interesting thing would transpire at a party for a book about highlights, but I had to admit that I’d been surprised. When Johnny Depp had come over to say hi to James, I was shocked that he not only seemed to have a full command of the English language, but had even managed a few funny jokes. And it was intensely gratifying to see that Gisele, the Ittest It girl of all current It girls, was downright short. Of course it would’ve been even nicer to discover that she was secretly squat, too, or had a major acne problem that had all been airbrushed out in her gorgeous cover shoots, but I’d settle for short. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad hour and a half so far.
‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ I said, leaning toward him to catch a glimpse of a great looking guy who appeared to be sulking in the corner near the book table. ‘But it hasn’t been quite as disgusting as I’d imagined. And besides, I’m up for anything after the day I’ve had.’
After Miranda had made her rather abrupt departure after her rather abrupt arrival, Emily informed me that that night would be the first time I would have to bring ‘the Book’ to Miranda’s apartment. The Book was a large wire-bound collection of pages as big as a phonebook, in which each current issue of Runway was mocked up and laid out. She explained that no substantial work could get done each day until after Miranda left, because all of the art people and editorial people spent all day long consulting with her, and she changed her mind every hour. Therefore, when Miranda left around five each day to spend some time with the twins, the real day’s work would begin. The art department would craft their new layout and input any new photos that had come in, and editorial would tweak and print any copy that had finally, finally, gotten Miranda’s approval – a giant, looping ‘MP’ scrawled across the entire first page. Every editor would send all the day’s new changes to the art assistant, who, hours after nearly everyone else had left, would run the images and layouts and words through a small machine that waxed the backs of the pages and pressed them onto their appropriate page in the Book. It was then my job to take the Book up to Miranda’s apartment whenever it was finished – anywhere in the eight to eleven P.M. range, depending on where in the production process we were – at which point she’d mark it all up. She’d bring it back the next day, and the entire staff would go through the whole thing again.
When Emily overheard me tell James that I’d go to the party with him after all, she jumped right in. ‘Um, you know you can’t go anywhere until the Book’s finished, right?’
I stared. James looked as though he might tackle her.
‘Yeah, I have to say, this is the part of your job I’m most happy to be done with. It can get really, really late sometimes, but Miranda needs to see it every single night, you know. She works from home. Anyway, I’ll wait with you tonight and show you how to do it, but then you’re on your own.’
‘OK, thanks. Any idea when it’ll be finished tonight?’
‘Nope. Changes every night. You’d really have to ask the art department.’
The Book was finally ready on the earlier side, at eight-thirty, and after I’d retrieved it from an exhausted-looking art assistant, Emily and I walked down to 59th Street together. Emily was holding an armful of freshly dry-cleaned clothes on hangers, encased in plastic, and she explained to me that dry cleaning always accompanied the Book. Miranda would bring her dirty clothes to the office, where, as my luck would have it, it was my job to call the cleaners and let them know we had a pickup. They would send someone to the Elias-Clark building immediately, pick up the clothes, and return them in perfect condition a day later. We stored them in our office closet until we could either hand them off to Uri or take them to her apartment ourselves. My job was getting more intellectually stimulating by the minute!
‘Hey, Rich!’ Emily called brightly, fakely, to the pipe-chomping dispatcher I’d met my first day. ‘This is Andrea. She’ll be taking the Book every night, so make sure she gets a good car, OK?’
‘Will do, Red.’ He pulled the pipe out of his mouth and motioned toward me. ‘I’ll take good care of Blondie over here.’
‘Great. Oh, and can you have another car follow us to Miranda’s? Andrea and I are going separate places after we drop off the Book.’
Two massive Town Cars pulled up just at that moment, and the mammoth driver in the first car barreled out of the front seat and opened the back door for us. Emily climbed in first, immediately whipped out her cell phone, and called out, ‘Miranda Priestly’s apartment, please.’ He nodded and threw the car in gear and we were off.
‘Is it always the same driver?’ I asked, wondering how he knew where to go.
She motioned me to be quiet as she left a message for her roommate. She then said, ‘No, but there are only so many drivers who work for the company. I’ve had them all at least twenty times, so they know their way by now.’ She went back to her dialing. I looked behind us and saw the second empty Town Car carefully mimicking our turns and stops.
We pulled up in front of a typical Fifth Avenue doorman building: immaculate sidewalk, well-kept balconies, and what looked like a gorgeous, warmly lit lobby. A man in a tuxedo and hat immediately came to the car and opened the door for us, and Emily got out. I wondered why we weren’t just going to leave the Book and the clothes with him. As far as I understood – and it wasn’t a lot, especially when it came to this strange city – that’s what doormen were for. As in, that’s their job. But Emily pulled a leather Louis Vuitton key chain from her Gucci logo tote and handed it to me.
‘I’ll wait here. You take the stuff up to her apartment, Penthouse A. Just open her door and leave the book on the table in the foyer and hang the clothes on the hooks by the closet. Not in the closet, by the closet. And then just leave. Whatever you do, don’t knock or ring the doorbell. She doesn’t like to be disturbed. Just let yourself in and out and be quiet!’ She handed me the tangle of wire hangers and plastic and opened her cell phone again. All right, I can handle this. Why so much drama for a book and some pants?
The elevator man smiled kindly at me and silently pressed the PH button after turning a key. He looked like a battered wife, dejected and sad, as though he couldn’t fight any longer and had just made peace with his unhappiness.
‘I’ll wait here,’ he said softly, staring at the floor. ‘You shouldn’t be more than a minute.’
The carpet in the hallways was a deep burgundy color, and I almost toppled over when one of my heels got stuck in the loops. The walls were papered in a thick, cream-colored fabric that had tiny cream pinstripes running the length, and there was a suede cream bench pushed against the wall. The French doors directly in front of me said PH B, but I swiveled and saw identical doors with PH A. It took every ounce of restraint not to ring the bell, but I remembered Emily’s warning and slid the key in the lock. It clicked right away, and before I could fix my hair or wonder what was on the other side, I was standing in a large, airy foyer and smelling the most amazing scent of lamb chops. And there she was, delicately bringing a fork to her mouth while two identical, black-haired little girls yelled at each other across the table and a tall, rugged-looking man with silver hair and a broad, face-encompassing nose read a newspaper.
‘Mum, tell her that she can’t just walk in my room and take my jeans! She won’t listen to me,’ one of them pleaded of Miranda, who’d set down her fork and was taking a sip of what I knew to be Pellegrino with a lime, from the left side of the table.
‘Caroline, Cassidy, enough. I simply don’t want to hear it anymore. Tomas, bring out some more mint jelly,’ she called. A man I presumed to be the chef hurried into the room holding a silver bowl on a silver serving platter.
And then I realized that I’d been
