~Emily can add and subtract people in her mind.~
Ironically, Emily thinks now, her grandmother always told her that she was too trusting, a fact proven on many occasions where Emily would 'just hold' stolen sweets (and later on cigarettes) for her friends, amongst other things.
Her time at Runway has taught her something that she's not quite sure her grandmother would be proud of now: how to calculate.
She watches everyone she comes across, and soon identifies three groups of people: those who genuinely have power, those who think they have power, and those who wish they have power.
Amongst the genuines are, of course, Miranda, and Nigel to a certain extent. They travel with a constant aura of authority, relevant mask always in place, and never an emotion out of line. They are the people that others naturally flock to, and they can remain safe in the knowledge that whilst they are masters of working a room, there really isn't much need for them to do so. Sure, they may crumble behind firmly locked doors, but no one would ever be any the wiser.
Those who think they have power amuse Emily to no extent. They come in two sub-sections; the corporate and the workers. She sees them puff themselves up, fake smiles shining with self-importance, and the always present 'Don't you know who I am?' attitude. Both sub-sections carry these traits, but the workers are the only ones that sometimes she forgets her own mask in front of and can't resist flashing them a smirk and turning away with a toss of her hair. She knows which 'power thinkers' it is safe to be seen with for any length of time; she knows when it's time to add people to her list of movers and shakers, and when to subtract them; she definitely knows not to spend too much time pandering to any of them lest she gets dragged down when they inevitably fall from grace.
She watches Irv Ravitz, a corporate 'power thinker' and wonders if he realises his inability to command a room, and that's why he always breaks out in a sweat and has to remind people how much money he makes. Irv thinks he has power, but he loses control; he crumbles before he locks the door, and she knows it won't be long before his illusion is shattered.
She spends day after day in the company of 'power thinking' workers; models, assistants and the like, and goes home at night thanking her lucky stars that she is better than them.
Emily quickly realises that the 'power wishers' can be manipulated and cajoled into doing almost anything, especially with a few strategically placed comments. She is content to use them to aid her job and her own goals, but she knows that these people will never amount to anything more than they already are. Desperation, after all, is not a good look on anyone. Sometimes she finds herself in situations where some fast calculations are needed, and she finds she needs to become acquainted with a few more of these types of people for the time being, but Emily will always realise when it is time to subtract them, and she does it as bluntly as possible, because after all, in geometry there are no grey areas, just like life. There is black and white, power and not, and Emily knows where she belongs.
Emily likes her theory, it gives her a template to work off, and in truth she likes to be the one with the power to add and subtract people from her own, and sometimes by proxy, Miranda's life, too, and if one Andrea Sachs comes along and blows her theorizing out of the water, Emily tells herself that it is only normal to have anomalies. After all, Einstein must have had problems, too.