Attending Andrea's birthday party requires Miranda to retract her RSVP for a soiree at Donna Karan's magnificent brownstone. Miranda had been anticipating with some eagerness the opportunity to mock Anna Wintour relentlessly for the most recent, lackluster edition of Vogue. Emily, who knows Miranda almost too well in some respects and not at all in others, does everything in her meager power to persuade Miranda to skip Andrea's party or, at the very least, to show up a fashionable two hours late.
Miranda sees Andrea twice before the party: once for lunch at a small Italian restaurant of Andrea's choosing, where Andrea orders an entire lasagna to go and sends it to Miranda's home via Roy; and the second time for an emergency coffee break ("If I don't get out of here for five minutes, I'm going to shove a stapler down my coworker's throat, Miranda, I swear to God.").
Other than that, she keeps busy in the usual ways: fielding calls from her attorney about the divorce; relying on Nigel's competence, which stands out like a raft amidst a sea of ineptitude; getting the cold shoulder from Nigel; firing two Emily IIs in the course of four days; reading and editing Andrea's latest article; and spending as much time with her daughters as she can. Her relationship with Caroline and Cassidy has never been better. The girls have blossomed under the increased attention. Their energy seems to have expanded to fill the hole Stephen's departure revealed, as if his presence has only served to stifle them all this time.
"You have terrible taste in men," Caroline tells her frankly, one night, when she inquires about the change.
Miranda purses her lips. "Thank you, dear."
"There's a reason you surround yourself with women and gay men, Mom. Straight guys are scum."
Miranda wonders when her daughter became so wise. She suspects cable television has been a bad influence.
She shows up to Andrea's birthday party late, because of course that is the day an obscenely expensive shoot in New Orleans goes wrong. Heads roll, a makeup artist is blacklisted, and by the time Miranda hauls herself into the town car she feels as if she has gone three rounds against Mike Tyson.
She touches up her makeup in the car, erasing the tiny lines age and stress have carved around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. She meant to go home and change for the occasion—to don a more youthful, rather daring outfit—but at this point that would mean missing it altogether.
Roy pulls into the No Parking zone in front of a small but trendy restaurant. Most of the lights are off, only the faint glow of some dangling Edison bulbs illuminating a table in the back. A sign on the window boasts an "A" grade from the Department of Health, which makes Miranda scoff. What, are they expecting a gold star and a pat on the head for not having mice in the pantry?
From the sidewalk, it seems Andrea and her friends are having a good time. Andrea sits with her back to Miranda, her long, slender neck exposed beneath an elegant up do. A man's hand rests comfortably against her lower back, which makes Miranda's jaw clench for reasons she refuses to examine. That hand is attached to an arm, which is otherwise concealed behind a poorly placed poster of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Across from Andrea sits Douglas, looking merry as he smirks at something the chef has just said. The woman beside him is almost totally obscured, except for her mint condition, three seasons old Marc Jacobs handbag.
I should go, Miranda thinks, imagining the humiliation that might result from pretending to belong in such a group. Andrea will understand. She even takes out her phone to begin drafting a text—"Stuck at work, building would fall down around my ears if I didn't stay to hold it up, so sorry"; it's hardly even a lie—but then Douglas glances up and sees her.
He stares with a rather unflattering amount of surprise before leaning forward to say something to Andrea. Once Andrea twists in her chair, face glowing with pleasure, there's no escape. Miranda puts her phone away.
Andrea leaps to her feet and hurries to unlock the door. "You made it!"
"I apologize for being late," Miranda says stiffly as Andrea takes her by the elbow and leads her inside. "There was a problem with a shoot—"
"I wouldn't have cared if you'd shown up at 4 a.m.," Andrea interrupts, her excited, overly loud voice the only hint that she's already several drinks in. "I'm just glad you came."
As they approach, Douglas rises to greet her—a holdover from Assistant Boot Camp, she suspects—but the other two remain seated, one gaping in total astonishment, the other eyeing her with a great deal of interest.
"Guys, this is Miranda," Andrea says, apparently unaware that her fingers are still latched onto Miranda's coat. "Miranda, you know Doug, and this is Lily and Nate."
Miranda smirks at Douglas before nodding at the astonished Lily, who sputters, "You're—you—you're—Miranda Priestly." The girl's eyes flit over Miranda's attire, drinking in every elegant, expensive stitch, and how, Miranda thinks, did someone with so evident a yen for fashion so completely fail to pass that interest on to her close friend?
"Andy," Lily says, still staring, "why is Miranda Priestly at your birthday party?"
"She's Andy's mentor," Nate says, and for the first time Miranda permits herself to take a closer look at him.
Andrea's chef is about Andrea's age—a quarter of a century today—with full, curly hair and a physique that will surely develop a paunch sometime in the next decade. He examines Miranda as thoroughly as she examines him, and though there is no obvious hostility in his gaze, there is a definite hint of caution.
Miranda smiles like a shark. "Mentor? That's not how I would describe our relationship, Andrea."
"That's not how I've ever described you." Andrea shoots Nate a glare. "Miranda is my friend, Lily. She gives me writing advice sometimes, but that's not why I like her."
It isn't? Miranda supposes she already knew that, but it's nice to hear it spoken so firmly.
Lily blinks rapidly, apparently struggling to process this information, before plastering a bland smile on her face and holding out her hand. "Any friend of Andy's is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you, Miranda."
Miranda shakes the girl's hand, quickly but not impolitely. "Likewise, I'm sure."
They shuffle the seats so Douglas can add another chair to the head of the table, between himself and Andrea.
"What are you drinking, Miranda?" Nate asks. "We've got an open bar tonight, not that that impresses you, I'm sure." There's a little bite to his tone, an edge of resentment.
Miranda has heard that edge many times, from many people. She herself has used it on occasions too numerous to count. She has never it from Andrea, though. It's one of the things she likes most about her. Clearly, Nate is cut from a very different cloth than his girlfriend.
Seized by sudden impulse, Miranda lifts Andrea's glass from the table and takes a long, slow sip. The whiskey sour slides down her throat with a sweet burn, a stark contrast to the wine she usually partakes of at social events. When she's finished, a perfect red outline of her lips remains on the glass, courtesy of her recently applied lipstick.
"I'll have what she's having," Miranda murmurs, handing the glass back to a grinning Andrea. She casts her eyes over the many hors d'oeuvres strewn across the table, among them stuffed dates wrapped in bacon, honey glazed brussels sprouts, and deep fried balls of something sinful. Maybe Nate isn't entirely useless, after all. Sheer force of will is all that keeps her stomach from growling. "I do hope someone will offer me a plate this millennium. The asparagus looks divine."
A moment later, she has a drink in one hand, a fork in the other, and Andrea's knee a comforting warmth against hers under the table. Miranda imagines Anna Wintour, stuck at Donna's soiree, and takes immense pleasure in the knowledge that she is having a far, far better evening.
Most of Miranda's interactions with Andrea in the past have been one-on-one (dinner and that car ride with the twins being notable exceptions). Tonight, watching her interact with others is enlightening.
For instance, though Andrea has long since lost any formality in her conversations with Miranda (if, indeed, there was ever any formality to begin with—she suspects not), there is an element of playfulness in the way she speaks to her friends that is not evident when she speaks to Miranda. Her lips curve more easily; she laughs harder. Vague and incomplete references to shared past experiences make her throw back her head, shoulders shaking in mirth.
For another thing, Miranda has serious doubts about the continued survival of Andrea's relationship with Nate. Although they are clearly comfortable with each other, it is also clear that Nate is much more enraptured with Andrea than she is with him. Miranda expected it to be the other way around. But Nate's eyes linger on Andrea whenever she turns away from him, and his hands flex whenever he isn't touching her. It's Andrea who seems taken aback whenever she glances to her right and sees Nate there, as if she thought to find the spot empty.
To her surprise, Miranda feels sorry for the boy. It's not his fault, after all. To fall in love with Andrea Sachs is an inevitability. Which doesn't keep her from scowling every time he places one of his swarthy paws somewhere on Andrea's person.
The most disconcerting moment in the evening comes when Miranda asks Andrea about her mother's recent illness, something she mentioned during one of their many conversations, and the other three frown in blank incomprehension.
"Your mom's sick, Andy?" Nate says, face creasing in concern.
Andrea gives Miranda an unreadable look, then takes a deep breath and puts on a smile as she turns to the others. "They don't think it's anything serious. It wasn't worth mentioning."
Her words ring false to Miranda, who recalls Andrea's tight, anxious expression when she told Miranda that tests were to be run. She says nothing now, ashamed—her underlings would be surprised to learn she is capable of such an emotion—that she has shared information Andrea confided in her alone, though she does not understand why Andrea has concealed this information from her closest friends.
"Presents!" Douglas says in a too-loud, falsely cheerful tone, which nevertheless manages to cut the awkward tension that sprang into existence in the wake of Miranda's question. He reaches under the table for a neatly wrapped box.
Andrea seizes it eagerly, tearing the wrapping to shreds and opening the box to reveal several more blouses like the one she wore to dinner at Miranda's house. She gives him a mock glare. "You tryin' to say something about my wardrobe, Dougie?"
"Only that it's been getting a lot better lately and I figured you could use a couple more pieces." He smirks. "You're the reason I went to Paris, Andy. The least I could do was bring some things back for you."
Andrea sighs and shoots Miranda a look that clearly states, This is all your fault . "Thank you, Doug," she says grudgingly, and accepts the package Lily pushes her way.
Lily's present turns out to be a small but acceptable painting from one of her recent gallery exhibits. "I know you had your eye on this one," she says. "It reminds you of Uncle Fred, doesn't it?"
Whoever "Uncle Fred" is, or was, the mention of him brings a faint sheen of tears to Andrea's eyes. Lily is Andrea's oldest friend, Miranda recalls, fighting back a ridiculous burst of jealousy. They grew up together.
Next, they all look at Miranda, who pulls a long, slender jewelry box from her purse. The locket is simple, not something Miranda herself would wear, but it is also sophisticated, and from Cartier, and should pair well with Douglas' blouses. Miranda purchased it intending to give it to Andrea privately over lunch or dinner. After agreeing to attend the party, it had not occurred to her that the gift might not be appropriate in this venue, with Andrea's boyfriend two seats away.
Andrea gasps when she opens the box, touching the tip of one finger to the gleaming emerald at the heart of the locket. "Miranda," she breathes, "it's beautiful." She holds it out. "Would you?"
Under Nate's resentful glare, Miranda expertly drapes the chain around Andrea's neck and fastens the clasp with fingers that only tremble a little. Andrea turns her head to smile at Miranda, a radiant smile.
Lily clears her throat, eyes darting from Andrea to Miranda to Nate and back again. "What a lovely gift, Miranda. Nate, what do you have for our Andy?"
From this angle, twisted in her seat towards Andrea, Miranda is the only one who can see Nate's hand hover over the pocket of his trousers, where an item approximately the same shape and size as a ring box presses against the cheap material. After a moment, his hand clenches and moves away. He forces a smile. "How does a visit for two to Spa Castle sound?"
"Sounds perfect," says Andrea, who sees so much, and who in this one instance has missed everything.
Two days after the party, Andrea calls Miranda near the end of the work day, the unusual tremor in her voice alerting Miranda that something is wrong.
"What's happened?" she demands, her voice harsher than she intends. Her first thought is that Nate has pulled a Stephen; her second thought is that Nate will never be the one to leave Andrea.
"I need to see you."
"Starbucks?"
Andrea hesitates. "Can I come to your office?"
So it's something she doesn't feel comfortable discussing in public. The sleeping dragon that occupies the core of Miranda's being begins to stir. Someone has hurt Andrea. Someone has caused pain to someone Miranda cares very much about.
"Of course," she says, gently.
When Andrea arrives, she is wearing one of the blouses Douglas gave her, as well as Miranda's necklace. Miranda was right: they pair well together to highlight Andrea's exquisite features. Today, however, her face is tense and pale. She breezes past Emily without acknowledging the girl's aggrieved sputters and closes the office door behind her.
Miranda rises from her seat and crosses the floor without thinking to clasp Andrea's arms and lead her to the little-used couch against the window. They sit very close together.
"Andrea. What's wrong?"
"Mr. Styles offered me a promotion."
Clearly not the source of Andrea's distress. Miranda waits for more.
Andrea's shoulders hunch. "You remember, back when we had that fight, you said Mr. Styles didn't know who I was? And then you sent me all those new clothes and I started wearing them?"
Miranda is unlikely to ever forget. "Yes."
"Well, after that, he did know who I was. I mean, he started making small talk with me—little things, you know."
The dragon's eyes narrow. Smoke begins to puff from its nostrils.
"What did he do, Andrea?" Miranda asks in a deceptively calm voice.
"He's been very friendly the past couple of months. Asking about my personal life, encouraging me in my work. I told him about The Cincinnati Monthly . He seemed really happy for me. And then, today, when he told me about the promotion...he kissed me. And tried to touch my…" Her hands wave awkwardly at her own chest.
The dragon roars fire. "I will end him."
Andrea blinks, a wave of alarm washing away the dead look in her eyes. "Miranda—"
"Don't try to protect him. Are you going to claim you were asking for it by dressing wel?" Miranda hisses. "Or do you blame me, perhaps, for pushing you to improve your image?"
Andrea appears shocked. "Of course not! It's just—"
A terrible thought strikes her. "Or are you telling me this because you're considering entering into some sort of sordid affair with him? Because if so, Andrea—"
"Oh my God, stop talking!"
Andrea's irritated words cut through Miranda's rant. She purses her lips. She waits. When Andrea does nothing but stare at her, she demands, " Well ?"
Andrea stares a while longer, then huffs a laugh. "You're more upset about this than I am. I didn't expect that." Before Miranda can speak, she goes on: "Of course I'm not going to have an affair with my boss. I'm going to forgive you for asking on the assumption that you just lost your mind for a few minutes. And of course I don't blame you. And I know it's not my fault, even if there's a little voice at the back of my head that says I shouldn't have started caring about my appearance if I didn't want people to react."
She falls silent. Miranda takes this as permission to speak. "There is nothing you could have done, Andrea— nothing, do you hear me—that would entitle him to take such liberties with your person." She has never understood men who chase after their underlings. What is the attraction of someone you can never be sure actually wants you? She imagines pursuing some kind of scenario with Emily—since she is, apparently, bisexual now—and suppresses a shudder of disgust.
Andrea gives her a long, thoughtful look. "You sound like you're speaking from personal experience."
Miranda laughs mirthlessly. "I became Editor-in-Chief of Runway in 1995, Andrea. I began working in the fashion industry almost fifteen years before that. Women did not climb any sort of ladders back in those days without fending off male advances. I had my share of lecherous bosses. And I saw plenty of examples of what can happen, when a man in power wants something a woman beneath him is unwilling to give."
An idea: offer Andrea a position at Runway. Claim that clever mind for herself. Nurture it. Mold it. Cherish it.
But, I can never work for you, Andrea said once, and anyway, such a course of action would make Miranda no better than Henry Styles, seeing Andrea every day, wanting her every day, and every day wondering whether, if only for the sake of her job, she might say yes to a certain proposition.
She finds that she is holding Andrea's hand, and if someone held a gun to her head she would not be able to say who initiated it.
"I don't want you to go after Mr. Styles," Andrea says, familiar determination settling into the contours of her face.
"Yes, you do. Why else would you have come to me with this?" Miranda gives in to temptation, rubbing her thumb along the smooth skin on the back of Andrea's hand. "It will be easy," she says soothingly. "I won't have to call in more than a favor or two."
Andrea shakes her head. "I know you can do it, Miranda, but I don't want you to. Let me handle it myself."
"Filing a complaint with Human Resources will be about as effective as trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella."
"I've got this," Andrea says resolutely, a familiar fire sparking in her eyes and reminding Miranda that this woman has never needed her help, not really. "Don't worry." She squeezes Miranda's hand. "And I didn't come here so you'd fix things for me."
Miranda raises an eyebrow. "No?"
"No. I came here because when something happens in my life, something big, you're the person I want to talk to." She smiles crookedly. "Is that stupid?"
"No." Miranda's throat goes dry. She forces herself to let go of Andrea's hand. "Not stupid at all."
"I have to break up with Nate," Andrea says, gazing out the window. "Soon. If I can find the nerve."
Miranda considers going against Andrea's wishes and demolishing Henry Styles. It's a fleeting thought, a passing fancy. A daydream that brings a faint smile to her lips until she imagines Andrea's reaction, the pain of losing Andrea's trust. Nothing is worth that.
That doesn't mean she can't talk to Styles, of course. They work in the same building, each leading their own publication. It would be strange if they didn't bump into each other on occasion.
The next time she encounters him happens to be in an elevator car, and Emily happens to have alerted her as to the time and which car he would be in, and it happens to be only two days after what he did to Andrea. The elevator doors open on the third floor—which functions primarily as storage for Elias-Clarke's janitorial supplies and very old issues of its least successful magazines—and Auto Universe's Editor-in-Chief gapes as Miranda smoothly steps on board and presses the emergency stop button.
She turns to face him, and waits.
Henry Styles is a tall, classically handsome man whose hair has recently begun to silver. He normally towers over Miranda, but today she has worn platform shoes with heels so high even she risks a broken ankle, which puts her head only a little below his.
"Miranda," he says, cordially enough, after a long, confused pause. "How can I help you?"
She cocks her head like a bird of prey. "How are things at home, Henry?"
She's met his wife on a couple of occasions at Elias-Clarke functions. Frances has always struck her as the sort of no-nonsense, practical woman who keeps her husband well at heel.
No idiot, he squints in suspicion. "They're fine. Why?"
A lie; she can tell from the tension in his shoulders, the way he unconsciously spins the band on his finger.
"I heard a rumor about an incident with one of your copy editors," she says. "It made me concerned for you and Frances."
She expects rage, or perhaps defensiveness. She does not expect his shoulders to sag, his hand to rub tiredly at his eyes.
"You heard about what happened with Andy?" he says, defeated. "Does everyone know?"
"Not yet." The hard look she gives him would be more effective if he could meet her eyes.
"God. Frances and I split up three months ago. We're keeping the divorce proceedings quiet." He runs a hand through his hair. "That thing with Andy—I misread things. I thought she was receptive."
Because if a woman smiles at you, of course she wants to sleep with you , Miranda thinks acerbically.
"Why her?" she demands. "Why some low-level copy editor?" Did he target Andrea specifically, or would he have chased any woman at the bottom of the totem pole?
He glares at her. "Andy isn't just some low-level copy editor. She's brilliant and kind, beautiful and…If you knew her, you'd understand." He shakes his head. "Like I said, I misread things. But she's a wonderful girl. You can't blame me for wishful thinking."
"You'll find I can do many things," Miranda says softly. Nothing he says excuses his behavior. Nothing he can say would excuse kissing a woman against her will. But a part of her pities him. A part of her wonders how she herself might have been tempted, if she had given Andrea that job all those months ago.
He sighs. Their conversation has aged him fifteen years. "She earned that promotion, I'll have you know. It wasn't favoritism. I hope...well, I don't think I caused any irreparable damage, except maybe to my pride. You won't tell anyone, will you?"
She hits the stop button, sending the elevator lurching back into motion, and does not reply.
Miranda does not mention the Henry Styles situation to Andrea again. Much as she itches to pursue the matter beyond that single, unsatisfying conversation, she respects Andrea's request. She waits.
Over their next few lunches, she also does not press Andrea to follow through on her decision to leave Nate. She does not ask about Nate. She does not, in fact, mention Nate at all.
She reflects that in light of this uncharacteristically restrained behavior, she might, for the first time, be "turning over a new leaf" as her tenth grade English teacher once tried to persuade her to do.
She reads Andrea's submission letter and suggests minor adjustments. She adds her own name; Andrea takes it out. She approves Andrea's submission list and advises her to wait to submit until the day before her edition of The Cincinnati Monthly is published.
Miranda receives her copy of said publication on a Friday morning, delivered by Emily, whose vaguely nauseated expression shows that she has seen the magazine's title and read Andrea's name on the front cover.
Miranda takes the magazine and leaves the other mail in Emily's outstretched hand. "Ten minutes with no interruptions."
"Yes, Miranda."
Miranda closes the office door. She lays the magazine on her otherwise pristine desk and spends a moment admiring the cover.
The aesthetics are awful, of course. Clashing colors, a bland picture of a bland actress with a terribly bland headline. But whereas Andrea's name would have been in tiny print on the cover of The New Yorker—if indeed she would have been listed on the cover at all—here, it is displayed prominently, in large font: "Andrea Sachs". Unmissable.
She flips through the glossy pages to find the article and reads it as if for the first time. She devours the words hungrily, using them to temporarily satisfy her craving for their author, getting to know her anew through her writing. Although she edited the article, she sees little of her own influence in its pages. It is all Andrea.
Once she finishes, she opens the office door and says, "Get me a frame from that store I like on Madison."
"What size?" Emily II whispers to Emily.
"Eight-and-a-half by eleven, of course," Emily hisses back.
"Oh, and get me Andrea Sachs," Miranda calls out.
"I haven't had a chance to see it yet!" is how Andrea answers the phone. "Nate accidentally turned off my alarm, and then I got stuck on the subway forever, and—"
Miranda laughs. "Breathe, dear." She left the door open, so she spins in her chair to face the window lest her smile give the Emilies an aneurysm. "It's marvelous. A triumph."
Andrea's grin is audible. "I couldn't have done it without you, Miranda."
"Nonsense." Despite her denial, Miranda feels warm in the pit of her stomach.
"Let me take you out for dinner tonight. On me, for once. Bring the girls. What do you say?"
Miranda pauses. "I had assumed…" She clears her throat delicately. "Won't you be celebrating with your chef?"
"He offered," Andrea says simply. "I turned him down. This once, I want to be selfish. I want to celebrate with the person who helped me and pushed me. The person who believed in me." She hesitates. "Nate has an interview for a restaurant in Boston next week. I don't want to break up with him until afterwards—I don't want to mess with his head going into it."
Then the breakup is truly on the horizon. Miranda tells her foolish heart to stop its fluttering; Andrea ending her relationship with Nate has nothing to do with her. It changes nothing. The fact that they will both be unattached at the same time means nothing.
"The girls would never forgive me if I turned down your invitation," Miranda says dryly. "We would love to celebrate with you. Tell Emily the time and place. We'll be there."
"I can't wait," Andrea breathes, her voice like a caress.