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

‘Oh my god, I have to come home. Dad, I have to come home! She doesn’t have anybody but me, and I’m across the Atlantic. Oh, but that fucking party is the night after tomorrow and it’s the sole reason she brought me and she’ll definitely fire me if I’m not there. Think! I need to think!’

‘Andy, it’s late there. I think the best thing you could do is get some sleep, take a little time to think things over. Of course I knew you’d want to come home right away, because that’s the kind of person you are, but keep in mind that for right now Lily is not conscious. Her doctor assured me that the chances are excellent that she’ll come out of this in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, that her body is just using this as an extended and deeper sleep to help itself heal. But nothing is certain,’ he added, softly.

‘And if she does come out of it? I’m assuming she could have all sorts of brain damage and horrible paralysis and things like that? Oh my god, I can’t stand it.’

‘They just don’t know yet. They said that she is responsive to stimuli in her feet and legs, which is a good indication that there’s no paralysis. But there’s a lot of swelling around her head, and it won’t be possible to know anything for sure until she comes out of this. We just need to wait.’

We spoke for a few minutes longer before I hung up abruptly and called Alex’s cell phone.

‘Hi, it’s me. Have you seen her?’ I asked without so much as a hello. I was now a mini-Miranda.

‘Andy. Hi. So you know?’

‘Yeah, I just got off the phone with my parents. Have you seen her?’

‘Yes, I’m at the hospital now. They won’t let me in her room right now since it’s not visiting hours and I’m not family, but I wanted to be here just in case she wakes up.’ He sounded very, very far away, completely lost in his own thoughts.

‘What happened? My mom said something about how she was driving and hit a cab or something? None of it makes any sense to me.’

‘Uch, it’s a nightmare,’ he sighed, clearly unhappy that no one else had told me the story yet. ‘I’m not sure I know exactly, but I did talk to the guy she was with when it happened. You remember Benjamin, that guy she was seeing in college who she walked in on having a threesome with those girls?’

‘Of course, he works in my building now. I see him sometimes. What the hell was she doing with him? Lily hates him – she’s never gotten over that.’

‘I know, that’s what I thought, too, but it seems they’ve been hanging out lately and they were together last night. He says they had gotten tickets to see Phish at Nassau Coliseum and drove out there together. I guess Benjamin smoked too much and decided he shouldn’t drive his car home, so Lily volunteered. They made it back to the city with no problems until Lily ran a red light and then turned the wrong way down Madison, straight into oncoming traffic. They hit a cab head-on, on the driver’s side, and, well, uh, you know.’ He choked up at this point, and I knew things must be worse than anyone had let on.

I’d done nothing but ask questions the last half hour – to my mom, my dad, and now Alex – but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the most obvious one: Why had Lily run a red light and then tried to drive south on an avenue that only ran north? But I didn’t need to, because Alex, as always, knew exactly what I was thinking.

‘Andy, her blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.’ He stated this matter-of-factly, trying not to swallow the words so I wouldn’t ask him to repeat them.

‘Oh my god.’

‘If – when – she wakes up, she’s going to have even more to deal with than her health: she’s in a lot of trouble. Luckily, the cabbie was OK, just a few bumps and bruises, and Benjamin’s left leg is completely smashed up, but he’ll be fine, too. We just need to wait for Lily. When are you coming home?’

‘What?’ I was still trying to process the fact that Lily had been ‘seeing’ a guy I’d always thought she hated, that she’d ended up in a coma because she was so drunk when she was with him.

‘I said, when are you coming home?’ When I was silent for a moment, he continued. ‘You are coming home, aren’t you? You’re not seriously considering staying there while your best friend on earth lies in a hospital bed, are you?’

‘What are you suggesting, Alex? Are you suggesting that this is my fault because I didn’t see it coming? That she’s lying in that hospital bed because I’m in Paris right now? That if I had known she was hanging out with Benjamin again none of this would have happened? What? What exactly are you saying?’ I shrieked, all of the confusing emotions of the night boiling over into a simple, urgent need to scream at someone else.

‘No, I didn’t say any of that. You did. I just assumed that of course you’d be coming home to be with her as soon as possible. I’m not passing judgment on you, Andy – you know that. I also know that it’s really late for you already and there’s nothing you can do in the next couple hours, so why don’t you call me when you know what flight you’re on. I’ll pick you up at the airport and we can come straight to the hospital.’

‘Fine. Thanks for being there for her. I really appreciate it and I know Lily does, too. I’ll call you when I know what I’m doing.’

‘OK, Andy. I miss you. And I know you’ll do the right thing.’ The line went dead before I could pounce all over that one.

Do the right thing? The right thing? What the hell did that mean? I hated that he had just assumed I would jump on a plane and race home because he told me to. Hated his condescending, preachy tone of voice that immediately made me feel like one of his students who’d just been caught talking during class. Hated that he was the one who was with Lily now even though she was my friend, that he was the one acting as a liaison between my own parents and me, that he was once again sitting on his moral high horse and calling the shots. Gone were the old days, when I might have hung up comforted by his presence, knowing that we were in this together and would get through it together, instead of as warring factions. When had things become like this?

There was no energy left to point out the obvious to him, namely, that if I left early to come home, I’d be fired immediately and my entire year of servitude would have been for nothing. I had managed to suppress that awful thought before it took full form in my mind: that my being there or not being there would mean absolutely nothing to Lily right now, since she was unconscious and unaware in a hospital bed. The options swirled around in my mind. Perhaps I would stay just long enough to help with the party and then try to explain to Miranda what happened and make a plea for my job. Or, if it appeared that Lily was awake and alert, someone could explain that I would be on my way as soon as possible, at that point probably just a couple more days. And while both of these explanations sounded somewhat reasonable in the dark hours of early morning after a long night of dancing and many glasses of bubbly and a phone call telling me my best friend was in a coma because of her own drunk driving, somewhere down deep I knew – I knew – that neither of them was.

‘Ahn-dre-ah, leave a message at Horace Mann that the girls will be missing school on Monday because they’ll be in Paris with me, and make sure you get a list of all the work they’ll need to make up. Also, push back my dinner tonight until eight-thirty, and if they’re not happy about that, then just cancel it. Have you located a copy of that book I asked you for yesterday? I need four copies – two in French, two in English – before I meet them at the restaurant. Oh, and I want a final copy of the edited menu for tomorrow’s party to reflect the changes I made. Make certain that there will be no sushi of any kind, do you hear me?’

‘Yes, Miranda,’ I said, scribbling as quickly as possible in the Smythson notebook the accessories department had thoughtfully included with my array of bags, shoes, belts, and jewelry. We were in the car on our way to the Dior show – my first – with Miranda spitting out rapid-fire instructions with no regard for the fact that I’d gotten less than two hours of sleep. The knock on my door came at 7:45 A.M. from one of Monsieur Renaud’s junior concierges who was there personally to wake me up and see that I was dressed in time to attend the show with Miranda, who had herself decided she’d like my assistance just six minutes earlier. He had politely ignored my being quite obviously passed out on the still made bed and had even dimmed the lights, which had blazed all night. I had twenty-five minutes to shower, consult the fashion book, dress myself, and do my own makeup, since my woman was not scheduled to come this early.

I awoke with a minor champagne headache, but the real jolt of pain came when the previous night’s phone calls came flashing back. Lily! I needed to call Alex or my parents and see if anything had happened in the last couple hours – god, it seemed like a week ago – but now there was no time.

By the time the elevator had hit the first floor, I’d decided that I had to stay for one more day, just one lousy day to tend to this party, and then I’d be home with Lily. Maybe I’d even take a short leave of absence once Emily returned, to spend some time with Lil, help her recuperate and deal with some of the inevitable fallout from the accident. My parents and Alex would hold down the fort until I got there – it’s not as though she’s all alone, I told myself. And this was my life. My career, my entire future, was on the line here, and I didn’t see how two days either way made all that much difference to someone who wasn’t yet conscious. But to me – and certainly to Miranda – it made all the difference in the world.

Somehow I’d made it to the backseat of the limo before Miranda did, and even though her eyes were currently fixating on my chiffon skirt, she hadn’t yet commented on any one part of the outfit. I had just tucked the Smythson book into my Bottega Venetta bag when my new, international cell phone rang. It had never rung in Miranda’s presence before, I realized, so I scrambled quickly to turn off the ringer, but she ordered me to answer it.

‘Hello?’ I kept one eye on Miranda, who was paging through the day’s itinerary and pretending not to listen.

‘Andy, hi honey.’ Dad. ‘Just wanted to give you a quick update.’

‘OK.’ I was trying to say the bare minimum, since it seemed incredibly strange to be talking on the phone in front of Miranda.

‘The doctor just called and said that Lily is showing signs that indicate she may come out of it soon. Isn’t that great? I thought you’d want to know.’

‘That’s great. Definitely great.’

‘Have you decided if you’re coming home or not?’

‘Um, no, I haven’t decided. Miranda’s having a party tomorrow night and she definitely needs my help, so … Listen, Dad, I’m sorry, but now’s not a great time. Can I call you back?’

‘Sure, call anytime.’ He tried to sound neutral, but I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

‘Great. Thanks for calling. ’Bye.’

‘Who was that?’ Miranda asked, still peering at her itinerary. It had just begun raining and her voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of water hitting the limo.

‘Hmm? Oh, that was my father. From America.’ Where the hell did I come up with this stuff? From America?

‘And what did he want you to do that conflicted with your working at the party tomorrow night?’

I considered a million potential lies in the course of two seconds, but there wasn’t enough time to work out the details of any of them. Especially when she had turned her full attention to me now. I was left with no choice but to tell the truth.

‘Oh, it was nothing. A friend of mine was in an accident. She’s in the hospital. In a coma, actually. And he was just calling to tell me how she was doing and to see if I was coming home.’

She considered this, nodding slowly, and then picked up the copy of the paper the driver had thoughtfully provided. ‘I see.’ No ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘Is your friend OK?,’ just an icy, vague statement and a look of extreme displeasure.

‘But I’m not, I’m definitely not going home. I understand how important it is that I’m at the party tomorrow, and I’ll be there. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I want you to know that I plan to honor the commitment I’ve made to you and to my job, so I’ll be staying.’

At first Miranda said nothing. But then she smiled slightly and said, ‘Ahn-dre-ah, I’m very pleased with your decision. It is absolutely the right thing to do, and I appreciate that you recognize that. Ahn-dre-ah, I have to say, I had my doubts about you from the start. Clearly, you know nothing about fashion and more than that, you don’t seem to care. And don’t think I’ve failed to notice all the rich and varied ways you convey to me your displeasure when I ask you to do something that you’d rather not. Your competency in the job has been adequate, but your attitude has been substandard at best.’

‘Oh, Miranda, please let me—’

‘I’m speaking! And I was going to say that I’ll be much more willing to help you get where you’d like to go now that you’ve demonstrated that you’re committed. You should be proud of yourself, Ahn-dre-ah.’ Just when I thought I’d faint from the length and depth and content of the soliloquy – whether from joy or from pain, I wasn’t sure – she took it one step further. In a move that was so fundamentally out of character for this woman on every level, she placed her hand on top of the one I had resting on the seat between us and said, ‘You remind me of myself when I was your age.’ And before I could conjure up a single appropriate syllable to utter, the driver screeched to a halt in front of the Carrousel du Louvre and leapt out to open the doors. I grabbed my bag and hers as well and wondered if this was the proudest or the most humiliating moment of my life.

My first Parisian fashion show was a blur. It was dark, that much I remember, and the music seemed much too loud for such understated elegance, but the only thing that stands out from that two-hour window into bizarreness was my own intense discomfort. The Chanel boots that Jocelyn had so lovingly selected to go with the outfit – a stretchy and therefore skintight cashmere sweater by Malo over a chiffon skirt – made my feet feel like confidential documents being fed through a shredder. My head ached from a combination of hangover and anxiety, causing my empty stomach to protest with threatening waves of nausea. I was standing in the very back of the room with assorted C-list reporters and others who didn’t rank high enough to warrant a seat, keeping one eye on Miranda and the other scoping out the least humiliating places to be sick if the need arose. You remind me of myself when I was your age. You remind me of myself when I was your age. You remind me of myself when I was your age. The words kept reverberating over and over, keeping tune to the steady and persistent pounding of my forehead.