I took the nearest stairs and stepped out into a frigid day where the only light I saw was emanating from twenty-four-hour bodegas. Behind me was Bloomingdale’s, but nothing else looked familiar. Elias-Clark, Elias-Clark, Elias-Clark. Where was that building? I turned in my place 180 degrees until I saw a street sign: 60th Street and Lexington. Well, 59th can’t be that far away from 60th, but which way should I walk to make the streets go west? And where was Madison in comparison to Lexington? Nothing looked familiar from my visit to the building the week before, since I’d been dropped off right in front. I strolled for a bit, happy to have left enough time to get as lost as I was, and finally ducked into a deli for a cup of coffee.
‘Hello, sir. I can’t seem to find my way to the Elias-Clark building. Could you please point me in the right direction?’ I asked the nervous-looking man behind the cash register. I tried not to smile sweetly, remembering what everyone had told me about not being in Avon anymore, and how people here don’t exactly respond well to good manners. He scowled at me, and I got nervous it was because he thought me rude. I smiled sweetly.
‘One dollah,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘You’re charging me for directions?’
‘One dollah, skeem or bleck, you peek.’
I stared at him for a moment before I realized he knew only enough English to converse about coffee. ‘Oh, skim would be perfect. Thank you so much.’ I handed over a dollar and headed back outside, more lost than ever. I asked people who worked at newsstands, as street sweepers, even a man who was tucked inside one of those movable breakfast carts. Not a single one understood me well enough to so much as point in the direction of 59th and Madison, and I had brief flashbacks to Delhi, depression, dysentery. No! I will find it.
A few more minutes of wandering aimlessly around a waking midtown actually landed me at the front door of the Elias-Clark building. The lobby glowed behind the glass doors in the early-morning darkness, and it looked, for those first few moments, like a warm, welcoming place. But when I pushed the revolving door to enter, it fought me. Harder and harder I pushed, until my body weight was thrust forward and my face was nearly pressed against the glass, and only then did it budge. When it did begin to move, it slid slowly at first, prompting me to push ever harder. But as soon as it picked up some momentum, the glass behemoth whipped around, hitting me from behind and forcing me to trip over my feet and shuffle visibly to remain standing. A man behind the security desk laughed.
‘Tricky, eh? Not the first time I seen that happen, and won’t be the last,’ he chortled, fleshy cheeks jiggling. ‘They getcha good here.’
I looked him over quickly and decided to hate him and knew that he would never like me, regardless of what I said or how I acted. I smiled anyway.
‘I’m Andrea,’ I said, pulling a knit mitten from my hand and reaching over the desk. ‘Today’s my first day of work at Runway. I’m Miranda Priestly’s new assistant.’
‘And I’m sorry!’ he roared, throwing his round head back with glee. ‘Just call me “Sorry for You”! Hah! Hah! Hah! Hey, Eduardo, check this out. She’s one of Miranda’s new slaves! Where you from, girl, bein’ all friendly and shit? Topeka fuckin’ Kansas? She is gonna eat you alive, hah, hah, hah!’
But before I could respond, a portly man wearing the same uniform came over and with no subtlety whatsoever looked me up and down. I braced for more mocking and guffaws, but it didn’t come. Instead, he turned a kind face to mine and looked me in the eyes.
‘I’m Eduardo, and this idiot here’s Mickey,’ he said, motioning to the first man, who looked annoyed that Eduardo had acted civilly and ruined all the fun. ‘Don’t make no never mind of him, he’s just kiddin’ with you.’ He spoke with a mixed Spanish and New York accent, as he picked up a sign-in book. ‘You just fill out this here information, and I’ll give you a temporary pass to go upstairs. Tell ’em you need a card wit your pitcher on it from HR.’
I must have looked at him gratefully, because he got embarrassed and shoved the book across the counter. ‘Well, go on now, fill ’er out. And good luck today, girl. You gonna need it.’
I was too nervous and exhausted at this point to ask him to explain, and besides, I didn’t really have to. About the only thing I’d had time to do in the week between accepting the job and starting work was to learn a little bit about my new boss. I had Googled her and was surprised to find that Miranda Priestly was born Miriam Princhek, in London’s East End. Hers was like all the other orthodox Jewish families in the town, stunningly poor but devout. Her father occasionally worked odd jobs, but mostly they relied on the community for support since he spent most of his days studying Jewish texts. Her mother had died in childbirth with Miriam, and it was her mother who moved in and helped raise the children. And were there children! Eleven in all. Most of her brothers and sisters went on to work blue-collar jobs like their father, with little time to do anything but pray and work; a couple managed to get themselves into and through the university, only to marry young and begin having large families of their own. Miriam was the single exception to the family tradition.
After saving the small bills her older siblings would slip her whenever they were able, Miriam promptly dropped out of high school upon turning seventeen – a mere three months shy of graduation – to take a job as an assistant to an up-and-coming British designer, helping him put together his shows each season. After a few years of making a name for herself as one of the darlings of London’s burgeoning fashion world and studying French at night, she scored a job as a junior editor at the French Chic magazine in Paris. By this time, she had little to do with her family: they didn’t understand her life or ambitions, and she was embarrassed by their old-fashioned piety and overwhelming lack of sophistication. The alienation from her family was completed shortly after joining French Chic when, at twenty-four years old, Miriam Princhek became Miranda Priestly, shedding her undeniably ethnic name for one with more panache. Her rough, cockney-girl British accent was soon replaced by a carefully cultivated, educated one, and by her late twenties, Miriam’s transformation from Jewish peasant to secular socialite was complete. She rose quickly, ruthlessly, through the ranks of the magazine world.
She spent ten years at the helm of French Runway before Elias transferred her to the number-one spot at American Runway, the ultimate achievement. She moved her two daughters and her rock-star then husband (himself eager to gain more exposure in America) to a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue at 76th Street and began a new era at Runway magazine: the Priestly years, the sixth of which we were nearing as I began my first day.
By some stroke of dumb luck, I would be working for nearly a month before Miranda was back in the office. She took her vacation every year starting a week before Thanksgiving until right after New Year’s. Typically, she’d spend a few weeks at the flat she kept in London, but this year, I was told, she had dragged her husband and daughters to Frederic Marteau’s estate in St Barth’s for two weeks before spending Christmas and New Year’s at the Ritz in Paris. I’d also been forewarned that even though she was technically ‘on vacation,’ she’d still be fully reachable and working at all times, and therefore, so should every single other person on staff. I was to be appropriately prepped and trained without her highness present. That way, Miranda wouldn’t have to suffer my inevitable mistakes while I learned the job. Sounded good to me. So at 7:00 A.M. on the dot, I signed my name into Eduardo’s book and was buzzed through the turnstiles for the very first time. ‘Strike a pose!’ Eduardo called after me, just before the elevator doors swept shut.
Emily, looking remarkably haggard and sloppy in a fitted but wrinkled sheer white T-shirt and hypertrendy