Chapter Text
It starts with a phone call.
Andy had not expected to receive it, in all honesty. She had a plan and all - wait a few weeks, let her settle in at her new job, gather some intelligence and make the call. It would have been a very casual I’m around your office for an interview but I’m early, want to have coffee or something like that; nothing too pressing, an invitation that Emily could have declined without awkwardness, if needed.
Obviously, Emily does what she does best - disrupt her plans.
(Andy’s not angry about Milan. A bit disappointed, maybe, because she had put her trust in Emily only to see it betrayed. But she understands, too - she remembers the amount of hurt behind her icy eyes, the way she had recoiled after Miranda’s calm words. She can't really imagine what it must have felt like; maybe that's why staying angry had proved impossible)
So, yeah. There’s a phone call, and obviously Andy accepts the lunch invitation, because there’s no way she’ll refuse a hint of friendship from Emily, whichever it might be. And she’s curious, too - about Dior and Coach, about her and Benji, about so many things.
And then Emily says it - pals. Damn.
She had wanted to be friends all along - and Andy had missed that chance because she had never called her back. How silly of both of them.
We could have been friends all this time.
The realisation holds a slight bitterness that Andy immediately tries to shed away. Yes, they had wasted a lot of time. No point thinking about it for too long; it’s not like those twenty years will be given back, and she’d rather focus on becoming friends now.
She fishes her phone from her pocket, looking for her chat with Emily. They had exchanged a few messages during their attempt to save Runway - well, Andy’s attempt -, but apart from that, nothing.
Her fingers hover on the display, as she mentally debates whether or not it might be too early to organise another lunch together. She doesn’t want to sound overly eager, because Emily is definitely the sort of person who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone overbearing.
Which is why, just this once, she slips the phone back into her pocket. We have time, she realises with a smile.
*
“Judging by your great mood, I guess your lunch with Emily went well.”
Andy laughs in agreement, gaze fixed on the pan in front of her. She’s trying - emphasis on trying - to not burn the zucchini she’s currently cooking. For someone with such a love for food, she’s an incredibly inept cook.
“Andy, I swear they’re not going to burn if you stop watching them for five seconds,” adds Lily, voice half amused and half exasperated. “Stop staring at that stupid pan, I want details.”
“Details?” repeats Andy, finally allowing the zucchini to cook in peace. “It was just lunch.”
“Oh, please,” says Lily, with a blatant eye roll. “You were more nervous about meeting Emily than about Peter. And he’s your boyfriend, in case you’ve forgotten.”
She snorts, shaking her head, and smiles. “I haven’t forgotten, don’t worry. But you know how it is with Emily - there’s a lot of complicated history there,” she adds, and Lily’s eyes soften in understanding. “But we’re going to try being friends.”
“Attagirl!”, laughs Lily. “Then it really was a success. Though I guess your boss won’t be too happy about it.”
Andy gives a shrug. “What Miranda doesn’t know can’t hurt her, no?” she reasons.
And, in fairness - even if Miranda knew, Andy wouldn’t let it stop her. She’s forty-three, for God’s sake, she doesn’t need permission to make friends. Sure, she’s not going to broadcast it - though at some point they will end up crossing paths for work - but she refuses to miss that chance just because people at Runway might be angry about it.
She’s about to remark that to Lily when the unmistakable smell of something burning reaches her.
“Oh, shoot, the zucchini!”
*
Andy will never admit it aloud (especially because doing so would probably cause her violent death), but she likes post-Benji Emily way more than her predecessor.
First of all, not having to look at that idiot tailing Emily at all times is already an improvement. Honestly, she has no idea what her friend saw in him, save for his limitless credit card. He was just so… dull. The few conversations Andy had with him had left her more bored than the time she had tried to take up meditation.
So, yeah. No Benji is a great improvement. But there’s also the fact that, somehow, Emily feels more… real. Less polished. As if she had stopped pretending to be anyone other than who she really is.
And that person, at least in Andy’s opinion, is just fantastic. Emily’s fun. She has a dry sense of humour that never fails to make her laugh - even when it’s directed at Andy - and the uncanny ability to find new ways to insult people. Andy still has no idea what’s the problem with her own eyebrows.
On top of that, it’s always nice to be able to speak with someone who can actually hold a good conversation; they never lack for topics, even as they’re both avoiding mentioning Runway and Miranda.
Emily seems endlessly fascinated by the years Andy has spent far from New York, and she’s always happy to hear the stories she has chased around the world. Her first breakthrough article, when she had lived in Berlin with a Syrian family for weeks; the way she rushed to Kyiv in 2014, and the months she spent listening to the stories of the families divided by the war. Beijing, where she had interviewed dozens of so-called ‘leftover women’, Buenos Aires and the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who kept fighting for their children after decades.
Sometimes she fears she might be a bit of a bore, as passionate as she is about the people she has met, the stories she has heard, everything she has seen. But Emily never stops her; she listens and asks, eyes glinting with fascination, never discounting anything.
And, slowly, Andy learns about Emily, too; about the woman she is, not the one hiding behind a facade.
She learns that Emily is even funnier than Andy had expected, and kinder than she would ever admit to. That she is not from London as she always thought, but rather from Birmingham, and that she had moved to the City when she was eleven. That she cheers for a team named Aston Villa - and it’s called football, Andrea, not soccer - because of her father, that whenever she goes back to England they go together to the stadium. That she is harder on herself than on anyone else, which is saying something considerable.
She learns that asking about Bronwyn and Roark is one of the easiest ways to make her talk; just like any good journalist, Andy takes advantage of that opening, studies what Emily is saying and what she’s not saying. The pride that surfaces when she speaks about their achievements at school, the warmth when she describes a drawing Bronwyn made for her - that’s when Emily is less guarded, and Andy finds herself looking forward to those moments.
*
Barely a month after their first lunch, Emily arrives at brunch sporting a new hairstyle - and her old signature colour. It’s not the same red from before; it’s closer to the one from her twenties, bold and brash.
“Back to red?” says Andy, smiling. It suits her - definitely more than the platinum.
“Oh, right,” responds Emily, touching a strand as if suddenly self-conscious about it. “The bleaching was an experiment. A not-so-successful one.”
Andy lets out an easy laugh. “No, no. It wasn’t bad at all,” she says. “But red is really your colour, y’know?”
Emily hums, clearly not buying it.
“I’m serious, Em. The platinum looked great, too,” she insists. “Very, uhm, intimidating. Paired extremely well with your eyes.”
“I looked like a bloody Targaryen with regrowth, Andy.”
Andy’s snort is immediate and, to be entirely fair, inevitable. Emily’s dry remarks are even funnier when directed at herself, in that slightly self-depreciating tone.
“Fine,” she concedes. “How about this - the red feels more like yourself.”
Emily blinks; for a moment, she looks like she’s been caught off guard. “I-what does that even mean?”
Andy shrugs. “Nothing too profound, sorry.”
An eye roll. “Andrea Sachs, ladies and gentlemen. Pulitzer material.”
*
Her lunches with Emily soon turn into a weekly occurrence, more often than not, it's Andy who makes the journey to the West side, close to Coach's headquarters. One day, as Andy’s preparing to leave the office for a lunch with Emily, Nigel suddenly flanks her.
“And where,” starts Nigel, looking disinterested in the way it means the opposite. “Are you about to disappear now?”
“Lunch with a friend,” she smiles.
He tosses her a piercing glance. “Lily?”
“Nope.”
Andy knows she’s just tickling his curiosity and that it’s a very dangerous game to play, but she can’t really help it. It’s not like she’s hiding Emily, but she isn’t planning on volunteering that information. She doubts they would understand - and Emily’s name is still banned from Runway.
“Have I ever told you about my cousin Michael?”
Nigel’s tone is calm, almost casual, as if making idle chatter. Except Nigel doesn’t do idle chatter - which means Andy’s in danger. Mortal danger, judging by his face.
“Never heard of him. Can we talk about this later-“
“Michael,” interrupts Nigel, imperious. “Is married to a lovely young woman who works as sommelier in an Italian restaurant. And she’s a fan of your writing - so imagine how excited she was when she noticed that you were dining at her venue.”
“Nigel…”
“She thought about asking you for a picture, but apparently you were having so much fun that she didn’t want to bother you. Imagine my surprise when your date was described as someone incredibly similar to our backstabbing former colleague.”
Andy can’t help it - she gives Nigel her best eye roll. “It wasn’t a date.”
He raises an eyebrow in response. “Interesting choice of words. You deny that it was a date, not that you were dining with our dear miss Charlton.”
“No reason to deny it,” she chuckles. Seriously. It’s not like she was having lunch with Ted Bundy, come on.
Except that - judging by Nigel’s deep frown, by the way he looks at her over the top of his glasses - Ted Bundy might have been a better option.
“It’s treason then,” he declares with heavy gravity. Andy has to do her utmost effort to avoid cracking a smile at his dramatic flair. Then, she notices something else.
“Did you just quote Star Wars to me?”
The look he gives her is undeniably an exasperated one. “I most certainly did not.”
*
It doesn’t take long before they establish a sort of routine; one or two lunches during the week, brunch together every other Sunday, when Emily doesn’t have the children. A couple of dinners, too, when Andy manages to leave the office on time. One weekend, they agree to meet at a new bistro in Hell’s Kitchen.
“Sorry I’m late,” says Andy, dropping on the chair in a rather graceless way. “Lily’s kid was pretending to be a princess and I had glitter all over my head. Pretty sure it’s not all out.”
Emily gives a quiet laugh. “It’s not. You look like a maniac,” she says, then she extends her hand to sweep something out of Andy’s hair. “Here. You still had some here.”
“Thanks,” grins Andy. “Probably not going to be the last time you have to do that.”
Emily’s response consists in another small laugh and a slight, almost imperceptible blush on her cheeks. Andy had never noticed this in the past, but Emily did have a tendency to flush.
“So, Lily,” says Emily, with the hurry of someone who’s trying to move on from a particular point. “She was one of your friends from twenty years ago, right? What happened to your little merry band?”
A merry band indeed.
“Well, Lily and I are still friends. Best friends, actually,” she says with a warm smile. Her friendship with Lily is one of her most precious relations - one she had fought to keep. “Let’s see… Doug and I lost touch a few years ago, around the time I lived in Marrakesh. Nothing dramatic, we just drifted away; he moved to the west coast, and the time difference made it too difficult to keep in touch.”
Emily hums. “I see. And that about the boyfriend? The grilled cheese guy?”
“The what?”
Emily chuckles. “He was a cook or something, wasn't he? I gave him that nickname after you kept weaving poetry about his culinary skills,” her voice takes a sarcastic note. “And said his grilled cheese was to die for.”
“Well, it was.”
“It’s grilled cheese, Andy, for God’s sake, not the Gioconda,” huffs Emily. “Anyway, what about him?”
Emily sounds genuinely curious - which is why Andy parks another quip about the wonders of cheese and actually responds to her question. “He moved to Boston shortly after I left Runway. We tried to keep in touch for a while, but…” she shrugs. “It didn’t work out. He kept hoping I’d join him in Boston, but I wanted to travel, see the world.”
Emily doesn’t immediately respond; she looks at her glass for a few seconds, as if mulling on something. “His loss, then.”
“Aw, thank you,” grins Andy. Then, an afterthought. “Can’t believe you still remember the grilled cheese thing. It was twenty years ago!”
Once again, a little flush colours Emily’s cheeks. “Well, I have a great memory.”
Andy lets out an easy laugh. “That’s for sure. You would have been a good journalist, with that sort of eye for details.”
“Bloody hell,” scoffs Emily. “I just remember him because you wouldn’t shut up about the guy.”
*
Andy manages to be both unsurprised and caught off guard about the breakup with Peter.
Yes, things had not been going perfectly even after they went back together. They both work long hours, both have to face unforeseen commitments that can threaten their time together, both talk a bit too much about their jobs.
Still, she had expected an eventual breakup to be… well, slow. Something trickling for weeks and months before the inevitable resolution. Maybe even amicable, or as amicable as a breakup could be.
What she did not expect was that it would happen with a single furious fight about a missed date, as if they had been together for years and accumulated hundreds of little resentments. A sarcastic comment, a fight immediately out of control, and voilà, yet another relationship to the gutter.
What’s even worse is the realisation that she’s not even that sad about the breakup. She's more concerned about the fact that she isn't sadder - which, really, says a lot about the state of things between them.
The thing is, she had liked Peter. He was funny, usually supportive, a good conversationalist, and his choice in restaurants was excellent. And, in most of the periods of her life, that would have been enough.
But then he had said it - it's not like fashion has much of a future - seemingly concerned but really just dismissive, and something in Andy had snapped almost immediately.
She knows that tone; she had heard it so often before, from Nate and even her mother, from colleagues and friends. The one that said that the thing you care about is trivial, temporary, not quite serious enough to justify the amount of effort you've given to it.
She thinks of Emily and the way she had looked at her across the table, devoid of sarcasm, and said fashion has been a centre of focus of humanity for the past millennia, and you won't be alone. Despite everything, she feels slightly better.
Peter will join a long line of failed relationships, and that’s all. Sooner or later, there will be someone who doesn't make her feel like she has to justify the work she loves.
*
The day after the gala, Andy does her best to sneak into her office unnoticed - an almost impossible feat, considering its position.
She knows there will be talk. Andrea Sachs, senior editor at Runway, left arm of Miranda Priestly (the right arm position is definitely covered already), spent almost the entire evening speaking with Emily Charlton, VP at Coach, persona non grata.
Not that anyone has actually told her anything yet, but she has received already more than one glance as she walked to her desk.
She’s halfway through her second coffee, trying her best to put the final touches on an article, when Jin enters her office.
“Miranda wants to speak with you.”
Her quiet voice tears Andy away from her thoughts, and the editor downs the remains of her coffee. She types another few words on the keyboard before locking her computer.
“So, how mad is she?” she asks with a sigh, standing up.
“No idea,” says the junior reporter, a worried look on her face, and then she moves to open the door. “What did you do?”
She gives a faint chuckle. “Something she’s probably not going to be thrilled about.”
In all honesty, she’s not too worried about Miranda. Between the interview with Sasha, foiling Benji’s acquisition and saving Runway she’s pretty sure that - just this once - Miranda might let her go with a slap on the wrist.
The walk to Miranda’s office is extremely short; after all, they are only separated by Nigel’s office, so she doesn’t have much time to worry.
Charlie, sitting at his desk, shoots her a commiserating look; he mouths a good luck before she enters the room.
“Hi, Miranda,” she says, trying her best to be casual - and probably failing. She closes the door behind her with a soft sound. “You wanted to see me?”
“Andrea,” she salutes. For a few seconds she keeps writing in silence, then she taps her pen against the paper. “You looked quite busy yesterday.”
Miranda’s voice is calm, toneless, as it often is when she’s not happy about something or someone. The someone, in this case, seems to be Andy herself.
"I was networking," says Andy, which is technically true.
"Yes." Miranda sets down her pen, looks at her. "I noticed. As did, I suspect, everyone else in the room. Tell me - in the course of your very productive evening, did you happen to speak to anyone from the Tom Ford team?"
Andy already knows where this is going - she had seen the headlines. “Well, I-“
"No," interrupts Miranda. "You didn't. Otherwise someone might have found that their creative director is leaving. We read about it this morning in WWD, along with everyone else. I trust you can imagine how much I enjoyed that."
Fuck. Andy opens her mouth, then closes it. There’s not much she can say to justify herself, apart from placing the blame on the rest of the team - she was not the only one at the damn gala, come on -, but it’s definitely not something she’d ever do. And Miranda, in any case, wouldn’t care about it.
"I'm not interested in excuses," says Miranda, not unkindly. "I'm interested in it not happening again.”
She pauses for a moment, suddenly softer. "You're good at this, Andrea. This job, listening to the people and making them talk, knowing what's worth hearing. That's why you're here - make sure you don't waste it."
*
“… and that’s it,” concludes Andy with a sigh.
She’s at Lily’s apartment, slouched on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand. She has just finished retelling the events of the gala and the day she’s had - including, of course, the dressing down she had gotten from Miranda.
“Damn,” says Lily with a low whistle. “She really skewered you, didn’t she?”
“Not really. Twenty years ago she would have been vicious - I would have left that room in tears. Today she was just… concerned. A bit disappointed.”
And honestly, Miranda was not wrong. She had spent most of the gala at Emily’s side, chatting with her and laughing about menial things like who was wearing the worst outfit or who had just made the most horrible faux pas of the event. And that had been fun - terribly so, actually. Except she wasn’t supposed to be there to have fun.
Lily takes a sip of wine. "So let me get this straight. You ignored half the fashion industry because you were gossiping with Emily?"
Andy opens her mouth, then closes it again. "When you put it like that, it does sound kind of bad."
“Well,” Lily pauses, a smile tugging at her lips. “It is a bit unlike you. Usually you’re laser-focused at this kind of events.”
Andy’s mind goes back to that moment, to Emily’s grateful smile and the relief shining in her eyes. Not going anywhere, Em, she had said. And she fully believes it.
“Ah, I’m sure I just need a couple of days off. I’m a bit tired lately.”
She shakes it off, taking a long sip of wine. Lily shoots her a knowing smile.
“I’m sure you are.”
*
The breakup with Peter had an unexpected side effect: it made Andy think about all the things she thought she would have by now. Not the apartment or the career - those had worked out way better than she could have imagined at twenty-three - but, well, everything else. A partner, or the children one might assume she would have at her age.
And here’s the thing - Andy likes children.
She always has. She loves spending time with Lily’s kids, colouring books, playing dressed-up, getting covered in glitters, doing all the things that she might have done with her own daughter.
When she had frozen her eggs, she had really hoped that at some point she would have found the right person to, well, make Siobhan and Ester a reality. That person had never come, and, at almost forty-four, Andy’s pretty sure that Siobhan and Ester will most likely remain frozen forever. Which is a pity, because she really, really, would have loved to have kids.
Maybe that's why her curiosity about Bronwyn and Roark has grown steadily over the past months. Emily talks about them often enough, always with a warmth that Andy rarely hears in her voice; she doesn’t do that constantly, like some parents might do, but frequently enough that Andy feels as though she already knows them a little.
Roark was the more sensitive of the two, an avid learner and a good listener, more mature than his age. Maybe it’s because he could actually understand what was happening between me and Frank, Emily had said once with a little rueful smile. Bronwyn instead was more mischievous, with a quick wit, and got in trouble far more often than her brother.
She had expected Emily to make the introductions, at some point. After all, it’s pretty normal to introduce your kids to your friends, no? And Andy has been enough times at Emily’s apartment that she should have met them by now.
But said introduction has yet to arrive, even after a few months of friendship. At least until a random Monday, while Andy’s busy scouting a potential location for a shoot at the Natural History Museum; a task that, in all honesty, she couldn’t help but find a tad boring.
She’s half listening to the discussion between the photographer and the light guy when she hears it.
“All right.”
Emily?
A second look confirms her impression - yep, that’s really Emily. Her friend is talking to two children who cannot be other than Bronwyn and Roark; she still remembers their faces from the picture Emily had showed her months before. Andy doesn’t waste any time in nearing them.
“Ground rules. No running around. Inside voices. Don’t push-”
“Emily?”
Her interruption causes Emily to stop; all the three turn to look at Andy, who just beams at them.
“Thought you’d be busy with that presentation,” she says. “Didn’t expect to meet you here.”
Emily doesn’t immediately reply, maybe just too surprised by her presence; she looks strangely caught off guard, out of her element. Maybe because of the two kids who are currently giving Andy twin looks of suspicion - truly Emily’s offspring, she thinks amused.
“Oh! And you must be Bronwyn and Roark,” she adds with a broad smile. “It’s great to meet you, at last. Your mom speaks about you all the time.”
Emily gives her a look that seems faintly reproaching, but both children seem to preen at the comment.
“Bronwyn, Roark, this is my friend Andrea - she goes by Andy,” she says then. “Andy, these are my children. Roark, my eldest, and Bronwyn.”
“Hi,” mutters Bronwyn.
“Nice to meet you,” adds Roark, and he extends his hand in greeting.
How. Absolutely. Adorable.
Andy can’t help the thought - Roark is truly adorable. Not that she expected anything less from Emily’s son, but the boy seems just ready to take his place as heir to an English estate.
Still, Andy has spent enough time with Lily’s daughter to know that kids can be easily offended when are not taken seriously; so she extends her own hand, shakes Roark’s, and smiles.
“Nice to meet you both.”
She’s extremely aware that Miranda will probably murder her, but she can’t help it - her curiosity about Bronwyn and Roark is just too much. And it’s not like the photographer and the rest of the team won’t be able to deal with things without her; she’s just there to make sure they actually come to a decision. It’s just a short break, really.
And that’s why, not even five minutes later, she crosses the entrance of the museum trailing after Roark; already getting bombarded with questions about the halls and exhibitions they’re going to see, and despite everything, she can’t find the will to get worried about her job, Miranda or Runway.
-
In Andy’s opinion, there are few things as good as eating a hot dog in Central Park, especially when the sun is shining, the park is mostly freed of tourists and the leaves crunch under their steps. The visit at the museum had been an absolute success - Roark and Bronwyn had loved it, and even Emily now seems way more relaxed than she had been at the beginning.
Really, there’s only one more thing that could improve things.
“You know what could really make this day perfect?” asks Andy, a glint in her eyes. Emily immediately throws her a look of suspicion. “Ice cream.”
She knows it’s risky - Emily doesn’t strike her as the type of person who would allow too many exceptions to the usual rules - but both kids turn to their mother, twin pleading looks in their eyes.
“Please, mummy?”
She doesn’t even need to look at Emily to know she’s lost that fight before it even started. She’s pretty sure that Bronwyn’s mummy would have broken even Miranda’s resistance.
Emily gives a long dramatic sigh, tutting in fake disappointment; then, with the expression of someone who was allowing a one-time-only event, she nods.
“Fine, you can have an ice cream.”
Both kids yell in triumph before sprinting towards a nearby stall; this time Andy doesn’t try to race them, mindful of her earlier loss.
“You are a terrible influence,” mutters Emily as she flanks her. “Hot dog and ice cream. How utterly American.”
Andy can’t help it - she just explodes into a laugh. “You’ve lived here for more than half of your life, Emily. Isn’t it time for you to become a bit American, too?”
“Never.”
“You’ll see. I’ll make a mission of transforming you into a perfect New Yorker - a few months and you’ll finally use the word soccer.”
“It’s called football, and I’d rather die.”
Emily’s flat tone is betrayed by the hint of a smile that lingers on her face. She’s staring at her children ahead of them, a warm softness in her eyes that Andy had never seen before, hair slightly tousled by a sudden gust of wind.
She’s beautiful.
The thought is not surprising, nor a revelation - Emily is beautiful, and this is certainly not the first time she notices it. But there’s a different beauty between work-Emily - all edges and sharp smiles, without a single strand of hair out of its place - and this Emily. Softer, somehow - more like herself. Less guarded.
“Mum, Andy! Come on!”
Bronwyn, already queuing at the ice cream stall, waves at them impatiently from the stall. They just laugh, quietly, and move to join her.