‘Well, between the cameras and the cards, they kind of know what everyone’s doing,’ she said as she dropped her Gucci logo tote on her desk. She began unbuttoning her very fitted leather blazer, a coat that looked supremely inadequate for the late-November weather. ‘I don’t think they actually look at the cameras unless something’s missing, but the cards tell everything. Like, every time you swipe it downstairs to get past the security counter or on the floor to get in the door, they know where you are. That’s how they tell if people are at work, so if you have to be out – and you never will, but just in case something really awful happens – you’ll just give me your card and I’ll swipe it. That way you’ll still get paid for all the days you miss, even if you go over. You’ll do the same for me – everyone does it.’
I was still reeling from the ‘and you never will’ part, but she continued her briefing.
‘And that’s how you’ll get food in the dining room also. It’s a debit card: just put on some money and it gets deducted at the register. Of course, that’s how they can tell what you’re eating,’ she said, unlocking Miranda’s office door and plopping herself on the floor. She immediately reached for a boxed bottle of wine and began wrapping.
‘Do they care what you eat?’ I asked, feeling as though I’d just stepped directly into a scene from Sliver.
‘Um, I’m not sure. Maybe? I just know they can tell. And the gym, too. You have to use it there, and at the newsstand to buy books or magazines. I think it just helps them stay organized.’
Stay organized? I was working for a company who defined good ‘organization’ as knowing which floor each employee visited, whether they preferred onion soup or Caesar salad for lunch, and just how many minutes they could tolerate the elliptical machine? I was a lucky, lucky girl.
Exhausted from my fourth morning of waking up at five-thirty, it took me another five full minutes to work up the energy to climb out of my coat and settle down at my desk. I thought about putting my head down to rest for just a moment, but Emily cleared her throat. Loudly.
‘Um, you want to get in here and help me?’ she asked, although it was clearly no question. ‘Here, wrap something.’ She thrust a pile of white paper my way and resumed her task. Jewel blasted from the extra speakers attached to her iMac.
Cut, place, fold, tape: Emily and I worked steadily through the morning, stopping only to call the downstairs messenger center each time we’d finished with twenty-five boxes. They’d hold them until we gave the green light for them to be fanned out all over Manhattan in mid-December. We’d already completed all of the out-of-town bottles during my first two days, and those were piled in the Closet waiting for DHL to pick them up. Considering each and every one was set to be sent first-day priority, arriving at their locations at the earliest possible time the very next morning, I wasn’t sure what the rush was – considering it was only the end of November – but I’d already learned it was better not to ask questions. We would be FedExing about 150 bottles all over the world. The Priestly bottles would make it to Paris, Cannes, Bordeaux, Milan, Rome, Florence, Barcelona, Geneva, Bruges, Stockholm, Amsterdam, and London. Dozens to London! FedEx would jet them to Beijing and Hong Kong and Capetown and Tel Aviv and Dubai (Dubai!). They would be toasting Miranda Priestly in Los Angeles, Honolulu, New Orleans, Charleston, Houston, Bridgehampton, and Nantucket. And those all before any went out in New York – the city that contained all of Miranda’s friends, doctors, maids, hair stylists, nannies, makeup artists, shrinks, yoga instructors, personal trainers, drivers, and personal shoppers. Of course, this was where most of the fashion-industry people were, too: the designers, models, actors, editors, advertisers, PR folks, and all-around style mavens would each receive a level-appropriate bottle lovingly delivered by an Elias-Clark messenger.
‘How much do you think all of this costs?’ I asked Emily, while snipping what felt like the millionth piece of thick white paper.
‘I told you, I ordered twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of booze.’
‘No, no – how much do you think it costs altogether? I mean, to overnight all these packages all over the world, well, I bet that in some cases the shipping costs more than the bottle itself, especially if they’re getting a nobody bottle.’
She looked intrigued. It was the first time I’d seen her look at me with anything other than disgust, exasperation, or indifference. ‘Well, let’s see. If you figure that all the domestic FedExes are somewhere in the twenty-dollar range, and all the international are about $60, then that equals $9,000 for FedEx. I think I heard somewhere that the messengers charge eleven bucks a package, so sending out 250 of those would be $2,750. And our time, well, if it takes us a full week to wrap everything, then added together, that’s two full weeks of both our salaries, which is another four grand—’
It was here I flinched inwardly, realizing that both of our salaries together for an entire week’s work was by far the most insignificant expense.
‘Yeah, it comes to around $16,000 in total. Crazy, huh? But what choice is there? She is Miranda Priestly, you know.’
At about one Emily announced she was hungry and was heading downstairs to get some lunch with a few of the girls in accessories. I assumed she meant she would pick up her lunch, since that’s what we’d been doing all week, so I waited for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty, but she never reappeared with her food. Neither of us had actually eaten in the dining room since I’d started in case Miranda called, but this was ridiculous. Two o’clock came and then two-thirty and then three, and all I could think about was how hungry I was. I tried calling Emily’s cell phone, but it went directly to voice mail. Could she have died in the dining room? I wondered. Choked on some plain lettuce, or simply slumped over after downing a smoothie? I thought about asking someone to pick something up for me, but it seemed too prima donna-ish to ask a perfect stranger to fetch me lunch. After all, I was supposed to be the lunch-fetcher: Oh, yes, darling, I’m simply too important to abandon my post here wrapping presents, so I was wondering if you might pick me up a turkey and brie croissant? Lovely. I just couldn’t do it. So when four o’clock rolled around and there was still no sign of Emily and no call from Miranda, I did the unthinkable: I left the office unattended.
After peeking down the hall and confirming that Emily was nowhere in sight, I literally ran to the reception area and pushed the down button twenty times. Sophy, the gorgeous Asian receptionist, raised her eyebrows and looked away, and I wasn’t sure if it was my impatience or her knowledge that Miranda’s office was abandoned that made her look at me that way. No time to figure it out. The elevator finally arrived, and I was able to throw myself onboard even as a sneering, heroin-thin guy with spiky hair and lime green Pumas was pushing ‘Door Close.’ No one moved aside to give me room even though there was plenty of space. And while this would’ve normally driven me crazy, all I could concentrate on was getting food and getting back, ASAP.
The entrance to the all-glass-and-granite dining room was blocked by a group of Clackers-in-training, all leaning in and whispering, examining each group of people who got off the elevator. Friends of Elias employees, I immediately recalled from Emily’s description of such groups, obvious from their unmasked excitement to be standing at the center of it all. Lily had already begged me to take her to the dining room since it’d been written up in nearly every Manhattan newspaper and magazine for its incredible food quality and selection – not to mention its gaggle of gorgeous people – but I wasn’t ready for that yet. Besides, due to the complex office-sitting schedule Emily and I negotiated each day so far, I’d yet to spend more time there than the two and a half minutes it took to choose and pay for my food, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.
I pushed my way past the girls and felt them turn to see if I was anyone important. Negative. Weaving quickly, intently, I bypassed gorgeous racks of lamb and veal marsala in the entrees section and, with a push of willpower, cruised right past the sundried tomato and goat cheese pizza special (which resided on a small table banished to the sidelines that everyone referred to as ‘Carb Corner‘). It wasn’t as easy to navigate around the pièce de résistance of the room, the salad bar (also known just as ‘Greens,’ as in ‘I’ll meet you