Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Lauren Weisberger
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much, and I wanted to cry but all I could do was yell.
‘A big fucking joke, huh? That’s what my job is to both of you! Oh, Andy, you work in fashion, how hard can it be?’ I mimicked, hating myself more with every passing second. ‘Well, excuse me if we can’t all be do-gooders or Ph.D. candidates! Excuse me if—’
‘Call me when you calm down,’ he stated. ‘I’m not going to listen to this anymore.’ And he hung up. Hung up! I waited for him to call back, but he never did, and by the time I’d finally fallen asleep, close to three, I hadn’t heard from either Alex or Lily.
Now it was moving day – a full week later – and while neither was still visibly mad, neither seemed exactly the same either. There hadn’t been time to make amends in person with either one since we were in the middle of closing an issue, but I figured things would fall into place when Lily and I moved into our new apartment. Our shared apartment, where everything would go back to the way it was when we were in college and life was much more palatable.
The movers finally came at eleven, and it took them all of nine minutes to disassemble my beloved bed and throw the pieces in back of their van. Mom and I hitched a ride with them over to my new building, where my dad and Alex were schmoozing with the doorman – who, bizarrely enough, was a dead ringer for John Galliano – with my boxes piled against a wall in the lobby.
‘Andy, glad you’re here. Mr Fisher here won’t open the apartment unless there’s a tenant present,’ my dad said with a huge smile on his face. ‘Which is very smart of him,’ he added, winking at the doorman.
‘Oh, is Lily not here yet? She said she’d get here by ten, ten-thirty.’
‘Nope, haven’t seen her. Should I call her?’ Alex asked.
‘Yeah, I guess so. Why don’t I go up with, er, Mr Fisher so we can start bringing stuff up. Ask her if she needs any help.’
Mr Fisher smiled a way that could only be described as lecherous. ‘Please, we’re like family now,’ he said, looking at my chest. ‘Call me John.’
I almost choked on the now cold coffee I was holding and wondered if the man revered the world over for reviving the Dior brand had died without my knowing and been reincarnated as my doorman.
Alex nodded and wiped his glasses on his T-shirt. I loved it when he did that. ‘You go with your parents. I’ll call.’
I wondered if it was a good or bad thing that my father was now best friends with my (designer) doorman, the man who would inevitably know every detail of my life. The lobby looked nice, if a little retro. It was done in a light-colored stone of some sort, and there were a few uncomfortable-looking benches in front of the elevators and behind the mailroom. Our apartment was number 8C, and it faced southwest, which, from what I’d heard, was a good thing. John opened the door with his master key and stood back like a proud papa.
‘Here she is,’ he announced grandly.
I walked in first, expecting to be hit with an overpowering smell of sulfur or perhaps see a few bats winging their way around our ceiling, but it was surprisingly clean and bright. The kitchen was on the right, a narrow, one-person-wide strip with white tile floors and reasonably white Formica cabinets. The countertops were some sort of flecked granite imitation, and there was a microwave built in above the stove.
‘This is great,’ my mom said, pulling open the refrigerator. ‘It’s already got ice trays.’ The movers pushed past us, grunting while they lugged my bed.
The kitchen opened to the living room, which had already been divided in two by a temporary wall to create a second bedroom. Of course, that meant that all the windows had been cut out of the living room entirely, but that was OK. The bedroom was a decent size – definitely bigger than the one I’d just left – and the sliding glass door leading to the balcony made up one whole wall. The bathroom was between the living room and the real bedroom and was done in Pepto pink tiling and pink paint. Oh well. Could be kitschy. I walked into the real bedroom, which was significantly bigger than the living room one and looked around. A tiny closet, a ceiling fan, and a small, dirty window that looked directly into an apartment in the building next door. Lily had wanted this one and I’d happily agreed. She preferred having the extra space since she spent so much time in her bedroom studying, but I’d rather have the light and the balcony entrance.
‘Thanks, Lil,’ I whispered to myself, knowing that Lily couldn’t possibly hear me.
‘What’d you say, honey?’ my mom asked, coming up behind me.
‘Oh, nothing. Just that Lily did really, really well. I had no idea what to expect, but this is great, don’t you think?’
She looked like she was trying to find the most tactful way of saying something. ‘Yes, for New York, it’s a great apartment. It’s just hard to imagine paying so much and getting so little. You know your sister and Kyle only pay fourteen hundred a month total for their condo, and they have central air, marble bathrooms, brand-new dishwasher and washer-dryer, and three bedrooms and two bathrooms?’ she pointed out, as if she were the first to make this realization. For $2,280 you could get a beachfront townhouse in LA, a three-story condo on a tree-lined street in Chicago, a four-bedroom split-level in Miami, or a goddamn castle with a moat in Cleveland. Yes, we knew this.
‘And two parking spots, access to the golf course, gym, and pool,’ I added helpfully. ‘Yeah, I know. But believe it or not, this is a great deal. I think we’ll be very happy here.’
She hugged me. ‘I think you will be, too. As long as you don’t work too hard to enjoy it,’ she said lightly.
My dad walked in and opened the duffel bag that he’d been dragging around all day, one I’d assumed held racquetball clothes for his game later. But he pulled out a maroon box emblazoned with ‘Limited Edition!’ across the front. Scrabble. The collector’s edition, where the board came mounted on its own lazy Susan and the squares had little raised borders so the letters didn’t slide around. We’d been admiring them together in specialty game stores for the past ten years, but no occasion had ever warranted purchasing one.
‘Oh, Dad. You shouldn’t have!’ I knew the board cost well over two hundred dollars. ‘Oh! I just love it!’
‘Use it in good health,’ he said, hugging me back. ‘Or better yet, to kick your old man’s ass, as I know you will. I remember when I used to let you win. I had to, or you’d stomp around the house, sulking all night. And now! Well, now my old brain cells are fried and I couldn’t beat you if I tried. Not that I won’t,’ he added.
I was about to tell him that I’d learned from the best, but Alex had walked in. And he didn’t look happy.
‘What’s wrong?’ I immediately asked as he fidgeted with his sneakers.
‘Oh, nothing at all,’ he lied while glancing in the direction of my parents. He shot me a ‘just hold on a sec’ look and said, ‘Here, I brought a box.’
‘Let’s go get a few more,’ my dad said to my mom, moving toward the door. ‘Maybe Mr Fisher has some sort of cart. We could bring a bunch up at once. Be right back.’
I looked at Alex, and we both waited until we’d heard the elevator open and close.
‘So, I just talked to Lily,’ he said slowly.
‘She’s not still mad at me, is she? She’s been so weird all week.’
‘No, I don’t think it’s that.’
‘So what is it?’
‘Well, she wasn’t at home …’
‘So where is she? Some guy’s apartment? I can’t believe she’s late for her own moving day.’ I yanked open one of the windows in the converted bedroom to let some of the cold air dissipate the smell of new paint.
‘No, she was actually at a police precinct in midtown.’ He looked at his shoes.
‘She