The gorgeous jewelry and impeccable makeup of the human resources receptionist did nothing to allay my overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. She told me to sit and ‘feel free to look over some of our titles.’ Instead, I tried frantically to memorize the names of all the editors in chief of the company’s titles – as if they were going to actually quiz me on them. Ha! I already knew Stephen Alexander, of course, for Reaction magazine, and it wasn’t too hard to remember The Buzz’s Tanner Michel. Those were really the only interesting things they published anyway, I figured. I’d do fine.
A short, svelte woman introduced herself as Sharon. ‘So, dear, you’re looking to break into magazines, are you?’ she asked as she led me past a string of long-legged model lookalikes to her stark, cold office. ‘It’s a tough thing to do right out of college, you know. Lots and lots of competition out there for very few jobs. And the few jobs that are available, well! They’re not exactly high-paying, if you know what I mean.’
I looked down at my cheap, mismatched suit and very wrong shoes and wondered why I’d even bothered. Already deep in thought over how I was going to crawl back to that sofa bed with enough Cheez-Its and cigarettes to last a fortnight, I barely noticed when she almost whispered, ‘But I have to say, there’s an amazing opportunity open right now, and it’s going to go fast!’
Hmm. My antennae perked up as I tried to force her to make eye contact with me. Opportunity? Go fast? My mind was racing. She wanted to help me? She liked me? Why, I hadn’t even opened my mouth yet – how could she like me? And why exactly was she starting to sound like a car salesman?
‘Dear, can you tell me the name of the editor in chief of Runway?’ she asked, looking pointedly at me for the first time since I’d sat down.
Blank. Completely and totally blank, I couldn’t remember a thing. I couldn’t believe she was quizzing me! I’d never read an issue of Runway in my life – she wasn’t allowed to ask me about that one. No one cared about Runway. It was a fashion magazine, for chrissake, one I wasn’t even sure contained any writing, just lots of hungry-looking models and glossy ads. I stammered for a moment or two, while the different names of editors I’d just before forced my brain to remember all swirled inside my head, dancing together in mismatched pairs. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I was sure I knew her name – after all, who didn’t? But it wouldn’t gel in my addled brain.
‘Uh, well, it seems I can’t recall her name right now. But I know I know it, of course I know it. Everyone knows who she is! I just, well, don’t, uh, seem to know it right now.’
She peered at me for a moment, her large brown eyes finally fixated on my now perspiring face. ‘Miranda Priestly,’ she near-whispered, with a mixture of reverence and fear. ‘Her name is Miranda Priestly.’
Silence ensued. For what felt like a full minute, neither of us said a word, but then Sharon must have made the decision to overlook my crucial misstep. I didn’t know then that she was desperate to hire another assistant for Miranda, couldn’t know that she was desperate to stop this woman from calling her day and night, grilling her about potential candidates. Desperate to find someone, anyone, whom Miranda wouldn’t reject. And if I might – however unlikely – stand even the smallest chance of getting hired and thereby relieve her, well, then attention must be paid.
Sharon smiled tersely and told me I was going to meet with Miranda’s two assistants. Two assistants?
‘Why yes,’ she confirmed with an exasperated look. ‘Of course Miranda needs two assistants. Her current senior assistant, Allison, has been promoted to be Runway’s beauty editor, and Emily, the junior assistant, will be taking Allison’s place. That leaves the junior position open for someone!
‘Andrea, I know you’ve just graduated from college and probably aren’t entirely familiar with the inner workings of the magazine world …’ She paused dramatically, searching for the right words. ‘But I feel it’s my duty, my obligation, to tell you what a truly incredible opportunity this is. Miranda Priestly …’ She paused again just as dramatically, as though she were mentally bowing. ‘Miranda Priestly is the single most influential woman in the fashion industry, and clearly one of the most prominent magazine editors in the world. The world! The chance to work for her, to watch her edit and meet with famous writers and models, to help her achieve all she does each and every day, well, I shouldn’t need to tell you that it’s a job a million girls would die for.’
‘Um, yeah, I mean yes, that does sound wonderful,’ I said, briefly wondering why Sharon was trying to talk me into something that a million other people would die for. But there wasn’t time to think about it. She picked up the phone and sang a few words, and within minutes she’d escorted me to the elevators to begin my interviews with Miranda’s two assistants.
I thought Sharon was starting to sound a bit like a robot, but then came my meeting with Emily. I found my way down to the seventeenth floor and waited in Runway’s unnervingly white reception area. It took just over a half hour before a tall, thin girl emerged from behind the glass doors. A calf-length leather skirt hung from her hips, and her unruly red hair was piled in one of those messy but still glamorous buns on top of her head. Her skin was flawless and pale, not so much as a single freckle or blemish, and it stretched perfectly over the highest cheekbones I’d ever seen. She didn’t smile. She sat next to me and looked me over, earnestly but with little apparent interest. Perfunctory. And then, unprompted and still having not introduced herself, the girl I presumed to be Emily launched into a description of the job. The monotone of her statements told me more than all of her words: she’d obviously gone through this dozens of times already, had little faith that I was any different from the rest, and as a result wouldn’t be wasting much time with me.
‘It’s hard, no doubt about it. There will be fourteen-hour days, you know – not often, but often enough,’ she rattled on, still not looking at me. ‘And it’s important to understand that there will be no editorial work. As Miranda’s junior assistant, you’d be solely responsible for anticipating her needs and accommodating them. Now, that could be anything from ordering her favorite stationery to accompanying her on a shopping trip. Either way, it’s always fun. I mean, you get to spend day after day, week after week, with this absolutely amazing woman. And amazing she is,’ she breathed, looking slightly animated for the first time since we started speaking.
‘Sounds great,’ I said and meant it. My friends who’d begun working immediately after graduation had already clocked in six full months in their entry-level jobs, and they all sounded wretched. Banks, advertising firms, book publishing houses – it didn’t matter – they were all utterly miserable. They whined about the long days, the coworkers, and the office politics, but more than anything else, they complained bitterly about the boredom. Compared with school, the tasks required of them were mindless, unnecessary, fit for a chimp. They spoke of the many, many hours spent plugging numbers in databases and cold-calling people who didn’t want to be called. Of listlessly cataloging years’ worth of information on a computer screen and researching entirely irrelevant subjects for months on end so their supervisors thought they were productive. Each swore she’d actually gotten dumber in the short amount of time since graduation, and there was no escape in sight. I might not particularly love fashion, but I’d sure rather do something ‘fun’ all day long than get sucked into a more boring job.
‘Yes. It is great. Just great. I mean, really, really great. Anyway, nice to meet you. I’m going to go get Allison for you to meet. She’s great, too.’ Almost as quickly as she finished and departed behind the glass in a rustle of leather and curls, a coltish figure appeared.
This striking black girl introduced herself as Allison, Miranda’s senior assistant who’d just been promoted, and I knew immediately that she was simply too thin. But I couldn’t even focus on the way her stomach caved inward and her pelvic bones pushed out because I was captivated by the fact she exposed her stomach at work at all. She wore black leather pants, as soft as they were tight, and a fuzzy (or was it furry?) white tank top strained across her breasts and ended two inches above her belly button. Her long