I dug frantically through my overnight bag, searching for the cell phone given to me by Runway that would ensure I was always only seven digits away from Miranda. I finally freed it from a tangle of underwear at the bottom of the bag and flopped backward on the bed. The little screen announced immediately that I had no service at that point, and I knew immediately, instinctively, that she had called and it had gone directly to voice mail. I hated that cell phone with my entire soul. I even hated my new Bang and Olufsen home phone by this point. I hated Lily’s phone, commercials for phones, pictures of phones in magazines, and I even hated Alexander Graham Bell. Working for Miranda Priestly caused a number of unfortunate side effects in my day-to-day life, but the most unnatural one was my severe and all-consuming hatred of phones.
For most people, the ringing of a phone was a welcome sign. Someone was trying to reach them, to say hello, ask about their well-being, or make plans. For me, it triggered fear, intense anxiety, and heart-stopping panic. Some people considered the many available phone features to be a novelty, even fun. For me, they were nothing short of imperative. Although I’d never had so much as call waiting before Miranda, a few days into my tenure at Runway I was signed up for call waiting (so she’d never get a busy signal), caller ID (so I could avoid her calls), call waiting with caller ID (so I could avoid her calls while talking on the other line), and voice mail (so she wouldn’t know I was avoiding her calls because she’d still hear an answering machine message). Fifty bucks a month for phone service – before long distance – seemed a small price to pay for my peace of mind. Well, not peace of mind exactly; more like early warning.
The cell phone afforded me no such barriers. Sure, it had all the same features as the home phone, but from Miranda’s point of view there was simply no reason whatsoever for the cell to ever be turned off. It could never go unanswered. The few reasons for such a situation that I’d thrown out to Emily when she’d first handed me the phone – a standard Runway office supply – and told me to always answer it were quickly eliminated.
‘What if you were sleeping?’ I had stupidly asked.
‘So get up and answer it,’ she’d answered while filing down a scraggly nail.
‘Sitting down to a really fancy meal?’
‘Be like every other New Yorker and talk at the dinner table.’
‘Getting a pelvic exam?’
‘They’re not looking in your ears, are they?’ All right then. I got it.
I loathed that fucking cell but could not ignore it. It kept me tied to Miranda like an umbilical cord, refusing to let me grow up or out or away from my source of suffocation. She called constantly, and like some sick Pavlovian experiment gone awry, my body had begun responding viscerally to its ring. Brring-brring. Increased heart rate. Briiiing. Automatic finger clenching and shoulder tensing. Brriiiiiiiiiiiing. Oh, why won’t she leave me alone, please, oh, please, just forget I’m alive – sweat breaks out on my forehead. This whole glorious weekend I’d never even considered the phone might not have service and had just assumed it would’ve rung if there was a problem. Mistake number one. I roamed the couple hundred square feet until AT&T decided to work again, held my breath, and dialed into my voice mail.
Mom left a cute message wishing me lots of fun with Lily. A friend from San Francisco found himself on business in New York that week and wanted to get together. My sister called to remind me to send a birthday card to her husband. And there it was, almost unexpected but not quite, that dreaded British accent ringing in my ears. ‘Ahn-dre-ah. It’s Mir-ahnda. It’s nine in the morning on Sunday in Pah-ris and the girls have not yet received their books. Call me at the Ritz to assure me that they will arrive shortly. That’s all.’ Click.
The bile began to rise in my throat. As usual, the message lacked all niceties. No hello, good-bye, or thank you. Obviously. But more than that, it had been left nearly half a day ago, and I had still not called her back. Grounds for dismissal, I knew, and there was nothing I could do about it. Like an amateur, I’d assumed my plan would work perfectly and hadn’t even realized that Uri had never called to confirm the pickup and drop-off. I scanned through the address book on my phone and quickly dialed Uri’s cell phone number, another Miranda purchase so that he’d be on call 24/7 as well.
‘Hi, Uri, it’s Andrea. Sorry to bother you on Sunday, but I was wondering if you picked up those books yesterday from Eighty-seventh and Amsterdam?’
‘Hi, Andy, eet’s so nice to hear your woice,’ he crooned in the thick Russian accent I always found so comforting. He’d been calling me Andy like a favorite old uncle would since the first time we met, and coming from him – as opposed to B-DAD – I didn’t mind it. ‘Of course I pick up the bouks, just like you say. You tink I don’t vant to help you?’
‘No, no, of course not, Uri. It’s just that I got a message from Miranda saying that they hadn’t received them yet, and I’m wondering what went wrong.’
He was quiet for a moment, and then offered me the name and number of the pilot who was flying the private jet yesterday afternoon.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,’ I said, scribbling the number down frantically and praying that the pilot would be helpful. ‘I’ve got to run. Sorry I can’t talk, but have a great weekend.’
‘Yes, yes, good veekend to you, Andy. I tink the pilot man will help you trace the bouks. Nice luck to you,’ he said merrily and hung up.
Lily was making waffles and I desperately wanted to join her, but I had to deal with this now or I was out of a job. Or maybe I’d already been fired, I thought, and no one had even bothered to tell me. Not outside the realm of Runway possibility, remembering the fashion editor who’d been fired while on her honeymoon. She herself stumbled across her change in job status by reading about it in a copy of Women’s Wear Daily in Bali. I quickly called the number that Uri had given me for the pilot and thought I’d pass out from frustration when an answering machine picked up.
‘Hi, Jonathan? This is Andrea Sachs from Runway magazine. I’m Miranda Priestly’s assistant, and I needed to ask you a question about the flight yesterday. Oh, come to think of it, you’re probably still in Paris, or maybe on your way back. Well, I just wanted to see if the books, and uh, well, you of course, made it to Paris in one piece. Can you call my cell? 917-555-8702. Please, as soon as possible. Thanks. ’Bye.’
I thought about phoning the concierge at the Ritz to see if he’d remember receiving the car that would have brought the books from the private airport on the outskirts of Paris but quickly realized that my cell didn’t dial internationally. It was quite possibly the only task it was not programmed to handle, and it was, of course, the only one that mattered. At that moment, Lily announced that she had a plate of waffles and a cup of coffee for me. I walked into the kitchen and took the food. She was sipping a Bloody Mary. Ugh. It was a Sunday morning. How could she be drinking?
‘Having a Miranda moment?’ she asked with a look of sympathy.
I nodded. ‘Think I screwed up pretty badly this time,’ I said, gratefully accepting the plate. ‘This one just might get me fired.’
‘Oh, sweetie, you always say that. She won’t fire you. She hasn’t even seen you hard at work yet. At least, she better not fire you – you have the greatest job in the world!’
I looked at her warily and willed myself to remain calm.
‘Well, you do,’ she said. ‘So she sounds difficult to please and a little crazy. Who isn’t? You still get free shoes and makeovers and haircuts and clothes. The clothes! Who on earth gets free designer clothes just for showing up at work each day? Andy, you work at Runway, don’t you understand? A million girls would kill for your job.’
I understood. I understood right then that Lily, for the first time since I met her nine years before, didn’t understand. She, like all my other friends, loved hearing the crazy work stories I’d accumulated in the past weeks – the gossip and the glamour – but she didn’t