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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myself from his nonaccusatory accusation. ‘I simply didn’t have a single second free, and since it sounded like something serious, I didn’t want to call just to have to hang up again. I mean, she must have called me two dozen times just this afternoon, and each one is an absolute emergency. Emily took off at five and left me all alone with that phone, and Miranda just didn’t stop. She just kept calling and calling and calling, and every time I went to call you, it’d be her again on the other line. I, uh, you know?’
My rapid-fire list of excuses sounded pathetic even to me, but I couldn’t stop. He knew I had just forgotten, and so did I. Not because I didn’t care or wasn’t concerned, but because all things non-Miranda somehow ceased to be relevant the moment I arrived at work. In some ways I still didn’t understand and certainly couldn’t explain – never mind ask anyone else to understand – how the outside world just melted into nonexistence, that the only thing remaining when everything else vanished was Runway. It was especially difficult to explain this phenomenon when it was the single thing in my life I despised. And yet, it was the only one that mattered.
‘Listen, I have to get back to Joey. He has two friends over and they’ve probably torn apart the entire house by this point.’
‘Joey? Does that mean you’re in Larchmont? You don’t usually watch him on Wednesdays. Is everything OK?’ I was hoping to steer him away from the blatantly obvious fact that I had gotten too wrapped up at work for six straight hours, and this seemed like the best path. He’d tell me how his mom had gotten held up at work accidentally or perhaps had to go see Joey’s teacher for conferences that night when the regular babysitter canceled. He’d never complain of course – that just wasn’t his style – but he’d at least tell me what was going on.
‘Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. My mom just had an emergency client meeting tonight. Andy, I can’t really talk about it now. I was just calling before with some good news. But you didn’t call me back,’ he said flatly.
I wrapped the phone cord, which had begun to slowly unravel, so tight around my pointer and middle fingers that they began to pulsate. ‘I’m sorry’ was all I could manage, because even though I knew he was right, that I was insensitive not to have called, I was too worn out to present a huge defense. ‘Alex, please. Please don’t punish me by not telling me something good. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone has called with good news? Please. Give me that at least.’ I knew he’d respond to my rational approach, and he did.
‘Look, it’s not that exciting. I just went ahead and made all the arrangements for us to go back for our first homecoming together.’
‘You did? Really? We’re going?’ I’d brought it up a couple times before in what I’d liked to believe had been an offhand and casual way, but in a decidedly non-Alex fashion he’d been hedging on committing to our going together. It was really early to be planning any of it, but the hotels and restaurants in Providence were always full months ahead of time. I’d dropped it a few weeks earlier, figuring that we would figure something out, find a place to stay somewhere. But somehow, of course, he’d picked up on just how badly I wanted to go with him, and he’d figured out everything.
‘Yeah, it’s done. We have a rental car – a Jeep, actually – and I reserved a room at the Biltmore.’
‘At the Biltmore? You’re kidding? You got a room there? That’s amazing.’
‘Yeah, well, you’ve always talked about wanting to stay there, so I figured we should try it. I even made a reservation for brunch on Sunday at Al Forno for ten people, so we can each gather up the troops and have everyone in one place at one time.’
‘No way. You did all of this already?’
‘Sure. I thought you’d be really psyched. That’s why I was really looking forward to telling you about it. But apparently you were too busy to call back.’
‘Alex, I’m thrilled. I can’t even tell you how excited I am, and I can’t believe you figured everything out already. I’m really sorry about before, but I can’t wait for October. We’re going to have the best time, thanks to you.’
We talked for another couple minutes. By the time I hung up, he didn’t sound mad anymore, but I could barely move. The effort to win him back, to find the right words not only to convince him that I hadn’t overlooked him but also to reassure him that I was appropriately grateful and enthusiastic had drained the last reserves of my energy. I don’t remember getting into the car or the ride home or whether or not I said hello to John Fisher-Galliano in the lobby of my building. Besides a bone-deep exhaustion that hurt so much it almost felt good, the only thing I remember feeling at all was relief that Lily’s door was shut and no light peeked out from under it. I thought about ordering in some food, but the mere thought of locating a menu and a phone was too overwhelming – another meal that simply wasn’t happening.
Instead, I sat on the crumbling concrete of my furnitureless balcony and leisurely inhaled a cigarette. Lacking the energy to actually blow the smoke out, I let it seep from my mouth and hang in the still air around me. At some point I heard Lily’s door open, her footsteps shuffling along the hallway, but I quickly turned out my lights and sat in the darkened silence. There had just been fifteen straight hours of talking, and I could talk no more.
‘Hire her,’ Miranda had decreed when she met Annabelle, the twelfth girl I’d interviewed and one of only two that I’d decided were fit to even meet Miranda. Annabelle was a native French speaker (she actually spoke so little English I had to have the twins translate for me), a graduate of the Sorbonne, and the possessor of a long, hard body, with gorgeous brown hair. She had style. She wasn’t afraid to wear stilettos on the job and didn’t seem to mind Miranda’s brusque manner. In fact, she was rather aloof and brusque herself and never really seemed to make any sort of eye contact. Always kind of bored, a touch disinterested, and supremely confident. I was thrilled when Miranda wanted her, both because it saved me weeks more of meeting nanny wannabes and because it indicated – in some teeny, tiny way – that I was starting to get it.
Get what, exactly, I wasn’t sure, but things were going as smoothly as I could have hoped at this point. I’d pulled off the clothing order with only a few noticeable screwups. She hadn’t exactly been psyched when I’d shown her everything she’d ordered from Givenchy and accidentally pronounced it precisely as it appears – give-EN-chee. After much glaring and a few snide comments, I was informed of the correct pronunciation, and everything went reasonably well until she had to be told that the Roberto Cavalli dresses she’d requested hadn’t been made yet and wouldn’t be ready for another three weeks. But I’d handled that and had managed to co-ordinate fittings in the Closet with her tailor and had assembled nearly everything in the closet in her home dressing room, a space roughly the size of a studio apartment.
The party planning had continued in Miranda’s absence and picked up again full-force with her return, but there was surprisingly little panic – it appeared that everything was in order, and that the upcoming Friday was set to go off without a hitch. Chanel had delivered a one-of-a-kind, floor-length red beaded sheath while Miranda was in Europe, and I’d immediately sent it to the cleaners for a once-over. I’d seen a similar Chanel dress in black in the pages of W the month before, and when I pointed it out to Emily, she’d nodded somberly.
‘Forty thousand dollars,’ she’d said, moving her head up and down, up and down. She double-clicked on a pair of black pants on style.com, where she’d spent months scouring for ideas for her upcoming trip to Europe with Miranda.
‘Forty thousand WHAT?’
‘Her dress. The red one from Chanel. It costs forty thousand dollars if you were to buy it retail. Of course, Miranda isn’t paying full price, but she didn’t get this one for free, either. Isn’t it wild?’
‘Forty thousand DOLLARS?’ I’d asked again, still unable to believe that I’d held a single item