The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

hours wrapping some more of these
wine bottles, and then you can open the presents that came in today.
They’re over there.” She pointed behind her desk to a smaller
mountain of boxes and bags and baskets in a multitude of colors.
     
     “So,
these are gifts that we’re sending out from Miranda, right?” I
asked her as I picked up a box and began wrapping it in the thick white paper.
     
     “Yep.
Every year, it’s the same deal. Top-tier people get bottles of Dom. This
would include Elias execs, and the big designers who aren’t also personal
friends. Her lawyer and accountant. Midlevel people get Veuve, and this is just
about everyone—the twins’ teachers, the hair stylists, Uri, et
cetera. The nobodies get a bottle of the Ruffino Chianti—usually they go
to the PR people who send small, general gifts that aren’t personalized
for her. She’ll have us send Chianti to the vet, some of the babysitters
who fill in for Cara, the people who wait on her in stores she goes to often,
and all the caretakers associated with the summer house in Connecticut. Anyway,
I order about twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of this stuff at the
beginning of November, Sherry-Lehman delivers it, and it usually takes nearly a
month to do all the wrapping. It’s good she’s out of the office now
or we’d be taking this stuff home with us to wrap. Pretty good deal,
because Elias picks up the tab.”
     
     “I
guess it would cost double that to have the Sherry-Lehman place wrap them,
huh?” I wondered, still trying to process the hierarchy of the
gift-giving.
     
     “What
the hell do we care?” she snorted. “Trust me, you’ll learn
quickly that cost is no issue around here. It’s just that Miranda
doesn’t like the wrapping paper they use. I gave them this white paper
last year, but they just didn’t look as nice as when we do it.” She
looked proud.
     
     We
wrapped like that until close to six, with Emily telling me how things worked
as I tried to wrap my mind around this strange and exciting world. Just as she
was describing exactly how Miranda likes her coffee (tall latte with two raw
sugars), a breathless blond girl I remembered as one of the many fashion
assistants walked in carrying a wicker basket the size of a baby carriage. She
hovered just outside Miranda’s office, looking as though she thought the
soft gray carpeting might turn to quicksand under her Jimmy Choos if she dared
to cross the threshold.
     
     “Hi,
Em. I’ve got the skirts right here. Sorry that took so long, but no
one’s around since it’s that weird time right before Thanksgiving.
Anyway, hopefully you’ll find something she’ll like.” She
looked down at her basket full of folded skirts.
     
     Emily
looked up at her with barely disguised scorn. “Just leave them on my
desk. I’ll return the ones that won’t work.Which I imagine will be
most of them, considering your taste .” The last part was under her
breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
     
     The
blond girl looked bewildered. Definitely not the brightest star in the sky, but
she seemed nice enough. I wondered why Emily so obviously hated her. It’d
been a long day already, what with the running commentary and errands all over
the city and hundreds of names and faces to try to remember, so I didn’t
even ask.
     
     Emily
placed the large basket on her desk and looked down on it, hands on her hips.
From what I could see from Miranda’s office floor, there were perhaps
twenty-five different skirts in an incredible assortment of fabrics, colors,
and sizes. Had she really not specified what she wanted at all? Did she really
not bother to inform Emily whether she’d be needing something appropriate
for a black-tie dinner or a mixed-doubles match or perhaps to use as a bathing
suit cover-up? Did she want denim, or would something chiffon work better? How
exactly were we supposed to predict whatmight please her?
     
     I was
about to find out. Emily carried the wicker