Taking Risks, Chapter 1 of 12
Title: Taking Risks, Chapter 1
Total Chapters: Prologue, 12 Chapters & Epilogue
Author: duwinter
Fandom: DWP
Pairing: Eventually Miranda/Andy
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: For Calliopedawn. I hope I get to the spirit of what you desired. I certainly had a good time writing to your prompt.
Setting: Slight AU, and set during the time-frame of the events in the movie.
Prompt: Andy got a job at the New York Times instead of Runway. Nate never existed and Andy was actually into fashion. Andy could go freelance or be offered to write for Runway therefore introducing Miranda :)
Summery: See prompt.
Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada and it's characters do not belong to me. No profit being made here. I'm just playing with them for a short while and I promise to put them away neatly when I'm through.
Comment: Comments feed the muse and the Muse is always hungry. Remember, a fat muse is a happy and productive muse. Comments and constructive criticism eagerly encouraged.
Very Special Thanks: to my wonderful Beta jazwriter. I appreciate your stepping up at the last minute and both your patience and valuable assistance. It is because of people with your heart and spirit that I someday might be a better writer.
Very Special Thanks: to associatedbears, who kindly volunteered to help and then who real life interfered with. You remain both a good friend and a star in my book!
Important Note!: A description in this story will make a lot more sense if you view this image before reading this chapter.
Chapter 1
September 2009
“Sachs!” Bellowed Jack Prentice, her direct superior in the copy department, from across the sea of cubicles. “My office!”
Andy's head snapped up from the article she was fact-checking, and she stiffened as she always did when her boss yelled for her.
Jack was blunt when telling you about your work, but Andy knew he was fair. Her thoughts went immediately to how she might have screwed something up. Her latest copy had been in on time and while, in her own opinion, it was not her best work--it was difficult to write a humorous review for a B-rated film you hadn't seen based on incomplete notes that the movie critic had scribbled in a dark movie theater and to make the resulting column laugh-out-loud funny-- it was certainly a passable effort. The reviewer whose article she had “punched-up” had even taken the trouble to send her a cup of decent coffee from one of the carts outside the building by way of thanks. She rose from the thousand words on the latest Mayoral speech she had been fact-checking and hurried across the newsroom to his office. She stood nervously in the doorway. “You wanted to see me Jack?” she asked.
Jack looked up from his paper-littered desk. “Yeah,” he grunted. “What are you doing tonight?”
Andy looked at him askance and glanced at the picture hanging on the office wall of Jack, his wife, and their six kids.
Jack grinned. “That didn't come out right did it?” he asked.
Andy relaxed a little. “I don't have any plans,” she smiled. “What do you need?” she asked.
Jack shuffled through his desk and pulled out a folder from under the mounds of scattered paper. “Our fashion reporter, Danielle Gold, was taking a few days off and got herself trapped down in Miami. She was due back this morning, but a hurricane isn't allowing anything to fly, and communication with the area is sketchy. Phones are out, and e-mail is iffy. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting a big fashion to-do tonight. Something they're calling “a retrospective of the last two centuries. Going to be lots of famous people there, the city's elite and lots of money. We need somebody to cover it. I recommended you to Karen Wilson, the Style Section Editor, because I figure with the way you dress at work every day, you must know something about fashion.”
Andy felt excitement blossom in her chest. This was it! This was her big break! The Style Section and writing about something that she really cared about. Writing about fashion!
Jack continued, now smiling openly. “Karen said you could run with it. Ticket, invitation, and background material are in this folder. We want twenty-five hundred words by Thursday night so it can appear in the Sunday Edition...”
He paused for a moment, and Andy felt her insides tighten up. She had the feeling the other shoe was about to drop, and she had a pretty good idea what was coming. She schooled her facial features to not show her feelings. “There's a catch, isn't there?” she asked softly.
Jack nodded, suddenly no longer smiling. “The article will appear under Danielle Gold's by-line, just as if she'd written it herself.”
Andy nodded. It would amaze the readers of this newspaper, she thought, if they knew how much of what they read wasn't written by the reporters that get credit for it. “Okay,” she replied, “twenty-five hundred words by press time Thursday,” accepting the folder from his outstretched hand.
*****
Miranda Priestly, Editor-in-Chief of Runway, sat musing at her office desk, located on the eleventh floor of the Elias-Clark building. She was just putting the final touches on her latest Letter from the Editor for the next edition to go to print and was searching for the perfect turn of phrase to humorously convey her utter contempt for what in her opinion (and that was, by God, the only opinion that mattered in the world of fashion) the extreme lack of taste displayed by The New York Times' fashion columnist, Danielle Gold. The woman had no panache. No sense of style of her own. She parroted others' disparate ideas as if they were her own without really understanding them and had cobbled together a Frankenstein's monster concept of what fashion is about. Then she inflicted her created monstrosity on the reading public.
Miranda was all too aware that most of the people who had an interest in fashion really didn't understand anything about it. They needed to be guided by a firm hand, one that would show them what risks were permissible. And make no mistake, Miranda understood that fashion was all about risk. About pushing the envelope and trying to create something new. Danielle Gold's perception did not allow for the evolution of fashion. Just like in the Darwinian concept of species evolution, fashion experienced jumps and starts while evolving. Danielle Gold's concept was that those designers flattering her the most were the ones most worthy of positive press, regardless of their talent. It was a concept that Miranda Priestly intended to eradicate.
Miranda had joined in a war of words almost a year ago when the woman had sung the praises of a new designer during New York Fashion Week named Henri Glasser, a designer Miranda had panned as a no-talent after witnessing his pre-show run-through. Since then a few lines in each Letter from the Editor addressed the slew of attacks on Miranda's view of fashion as printed in Danielle Gold's many columns each month. The fact that fashion columnist's words went to press far more frequently than Miranda's did meant that for every word Miranda had devoted to this conflict Danielle Gold had a hundred printed. Miranda smiled a vulpine smile. It was fortunate that she was far more erudite than the misguided Ms. Gold. With carefully chosen words, Miranda got her message across and often left the New York Time's fashion columnist figuratively frothing at the mouth in her printed columns for several days after the newest issue of Runway hit the streets and Miranda's latest volley of bon mots became public.
Miranda turned again to the work in progress before her. She'd sleep on what she wanted to say and finish it tomorrow morning. She turned in her chair and called out quietly for Emily, knowing that her First Assistant was out of the building taking care of some things for Miranda and that the only body in the outer office was the new girl whose name she hadn't bothered to learn yet. The Dragon Lady absently wondered whether this one would be smart enough to know it was she that Miranda was summoning or if her long suffering First Assistant would spend part of this afternoon explaining to HR that they needed to send down more resumes so that the search for yet another Second Assistant could begin again.
*****
Andy stood on the edge of the red carpet just outside the MoMA building dressed in Ellie Saab. The champagne colored gown was a year out of date, and the form-fitting sheath-dress had been originally meant as a wedding dress when the designer presented it in her 2008 fashion bridal collection, but as soon as Andy had come across it at an upscale consignment shop, she’d had to own it. The raised sunburst design emanating from her left hip accentuated her shape, and the slit to her left hip allowed her to flash her shapely legs when she walked. The bust-line bodice left both her creamy shoulders and neck bare. This was the best evening gown Andy owned, and she was thrilled with the opportunity to wear it. She had finished her look by placing her luxurious brunette hair up in a tight bun and artfully applying make-up suitable for the evening. Now she waited with a gaggle of other print reporters and photographers as the “beautiful people” made their way down the red carpet and into the MoMA building. Flashes went off around her as the Times' photographer stood just behind her doing his best to get pictures of everyone walking past their position. Andy had attempted to approach a few of the celebrities, but had been repeatedly rebuffed, as no one recognized her as associated with The Times. She had resigned herself to reporting what she saw now and when the model's took to the catwalk.
*****
The limo pulled up before the red carpet and the Devil in Heels stepped elegantly from it after the door had been opened for her by those receiving the event's celebrity guests. Nigel and Emily quickly flanked her as she stood for a moment at the end of the red carpet allowing the photographers to snap pictures of her in a magnificent Vera Wang gown. She looked about. Another of these interminable events like a thousand she'd been to before. She'd see little of interest here and nothing new. She sighed softly, all the while maintaining her professional smile for the gathered paparazzi. She began her stately walk down the red carpet toward the doors of the building. Reporters for newspapers, magazines, and television all calling out to her as she passed, hoping to get the publishing titan to say a few words. As her eyes scanned the sea of hopeful journalists, she caught the sight of something interesting. A brunette beauty, a six unless she missed her guess --and Miranda hadn't missed a guess about a woman's size in many a moon-- dressed in all things, an Ellie Saab wedding dress. Granted the gown was designed for someone with the girl's shape. Miranda allowed her eyes to linger for a moment and noticed the forlorn look on the girl's face, pad clutched in her hand. She had allowed other reporters to get in front of her, cutting her off from the red carpet and from the chance to get the few seconds these vultures of the entertainment, style, and gossip press needed to connect with the celebrities.
Miranda paused on the red carpet to consider the crowd. She leaned back and spoke quietly as she nodded toward the subject of her interest. “Nigel, look at the woman in the Ellie Saab,” she said.
Nigel glanced at the young brunette in the crowd and smirked. “Really?” he intoned, his tone mocking, “A wedding dress? And last season's no less.”
Miranda smiled a cruel, crocodilian smile. “But she wears it well,” the Devil in Heels answered. She gave the slightest nodded towards Emily, who waited on her commands with the devotion of a nervous Pekingese and spoke. “I'll speak with that reporter briefly,” she said motioning discreetly toward the woman among the crowd of reporters.
Emily looked shocked at Miranda’s decision to speak to a member of the press on the red carpet. Miranda could well understand why since she had never elected to do so during Emily’s tenure at Runway. Moreover, this journalist was certainly a nobody. Nevertheless, Miranda was pleased by Emily’s immediate “Yes, Miranda,” as she moved to obey the directive.
*****
Andy was suddenly aware that the atmosphere around her changed. The air was charged as if all those seasoned celebrity watchers around her were expecting something. A frazzled red head pushed through the wall of reporters between her and the red carpet. The woman looked her up and down and then quite deliberately rolled her eyes. Andy was surprised when the woman addressed her.
“She'll speak with you,” the red head said in an upper-crust English accent.
Andy looked at her blankly. “Who will?” she asked.
The red head looked at her with something akin to pity in her eyes. She shook her head and then nodded towards the woman on the carpet. She spoke slowly as if talking to a particularly dense child. “Don't you know who that is?” she almost screeched. “For God's sake, hurry up; she doesn't like to be kept waiting!”
Andy glanced onto the red carpet and knew she was in trouble. There stood the one and only Miranda Priestly. The Ice Queen, the Dragon Lady, the Devil in Heels. The one woman everybody here wanted to talk to, and the one that no one here believed would stop long enough to give any of the gathered press the time of day. And apparently she wanted to talk with Andy. Andy glanced at the photographer that The Times sent over with her, and he nodded encouragement. With a thousand eyes on her, she followed the red head through the murmuring line of reporters to stand in the presence of a legend. The walk felt like the longest one of Andy's life.
Miranda waved Emily away as soon as her First Assistant had brought the young woman into her presence. Miranda's eyes devoured the girl before her. The dress, in her opinion, was somewhat out of place in this venue, but the way the woman flattered it could not be denied. Fashion was about risk, and this woman seemed to understand that. It was rare when Miranda found a kindred soul, and somehow she felt that this woman was one. Someone who understood what the secret of fashion was really about. “What network are you with?” she asked, the question couched carefully, seemingly bored, the proprieties being fully observed.
“Ummmm,” Andy replied, trying to get her brain to work as Miranda's subtle perfume assaulted her senses. “I'm not with a network...I'm with The New York Times.”
Miranda stiffened and pursed her lips. “The Times,” she said, her voice cold, suddenly distant.
Andy nodded, “Yes, I'm here covering for our fashion columnist.
“Danielle Gold,” Miranda said, ice crystals forming on the words.
Andy swallowed, and nodded. “Yes, Ms. Priestly.” she said softly, knowing that she'd misstepped somehow but not understanding what she'd done to offend the woman on such short acquaintance.
Miranda turned on her Louboutin heels and offered coldly over her shoulder, “I have nothing to say to The Times.” And with that, she strode away.
Andy was left standing on the red carpet feeling the eyes of all her colleagues on her, laughing at her. She felt herself blush with shame. She had been given a golden opportunity, and somehow she'd messed it up. She moved back to her place in the line of reporters, ignoring the questions from the others about what Miranda had said to her during their brief encounter. She sighed and then refocused herself. She was here to do a job, and she was going to do it.
*****
Miranda sat in the blessed silence of the back of the limo with her eyes closed. Nigel had been dropped off at his apartment and Emily, who sat across from her, knew better than to speak unless spoken to. The fashion retrospective had been a disappointment, but then again retrospectives always were. For most of the last twenty years she had been the major voice in determining what was considered fashionable. Her's was the only opinion that mattered. Before her reign as the Ice Queen of the fashion world she had cut her teeth on what had come before. She knew all of it intimately. Fashion was about risk, about change. A retrospective showed the past, and Miranda knew that the past was as dead and gone as her marriage to her soon-to-be ex-husband, Stephen. Consciously turning her mind away from the disappointments of the past, she moved in her musings to things she had found interesting. The girl in the Ellie Saab flashed before her mind's eye. What was the girl's name? For the life of her, she couldn't remember. And she had waved Emily off, wanting the moment with the beautiful woman to herself, so she couldn't blame Emily for not knowing. She smiled a small smile to herself and spoke without opening her eyes. “Emily,” she said.
“Yes Miranda?” Emily asked tremulously.
“We had a photographer on the red carpet this evening?” The icon asked, already knowing full well that Runway placed a photographer at any notable fashion event in the city. Miranda demanded her magazine be on the cutting edge always, and God help her staff if something new and different was presented and they allowed themselves to be scooped.
Emily swallowed audibly. “Yes, Miranda,” she answered. “Peter Ericson was there for Runway. I saw him in the crowd.”
Miranda nodded. “I want pictures of our party while on the red carpet on my desk in the morning. Especially any that contain the girl in the Ellie Saab gown.” Miranda opened her eyes and turned, looking out the car window. “That's all.” she said softly.
*****
Andy sat bleary-eyed over an article she was fact-checking early in the morning hours. She felt wired and jittery, but she supposed that's what not sleeping and drinking strong coffee all night would do. She'd been inspired by the show and had returned to her small desk in her cubicle, and in a flood of creativity, the requested twenty-five hundred words had flowed from her fingertips and onto the computer screen. Once she began reading over what she had written, she became nervous. Although her assignment was to write a piece on the MoMA fashion event, she'd produced a column that lambasted the fact that there was nothing new at the event. Her article highlighted how fashion is about change and looking back, while interesting, does nothing to further the cause. The writing, in her opinion, was among some of the best she'd ever done. The piece was powerful. It moved those few colleagues in her department she had trusted enough to allow to read it. Now she had until Thursday evening to decide whether to rewrite it or submit it as it was.
Her boss came by her desk and glanced at the numerous empty paper cups filled with the dregs of bad newsroom coffee. Andy glanced up at him, bleary-eyed. “You done with the fact check on Miller's article?” he asked.
She nodded. “Final copy is already in the computer for you to look at, Boss. Fredricson's article, too.”
Jack Prentice nodded. “And the column for Sunday?”
Andy nodded. “Twenty-five hundred words, rough draft, are in the system.” She shrugged tiredly. “It's going to need some major polishing.” she said, while thinking, Yeah, like a complete rewrite, to herself.
Jack nodded. “Well, you've got a couple of days. You look like shit, Sachs. A little birdy told me you worked all night. Go home and get some sleep. You can worry about spit-shining your copy tomorrow.”
Andy nodded and grabbed her purse. When the boss said to go home, you went. It was a once in a blue moon occurrence.
***
Robert Hoskins, Editor-in-Chief of The New York Times was livid. “What do you mean,” he grated at his Executive Assistant as he paced his office, “that she's decided to stay on in Miami for a few days? Doesn't she have a column due for press this afternoon?”
The Executive Assistant nodded. “Yes Sir. She has a column due for press for the evening edition.”
Hoskins paced to his desk and yanking open a drawer reached for his dirty secret. In the old days, a crusading Editor-in-Chief kept a bottle of booze in his desk. Hoskins kept a bottle of Gaviscon Liquid Antacid to coat his stomach and control the pain from his ulcers. His personal physician would have a few choice words for him if he knew how many times a week that Hoskins sent his assistant out to a local drug store to pick up a bottle of the over-the-counter medication. Even more words if he knew how many times the editor would sneak more of the medication in under his assistant's nose when returning from lunch. He unscrewed the cap and drank straight from the mouth of the bottle. Then he leveled his eyes at his assistant. “Get the editor of the Style section on the phone, and tell her I want to know why her Fashion Columnist is on vacation when she has a column due!...Again! ....No, better yet, tell her to get her behind up here now! I'd rather hear her excuses face to face!” he said through clenched teeth, the vein in his temple throbbing. As his assistant rushed from the office to do his bidding Hoskins clutched at the antacid bottle and took another swig. “Everybody knows it's because she's sleeping with her,” he growled at the empty office.
*****
Jack Prentice got the call from a distraught Karen Wilson at just under an hour to press time. "Jack,” she said, “is there any chance that the copy girl you recommended to me might have done anything with that column for Sunday yet?” she asked almost breathlessly.
Jack, busy with the thousand things crossing his desk as the countdown to the presses starting up ran down, didn't give the question a second thought. “Yeah,” he answered, as his mind moved onto all the other small crises before him. “It's already in the system for me to look over.”
The meeting with the Editor-in-Chief had not gone well. Karen had received a thorough dressing down from a man that she suspected no longer trusted her in her position. He was unable or unwilling to understand that her fashion columnist was an artist, and because an artist, of a temperamental nature. Danielle did what Danielle wanted to do, no more and no less. If Karen hadn't been intimately involved with the woman, she would have likely fired her long ago. As it was, Danielle was like a drug to her. One she needed, even while she knew the need was self-destructive. Under the gun she knew she had to have something to send to press, and she had a hundred other things she needed to do between her and the quickly approaching deadline. Without further consideration to the consequences and without reading it, she used a few deft keystrokes to send Andy's article to the computers that now handled the type-setting process digitally. Then she picked up the phone to call Danielle to tell her to get on a plane and come home because both their jobs might be at stake.
*****
Bill MacGrath had been a print-monkey all his life. He'd cut his teeth on old-style type-setting as an apprentice more than forty years ago. When digital printing took over, he saw the benefit of the new technology and got himself educated about it. He'd been running The Times’ print room for almost a decade, and retirement was on the near horizon. When one of his apprentice print-monkeys brought him a printout of the fashion column complaining that it was too long for the daily column, he looked it over with a practiced eye. The apprentice was right, it was nearly twice as many words as would fit in the scheduled column inches allowed for the fashion piece. More like a weekend article, he thought. Cursing a blue streak and terrifying the apprentice, he quickly read the piece through, and with a blue marker he drew a line between sentences where the material could be reasonably truncated. “Run it over a 'To be continued tomorrow' footer,” he instructed, “and make sure you save the balance of the text to a file so we'll have it when we need it.”
*****
After several hours sleep, Andy woke in the early evening to discover that her refrigerator was empty. This wasn't really surprising, as the demands of her job rarely gave her time to eat at home. She decided to leave her small loft apartment and grab a bite to eat at a local Vietnamese restaurant she liked. On the way she stopped at the corner newsstand and picked up a copy of The Times. As she dined on her favorite Muc Xao Hanh La, she paged through several sections of the paper, taking proprietary pride when she saw corrections she had made to articles in print. Then, to her horror, she saw her column. The one due to be printed for the Sunday edition. The one she was going to rewrite.
She read the column and, allowing that it had basically been cut in two, she realized that not a word that she had written had been changed. Not a thought, not a punctuation mark. It had gone to print exactly as she had typed it out, which was unheard of in the newspaper game. The column should have passed through two or three people's hands before it got to print. She shook her head. Somebody had screwed up big-time. She glanced at the by-line and felt the world shake around her. They'd printed it underneath Danielle Gold's name. The Fashion Columnist was known throughout the paper as a temperamental bitch--one used to getting her own way and who made other people's lives hell. Andy was pretty sure that the column wasn't going to please the woman. She was in serious trouble, and she knew it.
*****
Early the next morning Miranda Priestly sat at her desk at Runway sipping her morning latte and perusing the many publications that her second assistant laid out for her each morning. She had glanced at several of the reviews of the MoMA event last evening in various newspapers before she got to The Times. She pursed her lips with distaste. Each time she saw that woman's name, she had to force herself to read Danielle Gold's vapid ramblings and exaggerated opinions of what was important in the world of fashion. She turned to the style section and adjusted her reading glasses. Five minutes later Miranda sighed softly and carefully folding the paper, placing it on her desk with the fashion article up where she could see it. She called out to her assistant. “Emily,” she said quietly.
In the outer office Emily looked at Heather Gray, the newest second assistant. “She means you,” she said in a superior, sing-song way.
Heather rose quickly and rushed into Miranda's office. “Yes, Miranda?” She squeaked while the icon stared out her window.
“I want a mocha latte, soy milk, no whip cream, and a pristine copy of today's New York Times delivered to Nigel in his office in the next ten minutes. Tell Nigel that I will expect his impressions of The Times' fashion column as soon as he's done reading it. I also want you to extend an invitation to the Editor-in-Chief of The Times to have lunch with me. See if Thursday of this week works with his schedule. If so, arrange my schedule to allow it. That's all,” the icon said, never turning her eyes from the window.
Heather jotted her instructions in shorthand on her pad and rushed from the office, by-passing Emily's desk and making a bee line for the elevators.
Miranda's eyes remained fixed out the window but her hand reached out and caressed the article where it lay face up on her desk. Either the woman who had attacked everything Miranda believed regarding fashion over the course of the last year, even attempting to call into question Miranda’s credibility as the leading authority in fashion by focusing on her age, had experienced a major change of heart --and Miranda didn't believe that for a moment-- or she hadn't written this column, no matter what the by-line said. Her mind flashed back to the girl in the Ellie Saab gown. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she mused quietly to the empty office.
*****
The next morning Andy sat at her desk attempting to work diligently on fact-checking an incredibly boring article on a political hot-potato issue, the cost of new traffic lights. With a sense of foreboding she was suddenly aware of the shadow falling across her desk.
“So, this is the little idiot minion that is attempting to ruin my reputation,” a sarcastic female voice said in a cold tone from just behind Andy's shoulder.
Andy turned in her chair and, glancing up, recognized Danielle Gold from her by-line photograph. “Ms. Gold,” Andy answered by way of greeting. Today just gets better and better, Andy thought ironically.
Danielle Gold looked down her nose at Andy. Her tone was frosty, “I don't appreciate a no-talent hack wannabe from the copy department thinking she can write for me. Your ridiculous piece of trash ran under my by-line. Now I'm going to have to figure out a way to clean up your mess.”
Andy bit the inside of her lip. She had been asked to write the piece. She had told her boss that it needed work before it was printed. It wasn't her fault that somebody had screwed up, and they didn't have anything of this woman's on file to print.
Danielle Gold walked away, but as she did so she glanced over her shoulder. “Don't bother looking for the rest of your shitty article in today's edition,” she said, her tone both condescending and nasty. “I've already gotten Karen to kill it.”
Andy sighed as she watched the woman walk away.
*****
Roger Hoskins glanced at the message on his desk. His assistant had taken the call late yesterday afternoon while he had been out of the office. Apparently the formidable Miranda Priestly wanted to have lunch. He had met Miranda several times at various functions, and he was peripherally aware of the ongoing war of words between his fashion columnist and the titan of the fashion publishing world. His first thought was that Miranda wanted the war of words stopped, but approaching him about such a trivial thing seemed completely out of character with what he knew about the woman. Curious, he buzzed his assistant. “Carol,” he said to his intercom, “please confirm lunch tomorrow with Miranda Priestly.”
*****
Miranda sat at her desk staring out the window. Evening had fallen on the city, and it would soon be time for her to leave to go home and have dinner with her daughters. She glanced at the crumpled remains of the Style section of The Times evening edition. She had sent the new second assistant out late this afternoon to wait for its delivery to one of the local news-stands. She was unwilling to wait for tomorrow morning to have her curiosity satisfied as to what conclusions the mysterious writer of The Times fashion column would draw from the insightful start of the article in yesterday's paper. Today's paper did not continue the article as promised. What had been printed in today's paper amounted to an insipid retraction of the column run yesterday. Miranda had no doubt that the prose in today's column were unquestionably Danielle Gold's. It contained several catch phrases that appeared in her writing frequently, and it used the same convoluted self-aggrandizing justifications for what were, in Miranda's opinion, unsupportable positions. She had taken a certain grim pleasure in tearing the offending page of the style section into several small pieces, and then wadding those pieces into tight paper balls. Now she was more certain than ever that The Times had a talented writer who had the vision to see fashion as it was, not as Danielle Gold saw it. Miranda smiled at her reflection in her darkening office window. She believed that the young woman she had been attracted to at the MoMA event was that writer. Green, unsure of herself, but with endless potential, waiting only for a skilled hand to temper her into a great fashion journalist. Runway was always hungry for new blood. All Miranda needed to do now was convince Roger Hoskins over lunch tomorrow to part with the information about who this new talent at his newspaper was.
On to Chapter 2
Total Chapters: Prologue, 12 Chapters & Epilogue
Author: duwinter
Fandom: DWP
Pairing: Eventually Miranda/Andy
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: For Calliopedawn. I hope I get to the spirit of what you desired. I certainly had a good time writing to your prompt.
Setting: Slight AU, and set during the time-frame of the events in the movie.
Prompt: Andy got a job at the New York Times instead of Runway. Nate never existed and Andy was actually into fashion. Andy could go freelance or be offered to write for Runway therefore introducing Miranda :)
Summery: See prompt.
Disclaimer: The Devil Wears Prada and it's characters do not belong to me. No profit being made here. I'm just playing with them for a short while and I promise to put them away neatly when I'm through.
Comment: Comments feed the muse and the Muse is always hungry. Remember, a fat muse is a happy and productive muse. Comments and constructive criticism eagerly encouraged.
Very Special Thanks: to my wonderful Beta jazwriter. I appreciate your stepping up at the last minute and both your patience and valuable assistance. It is because of people with your heart and spirit that I someday might be a better writer.
Very Special Thanks: to associatedbears, who kindly volunteered to help and then who real life interfered with. You remain both a good friend and a star in my book!
Important Note!: A description in this story will make a lot more sense if you view this image before reading this chapter.
Chapter 1
September 2009
“Sachs!” Bellowed Jack Prentice, her direct superior in the copy department, from across the sea of cubicles. “My office!”
Andy's head snapped up from the article she was fact-checking, and she stiffened as she always did when her boss yelled for her.
Jack was blunt when telling you about your work, but Andy knew he was fair. Her thoughts went immediately to how she might have screwed something up. Her latest copy had been in on time and while, in her own opinion, it was not her best work--it was difficult to write a humorous review for a B-rated film you hadn't seen based on incomplete notes that the movie critic had scribbled in a dark movie theater and to make the resulting column laugh-out-loud funny-- it was certainly a passable effort. The reviewer whose article she had “punched-up” had even taken the trouble to send her a cup of decent coffee from one of the carts outside the building by way of thanks. She rose from the thousand words on the latest Mayoral speech she had been fact-checking and hurried across the newsroom to his office. She stood nervously in the doorway. “You wanted to see me Jack?” she asked.
Jack looked up from his paper-littered desk. “Yeah,” he grunted. “What are you doing tonight?”
Andy looked at him askance and glanced at the picture hanging on the office wall of Jack, his wife, and their six kids.
Jack grinned. “That didn't come out right did it?” he asked.
Andy relaxed a little. “I don't have any plans,” she smiled. “What do you need?” she asked.
Jack shuffled through his desk and pulled out a folder from under the mounds of scattered paper. “Our fashion reporter, Danielle Gold, was taking a few days off and got herself trapped down in Miami. She was due back this morning, but a hurricane isn't allowing anything to fly, and communication with the area is sketchy. Phones are out, and e-mail is iffy. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting a big fashion to-do tonight. Something they're calling “a retrospective of the last two centuries. Going to be lots of famous people there, the city's elite and lots of money. We need somebody to cover it. I recommended you to Karen Wilson, the Style Section Editor, because I figure with the way you dress at work every day, you must know something about fashion.”
Andy felt excitement blossom in her chest. This was it! This was her big break! The Style Section and writing about something that she really cared about. Writing about fashion!
Jack continued, now smiling openly. “Karen said you could run with it. Ticket, invitation, and background material are in this folder. We want twenty-five hundred words by Thursday night so it can appear in the Sunday Edition...”
He paused for a moment, and Andy felt her insides tighten up. She had the feeling the other shoe was about to drop, and she had a pretty good idea what was coming. She schooled her facial features to not show her feelings. “There's a catch, isn't there?” she asked softly.
Jack nodded, suddenly no longer smiling. “The article will appear under Danielle Gold's by-line, just as if she'd written it herself.”
Andy nodded. It would amaze the readers of this newspaper, she thought, if they knew how much of what they read wasn't written by the reporters that get credit for it. “Okay,” she replied, “twenty-five hundred words by press time Thursday,” accepting the folder from his outstretched hand.
*****
Miranda Priestly, Editor-in-Chief of Runway, sat musing at her office desk, located on the eleventh floor of the Elias-Clark building. She was just putting the final touches on her latest Letter from the Editor for the next edition to go to print and was searching for the perfect turn of phrase to humorously convey her utter contempt for what in her opinion (and that was, by God, the only opinion that mattered in the world of fashion) the extreme lack of taste displayed by The New York Times' fashion columnist, Danielle Gold. The woman had no panache. No sense of style of her own. She parroted others' disparate ideas as if they were her own without really understanding them and had cobbled together a Frankenstein's monster concept of what fashion is about. Then she inflicted her created monstrosity on the reading public.
Miranda was all too aware that most of the people who had an interest in fashion really didn't understand anything about it. They needed to be guided by a firm hand, one that would show them what risks were permissible. And make no mistake, Miranda understood that fashion was all about risk. About pushing the envelope and trying to create something new. Danielle Gold's perception did not allow for the evolution of fashion. Just like in the Darwinian concept of species evolution, fashion experienced jumps and starts while evolving. Danielle Gold's concept was that those designers flattering her the most were the ones most worthy of positive press, regardless of their talent. It was a concept that Miranda Priestly intended to eradicate.
Miranda had joined in a war of words almost a year ago when the woman had sung the praises of a new designer during New York Fashion Week named Henri Glasser, a designer Miranda had panned as a no-talent after witnessing his pre-show run-through. Since then a few lines in each Letter from the Editor addressed the slew of attacks on Miranda's view of fashion as printed in Danielle Gold's many columns each month. The fact that fashion columnist's words went to press far more frequently than Miranda's did meant that for every word Miranda had devoted to this conflict Danielle Gold had a hundred printed. Miranda smiled a vulpine smile. It was fortunate that she was far more erudite than the misguided Ms. Gold. With carefully chosen words, Miranda got her message across and often left the New York Time's fashion columnist figuratively frothing at the mouth in her printed columns for several days after the newest issue of Runway hit the streets and Miranda's latest volley of bon mots became public.
Miranda turned again to the work in progress before her. She'd sleep on what she wanted to say and finish it tomorrow morning. She turned in her chair and called out quietly for Emily, knowing that her First Assistant was out of the building taking care of some things for Miranda and that the only body in the outer office was the new girl whose name she hadn't bothered to learn yet. The Dragon Lady absently wondered whether this one would be smart enough to know it was she that Miranda was summoning or if her long suffering First Assistant would spend part of this afternoon explaining to HR that they needed to send down more resumes so that the search for yet another Second Assistant could begin again.
*****
Andy stood on the edge of the red carpet just outside the MoMA building dressed in Ellie Saab. The champagne colored gown was a year out of date, and the form-fitting sheath-dress had been originally meant as a wedding dress when the designer presented it in her 2008 fashion bridal collection, but as soon as Andy had come across it at an upscale consignment shop, she’d had to own it. The raised sunburst design emanating from her left hip accentuated her shape, and the slit to her left hip allowed her to flash her shapely legs when she walked. The bust-line bodice left both her creamy shoulders and neck bare. This was the best evening gown Andy owned, and she was thrilled with the opportunity to wear it. She had finished her look by placing her luxurious brunette hair up in a tight bun and artfully applying make-up suitable for the evening. Now she waited with a gaggle of other print reporters and photographers as the “beautiful people” made their way down the red carpet and into the MoMA building. Flashes went off around her as the Times' photographer stood just behind her doing his best to get pictures of everyone walking past their position. Andy had attempted to approach a few of the celebrities, but had been repeatedly rebuffed, as no one recognized her as associated with The Times. She had resigned herself to reporting what she saw now and when the model's took to the catwalk.
*****
The limo pulled up before the red carpet and the Devil in Heels stepped elegantly from it after the door had been opened for her by those receiving the event's celebrity guests. Nigel and Emily quickly flanked her as she stood for a moment at the end of the red carpet allowing the photographers to snap pictures of her in a magnificent Vera Wang gown. She looked about. Another of these interminable events like a thousand she'd been to before. She'd see little of interest here and nothing new. She sighed softly, all the while maintaining her professional smile for the gathered paparazzi. She began her stately walk down the red carpet toward the doors of the building. Reporters for newspapers, magazines, and television all calling out to her as she passed, hoping to get the publishing titan to say a few words. As her eyes scanned the sea of hopeful journalists, she caught the sight of something interesting. A brunette beauty, a six unless she missed her guess --and Miranda hadn't missed a guess about a woman's size in many a moon-- dressed in all things, an Ellie Saab wedding dress. Granted the gown was designed for someone with the girl's shape. Miranda allowed her eyes to linger for a moment and noticed the forlorn look on the girl's face, pad clutched in her hand. She had allowed other reporters to get in front of her, cutting her off from the red carpet and from the chance to get the few seconds these vultures of the entertainment, style, and gossip press needed to connect with the celebrities.
Miranda paused on the red carpet to consider the crowd. She leaned back and spoke quietly as she nodded toward the subject of her interest. “Nigel, look at the woman in the Ellie Saab,” she said.
Nigel glanced at the young brunette in the crowd and smirked. “Really?” he intoned, his tone mocking, “A wedding dress? And last season's no less.”
Miranda smiled a cruel, crocodilian smile. “But she wears it well,” the Devil in Heels answered. She gave the slightest nodded towards Emily, who waited on her commands with the devotion of a nervous Pekingese and spoke. “I'll speak with that reporter briefly,” she said motioning discreetly toward the woman among the crowd of reporters.
Emily looked shocked at Miranda’s decision to speak to a member of the press on the red carpet. Miranda could well understand why since she had never elected to do so during Emily’s tenure at Runway. Moreover, this journalist was certainly a nobody. Nevertheless, Miranda was pleased by Emily’s immediate “Yes, Miranda,” as she moved to obey the directive.
*****
Andy was suddenly aware that the atmosphere around her changed. The air was charged as if all those seasoned celebrity watchers around her were expecting something. A frazzled red head pushed through the wall of reporters between her and the red carpet. The woman looked her up and down and then quite deliberately rolled her eyes. Andy was surprised when the woman addressed her.
“She'll speak with you,” the red head said in an upper-crust English accent.
Andy looked at her blankly. “Who will?” she asked.
The red head looked at her with something akin to pity in her eyes. She shook her head and then nodded towards the woman on the carpet. She spoke slowly as if talking to a particularly dense child. “Don't you know who that is?” she almost screeched. “For God's sake, hurry up; she doesn't like to be kept waiting!”
Andy glanced onto the red carpet and knew she was in trouble. There stood the one and only Miranda Priestly. The Ice Queen, the Dragon Lady, the Devil in Heels. The one woman everybody here wanted to talk to, and the one that no one here believed would stop long enough to give any of the gathered press the time of day. And apparently she wanted to talk with Andy. Andy glanced at the photographer that The Times sent over with her, and he nodded encouragement. With a thousand eyes on her, she followed the red head through the murmuring line of reporters to stand in the presence of a legend. The walk felt like the longest one of Andy's life.
Miranda waved Emily away as soon as her First Assistant had brought the young woman into her presence. Miranda's eyes devoured the girl before her. The dress, in her opinion, was somewhat out of place in this venue, but the way the woman flattered it could not be denied. Fashion was about risk, and this woman seemed to understand that. It was rare when Miranda found a kindred soul, and somehow she felt that this woman was one. Someone who understood what the secret of fashion was really about. “What network are you with?” she asked, the question couched carefully, seemingly bored, the proprieties being fully observed.
“Ummmm,” Andy replied, trying to get her brain to work as Miranda's subtle perfume assaulted her senses. “I'm not with a network...I'm with The New York Times.”
Miranda stiffened and pursed her lips. “The Times,” she said, her voice cold, suddenly distant.
Andy nodded, “Yes, I'm here covering for our fashion columnist.
“Danielle Gold,” Miranda said, ice crystals forming on the words.
Andy swallowed, and nodded. “Yes, Ms. Priestly.” she said softly, knowing that she'd misstepped somehow but not understanding what she'd done to offend the woman on such short acquaintance.
Miranda turned on her Louboutin heels and offered coldly over her shoulder, “I have nothing to say to The Times.” And with that, she strode away.
Andy was left standing on the red carpet feeling the eyes of all her colleagues on her, laughing at her. She felt herself blush with shame. She had been given a golden opportunity, and somehow she'd messed it up. She moved back to her place in the line of reporters, ignoring the questions from the others about what Miranda had said to her during their brief encounter. She sighed and then refocused herself. She was here to do a job, and she was going to do it.
*****
Miranda sat in the blessed silence of the back of the limo with her eyes closed. Nigel had been dropped off at his apartment and Emily, who sat across from her, knew better than to speak unless spoken to. The fashion retrospective had been a disappointment, but then again retrospectives always were. For most of the last twenty years she had been the major voice in determining what was considered fashionable. Her's was the only opinion that mattered. Before her reign as the Ice Queen of the fashion world she had cut her teeth on what had come before. She knew all of it intimately. Fashion was about risk, about change. A retrospective showed the past, and Miranda knew that the past was as dead and gone as her marriage to her soon-to-be ex-husband, Stephen. Consciously turning her mind away from the disappointments of the past, she moved in her musings to things she had found interesting. The girl in the Ellie Saab flashed before her mind's eye. What was the girl's name? For the life of her, she couldn't remember. And she had waved Emily off, wanting the moment with the beautiful woman to herself, so she couldn't blame Emily for not knowing. She smiled a small smile to herself and spoke without opening her eyes. “Emily,” she said.
“Yes Miranda?” Emily asked tremulously.
“We had a photographer on the red carpet this evening?” The icon asked, already knowing full well that Runway placed a photographer at any notable fashion event in the city. Miranda demanded her magazine be on the cutting edge always, and God help her staff if something new and different was presented and they allowed themselves to be scooped.
Emily swallowed audibly. “Yes, Miranda,” she answered. “Peter Ericson was there for Runway. I saw him in the crowd.”
Miranda nodded. “I want pictures of our party while on the red carpet on my desk in the morning. Especially any that contain the girl in the Ellie Saab gown.” Miranda opened her eyes and turned, looking out the car window. “That's all.” she said softly.
*****
Andy sat bleary-eyed over an article she was fact-checking early in the morning hours. She felt wired and jittery, but she supposed that's what not sleeping and drinking strong coffee all night would do. She'd been inspired by the show and had returned to her small desk in her cubicle, and in a flood of creativity, the requested twenty-five hundred words had flowed from her fingertips and onto the computer screen. Once she began reading over what she had written, she became nervous. Although her assignment was to write a piece on the MoMA fashion event, she'd produced a column that lambasted the fact that there was nothing new at the event. Her article highlighted how fashion is about change and looking back, while interesting, does nothing to further the cause. The writing, in her opinion, was among some of the best she'd ever done. The piece was powerful. It moved those few colleagues in her department she had trusted enough to allow to read it. Now she had until Thursday evening to decide whether to rewrite it or submit it as it was.
Her boss came by her desk and glanced at the numerous empty paper cups filled with the dregs of bad newsroom coffee. Andy glanced up at him, bleary-eyed. “You done with the fact check on Miller's article?” he asked.
She nodded. “Final copy is already in the computer for you to look at, Boss. Fredricson's article, too.”
Jack Prentice nodded. “And the column for Sunday?”
Andy nodded. “Twenty-five hundred words, rough draft, are in the system.” She shrugged tiredly. “It's going to need some major polishing.” she said, while thinking, Yeah, like a complete rewrite, to herself.
Jack nodded. “Well, you've got a couple of days. You look like shit, Sachs. A little birdy told me you worked all night. Go home and get some sleep. You can worry about spit-shining your copy tomorrow.”
Andy nodded and grabbed her purse. When the boss said to go home, you went. It was a once in a blue moon occurrence.
***
Robert Hoskins, Editor-in-Chief of The New York Times was livid. “What do you mean,” he grated at his Executive Assistant as he paced his office, “that she's decided to stay on in Miami for a few days? Doesn't she have a column due for press this afternoon?”
The Executive Assistant nodded. “Yes Sir. She has a column due for press for the evening edition.”
Hoskins paced to his desk and yanking open a drawer reached for his dirty secret. In the old days, a crusading Editor-in-Chief kept a bottle of booze in his desk. Hoskins kept a bottle of Gaviscon Liquid Antacid to coat his stomach and control the pain from his ulcers. His personal physician would have a few choice words for him if he knew how many times a week that Hoskins sent his assistant out to a local drug store to pick up a bottle of the over-the-counter medication. Even more words if he knew how many times the editor would sneak more of the medication in under his assistant's nose when returning from lunch. He unscrewed the cap and drank straight from the mouth of the bottle. Then he leveled his eyes at his assistant. “Get the editor of the Style section on the phone, and tell her I want to know why her Fashion Columnist is on vacation when she has a column due!...Again! ....No, better yet, tell her to get her behind up here now! I'd rather hear her excuses face to face!” he said through clenched teeth, the vein in his temple throbbing. As his assistant rushed from the office to do his bidding Hoskins clutched at the antacid bottle and took another swig. “Everybody knows it's because she's sleeping with her,” he growled at the empty office.
*****
Jack Prentice got the call from a distraught Karen Wilson at just under an hour to press time. "Jack,” she said, “is there any chance that the copy girl you recommended to me might have done anything with that column for Sunday yet?” she asked almost breathlessly.
Jack, busy with the thousand things crossing his desk as the countdown to the presses starting up ran down, didn't give the question a second thought. “Yeah,” he answered, as his mind moved onto all the other small crises before him. “It's already in the system for me to look over.”
The meeting with the Editor-in-Chief had not gone well. Karen had received a thorough dressing down from a man that she suspected no longer trusted her in her position. He was unable or unwilling to understand that her fashion columnist was an artist, and because an artist, of a temperamental nature. Danielle did what Danielle wanted to do, no more and no less. If Karen hadn't been intimately involved with the woman, she would have likely fired her long ago. As it was, Danielle was like a drug to her. One she needed, even while she knew the need was self-destructive. Under the gun she knew she had to have something to send to press, and she had a hundred other things she needed to do between her and the quickly approaching deadline. Without further consideration to the consequences and without reading it, she used a few deft keystrokes to send Andy's article to the computers that now handled the type-setting process digitally. Then she picked up the phone to call Danielle to tell her to get on a plane and come home because both their jobs might be at stake.
*****
Bill MacGrath had been a print-monkey all his life. He'd cut his teeth on old-style type-setting as an apprentice more than forty years ago. When digital printing took over, he saw the benefit of the new technology and got himself educated about it. He'd been running The Times’ print room for almost a decade, and retirement was on the near horizon. When one of his apprentice print-monkeys brought him a printout of the fashion column complaining that it was too long for the daily column, he looked it over with a practiced eye. The apprentice was right, it was nearly twice as many words as would fit in the scheduled column inches allowed for the fashion piece. More like a weekend article, he thought. Cursing a blue streak and terrifying the apprentice, he quickly read the piece through, and with a blue marker he drew a line between sentences where the material could be reasonably truncated. “Run it over a 'To be continued tomorrow' footer,” he instructed, “and make sure you save the balance of the text to a file so we'll have it when we need it.”
*****
After several hours sleep, Andy woke in the early evening to discover that her refrigerator was empty. This wasn't really surprising, as the demands of her job rarely gave her time to eat at home. She decided to leave her small loft apartment and grab a bite to eat at a local Vietnamese restaurant she liked. On the way she stopped at the corner newsstand and picked up a copy of The Times. As she dined on her favorite Muc Xao Hanh La, she paged through several sections of the paper, taking proprietary pride when she saw corrections she had made to articles in print. Then, to her horror, she saw her column. The one due to be printed for the Sunday edition. The one she was going to rewrite.
She read the column and, allowing that it had basically been cut in two, she realized that not a word that she had written had been changed. Not a thought, not a punctuation mark. It had gone to print exactly as she had typed it out, which was unheard of in the newspaper game. The column should have passed through two or three people's hands before it got to print. She shook her head. Somebody had screwed up big-time. She glanced at the by-line and felt the world shake around her. They'd printed it underneath Danielle Gold's name. The Fashion Columnist was known throughout the paper as a temperamental bitch--one used to getting her own way and who made other people's lives hell. Andy was pretty sure that the column wasn't going to please the woman. She was in serious trouble, and she knew it.
*****
Early the next morning Miranda Priestly sat at her desk at Runway sipping her morning latte and perusing the many publications that her second assistant laid out for her each morning. She had glanced at several of the reviews of the MoMA event last evening in various newspapers before she got to The Times. She pursed her lips with distaste. Each time she saw that woman's name, she had to force herself to read Danielle Gold's vapid ramblings and exaggerated opinions of what was important in the world of fashion. She turned to the style section and adjusted her reading glasses. Five minutes later Miranda sighed softly and carefully folding the paper, placing it on her desk with the fashion article up where she could see it. She called out to her assistant. “Emily,” she said quietly.
In the outer office Emily looked at Heather Gray, the newest second assistant. “She means you,” she said in a superior, sing-song way.
Heather rose quickly and rushed into Miranda's office. “Yes, Miranda?” She squeaked while the icon stared out her window.
“I want a mocha latte, soy milk, no whip cream, and a pristine copy of today's New York Times delivered to Nigel in his office in the next ten minutes. Tell Nigel that I will expect his impressions of The Times' fashion column as soon as he's done reading it. I also want you to extend an invitation to the Editor-in-Chief of The Times to have lunch with me. See if Thursday of this week works with his schedule. If so, arrange my schedule to allow it. That's all,” the icon said, never turning her eyes from the window.
Heather jotted her instructions in shorthand on her pad and rushed from the office, by-passing Emily's desk and making a bee line for the elevators.
Miranda's eyes remained fixed out the window but her hand reached out and caressed the article where it lay face up on her desk. Either the woman who had attacked everything Miranda believed regarding fashion over the course of the last year, even attempting to call into question Miranda’s credibility as the leading authority in fashion by focusing on her age, had experienced a major change of heart --and Miranda didn't believe that for a moment-- or she hadn't written this column, no matter what the by-line said. Her mind flashed back to the girl in the Ellie Saab gown. “Curiouser and curiouser,” she mused quietly to the empty office.
*****
The next morning Andy sat at her desk attempting to work diligently on fact-checking an incredibly boring article on a political hot-potato issue, the cost of new traffic lights. With a sense of foreboding she was suddenly aware of the shadow falling across her desk.
“So, this is the little idiot minion that is attempting to ruin my reputation,” a sarcastic female voice said in a cold tone from just behind Andy's shoulder.
Andy turned in her chair and, glancing up, recognized Danielle Gold from her by-line photograph. “Ms. Gold,” Andy answered by way of greeting. Today just gets better and better, Andy thought ironically.
Danielle Gold looked down her nose at Andy. Her tone was frosty, “I don't appreciate a no-talent hack wannabe from the copy department thinking she can write for me. Your ridiculous piece of trash ran under my by-line. Now I'm going to have to figure out a way to clean up your mess.”
Andy bit the inside of her lip. She had been asked to write the piece. She had told her boss that it needed work before it was printed. It wasn't her fault that somebody had screwed up, and they didn't have anything of this woman's on file to print.
Danielle Gold walked away, but as she did so she glanced over her shoulder. “Don't bother looking for the rest of your shitty article in today's edition,” she said, her tone both condescending and nasty. “I've already gotten Karen to kill it.”
Andy sighed as she watched the woman walk away.
*****
Roger Hoskins glanced at the message on his desk. His assistant had taken the call late yesterday afternoon while he had been out of the office. Apparently the formidable Miranda Priestly wanted to have lunch. He had met Miranda several times at various functions, and he was peripherally aware of the ongoing war of words between his fashion columnist and the titan of the fashion publishing world. His first thought was that Miranda wanted the war of words stopped, but approaching him about such a trivial thing seemed completely out of character with what he knew about the woman. Curious, he buzzed his assistant. “Carol,” he said to his intercom, “please confirm lunch tomorrow with Miranda Priestly.”
*****
Miranda sat at her desk staring out the window. Evening had fallen on the city, and it would soon be time for her to leave to go home and have dinner with her daughters. She glanced at the crumpled remains of the Style section of The Times evening edition. She had sent the new second assistant out late this afternoon to wait for its delivery to one of the local news-stands. She was unwilling to wait for tomorrow morning to have her curiosity satisfied as to what conclusions the mysterious writer of The Times fashion column would draw from the insightful start of the article in yesterday's paper. Today's paper did not continue the article as promised. What had been printed in today's paper amounted to an insipid retraction of the column run yesterday. Miranda had no doubt that the prose in today's column were unquestionably Danielle Gold's. It contained several catch phrases that appeared in her writing frequently, and it used the same convoluted self-aggrandizing justifications for what were, in Miranda's opinion, unsupportable positions. She had taken a certain grim pleasure in tearing the offending page of the style section into several small pieces, and then wadding those pieces into tight paper balls. Now she was more certain than ever that The Times had a talented writer who had the vision to see fashion as it was, not as Danielle Gold saw it. Miranda smiled at her reflection in her darkening office window. She believed that the young woman she had been attracted to at the MoMA event was that writer. Green, unsure of herself, but with endless potential, waiting only for a skilled hand to temper her into a great fashion journalist. Runway was always hungry for new blood. All Miranda needed to do now was convince Roger Hoskins over lunch tomorrow to part with the information about who this new talent at his newspaper was.
On to Chapter 2