Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont
to read. There was just enough time to gulp some of the Pellegrino and devour a few of the strawberries someone had thoughtfully left on my small bar. If only they could’ve left a cheeseburger, I thought. I remembered that I had tucked a Twix bar in my luggage that had been neatly piled in the corner, but there wasn’t time to look for it. Exactly forty minutes had passed since I’d received my marching orders. It was time to see if I’d passed.
A different – but equally as terrified – maid answered Miranda’s door and ushered me into the living room. Obviously, I should’ve remained standing, but the leather pants I’d been wearing since the day before felt like they were permanently stuck to my legs, and the strappy sandals that hadn’t bothered me so much on the plane were beginning to feel like long, flexible razor blades affixed to my heels and toes. I chose to perch on the overstuffed couch, but the moment my knees bent and my butt made contact with the cushion, her bedroom door flew open and I instinctively launched to my feet.
‘Where’s my speech?’ she asked automatically, while yet another maid followed after her holding a single earring that Miranda had forgotten to put in. ‘You did write something, did you not?’ She was wearing one of her very few pantsuits (‘Women wear skirts and show off their legs, not trousers that cover everything up.’), a great olive number that cinched her waist like a corset and made her legs look six feet long.
‘Of course, Miranda,’ I said proudly. ‘I think this will be appropriate.’ I walked toward her since she was making no effort to retrieve it herself, but before I could offer her the paper she snatched it from my hand. I didn’t realize until her eyes had finished moving back and forth that I’d been holding my breath.
‘Fine. This is fine. Certainly nothing groundbreaking, but fine. Let’s go.’ She picked up a matching quilted Chanel purse and placed the chain handle over her shoulder.
‘Pardon?’
‘I said, let’s go. This silly little ceremony starts in fifteen minutes, and with any luck we’ll be out of there in twenty. I truly loathe these things.’
There was no way to deny that I’d heard her say both ‘let’s’ and ‘we’: I was definitely expected to go with her. I glanced down at my leather pants and fitted blazer and figured that if she had no problem with it – and I certainly would’ve heard if she had – then what did it really matter? There would probably be fleets of assistants roaming around, tending to their bosses, and surely no one would care what we were wearing.
The ‘salon’ was exactly what Briget had said it would be – a typical hotel meeting room, complete with a couple dozen round luncheon tables and a slightly raised presentation stage with a podium. I stood along the back wall with a few other employees of various kinds and watched as the president of the council showed an incredibly unfunny, uninteresting, wholly uninspired movie clip on how fashion affects all of our lives. A few more people hogged the mike for the next half hour, and then, before a single award had been presented, an army of waiters began bringing out salads and filling wine glasses. I looked warily at Miranda, who appeared acutely bored and irritated, and tried to shrink smaller behind the potted tree I was currently leaning against to keep from falling asleep. I can’t be sure how long my eyes were closed, but just as I lost all control of my neck muscles and my head started to nod forward uncontrollably, I heard her voice.
‘Ahn-dre-ah! I don’t have time for this nonsense,’ she whispered loudly enough that a few Clackers from a nearby table glanced up. ‘I wasn’t told that I would be receiving an award, and I wasn’t prepared to do so. I’m leaving.’ And she turned around and began striding toward the door.
I hobbled after her but thought better of grabbing her shoulder. ‘Miranda? Miranda?’ She was clearly ignoring me. ‘Miranda? Whom would you like to accept the award on behalf of Runway?’ I whispered as quietly as I could and still have her hear me.
She whipped around and stared me straight in the eyes. ‘Do you think I care? Go up there and accept it yourself.’ And before I could say another word, she was gone.
Oh my god. This wasn’t happening. I would surely wake up in my own, unglamorous, negative-thread-count-sheeted bed in just a minute and discover that the entire day – hell, the entire year – had just been a particularly horrid dream. That woman didn’t really expect me – the junior assistant – to go up there and accept an award for Runway’s fashion coverage, did she? I looked around the room frantically to see if anyone else from Runway was attending the lunch. No such luck. I slumped down in a seat and tried to figure out whether I should call Emily or Briget for advice, or whether I should just leave myself since Miranda apparently cared nothing about receiving this honor. My cell phone had just connected to Briget’s office (who I was hoping could make it over there in time to take the goddamn award herself) when I heard the words ‘… extend our deepest appreciation to American Runway for its accurate, amusing, and always informative fashion coverage. Please welcome its world-famous editor in chief, a living fashion icon herself, Ms Miranda Priestly!’
The room erupted into applause at precisely the same moment I felt my heart stop beating.
There was no time to think, to curse Briget for letting this all happen, to curse Miranda for leaving and taking the speech with her, to curse myself for ever accepting this hateful job in the first place. My legs moved forward on their own, left-right, left-right, and climbed the three steps to the podium with no incident whatsoever. Had I not been utterly shell-shocked, I might have noticed that the enthusiastic clapping had given way to an eerie silence as everyone tried to figure out who I was. But I didn’t. Instead, some greater force prompted me to smile, reach out to take the plaque from the severe-looking president’s hands, and place it shakingly on the podium in front of me. It wasn’t until I lifted my head and saw hundreds of eyes staring back – curious, probing, confused eyes, all of them – that I knew for sure I would cease breathing and die right there.
I imagine I stood like that for no longer than ten or fifteen seconds, but the silence was so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that I wondered if I had, in fact, died already. No one uttered a word. No silver scraped plates, no glasses clinked, no one even whispered to a neighbor about who was standing in for Miranda Priestly. They just watched me, moment after moment, until I was left with no choice but to speak. I didn’t remember a word of the speech that I had written an hour earlier, so I was on my own.
‘Hello,’ I began and heard my voice reverberate in my ears. I couldn’t tell if it was the microphone or the sound of blood pounding inside my head, but it didn’t matter. The only thing I could hear for sure was that it was shaking – uncontrollably. ‘My name is Andrea Sachs and I’m Mir – uh, I’m on staff at Runway. Unfortunately, Miranda, um, Ms Priestly had to step out for a moment, but I would like to accept this award on her behalf. And, of course, on behalf of everyone at Runway. Thank you, um’ – I couldn’t remember the name of the council or the president here – ‘all so much for this, uh, this wonderful honor. I know I speak for everyone when I say that we are all so honored.’ Idiot! I was stuttering and um-ing and shaking, and I was even conscious enough at this point to notice that the crowd had begun to twitter. Without another word, I walked in as dignified a manner as I could manage from the podium and didn’t realize until I’d reached the back doors that I’d forgotten the plaque. A staffer followed me to the lobby, where I’d just collapsed in a fit of exhaustion and humiliation, and handed it to me. I waited until she left and asked one of the janitors to throw it out. He shrugged and tossed it in his bag.
That bitch! I thought, too angry and tired to conjure up any really creative names or methods of ending her life. My phone rang and, knowing it was her, I turned off the ringer and ordered a gin and tonic from one of the front desk people. ‘Please. Please just have someone send one out. Please.’ The woman took one look at me and nodded. I sucked the entire thing down in just two long gulps and headed back upstairs to see what she wanted. It was only two in the afternoon of my first day in Paris, and I wanted to die. Only death was not an option.