Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Lauren Weisberger

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СКАЧАТЬ grinned with extra wattage, and I wondered if he had a chemical imbalance, perhaps hypomania.

      ‘Well, Mr T. had better be on his way. It’s always lovely chatting with you girls. Have a nice morning, both of you. Good-bye now.’

      ‘’Bye, Mr Tomlinson!’ Emily called as he rounded the corner in the hallway on his way to reception.

      ‘Why were you so rude to him?’ she asked as she pulled the flimsy leather blazer off, only to reveal a flimsier chiffon scoop-neck that was laced all the way up the front like a corset.

      ‘So rude? I helped him unload her stuff and I talked to him before you got here. How is that rude?’

      ‘Well, you didn’t say good-bye, for one thing. And you have that look on your face.’

      ‘That look?’

      ‘Yes, that look of yours. The one that tells everyone just how far above this you are, just how much you hate it here. That may fly with me, but it won’t with Mr Tomlinson. He’s Miranda’s husband, and you just can’t treat him like that.’

      ‘Em, don’t you think he’s a little, I don’t know … weird? He never stops talking. How can he be so nice when she’s such a … so not as nice?’ I watched as she glanced inside Miranda’s office to make sure that I’d set the newspapers correctly.

      ‘Weird? Hardly, Andrea. He’s one of the most prominent tax attorneys in Manhattan.’

      It wasn’t worth it. ‘Never mind, I don’t even know what I’m saying. What’s going on with you? How was your night?’

      ‘Oh, it was good. I went shopping with Jessica for gifts for her bridesmaids. Everywhere – Scoop, Bergdorf’s, Infinity, everywhere. And I tried on a bunch of stuff to get some idea for Paris, but it’s still really too early.’

      ‘For Paris? You’re going to Paris? Does that mean you’ll leave me alone with her?’ I hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud, but it had slipped.

      Again, a look like I was crazy. ‘Yes, I’ll be going to Paris with Miranda in October, for the spring ready-to-wear shows. Each year she takes her senior assistant to the spring shows so she can see what it’s really like. I mean, I’ve been to, like, a million at Bryant Park, but the European shows are just different.’

      I did a quick calculation. ‘In October, as in seven months from now? You were trying on clothes for a trip seven months from now?’ I hadn’t meant for it to sound as harsh as it did, and Emily immediately got defensive.

      ‘Well, yes. I mean, obviously I wasn’t going to buy anything – so many of the styles will have changed by then. But I just wanted to start thinking about it. It’s a really huge deal, you know. Stay in five-star hotels, go to the craziest parties ever. And my god, you get to go to the hottest, most exclusive fashion shows in existence.’

      Emily had already told me that Miranda went to Europe three or four times a year for the fashion shows. She always skipped London, like everyone did, but she went to Milan and Paris in October for spring ready-to-wear, in July for winter couture, and in March for fall ready-to-wear. Sometimes she’d hit resort, but not always. We’d been working like crazy to get Miranda prepared for the shows coming up at the end of the month. I’d wondered briefly why she wasn’t planning on bringing an assistant.

      ‘So why doesn’t she take you to all of them?’ I decided to just go for it, even though the answer was sure to entail a lengthy explanation. I was excited enough that Miranda would be out of the office for two whole weeks (she spent one in Milan and one in Paris) and was giddy at the thought of getting rid of Emily for a week of that. Visions of bacon cheeseburgers and nonprofessionally ripped jeans and flats – oh hell, maybe even sneakers – filled my head. ‘Why just in October?’

      ‘Well, it’s not like she doesn’t have help over there. Italian and French Runway always send some of their assistants for Miranda, and most of the time the editors help her themselves. But it’s at spring RTW that she throws a huge party, the annual kick-off party that everyone says is the biggest and best at all the shows, all year long. I’ll only go for the week while she’s in Paris. So obviously she would only trust me to help her there.’ Obviously.

      ‘Mmm, sounds like it’ll be a great time. So that means I just hold down the fort here, huh?’

      ‘Yeah, pretty much. But don’t think that it’ll be a joke. That will probably be the hardest week of all because she needs a lot of assistance when she’s away. She’ll be calling you a lot.’

      ‘Oh, goody,’ I said. She rolled her eyes.

      I slept with my eyes open, staring at a blank computer screen, until the office began to fill up and there were other people to watch. Ten A.M. brought the first of the Clackers, the quiet sipping of no-whip skim lattes to nurse the previous night’s champagne hangovers. James stopped by my desk, as he did whenever he saw Miranda wasn’t at hers, and proclaimed he’d met his future husband at Balthazar the night before.

      ‘He was just sitting at the bar, wearing the greatest red leather jacket I’d ever seen – and let me tell you, he could pull it off. You should have seen how he slipped those oysters on his tongue …’ He audibly groaned. ‘Oh, it was just magnificent.’

      ‘So’d you get his number?’ I asked.

      ‘Get his number? Try get his pants. He was butt-ass naked on my couch by eleven, and boy, let me tell you—’

      ‘Lovely, James. Lovely. Not one for playing hard to get, are you? Sounds a little slutty of you, to be honest. This is the age of AIDS, you know.’

      ‘Sweetie, even you, Miss High and Mighty I-Date-the-World’s-Last-Angel, would’ve been on your knees without a second thought if you saw this guy. He’s absolutely amazing. Amazing!’

      By eleven everyone had checked everyone else out, making notations of who had scored a pair of the new Theory ‘Max’ pants or the latest, impossible-to-find Sevens. Time for a break at noon, when conversation centered around particular items of clothing and usually took place by the racks lined up against the walls. Each morning Jeffy would pull out all the racks of dresses and bathing suits and pants and shirts and coats and shoes and everything else that had been called in as a potential item to shoot for one of the fashion spreads. He lined up each rack against a wall, weaving them throughout the entire floor so the editors could find what they needed without having to fight their way through the Closet itself.

      The Closet wasn’t really a closet at all. It was more like a small auditorium. Along the perimeter were walls of shoes in every size and color and style, a virtual Willy Wonka’s factory for fashionistas, with dozens of slingbacks, stilettos, ballet flats, high-heeled boots, open-toe sandals, beaded heels. Stacked drawers, some built-in and others just shoved in corners, held every imaginable configuration of stockings, socks, bras, panties, slips, camisoles, and corsets. Need a last-minute leopard-print push-up bra from La Perla? Check the Closet. How about a pair of flesh-colored fishnets or those Dior aviators? In the Closet. The accessories shelves and drawers took up the farthest two walls, and the sheer amount of merchandise – not to mention its value – was staggering. Fountain pens. Jewelry. Bed linens. Mufflers and gloves and ski caps. Pajamas. Capes. Shawls. Stationery. Silk flowers. Hats, so many hats. And bags. The bags! There were totes and bowling bags, backpacks and under-arms, over-shoulders and minis, oversize and clutches, envelopes and messengers, each bearing an exclusive label and a price tag of more than the average American’s СКАЧАТЬ