessRunway efficiency that I
loved so much.
I’d just managed to hail a cab and pry the left boot from my pulsating foot when the
phone rang. Of course my heart instinctively lurched forward, but when I remembered
that I’d just told Miranda what she could do with herYou remind me of myself when I
was your age, I realized it couldn’t be her. I did a quick tabulation of the minutes that had
passed: one for Miranda to shut her gaping mouth and recover her cool for all the
Clackers who were watching, another for her to locate her cell phone and call Emily at
home, a third to convey the sordid details of my unprecedented outburst, and a final one
for Emily to reassure Miranda that she herself would “see to it that everything was taken
care of.” Yes, although the caller ID simply said “unavailable” on international phone
calls, there wasn’t a doubt in the world who was ringing.
“Hi, Em, how are you?” I practically sang while rubbing my bare foot and trying not to
let it touch the filthy taxi floor.
She seemed to be caught off-guard by my downright chipper tone. “Andrea?”
“Hey, it’s me, I’m right here. What’s up? I’m kind of in a hurry, so . . .” I thought about
asking her directly if she’d called to fire me but decided to give her a break for once. I
braced myself for the verbal tirade she was sure to let loose on me—how could you let
her down, me down,Runway down, the wide world of fashion, blah, blah, blah—but it
never came.
“Oh yeah, of course. So, I just spoke to Miranda . . .” Her voice trailed off as though she
was hoping I’d continue and explain that the whole thing had been a big mistake and not
to worry because I’d managed to fix it in the last four minutes.
“And you heard what happened, I’m assuming?”
“Um, yeah! Andy, what’s going on?”
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“I should probably be asking you that, right?”
There was silence.
“Listen, Em, I have a feeling that you called to fire me. It’s OK if you did; I know it’s
not your decision. So, did she tell you to call and get rid of me?” Even though I felt
lighter than I had in many months, I still found myself holding my breath, wondering if
maybe, through some dumb stroke of luck or misfortune, Miranda had respected my
telling her to fuck off instead of been appalled by it.
“Yes. She asked me to let you know that you have been terminated, effective
immediately, and she would like you to be checked out of the Ritz before she returns
from the show.” She said this softly and with a trace of regret. Perhaps it was for the
many hours and days and weeks she was now facing of finding and training someone all
