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Emily Charlton was, generally speaking, an exceptionally pale woman. Emily Charlton exiting Miranda’s office at eleven-thirty on a random Wednesday morning looked precisely one shade away from death.
“You alright, Em?” Andy furrowed her brow in concern. She’d seen the other woman consume precisely four cheese cubes not half an hour previously, so the unquestionably faint demeanour that hung about her like a bad smell could for once not be explained on grounds of chronic malnutrition. Well, it could, but why now the effects were manifesting themselves was anyone's guess.
Emily opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again. The action was resemblant of that of a cartoon fish. Raising one shaky hand over her shoulder, she gestured wildly in the direction of Miranda’s office. Then, inhaling so vehemently that her overall visage shifted into distinct ‘pufferfish’ terrain, she managed to croak out a strangled whisper.
“Miranda! She’s - she’s eating a brownie!”
“A what?” Surely she could not have heard Emily right. In all her time working for the woman, La Priestly had exclusively been known to consume a diet comprised of red meat, coffee, and wines of vintages pre-dating the entire living Sachs family. Combined. Probably. Certainly never, ever anything with even the faintest passing acquaintance with the cocoa bean.
“You heard me. I cannot believe this. I think I have contracted a brain-eating amoeba. It’s probably your fault. It must’ve jumped off one of those awful bargain-bin cardigans you still keep at your desk for some unfathomable reason.”
Andy smiled sweetly. “Or maybe she’s just decided that size six isn’t in fact the human equivalent of a monster truck. Stranger things have happened!”
Emily glared. “No. No. No. You do not get to say that. You do not get to put such an awful idea in my mind, when I have not consumed a full meal since 2003 purely because of this industry…”
“ - Andrea!”
Miranda’s summons prevented her from finally summing up the courage to tell Emily she should really seek intensive professional help. She trudged into the editor’s lair.
And stopped.
And stared.
And stopped and stared some more.
Because Miranda Priestly, queen of the fashion world, scourge of Page Six, general terror of the buildings - scratch that, New York City itself - was slumped in her chair. Slumped. Gone was the usual ramrod straight posture, replaced by one so casual she seemed at imminent risk of sinking into the very fabric of the furniture. Yet if Andy had thought that was cause for concern, it was nothing compared to glancing under the desk, only to see Miranda had seen fit to shed her shoes and sit cross-legged (although less like a meditating monk and rather more like a sleepy cat).
That itself would have been sufficient to explain any sudden cardiac episodes on Andy’s part which felt like a disturbingly imminent possibility. But then she looked up to meet Miranda’s eyes, and oh.
Oh.
The world was ending. Confirmed. It was as if all the steel had been sucked out of those vivid blue orbs, only to be replaced with a highly disorienting softness. A haziness, in fact.
But a cardinal rule of the job was to refrain from asking her boss questions, and so the younger woman simply made her way over to the desk and reached out to clear the crumb-strewn napkin from the surface.
It was also a cardinal rule that one was under no circumstances to touch Miranda, and yet the reverse was apparently non-applicable. Miranda’s hand stretched out, lazily, and came to rest on top of Andy’s own. How immensely unfair that for a woman nigh on twice her age, her skin was twice as soft.
“You know, Andrea, I have no idea how my Bobbseys are such good bakers, given they’ve had a personal chef every day of their lives.”
Ah. That would explain the woman’s sudden lifting of her personal moratorium on the consumption of glucose. It would not - should not, did not - explain the wholly foreign tone in which she said it. A tone which was unmistakably warm, and dare Andy think it, friendly.
“I’m not surprised,” she ventured. “They’ve always struck me as the kind of girls who can do pretty much anything they put their mind to.”
Miranda smiled. Smiled! And the fact it was slightly crooked - that was it. That did it. Andy was suffering a stroke. It was the only explanation. Or perhaps Miranda was ill. That would rationalise her appearance.
“That they can. Even inducing me to consume a sugar bomb.”
Well, if Miranda herself had given voice to such a thought…
“Emily will be relieved. She was concerned that actually eating food might be about to come back into fashion. She hasn’t eaten a full meal since 2003, you know.”
Miranda frowned, and although her eyes remained resolutely glazed over, they managed to narrow.
“I did not know that. Tell her to come back in.”
Andy did so, ignoring Emily’s hiss of “what did you do now, you cow?”
Upon the redhead’s entrance into the office, Miranda attempted to sit up, slipped, and fell back into her original position. Both assistants suspended their bickering to exchange a concerned glance. Their boss glared at them - even if said glare had been significantly diluted in force compared to its typical manifestation - and pointed at a white and blue striped box balanced on the corner of her desk nearest to her.
“Emily.”
It was not a request. The woman in question blinked.
“Yes, Miranda?”
Once more, she pointed impatiently towards the decorative tin containing the brownies.
“Do you want me to get rid of them, Miranda?”
“No, Emily. I do not want you to 'get rid of' what my daughters have so kindly made for me.”
Emily paled. Even more. Somehow.
“I’m sorry Miranda, I didn’t know - “
“ - Clearly. Having established the blazing obvious, might you now indulge me and try one yourself?”
Five seconds later, it appeared that Andy’s job description had expanded to ‘catching the first assistant when she quite literally faints on you’.
Miranda sighed and waved towards a spare chair. Emily groaned as she slowly span back into consciousness, having been gingerly lowered into the seat by Andy.
“Oh…oh! I’m so sorry - “
“ - The only thing you should be sorry for is chronically underfuelling yourself to the point where the mere suggestion of eating causes you to collapse on my floor.”
“It won’t happen again, Miranda. I was just surprised.”
“I am not. Now. Try one.”
Without any preamble, she pushed the box in a single haphazard motion across the desk towards Emily, who bit her lip.
“I, um. I don’t really eat sugar, Miranda. I always thought that was a fireable offence. Unless you’re her.”
She shot a glance towards Andy, who was awkwardly hovering over the two other women.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Emily. It is almost impossible to wear stilettos when one has osteoporosis, and that is a fate you are rapidly hurtling towards. And I tolerate many foibles of yours, but a newfound penchant for undoubtedly hideous trainers shall not be among them, even if it is on medical grounds.”
Emily swallowed. Hard. And then with a noticeably shaking hand, reached out and daintily selected the smallest brownie in the box. She had the look of one who has been asked to walk through all nine circles of hell - which, Andy supposed, she had, presently torn between her most deeply-rooted impulses: to please and obey Miranda, and to refrain from consuming anything remotely approximating sustenance of the non-dairy variety.
“It won’t kill you, you know,” Miranda muttered impatiently. “The girls said it had greens of some description in the batter.”
“Like beetroot?” Andy asked. (Screw the no questions rule. Miranda was encouraging Emily to eat a brownie in her office. All bets were off.)
“Hmm,” Miranda said. “No, but I can’t quite place it.”
She would never be so foolish as to admit it, but over the next thirty seconds Andy found it privately hysterically amusing to watch the mutation of Emily’s expression. It went from one undergoing an esoteric but exquisitely painful medieval torture ritual, to that of a teenage boy experiencing an earth-shattering climax for the very first time.
“Andrea.” She was catapulted out of her rather mean-spirited (yet also somehow well-intentioned) musings.
“Yes, Miranda?”
Unlike the cajoling that had been necessary to induce Emily to partake in the baked goods, a single arch of Miranda’s eyebrows was enough to indicate what she wanted from Andy. So she leaned forward, selected one at random and nibbled at the corner.
It took precisely two seconds for her tastebuds to register what exactly she had just placed in her mouth, and less than one more to consummately freeze.
Oh, fucking hell. Shit to the max. Because this, Andy realised, was not simply a brownie. Not a garden-variety brownie. Or perhaps it was a ‘garden’-variety brownie, but the ‘greens’ were far from innocuous.
No, what she held in the palm of her hand - and which Miranda and Emily had just consumed - was one helluva strong weed brownie.
“Ah.” Andy said.
“What?” Miranda replied. “I would encourage you to think very carefully about your next words. Contrary to popular opinion, I tolerate far more than I ought, but one thing I will not is slandering of my children.”
Slander was precisely what those twin menaces deserved, Andy thought. Libel, too. Total defamation. For it was on their accounts that she had now been squarely placed in the wholly nightmarish position of having to inform La Priestly that her adolescent daughters had merrily packed her off to work with spiked confectionery, and that the editor herself was now visibly high at Runway.
She closed her eyes. “Miranda…”
“What?”
“I really, really hate to tell you this, but these are pot brownies. And judging by the way you’re sitting, they’ve already begun to take effect.”
Silence. Dead silence.
Welp. Guess this signalled it was about time to clear out her desk. Her apartment, too. Perhaps she should get her will in order. Not that there’d be much to leave, anyway.
The silence broke. Shattered, really. Because Miranda began to giggle. Hysterically. In a thoroughly un-Miranda like tinkling pitch.
Well, she was high, after all, Andy reasoned. Better not to push it.
Emily, conversely, looked horrified.
“Oh my God, Miranda, I’m so sorry! I would never have -”
She abruptly cut off upon Miranda’s holding up of a single hand. The imperiousness of such a gesture was rather undermined by the fact that the giggling fit looked to be nowhere near subsiding.
“- I didn’t know either, did I?”
It seemed quite the effort to get the words out in between her laughter. Andy noted with no small degree of amusement that Miranda’s customary pallor was quickly becoming superseded by two rather - dare she say - fetching spots of red high up on her cheekbones.
Emily shook her head, but the movement was woozy, and she was rapidly developing a fixation on the floral arrangement in the window. Her interest did not appear manufactured in an attempt to avoid further scrutiny, but borne of genuine, intoxicated fascination. Miranda followed Andy’s gaze, and upon seeing the effects of the brownie overcoming her first assistant, chuckled further.
“Oh dear, Andrea. Given you seem to be the only one here with a hope of maintaining any veneer of sobriety, I’m afraid you will be the one informing Nigel his presence is required in lieu of mine at the run-through today.”
Andy nodded slowly. “Yes, Miranda.”
***
“Nigel.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Six?”
Andy decided to cut straight to the chase.
“The twins gave Miranda brownies to take into work today, and it turns out said brownies had a, ah, special ingredient. One might even say mind-altering.”
Nigel’s eyes widened. He mimicked smoking a joint.
“Yup.”
“Oh, saints.”
“Yup.”
“Is…Miranda okay?”
“Miranda, “ Andy said flatly, “is high as fuck.”
Nigel whistled. “Oh, shit.”
He paused, then asked, “how’s Emily holding up? The woman’s stressed on a good day.”
“Emily is also high as fuck.”
“Double shit. Wait. How did that happen?”
“Turns out she’ll do anything Miranda asks her to, even consuming her weekly allowance of calories in five minutes.”
“That girl needs help. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Sounds like you do, too, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“Miranda wants you to go to this afternoon’s run-through in her place, given HR might finally have her head if she turns up dreamy-eyed and giggling.”
“Right.” He took a deep breath. “On it.”
“Thanks, Nigel.”
“No problem. I require at least one piece of photographic evidence for this as payment for my silence. Perhaps a video”.
Andy chose not to observe aloud that his payment for the aforementioned silence was retaining his job. She also thought it prudent not to mention that her next stop was not the office, but rather the bagel shop down the street. If there was ever a moment where she could get away with having what she truly craved for lunch, it was today.
***
Indeed, had it been any other day Andy would have thought it likelier that Patricia would have been made Editor-In-Chief of Auto Universe than Miranda stare in a manner at her onion bagel which could only be described as longing.
Emily appeared to be trying very hard indeed not to look at said bagel longingly.
Ah. Andy remembered that in while compiling her mental inventory of symptoms to keep in mind, she had omitted to account for the infamous ‘munchies.’
Smiling brightly, she swallowed the hunk of bread she had bitten off prior to opening the door and chirped, “how are we feeling?”
Emily swayed in her chair. “Strange. I had never realised that my chest could feel loose. There’s normally a brick in there, you see.”
“That’s stress, Em. Having a brick in your chest isn’t normal.”
She turned her attention to Miranda. “What about you, Miranda?”
The woman in question blinked. “Oh. Hungry.”
“I can fetch you both some lunch if you want? Even an onion bagel. Or maybe a pastry, or a pizza?”
At the last word, Miranda’s eyes lit up. Emily’s fluttered shut, as if ashamed to admit an identical gleam would have been present in her own had they been available to perceive.
“Aha,” Andy said. “Pizza it is.”
Thirty seconds later, her jubilation at inducing two of the fussiest eaters she had ever known to agree to pollute their bodies with Domino’s finest was waning somewhat, as the two women had started a ferocious argument about whether pineapple belonged on pizza. This more than anything convinced her they were in desperate need of sustenance (and sobriety), as Miranda would never deign to spar with an assistant, and Emily would normally rather live at KFC than even contemplate arguing with La Priestly.
She threw her hands up. “How about I surprise you both? Then if someone has a problem it can be blamed on me.”
“Excellent idea.”
Miranda and Emily looked at one another in consummate horror at having said the exact same phrase simultaneously. Emily because she had spoken over Miranda. Miranda because she had deployed a descriptor more positive than the already rare ‘acceptable’.
“Aaaaand that’s my cue to leave! Back in a flash!”
***
Few moments during her tenure as Second Assistant had brought her such unadulterated smugness as waltzing through the hallowed halls of Elias-Clarke while carrying approximately four pounds of pure fatty, carby grease.
“You’re bringing that - in here?” Jocelyn whispered.
“Yep!” Andy replied cheerfully. “It’s for Miranda and Emily.”
A more uncanny impression of a cartoon frog with eyes bulging out on sticks had never been performed.
Oh, look, she thought, passing an array of clackers close enough to have overheard. An entire chorus of frogs! With any luck, they’ll think eating pizza is a new fashion trend. Might add a century or so to the collective life expectancy in the room. A girl can dream.
***
“Culinary fusion may be a foreign land to you, Emily, but -”
“ - it’s just offensive! Why would you pollute perfectly good pizza with -”
“ - Are you still really fighting the pineapple pizza wars? There’s - as you say - perfectly good pizza here.”
Two impassioned voices abruptly cut off at her own (or, more likely, the smell of said pizza permeating the space).
“Ooh,” Emily said - then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth.
“It’s alright, Emily. I won’t tell anyone you have the capacity to get excited about food. But hey, this is basically like 90% cheese anyway, so your digestive system might not even be able to tell the difference.”
“What is it, exactly?” Miranda breathed, abandoning all pretence of anything less than outright salivation.
“I’m so glad you asked. Twelve slices of double-stuffed mozzarella crust, herby marinara sauce, topped with three different sorts of pepperoni and finished with a drizzle - okay, a bucket - of hot honey. Oh, yeah, and I also got a large garlic dip.” She finished her spiel with a flourish of said white tub.
Five minutes later, she was seriously reconsidering the wisdom of her decision to opt for the most decadent option on the menu. Because if she thought the light little moan Miranda had let out in the wake of her description was bad, it was nothing compared to the frankly obscene noises the woman was making as she tore her way through what must have been at least her fourth - truly enormous - slice. The whole shiny lips and slow, luxurious sucking of sauce off fingers situation really added a finishing touch to the torture Andy had inadvertently subjected herself to.
Emily, on the other hand, had fallen blessedly and equally uncharacteristically silent. She appeared to be having something of a religious experience. Andy could not find it in her heart to begrudge her for this. For her organs, it probably was the closest they had gotten to meeting God since the turn of the millenium.
“Mmph,” Miranda said. And if Andy had any cause to doubt the extent of her altered mental state beforehand, the fact that her boss had deigned to not simply speak but mumble around a mouthful of emulsifiers and cream squashed them once and for all.
Apparently, this was Miranda’s way of attempting to get her attention. She obediently walked over to the older woman’s side.
What to expect, she hadn’t the faintest idea. Yet for Miranda to tear off another slice and lightly tap the underside of her jaw, encouraging her to unhinge - that decidedly was not it.
In that moment - and those which ensued - Andrea Sachs didn’t know whether to throttle or send flowers to Caroline and Cassidy Priestly for orchestrating a situation in which a frankly gormless Priestly Sr. took it upon herself to hand-feed her pizza. Let alone one in which Miranda looked so stupidly pleased with herself to be doing so, and let alone one in which she refused to relinquish the gentle grip on Andy’s face throughout.
(A small mercy that Emily remained fixated on her own food as if it was the eighth wonder of the world. Which to her, it probably was).
But even Emily couldn’t ignore Miranda’s soft little huff and ‘oh, come here’, followed by clumsily pulling Andy down to quite literally sit (or more accurately, sprawl) on her lap.
“Uh, Miranda?” Andy asked shakily. “Are you quite sure about - “
“ - Shh. Eat more pizza. It’s fine. You can eat it. Don’t listen to Nigel. Or me. Stupid.”
“No, Miranda. Uh. I mean, yes, Miranda.”
***
Andy had - against all her instincts, if not her better judgement - eventually extracted herself from the makeshift seat of Miranda’s thighs, if only because the door hadn’t closed behind her and getting into a physical fight with the head of HR wasn’t on her bucket list by a country mile.
Though if anyone was ready to get into a physical fight it was, incongurously, Emily. Who - rather than collapsing into the usual carb-induced coma one more often than not succumbed to while their stomach processed a good kilogram of dough and cheese - had somehow managed to develop a severe case of what could only be called zoomies. The woman practically fizzed with energy as she spun to face Andy.
“Is this how you manage to get everything done so quickly? Is this what happens when you eat a load of junk? I feel like I could run a marathon!”
“Not existing in a perpetual state of starvation does in fact generally correlate with elevated energy levels, Em. Not just junk. It’s this amazing concept called food. You might’ve heard of it?”
“Well yes, but no one told me food feels like amphetamines!”
“What the fuck, Emily?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It was twice at a club. I cleaned my entire apartment afterwards.”
(Andy wondered if securing Emily a medical marijuana card might be the way to go. She made a mental note to investigate it.)
“I’m serious. I’ve got thirty-six personal errands to run after work today and I could probably get them done in under an hour!”
“Take the afternoon off, Emily.” Miranda’s voice issued from her chair. Neither could see the exact expression on the woman’s face, but this was because she had taken to spinning alarmingly rapidly around on her chair for the past five minutes.
“Sorry, Miranda?”
“Take the afternoon off. Andrea will tell Jocelyn to monitor the phones. Use the time to experience life as a semi-functional human being.”
Emily gaped. Andy encouragingly elbowed her.
“Off you trot, Em.”
“What Andrea said. Without the hideous abbreviationi of an otherwise perfectly acceptable name.”
“...Yes, Miranda. Thank you, Miranda.”
A soft ‘hmm’ was her only reply.
“Oh, and Emily? Lock the door.”
“Yes, Miranda.”
***
Emily had practically vibrated with energy. Miranda, conversely, was well on her way to falling into a complete stupor. She yawned like a great feline predator sunbathing on the savannah, and it was only when she blinked and opened her eyes to full capacity that Andy saw it.
“Oh, God.”
“What?” Miranda yawned again.
She bent down and drew open the door to Miranda’s desk. Pulling out a pair of Chanel sunglasses, she steeled herself for what she was about to do.
She did it anyway.
Carefully extending one hand towards Miranda's face as if preparing to deliver the first ever human touch to a spitting feral kitten, she gingerly brushed the forelock away from the older woman's forehead.
Said feral kitten - a bloody eyed, not spitting, barely feral at all kitten - simply looked up at her with what Andy would never, ever verbally admit amounted to an adorable look of hazy confusion.
She softly perched the sunglasses on Miranda’s nose.
“Your eyes,” she whispered as means of explanation. “They’re…classically stoner red.”
“Hmm, ‘classically stoner red’. I wonder if we could do a feature on that. It sounds like a lovely shade. It would go well with your eyes.”
Christ alive.
***
Andy had busied herself with emails - thanking all that was holy she had the foresight to bring her laptop into Miranda’s office with her - until a soft imperious cough interrupted her.
Looking up, Miranda had sprawled out on the couch in the corner, an arm and a leg dangling towards the floor and the others curled into her side.
“Yes, Miranda?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I do not yet possess the power to quite literally summon people. Get over here.”
Folding her laptop under her arm, Andy did as she was told.
And that was how she found herself slumped against the comfortable upholstery in a manner not unlike how she had first found Miranda that day. With the very notable difference that the woman herself was snuggled half into her side, half across her entirely, growing drowsier and drowsier until she outright fell asleep in Andy’s lap, stretched out over her like a particuarly affectionate cat. Whatever possessed her to do so, Andy would never know, but she capitulated to the impulse dictating that she ought to run her fingers ever so gently through Miranda’s ridiculously silky hair.
If every once in a while she inclined her head to inhale the gorgeous scent of the woman’s shampoo, elegant and floral and perfectly Miranda, who was to know?
Flowers it was for the girls.
Eventually (although it felt far too short a time to Andy, as content as she would have been to remain in exactly the same position for hours on end) Miranda stirred. Unfortunately, Andy’s hand had just finished the point in the cycle of movement where it was buried as deep in Miranda’s shock of silver as it was possible to go.
She froze.
Great going, Sachs, she thought. Way to go, getting caught petting your boss while she’s unconscious.
(If she was being entirely honest, petting was the most innocent interpretation for her actions. She had, after all, refrained from pressing herself further into the woman, regardless of if Miranda herself had quite contentedly decided to play verifiable Twister with Andy’s own body in her sleep.)
Oh, she was so going to be fired.
Apparently, she had added fuel to the fire in saying that aloud, because Miranda titled her head, cracked her beautifully crinkled eyes open and said in a faintly hoarse, sleep-roughened voice (which should not have made Andy *feel things*, but alas, it did, it really, really did):
“No. You will be fired if you stop doing that.”
Then she lifted her own hand up to cover Andy’s, still threaded through her hair, and firmly pressed down, unquestionably encouraging her to keep it there.
And promptly nuzzled back into Andy’s neck and fell asleep again.
Fuck it. Andy was buying the twins a whole damn florist.
FIN