Hey babe, how are you? Hope your day is at least ok. You must be loving that she left, right? Enjoy it. Anyway, just wanted to see if you think you’ll be able to call me around three-thirty today. I have a free hour then before the reading program starts and I need to talk to you. Nothing major, but I would like to talk. Love, A
To which I immediately worried and replied to ask if everything was OK, but he must have logged off right away because he never wrote back again. I made a mental note to call him at exactly three-thirty, loving the feeling of freedom that comes from knowing that She wouldn’t be around to screw it up. But just in case, I pulled a piece of Runway stationery from the pile and wrote CALL A, 3:30 P.M. TODAY and taped it to the side of my monitor. Just as I was going to call back a friend from school who’d left a message on my home machine a week earlier, the phone rang.
‘Miranda Priestly’s office,’ I all but sighed, figuring that there wasn’t a single person on earth I wanted to speak with at that moment.
‘Emily? Is that you? Emily?’ The unmistakable voice filled the phone line and seemed to seep into the air in the office. Even though she couldn’t have possibly heard from across the suite, Emily looked up at me.
‘Hello, Miranda. This is Andrea. May I help you with something?’ How on earth was this woman calling? I quickly checked the itinerary that Emily had typed for everyone while Miranda was in Europe and saw that her flight had taken off a mere six minutes before and she was already calling from the seat phone.
‘Well, I should hope so. I’ve looked at my itinerary and I just noticed that hair and makeup for Thursday before dinner is not confirmed.’
‘Um, well, Miranda, that’s because Monsieur Renaud wasn’t able to get an absolute confirmation from the Thursday people, but he said it was ninety-nine percent that they’d be able to and—’
‘Ahn-dre-ah, answer me this: Is ninety-nine percent the same as a hundred? Is it the same as confirmed?’ But before I could answer I heard her tell someone, most likely a flight attendant, that she wasn’t ‘particularly interested in the rules and regulations regarding the use of electronics’ and to ‘please bore someone else with them.’
‘But ma’am, it’s against the rules, and I’m going to have to ask that you disconnect your call until we’ve reached a cruising altitude. It’s simply unsafe,’ she said beseechingly.
‘Ahn-dre-ah, can you hear me? Are you listening …’
‘Ma’am, I’m going to have to insist. Now please, hang up the phone.’ My mouth was starting to ache from smiling so widely – I could only imagine how much Miranda was hating being addressed as ‘ma’am,’ which, as everyone knows, connotes old lady all the way.
‘Ahn-dre-ah, the stewardess is forcing me to end this call. I’ll call you back when the stewardess allows me to do so. In the meantime, I want hair and makeup confirmed, and I’d like you to begin interviewing new girls for the nanny position. That’s all.’ It clicked off, but not before I heard the flight attendant call her ‘ma’am’ one last time.
‘What did she want?’ Emily asked, her forehead wrinkling in intense worry.
‘She called me the right name three times in a row,’ I gloated, happy to prolong her anticipation. ‘Three times, do you believe it? I think that means we’re best friends, doesn’t it? Who would’ve thought? Andrea Sachs and Miranda Priestly, BFF.’
‘Andrea, what did she say?’
‘Well, she wants the Thursday hair and makeup confirmed because clearly ninety-nine percent isn’t reassuring enough. Oh, and she said something about interviewing for a new nanny? I must’ve misunderstood that one. Whatever – she’ll call back in thirty seconds.’
Emily took a deep breath and willed herself to endure my stupidity with grace and style. It clearly wasn’t easy for her. ‘No, I don’t think you misunderstood at all. Cara is no longer with Miranda, so obviously she’ll be needing a new nanny.’
‘What? What do you mean no longer “with Miranda”? If she’s no longer “with Miranda,” then where the hell is she?’ I found it really hard to believe Cara wouldn’t have told me about her abrupt departure.
‘Miranda thought Cara might be happier working for someone else,’ Emily said in what I’m sure was much more diplomatic phrasing than Miranda herself had used. As if Miranda had ever been attuned to other people’s happiness!
‘Emily, please. Please tell me what really happened.’
‘I gathered from Caroline that Cara had grounded the girls in their rooms after they talked back to her the other day. Miranda didn’t feel it was appropriate for Cara to be making these decisions. And I agree. I mean, Cara is not these girls’ mother, you know?’
So Cara had gotten fired because she made two little girls sit in their bedrooms after they’d surely given her attitude? ‘Yeah, I see your point. It’s definitely not a nanny’s job to look out for the well-being of her charges,’ I said, nodding solemnly. ‘Cara was out of line there.’
Emily not only didn’t react to my dripping sarcasm, but didn’t seem to detect so much as a hint of it. ‘Exactly. And besides, Miranda never liked that Cara didn’t speak French. How are the girls supposed to learn to speak it without an American accent?’
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe from their $18,000-a-year private school, where French was a required subject and all three of the French teachers were native speakers? Or perhaps from their own fluent mother who had herself lived in France, still visited a half-dozen times a year and could read, write, and speak the language with perfect, lilting pronunciation? But instead I said, ‘Hey, you’re right. No French, no nanny. I hear you.’
‘Well, regardless, it’s going to be your responsibility to find the girls a new nanny. Here’s the number of the agency we work with,’ she said, sending it to me in an e-mail. ‘They know how discriminating Miranda is – and rightfully so, of course – so they usually give us good people.’
I looked at her warily and wondered what her life had been before Miranda Priestly. I got to sleep with my eyes open for a little while longer before the phone rang again. Blessedly, Emily answered it.
‘Hello, Miranda. Yes, yes, I can hear you. No, no problem at all. Yes, I have confirmed hair and makeup for that Thursday. And yes, Andrea has already begun looking for new nannies. We’ll have three solid candidates ready for you to interview on your first day back.’ She cocked her head to the side and touched her pen to her lips. ‘Mmm, yes. Yes, it’s definitely confirmed. No, it’s not ninety-nine percent, it’s one hundred percent. Definitely. Yes, Miranda. Yes, I confirmed it myself, and I’m quite positive. They’re looking forward to it. OK. Have a nice flight. Yes, it’s confirmed. I’ll fax it right now. OK. Good-bye.’ She hung up the phone and appeared to be shaking.
‘Why doesn’t that woman understand? I told her the hair and makeup were confirmed. And then I told her again. Why did I have to tell her fifty more times? And do you know what she said?’
I shook my head.
‘Do you know what she said? She said that since this has all been such a headache for her, she’d like me to redo the itinerary so that it will reflect that hair and makeup is now confirmed and fax it to the Ritz so she’ll have the correct one when she arrives. I do everything for that woman – I give her my life – and this is how she talks to me in return?’ She looked ready to cry. I was thrilled for the rare opportunity to see