The remaining few days of Paris Fashion Week passed in a blur of activity and mixed emotions for Andy. She worked as hard as ever to ensure that Miranda made every one of the seemingly endless runway shows, collection launches and black tie soirees on her schedule. Every little detail was taken care of by the assistant and the whole operation ran like clockwork. Now and then she'd feel eyes on her and turn to catch Miranda staring at her with a weird look on her face. She never had time to dwell on it though, as one thing after another demanded her full attention.
In the blink of an eye she found herself back in a first class cabin, flying over the Atlantic Ocean. The relentless pace and emotional turmoil of the past week finally began to catch up on her and she was absolutely exhausted. Sleep was a luxury she could not afford however and she spent the flight compiling her notes into a coherent file for Emily and whoever would be replacing her. In truth, Andy was dreading arriving home to an empty apartment with nothing to do but contemplate her future.
After returning to her room following her 'talk' with Miranda, she had allowed herself a few moments to cry and mope, this brief indulgence in self pity had been followed with a flurry of list making and rough CV drafting and after half an hour, she had a somewhat sketchy plan of action for when unemployment kicked in. Then it was back to the hubbub of Paris where she had pushed everything but Miranda and Runway from her mind. Now, as New York loomed closer and closer with every passing air mile, a little bit more fear welled up in her.
Andy was nothing if not practical and every month she had been at Runway, a little bit of each paycheck went into what she had privately named her 'Miranda Contingency Fund'. It was in a bank account she had opened after her first week on the job, when she had spent every waking moment expecting to be fired on the spot. Now she had enough set aside that she could make her rent and live comfortably enough while between jobs, but not for long. A month was all she could manage, so if she was going to find a job, she would have to find one fast. That's assuming Miranda would 'let' her find another job. She had been to afraid to ask for a reference and even more scared still to ask her if she would be blacklisted by the entire City of New York and surrounding boroughs.
With a sigh and a heavy heart, Andy finished her last page of notes and saved the document to her hard drive. Closing down her laptop she set it on the empty seat beside her and turned to look out the window. Lost in thought, she didn't notice Nigel lift her laptop and slip quietly into the seat beside her.
'How you holding up Six?' he asked softly. She jumped slightly and turned to give him a crooked smile. Two days previously he had cornered her at a drinks reception for Luis Vitton and she had informed him of her impedning departure from Runway.
'Oh, you know me, I'll survive' she murmured. Miranda was only one row in front of them and Andy didn't want their conversation overheard.
'Yeah, you're a tough cookie all right,' he smiled fondly at her 'have you any idea what you're going to do when we get back to NYC?'
'Well, the last few nights I have been having this reoccurring fantasy where my alarm goes off at 6am on Monday morning, but instead of jumping out of bed, I hit it off, roll over and sleep in 'til 11...' Andy grinned. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a lie in and vowed to treat herself to one full day of lounging in her pajamas, eating take out in bed and watching bad TV before she put her nose to the grindstone and began her job hunt.
'My dear girl, sleep is overrated. One can slumber when one has shuffled off this mortal coil' Nigel huffed, his haughty tone betrayed by a barely concealed look of envy.
'Yeah, well that might be sooner than you'd think. I might never find another job and then what? I might end up starving to death, a mangy squatter in some godforsaken tenement in the Bronx or somewhere' Andy paused and looked thoughtfully at Nigel 'on the plus side though, I'd probably finally be a size zero' she smirked.
'Well,' breezed Nigel 'every cloud and all of that…'
From the row in front, Miranda strained her already super-human hearing to the limit as she tried to follow the hushed conversation. She had been absorbed in her own work- she had decided to start scribbling down an outline for the editor's letter which would accompany the April issue Of Runway while the buzz of Paris was still fresh in her mind and had no intention of eavesdropping on the whispered talk behind her when out of the chatter she heard Andy utter the words 'reoccurring' and 'fantasy', which, for some reason Miranda did not wish to entertain, derailed her concentration thoroughly.
Picking up the thread of conversation, she rolled her eyes at her soon to be former first assistant's attempt at humour. Starve to death in squalor? And people called her a drama queen! She continued listening but her attention quickly wandered as the conversation behind her moved on to more mundane subject matter and, not for the first time that week, Miranda found herself contemplating returning to Runway without Andrea. It had been troubling her consistently, always there in the back of her head while she'd been mingling with celebrities or watching stick insects draped in various fabrics and accoutrements traipse down catwalks.
However was she going to cope without the girl's talents? Andrea's effortless organization of her punishing schedule, her anticipation of her every move, and her skill at trouble shooting…all this had made her one of the most important people in Miranda's life, professionally speaking.
She had started to notice how countless insignificant peons would bend over backwards to get something done for Andrea- waiters and waitresses, drivers, copy boys, florists- an endless parade of nameless players who would go the extra mile for her assistant, the reward of a smile and a kind word being their only motivation. It was poles apart from her own tactics of intimidation and threats yet Miranda couldn't argue with Andrea's approach- it was effective in its own way and more often than not got the desired results.
Miranda leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes. The conversation behind her appeared to have concluded and she wondered if Andrea was sleeping now. They would be landing in just over an hour and while Miranda was due to be whisked off to her townhouse to rest and get over her jetlag and fatigue after the hectic week, Andrea would have to get into a grubby cab. Her last hours as an employee of Runway would be spent sitting alone in a darkened and empty office waiting for design to hand over the Book. The thought stirred something deep inside Miranda, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. It sat heavy in her stomach, like a stone and unsettled her to the point of distraction. Giving herself a mental shake she slipped a pair of headphones over her perfectly coiffed hair and tried to loose herself in Tchaikovsky.
It didn't work…
TBC
AN: Thanks everyone who's picked up the story again and left comments, you rock! Just to let you know, I'm away fro the weekend so next update won't be up 'til probably early next week.