He was trying so hard to sound really excited for me. We’d been dating since our junior year at Brown, and I knew every inflection of his voice, every look, every signal. He’d just started a few weeks earlier at PS 277 in the Bronx and was so worn down he could barely speak. Even though his kids were only nine years old, he’d been disappointed to see how jaded and cynical they already were. He was disgusted that they all spoke freely about blow jobs, knew ten different slang words for pot, and loved to brag about the stuff they stole or whose cousin was currently residing in a tougher jail. “Prison connoisseurs,” Alex had taken to calling them. “They could write a book on the subtle advantages of Sing Sing over Rikers, but they can’t read a word of the English language.” He was trying to figure out how he could make a difference.
I slid my hand under his T-shirt and started to scratch his back. Poor thing looked so miserable that I felt guilty bothering him with the details of the interview, but I just had to talk about it with someone. “I know. I understand that there wouldn’t be anything editorial about the job whatsoever, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do some writing after a few months,” I said. “You don’t think it’s completely selling out to work at afashion magazine, do you?”
He squeezed my arm and lay down next to me. “Baby, you’re a brilliant, wonderful writer, and I know you’ll be fantastic anywhere. And of course it’s not selling out. It’s paying your dues. You’re saying that if you put in a year atRunway you’ll save yourself three more years of bullshit assistant work somewhere else?”
I nodded. “That’s what Emily and Allison said, that it was an automatic quid pro quo. Work a year for Miranda and don’t get fired, and she’ll make a call and get you a job anywhere you want.”
“Then how could you not? Seriously, Andy, you’ll work your year and you’ll get a job atThe New Yorker . It’s what you’ve always wanted! And it sure sounds like you’ll get there a whole lot faster doing this than anything else.”
“You’re right, you’re totally right.”
“And besides, it would guarantee that you’re moving to New York, which, I have to say, is very appealing to me right now.” He kissed me, one of those long, lazy kisses it seemed we had personally invented. “But stop worrying so much. Like you said yourself, you’re still not sure you have the job. Let’s wait and see.”
We cooked a simple dinner and fell asleep watching Letterman. I was dreaming about obnoxious little nine-year-olds having sex on the playground while they swigged forties of Olde English and screamed at my sweet, loving boyfriend when the phone rang.
Alex picked it up and pressed it to his ear but didn’t bother to open his eyes or say hello. He quickly dropped it next to me. I wasn’t sure I could muster the energy to pick it up.
“Hello?” I mumbled, glancing at the clock and seeing that it was 7:15A .M. Who the hell would call at such an hour?
“It’s me,” barked a very angry-sounding Lily.
“Hi, is everything OK?”
“Do you think I’d be calling you if everything was OK? I’m so hungover I could die, and I finally stop puking long enough to fall asleep, and I’m awakened by a scarily perky woman who says she works in HR at Elias-Clark. And she’s looking for you. Atseven-fifteen in the freakin’ morning. So call her back. And tell her to lose my number.”
“Sorry, Lil. I gave them your number because I don’t have a cell yet. I can’t believe she called so early! I wonder if that’s good or bad?” I took the portable and crept out of the bedroom, quietly closing the door as I went.
“Whatev. Good luck. Let me know how it goes. Just not in the next couple hours, OK?”
“Will do. Thanks. And sorry.”
I looked at my watch again and couldn’t believe I was about to have a Business conversation. I put on a pot of Coffee and waited until it had finished brewing and brought a cup to the couch. It was time to call. I had no choice.
“Hello, this is Andrea Sachs,” I said firmly, although my voice betrayed me with its deep, raspy, just-woke-up-ness.
“Andrea, good morning! Hope I didn’t call too early,” Sharon sang, her own voice full of sunshine. “I’m sure I didn’t, my dear, especially since you’ll have to be an early bird soon enough! I have some very good news. Miranda was very impressed with you and said she’s very much looking forward to working with you. Isn’t that wonderful? Congratulations, dear. How does it feel to be Miranda Priestly’s new assistant? I imagine that you’re just—”
My head was spinning. I tried to pull myself off the couch to get some more Coffee, water, anything that might clear my head and turn her words back into English, but I only sank further into the cushions. Was she asking me if I would like the job? Or was she making an official offer? I couldn’t make sense of anything she’d just said, anything other than the fact that Miranda Priestly had liked me.
“—delighted with this news. Who wouldn’t be, right? So let’s see, you can start on Monday, right? She’ll actually be on vacation then, but that’s a GREat time to start. Give you a little time to get acquainted with the other girls—oh, they’re all such sweeties!” Acquainted? What? Starting Monday? Sweetie girls? It was refusing to make sense in my addled brain. I picked a single phrase that I’d understood and responded to it.
“Um, well, I don’t think I can start Monday,” I said quietly, hoping I’d indeed said something coherent. Saying those words had shocked me into semiwakefulness. I’d walked through the Elias-Clark doors for the very first time the day before, and was being awakened from a deep sleep to listen to someone tell me that I was to begin work in three days. It was Friday—at seven o’clock in the goddamn morning—and they wanted me to start on Monday? It began to feel like everything was spiraling out of control. Why the ridiculous rush? Was this woman so important that she needed me so badly? And why exactly did Sharon herself sound so scared of Miranda?
Starting Monday would be impossible. I had nowhere to live. Home base was my parents’ house in Avon, the place I’d grudgingly moved back to after graduation, and where most of my things remained while I’d traveled during the summer. All of my interview-related clothes were piled on Lily’s couch. I’d been trying to do the dishes and empty her ashtrays and buy pints of Häagen-Dazs so she wouldn’t hate me, but I thought it only fair to give her a much-needed break from my unending presence, so I camped out on weekends at Alex’s. That put all of my weekend going-out clothes and fun makeup at Alex’s in Brooklyn, my laptop and mismatched suits at Lily’s Harlem studio, and the rest of my life at my parents’ house in Avon. I had no apartment in New York and didn’t particularly understand how everyone knew that Madison Avenue ran uptown but Broadway ran down. I didn’t actually know what uptown was. And she wanted me to start Monday?
“Um, well, I don’t think I can do this Monday because I don’t currently live in New York,” I quickly explained, clutching the phone, “and I’ll need a couple days to find an apartment and buy some furniture and move.”
“Oh, well, then. I suppose Wednesday would be OK,” she sniffed.
After a few more minutes of haggling, we finally settled on November 17, a week from Monday. That left me a little more than eight days to find and furnish a Home in one of the craziest real estate markets in the world.
I hung up and flopped back down on the couch. My hands were trembling, and I let the phone drop to the floor. A week. I had a week to start working at the job I’d just accepted as Miranda Priestly’s assistant. But, wait! That’s what was bothering me . . . I hadn’t actually accepted the job because it hadn’t even been officially offered. Sharon hadn’t even had to utter the words “We’d like to make you an offer,” since she took it for granted that anyone with some semblance of intelligence would obviously just accept. No one had so much as mentioned the word “salary.” I almost laughed out loud. Was this some sort of war tactic they’d perfected? Wait until the victim was finally deep into REM sleep after an extremely stressful day and then throw some life-altering news at her? Or had she just assumed that it would be wasted time and breath to do something as mundane as make a job offer and wait for acceptance, considering that this wasRunway magazine? Sharon had just assumed that of course I’d jump all over the chance, that I’d be thrilled with the opportunity. And, as they always were at Elias-Clark, she was right. It had all happened so fast, so frenetically, that I hadn’t had time to debate and deliberate as usual. But I had a good feeling that thiswas an opportunity I’d be crazy to turn down, that this could actually be a GREat first step to getting toThe New Yorker . I had to try it. I was lucky to have it.
Newly energized, I gulped the rest of my Coffee, brewed another cup for Alex, and took a quick, hot shower. When I went back into his room, he was just sitting up.
“You’re dressed already?” he asked, fumbling for the tiny wire-rimmed glasses he was blind without. “Did someone call this morning, or did I dream that?”
“Not a dream,” I said, crawling back under the covers even though I was wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater. I was careful not to let my wet hair soak his pillows. “That was Lily. The HR woman from Elias-Clark called her place because that’s the number I gave them. And guess what?”
“You got the job?”
“I got the job!”
“Oh, come here!” he said, sitting up and hugging me. “I’m so proud of you! That’s GREat news, it really is.”
“So you really think it’s a good opportunity? I know we talked about it, but they didn’t even give me a chance to decide. She just assumed that I’d want the job.”
“It’s an amazing opportunity. fashion isn’t the worst thing on earth—maybe it’ll even be interesting.”
I rolled my eyes.
“OK, so maybe that’s going a little far. But withRunway on your résumé and a letter from this Miranda woman, and maybe even a few clips by the time you’re done, hell, you can do anything.The New Yorker will be beating down your door.”
“I hope you’re right, I really do.” I jumped up and starting throwing my things in my backpack. “Is it still OK if I borrow your car? The sooner I get Home, the sooner I can get back. Not that it really matters, because I’mmoving to New York . It’s official!”
Since Alex went home to Westchester twice a week to babysit his little brother when his mom had to work late, his mom had given him her old car to keep in the city. But he wouldn’t be needing it until Tuesday, and I’d be back before then. I had been planning to go Home that weekend anyway, and now I’d have some good news to bring with me.
“Sure. No problem. It’s in a spot about a half-block down on Grand Street. The keys are on the kitchen table. Call me when you get there, OK?”
“Will do. Sure you don’t want to come? There’ll be GREat food—you know my mom orders in only the best.”
“Sounds tempting. You know I would, but I organized some of the younger teachers to get together tomorrow night for happy hour. Thought it might help us all work as a team. I really can’t miss it.”
“Goddamn do-gooder. Always doing good, spreading good cheer wherever you go. I’d hate you if I didn’t love you so much.” I leaned over and kissed him good-bye.
I found his little GREen Jetta on the first try and only spent twenty minutes trying to find the parkway that would take me to 95 North, which was wide open. It was a freezing day for November; the temperature was in the midthirties, and there were slick frozen patches on the back roads. But the sun was out, the kind of winter glare that causes unaccustomed eyes to tear and squint, and the air felt clean and cold in my lungs. I rode the entire way with the window rolled down, listening to the “Almost Famous” soundtrack on repeat. I worked my damp hair into a ponytail with one hand to keep it from flying in my eyes, and blew on my hands to keep them warm, or at least warm enough to grip the steering wheel. Only six months out of college, and my life was on the verge of bursting forward. Miranda Priestly, a stranger until yesterday but a powerful woman indeed, had handpicked me to join her magazine. Now I had a concrete reason to leave Connecticut and move—all on my own, as a real adult would—to Manhattan and make it my Home. As I pulled into the driveway of my childhood house, sheer exhilaration took over. My cheeks looked red and windburned in the rearview mirror, and my hair was flying wildly about. There was no makeup on my face, and my jeans were dirty around the bottom from trudging through the city slush. But at that moment, I felt beautiful. Natural and cold and clean and crisp, I threw open the front door and called out for my mother. It was the last time in my life I remember feeling so light.
“A week? Honey, I just don’t see how you’re going to start work in a week,” my mother said, stirring her tea with a spoon. We were sitting at the kitchen table in our usual spots, my mother drinking her usual decaf tea with Sweet’N Low, me with my usual mug of English Breakfast and sugar. Even though I hadn’t lived at Home in four years, all it took was an oversize mug of microwaved tea and a couple Reese’s peanut butter cups to make me feel like I’d never left.
“Well, I don’t have a choice, and, honestly, I’m lucky to have that. You should’ve heard how hard-core this woman was on the phone,” I said. She looked at me, expressionless. “But, whatever, I can’t worry about it. I did just get a job at a really famous magazine with one of the most powerful women in the industry. A job a million girls would die for.”
We smiled at each other, but her smile was tinged with sadness. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “Such a beautiful, grown-up daughter I have. Honey, I just know this is going to be the start of a wonderful, wonderful time in your life. Ah, I remember graduating from college and moving to New York. All alone in that big, crazy city. Scary but so, so exciting. I want you to love every minute of it, all the plays and films and people and shopping and books. It’s going to be the best time of your life—I just know it.” She rested her hand on mine, something she didn’t usually do. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom. Does that mean you’re proud enough of me to buy me an apartment, furniture, and a whole new wardrobe?”
“Yeah, right,” she said and smacked the top of my head with a magazine on her way to the microwave to heat two more cups. She hadn’t said no, but she wasn’t exactly grabbing her checkbook, either.
I spent the rest of the evening e-mailing everyone I knew, asking if anyone needed a roommate or knew of someone who did. I posted some messages online and called people I hadn’t spoken to in months. No luck. I decided my only choice—without permanently moving onto Lily’s couch and inevitably wrecking our friendship, or crashing at Alex’s, which neither of us was ready for—was to sublet a room short-term, until I could get my bearings in the city. It would be best to find my own room somewhere, and preferably one that was already furnished so I wouldn’t have to deal with that, too.
The phone rang at a little after midnight, and I lunged for it, nearly falling off my twin-size childhood bed in the process. A framed, signed picture of Chris Evert, my childhood hero, smiled down from my wall, just below a bulletin board that still had magazine cutouts of Kirk Cameron plastered across it. I smiled into the phone.
“Hey, champ, it’s Alex,” he said with that tone of voice that meant something had happened. It was impossible to tell if it was something good or bad. “I just got an e-mail that a girl, Claire McMillan, is looking for a roommate. Princeton girl. I’ve met her before, I think. dating Andrew, totally normal. You interested?”
“Sure, why not? Do you have her number?”
“No, I only have her e-mail, but I’ll forward you her message and you can get in touch with her. I think she’ll be good.”
I e-mailed Claire while I finished talking to Alex and then finally got some sleep in my own bed. Maybe, just maybe, this would work out.
Claire McMillan: not so much. Her apartment was dark and depressing and in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, and there was a junkie propped up on the doorstep when I arrived. The others weren’t much better. There was a couple looking to rent out an extra room in their apartment who made indirect references to putting up with their constant and loud lovemaking; an artist in her early thirties with four cats and a fervent desire for more; a bedroom at the end of a long, dark hallway, with no windows or closets; a twenty-year-old gay guy in his self-proclaimed “slutty stage.” Each and every miserable room I’d visited was going for well over $1,000 and my salary was cashing in at a whopping $32,500. And although math had never been my strong suit, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that rent would eat up more than $12,000 of it and taxes would take the rest. Oh, and my parents were confiscating the emergencies-only credit card, now that I was an “adult.” Sweet.
Lily pulled through after three straight days of letdowns. Since she had a vested interest in getting me off her couch for good, she e-mailed everyone she knew. A classmate from her Ph.D. program at Columbia had a friend who had a boss who knew two girls who were looking for a roommate. I called immediately and spoke to a very nice girl named Shanti, who told me she and her friend Kendra were looking for someone to move into their Upper East Side apartment, in a room that was miniscule but had a window, a closet, and even an exposed brick wall. For $800 a month. I asked if the apartment had a bathroom and kitchen. It did (no dishwasher or bathtub or elevator, of course, but one can hardly expect living in luxury their first time out). Bingo. Shanti and Kendra ended up being two very sweet and quiet Indian girls who’d just graduated from Duke, worked hellishly long hours at investment banks, and seemed to me, that first day and every day thereafter, utterly indistinguishable from each other. I had found a Home.
