After two months at Vogue, Emily finally felt as if her life was back on track. Although their needs and personalities had subtle differences, she often thought that Miranda and Anna could switch places without their staff being any the wiser. She laughed about it to Serena over lunch at Black; she had missed her cheerful, easygoing friend, and was glad they had managed to grab some time to be together.

"So how is it across the fence?" Serena asked as they noshed on fruit salad.

"Absolutely the same, except for considerably less personal angst, thank God. Anna talks even less than Miranda does—she mostly leaves voice mail. Suits me fine."

"I heard she never goes to sleep."

"She doesn't. Half the time the voice mails come in between one and six in the morning, but whatever. Miranda always did that, too."

"What's up with those huge glasses? I always wanted to know that. Has anyone told you?"

"They're prescription. She can't see, really, and she hates all those flashbulbs going off in her face."

"Really? That might explain a lot." They laughed. Runway staffers traditionally scoffed at anything Vogue was doing, just out of company loyalty.

"You look much better. I'm glad" Serena continued. "I was worried."

"Nothing ruins the complexion faster than total frustration." Emily sighed and rolled her eyes. "I even managed to see the little twit last week without breaking out. Progress indeed."

Serena sighed. She knew Emily's next question would have to do with Miranda and she asked herself for the millionth time why she was sitting here with someone who would never feel the same was as she did. Nobody ever measured up to Miranda Priestley, and Serena didn't believe in deluding herself. On the other hand, some insane part of her couldn't stop looking for her friend's candy-apple hair and green eyes in any crowd. Serena considered herself a sensible person, but love was anything but sensible.

"Miranda was there too, of course. Actually sitting at the same table with her and Theo Marsden. Probably did it on purpose, too. My only hope is that the little cow is as miserable as she looked. She's so bloody stupid it drives me bonkers! She didn't even notice that Miranda didn't have Megan or anyone else with her—which she always does when it's business—and she was eating practically everything on the table! Obviously, it never crossed her tiny little mind that gluttony isn't exactly the way to turn Miranda on. What the hell Miranda sees in her I've never understood."

"Well" Serena shrugged. "Andrea likes men, right? Maybe she doesn't want to turn her on."

"That is precisely my point! She had some idiotic boyfriend that she was always worrying about while she was with us—a fact which Miranda consistently chose to overlook. She's fat. She's stupid. She's a traitor, and she's straight, for Christ's sake! Whereas I was loyal, devoted, disciplined, much thinner, and have been told I do great oral to boot, and does Miranda even once look at me?"

Serena sighed again. She was rapidly becoming bored. "Most people are unlucky enough to fall for someone who is in love with someone else at some point in their lives." Silently, she added, And I wish my turn was over because YOU are driving ME bonkers.

"I don't need platitudes, Serena" Emily glowered and stabbed viciously at a piece of melon.

"No, you need to be with me."

Emily's head snapped up. She stared at her friend, searching for signs of humor, but Serena's sky-blue eyes were perfectly serious. "What?!"

"You heard me."

Emily set her fork back down. "I guess I did."

"Forget Miranda, Emily. She's brilliant, yes, but with relationships, she is…how you say…a train wreck. Three husbands, God only knows how many boyfriends, and not one person has stayed. It's because she doesn't tolerate mere mortals, Em."

"I wish I could" Emily groaned. "My mind tells me I should a million times a day. But the rest of me…"

"Then" Serena took the redhead's pale, perfectly-manicured hand in hers. "It sounds like you need some distraction." She stroked her thumb gently over Emily's knuckles.

Emily's skin tingled and she felt her face grow warm, along with other parts of her body. It looked as if Serena was right. It had been months, after all. Nearly a year. The taller girl lifted Emily's hand to her mouth and nibbled delicately at the flesh of her palm, drawing a mixture of shocked and amused glances from nearby tables. Fire shot up the redhead's arm. She took a sharp breath in, and met Serena's calm, blue gaze. "I think I'd like that", she said.

"Good."

"But Serena?" an anxious frown creased Emily's brow. "What will it do to our relationship? I don't want to lose your friendship if this…shouldn't work out."

"You won't. I can be very stubborn. You will find out how much." Her voice dropped into a lower pitch, "And how much I've wanted this. And how it's been for me to watch you long for someone who wasn't me. And all of the things I thought of to make you change your mind." She leaned closed to whisper this last, her breath soft on Emily's cheek. Emily closed her eyes and shivered. "And on top of everything else", she joked breathlessly, "it burns calories."

Serena laughed, and the rich sound made Emily laugh, too. Suddenly, she felt better than she had in a long time.

It took me a little over a month with Theo Marsden to realize that I was being stalked. At first, I took it for granted that some contact with Miranda was unavoidable; he was one of her oldest friends, after all, and she frequented most of the restaurants that he recommended. In fact, as his assistant, I discovered that he would fax most of his recommendations and reviews to her before they even made it into the magazine. It alarmed me that she would always know where I was, as Theo always took me to these places to "develop my palate". But I had never expected her to always be there when I was, sans assistants, sans Clackers, sans anyone related to Runway.

Sometimes she sat at our table and talked to Theo and ignored me. Sometimes she questioned him on my "progress", and Theo—bitch that he was—never failed to amuse her with some stupid mistake I'd made. It was humiliating, and it was also very childish. I decided that my only defense was to cultivate a Zen-like indifference. I took notes, answered questions, and spoke only when I was spoken to, figuring in time that Miranda would get bored and quit following us. Unfortunately, that didn't happen; she seemed to be as indifferent to my presence as I was trying to be to hers. I began to suspect Theo of arranging the meetings, just so he could watch both of us. I wouldn't put it past him. I'd seen Miranda pull the same trick with people from rival magazines, just for the joy of watching people squirm. Like the time she hosted a big dinner at the Met and deliberately seated Anna Wintour next to Liz Tilberis. Liz rolled her eyes, nodded to Anna, and talked to the person on her other side. Anna nodded back—barely—and proceeded to stare at Miranda through her huge dark glasses throughout the meal. I had been assigned to take people's coats and show them to their chairs and the air around Anna was about thirty degrees chillier than the rest of the room. If she hadn't been wearing her glasses, Miranda probably would have fallen dead on the spot.

And Theo made no effort to conceal his glee at watching us interact. In fact, there were even a couple of times when Miranda raised her eyebrows at him and looked more than a little irritated when he went on about my short Runway tenure and how he was obviously doing a better job of 'breaking me in'. He seemed to want to get a rise out of someone, and didn't care which one of us it was.

Finally, one day he said to me, "Ms. Sachs, I do believe you've attained enough basic competence to go out on your own. Dwight Glendenning has opened a new place near Lincoln Center. I expect your review on my desk first thing tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir."

You can imagine what I thought when I saw Miranda sitting at a lovely corner table all by herself. She didn't even bother to pretend that the meeting was an accident. "Ahn-dre-ah, come here" she said as the maitre'd guided me past her table. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and I nodded, waving him away.

"Yes, Miranda?" I asked.

"Theo told me that this restaurant was one of his best new finds. Is it?"

"It is a new find. I haven't tasted anything yet, so I don't know about 'best'".

"Are you not paid to know those things?"

"Yes. That's why I'm here." I waited. Her glance was as withering as usual, but for once I didn't give a damn. I was completely pissed off at Theo; I had no doubt that he had arranged this little tete a` tete.

She finally gave an irritated sigh. "Sit."

I did.

"You're the most ungrateful child I ever met." Miranda said coolly as she flipped open a menu.

I came very close to swallowing my tongue, I was so furious. I didn't trust myself to say anything for several minutes. Miranda closed the menu and slid it across the table to me. I was glad to hide my face behind it. As Theo had taught me, I chose five different dishes to try: two entrees, two appetizers, and a dessert. The waiter who came to take our orders looked at me oddly for a moment, then hopped to it as soon as I showed my business card. When I could trust myself to speak without screaming, I asked Miranda how she would like it if I barged into her life and moved her out of Runway. "You can't expect me to be thrilled to see the person who's holding my strings" I said bitterly.

She clicked her tongue. "Why do you persist in willful stupidity, Ahn-dre-ah? You were working for a nothing newspaper, and you managed to suffer a gunshot wound in the bargain. Here, you are being given the opportunity you always wanted and you resent it?"

"Anyone would" I said quietly, "if they knew that someone they betrayed was the reason they had such an opportunity. When do you plan to drop the other shoe, Miranda?"

Miranda was silent a moment. I watched her face, and sure enough, a little smirk curled the edges of her mouth. "I already have, Ahn-dre-ah. You have to think about it all the time, don't you? About how much you owe me. About how much your family owes me. To repay me, you have no choice but to succeed."

"I take it you want money?"

"Hardly. I already have more than you'll earn in your first ten years of work."

"Then?"

Miranda sat forward. "I want you to be who you were born to be. And I want you to know every minute of every day to whom you owe your success."

"News flash, Miranda. I don't need you to succeed."

"Do you need me as your enemy?" she inquired casually. It chilled me. The waiter arrived and took our drink orders. I ordered a large apple martini.

"The magazine world is an incestuous place" Miranda continued as soon as the waiter was gone. "I believe I've mentioned that before. You already owed me when you left Runway. What would have happened if I had told Dan Hartwell about your little escapade in Paris?"

"He would have said he didn't know how I lasted that long." I tried to speak evenly, and to my surprise, Miranda actually gave a genuine chuckle. "Well, perhaps. Perhaps your complete irresponsibility would seem understandable to anyone outside Elias Clarke. I am quite aware of my reputation. But had I chosen to tell him of your daily, if not hourly incompetence, he might have thought differently."

"I doubt it" I said, returning her amused gaze with one I hoped was sufficiently steely. "He told me what you said the day I interviewed. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Do you think leaving you in the middle of Fashion Week was a whim? I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and what your reaction would be. I also knew what I was giving up. I left because I didn't want to end up like you—an empty, lonely person with lots of money, fabulous clothes, and nothing else. I couldn't believe it when he told me that you said if he didn't hire me, he was an idiot."

Miranda looked down at her wineglass. "I couldn't, either."

"He said I must have done something right."

Miranda was silent. I took it as a good sign that she didn't contradict me right away. "So you want my eternal gratitude?" I asked. "And that translates into what? Political favors by the time I'm editor-in-chief at the New Yorker? You'll be long retired to some mansion in Connecticut by then."

"You plan to be editor-in-chief, do you?" her voice was drenched in irony.

"Answer the question, Miranda."

"You'll just have to wait and see."

"You know" I said casually as the waiter brought our food. "I don't think you know what you want. The Miranda Priestly I know never hedges."

"But how well do you know Miranda Priestley?"

"Well enough to know that it must be snowing in hell if she uses evasion when arguing with an underling."

Miranda sighed and took a delicate bite of her salad. "I could kill Theo."

"So could I. And you just proved my point, by the way. Did he send you here?"

"He emailed me and recommended the lunch menu and said he would meet me."

"And then he stood you up. And left you alone with me."

"So it would seem. What on earth are you smiling at, Ahn-dre-ah?"

"I'm thinking of ways to kill him"

Miranda chuckled again. What was wrong with the universe? Two chuckles in one day?! Everything was getting a bit too surreal. To distract myself, I took two bites of each dish. Four were delicious, but the truffled cod had been loaded with enough garlic to kill a vampire. I coughed, swigged more of my drink than I should have, and coughed some more. Miranda raised an eyebrow. "Having problems?"

On impulse, I speared some of the cod and held it out. "Taste for yourself."

I expected her to refuse. Miranda lives primarily on lettuce and bottled water, but to my surprise she took the fork and tasted it. "Rare Atlantic Garlicfish?"

"No. It's truffled cod. Supposedly."

"If there are truffles in it, they're well hidden."

"That's a good quote" I jotted it in my notebook. "Mind if I use it?"

Before she could answer, my cell rang. Theo.

"Yes, Mr. Marsden?"

"Either the food is divine, or it's horrendous. I can't think of anything else that would make you take forty-five minutes for lunch when your allotment is thirty, can you?"

"No, sir. I—" To my complete shock, Miranda gestured to me to hand over the phone. I did, not knowing how to refuse without pissing her off.

"Theo, I don't find you amusing at all" she said. There was a pause, and then she shook her head. "It is too my business. It is my business when you waste my valuable time to satisfy your sick sense of humor."

"And that's none of your business" Miranda went on after another pause. "I'll see you this weekend. Oh, and if you blame Ahn-dre-ah for any of this I'll boot you out of Milan permanently. Ciao to you, too, darling. Bye."

Smirking, she handed the phone back to me. "You had better go."

I didn't need to be told twice. Thanking the gods that my business card was enough to get me comped in any restaurant in Greater Manhattan, I raced back to the office. I had a lot to think about, but first I had to deal with Theo.