Valentine's Fic Exchange: No Wonder I Fired You 1/2
“You can’t be serious!”
“This is the address, Ma’am.” Roy’s voice was as void of inflection as usual, but there was a wary look in his eyes as he glanced up at the rearview mirror.
Miranda soon lost interest in him and instead glared up at what looked suspiciously like a derelict storage building decorated with lights and a red carpet. Charles DuPont was known for his eccentricity, as were most artists, but this time he must surely be jesting.
Apparently not so - Miranda’s assistants were already waiting at the entrance to escort her inside, as were a decently sized group of paparazzi. The party was already in full swing, since she had chosen to show up late, and the hum of voices traveled out onto the streets of the warehouse district this exhibition was so inconveniently located at.
Miranda was tired. She was tired of the constant power struggle between her and Irv, she was tired of divorce lawyers and she was tired of dealing with the endless incompetence of her staff. She could already feel another headache coming on.
Putting on her sunglasses, Miranda exited the car and arranged a black shawl over her otherwise bare shoulders. It was not needed on this humid summer’s night, but the dress wasn’t complete without it. A breeze carried the faint smell of flowers in the distance.
---
Andy put down another empty glass of wine on a block of concrete and looked around for what must have been the hundredth time this evening. The place was huge, and - except for a small area near the entrance - largely unlit. The crunching sound of crumbling mortar beneath high heels echoed up towards the distant roof, and the quiet music took on an eerie tone as it bounced between the cracked walls.
The artwork itself would have been hard to distinguish from junk had it not been for very strategic lighting - scrap pieces of metal were bent into sometimes familiar shapes, and what looked like a car created from barbed wire hung in chains from the roof. The overall effect beautiful, but perhaps more fitting of a Halloween party than an exhibition and although people were cheery, most of them kept to the small lit area. It was really something to watch the whole scene from the outside, Andy mused and leaned against a wall in the shadows. She had made sure to take statements from the most important people present as early as possible, in order to withdraw before Miranda arrived with her henchmen. The assigned photographer for the evening, Jenny, was weaving through the crowd, and later tonight Andy would review her pictures and decide which ones to use for the article. The reporter wasn’t sure why she was still there at all, but she was, anticipation building in her chest.
“That dress is going to get ruined if you insist on leaning like that, Six. Very unfeminine, I might add.”
The voice made Andy’s heart skip a beat, and suddenly she was quite happy to have left her glass where it couldn’t be spilled down her front. “Jesus, Nigel! Don’t scare me like that.”
“Funny, it’s almost as if you were looking for someone. For your information, she’s going to enter through that door in less than two minutes.” Nigel looked smug as Andy straightened and tried to brush some dust from the lace of her sleeve. He was dressed in a dark, double-breasted suit whose high-collared shirt and red tie made him look like an evil ship’s captain.
“You look nice, Nigel.” Andy smiled nervously and turned her eyes to the entrance. Her heart was suddenly beating quite fast. “I should probably go.”
“You don’t look too bad yourself. Second hand labels really do agree with you. Lagerfeld?” At Andy’s distant nod he continued, amusement clear in his voice, “And you should have left half an hour ago when you had the chance. There is no way she won’t see you the second she… oops, there she is. See you later, Six.”
“Four.” The automatic response earned no reply from the departing man and Andy hugged her clutch against her stomach, staring at the doors.
Miranda always knew how to make a stunning entrance. Andy’s eyes were not the only ones trained on the fashion queen as she swept in and made her way up to exchange hugs and kisses with the artist. She was truly stunning in a black dress that hugged curves really unlikely on a woman her age. Her shoulders were left bare beneath a thin shawl - Andy wondered briefly who’d designed the dress for her this time, because it was quite obvious that someone had. Her white hair shone in the spotlight coming from above.
She felt a lump in her throat as she watched Miranda move through the crowd, trailed by her two assistants. One of them stumbled on the uneven ground. She didn’t envy them.
The next moment she felt a chill up her spine, and she swallowed hard. Miranda had turned her head towards the shadows were Andy was standing, and the fashion queen’s whole posture seemed to grow rigid as her icy blue eyes met those of the terrified reporter.
--
Disaster. Miranda had known it from the moment she had laid eyes on the poorly chosen location for this charade. The art was terrible without being original, and no effort seemed to have gone into making this warehouse into anything other than the dirty ruin it was. She would make sure that DuPont never showed his face in Runway again, if only for the fact that this little visit would completely ruin her favorite Jimmy Choos.
When her assistant stumbled for the fifth time she sighed in exasperation. “Emily, I expect my employees to have an IQ higher than 50. Surely you can walk and speak at the same time?”
She smiled to herself when her words caused the blonde to stumble again. Miranda was fairly certain none of them were actually called Emily, not since the actual Emily had gone to the art department, but it seemed like a useless effort to bother with their names. As yet another man wearing last season’s Armani approached, Miranda found herself looking almost desperately for Nigel.
She found him talking to a woman near the edge of the crowd, and only a few steps away were… no, it couldn’t be.
As her eyes met those of her former assistant she felt the air leave her lungs. What was Andrea doing here?
She focused on the press pass resting between Andrea’s breasts. That’s right; the smart, fat girl had run off to become an investigative journalist. Right now, she was surely investigating the unacceptable living conditions of New York’s upper class, Miranda thought with a sneer. At least her style had not deteriorated completely - the brown Chanel dress she was wearing ended mid-thigh and was covered with enough flowery lace to make a curtain, but it had the right cut and complimented her dark eyes and hair nicely. Adequate.
Miranda turned away and took a deep breath. The air suddenly seemed stuffed, perhaps because of the mildew the ‘artwork’ was surely infested with, and she quickly stepped into the crowd again. Nigel joined her a few minutes later, and together they endured the guests, the journalists and their photographers. None of them were Andrea, and once or twice during the next hour Miranda glanced towards the dark wall where the reporter was standing, glass in hand while being chatted up by some young twit with fluffy hair. Young people should really stop mistaking bad vampire films for eligible fashion statements.
She had stayed here long enough. Leaving her empty glass with a waiter, she sent her assistants scurrying for the exit with instructions not to bother her until morning and for God’s sake do something about that limp. Nigel left her with a raised eyebrow - he was definitely up to something again - but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
After bidding the host goodbye, Miranda headed towards the dark end of the big warehouse. She was pretty sure she had spotted a rear exit, and she needed some fresh air. When she had sobered up a little, and when her emotions weren’t in tumult, she would call Roy to take her home in the town car. Half a century old, and she had yet to learn that drinking alcohol was a bad thing when already in a bad mood. Perhaps if this gathering hadn’t been as devastatingly useless, Miranda wouldn’t have had to resolve to alcohol at all. That little fraud of an artist would definitely pay for this.
Regardless, when Miranda stepped out onto the abandoned yard and the fresh night air caressed her tired features, she felt almost happy. This was a closed-in yard of sorts, which explained the lack of paparazzi lingering outside. On all sides, the dark silhouettes of buildings broke the slightly lighter New York sky, and the sound of traffic was merely a hum in the distance.
The scent of flowers had once more grown stronger, and Miranda realized that part of the yard must be overgrown. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she began to see the shapes of dandelions jutting up between the rubble, and she allowed herself a faint smile as she adjusted the shawl over her shoulders and carefully made her way further out into the open.
Nights like this, when she had been drinking too much and there weren’t enough distractions, unwelcome truths pushed to be recognized within her. Miranda was lonely. She had sacrificed human relationships for her career, and if given the choice she would do it all again, but the truth was that when this career ended, and it wouldn’t be long now, her life would be void of meaning. Miranda was nothing without Runway. She was a mother, but try as she might she couldn’t convince herself that she was any better at that job than her own father had been. Instead of studying religious texts in Hebrew, she spent her days at Runway and her evenings with The Book, and although still so young the twins had long ago learned that they came in second to her lifework.
In a week, when the divorce was finalized, they would come back to the house and life would resume its normal pace, with both Cassidy and Caroline being more attached to their dog Patricia than to Miranda herself. Perhaps if Miranda had ever had a mother of her own she would have been better at this, she mused to herself for the thousandth time as she stared up at the night sky.
When she took another step forward, something cracked beneath her feet. The editor froze, trying to determine from whence the sound had came, and with a sudden soberness approaching panic she realized that there was no one there but her. When she took a quick step back, the ground gave way beneath her, and with a less than dignified yelp the chief editor of Runway fell into the earth.
---
“I’m sorry, I have to go. Reporter stuff, you know. It’s been really great talking to you.” Andy was losing her patience. The guy was cute, but he hadn’t stopped talking since he’d cornered her almost an hour ago, and the crowd was thinning out. She had absolutely no reason to stay here any longer.
He ran his fingers through his carefully mussed hair. “How about…”
“Sorry, have to go.” Andy gave him a strained smile and patted his shoulder before quickly sidestepping her unwanted companion. With each drink, it had gotten harder to keep her balance on the uneven floor, and by now Andy had to walk very carefully as she made her way towards the exit.
At least she had managed to steer clear of Miranda all evening, for which she was both grateful and somewhat disappointed. There was no doubt that the editor had spotted her, not with the long stare directed at Andy earlier that evening, but by some miracle she had been spared from public humiliation.
Miranda had been right there only minutes ago. Had she gone home? Andy frowned and turned in a slow circle as she put on her leather jacket. From the corner of her eye she spotted a flash of white, and holding her breath Andy watched Miranda make her way into the dark parts of the warehouse. She saw the door open and then close. Was that even an exit? What the hell was the woman up to?
Natural curiosity warred with the fear of being murdered should she be discovered following Miranda Priestly around, but at last Andy gave into temptation and followed in Miranda’s tracks, squinting to see in the darkness.
She entered the yard not two minutes behind Miranda, stopping in confusion once she had a clear view of the surrounding area. There was no way Miranda could have gotten far enough not to be in clear view in this short amount of time, and yet she was nowhere to be seen. Was Andy imagining things? She wasn’t that drunk, was she? After carefully placing her clutch on the nearest flat surface - another block of concrete - she made her way across the yard, having more trouble than ever keeping her balance. Most of the ground before her was just darkness, and she stopped, hesitating for a moment before taking a careful step out in what indeed proved to be thin air.
Several seconds later Andy found herself on her back, staring up into inky black nothing. “What the hell…?” Nothing seemed broken or even particularly hurt, but there was a very persistent piece of something pointy cutting into her back. Thus encouraged to sit up, she groaned quietly and unsuccessfully tried to make out some sort of shape in the darkness. The surface she was sitting on was dusty but surprisingly smooth when she carefully ran her fingertips across it. The whole place smelled damp, like a cellar.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The smooth timbre of Miranda’s voice, less than a foot away, scared Andy more than the sudden fall had managed to, and suddenly she noticed that her heart was beating double-time. “M-Miranda?”
“Yes, quite. Now, give me your cellphone.” Miranda’s command set off an automatic response even after all these months, and Andy started to search for her clutch before her brain caught up with her body.
“I-I don’t have it.” Andy’s head was starting to hurt, and she rubbed her forehead. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and now she could see the faint glimmer of Miranda’s hair alarmingly close by. “I left it by the door.”
“Why on earth would you leave it there?”
“I didn’t plan to fall through the floor, Miranda.”
“You always were poor at planning. No wonder I fired you.”
“You didn’t fire me!” This conversation was starting to veer off in a completely unwanted direction, and Andy groaned, trying to put her scrambled thoughts together. “Hey, why do you need mine? Where’s your cellphone? Where are we?” Too late Andy remembered that questioning Miranda was a recipe for catastrophe. Well, screw that.
Silence. Then, “It isn’t working.” Miranda still sounded irritated, to say the least, but she must be pretty shaken up to just answer like that. She made some kind of gesture; the oval of her face was taking shape in the darkness. “Can’t you see for yourself, you silly girl?”
“Not really. It’s pretty dark, you know.” Andy smiled a bit at the exasperated sigh coming from Miranda and shifted to sit a bit more comfortably on what she now recognized as a concrete floor. There was very faint light coming from a large hole in the ceiling directly overhead.
“Did you bring any friends? Does anyone know you’re here?”
“No. Sorry, Miranda.”
Miranda sighed again, and after that last exchange there was silence. Andy could hear Miranda’s slightly elevated breathing.
Her thoughts were just starting to wander when Miranda spoke once more. “Are you hurt?”
“You’re asking me this now?” Andy couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. Her eyes had adjusted enough by now to catch the steely glare pointed at her, and she tried to at least sound a bit less defensive. She really was quite drunk, still. “No, I’m not hurt. I think I just scraped my knees a little.”
Miranda nodded and shifted. She really was sitting quite close, a small part of Andy’s brain noted as she studied the fashion queen. There was something dark on the side of Miranda’s pale face, and Andy unthinkingly reached out. “What…?”
“What on earth do you think you’re doing, Andrea?” The offending hand was caught by the wrist, but not before Andy got something damp on her fingertips.
Andy felt her eyes widen. “You’re bleeding, Miranda!”
“It’s nothing.”, Miranda said dismissively, and after a moment she let go of Andy’s wrist. Andy just stared at her before beginning to search the pockets of her jacket. Miranda was watching her warily as she came out with a pack of Kleenex.
“Come closer, please.” Andy met Miranda’s glare with a hopeful smile, but then she sighed and got up on her knees, leaning in. She really wouldn’t have the guts to do this if she thought about it, so she simply didn’t, gently placing a hand on Miranda’s shoulder to steady herself as she licked on a Kleenex and carefully started to clean the blood off the editor’s face. She could feel the woman trembling lightly and had to take several deep breaths. Unfortunately, this resulted in getting a noseful of Miranda’s perfume. She was suddenly slightly dizzy.
“Really, Andrea. This is unnecessary.” Miranda touched the back of Andy’s hand with her fingertips, and Andy shivered. What the hell?
“Uh-huh…” Andy squinted and very gently tilted Miranda’s face so that she could see the now reasonably clean scratches across her temple. They didn’t look too bad, really.
Andy realized that her hand shook where it now rested on Miranda’s warm cheek. For a few seconds, their eyes met in the darkness, but then Miranda looked away.
“It seems that we are not getting out of here for a while. The only place light enough to see anything is right here, and I surely have no intention of wandering about in this death trap with no help from my eyes.” She sounded as condescending as usual, but Andy noticed a slight tremble in her voice.
Andy put the crumpled Kleenex back in her pocket and settled on her knees facing the editor. “We could scream for help?”
“You may scream for help if you wish.” Miranda pulled her shawl more tightly around herself and just watched as Andy unsteadily got up on her feet and proceeded to do just that.
She started off with a simple ‘help’, then after a couple of rounds added ‘we’re trapped’ and ‘we could really use some help here’. She kept this up for about ten minutes before a sound from the floor caught her attention.
“For the love of God, stop that right this second!” Miranda glared up at Andy as the latter dropped to her knees again, crossing her arms over her chest. For a long while there was silence, but it soon started to wear on Andy. She was studying Miranda’s white hair, the way one dusty white lock fell across her forehead and the way her shoulders curved beneath the thin fabric of her shawl. Just like that one time in Paris when Stephen had just left her, Miranda looked almost frighteningly human. No, scratch ‘almost’. This was downright scary.