I wanted to stick a tennis ball in his mouth to keep him from talking anymore, but he smiled at me and I walked over and hugged him. He might sound like a hick and grin a little too openly and often, but he tried really hard and he clearly adored my sister. I vowed to make a sincere effort not to visibly cringe when he spoke. ‘It’s not really what I’d call a feeding-friendly kind of place, if you know what I mean. Whatever it is, it’s definitely in the water and not the food. But never mind. Kyle, you look great yourself. Keeping my sister busy in the city of misery, I hope?’
‘Andy, just come and visit, sweetie. Bring Alex along and y’all can make it a li’l vacation. It’s not that bad, you’ll see.’ He smiled first at me and then at Jill, who smiled back and brushed the back of her hand across his cheek. They were disgustingly in love.
‘Really, Andy, it’s a culture-rich place with a whole lot to do. We both wish you’d come visit us more often. It’s just not right that the only time we see each other is in this house,’ she said, waving expansively around our parents’ living room. ‘I mean, if you can stand Avon, you can certainly stand Houston.’
‘Andy, you’re here! Jay, the big New York City career girl is here, come say hi,’ my mom called as she rounded the corner coming from the kitchen. ‘I thought you were going to call when you got to the train station.’
‘Mrs Myers was picking Erika up from the same train, so she just dropped me off. When are we eating? I’m starving.’
‘Now. Do you want to clean up? We can wait. You look a little ragged from the train. You know, it’s fine if—’
‘Mother!’ I shot her a warning look.
‘Andy! You look dynamite. Come here and give your old man a hug.’ My dad, tall and still very handsome in his mid-fifties, smiled from the hallway. He was holding a Scrabble box behind his back that he only let me see by flashing it quickly by the side of his leg. He waited until everyone looked away from him and pointed to the box and mouthed, ‘I’ll kick your ass. Consider yourself warned.’
I smiled and nodded my head. Contrary to all common sense, I found myself looking forward to the next forty-eight hours with my family more than I had in the four years since I’d left home. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday, and this year I was set to enjoy it more than ever.
We gathered in the dining room and dug into the massive meal that my mother had expertly ordered, her traditional Jewish version of a night-before-Thanksgiving feast. Bagels and lox and cream cheese and whitefish and latkes all professionally arranged on rigid disposable serving platters, waiting to be transferred to paper plates and consumed with plastic forks and knives. My mother smiled lovingly as her brood dug in, with a look of pride on her face as if she’d been cooking for a week to sustain and nurture her babies.
I told them all about the new job, tried as best as I could to describe a job that I didn’t yet fully understand myself. Briefly I wondered if it sounded ridiculous to tell them how the skirts were called in and all the hours I’d logged wrapping and sending presents, and how there was a little electronic ID card that tracked everything you did. It was hard to fit into words the sense of urgency each of these had taken on at the time, how when I was at work it seemed that my job was supremely relevant, even important. I talked and talked, but I didn’t know how to explain this world that may have been only two hours away geographically but was really in a different solar system. They all nodded and smiled and asked questions, pretending to be interested, but I knew it was all too foreign, too absolutely strange sounding and different to make any sense to people who – like me until a few weeks earlier – had never even heard the name Miranda Priestly. It didn’t make much sense to me yet, either: it seemed overly dramatic at times and more than a little Big Brother-esque, but it was exciting. And cool. It was definitely, undeniably a supercool place to call work. Right?
‘Well, Andy, you think you’ll be happy there for your year? Maybe you’ll even want to stay longer, huh?’ My mom asked while smearing cream cheese on her salt bagel.
In signing my contract at Elias-Clark, I’d agreed to stay with Miranda for a year – if I didn’t get fired, which at this point seemed like a big if. And if I fulfilled my obligation with class and enthusiasm and some level of competence – and this part was not in writing but implied by a half-dozen people in HR, and Emily, and Allison – then I would be in a position to name the job I’d like next. It was expected, of course, that whichever job that may be would be at Runway or, at the very least, at Elias-Clark, but I was free to request anything from working on book reviews in the features department to acting as a liaison between Hollywood celebrities and Runway. Out of the last ten assistants who had made it through their year in Miranda’s office, a full hundred percent had chosen to move to the fashion department at Runway, but I didn’t let that concern me. A stint in Miranda’s office was considered to be the ultimate way to skip three to five years of indignity as an assistant and move directly into meaningful jobs in prestigious places.
‘Definitely. So far everyone seems really nice. Emily’s a little, um, well, committed, but otherwise, it’s been great. I don’t know, to listen to Lily talk about her exams or Alex talk about all the shitty things he has to deal with at work, I think I got pretty lucky. Who else gets to drive around in a chauffeured car on their first day? I mean, really. So yeah, I think it’ll be a great year, and I’m excited for Miranda to come back. I think I’m ready.’
Jill rolled her eyes and shot me a look as if to say, Cut the bullshit, Andy. We all know you’re probably working for a psycho bitch surrounded by anorexic fashionistas and are trying to paint this really rosy picture because you’re worried you’re in over your head, but instead she said, ‘It sounds great, Andy, it really does. Amazing opportunity.’
She was the only one at the table who could possibly understand, since, before moving to the Third World, she’d worked for a year at a small private museum in Paris and had developed an interest in haute couture. Hers was more of an artistic and aesthetic hobby than a consumer one, but she still had some exposure, at least, to the fashion world. ‘We have some great news, too,’ she continued, reaching across the table for Kyle’s hand. He had set down his coffee and extended both his hands.
‘Oh, thank god,’ my mother instantly exclaimed, slumping over as if someone had finally lifted the two-hundred-pound dumbbell that had rested on her shoulders for the last two decades. ‘It’s about time.’
‘Congratulations, you two! I have to say you’ve had your mother really worried. You’re certainly not newlyweds anymore, you know. We were beginning to wonder …’ From the head of the table my dad raised his eyebrows.
‘Hey guys, that’s great. It’s about time I get to be an aunt. When’s the little one due?’
They both looked dumbfounded, and for a moment I worried that we’d gotten it all wrong, that their ‘good’ news was that they were building a newer, bigger home in that swamp they lived in, or that Kyle had finally decided to leave his father’s law firm and was going to join my sister in opening the gallery she’d always dreamed of. Maybe we’d jumped the gun on this one, been just a little too eager to hear that a future niece or grandson was on the way. It was all my parents could talk about lately, incessantly hashing and rehashing the reasons why my sister and Kyle – already in their thirties and with four years of marriage behind them – had yet to reproduce. In the past six months, the subject had progressed from time-consuming family obsession to perceived crisis.
My sister looked worried. Kyle frowned. My parents looked as though they might both pass out from the silence. The tension was palpable.
Jill got out of her chair and walked over to Kyle, where she plopped herself in his lap. She wrapped her arm behind the back of his neck and leaned her face next to his, whispering in his ear. I glanced at my mother, who looked about ten seconds away from unconsciousness, the worry causing the small lines near her eyes to grow as deep as