Note the First: This is late, and a bit short, but hopefully does justice to Paris.

Note the Second: Andy's bit about long-term effects on happiness is based on an actual 1978 study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?


Douglas cleans up nicely. Unlike Andrea, he has no qualms about subjecting himself to an image upgrade, from stylish haircut to $2,000 Salvatore Ferragamo crocodile loafers. If those are what he chooses to wear on the plane, Miranda will admit to some curiosity as to what he and Nigel will have put together for the rest of Fashion Week.

"You will sit with me," she instructs as they board, gesturing for him to trade tickets with Jocelyn, who sags with relief. Miranda doesn't miss her better you than me smirk as she trades her first class ticket for Douglas's seat in the last row of coach.

Miranda settles into the second row window seat, her oversized handbag taking the empty spot beside her. Douglas fumbles a little as he buckles himself into the aisle seat.

"Do I frighten you, Douglas?" Miranda asks as she accepts a glass of champagne from the flight attendant.

He swallows, but once again shows that hint of spine that makes him a suitable friend for someone as extraordinary as Andrea Sachs. "'Frighten' isn't exactly the right word. It's more that I've never gotten to spend time with one of my heroes before."

She raises an eyebrow. "I am one of your heroes? Surely Andrea has told you enough to knock me off any pedestal."

He hesitates. "To be honest, I didn't know Andy knew you until she asked if I wanted to fill in as your assistant. She doesn't talk about you." He shrugs with one shoulder, uncomfortable. "Our friend Lily even thought Andy might be having an affair, what with how closed-lipped she's been the past few months."

At least Miranda isn't the only one wrongly suspected of cheating. But what does it mean that Andrea does not speak of her to her other friends? Is she embarrassed by their relationship? Unlikely.

"Walk me through the schedule for the week," she says, changing the subject completely. This will be her first test of Douglas' competence. She hopes Andrea hasn't let her down.

He nods, takes a moment to gather his thoughts, and then recites from memory: "You have the Vera Wang show tomorrow morning, followed by lunch at the Ritz. The afternoon show is Donna Karan, with fifteen minutes scheduled for the after party. Dinner is with Donatella at Chez Georges, followed by a soiree at Marc Jacobs' loft."

Well. Not a disappointment yet, it appears. "Careful, Douglas," she warns. "If you continue such competent work, I might just keep you."

He blushes.

She waves for him to entertain himself, then pulls a folder from her handbag and takes out Andrea's latest piece, which the younger woman handed to her just before she left for the airport. She adjusts her seat to a semi-reclined position and begins to read.

Immediately, she knows that this will be Andrea's second article to be published. And not with the Cincinnati Monthly this time, either. Not if Miranda has any say in the matter. Not if Miranda has to scrawl her own name in permanent marker across the header.

She'd asked Andrea for a piece about how to tell when to terminate a relationship. Naturally, Andrea took that simple prompt and turned it into something far more interesting.

The article is nothing like an advice column. Andrea does not pretend to have it all figured out. She does not make blanket statements regarding relationships and how to gauge their success or failure. Instead, writing in an almost clinical manner, she provides case studies of three very different pairings.

The first is a wealthy couple. The unnamed wife is an executive at a media company; the unnamed husband is a lawyer. The quotes Andrea extracted from them are astonishingly frank:

"I wouldn't say it was a marriage of convenience, exactly," the husband says. "More a marriage of companionship. Even though we see each other rarely, it makes both of our lives better just knowing the other is there."

"We like each other and we trust each other," the wife says, smiling. "When you have those things, love is irrelevant."

The second case study is a same-sex couple who were married in Massachusetts last year and are currently undergoing marriage counseling in an effort to save their relationship.

"We were so in love," Wife A says. "It didn't seem to matter at first that we had totally different plans for our lives. I mean, the chemistry was just there, you know? I didn't think the bloom could go off the rose so quickly."

"I still care about her," Wife B says, teary-eyed. "I want to say that she and I will make each other happy for the rest of our lives. But, honestly, I think we're on our way to mutual homicide."

The final case study, shockingly, is Andrea's own relationship. She does not come out and say as much, but at this point Miranda knows the young woman well. She knows how to read between the lines.

"We spend so much of our time trying to 'make it work'," Person A is on record as saying. "At some point, though, 'making it work' becomes the same as keeping it on life support. And at some point it's time to pull the plug."

"Relationships are about priorities, aren't they?" Person B says. "If the relationship is high on one person's list and low on the other's...I don't know, isn't that a sign it isn't meant to be?"

Miranda is impressed once again by how skillfully Andrea can get people to open up to her. Even more impressive is the intelligent, thoughtful way Andrea pieces together the quotes and the backstories for each relationship, painting them as multi-dimensional, vivid examples of human history.

"Scientific studies," Andrea writes, "have found that long-term happiness is surprisingly difficult to influence. Winning the lottery doesn't do it; nor does becoming disabled. In fact, the two events that have been found to consistently affect long-term happiness are a) getting fired and b) getting divorced. Terminating a marriage is still viewed by most as a monumental failure, a demonstration that a person is less than they hoped to be.

"Isn't it true, however, that divorce can also be a demonstration of strength? That to gracefully—or even not so gracefully—bow out of a relationship when the time is right is a victory rather than a failure? Let there be no stigma attached to doing what is right; if it is time for you to let go, then do so without self-recrimination. And if it is not time to let go, then hold on tight. Don't just make it work. Make it thrive."

Miranda taps the pad of her finger against her lips, thoughtful. "She really is something, isn't she?" she murmurs, mostly to herself.

"I've always thought so," Douglas agrees.


It's easy and pleasant for Miranda to lose herself in the whirlwind that is Fashion Week. From the moment she rises to the moment she slides under the covers, her day is filled with dresses, shoes, blouses, pants, skirts, accessories, and an endless array of faces and bodies. She does not have time or inclination to miss Stephen. She misses the twins, but Douglas does a fine job of squeezing in ten minutes each day for a quick call home.

She would regret missing her weekly lunch with Andrea, except that she emails Miranda a great deal over the course of the week. Perhaps because Miranda has been emailing her back. And also possibly because Miranda is the one to begin the exchange.

Acceptable, she writes from her hotel room even before she begins to unpack. I trust you will allow me to assist with this submission? How did the chef feel about the contents of your article?

Glad you like it. I'd love your help putting together the submission list once the article is ready, Andrea replies almost immediately. But I'm not going to drop your name, if that's what you mean. As for Nate, I think the article was actually good for our relationship. It brought to light some things we've both been suppressing. Hopefully we'll be the better for it, in the long run.

Anyone who fails to recognize your worth does not deserve you, Miranda says. Speaking of worth, Douglas is working out nicely.

Much better than I would have, Andrea writes. He sent me a picture from the DKNY after party. You looked amazing!

And so it goes.


The divorce papers come by fax two days before the end of Fashion Week. They sit on an end table in her room, innocuous, when she arrives home after a rather stunning show by Versace. She goes about her business without noticing them, removing her necklace and earrings, scrubbing the makeup from her face, and changing into a bathrobe in anticipation of a long, relaxing shower.

She recognizes the papers as soon as she catches sight of them. She's seen documents like this before. She had, in fact, been planning to have documents of this sort prepared by her lawyer when she returned to New York. It seems her husband has saved her the trouble.

She skims the papers, oddly numb, noting the words "irreconcilable differences" and the lack of mention of infidelity. Stephen has been smart enough, at least, to avoid mentioning her supposed affair with Andy Sachs. (The last time they made love, Miranda, feeling cruel, waited until her moment of orgasm to cry out, "Andy!" The experiment turned out to be as disorienting for her as it was distressing for Stephen.)

Absentmindedly, she sets the papers on the coffee table. Where is Douglas when she needs him? If Stephen isn't coming, she must rearrange the seating chart for tomorrow. There's room at her table now for Snoop Dogg, and...

And her fingers are navigating through her phone's contacts and hitting "send".

Andrea does not answer with her usual perky greeting. Instead, she picks up with a worried, "Miranda? What's wrong?"

Of course she is concerned. Miranda never calls from her personal line.

"Stephen is divorcing me." Miranda's voice comes out as a croak, which is ridiculous because she refuses to be upset about this. When your neck has been trapped in a guillotine for an eternity, isn't it a relief when the blade finally falls?

There's a quiet curse from the other end, the sound of papers shuffling, and then the clatter of a keyboard. "I can be there in eight hours," Andrea says.

This is the same woman who refused to come to Paris on Miranda's dime, whom Miranda had accused, before, of deserting her in her hour of need. Miranda pictures Andrea's face, her determined, almost angry, expression, and, though she has spent the week surrounded by the best models in the world, thinks: She is the most beautiful woman I have ever known.

"Miranda?"

She wants to accept Andrea's offer. Somehow she's certain the sting of Stephen being the one to call it quits would be soothed by Andrea's presence, by the simple comfort of her company. But then she remembers what's to come tomorrow—her battle with Irv, the defeat of Jacqueline Follet, the destruction of Nigel's dreams—and she knows that Andrea was right, though not for the reasons she thinks. She cannot be in Paris with Miranda, not now. She cannot witness firsthand the lengths to which Miranda will go to protect herself. She cannot be allowed to see Miranda as she truly is, because if she does, then this lovely, wonderful woman will turn her back and walk away.

"Miranda, I'm buying the ticket."

"No, don't," Miranda says, plucking at the sleeve of her robe. "There's no need." She laughs lightly. "It isn't as if this was a surprise. I don't know why I called you. I'm sure you're busy with work."

"Never too busy for you," Andrea says, fiercely. "I think you need someone there with you, Miranda. Let me be that person."

Miranda scoffs. "I am surrounded by people here, Andrea. I can hardly get a moment to myself. No, it makes no sense for you to come here simply to turn around and fly back home the next day. I will see you soon enough."

"Miranda—"

"Go back to work, Andrea. Those run-on sentences aren't going to catch themselves." Then, so softly she can barely hear herself: "Thank you."


She calls Douglas to inform him that he will not be attending tomorrow's event. She ignores the rather breathless way he answers the phone and the quiet murmur of Nigel's voice in the background.

"There's a mistake in the seating chart," she informs him. "We won't have room for you. I suppose you'll have to find another way to entertain yourself. Send me the bill."

"Are you sure you won't need help tomorrow?" Douglas asks, apparently having missed the ask-Miranda-no-questions part of Emily's emergency two-day assistant prep course. "Only, I thought this was your biggest event of the week and I promised Andy I'd never leave you in the lurch."

"I'm quite certain," Miranda says. In fact, she has not hosted an event without an assistant present in the past twelve years and is not certain she knows how to do so. What she is certain of, however, is that she does not want Douglas relaying to Andrea the blow-by-blow of what happens tomorrow morning. "Have fun tomorrow, Douglas. God knows somebody should."

With that, she hangs up and tosses her cell phone onto a side table. She curls up on the couch, bare feet tucked under her, stares, unseeing, at the divorce papers, and wishes very much that Andrea were here.


Miranda wins. Nigel loses.


She should feel triumphant as she slides into the back seat of her car, her position once again secure and her worst enemy safely shunted into a role that won't last the year. If Emily were here, she would give her a gloating lecture on victory at all costs, though she suspects her assistant was born with that knowledge. If Douglas were here, she would try to explain a bit, perhaps, to soften her actions and paint herself in the best possible light. If Andrea were here…

If Andrea were here, Miranda would not know what to say. Andrea makes Miranda want to be a better person. It seems as if every day the world reminds Miranda that this is as good as she gets.


Nigel refuses to speak to Miranda for the rest of the trip. Oh, he is still professional. He sits beside her at the few remaining shows, he dutifully takes notes, and he even nods and obeys when she gives him instructions. But he does not speak to her, and she knows that he will never trust her again.

"Are you judging me as well, Douglas?" Miranda asks the young man as they take their seats for the return flight. In the past day, though he has continued to perform his work admirably, he has seemed at times disturbed, saddened, worried, and almost afraid. The hero worship he felt for her is long gone; what remains is yet to be seen.

He is silent too long for the answer to be anything other than yes. She remembers, then, that he is no longer her stand-in assistant. Paris Fashion Week is over. She is no longer speaking to a minion; she is now speaking to the dear friend of someone who is dear to her.

The transition is jarring. She begins to understand Andrea's initial refusal to come to France.

"I like Nigel, and this gutted him," Douglas replies at last. "That said, I've only known Nigel for a few days. Andy's known you for months and she describes you as one of the most important people in her life. I know she seems like an Ohio bumpkin at times, what with that big grin of hers, but she doesn't let people in easy. Her circle of friends is small." He looks her in the eye, and his stare is challenging. Demanding. "She chose to care about you, Miranda, so I choose to believe she sees something in you that's not obvious to the rest of us. Prove her right."

Suddenly it is all too much. It's Miranda who looks away, Miranda who squeezes her eyes shut and thinks about who she is and who she wants to be. She wonders what Andrea will say when she learns, inevitably, what happened in Paris.

After they land, after an interminable wait at Customs, Miranda irritably orders Douglas to go his own way. "Our business is done," she reminds him. "If you ever want a secretarial job, contact my current second assistant and tell her she's fired."

His lips quirk. "Tempting, but I think the world of fashion is a bit too cutthroat for me. I'll stick to finance." He reaches out, quickly, to touch Miranda's arm. "Andy's birthday is in a few weeks. There's going to be a little party at Nate's restaurant. I know she'd love for you to come."

Before she can refuse automatically, he holds up a hand. "Just think about it." He flashes her a scoundrel's wink and then cheerfully waltzes ahead to where Nigel is waiting for him.

Miranda drags her own carry-on through the terminal, glaring at anyone who comes near enough to jostle her. Roy should be waiting for her at baggage claim; the girls are no doubt already in bed. It will be a long, lonely car ride home from Newark.

She passes through the point of no return and scowls at the sight of dozens of people waiting to welcome arriving travelers. Families, lovers, friends, they wait with a matching shine in their eyes, a gleam that says, You've been missed. Foolishness, she thinks, and inefficient. A waste of everyone's time, not to mention the pointless cost of dragging people needlessly to the airp—

"Miranda!"

"Mom! Over here, Mom!"

She turns her head and there they are: Caroline and Cassidy, waving ecstatically; their nanny, Cara, watching over them with a protective, indulgent smile; and, the sure instigator of this ridiculous scenario, holding a white board with "Miranda Priestly" written in a crude child's hand with hearts in lieu of dots over the Is, a lovely, beaming Andrea.