‘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 standing there for nearly thirty seconds, observing them all having dinner. They hadn’t seen me yet, but would as soon as I moved toward the hall table. I did so gingerly but felt them all turn to look. Just as I was about to offer some sort of greeting, I remembered making a gigantic ass out of myself at our first meeting earlier today, stammering and stumbling like an idiot, and I kept my mouth shut. Table, table, table. There it was. Deposit book on table. And now for the clothes. I looked around frantically for the place I was supposed to hang the dry cleaning, but I couldn’t focus. The dinner table had grown silent, and I could feel them all watching me. No one said hello. It didn’t seem to bother the girls that there was a perfect stranger standing in their apartment. Finally, I saw a small coat closet tucked away behind the door, and I managed to get every twisted, slippery hanger on the rod.
‘Not in the closet, Emily,’ I heard Miranda call out, slowly, deliberately. ‘On the hooks that are provided for this exact occasion.’
‘Oh, um, hi there.’ Idiot! Shut up! She’s not looking for a response, just do what she says! But I couldn’t help it. It was just too weird that no one had said hello or wondered who I might be, or in any way acknowledged that someone had just let herself into their apartment and was prowling around. And Emily? Was she kidding? Blind? Could she really not tell that I was not the girl who’d worked for her for over a year already? ‘I’m Andrea, Miranda. I’m your new assistant.’
Silence. All-pervasive, unbearable, never-ending, deafening, debilitating silence.
I knew I shouldn’t keep talking, knew that I was digging my own grave, but I just couldn’t help myself. ‘Um, well, sorry about the confusion. I’ll just put these on the hooks, like you said, and let myself out.’ Stop narrating! She doesn’t give a shit what you’re doing. Just do it and get out. ‘OK, then, have a nice dinner. Nice meeting all of you.’ I turned to leave and realized that not only was the mere act of talking ridiculous, but I was also saying stupid things. Nice to meet you? I hadn’t been introduced to a single one of them.
‘Emily!’ I heard just as my hand reached the doorknob. ‘Emily, let this not happen tomorrow night. We’re not interested in the interruption.’ And the doorknob turned itself in my hand and I was finally in the hallway. The entire thing had taken less than a minute, but I felt like I’d just swum the entire length of an Olympic-size pool without coming up for air.
I slumped onto the bench and took long, controlled breaths. That bitch! The first time she called me Emily could’ve been a mistake, but the second was undoubtedly deliberate. What better way to belittle and marginalize someone than to insist on calling them the wrong name, after you’ve refused to so much as acknowledge their presence in your own home? I knew I was the lowest-ranking life-form at the magazine already – as Emily hadn’t yet lost an opportunity to impress upon me – but was it really so necessary for Miranda to make sure I was aware of it, too?
It wouldn’t have been outside the realm of reality to sit there all night and shoot mental bullets at the PH A doors, but I heard a throat clearing and looked up to find the sad little elevator man watching the floor and patiently waiting for me to join him.
‘Sorry,’ I said as I shuffled aboard.
‘No problem,’ he near-whispered, intently studying the wood-paneled floor. ‘It’ll get easier.’
‘What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you—’
‘Nothing, nothing. Here you are, miss. Have a nice evening.’ The door opened to the lobby, where Emily was loudly chattering on her cell phone. She clicked it closed when she saw me.
‘How’d it go? No problem, right?’
I thought about telling her what had transpired, wished fervently that she could be a sympathetic coworker, that we could be a team, but I knew I’d just be setting myself up for another verbal lashing. So not interested right now.
‘It was totally fine. No problems at all. They were eating dinner and I just left everything exactly where you said.’
‘Good. Well, that’s what you’ll do every night. Then just take the car home and you’re done. Anyway, have fun at Marshall’s party tonight. I’d definitely go, but I have a bikini wax appointment I just can’t cancel – do you believe they’re booked for the next two months? And it’s the middle of winter, too. It must be all the people who are going on winter vacations.