Читать книгу Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont - Лорен Вайсбергер, Lauren Weisberger, Lauren Weisberger - Страница 23

‘You can’t show up in a cab,’ Lily said to me as I jabbed helplessly at my eyes with my brand-new Maybelline Great Lash mascara. ‘This is black-tie. Call a car, for chrissake.’ She watched for a minute more and then grabbed the clumpy wand from my hand and tapped my eyelids closed.

‘I guess you’re right,’ I sighed, still refusing to accept that my Friday night was to be spent in a formal gown at the Whitney, greeting wealthy-but-still-rednecks from Georgia and North and South Carolina and plastering fake smile after fake smile on my poorly made-up face. The announcement had left me all of three hours to find a dress, buy makeup, get ready, and revamp all my weekend plans, and in the craziness of the situation, I’d forgotten to arrange transportation.

Luckily, working at one of the biggest fashion magazines in the country (the job a million girls would die for!) has its advantages, and by 4:40 P.M. I was the proud borrower of a knockout floor-length black Oscar de la Renta number, provided kindly by Jeffy, Closet maven and lover of all things feminine (‘Girl, you go black-tie, you go Oscar, and that’s that. Now don’t be shy, take those pants off and try this on for Jeffy.’ I began to unbutton and he shuddered. I asked him if he really found my half-naked body that repulsive, and he said of course not; it was merely my panty lines that he found so disgusting). The fashion assistants had already called in a pair of silver Manolos in my size, and someone in accessories had selected a flashy silver Judith Leiber evening bag with a long, clanking chain. I’d expressed interest in an understated Calvin Klein clutch, but she snorted at the suggestion and handed me the Judith. Stef was debating whether I should wear a choker or a pendant, and Allison, the newly promoted beauty editor, was on the phone with her manicurist, who made office calls.

‘She’ll meet you in the conference room at four forty-five,’ Allison said when I picked up my extension. ‘You’re wearing black, right? Insist on Chanel Ruby Red. Just tell her to bill us.’

The entire office had worked itself up to a nearly hysterical frenzy trying to make me look appropriate for the night’s gala affair. It certainly wasn’t because they all adored me so much and killed themselves trying to help me out; rather, they knew Miranda had mandated the makeover and were eager to prove to her the high level of their taste and class.

Lily finished her charity makeup lesson and I briefly wondered if I looked ridiculous wearing a floor-length Oscar de la Renta gown and Bonne Belle Lipsmackers in Fudgsicle. Probably, but I had turned down all offers of having a makeup artist come to the apartment. Everyone on staff tried to insist – and none too subtly – but I adamantly refused. Even I had limits.

I hobbled into the bedroom on my four-inch Manolo stilettos and kissed Alex on the forehead. He barely looked up from the magazine he was reading.

‘I’ll definitely be home by eleven, so we can go get some dinner or drinks then, OK? I’m sorry I have to do this, I really am. If you do decide to go out with the guys, call so I can come meet you, OK?’ He had, as promised, come directly from school to spend the night together, and hadn’t been all that thrilled when I’d arrived home with the news that he could definitely have a relaxing night at home but that I wouldn’t be a part of the plans. He was sitting on the balcony off my bedroom, reading an old copy of Vanity Fair we had lying around and drinking one of the beers Lily kept in the fridge for guests. It wasn’t until after I’d explained that I had to work tonight that I even noticed he and Lily weren’t hanging out.

‘Where is she?’ I asked. ‘She has no classes, and I know she’s not working Fridays all summer.’

Alex took a swig of his Pale Ale and shrugged. ‘I’m guessing she’s here. Her door’s closed, but I saw some guy walking around before.’

‘Some guy? Could you be a little more descriptive? What guy?’ I wondered if someone had broken in, or perhaps Freudian Boy had finally been invited over.

‘I don’t know, but he’s scary-looking. Tattoos, piercings, wife-beater – the whole nine. Can’t imagine where she met this one.’ He took another nonchalant swig.

I couldn’t imagine where she’d found him, either, considering I’d left her at eleven the night before in the company of a very polite guy named William who, as far as I could see, was not a wife-beater-wearing, tattoo-donning kind of guy.

‘Alex, seriously! You’re telling me there’s some thug cruising around my apartment – a thug who may or may not have been invited over – and you don’t care? This is ridiculous! We need to do something,’ I said, getting up from the chair and wondering, as always, if the weight shift was going to cause the balcony to fall off the side of the building.

‘Andy, relax. He’s definitely not a thug.’ He flipped a page. ‘He might be a punk-grunge-freak, but he’s not a thug.’

‘Great, that’s just fucking great. Now are you going to come see what’s going on, or are you just going to sit there all night?’

He still refused to look at me, and I finally understood how annoyed he was about tonight. Understandable, entirely, but I was just as irritated to have to work, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. ‘Why don’t you call if you need me?’

‘Fine,’ I huffed and made a big production of storming inside. ‘Don’t feel guilty when you find my dismembered body on the bathroom floor. Really, no big deal …’

I stomped inside and around the apartment for a little while, looking for evidence of this guy’s presence. The only thing that seemed at all out of place was an empty bottle of Ketel One in the sink. Had she really managed to buy, open, and drink an entire bottle of vodka sometime after midnight last night? I knocked on her door. No response. I knocked a little more insistently, and I heard a guy’s voice state the very obvious fact that someone was knocking on the door. When still no one responded, I turned the doorknob.

‘Hello? Anyone home here?’ I called out, trying not to look inside the room but only being able to hold out for about five seconds. My eyes skipped over the two pairs of jeans that were tangled up on the floor and the bra that was hanging from the desk chair and the overflowing ashtray that made the room stink like a frat house and went directly to the bed, where my best friend was stretched out on her side, back to me, completely naked. A sickly looking guy with a line of sweat above his lip and a head full of greasy hair blended into her sheets: his dozens of snaking, winding, scary tattoos acted as the perfect camouflage against her green and blue plaid comforter. There was a gold hoop through his eyebrow, much glittering metal from each ear, and two small, rounded spikes coming out of his chin. Thankfully he was wearing a pair of boxers, but they looked so dirty and dingy and old that I almost – almost – wished he weren’t. He pulled on his cigarette, exhaled slowly and meaningfully, and nodded in my general direction.

‘Yo,’ he said, waving his cigarette toward me. ‘You mind shuttin’ the door there, m’friend?’

What? ‘M’friend’? Was this sleazy-looking Aussie actually giving me attitude?

‘Are you smoking crack?’ I asked, no longer interested in manners of any sort, and not at all scared. He was shorter than me and couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred thirty – as far as I could tell, the worst thing he could do to me at that point would be to touch me. I shuddered when I thought about the myriad ways he’d probably touched Lily, who was still sleeping soundly underneath his protective hover. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? This is my apartment, and I’d like you to leave. Now!’ I added, my courage fueled by the time demands: I had exactly one hour to get gorgeous for the single most stressful night of my career, and dealing with this strung-out freak had not been part of the game plan.

‘Duuuuuuuude. Chill out,’ he breathed and inhaled again. ‘It doesn’t look like your friend here wants me to leave …’

‘She would want you to leave if she HAPPENED TO BE CONSCIOUS, YOU ASSHOLE!’ I screamed, horrified that Lily had – in all likelihood – had sex with this guy. ‘I assure you, I speak for both of us when I say GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR APARTMENT!’

I felt a hand on my shoulder and whipped around to see Alex, looking concerned, checking out the situation. ‘Andy, why don’t you get in the shower and let me take care of this, OK?’ Although no one could call him a big guy, he looked like a pro wrestler compared to the emaciated mess that was currently nuzzling his facial metal against my best friend’s bare back.

‘I. WANT. HIM.’ – I pointed here, just to be clear – ‘OUT. OF. MY. APARTMENT.’

‘I know you do, and I think he’s about ready to leave, too, aren’t you, buddy?’ Alex asked in the kind of soothing voice you’d use with a rabid-looking dog you were frightened of upsetting.

‘Duuuuuuude, no issues here. Just havin’ a little fun with Lily is all. She was all over me last night at Au Bar – ask anyone, they’ll tell you. Fuckin’ begged me to come back with her.’

‘I don’t doubt that,’ Alex said soothingly. ‘She’s a really friendly girl when she wants to be, but sometimes she gets too drunk to know what she’s doing. So as her friend, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.’

The freak mashed his cigarette out and made a big show of throwing up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Dude, no problem whatsoever. I’ll just take a quick shower and give m’little Lily here a proper good-bye, and then I’ll be on m’way.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for the towel that hung next to her desk.

Alex moved forward, swiftly removed the towel from his hands, and looked him directly in the eye. ‘No. I think you should leave now. Right now.’ And in a way that I’d never seen him do in the almost three years I’d known him, he placed himself squarely in front of Freak Boy and allowed his height to insinuate the threat that was clearly intended.

‘Dude, no worries. I’m outta here,’ he crooned after taking one look at Alex and realizing he had to crane his neck to look at his face. ‘Just get m’self dressed and out the door.’ He picked up his jeans from the floor and located his ripped-up T-shirt from underneath Lily’s still exposed body. She moved when he pulled it out from under her, and a few seconds later her eyes managed to open.

‘Cover her!’ Alex commanded gruffly, now clearly enjoying his new role as threatening-man-in-charge. And without comment, Freak Boy pulled the cover over her shoulders so that only a tangle of her black curls was visible.

‘What’s going on?’ Lily croaked while willing her eyes to stay open. She turned to see me trembling in anger in her doorway, Alex hulking about doing manly poses, and Freak Boy scrambling to tie his blue and canary yellow Diadoras and get the hell out before things got really ugly. Too late. Her gaze stopped on Freak Boy.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked him, bolting upright without even realizing that she was now completely naked. Alex and I instinctively turned away while she pulled the covers up, looking shocked, but Freak Boy grinned lecherously and ogled her breasts.

‘Baby, you tellin’ me you don’t remember who I am?’ he asked, his thick Australian accent becoming less adorable with every passing second. ‘You sure knew who I was last night.’ He walked over to her and looked like he was about to sit down on the bed, but Alex had already grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.

‘Out. Now. Or I’m going to have to carry you myself,’ he commanded, looking tough and very cute and not a little proud of himself.

Freak Boy threw up his hands and made clucking noises. ‘I’m outta here. Call me sometime, Lily. You were great last night.’ He moved quickly through the bedroom door toward the living room with Alex in pursuit. ‘Man, she sure as hell is a feisty one,’ I heard him say to Alex right before the front door slammed shut, but it didn’t appear that Lily had heard. She had pulled on a T-shirt and managed to pull herself out of bed.

‘Lily, who the hell was that? He was the biggest jerk I’ve ever met, not to mention absolutely disgusting.’

She shook her head slowly and appeared to be concentrating very hard, trying to remember where he’d entered her life. ‘Disgusting. You’re right, he is absolutely disgusting, and I have no idea what happened. I remember you leaving last night and talking to some really nice guy in a suit – we were doing shots of Jäger, for some reason – and that’s it.’

‘Lily, just imagine how drunk you had to be to agree to not only have sex with someone who looks like that, but to bring him back to our apartment!’ I thought I was pointing out the obvious, but her eyes widened into surprised realization.

‘You think I had sex with him?’ she asked softly, refusing to acknowledge what seemed certain.

Alex’s words from a few months before came back to me: Lily did drink more than was normal – all the signs were there. She was missing classes regularly, had gotten arrested, and now had dragged home the scariest-looking mutant of a guy I’d ever laid eyes on. I also remembered the message one of her professors had left on our machine right after finals, something to the effect that while Lily’s final paper had been stellar, she’d missed too many classes and handed things in too late to give her the ‘A’ she deserved. I decided to tread carefully. ‘Lil, sweetie, I don’t think the problem is the guy. I think it’s the drinking that’s causing it.’

She had begun brushing her hair, and it wasn’t until now that I realized it was already six o’clock on a Friday night and she was just getting out of bed. She wasn’t protesting, so I continued.

‘It’s not that I have any issue with drinking,’ I said, trying to keep the conversation relatively peaceful. ‘Clearly, I’m not antidrinking. I just wonder if it’s gotten a little bit out of control lately, you know? Has everything been OK at school?’

She opened her mouth to say something, but Alex popped his head in the door and handed me my shrieking cell phone. ‘It’s her,’ he said and left again. Argghhh! The woman had a very special gift for wrecking my life.

‘Sorry,’ I said to Lily, looking at the phone warily as the display screamed MP CELL over and over again. ‘It usually only takes a second for her to humiliate or reprimand me, so hold that thought.’ Lily set down her brush and watched me answer.

‘Miran—’ Again, I’d almost answered the line as though it were her own. ‘This is Andrea,’ I corrected, bracing for the barrage.

‘Andrea, you know I expect you there at six-thirty tonight, do you not?’ she barked into the phone without a greeting or identification of any sort.

‘Oh, um, you had said seven o’clock earlier. I still need to—’

‘I said six-thirty before and I’m saying it again now. Siiiiix-thiiiiirty. Get it?’ Click. She’d hung up. I looked at my watch. 6:05 P.M. This was a problem.

‘She wants me there in twenty-five minutes,’ I stated out loud to no one in particular.

Lily looked relieved for the distraction. ‘Let’s get you moving then, OK?’

‘We’re midconversation here, and this is important. What were you going to say before?’ The words were right, but it was clear to both of us that my mind was already a million miles away. I’d already decided there was no time to shower, as I now had fifteen minutes to zip myself into black-tie and get into a car.

‘Seriously, Andy, you’ve got to move. Go get ready – we’ll do this later.’

And once again I was left with no choice but to move quickly, heart racing, climbing into my gown and running a brush through my hair and trying to match some of the names with the pictures of the evening’s guests that Emily had helpfully printed out earlier. Lily watched the whole thing unwind with mild amusement, but I knew she was worrying about the incident with Freak Boy, and I felt terrible I couldn’t deal with it right then. Alex was on his phone with his little brother, trying to convince him that he really was too young to go to a movie at nine o’clock and that their mother wasn’t cruel in forbidding him to do so.

I kissed him on the cheek as he whistled and told me that he’d probably meet some people for dinner but to call him later if I wanted to meet up, and ran as best one can in stilts back to the living room, where Lily was holding a gorgeous piece of black silk fabric. I looked at her questioningly.

‘A wrap, for your big night,’ she sang, shaking it out like a bedsheet. ‘I want my Andy to look just as sophisticated as all the big-money Carolina rednecks she’ll be serving tonight like a common waitress. My grandmother bought it for me years ago to wear to Eric’s wedding. I can’t decide if it’s gorgeous or hideous, but it’s black-tie enough and it’s Chanel, so it should do.’

I hugged her. ‘Just promise if Miranda kills me for saying the wrong thing that you’ll burn this dress and make sure I’m buried in my Brown sweatpants. Promise me!’ She grabbed the mascara wand I was waving about and started working on me.

‘You look great, Andy, really you do. Never thought I’d see you in an Oscar gown going to one of Miranda Priestly’s parties, but, hey, you look the part. Now go.’

She handed me the dangling, obnoxiously bright Judith Leiber bag and held the door as I walked into the hallway. ‘Have fun!’

The car was waiting outside my building and John – who was shaping up to be a first-class pervert – whistled as the driver held the door open for me.

‘Knock ’em dead, hottie,’ he called after me with an exaggerated wink. ‘See ya late-night.’ He had no idea where I was going, of course, but it was comforting that he thought I’d at least be coming home. Maybe it won’t be that bad, I thought as I settled into the cushy backseat of the Town Car. But then my dress slid up over my knees and the back of my legs touched the ice-cold leather seats, and I lurched forward. Or, maybe, it will suck just as much as I think it will?

The driver jumped out and ran around to open the door for me, but I was standing on the curb by the time he’d made it around.

I’d been to the Whitney once before, on a day trip to New York with my mom and Jill to see some of the tourist sights. The museum itself didn’t look familiar now, but I instantly flashed back when I saw the bridge-like entrance. As a thirteen-year-old, I’d stood on that walkway for nearly twenty minutes, gazing over the side down below, where the well-heeled Upper East Side crowd mingled with the well-heeled suburban day-trippers over lemonades and espressos. They all seemed so confident, so breezy in their discussions of the revolutionary architectural exhibit or the racy black-and-white prints by a young, gay photographer. They spoke to each other with ease and moved with the kind of assurance I’d never felt as a teenager and was sure I never would.

How right I’d been. It may have been ten years later, but the only difference between then and now was the cost of my outfit. And the height of my heels, of course. I briefly considered hurtling first the shoes and then myself over the walkway, but a quick calculation confirmed that I’d only shatter a kneecap or smash a collarbone – not enough to get me out of the evening’s festivities. Lacking any alternatives, I inhaled mightily, clenched my fingers to fight off the urge for one last cigarette, and reapplied my Fudgsicle Lipsmackers. It was time to be a lady.

The guard opened the door for me, bowed slightly, and smiled. He probably thought I was a guest.

‘Hi, miss, you must be Andrea. Ilana said to have a seat right over there, and she’ll be out in a minute.’ He turned away and spoke discreetly into a microphone on his sleeve and nodded when he heard a response through his earpiece. ‘Yes, right over there, miss. She’ll be here as soon as she can.’

I looked around the entryway but didn’t feel like going through the dress-adjustment hassle of actually sitting. Besides, when would I ever again have the chance to be in the Whitney Museum – or any museum, really – after hours, with apparently no one else there? The ticket tables were empty and the ground-floor bookshop was deserted, but the sense that exciting things were happening somewhere upstairs was palpable.

After nearly fifteen minutes of peering around, being careful not to wander too far from the aspiring Secret Service agent, a rather ordinary-looking girl in a long navy dress crossed the sleek lobby and walked toward me. I was surprised that someone with a job as glamorous as hers (working in the special events office of the museum) could be so plain, and I felt instantly ridiculous, like a girl from a small town trying to dress for a big-city black-tie affair – which, ironically enough, was exactly who I was. Ilana, on the other hand, looked like she hadn’t even bothered to change out of work clothes, and I learned later that she hadn’t.

‘Why bother?’ she’d laughed. ‘It’s not like these people are here to look at me.’ Her brown hair was clean and straight but lacking in style, and her brown flats were horrifically unfashionable. But her blue eyes were bright and kind, and I knew instantly that I would like her.

‘You must be Ilana,’ I said, sensing that I somehow had seniority in the situation and was expected to take charge. ‘I’m Andrea. I’m Miranda’s assistant, and I’m here to help in any way I can.’

She looked so relieved, I instantly wondered what Miranda had said to her. The possibilities were endless, but I imagined it had something to do with Ilana’s Ladies’ Home Journal getup. I shuddered to think what wicked thing she’d uttered to such a sweet girl and prayed she wouldn’t start to cry. Instead, she turned to me with those big innocent eyes, leaned forward, and declared none-too-quietly, ‘Your boss is a first-rate bitch.’

I stared, shocked, for just a moment before recovering. ‘She is, isn’t she?’ I said, and we both laughed. ‘What do you need me to do? Miranda’s going to be able to sense that I’m here in about ten seconds, so I should look like I’m doing something.’

‘Here, I’ll show you the table,’ she said, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button for the second floor. ‘It’s dynamite.’

We stepped off the elevator and cruised past another guard, weaved around a sculpture I couldn’t immediately identify, and made our way to a smaller room towards the back of the floor. A rectangular, twenty-four-seat table stretched down the middle. Robert Isabell was worth it, I could see. He was the New York party planner, the only one who could be trusted to strike just the right note with astonishing attention to detail: fashionable without being trendy, luxe but not ostentatious, unique without being over the top. Miranda insisted that Robert do everything, but the only time I’d ever seen his work before was at Cassidy and Caroline’s birthday party. I knew he could manage to turn Miranda’s colonial-style living room into a chic downtown lounge (complete with soda bar – in martini glasses, of course – ultra-suede, built-in banquettes, and a fully heated, tented balcony dance floor with a Moroccan theme) for ten-year-olds, but this was truly spectacular.

Everything glowed white. Light white, smooth white, bright white, textured white, and rich white. Bundles of milky white peonies looked as if they grew from the table itself, deliciously lush but low enough to allow people to talk over them. Bone white china (with a white checked pattern) rested on a crisp white linen tablecloth, and high-backed white oak chairs were covered in luscious white suede (the danger!), all atop a plush white carpet, specially laid for the evening. White votive candles in simple white porcelain holders gave off a soft white light, highlighting (but somehow not burning) the peonies from underneath and providing subtle, unobtrusive illumination around the table. The only color in the entire room came from the elaborate multihued canvases that hung on the walls surrounding the table. A quick glance at their descriptions told me that B-DAD’s brother would be celebrating his engagement in the presence of oil paintings by Rothko, Steel, Kline, and of course, de Kooning. The white table as a deliberate contrast to the larger-than-life canvases that literally burst with color was exquisite. As I turned my head around to take in the wonderful contrast of the color and the white (‘That Robert really is a genius!’), a vibrant red figure caught my eye. In the corner, standing ramrod straight under Rothko’s Four Darks in Red was Miranda, wearing the beaded red Chanel that had been commissioned, cut, fitted, and precleaned just for tonight. In that moment I knew immediately why she’d insisted on both the gallery and the dress, knew that she’d planned for that painting to highlight that dress – or perhaps it was the other way around? Either way, it was perfection. She looked breathtaking. She herself was an objet d’art, chin jutted upward and muscles perfectly taut, a neoclassical relief in beaded Chanel silk. She wasn’t beautiful – her eyes were a bit too beady and her hair too severe and her face much too hard – but she was stunning in a way I couldn’t make sense of, and no matter how hard I tried to play it cool, to pretend to be admiring the room, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

As usual, the sound of her voice broke my reverie. ‘Ahn-dre-ah, you do know the names and faces of our guests this evening, do you not? I assume you have properly studied their portraits. I expect you won’t humiliate me tonight by failing to greet someone by name,’ she announced, looking nowhere, with only my name indicating that her words might somehow be directed toward me.

‘Um, yes, I’ve got it covered,’ I answered, suppressing the urge to salute and still acutely aware that I was staring. ‘I’ll take a few minutes now and make sure I’m positive.’ She looked at me as if to say You sure will, you idiot, and I forced myself to look away and walk out of the gallery. Ilana was right behind me.

‘What’s she talking about?’ she whispered, leaning toward me. ‘Portraits? Is she crazy?’

We sat down on an uncomfortable wooden bench in a darkened hallway, both of us overwhelmed with the need to hide. ‘Oh, that. Yeah, normally I would’ve spent the last week trying to find pictures of the guests tonight and memorizing them so I could greet them by name,’ I explained to a horrified Ilana. She stared at me incredulously. ‘But since she just told me I had to come today, I only had a few minutes in the car to look them over.’

‘What?’ I asked. ‘You think this is strange? Whatever. It’s standard stuff for a Miranda party.’

‘Well, I thought there wouldn’t be anyone famous here tonight,’ she said.

‘Yeah, there won’t be anyone we’d recognize right away, just a lot of billionaires with homes below the Mason-Dixon line. Usually when I have to memorize the guests’ faces, they’re easier to find online or in WWD or something. I mean, you can generally locate a picture of Queen Noor or Michael Bloomberg or Yohji Yamamoto if you have to. But just try to find Mr and Mrs Packard from some rich suburb of Charleston or wherever the hell they live and it’s not so easy. Miranda’s other assistant was looking for these people while everyone else was getting me ready, and she eventually found almost everyone in the society pages of their hometown newspapers or on various companies’ websites, but it was really annoying.’

Ilana continued to stare. I think somehow I knew that I was sounding like a robot, but I couldn’t stop. Her shock only made me feel worse.

‘There’s only one couple I haven’t identified yet, so I guess I’ll know them by default,’ I said.

‘Oh, my. I don’t know how you do it. I’m annoyed I have to be here on a Friday night, but I can’t imagine doing your job. How do you take it? How do you stand being spoken to and treated like that?’

It took me a moment to realize that this question caught me off-guard: no one had really ever volunteered anything negative about my job. I’d always thought I was the only one – among the millions of imaginary girls that would ‘die’ for my job – who saw anything remotely disturbing about my situation. It was more horrifying to see the shock in her eyes than it was to witness the hundreds of ridiculous things I saw each and every day at work; the way she looked at me with that pure, unadulterated pity triggered something inside me. I did what I hadn’t done in months of working under subhuman conditions for a nonhuman boss, what I always managed to keep suppressed for a more appropriate time. I started to cry.

Ilana looked more shocked than ever. ‘Oh, sweetie, come here! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it. You’re a saint for putting up with that witch, you hear me? Come with me.’ She pulled me by the hand and led me down another darkened hallway toward an office in the back. ‘Here, now sit for a minute and forget all about what these stupid people look like.’

I sniffled and started to feel stupid.

‘And don’t feel strange, you hear? I have a feeling you kept that inside for a long, long time and you have to have a good cry every now and then.’

She was fumbling around in her desk for something while I tried to wipe the mascara from my cheeks. ‘Here,’ she proclaimed proudly. ‘I’m destroying this right after you see it, and if you even think of telling anyone about it, I’ll wreck your life. But just look, it’s amazing.’ She handed me a manila envelope sealed with a ‘Confidential’ sticker and smiled.

I tore off the sticker and pulled a green folder out. Inside was a photo – a color photocopy, actually – of Miranda stretched out on a restaurant banquette. I recognized it immediately as a picture taken by a famous society photographer during a recent birthday party for Donna Karan at Pastis. It had already appeared on the pages of New York magazine and was bound to keep showing up. In it she was wearing her signature brown and white snakeskin trench coat, the one I always thought made her look like a snake.

Well, it seems I wasn’t alone, because in this version, someone had subtly – expertly – attached a scaled-to-size cutout of a rattlesnake’s rattle directly where her legs should have been. The effect was a fabulous rendition of Miranda as Snake: she rested her elbow on the banquette, cradled her chiseled chin in her palm, and stretched out across the leather, with her rattle curled in a semicircle and hanging off the edge of the bench. It was perfect.

‘Isn’t it great?’ Ilana asked, leaning over my shoulder. ‘Linda came into my office one afternoon after having spent an hour on the phone with Miranda discussing where the table should go. Even though Miranda knew all along she wanted the de Kooning rooms, she made Linda describe every single inch of every single floor. Linda was ready to kill herself, so I made this pretty little picture as a pick-me-up for her. You know what she did with it? Shrunk it on the copier so she could have a little one for her wallet! I just thought you’d get a kick out of this. Even if it’s just to remind you that you’re not alone. You’re definitely the worst off, but you’re not alone.’

I stuck the picture back in its confidential envelope and handed it back to Ilana. ‘You’re the best,’ I said, touching her shoulder. ‘I really, really appreciate it. I promise to never, ever tell anyone where I got this, but will you please send this to me? I don’t think it’ll fit in the Leiber bag, but I’d give anything if you’d send it to me at home. Please?’

She smiled and motioned for me to write my address, and we both stood up and walked (I hobbled) back to the museum’s foyer. It was just about seven, and the guests were due to arrive any minute. Miranda and B-DAD were talking to his brother, the honored guest and groom, who looked like he had played soccer, football, lacrosse, and rugby at a Southern school – one where he was always surrounded by cooing blondes. The cooing blonde of twenty-six who was to become his bride was standing quietly by his side, gazing up at him adoringly. She was holding a snifter of something and chortling at his jokes.

Miranda was hanging on to B-DAD’s forearm with the fakest of smiles plastered across her face. I didn’t have to hear what they were saying to know that she was barely responding at the appropriate time. Social graces were not her strength, as she had little tolerance for small talk – but I knew she’d be on her best kiss-ass behavior tonight. I’d come to realize that her ‘friends’ all fell into one of two categories. There were those she perceived as ‘above’ her and who must be impressed. This list was short, but it generally included people like Irv Ravitz, Oscar de la Renta, Hillary Clinton, and any first-rate, A-list movie star. Then there were those ‘below’ her, who must be patronized and belittled so they don’t forget their place, which included basically everyone else: all Runway employees, all family members, all parents of her children’s friends – unless they coincidentally fell into category number one – almost all designers and other magazine editors, and every single solitary person in the service industry, both here and abroad. Tonight was sure to be amusing because these were category two people who would have to be treated like category ones, merely because of their association with Mr Tomlinson and his brother. I always enjoyed the rare occasions when I got to watch Miranda try to impress those around her, mostly because she wasn’t naturally charming.

I felt the first guests arrive before I saw them. The tension in the room was palpable. Remembering my color printouts, I rushed over to the couple and offered to take the woman’s fur wrap. ‘Mr and Mrs Wilkinson, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Please, I’ll take that. And Ilana will show you to the gallery where cocktails are being served.’ I hoped I wasn’t staring during my monologue, but the spectacle was truly outrageous. I’d seen women dressed like hookers and men dressed like women and models not dressed at all at Miranda’s parties, but never before had I seen people dressed like this. I knew it wasn’t going to be a trendy New York crowd, but I was expecting them to look like something out of Dallas; instead, they looked like a dressier version of the cast from Deliverance.

Mr Tomlinson’s brother, himself distinguished looking with silver hair, made the horrible mistake of wearing white tails – in May, no less – with a plaid handkerchief and a cane. His fiancée had on an emerald green taffeta nightmare. It swirled and puffed and gathered and forced her enormous bust up and over the top of the dress so that it appeared her own silicon breasts might actually suffocate her. Diamonds the size of Dixie cups hung from her ears, and an even larger one sparkled from her left hand. Her hair was bleached white with peroxide, as were her teeth, and her heels were so high and so skinny, she walked as if she’d been a running back in the NFL for the past twelve years.

‘Dah-lings, I am so delighted you could join us for a little pah-ty! Everyone loves pahties, now don’t they?’ Miranda sang in a falsetto voice. The soon-to-be Mrs Tomlinson looked as if she’d pass out. Right there before her was the one and only Miranda Priestly! Her glee embarrassed us all, and the whole wretched crowd moved toward the elevators with Miranda leading the way.

The rest of the night went on much like the beginning. I recognized all the guests’ names and managed not to utter anything too humiliating. The parade of white tuxes, chiffon, big hair, bigger jewels, and barely postadolescent women ceased to amuse me as the hours wore on, but I never grew tired of watching Miranda. She was the true lady and the envy of every woman in that museum that night. And even though they understood that all the money in the world could never buy them her class and elegance, they never stopped wanting it.

I smiled genuinely when she dismissed me halfway through dinner, as usual without a thank-you or a good-night. (‘Ahn-dre-ah, we won’t be needing you anymore this evening. See yourself out.’) I looked for Ilana, but she had already sneaked out. The car took only about ten minutes to arrive after I called for it – I had briefly considered taking the subway, but wasn’t sure how well the Oscar or my feet would’ve held up – and I sunk, exhausted but calm, into the backseat.

When I walked past John on my way to the elevator, he reached under his little table and pulled out a manila envelope. ‘Just got this a few minutes ago. It says “Urgent.”’ I thanked him and sat down in a corner of the lobby, wondering who would be messengering me something at ten o’clock on a Friday night. I tore it open and pulled out a note:

Dearest Andrea,

It was so great to meet you tonight! Can we please get together next week for sushi or something? I dropped this off on my way home – figured you could use the pick-me-up after a night like the one we just had. Enjoy.

Xoxo,

Ilana

Inside was the picture of Miranda as Snake, only Ilana had enlarged this one to a ten by thirteen size. I looked at it carefully for a few minutes, massaging the feet I’d finally pulled from the Manolos, and looked into Miranda’s eyes. She looked intimidating and mean and just like the bitch I stared at every day. But tonight she’d also looked sad, and not a little lonely. Adding this picture to my fridge and making fun of it with Lily and Alex wasn’t going to make my feet hurt any less, or give me back my Friday night. I tore it up and hobbled upstairs.