‘I. WANT. HIM.’ – I pointed here, just to be clear – ‘OUT. OF. MY. APARTMENT.’
‘I know you do, and I think he’s about ready to leave, too, aren’t you, buddy?’ Alex asked in the kind of soothing voice you’d use with a rabid-looking dog you were frightened of upsetting.
‘Duuuuuuude, no issues here. Just havin’ a little fun with Lily is all. She was all over me last night at Au Bar – ask anyone, they’ll tell you. Fuckin’ begged me to come back with her.’
‘I don’t doubt that,’ Alex said soothingly. ‘She’s a really friendly girl when she wants to be, but sometimes she gets too drunk to know what she’s doing. So as her friend, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.’
The freak mashed his cigarette out and made a big show of throwing up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Dude, no problem whatsoever. I’ll just take a quick shower and give m’little Lily here a proper good-bye, and then I’ll be on m’way.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the towel that hung next to her desk.
Alex moved forward, swiftly removed the towel from his hands, and looked him directly in the eye. ‘No. I think you should leave now. Right now.’ And in a way that I’d never seen him do in the almost three years I’d known him, he placed himself squarely in front of Freak Boy and allowed his height to insinuate the threat that was clearly intended.
‘Dude, no worries. I’m outta here,’ he crooned after taking one look at Alex and realizing he had to crane his neck to look at his face. ‘Just get m’self dressed and out the door.’ He picked up his jeans from the floor and located his ripped-up T-shirt from underneath Lily’s still exposed body. She moved when he pulled it out from under her, and a few seconds later her eyes managed to open.
‘Cover her!’ Alex commanded gruffly, now clearly enjoying his new role as threatening-man-in-charge. And without comment, Freak Boy pulled the cover over her shoulders so that only a tangle of her black curls was visible.
‘What’s going on?’ Lily croaked while willing her eyes to stay open. She turned to see me trembling in anger in her doorway, Alex hulking about doing manly poses, and Freak Boy scrambling to tie his blue and canary yellow Diadoras and get the hell out before things got really ugly. Too late. Her gaze stopped on Freak Boy.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked him, bolting upright without even realizing that she was now completely naked. Alex and I instinctively turned away while she pulled the covers up, looking shocked, but Freak Boy grinned lecherously and ogled her breasts.
‘Baby, you tellin’ me you don’t remember who I am?’ he asked, his thick Australian accent becoming less adorable with every passing second. ‘You sure knew who I was last night.’ He walked over to her and looked like he was about to sit down on the bed, but Alex had already grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.
‘Out. Now. Or I’m going to have to carry you myself,’ he commanded, looking tough and very cute and not a little proud of himself.
Freak Boy threw up his hands and made clucking noises. ‘I’m outta here. Call me sometime, Lily. You were great last night.’ He moved quickly through the bedroom door toward the living room with Alex in pursuit. ‘Man, she sure as hell is a feisty one,’ I heard him say to Alex right before the front door slammed shut, but it didn’t appear that Lily had heard. She had pulled on a T-shirt and managed to pull herself out of bed.
‘Lily, who the hell was that? He was the biggest jerk I’ve ever met, not to mention absolutely disgusting.’
She shook her head slowly and appeared to be concentrating very hard, trying to remember where he’d entered her life. ‘Disgusting. You’re right, he is absolutely disgusting, and I have no idea what happened. I remember you leaving last night and talking to some really nice guy in a suit – we were doing shots of Jäger, for some reason – and that’s it.’
‘Lily, just imagine how drunk you had to be to agree to not only have sex with someone who looks like that, but to bring him back to our apartment!’ I thought I was pointing out the obvious, but her eyes widened into surprised realization.
‘You think I had sex with him?’ she asked softly, refusing to acknowledge what seemed certain.
Alex’s words from a few months before came back to me: Lily did drink more than was normal – all the signs were there. She was missing classes regularly, had gotten arrested, and now had dragged home the scariest-looking mutant of a guy I’d ever laid eyes on. I also remembered the message one of her professors had left on our machine right after finals, something to the effect that while Lily’s final paper had been stellar, she’d missed too many classes and handed things in too late to give her the ‘A’ she deserved. I decided to tread carefully. ‘Lil, sweetie, I don’t think the problem is the guy. I think it’s the drinking that’s causing it.’
She had begun brushing her hair, and it wasn’t until now that I realized it was already six o’clock on a Friday night and she was just getting out of bed. She wasn’t protesting, so I continued.
‘It’s not that I have any issue with drinking,’ I said, trying to keep the conversation relatively peaceful. ‘Clearly, I’m not antidrinking. I just wonder if it’s gotten a little bit out of control lately, you know? Has everything been OK at school?’
She opened her mouth to say something, but Alex popped his head in the door and handed me my shrieking cell phone. ‘It’s her,’ he said and left again. Argghhh! The woman had a very special gift for wrecking my life.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Lily, looking at the phone warily as the display screamed MP CELL over and over again. ‘It usually only takes a second for her to humiliate or reprimand me, so hold that thought.’ Lily set down her brush and watched me answer.
‘Miran—’ Again, I’d almost answered the line as though it were her own. ‘This is Andrea,’ I corrected, bracing for the barrage.
‘Andrea, you know I expect you there at six-thirty tonight, do you not?’ she barked into the phone without a greeting or identification of any sort.
‘Oh, um, you had said seven o’clock earlier. I still need to—’
‘I said six-thirty before and I’m saying it again now. Siiiiix-thiiiiirty. Get it?’ Click. She’d hung up. I looked at my watch. 6:05 P.M. This was a problem.
‘She wants me there in twenty-five minutes,’ I stated out loud to no one in particular.
Lily looked relieved for the distraction. ‘Let’s get you moving then, OK?’
‘We’re midconversation here, and this is important. What were you going to say before?’ The words were right, but it was clear to both of us that my mind was already a million miles away. I’d already decided there was no time to shower, as I now had fifteen minutes to zip myself into black-tie and get into a car.
‘Seriously, Andy, you’ve got to move. Go get ready – we’ll do this later.’
And once again I was left with no choice but to move quickly, heart racing, climbing into my gown and running a brush through my hair and trying to match some of the names with the pictures of the evening’s guests that Emily had helpfully printed out earlier. Lily watched the whole thing unwind with mild amusement, but I knew she was worrying about the incident with Freak Boy, and I felt terrible I couldn’t deal with it right then. Alex was on his phone with his little brother, trying to convince him that he really was too young to go to a movie at nine o’clock and that their mother wasn’t cruel in forbidding him to do so.
I kissed him on the cheek as he whistled and told me that he’d probably meet some people for dinner but to call him later if I wanted to meet up, and ran as best one can in stilts back to the living room, where Lily was holding a gorgeous piece of black silk fabric. I looked at her questioningly.
‘A wrap, for your big night,’ she sang, shaking it out like a bedsheet. ‘I want my Andy to look just as sophisticated as all the big-money Carolina rednecks she’ll be serving tonight like a common waitress. My grandmother bought it for me years ago to wear to Eric’s wedding. I can’t decide if it’s gorgeous or hideo
us, but it’s black-tie enough and it’s Chanel, so it should do.’
I hugged her. ‘Just promise if Miranda kills me for saying the wrong thing that you’ll burn this dress and make sure I’m buried in my Brown sweatpants. Promise me!’ She grabbed the mascara wand I was waving about and started working on me.
‘You look great, Andy, really you do. Never thought I’d see you in an Oscar gown going to one of Miranda Priestly’s parties, but, hey, you look the part. Now go.’
She handed me the dangling, obnoxiously bright Judith Leiber bag and held the door as I walked into the hallway. ‘Have fun!’
The car was waiting outside my building and John – who was shaping up to be a first-class pervert – whistled as the driver held the door open for me.
‘Knock ’em dead, hottie,’ he called after me with an exaggerated wink. ‘See ya late-night.’ He had no idea where I was going, of course, but it was comforting that he thought I’d at least be coming home. Maybe it won’t be that bad, I thought as I settled into the cushy backseat of the Town Car. But then my dress slid up over my knees and the back of my legs touched the ice-cold leather seats, and I lurched forward. Or, maybe, it will suck just as much as I think it will?
The driver jumped out and ran around to open the door for me, but I was standing on the curb by the time he’d made it around.
I’d been to the Whitney once before, on a day trip to New York with my mom and Jill to see some of the tourist sights. The museum itself didn’t look familiar now, but I instantly flashed back when I saw the bridge-like entrance. As a thirteen-year-old, I’d stood on that walkway for nearly twenty minutes, gazing over the side down below, where the well-heeled Upper East Side crowd mingled with the well-heeled suburban day-trippers over lemonades and espressos. They all seemed so confident, so breezy in their discussions of the revolutionary architectural exhibit or the racy black-and-white prints by a young, gay photographer. They spoke to each other with ease and moved with the kind of assurance I’d never felt as a teenager and was sure I never would.
How right I’d been. It may have been ten years later, but the only difference between then and now was the cost of my outfit. And the height of my heels, of course. I briefly considered hurtling first the shoes and then myself over the walkway, but a quick calculation confirmed that I’d only shatter a kneecap or smash a collarbone – not enough to get me out of the evening’s festivities. Lacking any alternatives, I inhaled mightily, clenched my fingers to fight off the urge for one last cigarette, and reapplied my Fudgsicle Lipsmackers. It was time to be a lady.
The guard opened the door for me, bowed slightly, and smiled. He probably thought I was a guest.
‘Hi, miss, you must be Andrea. Ilana said to have a seat right over there, and she’ll be out in a minute.’ He turned away and spoke discreetly into a microphone on his sleeve and nodded when he heard a response through his earpiece. ‘Yes, right over there, miss. She’ll be here as soon as she can.’
I looked around the entryway but didn’t feel like going through the dress-adjustment hassle of actually sitting. Besides, when would I ever again have the chance to be in the Whitney Museum – or any museum, really – after hours, with apparently no one else there? The ticket tables were empty and the ground-floor bookshop was deserted, but the sense that exciting things were happening somewhere upstairs was palpable.
After nearly fifteen minutes of peering around, being careful not to wander too far from the aspiring Secret Service agent, a rather ordinary-looking girl in a long navy dress crossed the sleek lobby and walked toward me. I was surprised that someone with a job as glamorous as hers (working in the special events office of the museum) could be so plain, and I felt instantly ridiculous, like a girl from a small town trying to dress for a big-city black-tie affair – which, ironically enough, was exactly who I was. Ilana, on the other hand, looked like she hadn’t even bothered to change out of work clothes, and I learned later that she hadn’t.
‘Why bother?’ she’d laughed. ‘It’s not like these people are here to look at me.’ Her brown hair was clean and straight but lacking in style, and her brown flats were horrifically unfashionable. But her blue eyes were bright and kind, and I knew instantly that I would like her.
‘You must be Ilana,’ I said, sensing that I somehow had seniority in the situation and was expected to take charge. ‘I’m Andrea. I’m Miranda’s assistant, and I’m here to help in any way I can.’
She looked so relieved, I instantly wondered what Miranda had said to her. The possibilities were endless, but I imagined it had something to do with Ilana’s Ladies’ Home Journal getup. I shuddered to think what wicked thing she’d uttered to such a sweet girl and prayed she wouldn’t start to cry. Instead, she turned to me with those big innocent eyes, leaned forward, and declared none-too-quietly, ‘Your boss is a first-rate bitch.’
I stared, shocked, for just a moment before recovering. ‘She is, isn’t she?’ I said, and we both laughed. ‘What do you need me to do? Miranda’s going to be able to sense that I’m here in about ten seconds, so I should look like I’m doing something.’
‘Here, I’ll show you the table,’ she said, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button for the second floor. ‘It’s dynamite.’
We stepped off the elevator and cruised past another guard, weaved around a sculpture I couldn’t immediately identify, and made our way to a smaller room towards the back of the floor. A rectangular, twenty-four-seat table stretched down the middle. Robert Isabell was worth it, I could see. He was the New York party planner, the only one who could be trusted to strike just the right note with astonishing attention to detail: fashionable without being trendy, luxe but not ostentatious, unique without being over the top. Miranda insisted that Robert do everything, but the only time I’d ever seen his work before was at Cassidy and Caroline’s birthday party. I knew he could manage to turn Miranda’s colonial-style living room into a chic downtown lounge (complete with soda bar – in martini glasses, of course – ultra-suede, built-in banquettes, and a fully heated, tented balcony dance floor with a Moroccan theme) for ten-year-olds, but this was truly spectacular.
Everything glowed white. Light white, smooth white, bright white, textured white, and rich white. Bundles of milky white peonies looked as if they grew from the table itself, deliciously lush but low enough to allow people to talk over them. Bone white china (with a white checked pattern) rested on a crisp white linen tablecloth, and high-backed white oak chairs were covered in luscious white suede (the danger!), all atop a plush white carpet, specially laid for the evening. White votive candles in simple white porcelain holders gave off a soft white light, highlighting (but somehow not burning) the peonies from underneath and providing subtle, unobtrusive illumination around the table. The only color in the entire room came from the elaborate multihued canvases that hung on the walls surrounding the table. A quick glance at their descriptions told me that B-DAD’s brother would be celebrating his engagement in the presence of oil paintings by Rothko, Steel, Kline, and of course, de Kooning. The white table as a deliberate contrast to the larger-than-life canvases that literally burst with color was exquisite. As I turned my head around to take in the wonderful contrast of the color and the white (‘That Robert really is a genius!’), a vibrant red figure caught my eye. In the corner, standing ramrod straight under Rothko’s Four Darks in Red was Miranda, wearing the beaded red Chanel that had been commissioned, cut, fitted, and precleaned just for tonight. In that moment I knew immediately why she’d insisted on both the gallery and the dress, knew that she’d planned for that painting to highlight that dress – or perhaps it was the other way around? Either way, it was perfection. She looked breathtaking. She herself was an objet d’art, chin jutted upward and muscles perfectly taut, a neoclassical relief in beaded Chanel silk. She wasn’t beautiful – her eyes were a bit too beady and her hair too severe and her face much too hard – but she was stunning in a way I couldn’t make sense of, and no matter how hard I tried
to play it cool, to pretend to be admiring the room, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
As usual, the sound of her voice broke my reverie. ‘Ahn-dre-ah, you do know the names and faces of our guests this evening, do you not? I assume you have properly studied their portraits. I expect you won’t humiliate me tonight by failing to greet someone by name,’ she announced, looking nowhere, with only my name indicating that her words might somehow be directed toward me.
‘Um, yes, I’ve got it covered,’ I answered, suppressing the urge to salute and still acutely aware that I was staring. ‘I’ll take a few minutes now and make sure I’m positive.’ She looked at me as if to say You sure will, you idiot, and I forced myself to look away and walk out of the gallery. Ilana was right behind me.
‘What’s she talking about?’ she whispered, leaning toward me. ‘Portraits? Is she crazy?’
We sat down on an uncomfortable wooden bench in a darkened hallway, both of us overwhelmed with the need to hide. ‘Oh, that. Yeah, normally I would’ve spent the last week trying to find pictures of the guests tonight and memorizing them so I could greet them by name,’ I explained to a horrified Ilana. She stared at me incredulously. ‘But since she just told me I had to come today, I only had a few minutes in the car to look them over.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘You think this is strange? Whatever. It’s standard stuff for a Miranda party.’
‘Well, I thought there wouldn’t be anyone famous here tonight,’ she said.
‘Yeah, there won’t be anyone we’d recognize right away, just a lot of billionaires with homes below the Mason-Dixon line. Usually when I have to memorize the guests’ faces, they’re easier to find online or in WWD or something. I mean, you can generally locate a picture of Queen Noor or Michael Bloomberg or Yohji Yamamoto if you have to. But just try to find Mr and Mrs Packard from some rich suburb of Charleston or wherever the hell they live and it’s not so easy. Miranda’s other assistant was looking for these people while everyone else was getting me ready, and she eventually found almost everyone in the society pages of their hometown newspapers or on various companies’ websites, but it was really annoying.’