Chapter Text
The first week can only be described as pure hell.
Lydia had not been joking when she’d said that working for Miranda Priestly was an intense experience.
However, Andrea recognises what’s happening as she collects the fifth coffee run of the day, stepping into Starbucks and waving at the barista who nods at her and picks up a full tray of coffee.
The ridiculous tasks, the scarves, the coffee. Andrea had pasted on a bright smile and done every single one without complaint, a fact that her redhead counterpart sat at the desk opposite her noticed.
Every little thing was a way to prove her worth. When she’d been on the job for two days, she’d facetimed Lydia to ask if this was normal.
“Wait until you have to go to Calvin Klein and need to avoid the chirpy but useless sales woman.” Lydia had quipped at her. “I want to say it will ease up a little, but right now she doesn’t know if you’ll last a week or a year. So it’s a bit of a test.”
“She’s hazing me?!” Andy had almost shrieked, nearly spilling her drink.
Lydia snorted. “She doesn’t haze people, she estimates whether they’re worth having effort put into them.”
“Sounds like hazing to me.” Andy had petulantly responded.
“It would.” Lydia hums. “Let me put it this way, she’s making sure that you don’t mess up simple tasks before giving you harder ones. If you can’t even get her coffee order right, she can’t trust you to fetch confidential documents concerning an upcoming but secret new line from a designer.”
Somehow, having it explained like that, made sense.
“Building trust.”
“Essentially.” Lydia confirms, throwing a scrunched up pile of fabric over her shoulder. “Have you looked after the Prada?”
Andrea smiles at the screen. “I have, when do you want it back? I think that bag helped get me in through the door.”
Lydia smirks. “Just bring it to brunch on Saturday and I’ll take it back to Audrey.”
She’d been loaned the infamous, red bag for her interview, upon Audrey’s insistence. It brought luck, according to the older woman, and Andy wouldn’t take advantage of her trust. So the bag would return to Garms on Saturday.
“How’s the apartment hunt going?”
Andy grimaced, sipping her lukewarm coffee. As she had anticipated, trying to afford her current apartment was proving a challenge, and she wanted to move before it became too arduous to try and keep up with rent. Her salary wasn’t meagre, above the graduate average, but New York was an expensive city for living in.
“Not good. I think I might have to find a room-mate.”
“Before you try that, let me keep an ear out for anything, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” Lydia winks at her. “You willing to downgrade to a studio?”
“Depends on the studio.”
“Leave it with me.”
Andy had waved goodbye to her friend and stumbled through her nightly routine with her eyes half shut – running around New York at the beck and call of Miranda Priestly was exhausting, but it felt useful.
Once the shock of the first week eased, the next month passed quickly and had been productive for Andy as well as Runway.
She’d made a few acquaintances with publishing when she’d been sent to fetch proofs and final drafts that couldn’t be sent via emails, and had their business cards stashed in a folder, carefully kept to one side in case she needed them. They’d been given after she’d announced that she was Miranda’s assistant, and they’d been given in the hope of being put forward for the white haired editor’s notice but Andy would take contacts where she could get them for now. She also knew better than to try shoving unknown business cards at the woman, she was busy enough as it was.
One had been torn in half and dumped in the trash almost as soon as his back was turned. Christian Thompson had looked Andy up and down with a sleazy smirk and a cocky raised eyebrow. She hadn’t appreciated his offer of calling him anytime if she needed help with anything.
An assistant to one of the publishers of the company had pulled Andy to one side to warn her of Christian’s more sleazy side, and Andy had been thankful for the warning but had said that she never planned to see him again.
“He thinks he’s bigger than he is, but he has friends in the right places.” The petite blonde assistant had offered. “But you’re nice, and you haven’t been rude like the other assistants from Runway so I didn’t want you to walk blind into anything where he’s concerned. Us nice assistants have to stick together, you know? There’s not many of us.”
Andy had smiled gratefully, clasping her hand and the blonde had given over her own card, with the office number and her extension scrawled on the back.
“You never know when you might need to ring a publisher. That’s my extension if you need anything.” The blonde had even hugged her before she sent her on her way with the documents that Andy had needed, and she’d done her best to avoid the smarmy Christian as she slipped out the door.
Miranda had raised an eyebrow at the documents and Andy had already been waiting with her notebook for her next set of instructions, when Miranda had simply waved her off with a quiet ‘That’s all.’
From her spot at her desk, Andy saw much more than most people thought.
She saw how Emily drank water to stave off her hunger, and then would allow herself a cube of cheese whenever she looked ready to faint. She noticed how Serena would always make a beeline for the British redhead’s desk, but would always offer a friendly wave in her direction.
She notices how Nigel would always give a wink and a grin before disappearing into Miranda’s office for a run-through, Emily almost always tottering after him. In the same way that the fashionable bald man would asses her outfit when he would drop by in the mornings for some reason or other.
More importantly, she begins to pick up on Miranda’s own ticks.
Like earlier in the week, when she’d seen the editor rub her forehead following a meeting with Irving with a pained look on her face, Andy had placed a new box of painkillers on her desk next to her bottle of San Pellegrino without a word and then waited with her notepad for any other orders. When she notices that it was nearly 2pm and Miranda still had not eaten, she’d called her favourite restaurant to have the woman’s favourite meal delivered, along with a fresh fruit dessert. By the time it arrived, Miranda was remembering that she needed eat and Andy was already waiting with a tray by her door. A raised eyebrow was her response, along with a nod and Andy then left her to eat in peace, catching up on emails.
If Miranda notices the extra dessert that isn’t usually present with her lunch, she doesn’t say anything. But the china bowl is completely empty when Andy removes the tray from Miranda’s office when the editor leaves for a meeting with the art department.
Similarly, if Emily notices that more cheese cubes appear in her little Tupperware tub in the kitchen when she isn’t looking, she doesn’t say anything. However Serena does notice, and when the redhead scurries into Miranda’s office after being called in, the Brazilian woman looks over at Andy and mouths ‘thank you’ with a small grateful smile.
And that’s Andy’s life for the first three months. No task is too big, she gets it done.
When she is supposed to meet with Lydia one evening and ends up running nearly two hours late, the younger woman waves off her rushed apologies when she arrives, waving her Kindle at her, and then pointing to the glass of water on the table.
“Believe me, I’m not going to hold a grudge against you Andy. Been there myself, remember?” Lydia puts away her kindle, shoving it in her handbag and giving Andy her full attention as the brunette waves over a waiter with a smile. “So, how’s it going?”
“Busy.” Andy rattles off her order to the waiter who bustles away with little fanfare. “But I like it. I’m meeting new people, and I’m learning a hell of a lot more than I thought I would.”
Lydia nods, grinning. Andy has that excited air about her, and she remembers what that was like.
“I remember it being like that…” There’s an air of wistfulness about her and Andy finally asks a question that’s been on the tip of her tongue for months.
“Lyd, if you loved it so much, why did you leave?”
Lydia sips her water, swallowing before leaning forward. “Because Miranda Priestly looks after her people.”
Confused, Andy gazes at her and the waiter appears with a glass of wine, two glasses of water with ice and a basket of bread which places between the two women on the table.
“When the internship started, we were assigned departments based on our interests. I got placed in the art and design team, with Nigel. I loved the creating part of Runway, the clothes, the designing, and I got to make a lot of my own contacts in the fashion houses and other departments. By the end of my first month Nigel had me altering clothes to fit the memo that Miranda would send for each issue. Usually, they were only small fixes.”
Entranced, Andy sipped her wine, waiting for her friend to continue.
“Once though, I got given a dress that was so bad that no alteration could have fixed it. So I pulled it to pieces without a second thought, just like I would do at home. You should have seen it, feathers, and fur and leather. Not a great combo. It was so busy. So I connected my Spotify to the speaker and got to work.” Lydia sighs, shaking her head slightly and picking up a roll from the basket, pulling the bread into small pieces as she spoke “What I didn’t know is that Miranda was stood in the doorway behind me with Nigel, and she watched me pull it to pieces, essentially shred it down and put it back together. She never said anything, because I didn’t even know she was there until I got invited to a run-through.”
“I bet you were shitting your pants.” Having seen how Miranda acted during run-throughs, most people would blanch at being invited to one. “Wait, invited?”
“Yep!” Lydia agrees with a snort, and a smile. “I think I’m the only person who’s been asked to be there, rather than demanded. Even Nigel follows the schedule.” She shrugs, but continues on with her point.
“I get to her office, and on a rack on it’s own was the dress. She had a picture of the original, and she much preferred what I’d done to it. The dress made the cover, and any complaints the designer had was quickly put on the back-burner when Miranda got involved. From what I understand, he wanted me gone for ruining his ‘art,’’ Lydia raises her hands and makes quotation mark signs in the air with her fingers. “But apparently, Miranda chewed him up and spat him out. She kept the dress in the issue to fulfil a contract obligation, but his designs have never been in the magazine again. Nigel told me afterwards that the designer had been very racist when he found out who’d altered the dress, and the lovely Editor in Chief hadn’t taken very kindly to that.”
Lydia gets a faraway look in her eye. “She kept me behind after that run-through, and told me that for the rest of my time there, I would be altering and changing clothes that needed it as I saw fit. With Nigel there, obviously. Then, when my internship finished, she’d recommended me to the college, and she wrote a letter. Next thing I know, I’m being offered a full ride for my degree.”
“Holy shit.” Andy sits with her mouth open. Lydia’s college was prestigious, wealthy and it seemed easier to get a ticket to the Oscars than it was to be accepted into the programs there. “Will you graduate and then go into designing?”
Lydia shakes her head, her beautifully coiffed curls bouncing. “Nope. I want to do what Nigel does.”
It hits Andy like a bag of rocks to the face. Miranda Priestly looked after those she considered to be her people, and they returned that loyalty tenfold. Just look at Emily. The twitchy redhead had her quirks, but the entire magazine knew that to get to Miranda they had to get through her, and if the redhead dug in her feet and refused, then they wouldn’t get passed her.
“She doesn’t know that I know that she got me in. Just like I know that she set up the scholarship to cover my fees and living expenses.” Lydia sips her water. “So when I tell you that I pray to the alter of Miranda Priestly, I mean that shit. And a lot of other people in the industry do too. Her word opens and closes a lot of doors.”
Andy blinks in an impressed stupor, snapping out of it when the waiter arrives with their meals, the conversation going quiet as the young man places the plates on the table and then leaves again.
“You met the girls yet?” Lydia asks offhandedly, cutting into her steak and looking over at Andy.
“The girls?” Confused, the brunette has no idea who she’s referring to.
“Oh that’s a no, then.” Lydia laughs. “Miranda’s twins like to play a few pranks on the new assistants when they deliver The Book.”
“I haven’t delivered it yet, that’s Emily’s job.”
“Hm, something tells me that soon it will be your job.” Lydia winks at her, raising her fork to her lips. “Just a hunch.”
“They’re that bad?” Andy grimaces, not liking the idea of having to deal with children that were incapable of behaving.
“They’re good girls, once you get passed the ‘deliberately annoying kids who don’t like strangers in their home’ bit. The good thing is that you don’t have to meet Stephen, seeing as Miranda is already in the process of divorcing him.” Lydia makes a disgusted face as she mentions the man’s name and stabs into her steak again.
“Stephen?”
“Miranda’s second ex-husband. Functioning alcoholic and serial womanizer. Miranda knew and didn’t much care, but she drew the line at him being a risk to her girls. She had their housekeeper stay when she wasn’t there to make sure that the idiot didn’t get too drunk around the twins.”
“Oh that’s horrible. Those poor girls.”
“Poor girls! Ha!” Lydia shakes with mirth. “They hated him, but tried to be fairly civil. The most mature seven year olds that I’ve ever met.”
Andy salts her fries, and digs into the small pile. “You’ve met them?”
Lydia nods with a smile. “Yep. They love Harry Potter, which is a bit of info you should keep in your brain. It will go a long way when you meet them.”
“Oh my God, not a problem!” The look Lydia sends her makes the brunette giggle. Andy quite enjoyed the books, having bought the set on a whim in a garage sale and had fallen into the world of magic with ease. Lydia was well aware of Andy’s love for the books, and had fondly listened to rants on plot-holes more than once in their short friendship.
The discussion soon turns away from Runway, Miranda and her girls and turns towards Lydia’s latest designing problems, and Andy’s apartment hunt for a reasonably priced studio in the city.
Lydia makes sure to hug the brunette before she disappears down the subway steps.
“Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be just fine, Andy. Don’t stress. Call me tomorrow and fill me in!”
Andy waves off the cheery fashion student, and begins to walk down the street, intending on finishing the third Harry Potter book before sleep but when she arrives home, she immediately falls into bed, knowing that tomorrow would be a very busy day.
She forgets to read the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that’s on her bedside table as she’d planned, falling asleep as soon as she'd changed and her head had touched the pillow.