Work Text:
Miranda had caved into her daughters’ pleas to be allowed to take driving lessons with tremendous reluctance. She had taken great pains to remind them that she would readily arrange for their own private drivers, and tried not to take consummate offence when such an offer was summarily rejected. Honestly, independence was so overrated, she thought.
She had also presumed that the highest-scoring instructor offered by the financially ruinous (to anyone but those in Miranda’s own, very small, tax bracket, that was) agency surely also had to be overrated. With a name like his it seemed a certainty. Whoever named their child ‘Andy’ was all but inoculating said offspring against general success in life.
So it was with a strange mix of relief and displeasure she reflected on the fact that her girls had not only taken to the lessons themselves with unbridled enthusiasm, but spoke of their teacher in similar terms. Only a few words at a time, mind. Miranda cut such discussion off with ferocious discipline.
In other areas of her parenting, it soon became apparent that she had cause to contemplate the horrific prospect that the aforementioned ferocious discipline may have slipped. The inciting incident in question being that of the previous weekend. Roy had been enjoying his rarely taken annual leave when the girls had called - to her immense displeasure and even more immense alarm - slurring, asking to be picked up from a friend’s house party. (A soon to be former friend, if Miranda had anything to say about it).
She had been forced to engage an alternative - and unknown - chauffeur company, who she had not the opportunity to vet the suitability for transporting her precious offspring in (and who could very well have been involved in trafficking, gang violence or simple lechery, for all she knew). It was perhaps the first time in over thirty years that Miranda had lamented her own lack of a New York driving license.
And so the - to anyone else, and up until that moment, Miranda herself - unthinkable had happened. Miranda Priestly had decided it was a matter of necessity to secure herself a license. Not that she intended to make use of it, mind, but merely as a back-up lest her darling daughters decide to succumb to the lures of unquestionably poor-quality alcoholic abundance.
Honestly. If they must imitate the habits of the hordes of undesirable men whose acquaintance Miranda had been forced to make, could they not have at least opted for a reasonably aged scotch? It really reflected terribly badly on her own parenting. Not the drinking part, but rather that she had failed so utterly in installing good taste in those who ought to have had a genetic predisposition towards quality beverages in the first place, if the oh-so-delightful scent of Bud Light adorning their breath was anything to go by.
Her thoughts digressing, she shook her head and made her way to the door. Emily number twenty-six (or was it twenty-seven?) had assured her that her initial session with the renowned Andy was booked in for two minutes’ time.
Stepping over the threshold of the townhouse, Miranda was at least slightly gratified that the instructor had the discipline to arrive suitably in advance. Her eye roved over the car itself. She had simply refused to learn how to drive in an automatic vehicle - while the prospect of operating any car induced a shiver down her spine (and not of the pleasant variety) - Miranda Priestly had never settled for a job halfway-done or mediocrity in her life. She had precisely zero intention of starting now.
So a manual it was. Even if the car was painted in a really rather hideous shade of cerulean.
Less hideous - though she by no means would dream of admitting it - was Andy. Who was not a man at all, but a woman. Far younger than her, perhaps still flirting with the opposite side of thirty than the one Miranda herself had passed long ago. No Runway model, but with flowing brown hair, similarly colored eyes - and a friendly white smile.
That was the most disconcerting part. Since when had anyone smiled at Miranda, or dared to greet her in any way warranting the descriptor ‘friendly?’
“Hello!”
Her voice was not that of a native New Yorker. Ignoring the irritating voice in her head which chastised her for her hypocrisy - Miranda’s accent was very well cultivated, betraying no trace of her English origins, thank you very much - she determined that it was likely somewhere Midwestern. Well. Normally she would have been driven to despair, but they were supposed to be quite good with cars in the Midwest, weren’t they? All that…underutilised land.
‘Andy’ strode towards her, one hand extended - sans manicure, but shortly-clipped and neat enough nails, Miranda supposed.
“You must be Caroline and Cassidy’s mom!”
“That is correct.”
“What should I call you? Mrs Priestly, or…?”
Did this insufferably chipper woman genuinely think she could convince Miranda of ignorance of her identity?
“You may address me by my first name.”
Andy blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know it.”
It was something about her expression. But - God help her - Miranda realised that she had perhaps finally met the one resident of New York City who had no idea who she was. Why that induced an odd flip of her lower stomach was a question to be pored over her nightly glass of wine and not now, however.
“Miranda.”
“Miranda. Lovely to meet you. I’m Andy Sachs.”
“Please,” she murmured, “tell me that Andy is short for something. That cannot possibly be your given name.”
“Oh - oh, well, technically it’s Andrea, but no one calls me that. I don’t even know why my parents decided to -”
“ - Andrea.” She cut her off, and pointedly pronounced the woman’s name in a decidedly more European fashion than it had been initially delivered to her in. If the instructor really held no prior knowledge of her person - and thus none of the accompanying due fear - it was necessary to establish the usual power dynamic somehow.
“Andrea. Let’s make efficient use of both of our valuable time, shall we?” She said, inclining her head slightly, before moving to stride over to the drivers’ side. The instructor threw one hand out to halt her. Miranda reeled back before any physical contact could be made - clearly, she ought to have had her assistant brief the woman on the matrix of rules governing interactions with her person.
“Miranda,” Andrea said, irritatingly unbothered by the blatant rejection of her touch, “you can’t genuinely be suggesting you drive in those?’ She pointed to the four-inch Louboutin stilettos adorning the older woman’s feet.
‘Hold on,’ Cassidy said from the foyer. ‘We’re the same shoe size. I’ll grab something.’ She returns with a pair of bashed-up, bright blue converse sneakers which Miranda stared at with so much horror that one would think two starving pythons had been proffered in her direction.
“You expect me to wear… those? Where did you even find those? I thought I taught you that clearance bins are hotbeds of disease!”
“Ugh.” The sixteen year old rolled her eyes. “Just because you think the NFL is an acronym for a weird STD, it doesn’t make these sneakers any less on-trend.”
“How dare - “
“- Wonderful!” Andrea interrupted. “Now that’s sorted, shall we start?”
Miranda was loath to spend any more of her time - paid for, handsomely - debating the merits of hideous footwear. So she gritted her teeth - glancing up and down the street to make sure no errant Page Six photographer had sequestered themselves in a conveniently-placed bush - and slipped the converse on.
Then she followed Andrea into the car.
‘What an oddly positioned steering wheel,’ Miranda thought. While it was true she had not seen the inside of a car from the front seat in multiple decades, she nonetheless felt there was something different about it all then when she last had.
She was rudely jolted out of her ponderances by a chirp she was rapidly learning to be the instructor’s default method of speech.
“Well,” the younger woman said brightly, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know. Caro attempted to wear crocs to her first lesson.”
“Crocs?” Miranda repeated faintly.
“Yup!” Andrea looked relieved, as if they were finally achieving common ground. Unfortunately for her, Miranda’s objection did not lie in the pairing of crocs with driving, but the very ownership of crocs herself.
She shuddered, and made a mental note to have Cara fumigate Caroline’s section of the shoe-closet.
***
It soon became apparent what exactly she had thought strange about the steering wheel.
“Miranda!” Andrea shrieked. “Stop!”
“What on earth is the problem?” The older woman glowered as she did so.
Her instructor closed her eyes as if physically pained. “Miranda. You’re driving on the wrong side of the road.”
“What?”
“I had to stop you. If you’d turned out onto the street we’d have both been hit.”
“What do you mean, wrong side of the road?”
Andrea surveyed her with a look equally puzzled and concerned. “The left, Miranda. You’re supposed to drive on the right.”
“I’ll have you know that I distinctly recall driving on the left the last time I drove.”
“When was the last time you drove?”
“1974.”
“And in the decades since you forgot which way is left and which is right?”
Clarity made an unwelcome intrusion into the Editor’s brain.
“...In England.”
“Oh. I see. Um. Haven’t you ever noticed people drive on the right here? Like, when you’re being ferried around?”
“Firstly, I am going to have to ask you to refrain from using the word ‘like’ as a filler word. Secondly, no - of course not. I have tinted windows installed in Roy’s car to prevent my being visually assaulted by the sight of the delightfully-dressed population of New York. I have better things to do while travelling from one place to another than ruminate on the positioning of the vehicle on the road.”
“And you almost caused a pile-up now because of it.”
Miranda glared.
***
Unfortunately, rather than a rocky start, it soon became apparent over the next free weeks that Miranda's initial near-misdemeanor was, in fact, the first incident in an ongoing pattern. Namely, that she was exceptionally unskilled at best, and outright reckless at worst.
***
Andrea screamed.
So did the pedestrian the car had only just avoided running over.
Miranda kept silent.
"You better have excellent lawyers, Miranda." The sentence came out as a strangled gasp.
"Of course I have," the older woman replied, in equal parts confused and offended. "And do be serious, Andrea. With the thickness of that absolute Michelin Man monstrosity masquerading as a jacket, he would have sustained minor bruising at worst even if the vehicle had made contact."
***
"What's this?" Andrea asked, puzzled.
Miranda blinked. "A coat from Armani's latest collection, of course."
"But I already have a coat."
"That is a charitable definition."
"Why are you trying to give me a thousand dollar designer coat?"
"Five thousand."
"Christ. I can't accept this, Miranda. It's too much!"
.
***
"A winery subscription?" Cassidy asked. "Mom, Andy doesn't even drink wine. Just beer."
Miranda's nose crinkled. "I shan't enquire as to why you know that. And, well, what would you suggest? She refused to accept the clothing I bought for her."
"What clothing was it?"
"An exquisite cream trench by Giorgio."
The Editor's supreme displeasure at being laughed at was promptly directed at full force towards her younger daughter.
"Do enlighten me as to what you find so amusing."
"Maybe you need to go to the optician, Mom. Get a stronger prescription."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Clearly, you're blind, or at the very least your eyesight is failing you."
"What precisely do you mean? Or have you just taken to levying pointless insults with no intended result, which, after all, defeats the point of the very concept of insults themselves?"
"Come on, Mom. Andy probably thinks Giorgio is the name of a pizza place. It's like someone giving you a bag of fancy cat treats and saying it's for your pet because they never bothered to do their basic research and find out you have a dog instead. You gave her the sort of gift which said you don't know her - Andy, not interchangeable Runway employees - at all."
"Oh," Miranda replied, for once in her life suitably chastened. "What sort of thing do you think she would like, then?"
"I dunno - "
" - Don't know."
Cassidy rolled her eyes. "I don't know, maybe an experience?"
"An experience?"
"Something to do. Or something valuable. Like, actually valuable."
"Something to do," Miranda echoed, as if to herself.
***
"Caro," Cassidy said the following weekend, "Mom's lost the plot."
"How so?"
"She keeps on buying Andy stuff and refusing to explain why. But it's like the most insane things. Clothes, alcohol, an artisanal coffee maker, and yesterday, opera tickets."
"Opera tickets?"
"Yeah. And do you know what Andy asked me after her lesson?"
"What?"
"She pulled me aside and asked if Mom was trying to bribe her to pass her, or if she was trying to ask her out."
"What did you say?"
"Both, of course."
"Really?"
"Yes! Even if it was originally meant as a bribe, who the hell offers someone who they know to be single *two* tickets to the opera?”
***
"Miranda," Andrea sighed, gazing down at the seven carat - at least - diamond tennis bracelet she had just been presented with. "You do realise this won't compensate for me passing someone who is, at present, a danger to life unaccompanied on the roads."
"What on earth do you mean? A fine cannot possibly exceed half a million dollars."
Andrea paled. "Half a million dollars?" she squeaked. Then - impressively quickly - recovered to shake her head.
"Miranda, we're not just talking about fines here, or any questions of money. I'd be committing felony fraud and risking time in jail."
"Fine," Miranda replied. "Keep it in any case. It's non-returnable and not my style."
Andrea blinked.
***
"Mom! I meant valuable like personal, not five years salary valuable!"
"I thought I had raised you better than that, Bobbsey. It ought to be two years. Maximum."
***
Over the next ten lessons, Miranda became passably adept at remembering the location of the brake versus the clutch versus the accelerator. She also came to understand how one operated the gear shifts, and developed a comprehension of the meanings of road signs.
Andrea had remarked, "Wow, Miranda! You're doing so much better. At this rate, you'll only need a few more lessons."
Miranda had subsequently asked what the most difficult required manoeuvre was. And thus it transpired that she was absolutely abhorrent at parallel parking.
It was her first attempt. And, if how she approached it was anything to go by, it might have been her last.
How she approached it, specifically being swinging into the identified gap at twice the speed she ought, booting the car behind her into the kerb and smashing into the one in front with a sickening crunch.
For once, it appeared that the ever-loquacious Andrea was lost for words. Total silence stretched between the two women.
Eventually, Miranda huffed.
"What? It’s a tremendously outdated model, and insurance will cover it. It’s not like he can’t afford to replace it. Even if he does so with one in an even more hideous shade of carrot."
“Miranda…” Andrea said slowly, “do you know the owner of this car?”
“Oh, yes,” Miranda said. “It belongs to the CEO of the company I work at. Horrible little man.”
Andrea looked to be on the verge of fainting.
"In any case, it appears I am in desperate need of more lessons."
***
“You totaled Irv’s classic Ferrari, Mom?” Caroline gasped. “Way to go!”
“Oh dear,” Miranda replied, valiantly trying and failing to prevent a traitorous smile from curling around her lips. “I did not realise I was raising two proponents of vandalism.”
“Apples, trees, et cetera,” Cassidy yawned. “And anyway, wouldn’t it be considered criminal damage, not vandalism?”
“No, no,” her mother purred. “Not unless the chief of the New York Police Department wants me to enlighten his wife about his extramarital dalliances with his car mechanic. Can you really get any more cliché?”
***
Later that night, Caroline crept into Cassidy’s room.
“I think Mom might not object to a cliché of her own.”
“Took you long enough. I told you ages ago."
"Forgive me if I was a little sceptical about Mom having a crush on our driving instructor."
"You're forgiven. What convinced you that I was right in the end?"
"Andy said she told her she was doing really well, and that they'd only have to have a few more lessons. Next thing she knows, Mom's gone full Tokyo Drift on Park Avenue."
***
"Andy. We need to talk to you."
"Of course, girls. Is everything ok?"
"That kinda depends. Our mom's been playing you."
***
Andy shifted in her seat to face the silver-haired woman next to her. "So."
"So?" Miranda's eyebrows lifted.
"A little birdie - two little birdies, actually - told me that you might be a little more skilled than you're letting on."
"Two little birdies are by nature given to mischief-making."
"I wonder wherever they might have gotten that from?"
"What are you saying, Andrea?"
"Hmm. Tell you what - " Andy sucked in a breath, hoping against hope the twins had been honest with her - "as soon as you pass, I can drive you around? To, let's say, wherever the urge so strikes?"
Her companion's eyes widened, and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
"Acceptable," came the answering murmur.
***
It was a miracle. Miranda subsequently became fantastically proficient at driving. So fantastically proficient, in fact, that it took a mere week before she passed her test with flying colors, and shyly smiled in the reflection of her shiny new license.
In retrospect, she ought to have suspected something when Andrea had declared the girls ready to take their tests on the same date as her. But when she realised why, she could hardly complain.
For the girls had immediately insisted that they be allowed to drive themselves to their father's for their scheduled weekend away, and after much pleading, Miranda had begrudgingly given in.
The result being, of course, that she found herself alone in the townhouse on a Friday night, gazing down at her phone where a message from Andrea cheerfully flashed. She confirmed she was free that night, even if she had quirked an eyebrow at the request that she forego heels.
19:45 - Miranda: I do hope that what you have planned features neither strenuous exercise nor other people. I dislike both.
19:46 - Andrea: Happy to confirm no exercise or other people involved! :)
***
At eight pm precisely, an unusual noise roared through the otherwise sedate buzz of the Upper East Side street. Miranda reflexively crossed to the front window of her bedroom, where she had been finishing her hair. Looking down, she saw:
A large motorbike straddled by a smaller figure, coming to stop under the streetlamp outside her townhouse, bathing the vehicle and its rider in a soft amber glow. The rider, clad in leathers, who deftly dismounted the bike and removed their helmet.
Andrea's brown waves tumbled about her shoulders, and as she raised her gaze - as if she had been able to telepathically detect Miranda's presence, lurking at the window - to the first floor, she winked.
Miranda felt her jaw unhinge.
***
Fifteen minutes later, she found herself re-evaluating her previously held aversion to extreme sports. For the past thirty years, she had never travelled so visibly yet so anonymously through New York at night as she was in that moment, Andrea's spare helmet obscuring her hair, her own arms wrapped tightly around Andrea's waist, her chest pressed snugly into Andrea's back.
She had no idea where they were going, and in an uncharacteristic bout of submission to the whims of another, she did not enquire. Not that she suspected Andrea would have told her anyway if she had, most likely trotting out some platitude to the tune of 'spoiling the surprise.'
Either way, the city - and then not the city at all - whipped around them for the next fifty minutes. Miranda was not given to tolerating silence for such a time. But she would have been content to remain as she was for far longer yet.
***
"Harriman State Park?" Miranda breathed, gazing around the dazzling expanse of twinkling night sky around them. Andrea had insisted she turn around when they had eventually trundled to a stop, and then led her for what felt like a mile to the top of a hill, all while closing her eyes.
If Miranda had only complied because it assured the continued presence of Andrea's guiding hand at the small of her back, that was between her and herself only.
"Mmm-hmm," Andrea replied. "Thought you probably don't get much time away from the hustle and bustle. You know, to just - be."
"That I do not," she murmured - and in a fit of boldness, reached out to grasp the younger woman's hand.
"Shame. Oh, well. I've booked us a cabin - don't worry, separate rooms, I'm not, like, propositioning you or anything - so we can spend as long as we like out here."
***
Three hours later, entwined on the blanket Andrea had the foresight to bring along, clothes still (mostly) in place but breath thoroughly in need of catching, the younger woman sat up slightly and grinned.
"And to think *I* was worried about propositioning *you*."
Miranda smiled. Oh, she was very glad indeed that she had decided to acquire her driving license.
FIN