for them himself.” I shot her a grateful look and threw the bag over my shoulder.
“Good luck!” she called as the elevator doors closed, a genuine smile taking up most of
her face. “You’re lucky to have such an awesome job!” Before she could say it, I found
myself mentally finishing the sentence—a million girls would die for it.And for that
moment, having just seen a famous designer’s studio and in possession of thousands of
dollars worth of clothes, I thought she was right.
Once I got the hang of things, the rest of the day flew. I debated for a few minutes
whether anyone would be mad if I took a minute to pick up a sandwich, but I had no
choice. I hadn’t eaten anything since my croissant at seven this morning, and it was
nearly two. I asked the driver to pull over at a deli and decided at the last minute to get
him one, too. His jaw dropped when I handed him the turkey and honey mustard, and I
wondered if I had made him uncomfortable.
“I just figured you were hungry, too,” I said. “You know, driving around all day, you
probably don’t have much time for lunch.”
“Thank you, miss, I appreciate it. It’s just that I’ve been driving around Elias-Clark girls
for twelve years, and they are not so nice. You are very nice,” he said in a thick but
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indeterminate accent, looking at me in the rearview mirror. I smiled at him and felt a
momentary flash of foreboding. But then the moment passed and we each munched our
turkey wraps while sitting in gridlock and listening to his favorite CD, which sounded to
me like little more than a woman shrieking the same thing over and over in an unknown
language, the whole thing set to sitar music.
Emily’s next written instruction was to pick up a pair of white shorts that Miranda
desperately needed for tennis. I figured we’d be headed to Polo, but she had written
Chanel. Chanel made white tennis shorts? The driver took me to the private salon, where
an older saleswoman whose facelift had left her eyes looking like slits handed me a pair
of white cotton-Lycra hot pants, size zero, pinned to a silk hanger and draped in a velvet
garment bag. I looked at the shorts, which appeared as though they wouldn’t fit a six-
year-old, and looked back to the woman.
“Um, do you really think Miranda will wear these?” I asked tentatively, convinced the
woman could open that pit-bull mouth of hers and consume me whole. She glared at me.
“Well, I should hope so, miss, considering they’re custom measured and cut, according
to her exact specifications,” she snarled as she handed the minishorts over. “Tell her Mr.
Kopelman sends his best.”Sure, lady. Whoever that is.
My next stop was what Emily wrote as “way downtown,” J&R Computer World near
City Hall. Seemed it was the only store in the entire city that sold Warriors of the West, a
computer game that Miranda wanted to purchase for Oscar and Annette de la Renta’s
son, Moises. By the time I made it downtown an hour later, I’d realized that the cell
phone could make long-distance calls, and I was happily dialing my parents and telling
them how great the job was.
“Um, Dad? Hi, it’s Andy. Guess where I am now? Yes, of course I’m at work, but that
happens to be in the backseat of a chauffeured car cruising around Manhattan. I’ve
already been to Tommy Hilfiger and Chanel, and after I buy this computer game, I’m on
my way to Oscar de la Renta’s apartment on Park Avenue to drop all the stuff off. No,
it’s not for him! Miranda’s in the DR and Annette’s flying there to meet them all tonight.
On a private plane, yes! Dad! It stands for the Dominican Republic, of course!”
He sounded wary but pleased that I was so happy, and I came to decide that I was hired
as college-educated messenger. Which was absolutely fine with me. After leaving the bag
of Tommy clothes, the hot pants, and the computer game with a very distinguished-
looking doorman in a very plush Park Avenue lobby (so this is what people mean when
they talk about Park Avenue!), I headed back to the Elias-Clark building. When I walked
into my office area, Emily was sitting Indian-style on the floor, wrapping presents in
plain white paper with white ribbons. She was surrounded by mountains of red-and-white
boxes, all identical in shape, hundreds, perhaps thousands, scattered between our desks
and overflowing into Miranda’s office. Emily was unaware that I was watching her, and I
saw that it took her only two minutes to wrap each individual box perfectly and an
additional fifteen seconds to tie on a white satin ribbon. She moved efficiently, not
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wasting a single second, piling the wrapped white boxes in new mountains behind her.
The wrapped pile grew and grew, but the unwrapped pile didn’t shrink. I estimated that
she could be at it for the next four days and still not finish.
I called her name over the eighties CD she had playing from her computer. “Um, Emily?
Hi, I’m back.”
She turned toward me and for a brief moment appeared to have no idea who I was.
Completely blank. But then my new-girl status came rushing back. “How’d it go?” she
asked quickly. “Did you get everything on the list?”
I nodded.
“Even the video game? When I called, there was only one copy left. It was there?”
I nodded again.
“And you gave it all to the de la Rentas’ doorman on Park? The clothes, the shorts,
everything?”
“Yep. No problem. It went very smoothly, and I dropped it all off a few minutes ago. I
was wondering, will Miranda actually wear those—”
“Listen, I need to run to the bathroom and I’ve been waiting for you to get back. Just sit
by the phone for a minute, OK?”
“You haven’t gone to the bathroom since I left?” I asked incredulously. It had been five
hours. “Why not?”
Emily finished tying the ribbon on the box she had just wrapped and looked at me
coolly. “Miranda doesn’t tolerate anyone except her assistants answering her phone, so
since you weren’t here, I didn’t want to go. I suppose I could have run out for a minute,
but I know she’s having a hectic day, and I want to make sure that I’m always available
to her. So no, we do not go to the bathroom—or anywhere else—without clearing it with
each other. We need to work together to make sure that we are doing the best job possible
for her. OK?”
“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here.” She turned and walked away, and I put my
hand on the desk to steady myself. No going to the bathroom without a coordinated war
plan? Did she really sit in that office for the past five hours willing her bladder to behave
because she worried that a woman across the Atlantic may call in the two and a half
minutes it would take to run to the ladies’ room? Apparently so. It seemed a little
dramatic, but I assumed that was just Emily being overly enthusiastic. There was no way
that Miranda actually demanded that of her assistants. I was sure of it. Or did she?
I picked up a few sheets of paper from the printer and saw that it was titled “X-Mas
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Presents Received.” One, two, three, four, five,six single-spaced pages of gifts, with
sender and item on one line each. Two hundred and fifty-six presents in all. It looked like
a wedding registry for the Queen of England, and I couldn’t take it in fast enough. There
was a Bobby Brown makeup set from Bobby Brown herself, a one-of-a-kind leather Kate
Spade handbag from Kate and Andy Spade, a Smythson of Bond Street burgundy leather
organizer from Graydon Carter, a mink-lined sleeping bag from Miuccia Prada, a
multistrand beaded Verdura bracelet from Aerin Lauder, a diamond-encrusted watch
from Donatella Versace, a case of champagne from Cynthia Rowley, a matching beaded
tank top and evening bag from Mark Badgley and James Mischka, a collection of Cartier
pens from Irv Ravitz, a chinchilla muffler from Vera Wang, a zebra-print jacket from
Alberto Ferretti, a Burberry cashmere blanket from Rosemarie Bravo. And that was just
the start. There were handbags in every shape and size from everyone: Herb Ritts, Bruce
Weber, Giselle Bundchen, Hillary Clinton, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Annie Leibovitz,
Nicole Miller, Adrienne Vittadini, Michael Kors, Helmut Lang, Giorgio Armani, John
Sahag, Bruno Magli, Mario Testino, and Narcisco Rodriguez, to name a few. There were
dozens of donations made in Miranda’s name to various charities, what must have been a
hundred bottles of wine and champagne, eight or ten Dior bags, a couple dozen scented
candles, a few pieces of Oriental pottery, silk pajamas, leather-bound books, bath
products, chocolates, bracelets, caviar, cashmere sweaters, framed photographs, and
enough flower arrangements and/or potted plants to decorate one of those five-hundredcouple
mass weddings they have in soccer stadiums in China. Ohmigod! Was this reality?
Was this actually happening? Was I now working for a woman who received 256
presents at Christmas from some of the world’s most famous people? Or not so famous? I
wasn’t sure. I recognized a few of the really obvious celebrities and designers, but didn’t
know then that the others comprised some of the most sought-after photographers,
makeup artists, models, socialites, and a whole slew of Elias-Clark executives. Just as I
was wondering if Emily actually knew who all the people were, she walked back in. I
tried to pretend I wasn’t reading the list, but she didn’t mind at all.
“Crazy, isn’t it? She is the coolest woman ever,” she gushed, snatching the sheets off her
desk and gazing at them with what can only be described as lust. “Have you ever seen
more amazing things in your life? This is last year’s list. I just pulled it out so we know
what to expect since the gifts have begun coming in already. That’s definitely one of the
best parts of the job—opening all her presents.” I was confused.We opened her presents?
Why wouldn’t she open them herself? I asked as much.
“Are you out of your mind? Miranda won’t like ninety percent of the stuff people send.
Some of it is downright insulting, things I won’t even show her. Like this,” she said,
picking up a small box. It was a Bang and Olufsen portable phone in their signature sleek
silver with all rounded edges and the capability to remain clear for something like 2,000
miles. I had been in the store just a couple weeks earlier, watching Alex salivate over
their stereo systems, and I knew the phone cost upward of five hundred dollars and could
do everything short of holding a conversationfor you. “A phone? Do you believe
someone had the nerve to send Miranda Priestly aphone ?” She tossed it to me. “Keep it
if you want it: I would never even let her see this. She’d be annoyed that someone sent
somethingelectronic .” She pronounced the word “electronic” as though it were
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synonymous with “covered in bodily fluids.”
I tucked the phone box under my desk and tried to keep the smile off my face. It was too
perfect! A portable phone was on my list of stuff that I still needed for my new room, and
I’d just gotten a five-hundred-dollar one for free.
“Actually,” she continued, flopping down again on the floor of Miranda’s office, Indian-
style, “let’s put in a few hours wrapping some more of these wine bottles, and then you
can open the presents that came in today. They’re over there.” She pointed behind her
desk to a smaller mountain of boxes and bags and baskets in a multitude of colors.
“So, these are gifts that we’re sending out from Miranda, right?” I asked her as I picked
up a box and began wrapping it in the thick white paper.
“Yep. Every year, it’s the same deal. Top-tier people get bottles of Dom. This would
include Elias execs, and the big designers who aren’t also personal friends. Her lawyer
and accountant. Midlevel people get Veuve, and this is just about everyone—the twins’
teachers, the hair stylists, Uri, et cetera. The nobodies get a bottle of the Ruffino
Chianti—usually they go to the PR people who send small, general gifts that aren’t
personalized for her. She’ll have us send Chianti to the vet, some of the babysitters who
fill in for Cara, the people who wait on her in stores she goes to often, and all the
caretakers associated with the summer house in Connecticut. Anyway, I order about
twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of this stuff at the beginning of November, Sherry-
Lehman delivers it, and it usually takes nearly a month to do all the wrapping. It’s good
she’s out of the office now or we’d be taking this stuff home with us to wrap. Pretty good
deal, because Elias picks up the tab.”
“I guess it would cost double that to have the Sherry-Lehman place wrap them, huh?” I
wondered, still trying to process the hierarchy of the gift-giving.
“What the hell do we care?” she snorted. “Trust me, you’ll learn quickly that cost is no
issue around here. It’s just that Miranda doesn’t like the wrapping paper they use. I gave
them this white paper last year, but they just didn’t look as nice as when we do it.” She
looked proud.
We wrapped like that until close to six, with Emily telling me how things worked as I
tried to wrap my mind around this strange and exciting world. Just as she was describing
exactly how Miranda likes her coffee (tall latte with two raw sugars), a breathless blond
girl I remembered as one of the many fashion assistants walked in carrying a wicker
basket the size of a baby carriage. She hovered just outside Miranda’s office, looking as
though she thought the soft gray carpeting might turn to quicksand under her Jimmy
Choos if she dared to cross the threshold.
“Hi, Em. I’ve got the skirts right here. Sorry that took so long, but no one’s around since
it’s that weird time right before Thanksgiving. Anyway, hopefully you’ll find something
she’ll like.” She looked down at her basket full of folded skirts.
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Emily looked up at her with barely disguised scorn. “Just leave them on my desk. I’ll
return the ones that won’t work.Which I imagine will be most of them, considering your
