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It would come as a surprise to precisely no one that Miranda Priestly was not exactly on cup-of-sugar borrowing, neighbourhood-watch conspiring terms with her neighbors.
So much so that it had taken more than three weeks for her to realise that the residents to her immediate left had shuffled off this mortal coil. Such a realisation had only been prompted by the emergence of a ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard. With truly hideous graphics. Were it not a given that Page Six would somehow have planted a paparazzi in the bushes, knowing her luck, she would have had half a mind to sneak out in the small hours and spray paint it to meet more aesthetic criteria.
It had been entirely expected that the property would sell quickly. Prime Upper East Side real estate was always a hot market, after all. But the appearance of moving vans - really, Miranda thought, U-Hauls? - within the space of a week was remarkable, even by those standards.
It was a pity, really. Barbara and Gerald (or was it Brenda and George? Bathsheba and Gregory?) - had been her favourite type of neighbour - the sort who left her alone. Their pets, less so.
Whoever her new neighbour was, they had to have better taste than the previous ones in that regard. They’d had cats, of all things. Miranda shuddered. She was far too much like a cat herself to get along with any actual ones. Something about territorialness, she suspected.
Patricia (God rest her soul) had once trotted inside, whining, and Miranda had quickly identified the cause of the sound as the two siameses plonked firmly in the centre of her back garden - awful things, no respect whatsoever for property boundaries.
If Miranda had strode out, physically dropped to all fours and emitted an almighty hiss in their direction, and if that had sent them scrambling, not to be seen for another year - well. That hadn’t happened. Definitely not. If a tree falls in the middle of an empty forest and no one’s there to see or hear it, and all that…
***
As it transpired, while the newest occupant had appalling taste in transportation company brands, they did, in fact, compensate for it by their choice in animal companionship. Miranda had been reclining just inside her porch when a tennis ball had flown over the wall, landing squarely opposite her through the doors.
God, Miranda thought. Please do not let them have semi-feral children with no respect for privacy.
But she could not let the object mar her otherwise perfectly kept lawn. As she approached, it became clear that the ball was flecked with spit. Her first reaction was one of utter disgust, and she promptly turned around to fetch a rubber glove before returning. Her second?
Oh, thank goodness. It’s a dog.
And it was. Drawing closer to the fence, she heard the distinctive sound of eager panting, and straining on tiptoe to look over the boundary, she was greeted by the obscenely joyful face of a remarkably pale-colored golden retriever, smiling up at her with all the innocence of a sheltered toddler.
Miranda herself had not been able to bring herself to get another dog after Patricia’s death eight years previously. This was exacerbated by the twins’ departures to college and then their own homes, but it had also increased the prickling loneliness of a constantly empty house.
Miranda had also never contemplated something as petty a crime as theft. She had no need, after all. But in that moment, staring down into huge blue orbs, she indulged in the fantasy of abducting her neighbour’s pet and whisking it away into her living room.
“What’s your name, hmm?”
The dog panted stupidly, gazing up at her with naked adoration. She really was going soft, if an affectionate look from an honest-to-God animal was enough to induce a calmness in her that had been wholly absent for months.
Hmm. Perhaps it was time to consider visiting a shelter.
***
The blizzard which hit the city the next week was, to put it mildly, abhorrent.
It also had the unfortunate consequence of Cara being completely unable to travel to the townhouse, and all restaurants which Miranda would deign to consume the product of were closed. Ten years ago, had the twins been at their father’s, Miranda would have simply substituted wine for dinner. Regrettably, she had reconciled herself to the fact that this was no longer a sustainable practice. Her hangovers - once mild and subdued by virtue of sheer willpower - had intensified in recent times to the point of causing her complete inability to function the following day.
How wonderful.
She realised that demanding Cara trek through the streets had not even crossed her mind as a possibility. Perhaps, she thought, her mind involuntarily travelling back to a time when she had attempted to secure airborne passage through a veritable hurricane, she had mellowed with the advancing years.
Even more wonderful.
The editor was drawn out of her sulky stupor by the short, sharp trilling of her doorbell. Her brow furrowed as to who it could possibly be - or what.
The door was carefully drawn open, and she left the latch on. Whoever was insane enough to knock in this weather was not necessarily someone she wanted to grant carte blanche access to the threshold to her home. But there was no one there; she was greeted merely by the ferocious swirl of sleet and wind. Just as she was about to growl in frustration at being pointlessly disturbed, she looked down and saw:
A dutch oven, of all things. If the rapidly rising steam was anything to go by, it was hot. She wrapped a scarf around her hands, bent down and picked it up. The scent hit her like a ten-tonne truck. As to what it was, she could not immediately identify, but it smelled of fat and carbohydrates and everything else that she had not deigned to consume since before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Her stomach, apparently, deemed it the perfect opportunity to break such a streak.
In the kitchen, the lid was drawn off with the same caution exercised by a bomb-detonation expert. To Miranda’s consummate embarrassment, she was unable to prevent a heady groan from escaping her at the sight before her.
Fresh corn chowder - so fresh that it was still bubbling. Aluminum foil sat in the corner of the pot, and when she drew it away, it revealed an equally hot bread roll of some description, flecked with rosemary and glistening with olive oil and sea salt.
Alone she may have been, but Miranda would have put money on the walls judging her. They had not borne witness to such a copious quantity of butter in nigh on thirty years - and certainly not contained within a single dish. And as for the cream…
That night, sleep came easier and deeper than it had in decades.
***
A week later, Miranda determined that her newfound habit of sitting next to the window which overlooked the neighbor’s garden in hope of seeing the dog was a sign.
By the time nightfall came, she was feeling the best she had in months. This had nothing to do with the warm furry mass sprawled over her lap - no, not at all. She had called Nigel and asked him for advice on reputable shelters. Despite arriving with no preconceived notion of what she was looking for - a thoroughly unusual development - the decision had been made with complete surety.
The majority of the place’s inhabitants had regarded her warily. After a half-hour or so, Miranda was feeling rather dejected on account of it. But then a chocolate lab had bounded up to her, meticulously sniffed around and promptly settled down at her feet, blinking up at her with hopeful brown eyes. Upon being informed the dog in question was ex-service (and so very well-trained, Miranda was pleased to find out) she had promptly decided it was a sign.
The name was a little more difficult, but in an atypical moment of levity - almost certainly prompted by the embarrassingly intense relief that there were still some living beings who saw fit to treat her with affection - an idea had come to her in a flash. On the ride back to the townhouse she had pulled out her phone and placed a call to the source of her inspiration.
“Nigella, Miranda? Really? You named your new dog after me?”
“They may be in their thirties, but the girls would have fought if I had named her after one of them. And you - for some unknown reason I shall not query - are just about the only other person who would dare greet me as casually as Nigella did, so it seemed fitting.”
“Well. Consider me honored.”
***
Was it vaguely undignifying to be watching her neighbor’s windows from the attic with near-religious fervor? Perhaps. Yet Miranda had become unduly curious about putting a name - or at least a figure - to the unexpected delivery which she would never admit to still be dreaming about a week later. She rationalised this on the basis that the dog had so endeared itself to her that it had become an obligation to ensure the owner was of sufficient standard before she gave into Nigella’s whining pleas to be let over the fence to play.
And yet. And yet.
It certainly had nothing to do with grappling with the complete novelty of being the recipient of a seemingly random act of kindness.
***
It took four days of whiling away the evening with the Book, a glass of wine (and a resolutely dark view of windows) but eventually a light flicked on in the floor roughly opposite the one she eyed it from.
The silhouette outlined against the window was that of a woman of indecipherable age. Her hair was long and thick, but the brown was shot through with light gray. Miranda reflexively chastised herself for making assumptions on account of one’s hair color - she had forgone her once scarlet strands entirely naturally (albeit prematurely) at thirty-five, after all.
And then the woman turned, her profile illuminated in soft golden light. Even twenty years later, it was unmistakable.
Andrea Sachs. Andrea Sachs, whose international journalistic career Miranda had categorically not followed with borderline inappropriate interest, whose newfound deputy editorship of Rolling Stone had absolutely nothing to do with Miranda granting advance releases of Runway to the publication in question. Andrea Sachs, who - who - enough, she told herself.
Miranda had never been one of those dog owners who let their pets sleep on their bed. It seemed necessary that night. Insomnia’s grip would have been far too strong otherwise.
Against her better judgement, she made no intervention when Nigella jumped the fence for the first time the following morning.
***
“Andrea Sachs!”
Two weeks later, Miranda stood on the doorstep next to hers, having rapped the knocker with consummate impatience.
“Andrea! I know you’re in there! Open the door!”
It took a completely unacceptably long time of approximately thirty seconds before the latch clicked and the door swung wide. Miranda swallowed. While she had not been expecting to see Andrea circa 2006, being face to face with the noticeably older incarnation of the second assistant she had failed to purge her memories of was an entirely different matter to spying on her through the window.
Andrea, conversely, appeared completely unsurprised.
“Miranda Priestly. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’m afraid I am not here to make a Hallmark-style, friendly little house call. Your dog - your dog, charming as I’m sure he is, has impregnated mine!”
Andrea’s eyes widened, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“You’re sure - “
“Well, the shelter told me Nigella was spayed, but evidently not. And there is only one suspect who she spends enough time with for - “
“ - Nigella? Shelter? You got a dog from a shelter and named it after Nigel?”
“That is not the point at hand, but yes and yes.”
Andrea blinked, as if she couldn’t be certain she wasn’t having a particularly vivid hallucination.
“The more pressing question is why on earth yours has not been neutered?”
“He's only just over a year old. The vet told me to wait for fourteen months to let his bones and joints fully develop. I actually have an appointment booked for two months’ time.”
“I see.”
“Um, so.” Andrea shifted from foot to foot and ran one hand through her hair. “What’s the plan for puppy distribution? And does this make us some weird variation on in-laws now?”
Miranda closed her eyes.
“Sorry,” Andrea said. “Maybe you should come in first before we discuss this?”
“That would be acceptable,” she murmured. “I would prefer not to litigate custody arrangements on the doorstep like a scene from a particularly sordid soap opera.”
***
While she made no comment which would have revealed it, Miranda found herself begrudgingly impressed by the interior of Andrea’s house. It was homely and warm where hers was ornate and cool, certainly, but the furniture did not look like she had fished it out of a dumpster, and the place was flooded with natural light.
As she settled down on the couch, it seemed in her care to position herself as far away from Andrea as possible, she had forgotten to maintain control over her voice.
“How on earth -” Miranda cut herself off, appalled at the horrifically impolite question she had almost allowed to escape from her mouth.
How unfortunate that Andrea seemed to have retained her uncanny ability to predict her every thought.
“ - did I afford to buy this house?”
Miranda sniffed, which was as good as an acknowledgement that yes, that was the line of enquiry which had risen to mind.
Andrea smiled, but it was one tinged with a definitive air of melancholy.
“Turns out when the multi-national media conglomerate who owns your former place of work doesn’t do its due diligence and sends you into a warzone, and you wind up in intensive care for six weeks as a direct result of corporate negligence, you can negotiate one hell of a compensation package in return for signing an iron-clad NDA. Which I’ve not broken, by the way. It only prohibits me from speaking to the press.”
Miranda swallowed.
“And you chose to purchase the residence next to my own?”
“It was on the market.”
“That is not quite what I was asking.”
“Are you really complaining about my proximity? Means you get impromptu corn chowder deliveries, after all.”
Against her better judgement, Miranda smiled. “I will be expensing you for whatever surgery I now undoubtedly require to clear the artery blockages I have developed after consuming that.”
Andrea beamed, and it was striking how such a simple thing as an alteration in expression could take ten years off her face. Speaking of…
“Was this - “ she waved idly towards Andrea’s hair - “caused by the, ah…”
“Small matter of getting caught quite literally in the crossfire? Yeah.”
She paused.
“I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, but the decision to keep it - not dye it, I mean. It was inspired by you.”
Even had she been minded to do so (which, for some reason, she was not) Miranda was unable to stop the sudden ascent of her eyebrows near into her hairline.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
***
Miranda had been only too happy to accept Andrea’s declaration that Onion - honestly, what kind of reprobate names their dog after a particularly noxious-smelling variety of bagel? - was not going to be a deadbeat dad. Even Nigel would find it a consummate challenge to get her to admit that walking the two of them each evening with Andrea had rapidly become the highlight of her day. And even if some of their exchanges were downright confounding.
“Have you ever thought about how dogs resemble their owners?”
“I can't say that has ever crossed my mind. And if anything, mine has your coloring and yours mine.”
“I mean, more personality wise. Nigella's so well-behaved and runs away from puddles. I don’t know how you do it. Onion’s clumsy as hell.”
(Miranda chose not to think about the implications of a younger, less graceful dog with an absurd name successfully luring an older, ostensibly disciplined one onto its property with nefarious intentions.)
***
What she was less pleased with was Nigella’s habit of curling up with the father of her children whenever she got the chance. Namely because it meant she was not curling up with Miranda on such occasions.
“Pathetic old woman.”
“What was that?” Andrea called from across her dusk-lit yard. Miranda stiffened. She had not realised she had spoken out loud, that she had given voice to such humiliating thoughts.
“Nothing, Andrea.”
“No, no,” the younger woman said, ungracefully hopping over the fence (whenever had Miranda given her permission to do that? Why did reprimanding her for it feel completely out of the question?)
“I heard you. What on earth are you talking about?”
Miranda swallowed the last of her scotch. Her second scotch - or was it her third?
“Nigella,” she dramatically pronounced, “has abandoned me.”
Andrea blinked in confusion. “She's right there, Miranda.”
She cocked her head to the other end of the yard, where both dogs were entwined in a heap of sleepy fluff.
“I have been left for other women before, Andrea, but never for a man.”
Much to her annoyance, the other woman giggled.
“More fool them, then. And there’s only one thing to do about that.”
“What?”
“Give them a taste of their own medicine, of course.”
It was simply attributable to the pursuit of revenge that Miranda acquiesced to being wrapped tightly in human arms for what felt like (and what probably was) the first time in over a decade.
Yes, that was right. This...cuddling business had no other rationale save showing her dog who was boss. Absolutely no other rationale at all.
***
The renovations - namely, the knocking-down of the wall connecting their kitchens - went very smoothly. They had been necessary, after all. Miranda had decreed that while she was quite capable of providing financially for all three of Nigella’s puppies, it was also fair to grant Onion visitation rights. Andrea had readily - suspiciously readily - concurred.
They had also managed to collaborate productively on naming. Miranda had insisted on a common theme, just as she had bestowed those of equal syllables and identical starting letters on her own twins. Andrea, in turn, pointed out that both parents’ names could constitute a type of seed.
Sesame, Pumpkin, and Sunflower were, without a doubt, the most spoilt puppies ever to exist.
***
“Andrea!”
“Yes, Miranda?”
“The dogs have colonised my bed again.”
“Smooth, Priestly, real smooth.”
“What?”
“I completely understand. None of your other five beds are sufficient to sleep in.”
“Well, if you’re going to be like that…”
“I was joking. Come on up. Has your central heating given up again too?”
“Honestly. I don’t know whatever could possibly be wrong with it. It has taken to breaking so frequently.”
“So frequently. Astonishing, really.”
***
“Andrea. You do realise that given we are both women - oh - that is plastic - oh, God! - and I am distinctly past childbearing age, you will not be successful in - ah - your endeavor to replicate the exact relationship dynamics between our do - o - oggs?”
“Miranda,” Andrea gasped, “don’t bring them up at a time like this!”
Then she slowed her movements and grinned down wickedly.
“Is that a complaint? Because if so, I can always stop…”
“Don’t you dare.”
FIN