t took me twelve weeks before I gorged myself on the seemingly limitless supply of designer clothes that Runway was just begging to provide for me. Twelve impossibly long weeks of fourteen-hour work days and never more than five hours of sleep at a time. Twelve miserable long weeks of being looked up and down from hair to shoes each and every day, and never receiving a single compliment or even merely the impression that I had passed. Twelve horrifically long weeks of feeling stupid, incompetent, and all-around moronic. And so I decided at the beginning of my fourth month (only nine more to go!) at Runway to be a new woman and start dressing the part.

Getting myself awake, dressed, and out the door prior to my twelve-week epiphany had sapped me completely—even I had to concede that it’d be easier to own a closetful of “appropriate” clothes. Until that point, putting on clothes had been the most stressful part of an already really lousy morning routine. The alarm went off so early that I couldn’t bear to tell anyone what time I actually woke up, as though the mere mention of the words inflicted physical pain. Getting to work at seven A.M. was so difficult it bordered on funny. Sure, I’d been up and out a few times in my life by seven—perhaps sitting in an airport when I had to catch an early flight or having to finish studying for an exam that day. But mostly when I’d seen that hour of daylight from the outside it was because I hadn’t yet found my way to bed from the night before, and the time didn’t seem so bad when a full day of sleep stretched out ahead. This was different. This was constant, unrelenting, inhumane sleep deprivation, and no matter how many times I tried to go to bed before midnight, I never could. The past two weeks had been particularly rough since they were closing one of the spring issues, so I had to sit at work, waiting for the Book, until close to eleven some nights. By the time I would drop it off and get home, it was already midnight, and I still had to eat something and crawl out of my clothes before passing out.

Blaring static—the only thing I couldn’t ignore—began at exactly 5:30 A.M. I would force a bare foot out from under the comforter and stretch my leg in the general direction of the alarm clock (which itself was placed strategically at the foot of my bed to force some movement), kicking aimlessly until I had made contact and the shrieking ceased. This continued, steadily and predictably, every seven minutes until 6:04 A.M., at which point I would inevitably panic and spring from bed to shower.

A tangle with my closet came next, usually between 6:31 and 6:37 A.M. Lily, herself not exactly fashion-conscious in her graduate student uniform of jeans, ratty L.L.Bean sweaters, and hemp necklaces, said every time I saw her, “I still don’t understand what you wear to work. It’s Runway magazine, for god’s sake. Your clothes are as cute as the next girl’s, Andy, but nothing you own is Runway material.”

I didn’t tell her that for the first few months I had risen extra early with an intense determination to coax Runway looks from my very Banana Republic–heavy wardrobe. I’d stood with my microwaved coffee for nearly a half hour each morning, agonizing over boots and belts, wool, and microfiber. I’d change stockings five times until I finally had the right color, only to berate myself that stockings of any style or color wereso not OK. The heels on my shoes were always too short, too stacked, too thick. I didn’t own a single thing in cashmere. I had not yet heard of thongs (!) and therefore obsessed maniacally over how to banish panty lines, themselves the focus of many a coffee-break critique. No matter how many times I tried them on, I couldn’t bring myself to wear a tube top to work.

And so after three months, I surrendered. I just got too tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally, the daily wardrobe ordeal had sapped me of all energy. Until, that is, I relented on the three-month anniversary of my first day. It was a day like any other as I stood with my yellow “I ? Providence” mug in one hand, the other hand rifling through my Abercrombie favorites.Why fight it? I asked myself. Simply wearing their clothes wouldn’t necessarily mean I was a total sellout, would it? And besides, the comments on my current wardrobe were becoming more frequent and vicious, and I had begun to wonder if my job was at risk. I looked in the full-length mirror and had to laugh: the girl in the Maidenform bra (ich!) and cotton Jockey bikinis (double ich!) was trying to look the part ofRunway ? Hah. Not with this shit. I was working atRunway magazine for chrissake—simply putting on anything that wasn’t torn, frayed, stained, or outgrown really wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I pushed aside my generic button-downs and ferreted out the tweedy Prada skirt, black Prada turtleneck, and midcalf length Prada boots that Jeffy had handed me one night while I waited for the Book.

“What’s this?” I’d asked, unzipping the garment bag.

“This, Andy, is what you should be wearing if you don’t want to get fired.” He smiled, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“I’m sorry?”

“Look, I just think you should know that your, uh, your look isn’t really going over well with everyone around here. Now, I know this stuff gets expensive, but there’s ways around that. I’ve got so much stuff in the Closet that no one will notice if you need to, uh, borrow some of it sometimes.” He made quote marks with his fingers around the word “borrow.” “And, of course, you should be calling all the PR people and getting your discount card for their designers. I only get thirty percent off, but since you work for Miranda, I’ll be surprised if they charge you for anything. There’s no reason for this, uh,Gap thing you’ve got going on to continue.”

I didn’t explain that wearing Nine West instead of Manolos or jeans they sold in Macy’s junior department but not anywhere on Barney’s eighth floor of couture denim heaven had been my own attempt to show everyone that I wasn’t seduced by all things Runway. Instead, I just nodded, noticing that he looked supremely uncomfortable having to tell me that I was humiliating myself every day. I wondered who had put him up to it. Emily? Or Miranda herself? Didn’t really matter either way. Hell, I’d already survived three full months—if wearing a Prada turtleneck instead of one from Urban Outfitters was going to help me survive the next nine, then so be it. I decided I’d start putting together a new and improved wardrobe immediately.

I finally made it outside by 6:50 A.M., actually feeling pretty damn good about the way I looked. The guy in the breakfast cart closest to my apartment even whistled, and a woman stopped me before I’d taken ten steps and told me she had been eyeing those boots for three months now.I could get used to this, I thought. Everyone’s got to put something on every day, and this sure felt a hell of a lot better than any of my stuff. As was now habit, I walked to the corner of Third Avenue and promptly hailed a cab and collapsed into the warm backseat, too tired to be thankful that I didn’t have to join the commoners on the subway, and croaked, “Six-forty Madison. Quickly, please.” The cabbie looked at me through the rear view—with a touch of sympathy, I swear—and said, “Ah, yes. Elias-Clark building,” and we squealed left onto 97th Street and made another left onto Lex, flying through the lights until 59th Street, where we headed west to Madison. After exactly six minutes, since there was no traffic, we came to a screeching halt in front of the tall, thin, sleek monolith that set such a fine physical example for so many of its inhabitants. The fare came to $6.40 like it did every single morning, and I handed the cabbie a ten-dollar bill, like I did every single morning. “Keep the change,” I sang, feeling the same joy I did every day when I saw their shock and happiness. “It’s onRunway.”

No problem there, that’s for sure. It took all of a week on the job to see that accounting wasn’t exactly a strong suit at Elias, not even a real priority. It was never a problem to write off ten-dollar cab rides each and every day. Another company might wonder what gave you the right to take a cab to work in the first place; Elias-Clark wondered why you had deigned to take a cab when there was a car service available. Something about gypping the company out of that extra ten bucks each day—even though I don’t imagine anyone was directly suffering from my overspending—made me feel a whole lot better. Some might have called it passive-aggressive rebellion. I called it getting even.

I bolted from the cab, still happy to make someone else’s day, and walked toward 640 Madison. Although it was named the Elias-Clark building, JS Bergman, one of the most prestigious banks in the city (obviously), rented half of it. We didn’t share anything with them, not even an elevator bank, but it didn’t stop their rich bankers and our fashion beauties from checking each other out in the lobby.

“Hey, Andy. What’s up? Long time, no see.” The voice behind me sounded sheepish and unwilling, and I wondered why whoever it was didn’t just leave me alone.

I’d been mentally preparing myself to start the morning routine with Eduardo when I’d heard my name, and I turned to see Benjamin, one of Lily’s many ex-boyfriends from college, slumped against the building just outside the entrance, not even seeming to notice that he was sitting on the sidewalk. He was only one of many of Lily’s guys, but he’d been the first one she’d really, genuinely liked. I hadn’t spoken to good old Benji (he loathed being called that) since Lily had walked in on him having sex with two girls from her a capella singing group. Walked right into his off-campus apartment and found him sprawled out in his living room with one soprano and a contralto, mousy girls who never did manage to look at Lily again. I’d tried to convince her it was just a college prank, but she didn’t buy it. Cried for days, and made me promise not to tell anyone what she’d discovered. I didn’t have to tell anyone, though, because he did—bragged to anyone who would listen about how he’d “nailed two singing geeks,” as he’d put it, while “a third one watched.” He’d made it sound as though Lily had been there the entire time, agreeably perched on the couch and watching her big, bad man go about being manly. Lily had sworn to never let herself really fall for another guy, and so far seemed to be keeping her promise. She slept with plenty of them, but she sure didn’t let them stick around long enough to actually run the risk of discovering something likable about them.

I looked at him again and tried to find the old Benji in this guy’s face. He had been athletic and cute. Just a normal guy. But Bergman had turned him into a shell of a human. He was wearing an oversize, wrinkled suit and looked as though he was hoping to suck crack cocaine out of his Marlboro. He seemed already overworked even though it was only seven o’clock, and this made me feel better. Because it was payback for being an asshole to Lily, and because I wasn’t the only one dragging myself to work at such an obscene hour. He was probably getting paid $150,000 a year to be so miserable, but whatever, at least I wasn’t alone.

Benji saluted me with his lit cigarette, glowing eerily in the still dark winter morning, and motioned for me to come over. I was nervous I’d be late, but Eduardo gave me his “Don’t worry, she’s not here yet—you’re fine” look and I walked over to Benji. He looked bleary-eyed and hopeless. He probably though the had a tyrannical boss. Hah! If only he knew. I wanted to laugh out loud.

“Hey, I noticed you’re the only one here this early every day,” he muttered at me while I dug around in my bag for lipstick before hitting the elevators. “What’s the deal?”

He looked so tired, so beaten-down, that I felt a surge of sympathy and kindness. But then I felt my legs nearly give out from exhaustion, and I remembered the way Lily had looked when one of Benji’s dumb lacrosse buddies had asked if she’d been happy to watch or really actually wanted to join in, and I lost my cool.

“Well, my deal is that I work for a rather demanding woman, and I need to get here two and a half hours before the rest of the goddamn magazine so that I’m prepared for her,” I said, my tone dripping with anger and sarcasm.

“Whoa. Just asking. Sorry, though, it sounds pretty bad. Which one do you work for?”

“I work for Miranda Priestly,” I said, and prayed for a non reaction. Something about having a seemingly well-educated, successful professional have no idea who Miranda was made me very, very happy. Delighted almost. And luckily, this one didn’t let me down. He shrugged and inhaled and looked at me expectantly.

“She’s the editor in chief of Runway, ” I lowered my voice and began with glee, “and pretty much the biggest bitch I’ve ever met. I mean, I’ve honestly never met anyone like her. She’s really not even human.” I had a litany of complaints I would’ve liked to have dumped on Benji, but the Runway Paranoid Turnaround came on full-force. I became immediately nervous, almost paranoid, convinced that this unknowing, uncaring person was somehow one of Miranda’s lackeys, sent to spy on me from the Observer or Page Six. I knew it was ridiculous, completely absurd. After all, I had personally known Benji for years now and was quite sure he wasn’t working for Miranda in any capacity. Just not totally sure. After all, how could you be totally sure? And who knew who could be standing behind me at that very second, overhearing every one of my nasty words? Damage control was required immediately.

“Of course, she IS the most powerful woman in fashion and publishing, and you just can’t get to the top of two major industries in New York City handing out candy all day long. Um, it’s understandable that she’s a little tough to work for, you know? I would be, too. Yeah, so, um, I have to run now. Good seeing you again.” And I ducked away, as I often had the past few weeks when I found myself talking to someone other than Lily or Alex or my parents and I couldn’t help myself from bashing the witch.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad,” he called after me as I headed toward the elevator bank. “I’ve been here since last Thursday morning.” And with that, he dropped his smoldering butt and half-heartedly stamped it into the cement.

“Morning, Eduardo,” I said, looking at him with my best tired, pathetic eyes. “I fucking hate Mondays.”

“Hey, buddy, don’t worry. At least you beat her here this morning,” he said, smiling. He was referring, of course, to those miserable mornings when Miranda would show up at five A.M. and need to be escorted upstairs since she refused to carry an access card. She’d then pace the office, calling Emily and me over and over until one of us could manage to wake up, get ready, and get to work as if a national security emergency were unfolding.

I pushed against the turnstile, praying that this Monday would be the exception, that he’d let me pass without a performance. Negative.

“Yo, tell me what you want, what you really, really want,”he sang with his huge, toothy smile and Spanish accent. And all the pleasure of making the cabbie happy and finding out that I had arrived ahead of Miranda vanished. I was left, as I was every morning, wanting to reach across the security counter and tear the flesh from Eduardo’s face. But since I was such a good sport and he was one of my only friends in the place, I weakly acquiesced.“I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want, I wanna—I wanna—I wanna—I wanna—I really, really, really wanna zigga zig aaaaaahhhh,” I sang meekly in a pitiful tribute to the Spice Girls’ nineties hit. And once again, Eduardo grinned and buzzed me through.

“Hey, don’t forget: July sixteenth!” he called after me.

“I know, July sixteenth . . .” I called back, a reference to our shared birthdays. I don’t remember how or why he had discovered my birthdate, but he adored that we had the same one. And for some inexplicable reason, it became a part of our personal morning ritual. Every single goddamn day.

There were eight elevators on the Elias-Clark side, half for floors one to seventeen, half for seventeen and up. Only the first bank really mattered since most of the big names were on the first seventeen floors; they advertised their presence with illuminated panels over the elevator doors. There was a free, state-of-the-art gym on the second floor for employees, complete with a full Nautilus circuit and at least a hundred Stairmasters, treadmills, and elliptical machines. The locker rooms had saunas, hot tubs, steam rooms, and attendants in maids’ uniforms, and a salon offered emergency manicures, pedicures, and facials. There was even complimentary towel service, or so I’d heard—not only did I not have the time, the place was always too damn crowded between the hours of six A.M. and ten P.M. to so much as walk around. Writers and editors and sales assistants called three days ahead of time to book themselves into the yoga or kick-boxing classes, and even then they lost their place if they didn’t get there fifteen minutes in advance. Like nearly everything at Elias-Clark designed to make employees’ lives better, it just stressed me out.

I’d heard a rumor that there was a daycare center in the basement, but I didn’t know anyone who actually had children, so I still wasn’t entirely positive. The real action began on the third floor with the dining room, where so far Miranda had refused to eat among the peons unless she was lunching with Irv Ravitz, Elias’s CEO, who liked to eat there in a show of unity with his employees.

Up, up, up we went, past all the other famous titles. Most of them had to share floors, with one flanking each side of the receptionist’s desk, facing off behind separate glass doors. I hopped off at the seventeenth floor, checking my butt in the reflection of the door’s glass. In a stroke of empathy and genius, the architect had kindly left mirrors out of the elevators in 640 Madison. As usual, I’d forgotten my electronic ID card—the very same one that tracked all our movements, purchases, and absences in the building—and had to break onto the floor. Sophy didn’t come in until nine, so I had to bend down under her desk, find the button that would release the glass doors, and sprint from the middle of the reception area to the doors and yank them open before they snapped locked again. Sometimes I’d have to do this three or four times until I finally caught it, but today I made it on my second attempt.

The floor was always dark when I arrived, and I took the same route to my desk every morning. To my left when I walked in was the advertising department, the girls who most loved adorning themselves in Chloé T-shirts and spike-heeled boots while handing out business cards that screamed “Runway.” They were removed, wholly and entirely, from anything and everything that took place on the editorial side of the floor: it was editorial that picked the clothes for the fashion spreads, wooed the good writers, matched the accessories to the outfits, interviewed the models, edited the copy, designed the layouts, and hired the photographers. Editorial traveled to hot spots around the world for shoots, got free gifts and discounts from all the designers, hunted for trends, and went to parties at Pastis and Float because they “had to check out what people were wearing.”

Ad sales was left to try and sell ad space. Sometimes they threw promotional parties, but they were celebrity-free and therefore boring to New York’s hipster scene (or so Emily had sneeringly told me). My phone would ring off the hook on a day during a Runway ad sales party with people I didn’t know really well looking for an invite. “Um, like, I hear Runway ’s having a party tonight. Why am I not invited?” I always found out from someone on the outside that there was a party that night: editorial was never invited because they wouldn’t go anyway. As if it wasn’t enough for the Runway girls to mock, terrorize, and ostracize any and every person who wasn’t one of them, they had to create internal class lines as well.

The ad sales department gave way to a long, narrow hallway. It seemed to stretch forever before arriving at a tiny kitchen on the left side. Here were an assortment of coffees and teas, a fridge for stored lunches—all superfluous, since Starbucks had a monopoly on employees’ daily caffeine fixes and all meals were carefully selected in the dining room or ordered in from any one of a thousand midtown takeout places. But it was a nice touch, almost cute; it said,“Hey, look at us, we have Lipton tea packets and Sweet’N Lows and even a microwave in case you want to warm up some of last night’s dinner! We’re just like everyone else!”

I finally made it to Miranda’s enclave at 7:05, so tired I could barely move. But as with everything, there was yet another routine that I never thought to question or alter, so I began in earnest. I unlocked her office and turned on all the lights. It was still dark outside, and I loved the drama of standing in the dark in the power monger’s office, staring out at a flashing and restless New York City and picturing myself in one of those movies (take your pick—any that have lovers embracing on the expansive terrace of his $6 million apartment with views of the river), feeling on top of the world. And then the lights would blaze forth, and my fantasy was over. The anything-is-possible feel of New York at dawn vanished, and the identical, grinning faces of Caroline and Cassidy were all I could see.

Next I unlocked the closet in our outer office area, the place where I hung her coat (and mine if she wasn’t wearing a fur that day—Miranda didn’t like Emily’s or my pedestrian wools hanging next to her minks) and where we kept a number of supplies: castoff coats and clothes that were worth tens of thousands of dollars, some new dry cleaning that had been delivered to the office but not yet brought up to Miranda’s apartment, at least two hundred of the infamous white Hermès scarves. I’d heard that Hermès had decided to discontinue her particular style last year, a simple and elegant white silk square. Someone at the company felt they owed Miranda an explanation and actually called to apologize to her. Unsurprisingly, she’d coldly told them how disappointed she was and promptly purchased their entire remaining stock. About five hundred of the scarves had been delivered to the office a couple years before I’d gotten there, and we were now down to less than half. Miranda left them everywhere: restaurants, movies, fashion shows, weekly meetings, taxis. She left them on airplanes, at her daughters’ school, on the tennis court. Of course, she always had one stylishly incorporated into her outfit—I’d yet to see her outside her own home without one. But that didn’t explain where they all went. Perhaps she thought they were handkerchiefs? Or maybe she liked jotting notes on silk instead of paper? Whatever it was, she seemed to truly believe they were disposable, and none of us knew how to tell her otherwise. Elias-Clark had paid a couple hundred dollars for each one, but no matter: we handed them out to her as though they were Kleenex. At the rate she was going, in under two years, Miranda was due to run out.

I’d arranged the stiff orange boxes on the ready-to-distribute shelf of the closet, where they never remained for very long. Every third or fourth day, she’d prepare to leave for lunch and sigh, “Ahn-dre-ah, hand me a scarf.” I comforted myself with the thought that I’d be long gone by the time she ran out of them completely. Whoever was unlucky enough to be around would have to tell her that there were no more white Hermès scarves, and that none could be made, shipped, created, formed, mailed, ordered, or mandated. The mere thought was terrifying.

Just as I got the closet and office opened, Uri called.

“Andrea? Hello, hello. It is Uri. Could you come downstairs please? I am on Fifty-eighth Street, closer to Park Avenue, right in front of the New York Sports Club. I have things for you.”

This call was a good although imperfect way of telling me that Miranda would be arriving somewhat soon. Maybe. Most mornings she sent Uri ahead to the office with her things, an assortment of dirty clothes that needed dry cleaning, any copy she’d taken home to read, magazines, shoes or bags that needed to be fixed, and the Book. This way, she could have me meet the car and carry up all of these rather mundane things ahead of schedule and deal with them before she stepped into the office. She tended to follow her stuff by about a half hour, since Uri would drop off her things and then go pick her up from wherever she might be hiding that morning.

She herself could be anywhere, since, according to Emily, she never slept. I didn’t believe it until I started getting to the office ahead of Emily and would be the first to listen to the voice mail. Every night, without exception, Miranda would leave eight to ten ambiguous messages for us between the hours of one and six in the morning. Things like, “Cassidy wants one of those nylon bags all the little girls are carrying. Order her one in the medium size and a color she’d like,” and “I’ll be needing the address and phone number of that antique store in the seventies, the one where I saw the vintage dresser.” As though we knew which nylon bags were all the rage among ten-year-olds or at which one of four hundred antique stores in the seventies—east or west, by the way?—she happened to spot something she liked at some point in the past fifteen years. But each morning I faithfully listened to and transcribed those messages, hitting “replay” over and over and over again, trying to make sense of the accent and interpret the clues in order to avoid asking Miranda directly for more information.

Once, I made the mistake of suggesting that we actually ask Miranda to provide a few more details, only to be met with one of Emily’s withering looks. Questioning Miranda was apparently off-limits. Better to muddle through and wait to be told how off the mark our results were. To locate the vintage dresser that had caught Miranda’s eye, I had spent two and a half days in a limo, cruising around Manhattan, through the seventies on both sides of the park. I ruled out York Avenue (too residential) and proceeded up First, down Second, up Third, down Lex. I skipped Park (again, too residential) but continued up Madison, and then repeated a similar process on the West Side. Pen poised, eyes peeled, phone book open in my lap, ready to jump out at the first sight of a store that sold antiques. I graced every single antique store—and not a few regular furniture stores-with a personal visit. By store number four, I had it down to an art form.

“Hi, do you sell any vintage dressers?” I’d practically scream the second they buzzed me inside. By the sixth store I wasn’t even bothering to move in from the doorway. Some snotty salesperson inevitably looked me up and down—I couldn’t escape it!—sizing me up to decide if I was someone to be bothered with. Most would notice the waiting Town Car at this point and grudgingly provide me with a yes or no answer, although some wanted detailed descriptions of the dresser I was looking for.

If they admitted to selling something that fit my two-word requirement, I would immediately follow up with a curt “Has Miranda Priestly been here recently?” If they hadn’t thought I was crazy at this point, they now looked ready to call security. A few had never heard her name, which was fantastic both because it was rejuvenating to see firsthand that there were still normally functioning human beings whose lives weren’t dominated by her, and also because I could promptly leave without further discussion. The pathetic majority who recognized the name became instantly curious. Some wondered which gossip column I wrote for. But regardless of whatever story I made up, no one had seen her in their shop (with the exception of three stores who hadn’t “seen Ms. Priestly in months, and oh, how we miss her! Please do tell her that Franck/Charlotte/Sarabeth sends his/her love!”).

When I hadn’t located the shop by noon of the third day, Emily finally gave me the green light to come to the office and ask Miranda for clarification. I started sweating when the car pulled in front of the building. I threatened to climb over the turnstile if Eduardo didn’t let me pass without a performance. By the time I reached our floor, the sweat had soaked through my shirt. Hands started shaking the moment I entered the office suite, and the perfectly prepared speech (Hello, Miranda. I’m fine, thanks so much for asking. How are you? Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been trying very hard to locate the antique store you described, but I haven’t had much luck. Perhaps you could tell me whether it’s on the east or west side of Manhattan? Or maybe you even recall the name?) simply vanished into the fickle regions of my very nervous brain. Against all protocol, I didn’t post my question on the Bulletin; I requested permission to approach her at her desk and—probably because she was so shocked I’d had the nerve to speak without being spoken to—she granted it. To make a long story short, Miranda sighed and patronized and condescended and insulted in every delightful way of hers but finally opened her black leather Hermès planner (tied shut inconveniently but chicly with a white Hermès scarf) and produced . . . the business card for the store.

“I left this information on the recording for you, Ahn-dre-ah. I suppose it would have been too much trouble to write it down?” And even though the yearning to make decorative paper-cut designs all over her face with the aforementioned business card filled my entire being, I simply nodded and agreed. It wasn’t until I looked down at the card that I noticed the address: 244 East 68th Street. Naturally. East or west or Second Avenue or Amsterdam wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference, because the store I’d just dedicated the past thirty-three working hours to locating wasn’t even in the seventies.

I thought of this as I wrote down the last of Miranda’s late-night requests before racing downstairs to meet Uri at our designated area. Every morning he described where he parked in great detail so I could theoretically meet him at the car. But every morning, no matter how fast I made it downstairs, he’d bring everything inside himself so I wouldn’t have to race up and down the streets searching for him. I was delighted to see that today was no exception: he was leaning against a lobby turnstile, holding bags and clothes and books in his arms like a benevolent, generous grandfather.

“Don’t you run to me, you hear?” he said in his thick Russian accent. “All day long, you run, run, run. She makes you work very, very hard. This is why I bring the tings to you,” he said, helping me get a grip on the overflowing bags and boxes. “You be a good girl, you hear, and have a nice day.”

I shot him a grateful look, glared at Eduardo semi jokingly—my way of saying, “I will fucking kill you if you even think of asking me to strike a pose right now”—and softened a bit when he buzzed me through the turnstiles, comment-free. I miraculously remembered to stop by the lobby newsstand, where Ahmed piled all of Miranda’s requested morning papers into my arms. Although the mailroom delivered each to Miranda’s desk by nine each day, I was still to purchase a full second set every morning to help minimize the risk that she would spend a single second in her office without her papers. Same with the weekly magazines. No one seemed to mind that we charged nine newspapers a day and seven magazines a week for someone who read only the gossip and fashion pages.

I dumped all her stuff on the floor under my desk. It was time for the first round of ordering. I dialed the number I’d memorized long ago for Mangia, a gourmet takeout place in midtown, and, as usual, Jorge answered.

“Hi, pumpkin, it’s me,” I’d say, propping the phone against my shoulder so I could start logging into Hotmail. “Let’s get this day started.” Jorge and I were friends. Talking three, four, five times a morning had a funny way of bonding two people rather quickly.

“Hey, baby, I’ll send one of the boys over right away. Is she there yet?” he asked, understanding that “she” was my lunatic boss and that she worked for Runway, but not quite understanding who exactly would be consuming the breakfast I had just ordered. Jorge was one of my morning men, as I liked to call them. Eduardo, Uri, Jorge, and Ahmed gave a decent as possible start to my day. They were deliciously unaffiliated with Runway, even though their separate existences in my life were solely meant to make its editor’s life more perfect. Not a single one of them truly understood Miranda’s power and prestige.

Breakfast number one would be on its way to 640 Madison in seconds, and the chances were good I’d have to throw it out. Miranda ate four slices of greasy, fatty bacon, two sausage links, and a soft cheese Danish every morning, and washed it down with a tall latte from Starbucks (two raw sugars, remember!). As far as I could tell, the office was divided on whether she was permanently on the Atkins diet or just lucky enough to have a superhuman metabolism, the result of some pretty fantastic genes. Either way, she thought nothing of devouring the fattiest, most sickeningly unhealthy foods—even though the rest of us weren’t exactly afforded the same luxury. Since nothing stayed hot for more than ten minutes after it arrived, I’d keep reordering and tossing until she showed up. I could get away with microwaving each meal one time, but that bought me only an extra five minutes, and she could usually tell. (“Ahn-dre-ah, this is vile. Get me a fresh breakfast at once.”) I would order and reorder every twenty minutes or so until she called from her cell phone and told me to order her breakfast (“Ahn-dre-ah, I’ll be at the office shortly. Order my breakfast”). Of course, this was usually only a two-or three-minute warning, so the preordering was necessary both because of the short warning and in the rather common event that she didn’t bother to call at all. If I’d done my job, by the time her actual call for breakfast had come, I’d already have two or three on the way.

The phone rang. It had to be her, too early to be anyone else.

“Miranda Priestly’s office,” I chirped, bracing myself for the iciness.

“Emily, I’ll be there in ten minutes and I’d like my breakfast to be ready.”

She had taken to calling both Emily and me “Emily,” suggesting, quite rightly, that we were indistinguishable from each other and completely interchangeable. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was offended, but I’d grown accustomed to it at this point. And besides, I was too tired to really care about something as incidental as my name.

“Yes, Miranda, right away.” But she had already hung up. The real Emily walked into the office.

“Hey, is she here?” she whispered, looking furtively toward Miranda’s office as she always did, without a hello or a good morning, just like her mentor.

“Nope, but she just called and she’ll be here in ten. I’ll be back.”

I quickly transferred my cell phone and cigarettes to my coat pocket and ran. I had only a few minutes to get downstairs, cross Madison, and jump the line at Starbucks—and suck down my first precious cigarette of the day while in transit. Stamping out the last embers, I stumbled into the Starbucks at 57th and Lex and surveyed the line. If it was fewer than eight or so people, I preferred to wait like a normal person. Like most days, however, the line today was twenty or more poor professional souls, wearily waiting in line for their expensive caffeine fix, and I had to jump in front of them. It was not something I relished, but Miranda didn’t seem to understand that the latte I presented to her each morning could not only not be delivered but could easily take a half hour at prime time to purchase. A couple weeks of shrill, angry phone calls on my cell phone (“Ahn-dre-ah, I simply do not understand. I called you a full twenty-five minutes ago to tell you I’d be in, and my breakfast is not ready. This is unacceptable.”), and I had spoken to the franchise manager.

“Um, hi. Thanks for taking a minute to talk with me,” I said to the petite black woman who was in charge. “I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but I was wondering if we could work something out in terms of me having to wait in line.” I went on to explain, as best I could, that I work for a rather important, unreasonable person who doesn’t like to wait for her morning coffee, and was there any way I could walk ahead of the line, subtly, of course, and have someone prepare my order immediately? By some stroke of dumb luck, Marion, the manager, was going to FIT at night for a degree in fashion merchandising.

“Ohmigod, are you kidding? You work for Miranda Priestly? And she drinks our lattes? A tall? Every morning? Unbelievable. Oh, yes, yes, of course! I’ll tell everyone to help you right away. Don’t worry about a thing. She is, like, the most powerful person in fashion,” Marion gushed as I forced myself to nod enthusiastically.

And so it came that I could, at will, bypass a long line of tired, aggressive, self-righteous New Yorkers and order before those who had been waiting for many, many minutes. It didn’t make me feel good or important or even cool, and I always dreaded the days I had to do it. When the lines were hellishly long like the one today—snaking around the entire counter and pushing its way outside—I felt even worse and knew I’d be walking out with a full load. My head was pounding at this point, and my eyes already felt heavy and dry. I tried to forget that this was my life, the reason I’d spent four long years memorizing poems and examining prose, the result of good grades and lots of kissing up. Instead, I ordered Miranda’s tall latte from one of the new baristas and added a few drinks of my own. A grande Amaretto Cappuccino, a Mocha Frappuccino, and a Caramel Macchiato landed in my four-cup carrier, along with a half-dozen muffins and croissants. The grand total came to $28.83, and I made sure to tuck my receipt into the already bulging, specially designated receipt section of my wallet, all of which would be reimbursed by the always reliable Elias-Clark.

I had to hurry now, as it was already twelve minutes since Miranda had called and I knew she’d probably be sitting there, seething, wondering exactly where I disappeared to every morning—the Starbucks logo on the side of the cup didn’t ever clue her in. But before I could pick up all the stuff from the counter, my phone rang. And as usual, my heart lurched. I knew it was her, absolutely, positively knew it, but it scared me nonetheless. The caller ID confirmed my suspicion, and I was surprised to hear that it was Emily, calling from Miranda’s line.

“She’s here and she’s pissed,” Emily whispered. “You’ve got to get back here.”

“I’m doing everything I can,” I growled, trying to balance the carrying tray and the bag of baked goods on one arm and hold the phone with the other.

And thus the basic root of the hatred that existed between Emily and me. Since she was in the “senior” assistant position, I was more of Miranda’s personal assistant, there to fetch those coffees and meals, help her kids with their homework, and run all over the city to retrieve the perfect dishes for her dinner parties. Emily did her expenses, made her travel arrangements, and—the biggest job of all—put through her personal clothing order every few months. So when I was out gathering the goodies each morning, Emily was left alone to handle all of the ringing phone lines and an alert, early-morning Miranda and all of her demands. I hated her for being able to wear sleeveless shirts to work, where she wouldn’t ever have to leave the warm office six times a day to race around New York fetching, searching, hunting, gathering. She hated me for having excuses to leave the office, where she knew I always took longer than necessary to talk on my cell phone and smoke cigarettes.

The walk back to the building usually took longer than the walk to Starbucks, since I had to distribute my coffees and snacks. I preferred to hand them out to the homeless, a small band of regulars who hung out on stoops and slept in doorways on 57th Street, thumbing the city’s attempts to “clean them up.” The police always hustled them away before rush hour kicked into high gear, but they were still hanging out when I was doing the day’s first coffee run. There was something so fantastic—invigorating, really—in making sure that these overpriced, Elias-sponsored coffee faves made it into the hands of the city’s most undesirable people.

The urine-soaked man who slept outside the Chase Bank got a daily Mocha Frappuccino. He never actually woke up to accept it, but I left it (with a straw, of course) next to his left elbow each morning, and it was often gone—along with him—when I returned for my next coffee run a few hours later.

The old lady who propped herself up on her cart and set out a cardboard sign that read NO HOME/CAN CLEAN/NEED FOOD got the Caramel Macchiato. I soon found her name was Theresa, and I used to buy her a tall latte, like Miranda’s. She always said thank you, but she never made a move to taste it while it was still hot. When I finally asked her if she wanted me to stop bringing them, she vigorously shook her head and mumbled that she hates to be picky, but she’d actually like something sweeter, that the coffee was too strong. The next day I had her coffee flavored with vanilla and topped with whipped cream. Was this better? Oh yes, it was much, much better, but maybe now it was a touch too sweet. One more day and I finally got it right: it turns out Theresa liked her coffee unflavored, topped with whipped cream and some caramel syrup. She flashed a near-toothless smile and began guzzling it each and every day, the moment I handed it to her.

The third coffee went to Rio, the Nigerian who sold CDs off a blanket. He didn’t appear to be homeless, but he walked over to me one morning when I was handing Theresa her daily fix and said, or, rather, sang, “Yo, yo, yo, you like the Starbucks fairy or what? Where’s mine?” I handed him a grande Amaretto Cappuccino the next day, and we’d been friends ever since.

I expensed twenty-four dollars more every day on coffee than necessary (Miranda’s single latte should’ve cost a mere four dollars) to take yet another passive-aggressive swipe at the company, my personal reprimand to them for Miranda Priestly’s free rein. I handed them out to the filthy, the smelly, and the crazy because that—and not the wasted money—was what would really piss them off.

By the time I made it to the lobby, Pedro, the heavily accented Mexican delivery boy from Mangia, was chatting in Spanish with Eduardo near the elevator bank.

“Hey, here’s our girlie,” said Pedro as a few Clackers peered over at us. “I’ve got the usual: bacon, sausage, and one nasty-looking cheese thing. You only ordered one today! Don’t know how you eat this shit and stay so thin, girl.” He grinned. I suppressed the urge to tell him he didn’t have a clue what thin looked like. Pedro knew full well that I was not the one eating his breakfasts, but like every one of the dozen or so people I spoke to before eight A.M. each day, he didn’t really know the details. I handed him a ten, as usual, for the $3.99 breakfast, and headed upstairs.

She was on the phone when I entered the office, her snakeskin Gucci trench draped across the top of my desk. My blood pressure increased tenfold. Would it kill her to take the extra two steps over to the closet, open it, and hang up her own coat? Why did she have to take it off and fling it over my desk? I put down the latte, looked over at Emily, who was too busy answering three phone lines to notice me, and hung up the snakeskin. I shook off my own coat and bent down to toss it underneath my desk, since mine might infect hers if they mingled in the closet.

I grabbed two raw sugars, a stirrer, and a napkin from a stock I kept in my desk drawer and wrapped them all together. I briefly considered spitting in the drink but was able to restrain myself. Next, I pulled a small china plate from the overhead bin and dumped out the greasy meat and the oozing Danish, wiping my hands on her dirty dry cleaning, which was hidden beneath my desk so she couldn’t see it hadn’t been picked up yet. I was theoretically supposed to clean her plate each day in the sink in our mock-up kitchen, but I just couldn’t bring myself to bother. The humiliation of doing her dishes in front of everyone prompted me to wipe it down with tissues after each meal and scrape off any leftover cheese with my fingernails. If it was really dirty or had been sitting for a long time, I’d open a bottle of the Pellegrino we kept by the case and dump a little bit on. I figured she should be thankful I wasn’t using a spritz or two of desk cleaner. I was reasonably sure that I had reached a new moral low—what was worrisome was that I’d sunk to it so naturally.

“Remember, I want my girls smiling,” she was saying into the phone. I could tell from her tone she was talking to Lucia, the fashion director who’d be in charge of the upcoming Brazil shoot, about how the models should appear. “Happy, lots of teeth, clean healthy girls. No brooding, no anger, no frowning, no dark makeup. I want them shining. I mean it, Lucia: I will accept nothing less.”

I set the plate on the edge of her desk and placed the latte and the napkin with all necessary accessories next to it. She didn’t look at me. I paused for a moment to see if she’d hand me a pile of papers off her desk, things to fax or find or file, but she ignored me and I walked out. Eight-thirty A.M. I’d been awake now for three full hours, felt like I’d already worked for twelve, and could finally sit down for the very first time all morning. Just as I was logging on to Hotmail, anticipating some fun e-mails from people on the outside, she walked out. The belted jacket cinched her already tiny waist and complemented the perfectly fitted pencil skirt she wore beneath it. She looked dynamite.

“Ahn-dre-ah. The latte is ice cold. I don’t understand why. You were certainly gone long enough! Bring me another.”

I inhaled deeply and concentrated on keeping the look of hatred off my face. Miranda set the offending latte on my desk and flipped through the new issue of Vanity Fair that a staffer had set on the table for her. I could feel Emily watching me and knew her look would be one of sympathy and anger: she felt bad that I had to repeat the hellish ordeal all over again, but she hated me for daring to be upset about it. After all, wouldn’t a million girls die for my job?

And so with an audible sigh—something I’d perfected lately, so it was just enough Miranda could hear but not nearly enough she could ever call me on it—I once again put on my coat and willed my legs to move toward the elevators. It was going to be another long, long day.

The second coffee run in twenty minutes went much more smoothly; the lines at Starbucks had thinned a little and Marion had come on duty. She herself got to work on a tall latte as soon as I walked in the door. I didn’t bother overspending on a larger order this time because I was too desperate to just get back and sit down, but I did add venti cappuccinos for both Emily and me. Just as I was paying for the coffee, my phone rang. Goddamn it to hell, this woman was impossible. Insatiable, impatient, impossible. I hadn’t been gone for more than four minutes; she couldn’t possibly be freaking out yet. Again, I balanced my tray in one hand and pulled my phone from my coat pocket. I’d already decided that such behavior on her part warranted my having another cigarette—if just to hold up her coffee a few minutes longer—when I saw that it was Lily calling from her home phone.

“Hey, bad time?” she asked, sounding excited. I looked at my watch and saw that she should’ve been in class.

“Um, sort of. I’m on my second coffee run, which is really great. I’m really, really enjoying myself, just in case you were wondering. What’s up? Don’t you have class now?”

“Yeah, but I went out with Pink-Shirt Boy again last night and we each drank a few too many margaritas. Like, eight too many. He’s still passed out here, so I can’t just leave him. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

“Yeah?” I was barely listening, since one of the cappuccinos was starting to leak and I had the phone wedged in between my neck and my shoulder as I used my one free hand to pluck a cigarette from the box and light it.

“My landlord had the nerve to knock on my door at eight o’clock this morning to tell me that I’m being evicted,” she said with not a little bit of glee in her voice.

“Evicted? Lil, why? What are you going to do?”

“It seems they finally caught on that I’m not Sandra Gers and that she hasn’t lived here in six months. Since she’s technically not family, she wasn’t allowed to pass down the rent-controlled apartment to me. I knew that, of course, so I’ve just been saying I’m her. I don’t really know how they found out. But whatev, it doesn’t really matter, because now you and I can live together! Your lease with Shanti and Kendra is just month by month, right? You subletted because you had no place to live, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, now you do! We can get a place together, anywhere we like!”

“That’s great!” It sounded hollow to my ears even though I was genuinely excited.

“So you’re up for it?” she asked, her enthusiasm sounding a bit dampened.

“Lil, definitely. Honestly, it’s an awesome idea. I don’t mean to sound negative, it’s just that it’s sleeting and I’m standing outside and I have burning hot coffee running down my left arm . . .”Beep-beep. The other line rang, and even though I almost burned my neck with the lit end of the cigarette while trying to pull my phone away from my ear, I was able to see that it was Emily calling.

“Shit, Lil, it’s Miranda calling. I’ve got to run. But congrats on getting evicted! I’m so excited for us. I’ll call you later, OK?”

“OK, I’ll talk to—”

I had already clicked over and mentally prepared myself for the barrage.

“Me again,” Emily said tightly. “What the hell is going on? It’s a fucking coffee, for chrissake. You forget that I used to do your job, and I know it doesn’t take that long to—”

“What?” I said loudly, holding a few fingers over the microphone on the receiver. “What’d you say? I can’t hear you. Well, if you can hear me, I’ll be back in just a minute!” And I clicked my phone shut and buried it deep in my pocket. And even though I had at least half a Marlboro left, I dropped it on the sidewalk and ran back to work.

Miranda deigned to accept this slightly warmer latte and even gave us a few moments of peace between ten and eleven, when she sat in her office with the door closed, cooing to B-DAD. I’d officially met him for the first time the week before, when I’d dropped the Book off that Wednesday night around nine. He had been removing his coat from the closet in the foyer and spent the next ten minutes referring to himself in the third person. Since that meeting, he had paid me extra-special attention when I let myself in each night, always taking a few minutes to ask about my day or compliment me on a job well done. Naturally, none of these niceties seemed to rub off on his wife, but at least he was pleasant to be around.

I was just about to begin calling some of the PR people to see about getting a few more decent clothes to wear to work when Miranda’s voice shook me from my thoughts. “Emily, I’d like my lunch.” She had called from her office to no one in particular, since Emily could mean either of us. The real Emily looked at me and nodded, and I knew it was OK to move. The number for Smith and Wollensky was programmed into my desk phone, and I recognized the voice on the other end as the new girl.

“Hey, Kim, it’s Andrea from Miranda Priestly’s office. Is Sebastian there?”

“Oh, hi, um, what did you say your name was again?” No matter that I called at the exact same time, twice a week, and had already identified myself—she always acted as though we’d never spoken.

“From Miranda Priestly’s office. At Runway. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude”—yes, actually, I do—“but I’m kind of in a hurry. Could you just put Sebastian on?” If anyone else had answered I would’ve been able to just tell that person to put in an order for Miranda’s usual, but since this one was too dumb to be trusted, I had learned to ask for the manager himself.

“Um, OK, let me check and see if he’s available.”Trust me, Kim, he’s available. Miranda Priestly is his life.

“Andy, dear, how are you?” Sebastian breathed into the phone. “I hope you’re calling because our favorite fashion editor would like some lunch today, yes?”

I wondered what he’d say if I told him, just once, that it wasn’t Miranda who was looking for lunch, but me. After all, this wasn’t exactly a takeout joint, but they made a special exception for the queen herself.

“Oh, yes, indeed. She was just saying how much she was in the mood for something delicious from your restaurant, and she also said to send her love.” If under threat of death or dismemberment Miranda wouldn’t have been able to identify the name of the place that made her lunch each day, never even mind the name of its daytime manager, but he always seemed so happy when I said something like this. Today he was so excited he giggled.

“Fab! That’s just fabulous! We’ll have it ready for you as soon as you get here,” he called with fresh excitement in his voice. “Can’t wait! And give her my love, too, of course!”

“Of course I will. See you soon.” It was exhausting to stroke his ego so enthusiastically, but he made my job so much easier it was well worth it. Every day that Miranda didn’t have lunch out, I served her the same meal at her desk, and she leisurely ate it behind closed doors. I kept a supply of china plates in the bins above my desk for this purpose. Most were samples sent by designers whose new “home” lines had just come out, although some I just took directly from the dining room. It would have been too annoying to have to keep stock of things like gravy trays and steak knives and linen napkins, though, so Sebastian was always sure to provide those with the meal.

And once again I shrugged on my black wool coat and jammed my cigarettes and phone in the pocket and headed outside, into a late February day that seemed to get only grayer as it progressed. Although it was just a fifteen-minute walk to the restaurant on 49th and Third, I considered calling for a car but thought better of it when I felt the clean air in my lungs. I lit a cigarette and drew the smoke in; when I exhaled, I wasn’t sure if it was smoke or cold air or irritation, but it felt damn good.

Dodging the aimlessly meandering tourists had become easier. I used to stare in disgust at pedestrians on cell phones, but given my hectic days, I’d become a walking talker. I pulled my cell out and called Alex’s school where, according to my fuzzy recollection, he could possibly be eating his lunch in the faculty lounge at that moment.

It rang twice before I heard a high-pitched, pinched woman’s voice answer.

“Hello. You’ve reached PS 277 and this is Mrs. Whitmore speaking. How may I help you?”

“Is Alex Fineman there?”

“And who may I ask is calling?”

“This is Andrea Sachs, Alex’s girlfriend.”

“Ah, yes, Andrea! We’ve all heard so much about you.” Her words were so clipped she sounded as though she might choke any moment.

“Oh, really? That’s . . . uh, that’s good. I’ve heard a lot about you too, of course. Alex says wonderful things about everyone at school.”

“Well, isn’t that nice. But seriously, Andrea, it sounds like you have quite some job there! How interesting it must be, working for such a talented woman. You’re a lucky girl, indeed.”

Ah, yes. Mrs. Whitmore. I am a lucky girl indeed.I’m so lucky, you have no idea. I can’t tell you how lucky I felt when I was sent out just yesterday afternoon to purchase tampons for my boss, only to be told that I’d bought the wrong ones and asked why I do nothing right. And luck is probably the only way to explain why I get to sort another person’s sweat-and food-stained clothing each morning before eight and arrange to have it cleaned. Oh, wait! I think what actually makes me luckiest of all is getting to talk to breeders all over the tristate area for three straight weeks in search of the perfect French bulldog puppy so two incredibly spoiled and unfriendly little girls can each have their own pet. Yes, that’s it!

“Oh, yes, well, it is a fantastic opportunity,” I said by rote. “A job a million girls would die for.”

“You can say that again, dear! And guess what? Alex just walked in. I’ll put him on.”

“Hey, Andy, what’s going on? How’s your day going?”

“Don’t ask. I’m on my way to pick up Her lunch right now. How’s your day?”

“Good, so far. My class has music today right after lunch, so I actually have an hour and a half free, which is nice. And then we get to cover more phonics exercises!” he said, sounding just a little defeated. “Even though it seems like they’re never going to learn how to actually read something.”

“Well, have there been any slashings today?”

“No.”

“So, how much can you ask for? You’ve had a relatively pain-free, bloodless day. Enjoy it. Save the whole reading concept for tomorrow. So, guess what? Lily called this morning. She finally got evicted from her place in Harlem, so we’re going to move in together. Fun, right?”

“Hey, congratulations! Couldn’t have been better timing for you. You guys will have a great time together. Come to think of it, it’s a little scary. Dealing with Lily full-time . . . and Lily’s guys . . . Promise we can stay at my place a lot?”

“Of course. But you’ll feel right at home—it’ll be just like senior year all over again.”

“Too bad she’s losing that cheap apartment. Other than that, it’s great news.”

“Yeah, I’m psyched. Shanti and Kendra are fine, but I’m kind of done with the whole living-with-strangers thing.” I loved Indian food, but I did not love how the curry smell had seeped into everything I owned. “I’m going to see if Lil wants to meet for a drink tonight to celebrate. You up for it? We’ll meet somewhere in the East Village so it’s not too far for you.”

“Yeah, sure, sounds great. I’m running to Larchmont to watch Joey tonight, but I’ll be back in the city by eight. You won’t even be out of work by then, so I’ll meet Max and we can all meet up afterward. Hey, is Lily seeing anyone? Max could use a, well . . .”

“A what?” I laughed. “Go on, say it. Do you think my friend is a whore? She’s just free-spirited, is all. And is she seeing someone? What kind of question is that? Someone named Pink-Shirt Boy stayed over there last night. I don’t think I know his real name.”

“Whatever. Anyway, the bell just rang. Call me when you’re done dropping off the Book.”

“Will do. Bye.”

I was about to stash the phone when it rang again. The number wasn’t familiar, though, and I answered it out of sheer relief that it wasn’t Miranda or Emily.

“Mir—er, hello?” I’d taken to automatically answering my cell and home phone “Miranda Priestly’s office,” which was supremely embarrassing when it was anyone except my parents or Lily. Had to work on that.

“Is this the lovely Andrea Sachs whom I inadvertently terrified at Marshall’s party?” asked a somewhat hoarse and very sexy voice on the other end. Christian! I’d been almost relieved when he hadn’t resurfaced anywhere after massaging my hand with his lips. But all the feelings of wanting to impress him with my wit and charm that first night came rushing back, and I quickly vowed to play it cool.

“It is. And who may I ask is this? There were a number of men who terrified me that night for dozens of different and varied reasons.”OK, so far, so good. Deep breath, be cool.

“I didn’t realize I had so much competition,” he said smoothly. “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. How have you been, Andrea?”

“Fine. Great, actually,” I lied quickly, remembering a Cosmo article I’d read that had exhorted me to “keep it light and airy and happy” when talking to a new guy because most “normal” guys didn’t respond so well to hard-bitten cynicism. “Work is going really well. I’m loving my job, actually! It’s been really interesting lately—a lot to learn, tons of stuff going on. Yeah, it’s great. What about you?”Don’t talk about yourself too much, don’t dominate the conversation, get him comfortable enough to chat about his favorite and most familiar topic: him.

“You’re a rather deft liar, Andrea. To an untrained ear that almost sounded believable, but you know what they say, don’t you? You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Don’t worry, though. I’ll let you get away with it this time.” I opened my mouth to deny the accusation, but instead I just laughed. A perceptive one indeed. “Let me get right to the point here, because I’m about to get on a plane for D.C. and security doesn’t look all too happy that I’m walking through a metal detector while talking on the phone. Do you have plans for Saturday night?”

I hated when people phrased their questions that way, asked if you had plans before they told you what they had in mind. Did his girlfriend need someone to run errands for her and he thought I fit the bill? Or maybe he needed someone to walk his dog while he gave yet another eight-hour-long interview to the New York Times ? I was considering what noncommittal way I could answer that question when he said, “So, I have a reservation at Babbo this Saturday. Nine o’clock. A bunch of friends will be there, too, mostly magazine editors and pretty interesting people. An editor from The Buzz, and a couple writers from The New Yorker. Good crowd. You up for it?” At that exact moment, an ambulance roared past me with its siren wailing, lights flashing in a fruitless attempt to speed through the hopelessly gridlocked traffic. As usual, the drivers ignored the ambulance and it sat at the red light like all the other vehicles.

Had he just asked me out? Yes, I thought that’s exactly what had just happened. He was asking me out! He was asking me out. Christian Collinsworth was asking me on a date-a Saturday-night date, to be specific, and to Babbo, where he just so happened to have a prime-time reservation with a group of smart, interesting people, people just like him. Never even mind the New Yorker writers! I racked my brain, trying to remember if I’d mentioned to him at the party that Babbo was the one restaurant I most wanted to try in New York, that I loved Italian and knew how much Miranda loved it and I was dying to go. I’d even thought about blowing a week’s pay on a meal and had called to make a reservation for Alex and me, but they’d been booked solid for the next five months. I hadn’t been asked on a date by anyone other than Alex in three years.

“Um, Christian, golly, I’d love to,” I started, trying to forget immediately that I’d just said “golly.”Golly! Who said that? The scene where Baby proudly announces to Johnny that she’d carried a watermelon flashed to mind, but I pushed it back and willed myself to forge forward despite the humiliation. “I’d really love to”—yes, you idiot, you just said that, try to make some progress here—“but I just can’t do it. I, um, I already have plans for Saturday.” A good response overall, I thought. I was shouting over the noise of the siren, but I thought I still sounded somewhat dignified. No need to be available for a date that was only two days away, and no real need to reveal existence of boyfriend . . . after all, it really wasn’t any of his business. Right?

“Do you really have plans, Andrea, or do you think your boyfriend would disapprove of you going out with another man?” He was fishing, I could tell.

“Either way has nothing to do with you,” I said prissily, and I actually rolled my eyes at myself. I crossed Third Avenue without noticing that the light was against me and almost got mowed down by a minivan.

“OK, well, I’ll let you off this time. But I’ll be asking again. And I think next time you’ll say yes.”

“Oh, really? What gives you that impression?” The confidence that had seemed so sexy before was now starting to sound a whole lot like arrogance. The only problem was that it made him sound even sexier.

“Just a hunch, Andrea, just a hunch. And no need to worry that pretty little head of yours—or your boyfriend’s—I was just extending a friendly invitation for a good meal and good company. Maybe he’d like to join us, Andrea? Your boyfriend. He must be a great guy, I’d really like to meet him.”

“No!” I almost shouted, horrified at the thought of the two of them sitting across a table from each other, each so amazing in such radically different ways. I’d be ashamed for Christian to see Alex’s wholesomeness, his do-gooder ways. To Christian, Alex would seem like a naïve hick. And I’d be even more ashamed for Alex to see, with his own eyes, all the ugly things I found so incredibly attractive about Christian: the style, the cockiness, a self-assuredness so rock-solid it seemed impossible to insult him.

“No.” I laughed or, rather, forced a laugh, as I tried to make it sound casual. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. Although I’m sure he’d just love to meet you, too.”

He laughed with me, but it had turned mocking, patronizing. “I was just kidding, Andrea. I’m sure your boyfriend’s a really great guy, but I’m not particularly interested in meeting him.”

“Well, of course. Sure. I mean, I knew what you—”

“Listen, I’ve got to run. Why don’t you give me a call if you change your mind . . . or your ‘plans,’ OK? Offer’s still open. Oh, and have a great day.” And before I could say another word, he’d hung up.

What the hell had just happened? I ran through it again: Hot Smart Writer had somehow found my cell number, called it, and fully asked me on a date for Saturday night to Hot Trendy Restaurant. I wasn’t clear whether he knew ahead of time if I had a boyfriend or not, but he didn’t appear particularly daunted by the information. The only thing I knew for sure was that I’d spent way too long chatting on the phone, a fact confirmed by a quick glance at my watch. It had been thirty-two minutes since I’d left the office, longer than the time it usually took me to get lunch and come back.

I stashed the phone and realized I had already made it to the restaurant. I pulled open the lumbering wooden door and stepped into the hushed, darkened dining room. Even though every table was filled with midtown bankers and lawyers gnawing on their favorite steaks, there was barely any noise at all, as if the plush carpeting and manly color scheme just absorbed all the sound.

“Andrea!” I heard Sebastian cry from the hostess stand. He beelined toward me as though I might be holding the last of a life-saving medication. “We’re just all so glad you’re here!” Two young girls in crisp gray skirt suits nodded seriously behind him.

“Oh, really? Why is that?” I could never help myself toying with Sebastian, just a little. He was such an unbelievable kiss-ass.

He leaned over conspiratorially, his excitement palpable. “Well, you know how the entire staff here at Smith and Wollensky feels about Ms. Priestly, don’t you?Runway is such a gorgeous magazine, what with all the beautiful shoots and stunning style and, of course, fascinating, literate articles. We all just adore it!”

“Literate articles, huh?” I asked, suppressing the huge smile that was threatening to emerge. He nodded proudly and turned as one of the suited helpers tapped him on the shoulder to hand him a tote bag.

He literally cried out in joy. “Ah-hah! Here we have it, one perfectly prepared lunch for one perfect editor—and one perfect assistant,” he added while winking at me.

“Thank you, Sebastian, we both appreciate it.” I opened the natural cotton tote, a bag that looked just like thoseüber-cool ones from the Strand that all the NYU students slung over their shoulder, but without the logo, and made sure everything was right. One-and-a-quarter-pound ribeye, bleeding all over the container, so raw it just might not have been cooked at all. Check. Two baked potatoes the size of small kittens, each steaming hot. Check. One small side container of smashed potatoes, made soft with lots of heavy cream and extra butter. Check. Precisely eight perfect stalks of asparagus with the tips looking plump and juicy and the ends shaved to a clean, white finish. Check. There was also a metal gravy boat full of softened butter, a pinch-box overflowing with grainy kosher salt, a wooden-handled steak knife, and a crisp white linen napkin, which today was folded into the shape of a pleated skirt. How adorable. Sebastian waited to see if I liked it.

“Very nice, Sebastian,” I said as though I were praising a puppy for going number two outside. “You really outdid yourself today.”

He beamed and then looked at the ground in practiced humility. “Well, thank you. You know how I feel about Ms. Priestly, and, well, it’s really an honor to, well, you know . . .”

“Prepare her lunch?” I supplied, helpfully.

“Well, yes. Exactly. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course I do, Sebastian. She’ll love it, I’m sure.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I immediately unfolded all of his creations because the Ms. Priestly he so adored would throw a hissy fit if faced with a napkin in the shape of anything other than a napkin—never mind a bowling bag or a high-heeled shoe. I tucked the bag under my arm and turned to leave, but just then my phone rang.

Sebastian looked at me expectantly, fervently hoping that the voice on the other line of my cell phone would be his love, his reason for living. He wasn’t let down.

“Is this Emily? Emily, is that you, I can barely hear you!” Miranda’s voice came over the line in a shrill, angry staccato.

“Hello, Miranda. Yes, this is Andrea.” I stated calmly while Sebastian visibly swooned at the sound of her name.

“Are you preparing my lunch yourself, Andrea? Because according to my clock, I asked for it thirty-five minutes ago. I cannot think of a single reason why—if you were doing your job properly—my lunch would not be at my desk yet. Can you?”

She got my name right! A small success, but no time to celebrate.

“Uh, um, well, I’m very sorry it’s taken so long, but there was a little mix-up with—”

“You do know just how uninterested I am in such details, do you not?”

“Yes, of course I understand, and it won’t be long before—”

“I am calling to tell you that I want my lunch, and I want it now. There’s really not much room for nuance, Emily. I. Want. My. Lunch. Now!” With that, she hung up the phone, and my hands were shaking so badly I dropped my cell on the floor. It might as well have been covered in burning arsenic.

Sebastian, who looked ready to pass out from the action, swooped down to retrieve the phone and hand it back to me.

“Is she upset with us, Andrea? I hope she doesn’t think we let her down! Does she? Does she think that?” His mouth pursed into a tight oval and the already prominent veins in his forehead pulsed, and I wanted to hate him as much as I hated her, but I just felt sorry for him. Why did this man, this man who seemed remarkable only to the extent that he was so unremarkable, why did he care so much about Miranda Priestly? Why was he so invested in pleasing her, impressing her, providing for her? Perhaps he should take over my job, I thought, because I was going to quit. Yes, that was it. I was going to march back to that office and quit. Who needed her shit? What gave her the right to talk to me, to anyone, like that? The position? The power? The prestige? The goddamn Prada? Where, in a just universe, was this acceptable behavior?

The receipt I was supposed to sign every day charging the ninety-five-dollar meal to Elias-Clark was resting on the podium, and I quickly scrawled an illegible signature. Whether it was mine or Miranda’s or Emily’s or Mahatma Gandhi’s at this point I couldn’t even be sure, but it wouldn’t matter. I grabbed the bag of food that redefined the term “lunch meat” and stomped back outside, leaving a very fragile Sebastian to deal with himself. I threw myself in a cab the moment I hit the street, nearly knocking an elderly man off his feet. No time to be concerned. I had a job to quit. Even with the midday traffic, we covered the few blocks in ten minutes, and I threw the cabbie a twenty. I would’ve given him fifty if I’d had it and figured out a way to recoup it from Elias, but there were none in my wallet. He immediately began counting out change, but I slammed the door and ran. Let that twenty go to caring for a little girl somewhere or fixing a hot water heater, I decided. Or even for a few post shift beers at the cab park in Queens—whatever the cabbie did with it would somehow be nobler than buying yet another cup of Starbucks.

Full of self-righteous indignation, I stormed inside the building and ignored the disapproving stares from the small group of Clackers in the corner. I saw Benji stepping off the Bergman elevators but quickly turned my back so I didn’t waste any more time, swiped my card, and threw my hip against the turnstile. Shit! The metal bar smacked against my pelvic bone and I knew I’d have a splotchy purple bruise within minutes. I looked up to see two rows of glimmering white teeth and the fat, sweating face that formed around them. Eduardo. He had to be kidding. He just had to be.

I quickly flashed him my best nasty look, the one that said, quite simply,Just die! but it didn’t work today. Maintaining full eye contact, I swiveled around to the next turnstile in the line, swiped my card lightning-fast, and lunged against the bar. He’d managed to lock it just in time, and I stood there as he let the Clackers go through the first turnstile I’d tried, one by one. Six in all, and I still stood there, so frustrated I thought I might cry. Eduardo was not sympathetic.

“Girlfriend, don’t look so down. This ain’t torture, it’s fun. Now, please. Pay attention, because . . .I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone a-rou-ound. I think we’re alone now. The beatin’ of our hearts is the only sou-ound .”

“Eduardo! How on earth am I supposed to act out that one? I don’t have time for this shit right now!”

“OK, OK. No actin’ this time, just singin’. I’ll start, you finish.Children behave! That’s what they say when we’re together. And watch how you play! They don’t understand, and so we’re . . . ”

I figured I wouldn’t have to quit if I ever actually made it upstairs because I’d be fired by then anyway. Might as well make someone else’s day.“Running just as fast as we can,” I continued, not missing a beat.“Holdin’ on to one another’s hand. Tryin’ to get away into the night and then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say . . .”

I leaned in closer when I noticed that the jerk from day one, Mickey, was trying to listen, and Eduardo finished it off:“I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be anyone arou-ound. I think we’re alone now. The beatin’ of our hearts is the only sou-ound!” He guffawed and threw his hand in the air. I slapped him high five, and I heard the metal bar click open.

“Have a good lunch, Andy!” he called, still grinning.

“You, too, Eduardo, you, too.”

The elevator ride was blissfully uneventful, and it wasn’t until I was standing directly outside the doors of our office suite that I decided I couldn’t quit. Aside from the obvious—that is, it’d be too terrifying to do it unprepared, she’d probably just look at me and say, “No, I won’t allow you to quit” and then what would I say?—I had to remember that it was only a year of my life. A single year to bypass many more of misery. One year, 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, of putting up with this garbage to do what I really wanted. It wasn’t too great a demand, and besides, I was too tired to even think about looking for another job. Way too tired.

Emily looked up at me when I walked in. “She’ll be right back. She just got called up to Mr. Ravitz’s office. Seriously, Andrea, what took you so long? You know that she comes down on me when you’re late, and what can I tell her? That you’re smoking cigarettes instead of buying her coffee, or talking to your boyfriend instead of getting her lunch? It’s not fair—it’s really not.” She turned her attention back to her computer, a resigned expression on her face.

She was right, of course. It wasn’t fair. To me, to her, to any semi civilized human being. And I felt bad for making it more difficult for her, which I did every time I took a few extra minutes away from the office to relax and unwind. Because every second I was gone was another second that Miranda focused her relentless attention on Emily. I vowed to try harder.

“You’re totally right, Em, and I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”

She looked genuinely surprised and a little bit pleased. “I’d really appreciate it, Andrea. I mean, I’ve done your job. I know how much it sucks. Trust me, there were days that I had to go out in the snow and the slush and the rain to get her coffee five, six, seven times in a single day. I was so tired I could barely move—I know what it’s like! Sometimes she’d call me to ask where something was—her latte, her lunch, some special, sensitive-teeth toothpaste I’d been sent to find—it was comforting to discover that at least her teeth had a bit of sensitivity—and I hadn’t even left the building yet. Hadn’t even gotten outside! That’s just her, Andy. That’s just how it is. You can’t fight it anymore, or you’ll never survive. She doesn’t mean any harm by it, she really doesn’t. That’s just the way she is.”

I nodded and I understood, but I just couldn’t accept that. I hadn’t worked anywhere else, but I just couldn’t believe that all bosses everywhere acted like this. But maybe they did?

I carried the lunch bag over to my desk and began the preparations for serving her. One by one, I used my bare hands to pluck the food from its heat-sealed to-go containers and arrange it (stylishly, I hoped) on one of the china plates from the overhead bin. Slowing only to wipe my now greasy hands on a pair of her dirty Versace pants I hadn’t yet sent to the cleaners, I placed the plate on the teak and tile serving tray that resided under my desk. Next to it went the gravy boat full of butter, the salt, and the silverware wrapped in a linen-pleated skirt-no-longer. A quick survey of my artistry revealed a missing Pellegrino. Better hurry—she’d be back any minute! I dashed to one of the mini kitchens and palmed a fistful of ice cubes, blowing on them to keep them from freezer-burning my hands. Blowing was only one itsy, bitsy, teensy step from licking them—do I do it? No! Be above it, rise above it. Do not spit in her food or gum her ice cubes. You’re a bigger person than that!

Her office was still empty by the time I made it back, and the only thing left to do was pour the bottled water and place the whole orchestrated tray on her desk. She’d come back and perch at her mammoth desk and call out for someone to close her doors. And this would be one time I’d jump up happily, enthusiastically, because it meant not only that she’d sit quietly behind those closed doors for a good half hour, on the phone with B-DAD, but also that it was time for us to eat as well. One of us could race down to the dining room and grab the very first thing she saw and race back so the other could go. We would try to hide our food under our desks and behind our computer screens just in case she came out unexpectedly. If there was a single unspoken but still irrefutable rule, it was that members of the Runway staff do not eat in front of Miranda Priestly. Period.

My watch said it was quarter after two. My stomach said it was late evening. It had been seven hours since I’d shoved a chocolate scone down my throat on the walk back to the office from Starbucks, and I was so hungry I considered gnawing on her ribeye.

“Em, I might pass out, I’m so hungry. I think I’m going to run down and pick something up. Can I get you something?”

“Are you crazy? You haven’t served her lunch yet. She’ll be back any minute.”

“I’m serious. I really don’t feel well. I don’t think I can wait.” The sleep deprivation and the low blood sugar were combining to make me dizzy. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to carry the steak tray into her office even if she did come back sometime soon.

“Andrea, be rational! What if you run into her in the elevator or in reception? She’d know that you left the office. She’d freak! It’s not worth the risk. Hold on a sec—I’ll get you something.” She grabbed her change purse and headed out of the office. Not four seconds later, I saw Miranda making her way down the hall toward me. Any thoughts of dizziness or hunger or exhaustion disappeared the moment I spotted her tight, frowning face, and I flew out of my seat to put the tray on her desk before she reached it herself.

I landed in my seat, head spinning, mouth dry, and totally disoriented, just before her first Jimmy Choo crossed the threshold. She didn’t so much as glance in my direction or, thankfully, seem to notice that the real Emily wasn’t at her desk. I had a feeling that the meeting she’d just had with Mr. Ravitz hadn’t gone so well, although it could have just been her lingering resentment at having to leave her office to go see someone else in theirs. Mr. Ravitz was, so far, the only person in the entire building whom Miranda rushed to accommodate.

“Ahn-dre-ah! What is this? Please tell me, what on earth is this?”

I raced into her office and stood before her desk, where we both looked down at what was, quite obviously, the same lunch she ate whenever she didn’t go out. A quick mental checklist revealed that nothing was missing or out of place or on the wrong side or cooked incorrectly. What was her problem?

“Um, it’s, uh, well, it’s your lunch,” I said quietly, making a genuine effort not to sound sarcastic, which was difficult, considering my statement was supremely obvious. “Is something wrong?”

In all fairness, I think she just parted her lips, but to my near-delirious self, it looked like she was baring actual pointed fangs.

“Is something wrong?” she mimicked in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like my own, nothing human. She narrowed her eyes to slits and leaned closer, still refusing, as always, to raise her voice. “Yes, there’s something wrong. Something very, very wrong. Why do I have to come back to my office to find this sitting on my desk?”

It was like trying to solve one of those twisted riddles. Why did she have to come back to her desk to find this sitting on it, I wondered. Clearly, the fact that she had requested it an hour earlier was not the correct answer, but it was the only one I had. Did she not like the tray it was on? No, that wasn’t possible: she’d seen it a million times and hadn’t ever complained about it. Had they accidentally given her the wrong cut of meat? No, that wasn’t it, either. The restaurant had once mistakenly sent me off with a wonderful-looking filet, thinking that she was sure to enjoy it more than the tough ribeye, but she’d almost had a full-fledged heart attack. She’d made me call the chef personally and scream at him over the phone while she stood over me and told me what to say.

“I’m so sorry, miss, really I am,” he’d said softly, sounding like the nicest guy in the world. “I really just thought that since Ms. Priestly is such a good customer that she’d prefer to have our best. I didn’t charge her extra, but don’t worry, it won’t happen again, I promise.” I felt like crying when she ordered me to tell him that he would never be a real chef anywhere besides some second-rate steak emporium, but I had done it. And he had apologized and agreed, and from that day on she’d always gotten her bloody ribeye. So it wasn’t that, either. I had no idea what to say or do.

“Ahn-dre-ah. Did Mr. Ravitz’s assistant not tell you that we had lunch together in that wretched dining room just a few moments ago?” she asked slowly, as though she were trying to keep herself from losing control completely.

She what? After all of that, after all the running and the Sebastian ridiculousness, and the angry phone calls, and the ninety-five-dollar meal, and the Tiffany song, and the food arranging, and the dizziness, and the waiting to eat until she came back, and she’d already eaten?

“Uh, no, we didn’t get a call from her at all. So, uh, does that mean you don’t want this?” I asked, motioning to the tray.

She looked at me as if I had just suggested she eat one of the twins. “What do you think that means, Emily?” Shit! She’d been doing so well with my name.

“I guess that, uh, well, that you don’t want it.”

“That’s very perceptive of you, Emily. I’m lucky you’re such a quick study. Now remove it. And make sure this does not happen again. That’s all.”

A quick fantasy flashed forward, one in which I would, just like in the movies, sweep my arm across the desk and send the whole tray flying across the room. She would watch and, shocked into contriteness, apologize profusely for speaking to me like that. But the clicking of her nails against the desk brought me back to reality, and I quickly picked up the tray and carefully walked out of her office.

“Ahn-dre-ah, close the door! I need a moment!” she called. I guess that having a gourmet lunch appear on her desk that she didn’t feel like eating had been a really stressful part of her day.

Emily had just returned with a can of Diet Coke and a package of raisins for me. This was supposed to be the snack to tide me over to lunch, and of course there wasn’t a single calorie or gram of fat or ounce of added sugar in the whole thing. She dropped them on her desk when she heard Miranda calling and ran over to shut her French doors.

“What happened?” she whispered, eyeing the untouched tray of food that I was holding, frozen to the spot near my desk.

“Oh, it seems our charming boss already had her lunch,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “And she just reamed me out for not predicting, not divining, not being able to look directly inside her stomach and know that she wasn’t hungry anymore.”

“You’re kidding me,” she said. “She yelled at you because you ran to get her lunch—just like she asked—and then couldn’t possibly have known that she’d already eaten somewhere else? What a bitch!”

I nodded. It was a phenomenal change of pace to have Emily actually take my side for once, not to lecture me on all the ways I Just Don’t Get It. But, wait! It was too good to be true. Like a sun that falls out of the sky, leaving only pink and blue streaks where it had shone seconds before, Emily’s face flashed from angry to contrite. The Runway Paranoid Turnaround.

“Remember what we talked about before, Andrea.” Oh, yes, here it comes. RPT, twelve o’clock. “She doesn’t do it to hurt you. She doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s just way too important to get held up on the little stuff. So don’t fight it. Just throw out the food, and let’s move on.” Emily fixed her features in a determined look and took a seat in front of her computer. I knew she was wondering right then and there if Miranda had had our outer office areas bugged and had heard the whole thing. She was red and flustered and very obviously displeased with her lack of control. I didn’t know how she had survived as long as she had.

I thought about eating the steak myself, but the mere thought that it had been on Miranda’s desk only moments earlier made me feel nauseated. I took the tray to the kitchen and tilted it so every single item would just slide directly into the garbage—all the expertly cooked and seasoned food, the china plate, the metal butter container, the salt box, the linen napkin, the silver, the steak knife, and the Baccarat glass. Gone. All gone. What did it matter? I’d get it all over again the next day, or whenever it was that she may again be hungry for lunch.

By the time I’d made it to Drinkland, Alex looked annoyed and Lily looked wasted. I immediately wondered if Alex somehow knew that I’d been asked out on a date today, by a guy who was not only famous and older, but also a complete and total dickhead. Could he tell? Did he sense it? Should I tell him? No, no need to get into it with him when it was so insignificant. It wasn’t like I was admitting to being interested in some other guy, not like I would actually ever act on it. So there was nothing to gain by mentioning the conversation at all.

“Hey there, fashion girl,” Lily slurred, waving her gin and tonic toward me in a salute. Some of it splashed down the front of her cardigan, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Or should I say, future roomie? Get a drink. We need to have a toast!” It came out sounding like “toath.”

I kissed Alex and sat down next to him.

“Don’t you look hot today!” he said, eyeing my Prada outfit appreciatively. “When did this happen?”

“Oh, today. Right around the time it was all but spelled out that if I didn’t fix my look I might not have a job anymore. Pretty insulting stuff, but I have to say, if you’ve got to put something on every day, this stuff isn’t half bad.

“Hey, listen, guys. I’m really, really sorry I’m late. The Book took forever tonight, and as soon as I dropped it off at Miranda’s she had me run to the corner deli and pick up some basil.”

“I thought you said she had a cook,” Alex pointed out. “Why couldn’t he do it?”

“She does indeed have a cook. She also has a housekeeper, a nanny, and two children. So I have no idea why I was the one sent out for dinner spices. It was especially annoying since Fifth Avenue doesn’t have any corner delis, and neither does Madison or Park, so I had to go all the way to Lex to find one. But, of course, they didn’t sell basil, so I had to walk up nine blocks until I found an open D’Agostino’s. It took me an extra forty-five minutes. I should just expense a fucking spice rack and start traveling with it wherever I go. But let me tell you, those were a really, really worthwhile forty-five minutes! I mean, think of how much I learned shopping for that basil, how better prepared I am for my future in magazines! I’m on the fast track to becoming an editor now!” I flashed a winning smile.

“To your future!” Lily cried, not detecting a single hint of sarcasm in my diatribe.

“She’s so far gone,” Alex said quietly, watching Lily with the look of someone watching a sick relative sleep in a hospital bed. “I got here on time with Max, who already left, but she must’ve been here for hours already. Either that, or she drinks really fast.” Lily had always been a big drinker, but it wasn’t weird, because Lily was a big everything. She was the first one to smoke pot in junior high and the first one to lose her virginity in high school and the first to go skydiving in college. She loved anyone and anything that didn’t love her back, so long as it made her feel alive.

“I just don’t understand how you can sleep with him when you know he’s never going to break up with his girlfriend,” I’d said about a guy she’d been secretly seeing our junior year.

“I just don’t understand how you can play by so many rules,” she’d shot back instantly. “Where’s the fun in all your perfectly planned, mapped-out, rule-filled life? Live a little, Andy! Feel something! It’s good to be alive!”

Maybe she had been drinking a little more lately, but I knew that her first-year studies were incredibly stressful, even for her, and that her professors at Columbia were more demanding and less understanding than the ones she’d had wrapped around her finger at Brown.It might not be a bad idea, I thought, signaling to the waitress. Maybe drinking was the way to handle it. I ordered an Absolut and grapefruit juice and took a long, deep swig. It made me feel more sick than anything, because I still hadn’t had time to eat anything except the raisins and the Diet Coke Emily had scraped together for me earlier that day.

“I’m sure she’s just had a rough couple of weeks in school,” I said to Alex as though Lily weren’t sitting with us. She didn’t notice we were talking about her because she was preoccupied giving some yuppie guy at the bar heavy-lidded, come-hither looks. Alex put his arm around me and I snuggled closer on the couch. It felt so good to be near him again—it seemed like it had been weeks.

“I hate to be a buzz-kill, but I really have to get home,” Alex said, pushing my hair back behind my ear. “Will you be OK with her?”

“You have to leave? Already?”

“Already? Andy, I’ve been here watching your best friend drink for the past two hours. I came to see you, but you weren’t here. And now it’s almost midnight, and I still have essays to correct.” He said it calmly, but I could see that he was upset.

“I know, I’m sorry about that, I really am. You know that I would’ve been there if I could’ve helped it at all. You know that—”

“I do know all that. I’m not saying you did anything wrong or that you could’ve done anything differently. I understand. But try to understand where I’m coming from, too, OK?”

I nodded and kissed him, but I felt awful. I pledged to make it up to him, to pick a night and plan something really special for just the two of us. He did, after all, put up with a lot from me.

“So, you won’t even stay over tonight?” I asked hopefully.

“Not unless you need help with Lily. I really need to get home and work on those papers.” He hugged me good-bye, kissed Lily on the cheek, and headed toward the door. “Call me if you need me,” he said as he walked out.

“Hey, why’d Alex leave?” Lily asked, even though she’d been sitting there through the entire conversation. “Is he mad at you?”

“Probably,” I sighed, hugging my canvas messenger bag to my chest. “I’ve been a shit to him lately.” I went to the bar to ask for an appetizer menu and by the time I came back, the Wall Street guy had curled up on the couch next to Lily. He looked to be in his late twenties, but his receding hairline made it impossible to know for sure.

I grabbed her coat and tossed it at her. “Lily, put that on. We’re leaving,” I said while looking at him. He was on the shorter side, and his pleated khakis didn’t help his pudgy figure. And the fact that his tongue was now two inches from my best friend’s ear didn’t make me like him any more.

“Hey, what’s the rush?” he asked in a whiny, nasal voice. “Your friend and I are just getting to know each other.” Lily grinned and nodded, trying to take a gulp from her drink but not realizing her glass was empty.

“Well, that’s very sweet, but it’s time for us to go. What’s your name?”

“Stuart.”

“Nice to meet you, Stuart. Why don’t you give Lily here your number and she can give you a call when she’s feeling a little better—or not. How does that sound?” I flashed him a smile.

“Uh, whatever. No worries. I’ll catch you guys later.” He was on his feet and headed to the bar so fast that Lily hadn’t yet noticed he’d left.

“Stuart and I are getting to know each other, aren’t we, Stu?” She turned to the place where he had sat and looked confused.

“Stuart had to run, Lil. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

I pulled her drab green peacoat on over her sweater and yanked her to her feet, where she swayed precariously until she regained her balance. The air outside was searing and cold and I figured it’d help her sober up.

“I don’t feel so good.” She was slurring again.

“I know, sweetie, I know. Let’s get a cab back to your apartment, OK? Do you think you can make it?”

She nodded and then leaned over very casually and threw up. All over her brown boots, with some of it splashing up the sides of her jeans.If only the Runway girls could see my best friend now. I couldn’t help thinking.

I sat her down on a window ledge that looked reasonably like it wouldn’t have an alarm and ordered her not to move. There was a twenty-four-hour bodega right across the street, and this girl clearly needed some water. When I got back, she’d thrown up again—this time all down her front—and her eyes looked droopy. I’d bought two bottles of Poland Spring, one for her to drink and one for cleaning, but she was too gross now. I dumped one all over her feet to wash away the sick, and half of the second one over her coat. Better to be soaking wet than covered in puke. She was so drunk she didn’t even notice.

It took a little persuading to get a cabbie to let us in with Lily looking in such bad shape, but I promised a really big tip on top of what was sure to be a really big fare. We were going from the Lower East Side to the far Upper West, and I was already figuring out a way to expense what was sure to be a twenty-dollar ride. I could probably just write it off as a trip I had to make in search of something for Miranda. Yes, that would work.

The trip to her fourth-floor walk-up was even less fun than the cab, but she’d become more cooperative after the twenty-five-minute ride, and she even managed to wash herself in the shower after I’d undressed her. I pointed her in the direction of her bed and watched as she collapsed face-down when her knees hit the box spring. I looked down at her, unconscious, and was momentarily nostalgic for college, for all the things we’d done together then. It was fun now, no question, but it would never again be as carefree as then.

I briefly wondered if Lily might be drinking too much these days. After all, she did seem to be drunk pretty consistently. But when Alex had brought it up the week before, I’d assured him it was because she was still a student, still not living in the real world with real, adult responsibilities (like pouring the perfect Pellegrino!). I mean, it’s not like we hadn’t together done too many shots at Señor Frog’s on spring break or too ambitiously worked our way through three bottles of red wine while celebrating the anniversary of the day we’d first met in eighth grade. Lily had held my hair back as I sat with my face resting on the toilet seat after a post finals binge, and pulled over four times once while driving me back to my dorm after a night that had included eight rum and Cokes and a particularly horrid karaoke rendition of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” I’d dragged her back to my apartment on the night of her twenty-first birthday and tucked her into my bed, checking her breathing every ten minutes, and finally fell asleep on the floor next to her after I’d made sure she’d live through the night. She had awakened twice that night. The first time was to throw up over the side of the bed—making a sincere effort to make it into the garbage can I’d set up beside it but getting confused and vomiting down the side of my wall instead—and once more to apologize sincerely and tell me she loved me and I was the best friend a girl could have. That’s what friends did: they got drunk together and did stupid things and looked out for one another, right? Or was that all just college fun, rites of passage that had a time and a place? Alex had insisted that this was different, that she was different, but I just didn’t see it that way.

I knew I should’ve stayed with her tonight, but it was nearly two and I had to be at work in five hours. My clothes smelled of vomit and there was no way I could find a single appropriate piece of clothing in Lily’s closet to wear to Runway-especially with my new upgraded look. I sighed and pulled a blanket over her and set her alarm for 7:00 A.M. so just in case she wasn’t too hungover, she’d have a shot at making it to class.

“Bye, Lil. I’m heading out. You OK?” I placed the portable phone on the pillow by her head.

She opened her eyes, looked directly at me, and smiled. “Thanks,” she muttered, her eyelids dropping again. She wasn’t fit to run a marathon, or probably even operate a motorized lawn mower, but she’d be fine to just sleep it off.

“It was my pleasure,” I managed, even though this was the first time in twenty-one hours I had stopped physically running, fetching, rearranging, moving, cleaning, or otherwise assisting. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said as I willed my legs not to give out. “If either of us is still alive.” And I finally, finally, went home.