‘I have the concierge from the Ritz Paris after Judith,’ Emily near-shouted, triumphantly, while clipping her sheet to the Lucite clipboard. I took my four-second outdated Bulletin back to the desk and glanced over it. Dashes in phone numbers were not permissible, only periods. There were to be no colons in the time, only periods. Times must be rounded up or down to the nearest quarter-hour. Call-back phone numbers always got their own lines to make them easier to distinguish. A time listed indicated that someone had called in. The word ‘note’ was something that Emily or I had to tell her (since addressing her without being first addressed was out of the question, all relevant info went on the Bulletin). ‘Reminder’ was something Miranda had most likely left on one of our voice mails sometime between one and five A.M. the previous night, knowing that once it was recorded for us, it was as good as done. We were to refer to ourselves in the third person – if it was absolutely crucial for us to refer to ourselves at all.
She often asked us to find out exactly when and at what number a particular person would be available to speak. In this case it was a tossup whether the fruits of our investigation would go under ‘note’ or ‘reminder.’ I remember once thinking that the Bulletin read like a who’s who in the Prada crowd, but the names of the superbigmoney, the superhighfashion, and the generally superimpressive had ceased to register as ‘special’ on my desensitized brain. In my new Runway reality, the White House social secretary held little more interest than the vet who needed to speak to her about the cat’s vaccinations (fat chance of him getting a call back!).
Thursday, April 8
7.30: Simone called from the Paris office. She figured out dates with Mr Testino for the Rio shoot and also confirmed with Gisele’s agent, but she still needs to discuss the fashion with you. Please call her.
011.33.1.55.91.30.65
8.15: Mr Tomlinson called. He is on cell. Please call him.
Note: Andrea spoke with Bruce. He said that the large mirror in your foyer has a piece of decorative plaster missing from the upper left-hand corner. He located an identical mirror at an antique shop in Bordeaux. Would you like him to order it?
8.30: Jonathan Cole called. He is leaving for Melbourne on Saturday and would like to clarify the assignment before he leaves. Please call him.
555.7700
Reminder: To call Karl Lagerfeld about the Model of the Year party. He will be reachable at his home in Biarritz this evening from 8.00-8.30 P.M. his time.
011.33.1.55.22.06.78: home
011.33.1.55.22.58.29: home studio
011.33.1.55.22.92.64: driver
011.33.1.55.66.76.33: assistant’s number in Paris, in case you cannot find him
9.00: Natalie from Glorious Foods called to see whether you’d prefer that the Vacherin be filled with mixed berries praline or warm rhubarb compote. Please call her.
555.9887
9.00: Ingrid Sischy called to congratulate you on the April issue. Says the cover is “spectacular, as always” and wants to know who styled the front-of-book beauty shoot. Please call her.
555.6246: office
555.8833: home
Note: Miho Kosudo called to apologize for being unable to deliver Damien Hirst’s flower arrangement. They said to be sure to tell you that they waited outside his building for four hours, but since he doesn’t have a doorman, they had to leave. They will try again tomorrow.
9.15: Mr. Samuels called. He will be unreachable until after lunch, but wants to remind you of parent-teacher conferences tonight at Horace Mann. He would like to discuss Caroline’s history project with you beforehand. Please call him after 2.00 P.M. but before 4.00 P.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 8.00 P.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.
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 Whitney 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.’
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 of Hasidim in Prada black, walking backward circles around Miran
da 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 of Runway 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.
‘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 as confirmed?’ 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, the stewardess is forcing me to end this call. I’ll call you back when the stewardess 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 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 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 my life – 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 a Runway Paranoid Turnaro
und 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 you, it’s her. She’s an empty, shallow, bitter woman who has tons and tons of gorgeous clothes and not much else.’
Emily’s face tightened noticeably, the skin on her neck and around her cheeks pulling taut, and her hands stopped shaking. I knew she was going to bulldoze me at any moment, but I couldn’t stop.
‘Have you ever noticed that she has no friends, Emily? Have you? Sure, her phone rings day and night with the world’s coolest people, but they’re not calling to talk about their kids or their jobs or their marriages, are they? They’re calling because they need something from her. It sure seems awesome looking in, but can you imagine if the only reason anyone ever called you was because they—’
‘Stop it!’ she screamed, the tears streaming down her face again. ‘Just fucking shut up already! You march into this office and think you understand everything. Little Miss I’m So Sarcastic and So Above All This! Well, you don’t understand anything. Anything!’