The cell phone afforded me no such barriers. Sure, it had all the same features as the home phone, but from Miranda’s point of view there was simply no reason whatsoever for the cell to ever be turned off. It could never go unanswered. The few reasons for such a situation that I’d thrown out to Emily when she’d first handed me the phone – a standard Runway office supply – and told me to always answer it were quickly eliminated.
‘What if you were sleeping?’ I had stupidly asked.
‘So get up and answer it,’ she’d answered while filing down a scraggly nail.
‘Sitting down to a really fancy meal?’
‘Be like every other New Yorker and talk at the dinner table.’
‘Getting a pelvic exam?’
‘They’re not looking in your ears, are they?’ All right then. I got it.
I loathed that fucking cell but could not ignore it. It kept me tied to Miranda like an umbilical cord, refusing to let me grow up or out or away from my source of suffocation. She called constantly, and like some sick Pavlovian experiment gone awry, my body had begun responding viscerally to its ring. Brring-brring. Increased heart rate. Briiiing. Automatic finger clenching and shoulder tensing. Brriiiiiiiiiiiing. Oh, why won’t she leave me alone, please, oh, please, just forget I’m alive – sweat breaks out on my forehead. This whole glorious weekend I’d never even considered the phone might not have service and had just assumed it would’ve rung if there was a problem. Mistake number one. I roamed the couple hundred square feet until AT&T decided to work again, held my breath, and dialed into my voice mail.
Mom left a cute message wishing me lots of fun with Lily. A friend from San Francisco found himself on business in New York that week and wanted to get together. My sister called to remind me to send a birthday card to her husband. And there it was, almost unexpected but not quite, that dreaded British accent ringing in my ears. ‘Ahn-dre-ah. It’s Mir-ahnda. It’s nine in the morning on Sunday in Pah-ris and the girls have not yet received their books. Call me at the Ritz to assure me that they will arrive shortly. That’s all.’ Click.
The bile began to rise in my throat. As usual, the message lacked all niceties. No hello, good-bye, or thank you. Obviously. But more than that, it had been left nearly half a day ago, and I had still not called her back. Grounds for dismissal, I knew, and there was nothing I could do about it. Like an amateur, I’d assumed my plan would work perfectly and hadn’t even realized that Uri had never called to confirm the pickup and drop-off. I scanned through the address book on my phone and quickly dialed Uri’s cell phone number, another Miranda purchase so that he’d be on call 24/7 as well.
‘Hi, Uri, it’s Andrea. Sorry to bother you on Sunday, but I was wondering if you picked up those books yesterday from Eighty-seventh and Amsterdam?’
‘Hi, Andy, eet’s so nice to hear your woice,’ he crooned in the thick Russian accent I always found so comforting. He’d been calling me Andy like a favorite old uncle would since the first time we met, and coming from him – as opposed to B-DAD – I didn’t mind it. ‘Of course I pick up the bouks, just like you say. You tink I don’t vant to help you?’
‘No, no, of course not, Uri. It’s just that I got a message from Miranda saying that they hadn’t received them yet, and I’m wondering what went wrong.’
He was quiet for a moment, and then offered me the name and number of the pilot who was flying the private jet yesterday afternoon.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,’ I said, scribbling the number down frantically and praying that the pilot would be helpful. ‘I’ve got to run. Sorry I can’t talk, but have a great weekend.’
‘Yes, yes, good veekend to you, Andy. I tink the pilot man will help you trace the bouks. Nice luck to you,’ he said merrily and hung up.
Lily was making waffles and I desperately wanted to join her, but I had to deal with this now or I was out of a job. Or maybe I’d already been fired, I thought, and no one had even bothered to tell me. Not outside the realm of Runway possibility, remembering the fashion editor who’d been fired while on her honeymoon. She herself stumbled across her change in job status by reading about it in a copy of Women’s Wear Daily in Bali. I quickly called the number that Uri had given me for the pilot and thought I’d pass out from frustration when an answering machine picked up.
‘Hi, Jonathan? This is Andrea Sachs from Runway magazine. I’m Miranda Priestly’s assistant, and I needed to ask you a question about the flight yesterday. Oh, come to think of it, you’re probably still in Paris, or maybe on your way back. Well, I just wanted to see if the books, and uh, well, you of course, made it to Paris in one piece. Can you call my cell? 917-555-8702. Please, as soon as possible. Thanks. ’Bye.’
I thought about phoning the concierge at the Ritz to see if he’d remember receiving the car that would have brought the books from the private airport on the outskirts of Paris but quickly realized that my cell didn’t dial internationally. It was quite possibly the only task it was not programmed to handle, and it was, of course, the only one that mattered. At that moment, Lily announced that she had a plate of waffles and a cup of coffee for me. I walked into the kitchen and took the food. She was sipping a Bloody Mary. Ugh. It was a Sunday morning. How could she be drinking?
‘Having a Miranda moment?’ she asked with a look of sympathy.
I nodded. ‘Think I screwed up pretty badly this time,’ I said, gratefully accepting the plate. ‘This one just might get me fired.’
‘Oh, sweetie, you always say that. She won’t fire you. She hasn’t even seen you hard at work yet. At least, she better not fire you – you have the greatest job in the world!’
I looked at her warily and willed myself to remain calm.
‘Well, you do,’ she said. ‘So she sounds difficult to please and a little crazy. Who isn’t? You still get free shoes and makeovers and haircuts and clothes. The clothes! Who on earth gets free designer clothes just for showing up at work each day? Andy, you work at Runway, don’t you understand? A million girls would kill for your job.’
I understood. I understood right then that Lily, for the first time since I met her nine years before, didn’t understand. She, like all my other friends, loved hearing the crazy work stories I’d accumulated in the past weeks – the gossip and the glamour – but she didn’t really understand just how hard each day was. She didn’t understand that the reason I continued to show up, day after day, was not for the free clothes, didn’t understand that all the free clothes in the world wouldn’t make this job bearable. It was time to bring one of my best friends into my world, where, I was quite certain, she would understand. She just needed to be told. Yes! It was time to share with someone exactly what was going on. I opened my mouth to start, excited at the prospect of having an ally, but my phone rang.
Dammit! I wanted to throw it against the wall, tell whoever was on the other end to go to hell. But a small part of me hoped it was Jonathan with some information. Lily smiled and told me to take my time. I nodded sadly and answered.
‘Is this Andrea?’ asked a man’s voice.
‘Yes, is this Jonathan?’
‘It is indeed. I just called home and got your message. I’m flying back from Paris right now, somewhere over the Atlantic as we speak, but you sounded so worried I wanted to call you back right away.’
‘Thank you! Thank you! I really appreciate it. Yes, I am a bit worried, because I got a call from Miranda earlier today and it seems strange that she hadn’t yet received the package. You did give it to the driver in Paris, right?’
‘Sure did. You know, miss, in my business I don’t ask any questions. Just fly where I’m told and when and try to get everyone there in one piece. But it’s sure not often I end up flying overseas with nothing onboard but a package. Must’ve been something real important, I imagine, like an organ for a transplant or maybe some classified documents. So yes, I took real good care of that package and I gave it to the driver, just like I was told. Nice fella from the Ritz. No p
roblems.’
I thanked him and hung up. The concierge at the Ritz had arranged for a driver to meet Mr Tomlinson’s private plane at de Gaulle and transfer Harry back to the hotel. If everything went as planned, Miranda should’ve had those books by seven in the morning local time, and considering it was already late afternoon there, I couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong. There was no choice: I had to call the concierge, and since my cell wouldn’t dial internationally, I had to find a phone that did.
I took the plate of now cold waffles back to the kitchen and dumped them in the garbage. Lily was lying on the couch again, half-asleep. I hugged her good-bye and told her I’d call her later and headed out to hail a cab back to the office.
‘What about today?’ she whined. ‘I have The American President all lined up and ready to go. You can’t leave yet – our weekend’s not over!’
‘I know, I’m sorry, Lil. I have to deal with this now. There’s nothing I’d rather do than stay here, but she’s got me on a pretty short leash right now. I’ll call you later?’
The office was, of course, deserted, as everyone was surely brunching at Pastis with their investment banker boyfriends. I sat in my darkened area, took a deep breath, and dialed. Blissfully, Monsieur Renaud, my favorite of the Ritz concierges, was available.
‘Andrea, dear, how are you? We’re simply delighted to have Miranda and the twins back with us again so soon,’ he lied. Emily told me that Miranda stayed at the Ritz so frequently that the entire hotel staff knew her and the girls by name.
‘Yes, Monsieur Renaud, and I know she’s just thrilled to be there,’ I lied back. No matter how accommodating the poor concierge was, Miranda found fault with his every move. To his credit, he never stopped trying, and he never stopped lying about how much he loved her, either. ‘Listen, I’m wondering if that car you sent to meet Miranda’s plane made it back to the hotel already?’
‘Well of course, dear. That was hours ago. He must’ve returned here before eight o’clock this morning. I sent the best driver we have on staff,’ he said proudly. If only he knew what his best driver had been sent to shuttle around town.
‘Well, that’s so strange, because I got a message from Miranda saying that she never received the package, but I’ve checked with the driver here who swears he dropped it at the airport, the pilot who swears he flew it to Paris and gave it to your driver, and now you who remember it arriving at the hotel. How could she not have received it?’
‘It seems the only way to solve this is to ask the lady herself,’ he trilled in a fake-happy voice. ‘Why don’t I connect you?’
I had hoped against all hope that it wouldn’t come to this, that I’d be able to identify and fix the problem without having to speak to her. What would I tell her if she still insisted that she’d never received the package? Was I supposed to suggest that she look on the table in her suite, where it was inevitably left hours earlier? Or was I supposed to go through the whole thing, private jet and all, and get her two more copies by the end of the day? Or perhaps I should hire a secret service agent next time to accompany the books on their journey overseas and ensure that nothing compromises their safe arrival? Something to think about.
‘Sure, Monsieur Renaud. Thanks for your help.’
A few clicks and the phone was ringing. I was sweating slightly from the tension, so I wiped my palm on my sweatpants and tried not to think what would happen if Miranda saw me wearing sweatpants in her office. Be calm, be confident, I coached myself. She can’t disembowel me over the phone.
‘Yes?’ I heard from a faraway place, jolting myself out of my self-help thoughts. It was Caroline who, at a mere ten years, had perfected her mother’s brusque phone manner perfectly. Cassidy at least had the courtesy to answer the phone with a ‘hello.’
‘Hi, sweetie,’ I crooned, hating myself for sucking up to a child. ‘It’s Andrea, from the office. Is your mom there?’
‘You mean my mum?’ she corrected as she always did when I used the American pronunciation. ‘Sure, I’ll get her.’
A moment or two later, Miranda was on the line.
‘Yes, Ahn-dre-ah? This had better be important. You know how I feel about being interrupted when I’m spending time with the girls,’ she stated in her cold, clipped way. You know how I feel about being interrupted when I’m spending time with the girls? I wanted to scream. Are you fucking kidding me, lady? You think I’m calling for my goddamn health? Because I couldn’t bear to go a single weekend without hearing your miserable voice? And what about me spending time with my girls? I thought I’d pass out from anger, but I took a deep breath and dove right in.
‘Miranda, I’m sorry if this is a bad time, but I’m calling to ensure that you received the Harry Potter books. I heard your message saying that you hadn’t yet received them, but I’ve spoken to everyone and—’
She interrupted me midsentence and spoke slowly and surely. ‘Ahn-dre-ah. You should really listen more closely. I said no such thing. We received the package early this morning. Incidentally, it came so early that they woke us all up for the silly thing.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t dream that she’d left the message, did I? I was still too young even for early-onset Alzheimer’s, right?
‘What I said was that we didn’t receive both copies of the book, as I had requested. The package included only one, and I’m sure you can imagine just how disappointed the girls are. They were really looking forward to each having their own copy, as I had requested. I need you to explain why my orders weren’t followed.’
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. I was definitely dreaming now, living some sort of alternate-universe existence where anything resembling rationality and logic were suspended indefinitely. I wouldn’t even let myself consider the absurdity of what was unfolding.
‘Miranda, I do recall that you requested two copies, and I ordered two,’ I stammered, hating myself yet again for pandering. ‘I spoke to the girl at Scholastic and am quite sure that she understood that you needed two copies of the book, so I can’t imagine—’
‘Ahn-dre-ah, you know how I feel about excuses. I’m not particularly interested in hearing yours now. I expect something like this will never happen again, correct? That’s all.’ She hung up.
I stood there for what must have been five full minutes, listening to the squawking off-the-hook sound with the receiver pressed against my ear. My mind raced, full of questions. Could I kill her? I wondered, considering the probability of getting caught. Would they automatically assume it was me? Of course not, I concluded – everybody, at least at Runway, had a motive. Do I really have the emotional wherewithal to watch her die a long, slow, agonizingly painful death? Well, yes, that much was for sure – what would be the most enjoyable way to snuff out her wretched existence?
I slowly replaced the receiver. Could I really have misunderstood her message when I listened to it earlier? I grabbed my cell phone and replayed the messages. ‘Ahn-dre-ah. It’s Mir-ahnda. It’s nine in the morning on Sunday in Pah-ris and the girls have not yet received their books. Call me at the Ritz to assure me that they will arrive shortly. That’s all.’ Nothing was really wrong. She may have received one copy instead of two, but she deliberately gave me the impression that I’d made a tremendous, career-ending mistake. She’d called with no concern that her nine A.M. call would have reached me at three A.M., on my most perfect weekend in months. She’d called to drive me a little crazier, push me a little bit harder. She’d called to dare me to defy her. She’d called to make me hate her that much more.
7
Lily’s New Year’s party was good and low-key, just a lot of paper cups of champagne at Lily’s place with a bunch of people from college and some others they managed to drag along. I was never a big fan of the holiday. I don’t remember who first called it ‘Amateur Night’ (I think it was Hugh Hefner), saying that he went out the other 364 days a year, but I tend to agree. All that forced drinking and merry-making d
id not a good time guarantee. So Lily had stepped up and thrown a little party to save us all the $150 tickets to some club or, even worse, any sort of ridiculous thoughts of actually freezing in Times Square. We’d each brought a bottle of something not too poisonous, and she had passed out noisemakers and glittery tiaras, and we got quite drunk and happy and toasted in the New Year on her rooftop overlooking Harlem. Although we’d all had way too much to drink, Lily was pretty much nonfunctional by the time everyone else had left. She had already thrown up twice, and I was scared to leave her alone in the apartment, so Alex and I had packed her a bag and dragged her in the cab with us. We all stayed at my place, Lily on the futon in the living room, and went out for a big brunch the next day.
I was glad the whole holiday thing was over. It was time to get on with my life and get started – really started – on my new job. Even though it felt like I’d been working for a decade, I was technically just beginning. I had a lot of hope that things would improve once Miranda and I started working together day to day. Anyone could be a cold-hearted monster over the phone, especially someone who was uncomfortable with vacations and being so far away from work. But I was convinced that the misery of that first month would give way to a whole new situation, and I was excited to see how it would all unfold.
It was a little after ten on a cold and gray January 3, and I was actually happy to be at work. Happy! Emily was gushing about some guy she met at a New Year’s party in LA, some ‘superhot, up-and-coming songwriter’ who had promised to come visit her in New York in the next couple weeks. I was chatting with the associate beauty editor who sat down the hall, a really sweet guy who’d graduated from Vassar and whose parents didn’t yet know – even despite the college choice and the fact that he was a beauty editor at a fashion magazine – that he did, in fact, sleep with guys.
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