“Sure, call anytime.” He tried to sound neutral, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“Great. Thanks for calling. ’Bye.”
“Who was that?” Miranda asked, still peering at her itinerary. It had just begun raining and her voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of water hitting the limo.
“Hmm? Oh, that was my father. From America.” Where the hell did I come up with this stuff? From America?
“And what did he want you to do that conflicted with your working at the party tomorrow night?”
I considered a million potential lies in the course of two seconds, but there wasn’t enough time to work out the details of any of them. Especially when she had turned her full attention to me now. I was left with no choice but to tell the truth.
“Oh, it was nothing. A friend of mine was in an accident. She’s in the hospital. In a coma, actually. And he was just calling to tell me how she was doing and to see if I was coming home.”
She considered this, nodding slowly, and then picked up the copy of the International Herald Tribune paper the driver had thoughtfully provided. “I see.” No “I’m sorry,” or “Is your friend OK?,” just an icy, vague statement and a look of extreme displeasure.
“But I’m not, I’m definitely not going home. I understand how important it is that I’m at the party tomorrow, and I’ll be there. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I want you to know that I plan to honor the commitment I’ve made to you and to my job, so I’ll be staying.”
At first Miranda said nothing. But then she smiled slightly and said, “Ahn-dre-ah, I’m very pleased with your decision. It is absolutely the right thing to do, and I appreciate that you recognize that. Ahn-dre-ah, I have to say, I had my doubts about you from the start. Clearly, you know nothing about fashion and more than that, you don’t seem to care. And don’t think I’ve failed to notice all the rich and varied ways you convey to me your displeasure when I ask you to do something that you’d rather not. Your competency in the job has been adequate, but your attitude has been substandard at best.”
“Oh, Miranda, please let me—”
“I’m speaking! And I was going to say that I’ll be much more willing to help you get where you’d like to go now that you’ve demonstrated that you’re committed. You should be proud of yourself, Ahn-dre-ah.” Just when I thought I’d faint from the length and depth and content of the soliloquy—whether from joy or from pain, I wasn’t sure—she took it one step further. In a move that was so fundamentally out of character for this woman on every level, she placed her hand on top of the one I had resting on the seat between us and said, “You remind me of myself when I was your age.” And before I could conjure up a single appropriate syllable to utter, the driver screeched to a halt in front of the Carrousel du Louvre and leapt out to open the doors. I grabbed my bag and hers as well and wondered if this was the proudest or the most humiliating moment of my life.
My first Parisian fashion show was a blur. It was dark, that much I remember, and the music seemed much too loud for such understated elegance, but the only thing that stands out from that two-hour window into bizarreness was my own intense discomfort. The Chanel boots that Jocelyn had so lovingly selected to go with the outfit—a stretchy and therefore skintight cashmere sweater by Malo over a chiffon skirt—made my feet feel like confidential documents being fed through a shredder. My head ached from a combination of hangover and anxiety, causing my empty stomach to protest with threatening waves of nausea. I was standing in the very back of the room with assorted C-list reporters and others who didn’t rank high enough to warrant a seat, keeping one eye on Miranda and the other scoping out the least humiliating places to be sick if the need arose. You remind me of myself when I was your age. You remind me of myself when I was your age. You remind me of myself when I was your age. The words kept reverberating over and over, keeping tune to the steady and persistent pounding of my forehead.
Miranda managed not to address me for nearly an hour, but after that she was off and running. Even though I was standing in the same room she was, she called my cell phone to request a Pellegrino. From that moment on, the phone rang in ten- to twelve-minute increments, each request sending another shock of pain directly to my head. Brrring. “Get Mr. Tomlinson on his air phone on the jet.” (B-DAD didn’t answer on his air phone when I tried calling it sixteen times.) Brrring. “Remind all the Runway editors in Paris that just because they’re here does not mean they can neglect their responsibilities at home—I want everything in by original deadline!” (The couple of Runway editors I had gotten in touch with at their various hotels in Paris had simply laughed at me and hung up.) Brrring. “Get me a regular American turkey sandwich immediately—I’m tiring of all this ham.” (I walked more than two miles in painful boots and with an upset stomach, but there was no turkey to be found anywhere. I’m convinced she knew, since she’d never once before asked for a turkey sandwich while in America—even though, of course, they’re available on every street corner.) Brrring. “I expect dossiers prepared on the three best chefs you’ve found thus far to be waiting in my suite by the time we return from this show.” (Emily hacked and whined and bitched but promised that she’d fax over whatever information she had on the candidates so far and I could make them into “dossiers.”) Brrring! Brrring! Brrring! You remind me of myself when I was your age.
Too nauseated and crippled to watch the parade of anorexic models, I ducked outside for a quick cigarette. Naturally, the moment I flicked on my lighter, my cell phone shrilled again. “Ahn-dre-ah! Ahn-dre-ah! Where are you? Where the hell are you right now?”
I tossed out my still unlit cigarette and raced back inside, my stomach churning so violently that I knew I would be sick—it was just a matter of when and where.
“I’m right in the back of the room, Miranda,” I said, sliding through the door and pressing my back against the wall. “Right to the left of the door. Do you see me?”
I watched as she swiveled her head back and forth until her eyes finally rested on mine. I was about to hang up the phone, but she was still stage whispering into it. “Don’t move, do you hear me? Do not move! One would think that my assistant would understand she’s here to assist me, not to gallivant around outside when I need her. This is unacceptable, Ahn-dre-ah!” By the time she’d made it to the back of the room and positioned herself in front of me, a woman in a glimmering floor-length silver gown with an empire waist and slight flare was sashaying through the reverent crowds, and the music switched from some sort of bizarre Gregorian chants to all-out heavy metal. My head began pounding almost in tune to the change in music. Miranda didn’t stop hissing when she reached me, but she did, finally, flip her cell phone closed. I did the same.
“Ahn-dre-ah, we have a very serious problem here. You have a very serious problem. I just received a call from Mr. Tomlinson. It seems Annabelle brought it to his attention that the twins’ passports expired last week.” She stared at me, but all I could do was concentrate on not throwing up.
“Oh, really?” was all I could manage, but that clearly wasn’t the right response. Her hand tightened around her bag and her eyes began to bulge with anger.
“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 under
stand 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.
“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.
“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 people thinking?
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 gained back the ten pounds I’d lost while working at Runway. And it didn’t even make me cringe; I believed 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 you hear 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 ten A.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 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 on craigslist.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 ruthless Runway efficiency that I loved so much.