LIAB 2: In the Soup, 5/15
PART FIVE:
Wherein Andy explores her new lodgings and gathers some clues about the other inhabitants of the townhouse.
Author: Medora MacD (medoramacd@yahoo.com)
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Pairing: Mirandy
Rating: For language, R now and PG eventually. Also M, as in Mmm, for rampant “foodiness.” Which is to food as “truthiness” is to truth. Which is to say, I cook and I eat, but not regularly at the refined levels which will be referred to in these stories. I hope you find this delectable, nonetheless.
Trigger Warning: Those sensitive to the subject of eating disorders should be aware that they play a very small part in this story.
Length/Word Count: 27,000+
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Summary: AU - What might occur in an alternative universe where Miranda Priestly's assistant was one Nate Cooper and Andrea Sachs is an aspiring chef. This is the second "course" in a series called "Life is a Banquet" - aka LIAB.
You could read this story without reading the first one, but really: Why deprive yourself of that pleasure - and the insight it will provide into this one? You can begin it here.
Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada belongs to Lauren Weisberger and 20th Century Fox. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Not for profit, just fun.
Banner: By Medora MacD, using stills from The Devil Wears Prada and Rachel Getting Married.
A/N: Sincere, deep, and lasting thanks to corchen, gsdcow, and the amazing raiderl for helping me amp up the “cowbells.” Credit to Marge Kennedy, whose paraphrased comment about soup is the theme for this installment. All comments and feedback are welcome.
Tags: all: fiction, genre: AU, pairing: andy/miranda, rating: R, status: wip, series: life is a banquet, user: medoramacd
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IN THE SOUP
( Part One ) | ( Parts Two and Three ) | ( Part Four ) |
Sunday, June 8, 2008
The house was quiet with everyone gone. Andy could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator in the galley kitchen and one floor up something that was probably the clicking of Patricia’s toenails on hardwood flooring. But not much more. No pounding sneakers - which had thudded out the front door in response to a honk out front. No stilettos clacking on marble tile - they were now probably ensconced beneath a table at Café Boulud, where their owner was brunching with her date and their children.
“Date” … Thinking of the Dragon Lady as someone’s date is ... odd. Though not as odd as seeing her at the wheel of a silver Honda Odyssey mini-van. Strange ... would have expected a Range Rover or something like that. Not that that would make a big difference because ... Damn. The woman doesn’t just take “Soccer Mom Chic” up a notch; she takes it to the stratosphere.
Where did she park that thing anyway? Not on the street, surely. And what about the town car Roy drove her around in? Or was that a company car?
Roy - now there was a nice guy. He seemed unflappable. He’d have to be, wouldn’t he? What with contending with the insanity that was driving in Manhattan? And putting up with the caprices of the “Queen of Mean”?
Andy shook her head. The “Queen of Mean…” It was getting harder to think of Miranda that way, though she had no doubt that the woman could cut her off at the knees if she felt like it. And without raising her voice above its usual soft, sophisticated tones.
“Soft.” She snorted. Miranda’s voice was soft the way a jaguar was soft. It was the fur that concealed the rippling power of a consummate predator. She had seen a wild jaguar in one of the national reserves in Peru the year she'd lived there as a Rotary Youth Exchange student. The sight had thrilled her and chilled her to the bone. The ranger had told her the animal often killed by biting through the skulls of its prey. Miranda gave off the same sense of controlled menace.
She laughed. She’d have to email that one to her mom. Would she give her an “A” for effort? Or the “PP” she used to designate ‘purple prose’?
Probably the latter, she decided. Because really? Miranda as a menacing brain muncher? Too much!
Not that her folks hadn’t initially worried that the editor was a stone-cold bitch who was only taking care of Andy to prevent Dad from suing the Prada pants off her Size Minuscule ass. She didn’t blame them. She’d have felt the same way if she hadn’t seen her with her children, if she only knew the stories she had told them when she had been ranting about how Miranda’s demands on Nate’s time were destroying their relationship.
Oops! Turns out Nate was responsible for that. Okay, and me. A teensy bit.
Him working at Runway hadn’t helped. Working for someone with vision and standards as formidable as Miranda’s was never easy, she suspected. But in retrospect the demands she had made on Nate didn’t appear to have been meanly motivated. People like Consuelo and Roy wouldn’t keep working for Miranda if she were truly cruel, would they?
Well, she’d find out soon enough. She was going to have lots of opportunities for first-hand observation. Weeks, in fact, though she was determined not to impose on Miranda any longer than absolutely necessary … in spite of the fact that she didn’t know where she’d go next. She’d cross that bridge when she was declared fit to walk over it.
Andy studied her reflection in the mirror on the closet door. The deep bruises on her left temple had faded, allowing her brown eyes to regain their prominence. And her hair was starting to grow back where it had been clipped to treat the laceration on her scalp.
In fact, aside from the cast, she looked much as she had before the incident. Which was not exactly like Xena, Destroyer of Nations. Or Lara Croft, a semi-automatic pistol in each hand. She cocked her head to one side. Helena Kyle in Birds of Prey? That was closer, but …
Nope, now as then, she decided, she looked like the girl next door. The kind who got voted by classmates as Least Likely to Become One of America’s Ten Most Wanted Anythings.
The rent-a-cops at the twins’ Central Park birthday party might have seen that if they had been standing where they were supposed to instead of sneaking a cigarette break beside the Boathouse. In which case, they could have simply blocked her access to Caroline. Or tackled her on the lawn rather than on an unforgiving slab of concrete.
Of course, if they’d done either of those things, if she’d had to stop to explain that she needed to inject epinephrine into Caroline to counter the severe reaction she was having to something she’d eaten, Caro might be dead. She couldn’t begin to imagine what something like that would do to Miranda. And Caroline's sister and father, of course. Weighed against that, a concussion and broken bones didn’t seem like too high a price to pay.
She looked again at the image in the mirror. Hard to believe all that happened three weeks ago today. So much change in so little time. She rapped her knuckles on her cast. She hoped the next three weeks would go as quickly as the first three had.
Meanwhile, it was time to get acquainted with her new habitat. First stop, the kitchen … where it looked like she was not going to be doing a lot of cooking, at least for a while. She could open the refrigerator, oven, and bottom cupboards, but couldn’t reach the top cupboards, the top of the stove, the sink, or even the microwave on the granite countertop. The wine rack and wine fridge were accessible, but locked, a wise precaution, no doubt, in a household with children.
She pushed into the living room with its 40” TV. “Ooh, this could be deadly.” She picked up the remote control and pushed the power button. The flat-screen roared to life, dropping her in the middle of a NASCAR race. “Crap!” She fumbled with the control, finally locating the mute button. After some fiddling, she figured out how to make her way through the channels.
“Yay! The Food Network! And HGTV. A classic movie channel. And the Sci-Fi Channel! Woot!” She made a promise to herself to limit her viewing to food-related programs - and any shows that had food in them. Or Caf-Pow. That would take care of her weekly NCIS fix.
“Okay, Nancy Drew, what next? Books, I think.”
The shelves beside the TV held references on sewing, dress manufacturing, and costume design and a collection of children’s classics. Miranda’s childhood books? She flipped one open. There was no inscription or bookplate. Just the name of a used bookshop in Union Square. Whoever bought them had great taste. A number of her favorites were there, including Caddie Woodlawn and The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Everything in the adjacent utility room looked fairly new - except for a beat-up toolbox sitting on a small workbench. The letters M. P. were stenciled tidily upon it in black, but it looked too old to be Miranda’s.
Hesitantly, aware that she was prying, Andy lifted the hasp and peered inside. The hammer, pliers, screwdrivers, and miscellaneous hardware in the top tray might belong to the editor, but … she pulled it out … not the tools beneath it. They were heavy-duty wrenches and pressure gauges, handy if you had to overhaul an old boiler, but of no practical use in an updated townhouse on the Upper East Side.
Which meant the vintage tools were important to her for another reason. Andy smiled. It wasn’t an earth-shattering discovery, but for some reason she was finding herself eager to learn anything that made Miranda more than simply the Dragon Lady. She hefted the wood-handled hammer. It was a standard 16 oz. claw hammer, and it had been well used, judging from the scratches on the head and the wear on the grip. She tried to picture Miranda wielding it … and failed. The lady would seem more likely to be in need of French nails than finishing nails. Still … intriguing. She closed the toolbox respectfully and resumed her tour.
She rolled to the front door, which opened into a shady space beneath the townhouse’s front steps. She wheeled to the curb and checked out the neighborhood. To her right, the east, were more residences. To the immediate west was an alley with a locked gate. Beyond this passageway was a deep, multi-use commercial property that fronted on Lexington Avenue, where traffic was heavy, even on a summer Sunday.
She sniffed the air and squinted at the corner. Was that a Starbucks? She contemplated going down to check, then realized a) she had no money and b) it would be a major hassle to wheel through the latte-sipping, scone-eating, Sunday New York Times crossword-puzzle-solving crowd.
She returned to the townhouse. The front door was still open. Good thing, too, since c) she had neither a key for it nor her cell phone. And d) she really had to pee.
As she emerged from the bathroom, thundering footsteps overhead alerted her that the Priestlys had returned. Within seconds, the girls arrived in the basement, leaping from the last step in tandem and landing with grins and upraised arms.
“Ta da! And the Dynamic Duo receives a perfect 10 from the American judge!” exclaimed Cassidy.
“But only a 6 from the Russian one.” Miranda arrived shortly after her voice did, the sound of her stilettos echoing in the stairwell. Her eyes were narrowed and she was frowning.
“Girls,” she said, “remember what we discussed at brunch about you asking Andréa’s permission to enter her apartment? This is her home now and she’s entitled to her privacy. Trespassing in this manner is simply inexcusable.”
She waited for each of the girls to acknowledge her remarks. Cassidy’s nod took two beats longer to be offered up, Andy noticed. So did Miranda, whose jaw clenched briefly before she asked, “Is this a convenient time to visit, Andréa?”
“I was about to call my folks for our weekly chat and then I need to take a nap. What time is it? 1:30? How about I call you at 3, girls, and you can come down?”
“How fortuitous,” Miranda said. “Just enough time to do your Spanish homework!” She cut off the groans that followed with a light clap of her hands. “It will take only 30 minutes. After which you’ll be free to engage in whatever pastimes you please until bedtime. Vamonos, muchachas! I’ll be in my study with the Book if you need help.”
To Part Six