I stuck the picture back in its confidential envelope and handed it back to Ilana. ‘You’re the best,’ I said, touching her shoulder. ‘I really, really appreciate it. I promise to never, ever tell anyone where I got this, but will you please send this to me? I don’t think it’ll fit in the Leiber bag, but I’d give anything if you’d send it to me at home. Please?’
She smiled and motioned for me to write my address, and we both stood up and walked (I hobbled) back to the museum’s foyer. It was just about seven, and the guests were due to arrive any minute. Miranda and B-DAD were talking to his brother, the honored guest and groom, who looked like he had played soccer, football, lacrosse, and rugby at a Southern school – one where he was always surrounded by cooing blondes. The cooing blonde of twenty-six who was to become his bride was standing quietly by his side, gazing up at him adoringly. She was holding a snifter of something and chortling at his jokes.
Miranda was hanging on to B-DAD’s forearm with the fakest of smiles plastered across her face. I didn’t have to hear what they were saying to know that she was barely responding at the appropriate time. Social graces were not her strength, as she had little tolerance for small talk – but I knew she’d be on her best kiss-ass behavior tonight. I’d come to realize that her ‘friends’ all fell into one of two categories. There were those she perceived as ‘above’ her and who must be impressed. This list was short, but it generally included people like Irv Ravitz, Oscar de la Renta, Hillary Clinton, and any first-rate, A-list movie star. Then there were those ‘below’ her, who must be patronized and belittled so they don’t forget their place, which included basically everyone else: all Runway employees, all family members, all parents of her children’s friends – unless they coincidentally fell into category number one – almost all designers and other magazine editors, and every single solitary person in the service industry, both here and abroad. Tonight was sure to be amusing because these were category two people who would have to be treated like category ones, merely because of their association with Mr Tomlinson and his brother. I always enjoyed the rare occasions when I got to watch Miranda try to impress those around her, mostly because she wasn’t naturally charming.
I felt the first guests arrive before I saw them. The tension in the room was palpable. Remembering my color printouts, I rushed over to the couple and offered to take the woman’s fur wrap. ‘Mr and Mrs Wilkinson, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Please, I’ll take that. And Ilana will show you to the gallery where cocktails are being served.’ I hoped I wasn’t staring during my monologue, but the spectacle was truly outrageous. I’d seen women dressed like hookers and men dressed like women and models not dressed at all at Miranda’s parties, but never before had I seen people dressed like this. I knew it wasn’t going to be a trendy New York crowd, but I was expecting them to look like something out of Dallas; instead, they looked like a dressier version of the cast from Deliverance.
Mr Tomlinson’s brother, himself distinguished looking with silver hair, made the horrible mistake of wearing white tails – in May, no less – with a plaid handkerchief and a cane. His fiancée had on an emerald green taffeta nightmare. It swirled and puffed and gathered and forced her enormous bust up and over the top of the dress so that it appeared her own silicon breasts might actually suffocate her. Diamonds the size of Dixie cups hung from her ears, and an even larger one sparkled from her left hand. Her hair was bleached white with peroxide, as were her teeth, and her heels were so high and so skinny, she walked as if she’d been a running back in the NFL for the past twelve years.
‘Dah-lings, I am so delighted you could join us for a little pah-ty! Everyone loves pahties, now don’t they?’ Miranda sang in a falsetto voice. The soon-to-be Mrs Tomlinson looked as if she’d pass out. Right there before her was the one and only Miranda Priestly! Her glee embarrassed us all, and the whole wretched crowd moved toward the elevators with Miranda leading the way.
The rest of the night went on much like the beginning. I recognized all the guests’ names and managed not to utter anything too humiliating. The parade of white tuxes, chiffon, big hair, bigger jewels, and barely postadolescent women ceased to amuse me as the hours wore on, but I never grew tired of watching Miranda. She was the true lady and the envy of every woman in that museum that night. And even though they understood that all the money in the world could never buy them her class and elegance, they never stopped wanting it.
I smiled genuinely when she dismissed me halfway through dinner, as usual without a thank-you or a good-night. (‘Ahn-dre-ah, we won’t be needing you anymore this evening. See yourself out.’) I looked for Ilana, but she had already sneaked out. The car took only about ten minutes to arrive after I called for it – I had briefly considered taking the subway, but wasn’t sure how well the Oscar or my feet would’ve held up – and I sunk, exhausted but calm, into the backseat.
When I walked past John on my way to the elevator, he reached under his little table and pulled out a manila envelope. ‘Just got this a few minutes ago. It says “Urgent.”’ I thanked him and sat down in a corner of the lobby, wondering who would be messengering me something at ten o’clock on a Friday night. I tore it open and pulled out a note:
Dearest Andrea,
It was so great to meet you tonight! Can we please get together next week for sushi or something? I dropped this off on my way home – figured you could use the pick-me-up after a night like the one we just had. Enjoy.
Xoxo,
Ilana
Inside was the picture of Miranda as Snake, only Ilana had enlarged this one to a ten by thirteen size. I looked at it carefully for a few minutes, massaging the feet I’d finally pulled from the Manolos, and looked into Miranda’s eyes. She looked intimidating and mean and just like the bitch I stared at every day. But tonight she’d also looked sad, and not a little lonely. Adding this picture to my fridge and making fun of it with Lily and Alex wasn’t going to make my feet hurt any less, or give me back my Friday night. I tore it up and hobbled upstairs.
‘Andrea, it’s Emily,’ I heard a voice croak from the phone. ‘Can you hear me?’ It had been months since Emily had called me at home late at night, so I knew it had to be serious.
‘Hi, sure. You sound like hell,’ I said, bolting upright in bed, immediately wondering if Miranda had done something to make her sound that way. The last time Emily had called this late was when Miranda had called her at eleven on a Saturday night to demand that Emily charter her and Mr Tomlinson a private jet to get home from Miami since bad weather had canceled their regularly scheduled flight. Emily was just getting ready to leave her apartment to attend her own birthday party when the call came in, and she’d immediately called me and begged me to deal with it. I hadn’t gotten the message until the next day, though, and when I called her back, she was still in tears.
‘I missed my own birthday party, Andrea,’ she’d wailed the second she picked up the phone. ‘I missed my own birthday party because I had to charter them a flight!’
‘They couldn’t get a hotel room for one night and come back the next day like normal people?’ I’d asked, pointing out the obvious.
‘Don’t you think I thought of that? I had penthouse suites reserved for them at the Shore Club, the Albion, and the Delano within seven minutes of her first phone call, figuring she couldn’t possibly be serious – I mean, my god, it was a Saturday night. How the hell do you charter a flight on a Saturday night?’