Yearling - OCTOBER 2008
The Jellyroll of Trouble comes bearing a new treat. This solo endeavor comes as a result of just the absolute weirdest thought derailment ever. It is, at its most fundamental, an overview of the nature of...friendship.
Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada does not belong to me. No infringement intended, no money being made. The building belongs to Lauren Weisberger and 20th Century Fox. I'm just redecorating. When finished, I will tear down the new curtains and fancy artwork, but leave the festive paint…
Rating: T
Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada
Pairing: Mirandy
AN: This story disregards the novel completely, utilizing only the movie as its base.
AN: Thank you ever so to gloriously tabu, aka tuathadedanaa , for being a sounding board for particular sections of this part of the Yearling tale.
*** *** *** *** ***
Yearling
By Ruari
OCTOBER 2008
“Hey, my friend, I see your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me?”
~ Dave Matthews Band, lyrics from “Best of What’s Around”
*** *** *** *** ***
Are you still up?
Miranda glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner of the dimly lit room and then back to the cell phone in her hand, a slight frown marring her features. She quickly tapped out a response. Yes.
She drummed her fingers on the desk and stared at the data device expectantly. The screen lit up with a tiny chirp. A single tap later and her brow rose.
Do you have a few minutes for me?
Given the events of much earlier in the evening, Miranda had expected the message’s sender to be out celebrating. Her frown deepened. Another short series of taps and she brought the phone to her ear. Once the connection was made, the first words out of her mouth were, “What’s wrong?”
Andy closed her eyes in silent thanks that Miranda just ‘got it.’ She’d never been more grateful for Miranda’s distaste for small talk than she was right at that moment. “I…umm …didn’t want to bother you, really, but…umm…well, I did. It’s just that…before…I just wanted to, you know…tell you all about my night, right? But now…ummm…”
Miranda abruptly stood when she heard the woman choke back tears. “Andrea.” Her tone sharply cut off the other voice mid-babble.
“Yeah,” Andy sighed sadly.
“I’ll send Roy for you.”
“No, don’t.” Her voice, small and pitiful, perked up slightly with her next words. “I have this really, really excellent cab driver who kinda helped me out of a potentially disastrous situation…”
Miranda had no difficulty grasping the situation Andrea had found herself in. Her gaze turned hard and icy as her ire built. “Have him bring you here.”
Andy grimaced and glanced down at her once flawlessly gorgeous dress in dismay. “No, Miranda, that’s not---I mean, you don’t have to---“
“Andrea.” Miranda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “That wasn’t a request.”
“Oh.” Tears again prickled in the young woman’s eyes. “Ok. It’ll…umm…take a minute…and…” She took a deep, shuddering breath.
Miranda’s voice gentled considerably. “That’s fine. I’ll wait.”
--- --- --- --- ---
She would make sure, later, that Andrea never spoke of the fact that Miranda stood at the window waiting for the taxi-cab to deliver her friend. And that Miranda was out the door and traveling down the walk before the vehicle was ever placed in “Park.”
And she made sure Andrea never saw the bills slipped into a kind man’s large, calloused hand. Or heard his muttered words, “I have two teenaged daughters. It’s like I’m always on the lookout for creeps these days.” Or heard her reply, “You’ll come see me on Monday at the Elias-Clarke Building, Runway Magazine. You’ll need to ask for Miranda.”
And Andy made sure to never speak of how Miranda came barreling out of her townhouse as the cab driver pulled up to the curb, easily surmising that the older woman had been watching for her. And she pretended not to notice her friend slipping money into her rescuer’s hand. Just as she also pretended not to hear the whispered conversation taking place behind her as she climbed out of the car.
After all, it wouldn’t do for Andy-Lou Who to allow the Grinch to know that she knew there was cardiac augmentation taking place.
--- --- --- --- ---
“Just so you know,” Miranda spoke quietly from her end of the sofa. “I don’t expect you to tell me anything.” And this only after a lengthy silence had descended in the room. Following Andrea’s arrival, she had directed the disheveled brunette toward the cozy confines of her den, casually tucking a throw blanket around the young woman as she settled in next to her on the plush sofa. “But I’m here to listen if you choose to do so,” she finished.
Andy smiled a bit sadly and tugged the borrowed blanket tighter about her shoulders. “I-It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m just not sure where to start.”
Miranda nodded in understanding. “Who was he?” she prompted softly.
“Just a guy from the paper. He started working there shortly after I did.” Andy absently played with the fringe on the edge of the throw as she slowly, and occasionally uncomfortably, described the events of her evening to a patiently listening ear. Toward the end of her tale, she circled back around to the beginning. “We were friendly but, I mean, we hadn’t ever dated or anything.” She looked up at Miranda, her face a picture of loss and confusion. “How does one simple escort thing turn into - into…this?”
Miranda reached out to stop Andrea from pulling at the torn sleeve of her Narcisso Rodriguez gown, her hand wrapped loosely around the journalist’s forearm. “The wolves are usually well-disguised, as you know. And those you’ve been staring at for years are often the most surprising.”
Andy listlessly shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t help that I’m so terrible at spotting them. Nate. Christian. Adam. Now Kevin. You’d think practice would make perfect or something.” She snorted self-deprecatingly and murmured, “Maybe I should just switch to women.”
Miranda’s lips twitched in humor at the sentiment before she drifted into a moment of introspection, a wretched habit only recently developed---appropriately enough at the same time as did her friendship with Andrea. The quiet passed uninterrupted between the two before the editor gave voice to her thoughts. “My experiences with the male persuasion are, of course, well documented,” she dryly acknowledged. She then sighed and paused again just briefly, her fingers rubbing her upper lip pensively, before she continued her scandalous train of thought. “But I’m not ignorant to the fact that the issues surrounding my lack of success are largely…my own fault.”
Andy took in the warring expressions of self-disgust, sadness, and defeat flitting briefly across Miranda’s face before the older woman, once again, hid them behind a mask of impassivity. “It takes two to fail at a relationship, Miranda,” she chided gently.
Miranda smirked in response. “Not necessarily. It takes two people to make a relationship work, Andrea. It only takes one for it to collapse.”
With that little nugget to chew on, the two friends again lapsed into a companionable silence. The next time it was broken, it was a hesitant Andy broaching a typically taboo subject. “Do you think it has anything to do with Kline? Your, or rather, our lack of success with men, I mean.”
Miranda’s head shot up, her eyes going glacial at the mere thought. To her credit, Andy didn’t back down. “Turn your high beams down, and stop looking at me like I just tripped Valentino on the catwalk. It’s a legitimate theory,” she insisted as she rolled her eyes. “I mean…come on, Miranda.”
Though her gaze warmed considerably, Miranda’s expression remained a fixture of denial. But the longer Andrea stared her down, with her brow hiked high upon her forehead, the more thoughtful Miranda became. Her gaze turned vacant as she considered the loathsome idea. Long minutes later, she allowed a grimace to cloud her countenance. As though it pained her to admit it, she finally muttered, “Perhaps.” She sighed deeply and sank further into the corner of the sofa. “But it could just as easily be nothing more than a byproduct of my personality. Kline was so long ago; I was a completely different person. More than just my name has changed since then, Andrea. There’s just no way of knowing if it had a direct impact.”
Andy was shaking her head in negation before Miranda ever finished speaking. “No way, Miranda. That just can’t be it. Look at how we interact with people. We don’t have anywhere close to the same personality.”
Miranda’s eyes gleamed in amusement. “Don’t we?” she queried softly.
Andy’s brows rose in disbelief. “Uh…no. We don’t.” She caught the glint in other woman’s eye and tipped her head in bemusement. “We do? Really?”
Miranda shrugged. “You tell me. Are we both not extraordinarily goal-oriented? From what I’ve observed first hand, you see what needs to be done and you just do it. It was what allowed you to eventually perform well at Runway. In our very first conversation, were you not telling me all about your lofty ambitions of being a writer in New York City? It was your goal. Did you not achieve it? You certainly did not let me stand in your way.” Miranda smirked at the guilty, yet pleased, expression that crossed the brunette’s face.
“And I’m quite certain there’s no question as to achieving my goals, is there? I believe you’ve ruthlessly pointed that out on occasion,” Miranda continued in her typically whisper-soft tone.
Andy closed one eye and winced at Miranda’s sardonic assertion. Peeking over at the editor, she laughed outright at the smug expression adorning the woman’s countenance. She quickly raised and rolled a hand, as if to say ‘Come on, what else you got?’
“Alright then,” Miranda took up the challenge. “You spent nine months running errands and answering phones at a fashion magazine. Not because you had a great love for haute couture,” here Miranda’s eyes twinkled in amused remembrance of a lumpy, blue sweater and ghastly plaid skirt.
Seeing this, Andy narrowed her gaze, the mock-glare quickly becoming a grin of equal amusement. “Yeah, yeah,” she flicked her fingers at the older woman, “move along.”
Miranda’s eyes now gleamed in triumph. “You worked there because you had to. It was the only job in the industry you could get. Working for me-ogre that I was-was your ticket to getting where you wanted to be. You did what was necessary, rather than what was desired. And, Andrea, you did this before you knew of my connection to Kline.” Miranda stared at the younger woman at the other end of her sofa. When Andrea lifted her gaze to meet Miranda’s, the editor smiled sadly. “How often do I have to socialize with individuals I cannot tolerate under the best of circumstances? How often must I kowtow to Irv Ravitz? How often must I sacrifice time with my children, Andrea? Simply to put out the best fashion magazine every single month. To be the best editor I can possibly be.” Miranda shot a wistful look toward a framed photo sitting atop a table by the door. “We do what is necessary,” she murmured. “Not necessarily what’s desired.”
Andy conceded the point by reaching over and clasping Miranda’s hand for a short moment. Wordlessly acknowledging the greater sacrifices Miranda has made in her determination to hold on to her place in the world. By the time Andy had resituated her person back amongst the cushions and blanket, Miranda was tapping an index finger against her lips, seemingly deep in thought.
“You’re a very self-reliant individual,” Miranda stated. “You haven’t cashed a single check your parents have sent you since you and Nate broke up, have you? You’re the one who told me you only cashed the others because he insisted, correct?” She looked over to see the brunette nodding, a grimace of pique briefly tightening Andrea’s lips. “And I truly believe you would’ve gotten that job at The Mirror even without my recommendation, such as it was. Furthermore, you are a freakishly upbeat person, Andrea. And no one makes you that way. You don’t rely on anyone else to be such an individual.”
Andy raised a brow. “I make my own freaky?” she asked in disbelief.
“No,” Miranda snorted in amusement. “You make your own ‘happy.’”
Andy’s eyes widened in surprise, and she grinned at the thought. “Ah, I see.” She tipped her head back and forth minutely. “Yeah, I can see where you’d get that impression. If you mean that I refuse to let most others get me down. But, Miranda,” Andy reached out and patted the older woman’s hand. “As much as I adore you, I’m not going to lie and agree that you’re a freakishly upbeat person, too.”
And she was thoroughly charmed as she watched Miranda Priestly laugh out loud at the absurd notion; Miranda Priestly…laughing at herself.
It took Miranda a minute to regain her composure. “Oh, perish the thought,” she chuckled. “No,” she continued after subduing her amusement, “no one in their right mind would call me freakishly upbeat.” She allowed another small laugh at the very idea. “But nearly everyone would say I was freakishly self-reliant.”
Andy again raised a brow, silently asking the other woman to elaborate.
“The decisions, Andrea. The decisions.”
Andy blinked in instant understanding, seeing immediately where Miranda was going with the thought. Andy herself had written about that very trait in an article soon-to-be published in Miranda’s magazine. She had made reference to all the decisions for which the editor took responsibility and credit. Yes, she had advisors on her staff. Junior editors and staffers who made suggestions, offered ideas. But it was Miranda alone who chose what went in the magazine and how it finally appeared.
Andy was also not ignorant to the fact that Miranda allowed no one but her children to dictate her actions in her private life. It was a large part of why she was twice-divorced. Andy found herself in the not-unusual position of conceding yet another argument to her wickedly intelligent companion but was interrupted before she could speak.
“And there is simply no questioning the common trait that allows us to be both willing and able to persevere. Even under the most stressful and seemingly hopeless of conditions. Our shared childhood experiences prove that without exemption.” Miranda frowned down at her hands, rubbing a thumb absently over the back of the other. “That commonality alone is no doubt easily the birthplace of a half dozen others.” She looked over toward her young friend, searching for confirmation.
There was truly no way to honestly refute the editor’s assertion. It was such an obvious corollary, Andy wondered why it hadn’t immediate leapt to mind. “You’re absolutely right, Miranda.” She shook her head in bafflement at her lack of foresight. “We’re survivors,” she murmured.
“Damn right we are,” came the muttered reply, pride evident in the soft, yet emphatic, tones.
“Of course, now that you’ve opened my eyes,” Andy wryly pointed out, “I can easily think of several not-so-pleasant traits we share-stubbornness, impatience, a decided lack of tolerance for stupidity-just to name a few.”
Miranda smirked in amused agreement. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
Andy sighed and leaned forward. “Ok. I’ll concede to all of your points. I guess my new argument would be…” She gestured absently to the two of them. “Don’t you think Kline made us this way?” She waggled her head back and forth quickly in indecision. “Or, rather, didn’t it shape our personalities toward what they are now?” She looked up at Miranda, brows furrowed in concentration. “It would’ve had to, right?”
Sighing in exasperation, Miranda shifted to place her elbow along the back of the sofa, her head coming to rest upon her raised palm in fatigue. “Our life experiences shape our personalities, Andrea. So…yes, our time at Kline helped make us who we are. But so has everything that’s come after.” She softened her tone and continued, “I believe we are who we are because of what we did to get out of Kline. Not because we were ever there in the first place.”
Miranda lifted her free hand to rub wearily at her forehead. She was amazed at how exhausting these ‘deep’ conversations always were. She glanced through the window over Andrea’s shoulder, watching the weak light of dawn creep slowly across the panes.
--- --- --- --- ---
“My children will awaken soon.” Miranda looked over at the yawning brunette. “Will you sleep after you’ve had breakfast?”
Andy frowned in consideration, her tacit understanding of Miranda made hearing the unspoken invitation practically autonomic. The truth being that after so many months of building closeness between the two, and after the events of last month, Andy no longer required an invitation to Miranda’s home. Nor did the editor require one to Andy’s. No, her consideration was definitely over whether or not she’d be able to sleep. She ruminated another few moments and then offered a slow nod of her head as accompaniment to her verbal response. “Pretty sure I will.” Her lips twitched in amusement. “You’ve kinda talked the upset right outta me.”
Miranda’s brows rose along with her person. She held out an imperious hand. “Well then…” She waited for Andrea to grab hold then tugged slightly. “My work here is done.” She escorted the young woman up the stairs and into the guest bedroom she’d previously used. She stood in the doorway as she waved Andrea across the threshold. “Chaos interruptus is imminent, I assure you. Best you shower now while I find you something to wear.”
Andy smiled as the door closed. After last month, Andy was no longer surprised that Miranda Priestly was “good” at friendship. What continued to impress her was how easy the other woman now made it. As though staying up all night with a troubled friend was a natural thing to do. And for most women and their friends, maybe it was.
Not so for Miranda.
But she certainly made it seem so.
Like emerging wrinkle-free after a seven-hour flight, Andy thought bemusedly as her ruined dress fell to the floor. Only Miranda. Fifteen minutes later, Andy re-entered the bedroom to find her dress missing and a modest set of pajamas lying instead on the bed next to a matching robe. Modest, yes. But still silk. Andy snorted in amusement. Only Miranda.
Andy dressed quickly and hurried downstairs. She entered the kitchen as Miranda was attempting to explain why she was still wearing the clothes she’d had on last night. “My fault,” she interrupted the older woman. She snatched the glass of orange juice out of Cassidy’s hand and downed it with a wink. She gave an exaggerated smack of her lips at the giggling girls sitting at the table. “I couldn’t wait to tell your Mom all about my big night, so I came over late and kept her up. All. Night. Long!” she explained dramatically. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a lie. And as Caroline and Cassidy had no way of knowing otherwise, they latched on to the topic with alacrity. Questions flew faster than Andy could answer. Minutes later, the twins blinked at the journalist expectantly…awaiting an answer to the only question that actually mattered.
“Yes,” Andy murmured, a blush creeping slowly up her neck. “I won.”
--- --- --- --- ---
Having won the impromptu game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and thus being exempt from breakfast clean-up duty, Andy excused herself to go take a much needed nap. She’d just begun to climb the stairs when she was stopped at the first landing.
“Andrea.”
Andy looked down and saw Miranda at the base of the staircase, hand resting lightly upon the newel post. She lifted a dark brow in question.
“I haven’t thanked you,” Miranda stated softly.
Her features twisting in confusion, Andy frowned. “For what?”
“For what you said in your acceptance speech.” A somewhat enigmatic smile fell across Miranda’s lips.
A somewhat abashed Andy muttered, “You do know how important you are to me, right?” She smiled down at the other woman and shook her head in exasperation. “I mean, on so many different levels?”
Miranda nodded. “I do now, yes.”
“Good.” Andy nodded and then did a double-take. “Wait!” The brunette’s jaw dropped in shock. “You heard all that? You were there? Wh-How?” Her features scrunched up in consternation. “No one saw you!”
Miranda’s own features had softened in atypically obvious affection. “It wasn’t my night to be seen, Andrea.”
Tears gathered in large, brown eyes. Andrea tipped her head slightly and offered a tremulous smile of gratitude. “Sure it was, Miranda. You know it was.”
--- --- --- --- ---
Andy was sure this moment would rank in her top five for the rest of her life. She didn’t think she’d ever forget how her name sounded coming off the presenter’s lips.
“And the award for Best Feature Writing goes to The New York Mirror’s Andrea Sachs for her haunting profile of several young girls improperly committed to a mental institution and one girl’s fight for understanding, freedom, and personal rehabilitation.”
She grasped the weighty, teardrop-shaped award with shaking, sweaty hands and stepped up to the podium. She smiled widely out at a sea of humanity, unable to see anyone in the blinding light. Her unfocused gaze turned inward.
“And my parents were mad when I said ‘no’ to Stanford Law,” she said softly into the microphone, the crowd chuckling at the awkward, yet beautiful, young woman. “Thank you for this.” She held the award aloft with both hands. “That this association, so filled with talent, would select my feature--out of the thousands of choices-as the “best,” tells me that the phrase ‘human interest’ isn’t just a writing genre.”
Andy bit her lip nervously. “But this acknowledgment doesn’t belong just to me. I strung words together and placed them on paper, sure. I couldn’t have done that, though…had I not stolen courage from someone else sixteen years ago. Because it was that girl who paved the way for the rest of us.” Andy’s eyes filled with tears, a blink of long lashes pushing the salty liquid over the edge.
Her voice wavered. “Her journey became mine. And mine gave courage to someone else. And so on…and so on. And that’s the point, don’t you see?” She reached up to swipe at the wetness on her cheek. “We learn by doing. So if more people are doing the right thing…it stands to reason, doesn’t it? That yet more people will learn to do the right thing?”
Andy smiled wistfully. “I met her for the first time many, many months ago. And while I was getting to know the person she’d become, I saw that she was doing something I didn’t really approve of. Behaving in a manner I just didn’t understand. I mean, I could understand why she was doing it; I just didn’t understand how she could do it given what I knew of her history. And do you know what she told me?” Andy shook her head in bemusement and looked down at the podium. “She said, ‘You can see beyond what people want and what they need, and you can choose for yourself.’ And I realized...she’d already taught me that…long before, years before…I’d ever actually met her.”
Andy sighed and chuckled ruefully. “I chose a faceless role model all those years ago. And I admired that girl tremendously. She couldn’t know it then, but she guided me out of that place and through the next ten years of my life. And now that I’ve met my role model in person? Now that I can put a face to that level of courage? Now that I can measure the woman she is against the girl she was? I can honestly say…”
Andy took a deep breath and again smiled widely. “She’s still my hero.” Andy raised her award one more time. “Thank you, Miriam.”
*** *** *** *** ***
OCTOBER 2008
“Hey, my friend, I see your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me?”
~ Dave Matthews Band, lyrics from “Best of What’s Around”
(November)