The Devil Wears Prada Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada

‘Yes, Miranda, right away.’ But she had already hung up. The real Emily walked into the office.

‘Hey, is she here?’ she whispered, looking furtively toward Miranda’s office as she always did, without a hello or a good morning, just like her mentor.

‘Nope, but she just called and she’ll be here in ten. I’ll be back.’

I quickly transferred my cell phone and cigarettes to my coat pocket and ran. I had only a few minutes to get downstairs, cross Madison, and jump the line at Starbucks – and suck down my first precious cigarette of the day while in transit. Stamping out the last embers, I stumbled into the Starbucks at 57th and Lex and surveyed the line. If it was fewer than eight or so people, I preferred to wait like a normal person. Like most days, however, the line today was twenty or more poor professional souls, wearily waiting in line for their expensive caffeine fix, and I had to jump in front of them. It was not something I relished, but Miranda didn’t seem to understand that the latte I presented to her each morning could not only not be delivered but could easily take a half hour at prime time to purchase. A couple weeks of shrill, angry phone calls on my cell phone (‘Ahn-dre-ah, I simply do not understand. I called you a full twenty-five minutes ago to tell you I’d be in, and my breakfast is not ready. This is unacceptable.’), and I had spoken to the franchise manager.

‘Um, hi. Thanks for taking a minute to talk with me,’ I said to the petite black woman who was in charge. ‘I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but I was wondering if we could work something out in terms of me having to wait in line.’ I went on to explain, as best I could, that I work for a rather important, unreasonable person who doesn’t like to wait for her morning coffee, and was there any way I could walk ahead of the line, subtly, of course, and have someone prepare my order immediately? By some stroke of dumb luck, Marion, the manager, was going to FIT at night for a degree in fashion merchandising.

‘Ohmigod, are you kidding? You work for Miranda Priestly? And she drinks our lattes? A tall? Every morning? Unbelievable. Oh, yes, yes, of course! I’ll tell everyone to help you right away. Don’t worry about a thing. She is, like, the most powerful person in fashion,’ Marion gushed as I forced myself to nod enthusiastically.

And so it came that I could, at will, bypass a long line of tired, aggressive, self-righteous New Yorkers and order before those who had been waiting for many, many minutes. It didn’t make me feel good or important or even cool, and I always dreaded the days I had to do it. When the lines were hellishly long like the one today – snaking around the entire counter and pushing its way outside – I felt even worse and knew I’d be walking out with a full load. My head was pounding at this point, and my eyes already felt heavy and dry. I tried to forget that this was my life, the reason I’d spent four long years memorizing poems and examining prose, the result of good grades and lots of kissing up. Instead, I ordered Miranda’s tall latte from one of the new baristas and added a few drinks of my own. A grande Amaretto Cappuccino, a Mocha Frappuccino, and a Caramel Macchiato landed in my four-cup carrier, along with a half-dozen muffins and croissants. The grand total came to $28.83, and I made sure to tuck my receipt into the already bulging, specially designated receipt section of my wallet, all of which would be reimbursed by the always reliable Elias-Clark.

I had to hurry now, as it was already twelve minutes since Miranda had called and I knew she’d probably be sitting there, seething, wondering exactly where I disappeared to every morning – the Starbucks logo on the side of the cup didn’t ever clue her in. But before I could pick up all the stuff from the counter, my phone rang. And as usual, my heart lurched. I knew it was her, absolutely, positively knew it, but it scared me nonetheless. The caller ID confirmed my suspicion, and I was surprised to hear that it was Emily, calling from Miranda’s line.

‘She’s here and she’s pissed,’ Emily whispered. ‘You’ve got to get back here.’

‘I’m doing everything I can,’ I growled, trying to balance the carrying tray and the bag of baked goods on one arm and hold the phone with the other.

And thus the basic root of the hatred that existed between Emily and me. Since she was in the ‘senior’ assistant position, I was more of Miranda’s personal assistant, there to fetch those coffees and meals, help her kids with their homework, and run all over the city to retrieve the perfect dishes for her dinner parties. Emily did her expenses, made her travel arrangements, and – the biggest job of all – put through her personal clothing order every few months. So when I was out gathering the goodies each morning, Emily was left alone to handle all of the ringing phone lines and an alert, early-morning Miranda and all of her demands. I hated her for being able to wear sleeveless shirts to work, where she wouldn’t ever have to leave the warm office six times a day to race around New York fetching, searching, hunting, gathering. She hated me for having excuses to leave the office, where she knew I always took longer than necessary to talk on my cell phone and smoke cigarettes.

The walk back to the building usually took longer than the walk to Starbucks, since I had to distribute my coffees and snacks. I preferred to hand them out to the homeless, a small band of regulars who hung out on stoops and slept in doorways on 57th Street, thumbing the city’s attempts to ‘clean them up.’ The police always hustled them away before rush hour kicked into high gear, but they were still hanging out when I was doing the day’s first coffee run. There was something so fantastic – invigorating, really – in making sure that these overpriced, Elias-sponsored coffee faves made it into the hands of the city’s most undesirable people.

The urine-soaked man who slept outside the Chase Bank got a daily Mocha Frappuccino. He never actually woke up to accept it, but I left it (with a straw, of course) next to his left elbow each morning, and it was often gone – along with him – when I returned for my next coffee run a few hours later.

The old lady who propped herself up on her cart and set out a cardboard sign that read NO HOME/CAN CLEAN/NEED FOOD got the Caramel Macchiato. I soon found her name was Theresa, and I used to buy her a tall latte, like Miranda’s. She always said thank you, but she never made a move to taste it while it was still hot. When I finally asked her if she wanted me to stop bringing them, she vigorously shook her head and mumbled that she hates to be picky, but she’d actually like something sweeter, that the coffee was too strong. The next day I had her coffee flavored with vanilla and topped with whipped cream. Was this better? Oh yes, it was much, much better, but maybe now it was a touch too sweet. One more day and I finally got it right: it turns out Theresa liked her coffee unflavored, topped with whipped cream and some caramel syrup. She flashed a near-toothless smile and began guzzling it each and every day, the moment I handed it to her.

The third coffee went to Rio, the Nigerian who sold CDs off a blanket. He didn’t appear to be homeless, but he walked over to me one morning when I was handing Theresa her daily fix and said, or, rather, sang, ‘Yo, yo, yo, you like the Starbucks fairy or what? Where’s mine?’ I handed him a grande Amaretto Cappuccino the next day, and we’d been friends ever since.

I expensed twenty-four dollars more every day on coffee than necessary (Miranda’s single latte should’ve cost a mere four dollars) to take yet another passive-aggressive swipe at the company, my personal reprimand to them for Miranda Priestly’s free rein. I handed them out to the filthy, the smelly, and the crazy because that – and not the wasted money – was what would really piss them off.

By the time I made it to the lobby, Pedro, the heavily accented Mexican delivery boy from Mangia, was chatting in Spanish with Eduardo near the elevator bank.

‘Hey, here’s our girlie,’ said Pedro as a few Clackers peered over at us. ‘I’ve got the usual: bacon, sausage, and one nasty-looking cheese thing. You only ordered one today! Don’t know how you eat this shit and stay so thin, girl.’ He grinned. I suppressed the urge to tell him he didn’t have a clue what thin looked like. Pedro knew full well that I was not the one eating his breakfasts, but like every one of the dozen or so people I spoke to before eight A.M. each day, he didn’t really know the details. I handed him a ten, as usual, for the $3.99 breakfast, and headed upstairs.

She was on the phone when I entered the office, her snakeskin Gucci trench draped across the top of my desk. My blood pressure increased tenfold. Would it kill her to take the extra two steps over to the closet, open it, and hang up her own coat? Why did she have to take it off and fling it over my desk? I put down the latte, looked over at Emily, who was too busy answering three phone lines to notice me, and hung up the snakeskin. I shook off my own coat and bent down to toss it underneath my desk, since mine might infect hers if they mingled in the closet.

I grabbed two raw sugars, a stirrer, and a napkin from a stock I kept in my desk drawer and wrapped them all together. I briefly considered spitting in the drink but was able to restrain myself. Next, I pulled a small china plate from the overhead bin and dumped out the greasy meat and the oozing Danish, wiping my hands on her dirty dry cleaning, which was hidden beneath my desk so she couldn’t see it hadn’t been picked up yet. I was theoretically supposed to clean her plate each day in the sink in our mock-up kitchen, but I just couldn’t bring myself to bother. The humiliation of doing her dishes in front of everyone prompted me to wipe it down with tissues after each meal and scrape off any leftover cheese with my fingernails. If it was really dirty or had been sitting for a long time, I’d open a bottle of the Pellegrino we kept by the case and dump a little bit on. I figured she should be thankful I wasn’t using a spritz or two of desk cleaner. I was reasonably sure that I had reached a new moral low – what was worrisome was that I’d sunk to it so naturally.

‘Remember, I want my girls smiling,’ she was saying into the phone. I could tell from her tone she was talking to Lucia, the fashion director who’d be in charge of the upcoming Brazil shoot, about how the models should appear. ‘Happy, lots of teeth, clean healthy girls. No brooding, no anger, no frowning, no dark makeup. I want them shining. I mean it, Lucia: I will accept nothing less.’

I set the plate on the edge of her desk and placed the latte and the napkin with all necessary accessories next to it. She didn’t look at me. I paused for a moment to see if she’d hand me a pile of papers off her desk, things to fax or find or file, but she ignored me and I walked out. Eight-thirty A.M. I’d been awake now for three full hours, felt like I’d already worked for twelve, and could finally sit down for the very first time all morning. Just as I was logging on to Hotmail, anticipating some fun e-mails from people on the outside, she walked out. The belted jacket cinched her already tiny waist and complemented the perfectly fitted pencil skirt she wore beneath it. She looked dynamite.

‘Ahn-dre-ah. The latte is ice cold. I don’t understand why. You were certainly gone long enough! Bring me another.’

I inhaled deeply and concentrated on keeping the look of hatred off my face. Miranda set the offending latte on my desk and flipped through the new issue of Vanity Fair that a staffer had set on the table for her. I could feel Emily watching me and knew her look would be one of sympathy and anger: she felt bad that I had to repeat the hellish ordeal all over again, but she hated me for daring to be upset about it. After all, wouldn’t a million girls die for my job?

And so with an audible sigh – something I’d perfected lately, so it was just enough Miranda could hear but not nearly enough she could ever call me on it – I once again put on my coat and willed my legs to move toward the elevators. It was going to be another long, long day.

The second coffee run in twenty minutes went much more smoothly; the lines at Starbucks had thinned a little and Marion had come on duty. She herself got to work on a tall latte as soon as I walked in the door. I didn’t bother overspending on a larger order this time because I was too desperate to just get back and sit down, but I did add venti cappuccinos for both Emily and me. Just as I was paying for the coffee, my phone rang. Goddamn it to hell, this woman was impossible. Insatiable, impatient, impossible. I hadn’t been gone for more than four minutes; she couldn’t possibly be freaking out yet. Again, I balanced my tray in one hand and pulled my phone from my coat pocket. I’d already decided that such behavior on her part warranted my having another cigarette – if just to hold up her coffee a few minutes longer – when I saw that it was Lily calling from her home phone.

‘Hey, bad time?’ she asked, sounding excited. I looked at my watch and saw that she should’ve been in class.

‘Um, sort of. I’m on my second coffee run, which is really great. I’m really, really enjoying myself, just in case you were wondering. What’s up? Don’t you have class now?’

‘Yeah, but I went out with Pink-Shirt Boy again last night and we each drank a few too many margaritas. Like, eight too many. He’s still passed out here, so I can’t just leave him. But that’s not why I’m calling.’

‘Yeah?’ I was barely listening, since one of the cappuccinos was starting to leak and I had the phone wedged in between my neck and my shoulder as I used my one free hand to pluck a cigarette from the box and light it.

‘My landlord had the nerve to knock on my door at eight o’clock this morning to tell me that I’m being evicted,’ she said with not a little bit of glee in her voice.

‘Evicted? Lil, why? What are you going to do?’

‘It seems they finally caught on that I’m not Sandra Gers and that she hasn’t lived here in six months. Since she’s technically not family, she wasn’t allowed to pass down the rent-controlled apartment to me. I knew that, of course, so I’ve just been saying I’m her. I don’t really know how they found out. But whatev, it doesn’t really matter, because now you and I can live together! Your lease with Shanti and Kendra is just month by month, right? You subletted because you had no place to live, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, now you do! We can get a place together, anywhere we like!’

‘That’s great!’ It sounded hollow to my ears even though I was genuinely excited.

‘So you’re up for it?’ she asked, her enthusiasm sounding a bit dampened.

‘Lil, definitely. Honestly, it’s an awesome idea. I don’t mean to sound negative, it’s just that it’s sleeting and I’m standing outside and I have burning hot coffee running down my left arm …’ Beep-beep. The other line rang, and even though I almost burned my neck with the lit end of the cigarette while trying to pull my phone away from my ear, I was able to see that it was Emily calling.

‘Shit, Lil, it’s Miranda calling. I’ve got to run. But congrats on getting evicted! I’m so excited for us. I’ll call you later, OK?’

‘OK, I’ll talk to—’

I had already clicked over and mentally prepared myself for the barrage.

‘Me again,’ Emily said tightly. ‘What the hell is going on? It’s a fucking coffee, for chrissake. You forget that I used to do your job, and I know it doesn’t take that long to—’

‘What?’ I said loudly, holding a few fingers over the microphone on the receiver. ‘What’d you say? I can’t hear you. Well, if you can hear me, I’ll be back in just a minute!’ And I clicked my phone shut and buried it deep in my pocket. And even though I had at least half a Marlboro left, I dropped it on the sidewalk and ran back to work.

Miranda deigned to accept this slightly warmer latte and even gave us a few moments of peace between ten and eleven, when she sat in her office with the door closed, cooing to B-DAD. I’d officially met him for the first time the week before, when I’d dropped the Book off that Wednesday night around nine. He had been removing his coat from the closet in the foyer and spent the next ten minutes referring to himself in the third person. Since that meeting, he had paid me extra-special attention when I let myself in each night, always taking a few minutes to ask about my day or compliment me on a job well done. Naturally, none of these niceties seemed to rub off on his wife, but at least he was pleasant to be around.

I was just about to begin calling some of the PR people to see about getting a few more decent clothes to wear to work when Miranda’s voice shook me from my thoughts. ‘Emily, I’d like my lunch.’ She had called from her office to no one in particular, since Emily could mean either of us. The real Emily looked at me and nodded, and I knew it was OK to move. The number for Smith and Wollensky was programmed into my desk phone, and I recognized the voice on the other end as the new girl.

‘Hey, Kim, it’s Andrea from Miranda Priestly’s office. Is Sebastian there?’

‘Oh, hi, um, what did you say your name was again?’ No matter that I called at the exact same time, twice a week, and had already identified myself – she always acted as though we’d never spoken.

‘From Miranda Priestly’s office. At Runway. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude’ – yes, actually, I do – ‘but I’m kind of in a hurry. Could you just put Sebastian on?’ If anyone else had answered I would’ve been able to just tell that person to put in an order for Miranda’s usual, but since this one was too dumb to be trusted, I had learned to ask for the manager himself.

‘Um, OK, let me check and see if he’s available.’ Trust me, Kim, he’s available. Miranda Priestly is his life.

‘Andy, dear, how are you?’ Sebastian breathed into the phone. ‘I hope you’re calling because our favorite fashion editor would like some lunch today, yes?’