The Beginning Is The End

"You with the sad eyes
don't be discouraged
oh I realize
it's hard to take courage
in a world full of people
you can lose sight of it all
and the darkness inside you
can make you fell so small

But I see your true colours
shining through
I see your true colours
and that's why I love you
so don't be afraid to let them show
your true colours
true colours are beautiful
like a rainbow"

October 2005

As any child, Andy is awfully fond of colours. It takes some time before her parents notice a pattern: at first attributing it to a whim, then simply to a vivid imagination. Eventually, when she can no longer ignore it, when even Andy's teachers begin to ask, Andy's mother raises the matter carefully. "Sweetheart, I notice your objects are different bright colours. And you're so careful – always colouring inside the lines. But your people…why only certain colours, why always outside the edges?"

Andy scrunches up her eyebrows. She doesn't really understand the question. "Because that's what people are like."

"What do you mean, Boo?"

"That's their colours, you know. Red. Green. Blue."

She watches her mother chew on her thumbnail before sitting down, hugging Andy. "People are red?"

"Uhuh," Andy nods vigorously. "Like last week. At the party. When Mrs Myers was talking to Dad. She moved real close to him. And then she was like all red."

Her mother appears to groan then not-so-subtly covers it with a cough. "I see. Do you mean her face went red?"

"No. All of her. Umm, inside."

Her mother frowns, "And the thing about the colour being outside the edges?"

Being small, Andy concentrates really hard, not sure how to describe it. Eventually it comes to her. "It's like, well, if you watch TV at night in the dark and the screen - it glows. It's the same for people. Like that." Proud that she managed to find a good way to explain it, she gives her mother a toothy grin.

Her mother doesn't smile back. In fact, like the time last week she and Andy's Dad had a massive fight, she looks like she is trying not to cry. "Who else knows about this?"

"About what?"

"You know - people, the colours that you see."

"Just Stacey. She went all green when I told her."

Her mother sighs, "Honey." Sitting down heavily in the chair, she pulls Andy into her lap. "We need to have a talk."

Andy burrows closer, this happens to be her favourite spot, and starts fiddling with her mother's pretty necklace. Gazing up trustingly, she sees her mother hesitate and then haltingly say, "I – um … I need you to start drawing inside the lines. And colour in normally. The way things - people, really are."

Andy frowns in bewilderment, "Why?"

She is hugged that much tighter. "Because… well… have you seen the way the other kids colour in?"

Andy nods.

"And what are their pictures like?"

"Boring."

"And?"

Andy squirms uncomfortably. "Neat."

"Does anyone else colour like you do?"

Head down, Andy mumbles, "No." She feels ashamed suddenly and she doesn't know why. She hasn't done anything wrong, she's sure of that. Not like last week when she chipped the paint off her brand new bike.

"Do - do you want to be different from other kids? Do you know what happens to kids like that?"

Andy swallows; remembers the small geeky kid with glasses that's always getting pushed around on the playground. His name might be Gavin but she's never spoken to him to find out because Andy knows her friends will make fun of her if she does. Even quieter now, she whispers, "No. Yes."

"I know you don't understand right now but you will." Her mother strokes her hair. "It's just better this way. That you fit in."

"Is it bad then?" Andy bounces her foot off the chair in contemplation. "Not to be like everyone else?"

Her mother sighs, "Not bad, Andy, just… hard. People aren't always accepting of those that are different."

Andy suddenly gets nervous. Anxiously, she twists in her mother's lap, worrying her bottom lip. "But you'll still love me, right? I mean… cause you know… that I am different… even if I pretend?"

"Oh sweetheart, of course I will – I'm your mother. I'll always accept you no matter what." She tickles Andy's tummy and sides, making her laugh.

Of course, as many parents do, she'll go on to break that promise.

Once they stop messing around, Andy thinks some more, gets worried again. "Will no-one else love me? If they know, you know… what I am really like?"

"Of course they will," her mother reassures her. "You just need to find someone, well, exactly like you," she tweaks Andy's nose playfully.

Andy's resolve steady with the flush of youth, she jumps off her mother's lap determined to find exactly that. But it proves much harder than it seems – to find this special someone - to fit in, but eventually fooling people comes quite easily and gradually seeing people's colours fades.

Stubbornly, she never forgets her mother's words though, and even as she settles for stereotypically safe Nate, inside she goes on believing that one day she'll find that one person with whom she'll never have to pretend.

"So, you don't read Runway?"

The first flash of colour is so unexpected, Andy can only stammer, "Uh, no."

"And before today, you had never heard of me?"

The streak of red almost dances in front of Andy's eyes. "No."

"And you have no style or sense of fashion."

A slash of blue criss-crosses the red. Andy shakes herself mentally, manages to string together a practically coherent sentence, "Well, um, I think that depends on what you're …"

"No no, that wasn't a question."

The vivid blue intensifies. Andy wonders if the interview could possibly get worse should she literally rub her eyes. She offers pointlessly, "Um, I was editor in chief of the Daily Northwestern. I also, um, won a national competition for college journalists … with my series on the janitor's union … which exposed the exploitation …" She trails off weakly. Miranda Priestly, a woman she's just met – the woman, the… everything, looks summarily unimpressed. Andy desperately wants to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth and whisper, "Oh my God, I've found you. You are the one."

She doesn't, she just stands there like an idiot as Miranda eyes her, finally sighing, "That's all."

Andy turns around, takes a step. What if this never happens again? Her inner voice whispers urgently, seductively, and Andy knows that she only has this one chance. She's never gambled in her life: she's solid, reliable, steady; but just this once, she's willing to take a risk. Spinning sharply, she scoffs, "You're right. I don't fit in here." There's nowhere I've ever really fit. "I am not skinny or glamorous and I don't know much about fashion. But I am smart. I learn fast and I will work very hard." I promise to do whatever it takes to get to know you.

Just for a second she feels a real connection, maybe, just maybe … but before it has a chance to be nurtured, to grow, a bald thin man strides into the room. And just like that, the fragile links snaps, Miranda's attention now focused elsewhere. Unbidden, Andy feels the sting of tears but she's just the presence of mind to call out a parting, "Thank you for your time."

He says something; she doesn't hear him, lost as she is in an inexplicable feeling of grief. She tries to shake it as she rides down in the elevator, this perplexing sensation of utter loss. Trying to pep herself up, she promises herself that she'll stop at the art supply store later on and get some paints instead. Crossing the lobby she hears the best and the worst word that she'll ever hear, "Andrea;" Emily's high-pitched and strident voice calling her back.

Much to Andy's consternation, though not surprise, things don't start well and then continue downhill from there. The only consolation – Miranda is… unique. No-one can possibly be more demanding, or more cutting, or more uncaring, or more - just more. But there's also no-one else that knows so much about colour – its every texture, pattern, hue and shade. No-one else that can ever share Andy's world quite like Miranda - that can ever understand the real person behind the shell. So Andy trots in everyday, resolve firm, in the morning and every evening she goes home chanting that she wants to quit. She has no life, she barely has friends and Nate, ah Nate… well life with him begins to hold almost as much, if not more, stress.

Then work improves, and Miranda almost starts to warm to her, but then of course, Miranda liking her ends up being more of a hindrance than a help.

"No, Miranda. Emily would die. Her whole life is about Paris." Where as my whole life seems to be about you. "She hasn't eaten in weeks. I – I can't do that. Miranda, I can't."

Miranda glances up, "If you don't go, I'll assume you are not serious about your future…at Runway or any other publication." What Andy hears is, "I'll assume that you are not serious about me."

"The decision is yours. That's all." She glances back down in dismissal as the blue swirls ever deeper around her and for Andy there can – there will – only ever be one answer.

It's really not a choice at all.

"That is your answer for everything lately, 'I didn't have a choice." Nate complains loudly.

I don't, Andy wants to tell him. Please, Nate, let this go. I am begging you, you won't come out on top should you make me choose.

"Maybe we should take a break."

The eventual comment is predictable and on the surface Andy knows she cares. But underneath, deep down where she doesn't venture, a tiny flicker of relief begins to bloom.

His last scathing remark completely stuns her though, a foreign unexpected thought. "You know, in case you are wondering…the person whose calls you take, that's the relationship that you're in. I hope you two are very happy together."

We could be, flits through Andy's mind; she only has time to mull it over for half a second.

Picking up the phone she answers, "Miranda?"

Upon hearing the familiar voice, a skein of happiness winds through her; Andy instantly - assuredly correcting her own fleeting thought.

We would.