“What are you doing here?”
He grinned and pushed that ever-present curl off his forehead. “Shouldn’t I be asking you the same thing? Because you seem to follow me everywhere I go, I’m going to have to assume you want to sleep with me.”
I blushed and, always the lady, snorted loudly. “Yeah, something like that. Actually, I’m not here as a guest, I’m just a very well dressed babysitter. Miranda asked me to come along and didn’t tell me until the last second that I’m supposed to be watching the hosts’ bratty son tonight. So, if you’ll excuse me, I better go make sure he has all the milk and crayons he’ll need.”
“Oh, he’s just fine, and I’m pretty sure the only thing he’ll be needing tonight is another kiss from his babysitter.” And he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me again. I opened my mouth to protest, to ask him what the hell was going on, but he took that as enthusiasm and slid his tongue into my mouth.
“Christian!” I was hissing quietly, wondering just how quickly Miranda would fire me if she caught me making out with some random guy at one of her own parties. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of me!” I squirmed away, but he just continued to grin that annoyingly adorable smile.
“Andy, since you seem to be a little slow on the uptake here, this is my house. My parents are hosting this party, and I was clever enough to have them ask your boss to bring you along. Did she tell you I was ten years old, or did you just decide that for yourself?”
“You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking. Please?”
“Nope. Fun, right? Since I can’t seem to pin you down any other way, I thought this might work. My stepmother and Miranda used to be friendly when Miranda worked at French Runway—she’s a photographer and does shoots for them all the time—so I just had her tell Miranda that her lonely son wouldn’t mind a little company in the form of one attractive assistant. Worked like a charm. Come on, let’s get you a drink.” He put his hand on the small of my back and led me toward a massive oak bar in the living room, which currently had three uniformed bartenders administering martinis and glasses of Scotch and elegant flutes of champagne.
“So, let me just get this straight: I don’t have to babysit for anyone tonight? You don’t have a baby brother or anything like that, do you?” It was incomprehensible that I had driven to a party with Miranda Priestly and had no responsibilities for the entire night except to hang out with a Hot Smart Writer. Maybe they’d invited me because they were planning to make me dance or sing to entertain the guests, or perhaps they were really short one cocktail waitress and figured I was the easiest last-minute fill-in? Or maybe we were headed to the coat check, where I would relieve the girl who sat there now, looking bored and tired? My mind refused to wrap itself around Christian’s story.
“Well, I’m not saying you don’t have to babysit at all tonight, because I plan on needing lots and lots of attention. But I think it’ll be a better night than you’d anticipated. Wait right here.” He kissed me on the cheek and disappeared into the crowd of partygoers, mostly distinguished-looking men and sort of artsy, fashionable women in their forties and fifties, what appeared to be a mix of bankers and magazine people, with a few designers, photographers, and models thrown in for good measure. There was a small, elegant stone patio in the back of the townhouse, all lit by white candles, where a violinist played softly, and I peeked outside. Immediately I recognized Anna Wintour, looking absolutely ravishing in a cream-colored silk slip dress and beaded Manolo sandals. She was talking animatedly to a man I presumed to be her boyfriend, although her giant Chanel sunglasses prevented me from being able to tell if she was amused, indifferent, or sobbing. The press loved to compare the antics and attitudes of Anna and Miranda, but I found it impossible to believe that anyone could be quite as unbearable as my boss.
Behind her stood what I presumed to be a few Vogue editors, eyeing Anna warily and wearily like our own Clackers eye Miranda, and next to them was a screeching Donatella Versace. Her face was so caked with makeup, her clothes were so phenomenally tight, that she actually looked like a caricature of herself. Like the first time I visited Switzerland and couldn’t help thinking how much it resembled the mock-up town in EPCOT, Donatella actually looked more like the character on Saturday Night Live than herself.
I sipped my glass of champagne (and I thought I wouldn’t be having any!) and made small talk with an Italian guy—one of the first ugly ones I’d ever met—who spoke in florid prose about his innate appreciation for the female body, until Christian reappeared again.
“Hey, come with me for a minute,” he said, once again navigating me smoothly through the crowd. He was wearing his uniform: perfectly faded Diesels, a white T-shirt, a dark sport coat, and Gucci loafers, and he blended into the fashion crowd seamlessly.
“Where are we going?” I asked, keeping my eyes peeled for Miranda, who, no matter what Christian said, was still probably expecting me to be banished to the corner, faxing or updating the itinerary.
“First, we’re getting you another drink, and maybe another for me as well. Then, I’m going to teach you how to dance.”
“What makes you think I don’t know how to dance? It just so happens that I’m a gifted dancer.”
He handed me another glass of champagne that seemed to appear out of thin air and led me into his parents’ formal living room, which was done in gorgeous shades of deep maroon. A six-piece band was playing hip music, of course, and the couple dozen people under thirty-five had congregated here. As if on cue, the band started playing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Christian pulled me against him. He smelled of masculine, preppy cologne, something old-school like Polo Sport. His hips moved naturally to the music, no thinking involved, we just moved together all over the makeshift dance floor, and he sang quietly in my ear. The rest of the room became fuzzy—I was vaguely aware there were others dancing, too, and somewhere someone was making a toast to something, but at that moment the only thing with any definition was Christian. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, there was a tiny but insistent reminder that this body against mine was not Alex’s, but it didn’t matter at all. Not now, not tonight.
It was after one when I actually remembered that I was there with Miranda; it had been hours since I’d last seen her, and I was certain she’d forgotten all about me and headed back to the hotel. But when I finally pulled myself away from the couch in his father’s study, I saw her happily chatting with Karl Lagerfeld and Gwyneth Paltrow, all of them apparently oblivious to the fact that they would all be waking up for the Christian Dior show in just a few hours. I was debating whether or not I should approach her when she spotted me.
“Ahn-dre-ah! Come over here,” she called, her voice sounding almost merry over the din of the party that had become noticeably more festive in the last few hours. Someone had dimmed the lights, and it was abundantly clear that the partyers who remained had been well taken care of by the smiling bartenders. The annoying way she pronounced my name didn’t even bother me in my warm and fuzzy champagne buzz. And even though I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, she was clearly calling me over to introduce me to her celebrity friends.
“Yes, Miranda?” I cooed in my most ingratiating, thank-you-for-bringing-me-to-this-fabulous-place tone. She didn’t even look in my general direction.
“Get me a Pellegrino and then make sure the driver’s out front. I’m ready to leave now.” The two women and one man standing next to her snickered, and I felt my face turn bright red.
“Of course. I’ll be right back.” I fetched the water, which she accepted without a thank-you, and made my way through the thinning crowd to the car. I considered finding Christian’s parents to thank them but thought better of it and headed straight toward the door, where he was leaning up against the frame with a smugly satisfied expression.
“So, little Andy, did I show you a good time tonight?” he slurred just a little bit, and it seemed nothing short of adorable at that moment.
“It was all right, I suppose.”
“Just all right? Sounds to me like you wish I would’ve taken you upstairs tonight, huh, Andy? All in good time, my friend, all in good time.”
I smacked him playfully on the forearm. “Don’t flatter yourself, Christian. Thank your parents for me.” And, for once, I leaned over first and kissed him on the cheek before he could do anything else. “G’night.”
“A tease!” he called, slurring just a little bit more. “You’re quite the little tease. Bet your boyfriend loves that about you, doesn’t he?” He was smiling now, and not cruelly. It was all part of the flirty game for him, but the reference to Alex sobered me for a minute. Just long enough to realize that I’d had a better time tonight than I could remember having had in many years. The drinking and the close dancing and his hands on my back as he pulled me against him had made me feel more alive than in all the months since I’d been working at Runway, months that had been filled with nothing but frustration and humiliation and a body-numbing exhaustion. Maybe this was why Lily did it, I thought. The guys, the partying, the sheer joy of realizing you’re young and breathing. I couldn’t wait to call and tell her all about it.
Miranda joined me in the backseat of the limo after another five minutes, and she even appeared to be somewhat happy. I wondered if she’d gotten drunk but ruled that out immediately: the most I’d ever seen her drink was a sip of this or that, and then only because a social situation demanded it. She preferred Perrier or Pellegrino to champagne and certainly a milkshake or a latte to a cosmo, so the chances she was actually drunk right now were slim.
After grilling me about the following day’s itinerary for the first five minutes (luckily I’d thought to tuck a copy in my bag), she turned and looked at me for the first time all evening.
“Emily—er, Ahn-dre-ah, how long have you been working for me?”
It came out of left field, and my mind couldn’t work fast enough to figure out the ulterior motive for this sudden question. It felt strange to be the object of any question of hers that wasn’t explicitly asking why I was such a fucking idiot for not finding, fetching, or faxing something fast enough. She’d never actually asked about my life before. Unless she remembered the details of our hiring interview—and it seemed unlikely, considering she’d stared at me with utterly blank eyes my very first day of work—then she had no idea where, if anywhere, I’d attended college, where, if anywhere, I lived in Manhattan, or what, if anything, I did in the city in the few precious hours a day I wasn’t racing around for her. And although this question most certainly did have a Miranda element to it, my intuition said that this might, just maybe, be a conversation about me.
“Next month it will be a year, Miranda.”
“And do you feel you’ve learned a few things that may help you in your future?” She peered at me, and I instantly suppressed the urge to start rattling off the myriad things I’d “learned”: how to find a single store or restaurant review in a whole city or out of a dozen newspapers with few to no clues about its genuine origin; how to pander to preteenage girls who’d already had more life experiences than both my parents combined; how to plead with, scream at, persuade, cry to, pressure, cajole, or charm anyone, from the immigrant food delivery guy to the editor in chief of a major publishing house to get exactly what I needed, when I needed it; and, of course, how to complete just about any challenge in under an hour because the phrase “I’m not sure how” or “that’s not possible” was simply not an option. It had been nothing if not a learning-rich year.
“Oh, of course,” I gushed. “I’ve learned more in one year working for you than I could’ve hoped to have learned in any other job. It’s been fascinating, really, seeing how a major—the major—magazine runs, the production cycle, what all the different jobs are. And, of course, being able to observe the way you manage everything, all the decisions you make—it’s been an amazing year. I’m so thankful, Miranda!” So thankful that two of my molars had been aching for weeks, too, but I wasn’t ever able to get in to see a dentist during working hours, but whatever. My newfound, intimate knowledge of Jimmy Choo’s handicraft had been well worth the pain.
Could this possibly sound believable? I stole a glance, and she seemed to be buying it, nodding her head gravely. “Well, you know, Ahn-dre-ah, that if ah-fter a year my girls have performed well, I consider them ready for a promotion.”
My heart surged. Was it finally happening? Was this where she told me that she’d already gone ahead and secured a job for me at The New Yorker? Never mind that she had no idea I would kill to work there. Maybe she had just figured it out because she cares.
“I have my doubts about you, of course. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your lack of enthusiasm, or those sighs or faces you make when I ask you to do something that you quite obviously don’t feel like doing. I’m hoping that’s just a sign of your immaturity, since you do seem reasonably competent in other areas. What exactly are you interested in doing?”
Reasonably competent! She may as well have announced I was the most intelligent, sophisticated, gorgeous, and capable young woman she’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. Miranda Priestly had just told me I was reasonably competent!
“Well, actually, it’s not that I don’t love fashion, because of course I do. Who wouldn’t?” I rushed on to say, keeping a careful appraisal of her expression, which, as usual, remained mostly unchanged. “It’s just that I’ve always dreamt of becoming a writer, so I was hoping that might, uh, be an area I could explore.”
She folded her hands in her lap and glanced out the window. It was clear that this forty-five-second conversation was already beginning to bore her, so I had to move quickly. “Well, I certainly have no idea if you can write a word or not, but I’m not opposed to having you write a few short pieces for the magazine to find out. Perhaps a theater review or a small writeup for the Happenings section. As long as it doesn’t interfere with any of your responsibilities for me, and is done only during your own time, of course.”
“Of course, of course. That would be wonderful!” We were talking, really communicating, and we hadn’t so much as mentioned the words “breakfast” or “dry cleaning” yet. Things were going too well not to just go for it, and so I said, “It’s my dream to work at The New Yorker one day.”
This seemed to catch her now drifting attention, and once again she peered at me. “Why ever would you want to do that? No glamour there, just nuts and bolts.” I couldn’t decide if the question was rhetorical, so I played it safe and kept my mouth shut.
My time was about twenty seconds from expiring, both because we were nearing the hotel and her fleeting interest in me was fading fast. She was scrolling through the incoming calls on her cell phone, but still managed to say in the most offhanded, casual way, “Hmm, The New Yorker. Condé Nast.” I was nodding wildly, encouragingly, but she wasn’t looking at me. “Of course I know a great many people there. We’ll see how the rest of the trip goes, and perhaps I’ll make a call over there when we return.”
The car pulled up to the entrance, and an exhausted-looking Monsieur Renaud eclipsed the bellman who was leaning forward to open Miranda’s door and opened it himself.
“Ladies! I hope you had a lovely evening,” he crooned, doing his best to smile through the exhaustion.
“We’ll be needing the car at nine tomorrow morning to go to the Christian Dior show. I have a breakfast meeting in the lobby at eight-thirty. See that I’m not disturbed before then,” she barked, all traces of her previous humanness evaporating like spilled water on a hot sidewalk. And before I could think how to end our conversation or, at the very least, kiss up a little more for having had it at all, she walked toward the elevators and vanished inside one. I shot a weary, understanding look to Monsieur Renaud and boarded an elevator myself.
The small, tastefully arranged chocolates on a silver tray on my bedside table only highlighted the perfection of the evening. In one random, unexpected night, I’d felt like a model,
hung out with one of the hottest guys I’d seen in the flesh, and had been told by Miranda Priestly that I was reasonably competent. It felt like everything was finally coming together, that the past year of sacrifice was showing the first early signs of potentially paying off. I collapsed on top of the covers, still fully dressed, and gazed at the ceiling, still unable to believe that I’d told Miranda straight up that I wanted to work at The New Yorker, and she hadn’t laughed. Or screamed. Or in any way, shape, or form freaked out. She hadn’t even scoffed and told me that I was ridiculous for not wanting to get promoted somewhere within Runway. It was almost as though—and I might be projecting here, but I don’t think so—she had listened to me and understood. Understood and agreed. It was almost too much to comprehend.
I undressed slowly, making sure to savor every minute of tonight, going over and over in my mind the way Christian had led me from room to room and then all over the dance floor, the way he looked at me through those hooded lids with the persistent curl, the way Miranda had almost, imperceptibly, nodded when I’d said what I really wanted was to write. A truly glorious night, I had to say, one of the best in recent history. It was already three-thirty in the morning Paris time, making it nine-thirty New York time—a perfect time to catch Lily before she went out for the night. Although I should’ve just dialed with no regard for the insistent, blinking light that announced—surprise, surprise—that I had messages, I cheerfully pulled out a pad of the Ritz stationery and got ready to transcribe. There were bound to be long lists of irritating requests from irritating people, but nothing could take away my Cinderella-esque evening.
The first three were from Monsieur Renaud and his assistants, confirming various drivers and appointment for the next day, always remembering to wish me a good night as though I were actually a person instead of just a slave, which I appreciated. Between the third and the fourth message I found myself both wishing and not wishing that one of the messages to come was from Alex, and as a result, was both delighted and anxious when the fourth was from him.
The Devil Wears Prada Page 38
