Luckily for everyone involved, Helen arrived within seconds, pushing an overflowing, off-kilter wheeled rack in front of her and pulling another behind her. She hesitated briefly outside Miranda’s French door before she received one of Miranda’s imperceptible nods and then dragged the racks through the thick carpeting.
“This is all of it? Two racks?” Miranda asked, barely looking up from the copy she was reading.
Helen was clearly surprised at being addressed, since, as a rule, Miranda didn’t speak to other people’s assistants. But Lucia hadn’t shown up with her own racks yet, so there was little choice.
“Um, uh, no. Lucia will be here in just a moment. She has the other two. Would you like me to, uh, begin showing you what we’ve called in?” Helen asked nervously as she pulled her ribbed tank top down over her prairie skirt.
“No.”
And then: “Ahn-dre-ah! Find Lucia. By my watch it’s three o’clock. If she’s not prepared, then I have better things to do than sit here and wait for her.” Which wasn’t exactly true, since it appeared she hadn’t yet stopped reading copy and it was now only approximately thirty-five seconds since I’d made the initial phone call. But I wasn’t about to point this out.
“No need, Miranda, I’m right here,” sang a breathless Lucia, herself pushing and pulling racks past me just as I stood to begin the search. “So sorry. We were waiting for one last coat from the YSL people.”
She arranged the racks, which were organized by clothing type (shirts, outerwear, pants/skirts, and dresses) in a half-circle in front of Miranda’s desk and gave the signal for Helen to leave. Miranda and Lucia then went through each item, one by one, and bickered over its place or lack thereof in the upcoming fashion shoot that was to take place in Sedona, Arizona. Lucia was pushing for an “urban cowgirl chic” look, which she thought would play out perfectly against a backdrop of the red-rock mountains, but Miranda kept announcing snidely that she’d prefer “just chic,” since “cowgirl chic” was clearly an oxymoron. Maybe she’d had her fill of “cowgirl chic” at B-DAD’s brother’s party. I managed to tune them out until Miranda called my name, this time ordering me to call in the accessories people for their run-through.
Immediately I checked Emily’s book again, but it was just as I thought: there was no accessories run-through scheduled. Praying that Emily had simply forgotten to put it in the book, I called Stef and told her Miranda was ready for the Sedona run-through.
No such luck. They weren’t scheduled for their run-through until late afternoon the following day, and at least a quarter of the things they needed hadn’t been delivered yet from their PR companies.
“Impossible. Can’t do it,” announced Stef, sounding much less confident than her words implied.
“Well, what the hell do you expect me to tell her?” I whispered back.
“Tell her the truth: the run-through wasn’t supposed to take place until tomorrow and a lot of the stuff isn’t here. I mean, seriously! Right now we’re still waiting for one evening bag, one clutch, three different fringed purses, four pairs of shoes, two necklaces, three—”
“OK, OK, I’ll tell her. But wait by the phone and pick up if I call you back. And if I were you, I’d get ready. I’m betting she doesn’t really care when it was scheduled for.”
Stef hung up on me without another word and I approached Miranda’s doors and waited patiently for her to acknowledge me. When she looked in my general direction and waited, I said, “Miranda, I just spoke with Stef and she said that since the run-through wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow, they’re still waiting for quite a few items. But they should all be here by—”
“Ahn-dre-ah, I simply cannot visualize how these models will look in these clothes without shoes or bags or jewelry and by tomorrow I’ll be in Italy. Tell Stef I want her to give me a run-through of whatever she’s got and be prepared to show me photos of whatever isn’t here yet!” She turned back to Lucia and together they returned to the racks.
Conveying this to Stef gave new meaning to “don’t shoot the messenger.” She freaked.
“I cannot fucking pull a run-through together in thirty seconds, do you understand me? It’s fucking impossible! Four of my five assistants aren’t here, and the only one who is here is a complete fucking idiot. Andrea, what the fuck am I going to do?” She was hysterical, but there wasn’t much room for negotiation.
“OK, great then,” I said sweetly, eyeing Miranda, who had a knack of hearing everything. “I’ll tell Miranda you’ll be right here.” I hung up before she dissolved into tears.
I wasn’t surprised to see Stef arrive two and a half minutes later with her one fucking idiot accessories assistant, a fashion assistant she’d borrowed, and James, also borrowed from beauty, all looking terrified as they carried oversize wicker baskets. They stood cowering by my desk until Miranda gave another imperceptible nod, at which point they all shuffled forward for the genuflection exercises. Since Miranda obviously refused to leave her office—ever—she required that all the overflowing racks of clothes and carts full of shoes and baskets brimming over with accessories must be schlepped to her.
When the accessories people finally managed to lay out their wares in neat rows on the carpet for her to inspect, Miranda’s office morphed into a Bedouin bazaar—one that just so happens to look more Madison Avenue than Sharm-el-Sheik. One editor was presenting her with $2,000 snakeskin belts while another tried to sell her a large Kelly bag. A third hawked a short Fendi cocktail dress, while someone else tried to sell her on the merits of chiffon. Stef had managed to assemble a near-perfect run-through with only thirty seconds’ notice and a whole lot of pieces missing; I saw she had filled the gaps with things from past photo shoots, explaining to Miranda that the accessories they were still waiting for were similar but even better. They were all masters at what they do, but Miranda was the ultimate. She was the ever-aloof consumer, coolly moving from one gorgeous stall to the next, never feigning any show of interest. When she finally, blessedly, did decide, she pointed and commanded (much like a judge at a dog show, “Bob, she’s chosen the Border Collie . . .”), and the editors nodded obsequiously (“Yes, excellent choice,” “Oh, definitely, the perfect choice”) and they wrapped up their wares and scuttled back to their respective departments before she inevitably changed her mind.
The whole hellish ordeal only took a few minutes, but by the time it was over, we were all exhausted from anxiety. She’d already announced earlier in the day that she’d be leaving early, around four, to spend a couple hours with the girls before the big trip, so I canceled the features meeting, to the relief of the entire department. At precisely 3:58 P.M. she began packing her bag to leave, a not-so-strenuous activity, since I’d be bringing anything of any heft or significance to her apartment later on that evening in time for her flight. Basically, it involved tossing her Gucci wallet and her Motorola cell phone into that Fendi bag that she kept abusing. The past few weeks, the $10,000 beauty had been serving as Cassidy’s school bag and many of the beads—in addition to one of the handles—had snapped off. Miranda had dropped it on my desk one day and ordered me to have it fixed or, if it was impossible to fix, to just throw out. I’d proudly resisted all temptation to tell her the bag was unfixable so I could keep it and instead had a leatherworker repair it for her for a mere twenty-five dollars.
When she finally walked out, I instinctively reached for the phone to call Alex and whine about my day. It wasn’t until I’d dialed half of his number that I remembered we were taking a break. It hit me that this would be the first day in more than three years that we wouldn’t talk. I sat with the phone in my hand, staring at an e-mail he’d sent the day before, one that he’d signed “love,” and wondered if I’d made a horrible mistake in agreeing to this break. I dialed again, this time ready to tell him that we should talk about everything, figure out where we’d gone wrong, that I take responsibility for the part I’d played in the slow and steady fading of our relationship. But before it even h
ad a chance to ring, Stef was standing over my desk with the Accessories War Plan for my Paris trip, pumped up from her run-through with Miranda. There were shoes and bags and belts and jewelry and hosiery and sunglasses to discuss, so I replaced the receiver and tried to focus on her instructions.
Logically, it would seem that a seven-hour flight in steerage decked out in a pair of skintight leather pants, open-toe strappy sandals, and a blazer over a tank top would be the utmost in hellish travel experiences. Not so. The seven hours in flight were the most relaxing I could remember. Since Miranda and I were both flying to Paris at the same time on different flights—she from Milan and me from New York—it appeared I’d stumbled on the single situation where she could not call me for seven straight hours. For one blessed day, my inaccessibility wasn’t my fault.
For reasons I still didn’t understand, my parents hadn’t been nearly as thrilled as I thought they’d be when I’d called to tell them about the trip.
“Oh, really?” my mother asked in that special way of hers that implied so much more than those two little words really meant. “You’re going to Paris now?”
“What do you mean, ‘now’?”
“Well, it just doesn’t seem like the best time to be jetting off to Europe, is all,” she said vaguely, although I could tell that an avalanche of Jewish-mother guilt was ready to begin its slide in my direction.
“And why is that? When would be a good time?”
“Don’t get upset, Andy. It’s just that we haven’t seen you in months—not that we’re complaining, Dad and I both understand how demanding your job is—but don’t you want to see your new nephew? He’s a few months old already and you haven’t even met him yet!”
“Mom! Don’t make me feel guilty. I’m dying to see Isaac, but you know I can’t just—”
“You know Dad and I will pay for your ticket to Houston, right?”
“Yes! You’ve told me four hundred times. I know it and I appreciate it, but it’s not the money. I can’t get any time off work and now with Emily out, I can’t just up and leave—even on weekends. Does it make sense to you to fly across the country only to have to come back if Miranda calls me on Saturday morning to pick up her dry cleaning? Does it?”
“Of course not, Andy, I just thought—we just thought—that you might be able to visit them in the next couple weeks, because Miranda was going to be away and all, and if you were going to fly out there, then Dad and I would go also. But now you’re going to Paris.”
She said it in the way that implied what she was really thinking. “But now you’re going to Paris” translated to “But now you’re jetting off to Europe to escape all of your family obligations.”
“Mother, let me make something very, very clear here. I am not going on vacation. I have not chosen to go to Paris rather than meet my baby nephew. It’s not my decision at all, as you probably know but are refusing to accept. It’s really very simple: I go to Paris with Miranda in three days for one week, or I get fired. Do you see a choice here? Because if so, I’d love to hear it.”
She was quiet for a moment before she said, “No, of course not, honey. You know we understand. I just hope—well, I just hope that you’re happy with the way things are going.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked nastily.
“Nothing, nothing,” she rushed to say. “It doesn’t mean anything other than just what I said: your dad and I only care that you’re happy, and it seems that you’ve really been, um, well, uh, pushing yourself lately. Is everything OK?”
I softened a bit since she was clearly trying so hard. “Yeah, Mom, everything’s fine. I’m not happy to be going to Paris, just so you know. It’s going to be a week of sheer hell, twenty-four-seven. But my year will be up soon, and I can put this kind of living behind me.”
“I know, sweetie, I know it’s been a tough year for you. I just hope this all ends up being worth it for you. That’s all.”
“I know. So do I.”
We hung up on good terms, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that my own parents were disappointed in me.
The baggage claim at de Gaulle was a nightmare, but I found the elegantly dressed driver who was waving a sign with my name on it when I exited customs, and the moment he closed his own door, he handed me a cell phone.
“Ms. Priestly asked that you call her upon arrival. I took the liberty of programming the hotel’s number into the automatic dialing. She’s in the Coco Chanel suite.”
“Um, oh, OK. Thanks. I guess I’ll call right now,” I announced rather unnecessarily.
But before I could press the star key and the number one, the phone bleated and flashed a frightening red color. If the driver hadn’t been watching me expectantly I would have muted the ring and pretended I hadn’t yet seen it, but I was left with the distinct feeling that he had been ordered to keep a close eye on me. Something about his expression suggested that it was not in my best interest to ignore that call.
“Hello? This is Andrea Sachs,” I said as professionally as possible, already making over/under bets with myself as to the chance it was anyone besides Miranda.
“Ahn-dre-ah! What time does your watch read at this moment?”
Was this a trick question? A preface to accusing me of being late?
“Um, let me see. Actually, it says that it’s five-fifteen in the morning, but obviously I haven’t switched it yet to Paris time. Therefore, my watch should read that it’s eleven-fifteen A.M.” I said cheerily, hoping to start off the first conversation of our interminable trip on as high a note as I dared.
“Thank you for that never-ending narrative, Ahn-dre-ah. And may I ask what, exactly, you’ve been doing for the past thirty-five minutes?”
“Well, Miranda, the flight landed a few minutes late and then I still had—”
“Because according to the itinerary you created for me, I’m reading that your flight arrived at ten-thirty-five this morning.”
“Yes, that’s when it was scheduled to arrive, but you see—”
“I’ll not have you tell me what I see, Ahn-dre-ah. That is most certainly not acceptable behavior for the next week, do you understand me?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” My heart began pounding what felt like a million beats a minute, and I could feel my face grow hot with humiliation. Humiliation at being spoken to that way, but more than anything, my own shame in pandering to it. I had just apologized—most sincerely—to someone for not being able to make my international flight land at the correct time and then for not being savvy enough to figure out how to avoid French customs entirely.
I pressed my face rather uncouthly against the window and watched as the limo weaved its way through Paris’s bustling streets. The women seemed so much taller here, the men so much more genteel, and just about everyone was beautifully dressed, thin, and regal in their stance. I’d only been to Paris once before, but living out of a backpack in a hostel on the wrong side of town didn’t quite have the same feel as watching the chic little clothing boutiques and adorable sidewalk cafés from the backseat of a limousine. I could get used to this, I thought, as the driver turned around to show me where I might find a few bottles of water if I was so inclined.
When the car pulled up to the hotel entrance, a distinguished-looking gentleman wearing what I guessed was a custom-made suit opened the back door for me.
“Mademoiselle Sachs, what a pleasure to finally meet you. I am Gerard Renaud.” His voice was smooth and confident, and his silver hair and deeply lined face indicated he was much older than I’d pictured when I spoke to the concierge over the phone.
“Monsieur Renaud, it’s great to finally meet you!” Suddenly all I wanted to do was crawl into a nice, soft bed and sleep off my jet lag, but Renaud quickly quashed my hopes.
“Mademoiselle Andrea, Madame Priestly would like to see you in her room immediately. Before you’ve settled into yours, I’m afraid.” He had an apologetic expression on his face, and for a brief moment I felt sorrier fo
r him than I did for myself. Clearly he didn’t enjoy conveying this news.
“That’s fucking great,” I muttered, before noticing how distressed this made Monsieur Renaud. I plastered on a winning smile and began again. “Please excuse me, it was a terribly long flight. Will someone please tell me where I may find Miranda?”
“Of course, mademoiselle. She is in her suite and from what I can gather, very eager to see you.” When I looked over at Monsieur Renaud I thought I detected a slight eye-roll and even though I’d always found him oppressively proper over the phone, I reconsidered. Although he was much too professional to show it, never mind actually say anything, I considered that he might loathe Miranda as much as I did. Not because of any real proof I had, but simply because it was impossible to imagine anyone not hating her.
The elevator opened and Monsieur Renaud smiled and ushered me inside. He said something in French to the bellman who was escorting me upstairs. Renaud bid me adieu and the bellman led me to Miranda’s suite. He knocked on the door and then fled, leaving me to face Miranda alone.
I briefly wondered if Miranda herself would answer the door, but it was impossible to imagine. In the eleven months I’d been letting myself in and out of her apartment, I’d yet to catch her doing anything that even resembled work, including such pedestrian tasks as answering the phone, removing a jacket from a closet, or pouring a glass of water. It was as if her every day was Shabbat and she was once again the observant Jew, and I was, of course, her Shabbes goy.