The Devil Wears Prada (5 page)

 “Hello,
this is Andrea Sachs,” I said firmly, although my voice betrayed me with
its deep, raspy, just-woke-up-ness.

 “Andrea,
good morning! Hope I didn’t call too early,” Sharon sang, her own
voice full of sunshine. “I’m sure I didn’t, my dear,
especially since you’ll have to be an early bird soon enough! I have some
very good news. Miranda was very impressed with you and said she’s very
much looking forward to working with you. Isn’t that wonderful?
Congratulations, dear. How does it feel to be Miranda Priestly’s new
assistant? I imagine that you’re just—”

 My head
was spinning. I tried to pull myself off the couch to get some more coffee,
water, anything that might clear my head and turn her words back into English,
but I only sank further into the cushions. Was she asking me if I would like
the job? Or was she making an official offer? I couldn’t make sense of
anything she’d just said, anything other than the fact that Miranda
Priestly had liked me.

 “—delighted
with this news. Who wouldn’t be, right? So let’s see, you can start
on Monday, right? She’ll actually be on vacation then, but that’s a
great time to start. Give you a little time to get acquainted with the other
girls—oh, they’re all such sweeties!” Acquainted? What?
Starting Monday? Sweetie girls? It was refusing to make sense in my addled
brain. I picked a single phrase that I’d understood and responded to it.

 “Um,
well, I don’t think I can start Monday,” I said quietly, hoping
I’d indeed said something coherent. Saying those words had shocked me
into semiwakefulness. I’d walked through the Elias-Clark doors for the
very first time the day before, and was being awakened from a deep sleep to
listen to someone tell me that I was to begin work in three days. It was Friday—at
seven o’clock in the goddamn morning—and they wanted me to start on
Monday? It began to feel like everything was spiraling out of control. Why the
ridiculous rush? Was this woman so important that she needed me so badly? And
why exactly did Sharon herself sound so scared of Miranda?

 Starting
Monday would be impossible. I had nowhere to live. Home base was my
parents’ house in Avon, the place I’d grudgingly moved back to
after graduation, and where most of my things remained while I’d traveled
during the summer. All of my interview-related clothes were piled on
Lily’s couch. I’d been trying to do the dishes and empty her
ashtrays and buy pints of Häagen-Dazs so she wouldn’t hate me, but I
thought it only fair to give her a much-needed break from my unending presence,
so I camped out on weekends at Alex’s. That put all of my weekend
going-out clothes and fun makeup at Alex’s in Brooklyn, my laptop and
mismatched suits at Lily’s Harlem studio, and the rest of my life at my
parents’ house in Avon. I had no apartment in New York and didn’t
particularly understand how everyone knew that Madison Avenue ran uptown but
Broadway ran down. I didn’t actually know what uptown was. And she wanted
me to start Monday?

 “Um,
well, I don’t think I can do this Monday because I don’t currently
live in New York,” I quickly explained, clutching the phone, “and
I’ll need a couple days to find an apartment and buy some furniture and
move.”

 “Oh,
well, then. I suppose Wednesday would be OK,” she sniffed.

 After a
few more minutes of haggling, we finally settled on November 17, a week from
Monday. That left me a little more than eight days to find and furnish a home
in one of the craziest real estate markets in the world.

 I hung
up and flopped back down on the couch. My hands were trembling, and I let the
phone drop to the floor. A week. I had a week to start working at the job
I’d just accepted as Miranda Priestly’s assistant. But, wait!
That’s what was bothering me… I hadn’t actually accepted the
job because it hadn’t even been officially offered. Sharon hadn’t
even had to utter the words “We’d like to make you an offer,”
since she took it for granted that anyone with some semblance of intelligence
would obviously just accept. No one had so much as mentioned the word
“salary.” I almost laughed out loud. Was this some sort of war
tactic they’d perfected? Wait until the victim was finally deep into REM
sleep after an extremely stressful day and then throw some life-altering news
at her? Or had she just assumed that it would be wasted time and breath to do
something as mundane as make a job offer and wait for acceptance, considering
that this wasRunway magazine? Sharon had just assumed that of course I’d
jump all over the chance, that I’d be thrilled with the opportunity. And,
as they always were at Elias-Clark, she was right. It had all happened so fast,
so frenetically, that I hadn’t had time to debate and deliberate as
usual. But I had a good feeling that thiswas an opportunity I’d be crazy
to turn down, that this could actually be a great first step to getting toThe
New Yorker . I had to try it. I was lucky to have it.

 Newly
energized, I gulped the rest of my coffee, brewed another cup for Alex, and
took a quick, hot shower. When I went back into his room, he was just sitting up.

 “You’re
dressed already?” he asked, fumbling for the tiny wire-rimmed glasses he
was blind without. “Did someone call this morning, or did I dream
that?”

 “Not
a dream,” I said, crawling back under the covers even though I was
wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater. I was careful not to let my wet hair
soak his pillows. “That was Lily. The HR woman from Elias-Clark called
her place because that’s the number I gave them. And guess what?”

 “You
got the job?”

 “I
got the job!”

 “Oh,
come here!” he said, sitting up and hugging me. “I’m so proud
of you! That’s great news, it really is.”

 “So
you really think it’s a good opportunity? I know we talked about it, but
they didn’t even give me a chance to decide. She just assumed that
I’d want the job.”

 “It’s
an amazing opportunity. Fashion isn’t the worst thing on
earth—maybe it’ll even be interesting.”

 I rolled
my eyes.

 “OK,
so maybe that’s going a little far. But withRunway on your
résumé and a letter from this Miranda woman, and maybe even a few
clips by the time you’re done, hell, you can do anything.The New Yorker
will be beating down your door.”

 “I
hope you’re right, I really do.” I jumped up and starting throwing
my things in my backpack. “Is it still OK if I borrow your car? The sooner
I get home, the sooner I can get back. Not that it really matters, because
I’mmoving to New York . It’s official!”

 Since
Alex went home to Westchester twice a week to babysit his little brother when
his mom had to work late, his mom had given him her old car to keep in the
city. But he wouldn’t be needing it until Tuesday, and I’d be back
before then. I had been planning to go home that weekend anyway, and now
I’d have some good news to bring with me.

 “Sure.
No problem. It’s in a spot about a half-block down on Grand Street. The
keys are on the kitchen table. Call me when you get there, OK?”

 “Will
do. Sure you don’t want to come? There’ll be great food—you
know my mom orders in only the best.”

 “Sounds
tempting. You know I would, but I organized some of the younger teachers to get
together tomorrow night for happy hour. Thought it might help us all work as a
team. I really can’t miss it.”

 “Goddamn
do-gooder. Always doing good, spreading good cheer wherever you go. I’d
hate you if I didn’t love you so much.” I leaned over and kissed
him good-bye.

 I found
his little green Jetta on the first try and only spent twenty minutes trying to
find the parkway that would take me to 95 North, which was wide open. It was a
freezing day for November; the temperature was in the midthirties, and there
were slick frozen patches on the back roads. But the sun was out, the kind of
winter glare that causes unaccustomed eyes to tear and squint, and the air felt
clean and cold in my lungs. I rode the entire way with the window rolled down,
listening to the “Almost Famous” soundtrack on repeat. I worked my
damp hair into a ponytail with one hand to keep it from flying in my eyes, and
blew on my hands to keep them warm, or at least warm enough to grip the
steering wheel. Only six months out of college, and my life was on the verge of
bursting forward. Miranda Priestly, a stranger until yesterday but a powerful
woman indeed, had handpicked me to join her magazine. Now I had a concrete
reason to leave Connecticut and move—all on my own, as a real adult
would—to Manhattan and make it my home. As I pulled into the driveway of
my childhood house, sheer exhilaration took over. My cheeks looked red and
windburned in the rearview mirror, and my hair was flying wildly about. There
was no makeup on my face, and my jeans were dirty around the bottom from
trudging through the city slush. But at that moment, I felt beautiful. Natural
and cold and clean and crisp, I threw open the front door and called out for my
mother. It was the last time in my life I remember feeling so light.

 “A
week? Honey, I just don’t see how you’re going to start work in a
week,” my mother said, stirring her tea with a spoon. We were sitting at
the kitchen table in our usual spots, my mother drinking her usual decaf tea
with Sweet’N Low, me with my usual mug of English Breakfast and sugar.
Even though I hadn’t lived at home in four years, all it took was an
oversize mug of microwaved tea and a couple Reese’s peanut butter cups to
make me feel like I’d never left.

 “Well,
I don’t have a choice, and, honestly, I’m lucky to have that. You
should’ve heard how hard-core this woman was on the phone,” I said.
She looked at me, expressionless. “But, whatever, I can’t worry about
it. I did just get a job at a really famous magazine with one of the most
powerful women in the industry. A job a million girls would die for.”

 We
smiled at each other, but her smile was tinged with sadness. “I’m
so happy for you,” she said. “Such a beautiful, grown-up daughter I
have. Honey, I just know this is going to be the start of a wonderful,
wonderful time in your life. Ah, I remember graduating from college and moving
to New York. All alone in that big, crazy city. Scary but so, so exciting. I
want you to love every minute of it, all the plays and films and people and
shopping and books. It’s going to be the best time of your life—I
just know it.” She rested her hand on mine, something she didn’t
usually do. “I’m so proud of you.”

 “Thanks,
Mom. Does that mean you’re proud enough of me to buy me an apartment,
furniture, and a whole new wardrobe?”

 “Yeah,
right,” she said and smacked the top of my head with a magazine on her
way to the microwave to heat two more cups. She hadn’t said no, but she
wasn’t exactly grabbing her checkbook, either.

 I spent
the rest of the evening e-mailing everyone I knew, asking if anyone needed a
roommate or knew of someone who did. I posted some messages online and called
people I hadn’t spoken to in months. No luck. I decided my only
choice—without permanently moving onto Lily’s couch and inevitably
wrecking our friendship, or crashing at Alex’s, which neither of us was
ready for—was to sublet a room short-term, until I could get my bearings
in the city. It would be best to find my own room somewhere, and preferably one
that was already furnished so I wouldn’t have to deal with that, too.

 The
phone rang at a little after midnight, and I lunged for it, nearly falling off
my twin-size childhood bed in the process. A framed, signed picture of Chris
Evert, my childhood hero, smiled down from my wall, just below a bulletin board
that still had magazine cutouts of Kirk Cameron plastered across it. I smiled
into the phone.

 “Hey,
champ, it’s Alex,” he said with that tone of voice that meant something
had happened. It was impossible to tell if it was something good or bad.
“I just got an e-mail that a girl, Claire McMillan, is looking for a
roommate. Princeton girl. I’ve met her before, I think. Dating Andrew,
totally normal. You interested?”

 “Sure,
why not? Do you have her number?”

 “No,
I only have her e-mail, but I’ll forward you her message and you can get
in touch with her. I think she’ll be good.”

 I
e-mailed Claire while I finished talking to Alex and then finally got some
sleep in my own bed. Maybe, just maybe, this would work out.

 Claire
McMillan: not so much. Her apartment was dark and depressing and in the middle
of Hell’s Kitchen, and there was a junkie propped up on the doorstep when
I arrived. The others weren’t much better. There was a couple looking to
rent out an extra room in their apartment who made indirect references to
putting up with their constant and loud lovemaking; an artist in her early
thirties with four cats and a fervent desire for more; a bedroom at the end of
a long, dark hallway, with no windows or closets; a twenty-year-old gay guy in
his self-proclaimed “slutty stage.” Each and every miserable room
I’d visited was going for well over $1,000 and my salary was cashing in
at a whopping $32,500. And although math had never been my strong suit, it
didn’t take a genius to figure out that rent would eat up more than
$12,000 of it and taxes would take the rest. Oh, and my parents were
confiscating the emergencies-only credit card, now that I was an “adult.”
Sweet.