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"Coat. Bag."
Emily pointed at Karen, who leapt up from her chair and fumbled for the required items as Miranda breezed out of her office, taking them from Karen's hands without a glance in her direction. Emily was fairly sure by this point that Miranda knew Karen's name, but didn't quite feel like using it yet.
She glanced at the clock. 12:15, sharp. Miranda's heels clacked down the hallway towards the elevator. She hadn't told Emily to call the car, or make reservations anywhere for lunch; she hadn't even let anybody know she was planning to go out, until she called for the coat and the bag.
"Is she gone?"
Emily looked up to see Nigel sidling into the office. "Just left," she said.
"This is getting obnoxious," Nigel said.
"Does she plan to keep this up forever?" Karen asked, her voice a cross between "timid" and "wanting to be a part of the office 'in' crowd, yes, really."
Nigel dropped a twenty-dollar bill in front of Emily. "My bet goes to 'no.'"
"You've already got money in," Emily said, but nevertheless, she unlocked the top desk drawer, and removed a fat zippered envelope already bursting with cash. Beneath the envelope lay a carefully annotated list of names and contributions--written in code, of course. That way, if Miranda came across it, she'd have to work out what it meant while everybody else had time to flee underground and learn to live off mice and rats.
"I'm putting in more," Nigel said. "Let's just say I'm feeling especially intuitive today."
"And what does your intuition tell you?" Emily asked, trying to sound waspish instead of eager as she listed Nigel's latest bet on the ledger.
"A cool twenty on her revealing all at the Friday benefit," Nigel said. "No hedging. I'm all in, baby."
"What makes you think she will?" Karen asked eagerly.
"Was there some part of 'intuition' that escaped you?" Nigel asked, without turning to face her. Karen wilted visibly, and Emily preened. Nobody in the office could stand Karen, which was probably why Miranda kept her around. Just another way to make everybody's lives wretched. Emily had a sneaking suspicion that Karen had only been hired in the first place because she was ugly, but had a good résumé--just like Andy, only Andy had been fat instead. And Emily had no idea what Miranda was thinking with that, because after all, Andy hadn't exactly worked out, had she?
"Anyway, it's wearing thin," Nigel said to Emily. "You can tell."
This was true. You certainly could. While Miranda could be beautifully devious about almost everything, she was never subtle about hiding her irritation, impatience, or displeasure. And everyone could tell that she was growing weary of her subterfuge.
Which was funny, because everybody knew about the subterfuge. No doubt Miranda thought she'd been very clever all this time, having a secret lover. The only problem was, Emily and Nigel had known about it for months, and the rest of the office hadn't taken long to catch up. The betting pool had started almost immediately.
It had been so obvious. After returning from Paris, with the news of her impending divorce (and sans one Andrea Sachs), Miranda had been utter hell to live with. Well, more hellish than usual, at any rate. Nothing could please her; she almost raised her voice, once, and the entire office almost shat its pants in response. She stared out of the window all the time, brooding. The nadir had been, everyone agreed, the James Holt photo shoot, when she'd set it up just the way she wanted it, only to change her mind, say it was crap, and make the photographers start over. And then she'd left. Left. Miranda Priestly never walked out on a photo shoot. Poor James had needed a Valium.
But then, over the next couple of weeks, her mood lightened, and then lightened some more. The hardness, the bitterness, vanished from Miranda's mouth, where it had been pinching her lips. All of a sudden, someone could, occasionally, do something right. And everyone noticed. What did she think they'd put it all down to? Chloe's newest line of hobo bags?
Still, they hadn't been one hundred per cent certain until Miranda had, without warning, walked out of the office during lunchtime, without telling anyone where she was going. In fact, Emily hadn't noticed she was missing until she'd already left. That had started the nastiest panic attack of her life--had Miranda wanted her to call the car? Was Emily supposed to have made some sort of preparation? But there was nothing in the calendar. Nobody had called to make a last-minute appointment.
Certain she was going to be sacked whenever Miranda returned, Emily bewailed all this to Nigel. Nigel frowned, and looked very thoughtful, and advised, "When she comes back, don't say anything. Don't even act like you noticed she was gone at all."
That had been easy. 'Keep your head down' was, after all, standard operating procedure at Runway. So when Miranda came back, without a word of explanation, Emily said nothing. Nigel went in, said something to Miranda, and came back out with an incredulous expression on his face.
"Did you smell that?" he muttered to Emily, out of Miranda's hearing.
"Smell what?"
"Cheap Mexican food," Nigel said. "Smell that."
And that wasn't the last time, either. About once a week, Miranda would leave the office without a word to anyone, and would return smelling of what Nigel dubbed as "burritos or enchiladas or God only knows what, but I can't believe it." Whatever it was, at least Miranda hadn't actually been eating it, since she always dispatched Karen to get her lunch immediately after she returned.
And sometimes--just a few times--she returned smelling not of food, but of stale cigarette smoke and mothballs and dust and all the other smells associated with cheap motels that rented rooms by the hour. (When Emily asked Nigel how he knew about that, he glared at her and pointedly changed the subject.)
On the cigarette-and-mothball days, Miranda's hair was just a little messy when she returned, and her lipstick always looked as if it had been freshly reapplied. On those days there was a faraway, almost dreamy look in her eyes, and she was less abrasive than usual. Occasionally, she was almost pleasant. Once, in an unguarded moment, Emily had caught her smiling.
She might as well have purchased an enormous neon sign that read "I'M HAVING AN AFFAIR" and hung it, blinking, over her desk.
What nobody knew, of course, was the 'who.' The mysterious lunches had started just a few months after Stephen had left her, after all, and everyone knew she'd been devastated by that--though whether she'd been more devastated by his loss or by the public humiliation it heaped upon her was up for debate. Page Six had been as brutal as could be expected: "Snow Queen Reigns Alone." "Dragon Lady Toasts Another Knight In Shining Armor." Even if this affair was only a rebound, it still seemed awfully quick.
Over a late-night drink, Nigel, who'd known Miranda the longest, had spilled the beans to Emily. He'd seen her through two divorces, now, each one bitter, hard-fought, and painful. He remembered when she'd met Stephen: his suavity, their quick courtship, her happiness.
"But it wasn't quite like this," Nigel said, as the waiter refilled his wineglass. "I mean, she loved him, no question, and she wanted to marry him. She was happy to be with him. But this was two years after she'd divorced Greg, and well, the girls were seven years old then and you got the feeling she was kind of worried about them growing up without a dad around…"
It was supremely odd to think of Miranda this way, Emily decided, sipping at her own glass. It was even stranger that Nigel was talking about her like this to Emily, who'd been around a comparatively short time. But he'd been badly burned by Miranda in Paris, and Emily had been burned as well. Maybe, after everything that had happened, Nigel needed to think about Miranda, about what kind of person she really was, and share his thoughts with somebody who understood.
"This feels different," Nigel concluded, looking thoughtful. "She never hid anything about Stephen, for one thing. Of course, her first marriage had been over for years by then, so maybe that was it. But there's more to this, I'm thinking."
"Like what?"
"I mean--if this was just some secret thing, some kind of affair to help her get over Stephen…I don't know. She seems way too happy. I can't remember when I've seen her this happy. I don't think she's compensating. She's in love."
"I pity the fool," Emily murmured, remembering the dregs of some American television show she'd seen a long time ago.
"Better him than us," Nigel agreed, and they clinked their glasses together, laughing.
But that had been months ago, and now matters were coming to a head. The strain of keeping her affair secret was obviously starting to wear on Miranda. It had been going on for at least eight months, by Emily's reckoning, and possibly longer--there was no way to be certain. That was a long time to juggle Runway, a divorce, the twins, and a bit on the side. Miranda must be ready to move him to center stage by now, whoever he was.
"Keith Torrington?" Emily wondered. "Owns that chain of hotels…you know him, she met him in London last spring."
"Maybe," Nigel said. "I was thinking Pablo Veranno. Shipping magnate. I think she's secretly always wanted to be Jackie O."
"She wishes," Emily snorted, feeling very naughty, as if she were cursing in a church.
The rest of the office was more creative. Some of the bets were clearly taking the piss: "homeless guy in park," "your mom," and, Nigel's favorite, "the Yankees."
"Who knows? It might take a baseball team," he said. "And she'd never slum with the Mets."
Whoever he was, Nigel seemed positive that he was going to show up at the benefit with Miranda. When Miranda told Emily to arrange for her driver to pick her up earlier than planned, Emily became sure of it too.
"They must be planning to arrive together," she said. It went quite some ways towards explaining why Miranda was being even more of a control freak than usual. Every detail about the benefit had to be perfect, this time; more than that, once she gave orders, she triple-checked to make sure they'd been carried out. Incredibly, Emily had even caught her looking over the guest lists, as if she was actually trying to learn the guests' names herself.
"Because she's going to introduce him to people," Nigel said, nodding, when Emily told him this. "She has to know who they are, in that case. She won't want you hanging around and whispering over her shoulder if she's got him on her arm." Then he scowled in irritation. "She's not the only one who's on edge. The Emanuel Ungaro piece is missing for the shoot, and it's the only gown Natalia can fit into. Did you know she's four months pregnant?"
Emily gasped. "What? No!"
"Yeah. Well, Miranda doesn't know, obviously. But Nat's out now. That's fine, but I've got to find that dress. It's worth eight thousand dollars, and you know it didn't just walk off by itself."
"Maybe Natalia walked off in it," Emily sniggered. "Or waddled. Whichever."
"I wouldn't put it past her," Nigel said. "Speaking of dresses, what are you wearing to the big reveal?"
Emily had almost run through the Paris couture Andy had given her, but she'd saved this one specially: a divine little Sonya Rykiel piece. She'd look a dream in it. "You'll see," she said smartly.
"I don't know if I can handle that many surprises in one night," Nigel said.
Just then, Emily's phone bleeped. Freddie, one of the downstairs security guards, was alerting her: Miranda had just returned to the building and was on her way to the elevator. A whole hour had passed in gossip like the blink of an eye. Miranda would kill them if she knew. "Send out the signal," she said to Nigel.
"On it," Nigel said. He rubbed his hands together. "My God, I can't wait until Friday."
"I wish I could go," Karen said mournfully. "I bet it'll be really great."
"Sorry," Emily said, not sorry at all. Because this year's benefit was going to be a one-assistant-only affair.
Miranda didn't need Karen. She didn't need backup. She only needed Emily, and this time, Emily wouldn't fail her. Andy'd failed her, in the end, no matter how much promise Miranda had seen in her chubby face. But Emily wouldn't. Her tenure as Miranda's first assistant was almost up, and she was going to go out as a smashing success. And on Friday, looking gorgeous in Sonya Rykiel, she'd prove it. She'd be so on top of things that even Miranda, with a new beau on her arm, would have to notice. For once.
And with a little bit of luck, she'd scoop the pool, too. She'd hedged her bets enough that she stood a chance of coming out on top. Where she belonged.
Winner take all.
FIN.