Chapter Text
Alice Pierce had always known she was extraordinary, truly like nobody else. It was an observation made by anybody who got to spend more than short minutes in her company, but one only she knew to be a fact.
Alice carried herself with a sort of effortless elegance that often turned heads, and even so, she never sought the attention, valuing her privacy more than most anything else. To that end, her demeanor was polite and mellow, her clothes classy, but never flashy. She was a soft-spoken girl, however sure and confident. Her dark eyes were big and warm, always kind. She thanked her servers, she fed the stray cats on her street. She always paid her bills on time. But she'd be damned if she was taken for a fool.
Alice's knowledge surpassed that of many. With experience and understanding of the world that people her age lacked; fluency in nine languages; impressive cooking, repairing, and homemaking skills; a multitude of facts stored away and an eagerness to learn more, it was difficult to catch her off guard. For that matter, Alice's guard, but for one lapse, was always up.
On a cool day in March of 2005, Alice Pierce got off the N train and emerged onto 49th Street above ground. She waded her way through the throngs of fast-paced pedestrians on the busy sidewalk with remarkable ease. Her gait never faltered, her stilettos never tripping her, her head held high. To anyone watching, she could have been mistaken for a native. But apart from short visits throughout the years, this was Alice's first real taste of New York City. For the foreseeable future, she would call this place home.
The irony of change was that it was the one constant in Alice's life. Her move was still fresh, and yet she knew she wouldn't grow old in this city, wouldn't form long-lasting connections, would never actually belong. To any other person, the notion would be unsettling--people feared change; to Alice, it was a comfort. It was a state she had adjusted to long ago, and the one thing in her life she had full control of, and so she embraced change. She thrived on it, in fact. She needed it. In a number of years, she would pack up her life once more and head into a new adventure.
For now, she stopped among the moving crowd outside a skyscraper stretching high into the clouds, craning her neck to see the shiny windows get smaller and farther. Two sets of revolving doors beckoned her from either side of the building's façade, relentlessly working with the masses of comers and goers.
The rhythmic clacking of Alice's heels was drowned out by the identical sound of dozens of cold-faced, beautifully-dressed women flocking the lobby with purpose. Alice was dressed for the occasion in a silken blouse tucked loosely into flowy pants, complemented by a trench coat and ankle-strap heels, playing with shades of cream and brown. Her handbag was Chanel. In this room, however, nobody stopped and stared.
The commotion of the lobby echoed off the marble floor and walls, bouncing off metal pillars extending far toward an impossibly high ceiling. There were unoccupied, black, leather couches scattered across the room, as well as statues nobody stopped to admire. Security personnel stood beside golden turnstiles at the far ends of the lobby, between them a reception desk. Next to it, large, golden letters on the wall proudly announced the building Elias-Clarke Publications.
Alice's elevator stopped on the 17th floor, already empty of other riders. With sure steps, she headed down a short hallway to be met with a different kind of commotion. This floor was decidedly quieter--even the chatter was subdued--but it was clear that at this hour in the morning, the office was already bustling. People breezed by her without a glance, clothing racks wheeled across the floor, phones going off in the distance, and of course, the constant sound of heels. As she approached a set of glass doors, one opened for her by a meticulously-dressed woman who was as quick to disappear as she'd been to appear. The space opened up to her was occupied by a single receptionist behind a large, round desk. Above her, in bold, golden letters, Alice was greeted by the name of the office: RUNWAY.
"Hello," she softly greeted the receptionist, who didn't so much as acknowledge her presence. Her darkly made-up eyes were deep in her computer screen, head bobbing up and down like that of a dashboard dog to whatever was being said to her through her earpiece. "I have an appointment with Emily Charlton."
As if summoned by the mere mention of her name, a girl showed up across the room. She must have been in her early twenties, but expertly hid any youthful features behind heavy makeup and designer clothes. The all-black ensemble--complete with a wide, heavy belt and winged-sleeved jacket (Vivienne Westwood, Alice recognized)--gave an edge to her otherwise soft features, granting her an underground rocker look. All the same, she didn't look scary or over the top. Clearly, the girl was in her rightful place between the walls of the world's premier fashion magazine: with just the right amount of smokey eye makeup, just the right shade of bright red hair, just the right jewelry placement, she managed to look flawlessly elegant.
Her attitude, on the other hand, left something to be desired. "Alice Pierce?" she demanded impatiently. Before Alice could confirm, she was already turning on her heel. "Follow me."
"Okay, so I was Miranda's second assistant, but her first assistant recently got promoted and so now I'm the first," Emily commenced on her purposeful stride down a white corridor filled with clothing racks, carrying a clipboard and barely stopping for breath in-between words. Alice could easily place her accent in London.
"And you're replacing yourself," she calmly guessed, falling into step with her.
"Well, I am trying; Miranda sacked the last two girls after only a few weeks. We need to find someone who can survive here, do you understand?"
"Of course," said Alice, trying to hide a smirk. She'd heard her fair share of rumors about Miranda Priestly, the formidable editor-in-chief of Runway Magazine. She sounded like a force to be reckoned with. Alice had dealt with worse; she was up for the challenge.
"You work a year for her and you can get a job at any magazine you want," Emily continued, arriving at another set of glass doors and pulling one open. "A million girls would kill for this job."
Alice took the time to look around her, unperturbed by the lack of chatter. They'd arrived at an anteroom of sorts, two wooden desks standing to each side of an inner office overlooking skyscrapers, currently dark and uninhabited. The place was stylish without rubbing it in one's face, cream-colored walls and a variety of flowers granting the space a soothing effect while sharp-edged furniture and expensive artwork and photographs attested to its status. The inner office's desk was meticulously organized in a minimalist manner; the desk Emily had stopped beside, presumably her own, was the picture of anxiety: cluttered and disorganized, the computer keyboard nearly falling off. One minute in her company had given Alice an inkling of Emily's mental state; the look on her face, perplexed by the unfazed silence of her interviewee, proved the hypothesis.
With a small, self-assured smile, Alice returned her gaze to Emily and broke the silence. "I'd love to be considered."
She could see the wheels turning in Emily's head, snooty expression fighting to stay on a baffled face as she tried to figure out how to regain the upper hand in the interaction. She was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone.
"Oh, my god," she exclaimed, expression morphing into one of pure terror as she stared at the screen. "No, no, no!"
"Is everything alright?" Alice asked, but stilettos were already running across the floor.
"She's on her way. Tell everyone!" Emily hissed into the phone on her desk. As she slammed it back into its cradle, a second glass door opened behind her desk.
"She's not supposed to be here until 9," said the man that entered it on a sigh, his voice disapproving, yet bearing a calmness similar to Alice's in the face of Emily's hysteria. His bald head shone under the fluorescent lighting, forehead wrinkling in a frown above rounded glasses. A long jacket came all the way up to his chin with a big turtleneck. He was carrying a thin box in his hand and a bigger one under his arm, both of which he deposited on the edge of Emily's desk.
"Her driver just text-messaged and her facialist ruptured a disc," the latter explained, anxiously checking her appearance in a compact mirror. "God, these people!"
Passing by Alice as if she were invisible, the man opened the door behind her into the corridor Emily and she had come through. This office was at the very end of it, overlooking the commotion, and in two seconds' time, Alice would realize she'd been wrong to think it busy before.
"Alright, everyone, gird your loins!" the man called out to people who seemed to have already gotten the message. Those who hadn't gasped and scurried off into open doors like rats into their burrows. Within moments, the previous easy-going environment was replaced with chaos.
Alice watched as Emily ran on legs so thin they threatened to snap at any minute, fetching a bottle of mineral water and pouring it into a glass on the inner office desk. Next, she grabbed a stack of magazines, arranging them in straight rows beside it. Back in the corridor, crazed employees ran helplessly in their haste to prepare for the arrival. A conference room table was hurriedly cleared of various items covering its entire surface without thought to what was being discarded. A woman behind her desk threw her entire breakfast into the trash can. Another rushed into her work station to change out of her clogs and into four-inch, pointy-toed D&Gs. The woman in the next room used her computer camera as a mirror to apply lipstick.
When Alice turned back into the anteroom, Emily was nowhere to be found. The bald man, however, was just making his way to the door when he bumped against the boxes he'd left on the edge of the desk, sending them to the floor, lids coming off.
"Oh." Alice rushed over, placing her bag on Emily's desk before crouching next to him.
"Here," she said, holding out a scarf that had fallen out of the thinner box. As he grabbed it, though, she kept her hold, fingers running across the delicate silk, eyes examining the garment. "Hermès," she noted. "This is a nice one. I like the ocean theme, and the gold is a nice touch. Very reminiscent of the 'France' special edition from 1962. This is a rare one."
Meeting the man's eye, she caught his puzzled expression, forehead creasing as he struggled to find the right words to respond. Finally, he settled on a haughty yet curious "And you are?"
Letting go of the scarf, Alice offered her hand instead. "Alice Pierce. Soon-to-be assistant to Miranda Priestly," she introduced herself good-naturedly.
"That's some confidence you've got there," the man observed, getting back to his feet. Alice did the same, watching him return the boxes to their rightful place and turn to leave. "Would hate to see it crushed, dear."
Left alone, Alice noted the pandemonium had died down, leaving her in its dead aftermath. It was only a minute later when she heard sounds approaching.
"...I don't want dacquoise, I want tortes filled with warm rhubarb compote. And then call my ex-husband and remind him that parent-teacher conference is at Dalton tonight--"
Inside the office, the atmosphere had suddenly changed, the air itself becoming electrifying. Alice almost got a chill. Miranda Priestly was a force, all right, mesmerizing in all her magnificent glory: from the head-to-toe couture to the distinct, short, white hair to the way she strode elegantly into a door held open by a haggard Emily, hardly taking in her surroundings, never breaking her speech, which Emily struggled to jot down in time.
"--also, tell Richard I saw all the pictures that he sent for that feature on the female paratroopers and they're all so deeply unattractive," she continued, tossing her Prada handbag right onto Emily's notepad and proceeding to shrug off her fur coat as if it weighed nothing. "Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender female paratrooper?"
"No--"
"Am I reaching for the stars here?"
"No--"
"Not really." The coat had barely landed on Emily's desk when she continued toward the inner office with hardly a new breath. "Also, I need to see all the things that Nigel has pulled for Gwyneth's second cover try. I wonder if she's lost any of that weight yet. Who is that?"
Anyone else might have gotten whiplash--Alice herself almost missed the question uttered in the same breath and intonation as the rest of the speech--but credit where credit was due: Emily, clearly familiar with her boss, was quick on her feet. Bright? Not so much.
"Nobody," she blurted, then mentally slapped herself. "Um, uh-- well, Human Resources has sent her here about the new assistant job and I, and I was pre-interviewing her for you--"
"Well, clearly I'm going to have to do that myself because the last two you sent me were completely inadequate, so... send her in," Miranda instructed to a frozen Emily, and when the latter wouldn't budge, she added a dismissive "That's all," and took her seat behind the desk.
"Right." Properly humiliated, Emily turned out of the room and toward her own desk, where Alice was still standing, offering a comforting smile that Emily ignored. "She wants to see you."
Alice already had her résumé out of her bag, which she also grabbed by the handles before heading into Miranda's office with hidden amusement. She'd been right about one thing: working for Miranda Priestly would certainly be a new and interesting challenge.
"Hello," she pleasantly greeted the woman for the first time, placing the unwrinkled sheet of paper on her desk before taking a decorous step back and holding her bag before her. "My name is--"
"Andréa," Miranda Priestly breathed, staring up at her with wide eyes, lips gaping.
Alice's entire body froze. Her blood ran cold. Her throat went dry. Her heartbeat stopped as she stared back.
Andrea Louise Sachs was born on a warm day in June to Kate and Richard Sachs. Her labor was a quick one. So quick, in fact, that it happened right on the Sachses' marriage bed in Cincinnati, Ohio. There had been no time to get to the hospital before the head started crowning; Richard had to run eight houses down the street to get the doctor. Less than an hour later, with a mighty cry announcing her arrival, Andrea came into the world.
The year was 1910.
The city was very different back then: 4th Street had recently welcomed the world's first reinforced concrete skyscraper; plans for a subway system had just been laid down, but would never come to fruition; air pollution was at an all-time worst, smoke obscuring Downtown to a degree where it could barely be seen from Mt. Adams, causing hilltop suburbs to explode in size.
The Sachs family lived on one such suburb. They weren't well-off, but lived comfortably enough to afford Andrea new clothes, give her an education, and put food on the table.
Ever since she was a girl, Andrea loved books. Her parents didn't approve of the pastime; girls like her were supposed to go to church, help around the house, and in time, meet a good man who would take care of them. Andrea wasn't in a rush. Instead, she would frequent the local library built just the year before she was born and spend hours between the shelves, inhaling the scent of old paper and delving into worlds far removed from her own.
The heroines in her favorite stories got to experience life on all parts of the scale. One was pressured, like her, to marry a man for his money. Another tried her own hand at matchmaking. A girl saw her own way out of poverty, putting herself to work, and another even got to write her own stories. They were all fiery and fierce, refusing to conform to what society expected of them, and they filled Andrea with inspiration and ambition of her own to be able to live half the imaginary lives they did.
Several significant events took place in the year 1932: a woman was elected to the United States Senate for the first time, the Yankees won the World Series, and Andrea met her husband.
On February 20, Andrea and her girlfriends took the train to see Fats Waller perform live at Castle Farm. Among the crowd was a young man wearing a gray suit and a contagious smile. Andrea noticed him first, but he was the one who approached her.
At the end of the night, Andrea and her friends were turning to leave when a hand lightly tapped on her shoulder. "Miss? You left this at the table," the man said, handing her her purse back as if he were presenting a queen with her crown.
"I swear, if my head wasn't attached to my neck, I'd forget it, too," Andrea joked. The man's smile widened, revealing two identical dimples.
"I'm James."
"Andrea." Andrea offered her hand and received a reverent kiss on the knuckles.
Three months later, they were married at St. Lawrence Church, Andrea wearing her mother's wedding gown. She would never get the chance to tell James she'd left the purse intentionally.
Their love was big and beautiful like the ones in Andrea's books. But like in all compelling stories, tragedy was bound to occur.
On May 9, 1933, a nineteen-year-old boy walked into a grocery store on Wells Street, wielding a revolver and demanding all the money in the register. James was present for the altercation. Trying to speak to the young man's conscience, he suffered a fatal fate.
"You need to remarry," Andrea's mother told her some months later. "How else will you have children?" Andrea would not hear about it.
On December 26, at 8 o'clock in the evening, Andrea was driving back to her empty house after spending the holiday with her parents. That day saw the heaviest snowfall of the year, with three inches of snow covering the ground. It was getting difficult to see through the front windshield, the wipers working incessantly to clear the screen of distracting flakes. They didn't work fast enough.
Andrea only saw the bright lights and heard the loud honking when it was too late. In a last-ditch effort to swerve away from the fast-approaching vehicle and avoid a collision, she lost control of the car. There was nothing left for her to do but helplessly scream as she slid across the road, then off of it, getting tossed around like a rag doll inside her death trap, and finally landed inside Mill Creek.
And then there was nothing.
In the first stages of hypothermia, the body will try to generate heat through shivering. When this fails, it will decrease the flow of blood to the extremities. Metabolism slows to a crawl. You're dying, but you don't know it. In the final stages, the person breathes only once or twice a minute--a state of suspended animation.
The immersion in the frigid water caused Andrea's body to go into an anoxic reflex, instantly stopping her breathing and slowing her heartbeat. Within two minutes, her core temperature had dropped to 87 degrees. Her heart stopped beating.
At 8:15 o'clock, Andrea Sachs died.
At 8:17, a bolt of lightning struck the vehicle, discharging half a billion volts of electricity and producing 60,000 amperes of current. Its effect was threefold. First, the charge defibrillated Andrea's heart. Second, she was jolted out of her anoxic state, causing her to emerge from the water and draw her first breath in two minutes. Lastly, based on Von Lehman's principle of electron compression in deoxyribonucleic acid, which would be discovered in the year 2024, Andrea Sachs would henceforth be immune to the ravages of time.
She would never age another day.