Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont
me a Diet Coke?’ she asked.
‘Sure. Just a minute,’ I said, and weaved quickly through the racks and past the doorway to the service elevator, where I could hear Jessica and James sharing a cigarette and wondering who would be at Miranda’s Whitney party that night. Ahmed was finally able to produce a copy of Women’s Wear Daily, which was a relief, and I grabbed a Diet Coke for Emily and a can of Pepsi for me, but on second thought, I took a Diet for myself as well. The difference in taste and enjoyment wasn’t worth the disapproving looks and/or comments I was sure to receive during the walk from reception to my desk.
I was so busy examining the front page’s color photo of Tommy Hilfiger, I didn’t even notice that one of the elevators had opened and was available. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a quick glimpse of green, a very distinct green. Particularly noteworthy because Miranda had a Chanel suit in just that shade of greeny tweed, a color I’d never really seen before but liked a whole lot. And although my mind knew better, it couldn’t stop my eyes from looking up and into the elevator, where they were sort of not really surprised to find Miranda peering back. She stood ramrod straight, her hair pulled severely off her face as usual, her eyes staring intently at what must have been my shocked face. There was absolutely no alternative but to step inside the elevator with her.
‘Um, good morning, Miranda,’ I said, but it came out sounding like a whisper. The doors closed behind us: we would be the only two riding for the entire seventeen floors. She said nothing to me, but she pulled out her leather organizer and began flipping through the pages. We stood side by side, the depth of the silence increasing tenfold with every second that she didn’t respond. Does she even recognize me? I wondered. Was it possible that she was entirely unaware that I had been her assistant for the past seven months – or perhaps I really had whispered so softly that she hadn’t heard? I wondered why she didn’t immediately ask me about the restaurant review or whether I’d received her message about ordering new china, or if everything was in place for the evening’s party. But she acted as though she were all alone in that elevator, that there was not another human being – or, to be precise, not one worth acknowledging – inside that small vestibule with her.
It wasn’t until nearly a full minute later that I noticed we weren’t progressing through the floors. Ohmigod! She had seen me because she’d assumed that I would press the button, but I’d been too stunned to move. I reached forward slowly, fearfully, pressed the number seventeen, and instinctively waited for something to explode. But we immediately whisked upward, and I wasn’t even sure if she had noticed we hadn’t been moving all along.
Five, six, seven … it felt as though it took ten minutes for the elevator to pass each floor, and the silence had begun humming in my ears. When I worked up enough nerve to steal a glance in Miranda’s direction, I discovered that she was looking me up and down. Her eyes moved unabashedly as they checked out first my shoes and then my pants and then my shirt, and continued upward to my face and hair, all the while avoiding my eyes. The expression on her face was one of passive disgust, the way the desensitized Law & Order detectives appear when they’re faced with yet another beaten and bloodied corpse. I did a quick review of myself and wondered what exactly had triggered the reaction. Short-sleeve, military-style shirt, a brand-new pair of Seven jeans I’d been sent free from their PR department simply for working at Runway, and a pair of relatively flat (two-inch heels) black slingbacks that were to date the only nonboots/nonsneakers/nonloafers that allowed me to make four-plus trips to Starbucks a day without shredding my feet to bits. I usually tried to wear the Jimmy Choos that Jeffy had given me, but I needed a day off every week or so to allow the arches in my feet to stop aching. My hair was clean and assembled in the kind of deliberately messy topknot that Emily always wore without comment, and my nails – though unpainted – were long and reasonably well shaped. I had shaved under my arms within the last forty-eight hours. At least as far as the last time I’d checked, there were no massive facial eruptions. My Fossil watch was turned around so the face was sitting on the inside of my wrist just in case anyone tried to catch a glimpse of the brand, and a quick check with my right hand indicated that no bra straps were visible. So what was it? What exactly had made her look at me that way?
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen … the elevator stopped and swept open to yet another stark white reception area. A woman of around thirty-five stepped forward to board, but stopped two feet from the door when she saw Miranda standing inside.
‘Oh, I, uh …’ she stammered loudly, looking frantically around her for an excuse not to enter our private hell. And although it would’ve been nicer for me to have her come aboard, I privately rooted for her to escape. ‘I, um, oh! I forgot the photos I need for the meeting,’ she finally managed, whipping around on a particularly unsteady Manolo and high-tailing it back toward the office area. Miranda hadn’t appeared to notice, and once again, the doors swept shut.
Fifteen, sixteen, and finally – finally! – seventeen, where the doors opened to reveal a group of Runway fashion assistants on their way to pick up the cigarettes, Diet Coke, and mixed greens that would constitute their lunch. Each young, beautiful face looked more panicked than the next, and they almost trampled one another trying to move out of Miranda’s way. They parted directly down the middle, three to one side and two to the other, and she deigned to walk past them. They were all staring after her, silent, as she made her way across the reception area, and I was left with no choice but to follow her. Wouldn’t notice a thing, I figured. We’d just spent what felt like an entire insufferable week locked together in a five-by-three-foot box, and she hadn’t so much as acknowledged my presence. But as soon as I stepped onto the floor, she turned around.
‘Ahn-dre-ah?’ she asked, her voice cutting through the tense silence that filled the entire room. I didn’t respond since I figured it was rhetorical, but she waited.
‘Ahn-dre-ah?’
‘Yes, Miranda?’
‘Whose shoes are you wearing?’ She placed one hand lightly on a tweed-swathed hip and peered over at me. By now the elevator had left without the fashion assistants, since they were too engrossed in actually getting to see – and hear! – Miranda Priestly in the flesh. I could feel six pairs of eyes on my feet, which, although they had been quite comfortable mere moments before, were now beginning to burn and itch under the intense scrutiny of five fashion assistants and one fashion guru.
The anxiety from the unexpected shared elevator ride (a first) and the unwavering stares of all these people addled my brain, so when Miranda asked whose shoes I was wearing, I thought that perhaps she thought I was not wearing my own.
‘Um, mine?’ I said, without realizing until the words had been spoken that it sounded not only disrespectful, but downright obnoxious. The gaggle of Clackers began to twitter, until Miranda turned her wrath on them.
‘I’m wondering why the vast majority of my fashion assistants appear as though they have nothing better to do than gossip like little girls.’ She began singling them out by pointing at each one, since she wouldn’t have been able to produce a single one’s name if you put a gun to her head.
‘You!’ she said crisply to the coltish new girl who was probably seeing Miranda for the first time. ‘Did we hire you for this or did we hire you to call in clothes for the suits shoot?’ The girl hung her head and opened her mouth to apologize, but Miranda barreled on.
‘And you!’ she said, walking over and standing directly in front of Jocelyn, the highest-ranking among them and a favorite of all the editors. ‘You think there aren’t a million girls who want your job and who understand couture just as well as you?’ She took a step back, slowly moved her eyes up and down each of their bodies, lingering just long enough to make each feel fat, ugly, and inappropriately clad, and commanded them all to return to their desks. They nodded their heads furiously while keeping their heads bowed. A few murmured heartfelt apologies while they moved quickly back to the fashion area. It wasn’t until they’d all left that I realized we were alone. Again.
‘Ahn-dre-ah? I won’t tolerate being spoken to that way by my assistant,’ she declared, walking toward the door that would lead us to the hallway. I was unsure whether I should follow