Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Lauren WeisbergerЧитать онлайн книгу.
that. She had currently crammed in an extra-large bottle of Bulgari perfume, a sandal with a broken heel that I was probably supposed to get fixed, the blotter-size Hermès daily planner that weighed more than an entire laptop, an oversize spiked dog collar that I thought either belonged to Madelaine or was for an upcoming fashion shoot, and the Book I had delivered to her the night before. I would have hocked a bag worth ten thousand dollars and paid my rent for a year, but Miranda preferred to use it as a trash receptacle.
‘Thank you, Andy. You really are a big help to everyone. So Mr T. would sure like to hear more about your life. What’s going on?’
What’s going on? What’s going on? Hmm, well, let’s see here. Really not all that much, I suppose. I spend most of my time trying to survive my term of indentured servitude with your sadistic wife. If there are ever any free minutes during the workday when she’s not making some belittling demand, then I’m trying to block out the brainwash drivel that’s spoon-fed to me by her assistant in chief. On the increasingly rare occasions that I find myself outside the confines of this magazine, I’m usually trying to convince myself that it really is OK to eat more than eight hundred calories a day and that being a size six does not put me in the plus-size category. So I guess the short answer is, not much.
‘Well, Mr Tomlinson, not too much. I work a lot. And I guess when I’m not working I hang out with my best friend, or my boyfriend. Try to see my family.’ I used to read a lot, I wanted to say, but I’m too tired now. And sports have always been a pretty big part of my life, but there wasn’t time anymore.
‘So, you’re twenty-five, right?’ he non-sequitured. I couldn’t even imagine where he was going with this one.
‘Uh, no, I’m twenty-three. I only graduated last May.’
‘Ah-hah! Twenty-three, huh?’ He looked like he was trying to decide whether to say something or not. I braced myself. ‘So tell Mr T., what do twenty-three-year-olds do in this city for fun? Restaurants? Clubs? That sort of thing?’ He smiled again, and I wondered if he really needed the attention as much as he appeared to: there was nothing sinister behind his interest, just a seemingly driving need to talk.
‘Um, well, all sorts of things, I guess. I don’t really go to clubs, but bars and lounges and places like that. Go out for dinner, see movies.’
‘Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. Used to do that kind of stuff, too, when I was your age. Now it’s just a lot of work events and fund-raisers. Enjoy it while you can, Andy.’ He winked like a dorky father would.
‘Yeah, well, I’m trying,’ I managed. Please leave, please leave, please leave, I willed, staring longingly at the bagel that was just calling my name. I get three minutes of peace and quiet a day, and this man was stealing all of it.
He opened his mouth to say something, but the doors swung open and Emily stomped in. She was wearing her headphones and moving to the music. I watched her mouth drop open when she saw him standing there.
‘Mr Tomlinson!’ she exclaimed, yanking off her headphones and tossing her iPod in her Gucci tote. ‘Is everything OK? Nothing’s wrong with Miranda, is it?’ She looked and sounded genuinely concerned. An A-plus performance: always the perfectly attentive, unfailingly polite assistant.
‘Hello there, Emily. Nothing wrong at all. Miranda will be here shortly. Mr T. just came by to drop off her things. How are you doing today?’
Emily beamed. I wondered if she actually enjoyed his presence. ‘Just fine. Thanks so much for asking. And you? Did Andrea help you with everything?’
‘Oh, she sure did,’ he said, throwing smile number 6,000 in my direction. ‘I wanted to go over a few things about my brother’s engagement party, but I realize that it’s probably a little early for that, right?’
For a moment I thought he meant too early in the morning and I almost shouted ‘Yes!’ but then I realized that he meant it was too early in the planning to discuss details.
He turned back to Emily and said, ‘You’ve got yourself a great junior assistant here, don’t you think?’
‘Absolutely,’ Emily managed through clenched teeth. ‘She’s the best.’ She grinned.
I grinned.
Mr Tomlinson grinned with extra wattage, and I wondered if he had a chemical imbalance, perhaps hypomania.
‘Well, Mr T. had better be on his way. It’s always lovely chatting with you girls. Have a nice morning, both of you. Good-bye now.’
‘’Bye, Mr Tomlinson!’ Emily called as he rounded the corner in the hallway on his way to reception.
‘Why were you so rude to him?’ she asked as she pulled the flimsy leather blazer off, only to reveal a flimsier chiffon scoop-neck that was laced all the way up the front like a corset.
‘So rude? I helped him unload her stuff and I talked to him before you got here. How is that rude?’
‘Well, you didn’t say good-bye, for one thing. And you have that look on your face.’
‘That look?’
‘Yes, that look of yours. The one that tells everyone just how far above this you are, just how much you hate it here. That may fly with me, but it won’t with Mr Tomlinson. He’s Miranda’s husband, and you just can’t treat him like that.’
‘Em, don’t you think he’s a little, I don’t know … weird? He never stops talking. How can he be so nice when she’s such a … so not as nice?’ I watched as she glanced inside Miranda’s office to make sure that I’d set the newspapers correctly.
‘Weird? Hardly, Andrea. He’s one of the most prominent tax attorneys in Manhattan.’
It wasn’t worth it. ‘Never mind, I don’t even know what I’m saying. What’s going on with you? How was your night?’
‘Oh, it was good. I went shopping with Jessica for gifts for her bridesmaids. Everywhere – Scoop, Bergdorf’s, Infinity, everywhere. And I tried on a bunch of stuff to get some idea for Paris, but it’s still really too early.’
‘For Paris? You’re going to Paris? Does that mean you’ll leave me alone with her?’ I hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud, but it had slipped.
Again, a look like I was crazy. ‘Yes, I’ll be going to Paris with Miranda in October, for the spring ready-to-wear shows. Each year she takes her senior assistant to the spring shows so she can see what it’s really like. I mean, I’ve been to, like, a million at Bryant Park, but the European shows are just different.’
I did a quick calculation. ‘In October, as in seven months from now? You were trying on clothes for a trip seven months from now?’ I hadn’t meant for it to sound as harsh as it did, and Emily immediately got defensive.
‘Well, yes. I mean, obviously I wasn’t going to buy anything – so many of the styles will have changed by then. But I just wanted to start thinking about it. It’s a really huge deal, you know. Stay in five-star hotels, go to the craziest parties ever. And my god, you get to go to the hottest, most exclusive fashion shows in existence.’
Emily had already told me that Miranda went to Europe three or four times a year for the fashion shows. She always skipped London, like everyone did, but she went to Milan and Paris in October for spring ready-to-wear, in July for winter couture, and in March for fall ready-to-wear. Sometimes she’d hit resort, but not always. We’d been working like crazy to get Miranda prepared for the shows coming up at the end of the month. I’d wondered briefly why she wasn’t planning on bringing an assistant.
‘So why doesn’t she take you to all of them?’ I decided to just go for it, even though the answer was sure to entail a lengthy explanation. I was excited enough that Miranda would be out of the office for two whole weeks (she spent one in Milan and one in Paris) and was giddy at the thought of getting rid of Emily for a week of that. Visions of bacon cheeseburgers and nonprofessionally