Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Andrea Sachs — Andy, she'd say if anyone asked, though fewer people were asking these days — sat at a sidewalk table nursing a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago. The bistro was two blocks from her fifth-floor walk-up. Her fifth-floor walk-up for nine more days, anyway. After that, the landlord would do what he always did when the rent didn't arrive: change the locks and put her things on the curb.
She made a face and took another sip anyway. The follow-up call that morning had gone like all the others. "Thank you so much for your interest, Ms. Sachs. We've decided to pursue other candidates. We wish you the best of luck in your job search."
The HR manager had been kind about it. Professional. She hadn't said anything about the reference from Andy's previous employer, but she hadn't needed to. Four months since Paris. Four months since she'd walked away from Miranda Priestly in the middle of Fashion Week and discovered that some bridges, once burned, stayed burned. The Devil Wears Prada had a long memory and apparently limitless reach. Every door Andy knocked on had already been quietly closed.
She pushed the cup away and let her mind drift back to the weekend that had started it all. Not Paris — Paris had been the ending. The beginning had been three weeks earlier, when she'd gone home to Cincinnati.
* * *
The kitchen table had the same chipped Formica edge she remembered from childhood. Her mother's coffee mug — the one with the faded scripture verse — sat between them, her mother's hand wrapped tight around it. Her father stood by the counter, arms crossed, jaw set in the particular way it set when Andy said things he didn't want to hear.
The house looked exactly as it always had. Two bedrooms, mortgage still being paid, the kind of residential development where everyone mowed their lawns on Saturday and went to the same church on Sunday. Her parents had lived here since before Andy was born. They'd raised her to be exactly like them: small-town, middle-America, right-wing politics and evangelical faith woven so tight into daily life you couldn't separate one from the other.
Andy had been separating herself from it since her first semester at Northwestern, when she'd come home for Thanksgiving and announced she was majoring in English Literature and Theater Arts instead of pre-law.
Her father hadn't taken it well then either.
"You've broken up with Nate?" Her mother's voice was sharp with dismay. Her hand wrapped tighter around the scripture mug — Blessed is she who has believed in faded letters across the ceramic. "Why on earth would you do such a thing? He's such a nice boy. I thought it likely that the two of you would marry soon and we might hope for some grandkids."
Andy shook her head. "It had been going wrong for a while, Mom. A long while. My job is making a lot of demands on my time and Nate couldn't take that. He always seemed to think that his job was more important than mine. That I needed to be available when he wanted me available, and when you're working for Miranda Priestly and Runway, that's just not the way it is. Her schedule is crazy busy. I'm—" she stammered, "I'm also changing. Growing. And he wasn't. He didn't like the fact that I'm just not the same old Andy anymore."
"I'm not sure I like the changes I've seen in you since you've moved to New York either, Andy," her father said. His voice had gone dour. "You went there to be a journalist and you ended up being a gofer for some hoity-toity fashion snob, instead of doing what you went there for. I mean, my God, you were accepted to Stanford Law!"
Andy bit down on the inside of her lip. She'd heard this refrain before. Many times. Stanford Law. Her father's small-town practice waiting for her to come to her senses and take her proper place. The respectable middle-class life they'd mapped out before she'd learned to think for herself.
She'd learned other things instead. Her all-girls high school had a drama program where Andy played Richard III when she was fifteen — hunchbacked and power-mad and nothing like Andrea Sachs from Cincinnati, Ohio. She'd played Reverend Parris in The Crucible her senior year. Her parents had come to both performances, clapped politely, accepted the drama teacher's praise about Andy's "daring portrayals" of male roles. To them it had been a hobby. Something she'd grow out of once she got serious about her future.
Northwestern had been the first real battle. English Lit and Theater Arts. Her parents hadn't comprehended why she wanted to continue acting, why she wanted to write. They'd wanted "practical" skills that led to decent-paying jobs and middle-class stability. The arguments had been bitter. They'd threatened to cut off tuition help. Sophomore year Andy had compromised: transferred to journalism, cut theater back to a minor. It had satisfied neither her nor her parents, but at least they'd kept helping pay.
And then New York. That had been another fight. Too dangerous. Too decadent. Too far from everything they'd raised her to be. If Nate hadn't been going with her, they'd have tried to stop her entirely.
She thought about Lily now. Her supposed best friend forever. Lily, who'd sided with Nate when the breakup happened. Lily, who wasn't speaking to her anymore. But she wasn't going to bring that up. Not now. Not when she had something more important to say.
Andy looked down at the chipped Formica. At her mother's scripture mug. At her father's crossed arms.
"Nate and my breaking up isn't what I came home to talk about," she said quietly. "There's something else I need to tell you. Something I've discovered about myself. Something really important."
She was babbling. She knew she did that when she was nervous. For a brief, wild moment she wished Miranda was in the room with her — Miranda whose death glare had trained Andy to stop mid-sentence, Miranda who never wasted words, Miranda who—
She took a breath. Looked from her father to her mother.
"There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to do it like ripping off a band-aid. Mom. Dad. I'm gay."
Silence.
A minute and a half of silence while the tension in the room ratcheted up like a physical thing. Her father's face went dark — not red-angry but thundercloud-dark, the color it turned when he was beyond shouting into something colder. Her mother's eyes filled.
Andy had known this wouldn't be easy. She'd known it might go badly. But she revered her parents. She'd thought she owed them the truth.
"Oh, Andy," her mother said, and the anguish in her voice twisted something in Andy's chest. "You're confused, baby. Being in that awful, wicked city has got you all mixed-up. It's that horrible job you're in and that god-awful woman you work for."
Andy sighed. Of course. Of course it came back to Miranda. Everything always came back to Miranda, in her parents' eyes.
"Miranda isn't awful, Momma," she said softly. "Miranda is a businesswoman at the very top of her profession. She has the whole world looking at her every day of the year. It means that she has to have a certain kind of attitude and has to present herself a certain way. She's hard to work for because she demands the very best from everybody around her. And I'll have you know that she demands a hell of a lot more of herself than she does of her employees!"
"See?!" Her mother's voice went sharp. Louder. "This is exactly what has your father and me so worried! That woman has you all mixed up! She treats you like dirt and, for a while, you seemed to realize that. But now it's Miranda this and Miranda that!"
Her mother's eyes narrowed. Took on that hard, speculative quality Andy had seen before when her mother thought she'd figured something out.
"She's the one that has you thinking you're a lesbian, isn't she?! Has she tried something inappropriate!?"
"Mother!" The word came out sharper than Andy intended.
This was dangerous. This was territory Andy had tried very hard to keep hidden. Because the truth was that Miranda Priestly did have a great deal to do with Andy's realizations about her sexuality. Her infatuation — obsession, really — with her stunning, powerful, brilliant, impossibly beautiful boss was simply a fact of her world. A fact Andy carried around like a secret she could never tell. Miranda didn't even see her. She was just another replaceable employee in a job a million girls would kill for.
"Miranda is straight!" Andy said, too loud, too defensive. "She's been married several times to men, and she has two daughters! She has never done anything that was inappropriate in my presence!"
I wish she had, Andy didn't say.
"That woman is a bad influence," her mother continued. "Ever since you've been working for her you don't seem to know your own mind."
The anger came then, hot and sudden. Andy had planned to stay calm. She'd planned to be patient, to explain, to help them understand.
She should have known better.
Every conversation with her parents about her life eventually became a conversation about their expectations and her failure to meet them. About the choices they'd made for her that she kept refusing to accept.
"I don't know my own mind?!" The words came out hard. "What I know is that I'm an adult and that I'm quite capable of making my own decisions! It's not my job to live out your and Daddy's fantasies about what my life should be! It's my life, dammit!"
"Andy, honey," her mother said, and the patronizing tone made Andy's teeth clench, "we only want what's best for you. We raised you to believe in the Bible and you know what God says about homosexuals."
Andy gritted her teeth. "I know what a bunch of men who wrote a book of parables, two hundred years after the fact, put down in writing. I have some serious reservations about what was included and the reasons behind such inclusions."
"Oh, Andy." That tone. That long-suffering here she goes again tone her mother used every time Andy questioned the absolute and unquestionable word of God. Andy had heard it her whole life. She hated it more every time.
Movement in her peripheral vision. Her father's hand slammed down on the table, sudden and loud enough to make Andy jump. The coffee mugs rattled.
"No daughter of mine is going to be a goddamned dyke!" he snarled. "You got one choice, little girl. You can move back home. Get a job around here and I'll help you get that conversion therapy that they talk about on Fox News. We'll help you get yourself fixed, get your head on straight!"
Andy turned in her chair and looked at her father. Really looked at him. At the man who'd raised her, who'd taught her to ride a bike, who'd come to her plays even when he didn't understand why she wanted to be in them.
"I don't need to be fixed, Daddy," she said softly. Her eyes were tearing up. "I'm not broken. Besides that reparative therapy stuff is bunk! It's been disproven. You can't pray away the gay!"
"You'll do it because I'm your father and I say so," her father insisted. His tone had gone beyond angry into something colder, more final. "I know what's best for you! You don't want to be different in this world. And I'm not kidding, Andy, I won't have a dyke for a daughter! The Bible teaches that it's a sin and an abomination. Those that practice it are going to hell. The fucking queers and lezbos are ruining this country and the goddamned government is letting them do it! If you choose to follow that lifestyle then you can get the hell out of my house and not come back! You won't be my daughter anymore!"
The words after that were angry. Ugly. The kind of words that couldn't be taken back, couldn't be forgiven, couldn't be forgotten.
Andy left her childhood home that evening. She cried quietly for most of the trip back to New York, mourning the fact that her mother and father had disowned her.
* * *
Andy shook her head at how things had gone from bad to worse.
Three weeks after that kitchen table. Three weeks of silence from Cincinnati. And then Paris.
Paris, where Miranda had betrayed Nigel.
Andy had seen it happen. Nigel — her mentor, Miranda's friend, maybe Miranda's only real friend — passed over for creative director at James Holt in favor of Jacqueline Follet. Miranda had done it to save her own position. To keep Runway. To survive another day at the top of the empire she'd built over twenty years of relentless effort.
Andy understood the logic. She even understood the necessity. Miranda Priestly didn't get to where she was by being sentimental about loyalty.
But watching it happen — watching Nigel's face when he realized what Miranda had done — had crystallized something for Andy. If Miranda could do that to someone she actually cared about, what would she do to a replaceable second assistant?
Andy had told herself she was leaving because of Nigel. Because of principle. Because she couldn't work for someone who treated people as disposable.
The truth she couldn't escape: she was in love with her very heterosexual, soon-to-be-divorced, powerhouse icon of a boss. And she wouldn't survive the day Miranda inevitably discarded her. Walking away while she still could was self-preservation.
The fallout: four months later, blacklisted, broke, desperate, and missing Miranda and her twin daughters so badly it was a physical ache.
The twins.
Andy's duties at Runway had included delivering the Book — the in-progress mockup of the next issue — along with Miranda's dry cleaning to the townhouse each evening. Six days a week, most weeks. Plus errands all over the city. It had brought her into regular contact with Caroline and Cassidy, Miranda's twelve-year-old daughters.
The first time Andy had delivered the Book, the twins had pranked her. Told her Emily always took it upstairs. Andy, naive and eager to please, had done it — and walked in on Miranda and her husband Stephen fighting. The next morning Miranda had retaliated with an impossible task with an impossible deadline: get the unpublished manuscript for the next Harry Potter novel before the twins left for their father's that afternoon.
Andy had done it. Somehow. A feat worthy of the greatest Hogwarts witch.
And somewhere during that insane rush, Andy had decided: one good turn deserved another. Andy had always enjoyed a good prank, had engaged in practical jokes her whole life.
The next time she delivered the Book when the twins were home, she'd pranked them back.
The prank war had been on.
The twins had been delighted to discover that one of their mother's assistants couldn't be terrorized, who fought back in clever and appropriate ways, who didn't complain to Miranda (which would have done no good anyway — as previous assistants could attest). Soon they were seeing Andy as a co-conspirator. Then as a friend. Then they were confiding everything to the young woman who came to their house almost daily.
They'd missed her the alternate weeks they spent with their father.
Even with each other — and no bond was closer than twins — Caroline and Cassidy had been lonely. They'd lacked a female adult intimately involved in their lives to help guide them through growing up. Their mother loved them, doted on them, but still saw them as little girls. Miranda, work-obsessed, also left much of the day-to-day to hired help. The twins hadn't bonded with their newest nanny. (The Priestly twins shed nannies almost as fast as their mother went through assistants.)
Andy had fallen into the role almost by default. Advisor. Explainer. Confidant. Somewhere over those months at Runway, Andy had fallen head over heels in love with the two children. She'd treasured their time together. She'd taken her role as their mentor seriously.
Now four months had passed and contact had been severely curtailed. The twins understood Andy was persona non grata with their mother. Any contact had to be kept on the down low — messages sent only when Miranda wasn't around, when there was no chance of her finding out.
Since Paris, Andy had gotten: two brief phone calls, a few text messages, one long rambling email where the girls poured out their hearts about how unfair it was that Andy wasn't coming to the townhouse anymore, how badly they missed her.
Andy was sitting at the sidewalk café, at the end of her rope, when her phone chimed.
A text from Caroline: Dad fired our Nanny today and is now desperate to find someone to look after us. He has to find somebody before the end of next week when he moves us up to his summer house in the Hamptons.
The kind of informational message the girls sent often. Telling her about their lives. Andy stared at the screen, missing those days.
She dearly wished she could apply for the nanny position. It would put her in close contact with the twins, sans their mother. Every other week. Income. Time to pursue other interests.
She sighed.
No way. No way Miranda would ever allow Andy Sachs to be her children's nanny. The woman was intent on ruining any chance Andy had for employment in New York. Intent on ruining her life entirely.
As pain and sorrow mixed with memory, a crazy idea sprouted.
She'd read an article recently. A new trend in childcare. Mannies — male nannies — all the rage in Manhattan high society.
She couldn't get close to the twins as Andy Sachs.
But she'd successfully played many male characters. Richard III in high school. Reverend Parris. Several smaller parts in college productions.
She reached under the table, drew her purse into her lap. Rooted through the contents. Found her Salvatore Ferragamo wallet — another Miranda Priestly cast-off, another painful reminder of what she'd lost.
She wished the memories would leave her alone. Days without Miranda were hard. Nights — with their erotic dreams of what could never be — were torture.
She opened the wallet's credit card section. Behind a long-unused card, she found what she was looking for.
Proof of the time she'd taken her act into the real world and proved she could play the role.
* * *
Junior year at Northwestern. Andy and Nate had moved into an off-campus apartment together the year before. Fall semester, the Theater Department announced auditions for Dracula — costumes and sets inspired by Edward Gorey, like the Broadway production years ago.
From the moment it was announced, Andy had desperately wanted the lead. The sinister Transylvanian count. She'd spent considerable time researching all things Romanian, delving into the history and legend of Vlad Țepeș — the historical figure Bram Stoker had based Dracula on. She'd been working on a Romanian accent in a male register.
One evening, wearing a cheap opera cape from a costume shop, Andy lurked around the apartment putting herself into the skin of the larger-than-life figure.
"You know," Nate laughed, "you're pretty good at that." His look turned speculative. "I wonder if you could pull it off in the real world."
Andy turned, hiding the lower part of her face behind her cape-draped arm. "Vhat dooo you havf in mind," she asked, hamming it up with a cartoon Dracula accent.
Nate thought a minute. "I don't know. I mean there must be some way to test your act out among people that don't know it's an act. See if you can pull it off. See if they'll really think you're a guy or know that you're a woman in drag."
Andy dropped the cape and looked at her boyfriend. "What do you propose?" She cocked her head, stared at Nate from behind the cosmetic contacts that made her usually doe-brown eyes unsettlingly black.
"How about a bet?" Nate offered. "I'll bet that you can't go out to a bar dressed as a guy and get more phone numbers from girls over the course of an evening than I can."
Andy looked at him incredulously. "Let me get this straight. You're suggesting that I go out some evening and try to pick up girls at a bar? While you do the same thing at the same time?"
Nate nodded. "It's not like either of us would really be picking anybody up. It would just be a way to measure if you can really do it or not. I mean, if you can pull off your man act that up-close-and-personal, then there is no way that you shouldn't be able to land the part you want for the play."
Andy thought for a long moment. As much as she hated it, when Nate was right, he was right. If she could convince women she was not only male, but sexually desirable enough to get their phone numbers — then she'd know with iron-clad certainty she could floor the people casting the play.
She nodded, ideas rushing together. "Okay. What do I get when I win?"
* * *
Andy had two best friends at Northwestern besides Nate. Lily, her childhood friend, Art History major. And Doug, a computer science student she'd met her first day of classes. Lily and Andy shared growing up together, all the mutual experiences that implied. Doug and Andy shared a peculiar sense of humor and a love of practical jokes and outrageous stunts.
When Andy approached them about the bet, they met at their favorite just-off-campus diner to discuss possibilities.
Doug was all in before she'd even finished outlining the idea.
Lily thought it funny enough but made it clear she thought it a fool's bet. No way Andy could pull it off, especially with Nate in the same bar gathering phone numbers. "Nate," Lily asserted — as she had several times before, much to Andy's annoyance — "is just too smokin' hot." The women would be lining up for him.
Doug leaned conspiratorially closer across the table, stirred his coffee, grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "I can already think of a few things I can do to help you pull this gag off."
Andy leaned in too, speaking quietly. "You usually have good ideas when I'm about to do something like this. What have you got in mind?"
Doug chuckled. "As you know, I pay part of my tuition working as the administration offices' computer geek. I'm regularly there late into the evening and often I'm the only one there at night. I have the key to the office where they make student IDs and I have access to the campus administration's database."
He grinned wider. "All we need to do is get a picture of you in costume, come up with a name, and voila — you'll have both an ID card and a student record should anybody check you out on the student informational website. You can show the ID to any potential phone number candidate to prove you are who you say you are, even though you won't be who you say you are."
Doug looked momentarily confused, evidently trying to trace exactly what he'd just said.
"Doug," Andy said softly, "that's brilliant! It'll add foundation to the role I'm going to be creating!"
Doug nodded. "Now the only question is who is this guy? I mean we're going to need a name and all the stuff that goes on an I.D."
Andy thought about it. She was often aware that other women watched her handsome boyfriend when they were out together. More than once, one woman or another had even come up to him right in front of her, made excuses to talk, offered their phone numbers. Considering this, she thought about what she needed to compete with the pretty boy.
"The character needs to be a dashing, romantic figure. Someone that will have an edge on Nate and his damned handsome face."
Lily perked up. "Hey, you've been practicing that crazy Slavic or whatever accent. Why don't you make him a foreign exchange student. Girls always go for exchange students!"
Andy cocked her head, considered how it could work. She wanted to make sure the accent and the timbre of her voice was flawless when she auditioned. Taking it on the road would test her abilities to the maximum. She'd have to improvise conversation, maintain character, stay in voice. It would prepare her for anything the audition could throw at her.
"His name is Andrei," she said quietly. "Andrei Vladimirescu. He's a history major from Sighișoara, Romania."
* * *
The night of the bet, Doug played Andy's wing-man and Lily played Nate's. They went to a local university meet-market bar to ply their respective charms.
The contest, surprisingly, was never in doubt.
It was evident Andy had it won in the first couple of hours as women in the place flocked to the character she was portraying. After four hours of really trying, Nate approached Andy on the dance floor — where two different women were avidly competing for Andrei's attention with some up-close dirty dancing. Nate gave a sour grin, touched Andy's arm, motioned for her to follow so they could speak more privately.
"I concede," he said close to Andy's ear as soon as he got her away from the dance floor.
Andy grinned at him in her character's voice. "Giving up so soon?"
Nate nodded. "I gave up half an hour ago when you had that senior from the Drama Department sitting in your lap and grinding her ass into your crotch. If it wasn't so damn hot, it would have been embarrassing. If you really were a guy, you wouldn't be here right now. You'd be out in her car doing the nasty."
Just to keep things above board, Andy insisted they count the phone numbers they'd collected. Just before Nate left, Andy asked, "So, you're willing to admit that I can do this? I can pull off being a guy in public."
Nate nodded and sighed. "What can I say. You're one hell of an actor, Andy."
He left the bar with only half as many phone numbers as Andy had, his tail between his legs.
Andy continued the gag until closing time, when Andrei, had he been real, would have had his choice of company for the night.
.
* * *
A week later, Doug realized just how impressive Andy's performance had actually been. He and a new boyfriend stopped into the same bar for a drink. In the twenty minutes they were there, he was approached individually by several women Andy had interacted with as Andrei. They universally inquired when the suave and dead sexy Andrei was likely to come back in. Some encouraged Doug to convince his friend to call them for a date.
Doug broke all their hearts that evening when he told them Andrei Vladimirescu had been urgently and unexpectedly called home to his native Romania and would not be returning in the foreseeable future.
He, Andy, and Lily had had a good laugh over it the next night at dinner.
Nate sulked the whole evening.
As successful as the night out testing her persona had been, Andy quickly learned that karma is a bitch and what you do can and will come back to bite you in the ass. The drama major who'd given Andy an impromptu seated lap dance at the bar — very disappointed that Andrei did not 'rise' to the occasion — was front row center in the audition hall with a clipboard full of notes.
She was the director of the play.
Andy just couldn't see anything good coming out of pressing her luck. All that could be gained would be embarrassment and the likelihood of making an enemy. She left the audition hall without taking the stage and, consequently, was not part of that university production.
* * *
Andy pushed the haze of memory from her mind. Put the fake student ID back in her wallet. Brought up the phonebook function on her cell phone.
She pressed the number for her accomplice in sometimes questionable schemes.
"Hey Doug," she said when he answered. "I've got an idea cooking that could use your special touch. Any chance we could get together after you get off work? You could come to my place or I could come to yours. Either way I'll spring for the booze."
* * *
"You realize that you are out of your flipping mind," Doug exclaimed as he poured another Margarita from the pitcher on the small table on his apartment's balcony.
The view wasn't much — the apartment building was sandwiched on a smaller side street of the East Village, the only thing visible the street below and the buildings across the way. Still, it was cooler on the balcony than inside the apartment. It was unseasonably hot for the end of May.
Andy looked at her friend. "Why? I've pulled it off before, I can do it again. Remember the night I went out as that Romanian foreign exchange student? I got twice as many girls' telephone numbers as Nate did and nobody saw through me then!"
Doug shook his head. "It's not the same thing. This isn't a production or a night out on the town you're talking about. This is a job, one with irregular and sometimes long hours. It's also miles and miles from any kind of support network you could con into helping you with this nutso idea. We've managed to pull off some crazy things in the past, but this idea takes insane to a whole new level!"
Andy nodded and sighed deeply. "I'm just about broke, Doug. I need to work," she virtually whispered, "and I can't do that here in New York as long as I'm Andy Sachs. Miranda will see to that. I'm missing the twins terribly. If I can't get a job as Andy Sachs why not create a male alter-ego and have him get a job? It's something that Miranda would never see coming. And she'd never suspect that I'd try to go to work for her ex-husband. I'll try to get the gig as their nanny. If I manage that, I'll have some money coming in and every other week to look for something else."
Doug thought for a long moment. "Well I could work up some fake documentation that would pass muster as long as nobody official looked at it too closely. If you're really set on this course, we'll need to get in touch with Valerie and Justin. They're the two best makeup special effects people we know. I've been dating Justin off and on and he and Val are doing some really amazing things."
He paused, took a drink. "That said, the set up you're going to need is going to be something above and beyond. I mean, it'll have to hold up to up close and personal scrutiny even after you've worn it all day and done God knows what in it. It will have to be something you can fix yourself, on the fly, if anything goes wrong. None of us are making enough money in the real world that we could follow you out to the Hamptons and be on call there to fix it for you at a moment's notice if something goes wrong."
He sighed, seeing the hopeless look on a dear friend's face. "All I'm saying is that it's a tall order you're asking."
A single tear leaked out of the corner of Andy's eye and started a slow descent down her cheek.
"Oh, girlfriend," Doug said softly, "you really have your heart set on this don't you?" He reached out and dashed away the errant tear on her cheek with his thumb.
Andy nodded. "I'm missing those two girls so bad, Doug, that you'd think they were my kids," she said, clutching her drink. "If I could just see them, spend time with them. Help them along, then the rest of everything that's happened wouldn't hurt so much."
He got up and fetched his cell phone. "Val and Justin owe me for helping them move their studio last month. I'm not promising anything, but I'll talk to Justin and see how soon we can get over there to meet with them and talk about what might be possible."
* * *
Andy spent the entirety of the next day in the company of the two special effects artists. She'd been stripped down to bra and panties and inspected far more closely than she'd ever been at Runway. Casts and rubber impressions were made of many different parts of her body. A number of strange substances were either painted on her skin or wrapped around wrists or worn for a while on her chest to see if she had any allergic reactions to materials Valerie or Justin might use.
The two makeup effects people seemed intrigued by the challenges Andy's project offered. They were happy to explain exactly what they were doing at any moment. Andy learned how each idea might fit into the whole look they were trying to help her create.
Valerie asked a thousand questions about Andy's character of Andrei. Where was he from? What had his life been like? What was every job he'd ever had? Was he straight, bi, or gay? Did he drink a lot of coffee or tea?
Each question helped not only Valerie and Justin create a detailed picture in their mind of the young man they were modeling — it also helped Andy define the role she intended to play.
At lunchtime Andy went out to get everyone sandwiches. She stopped by a drugstore and picked up a spiral bound notebook. She wanted to be a writer. She had an inkling that what she was starting might just be one hell of a story. Something people might be interested in reading.
While the two artists ate lunch, Andy spent the time recording notes on everything that had happened that morning, as well as her impressions, thoughts and feelings about the project as a whole.
After her day with Valerie and Justin was over she stopped at a local Starbucks and sat for hours, drinking coffee and pouring her heart out, filling page after page of the notebook with every detail she could remember of how she'd come to this place and the meaning of the rebirth of the new and more complete Andrei Vladimirescu.
For the first time outside of her innermost thoughts, she recorded her epiphany about her sexuality, and her pain about her parents' desertion. In that deluge of creative writing she noted her strong attraction to Miranda Priestly as the root and branch cause of her sudden self discovery.
All in all the whole day had turned out to be a fascinating and very satisfactory adventure.
* * *
Two days later Doug showed up at her door at about eight in the evening. He had two bottles of inexpensive yet tasty wine, some containers of takeout Chinese food, and a manila folder containing the forged documentation he'd created for Andy's new persona.
"Okay," Doug said as he spooned out some chicken chow mein from a takeout container. "I hacked onto Northwestern's server and found out that they've never removed the back doors I installed into their system when I was working there. It allowed me to update Andrei's student history."
Andy busied herself opening and pouring the wine. "So what did you come up with?"
Doug took a bite of food and after chewing and swallowing it, answered his friend. "He graduated Cum Laude as a history major. It would have raised too many flags if I tried to change what we initially put in the fake transcript as his major back when we were in school. That being said, I managed to have you minor in the education program. You primarily focused on courses directed at teaching in the classroom."
"With those kind of credentials, I'll have a real shot at getting the job as the twins' nanny," Andy exclaimed excitedly.
Doug sipped the wine Andy had poured for him and then grinned. "Wait till you read the letter of recommendation from your last employer." He chuckled, looking through the folder of papers he'd brought in with him. Drawing out a sheet from the middle of the stack he handed it to the woman seated at the table with him.
Andy quickly read through the bogus letter. "Doug, this letter says that I spent the last two years taking care of five year old fraternal twins!" She looked at him incredulously. "Who is this Aiken family you used?"
"That's the beauty of it, Andy," Doug chuckled. "I found them on the internet. The husband and wife are both anthropologists. They've just left the country for a year and a half in the deep Amazon jungle to study some tribe. It'll be a little hard to phone them and check this reference."
Andy laughed a full belly laugh. "Oh God! I knew you were good at this sort of thing, but you should have been a criminal super villain! You could have made a fortune!"
Doug just shook his head. "I only use my super powers for good. And the best thing I can think of to do with them is help you get happy again. It's been killing me seeing how down you've been. If being back with the twins will fix that, well, that's what we're going to make happen."
They spent the rest of the evening eating the food, drinking the wine and Andy recounting her day with the two makeup artists in detail.
* * *
Miranda Priestly, discontented, sat at her desk on the eleventh floor of the Elias-Clarke Building.
Mid-week. That damned girl still hadn't returned to Runway to ask for her job back.
Miranda wasn't quite sure how that was possible. She'd made certain Andrea finding employment in New York — employment that would pay enough to live on — was unlikely at best. The Ice Queen of Runway had both a long and powerful reach within the city's business community. When she wanted something, she usually got it.
Almost five months since Andrea had walked away. Miranda had engineered the constraints carefully. Andrea should have been back by now. Desperate. Ready to apologize. Ready to return.
It was unusual, Miranda mused, that she'd gone to this much trouble.
Usually she wouldn't give a second assistant's leaving a moment's thought. Assistants left frequently. It was the nature of the position — brutal hours, impossible demands, Miranda's exacting standards. They burned out or moved on or simply couldn't handle it.
Andrea was different.
Andrea had made Miranda's life easier. They'd developed a rapport that allowed Andrea to anticipate Miranda's needs before Miranda realized what they were. Andrea's presence in the office made the atmosphere less frenzied. Andrea's beautiful smile could light up a dark New York winter's day.
Miranda sighed.
She'd been a prime mover in Andrea's desertion. She knew that. She hadn't allowed the young woman to accomplish her self-appointed task of warning Miranda about the threat to her position. Miranda had been aware of the coup plot for some time, had taken steps to neutralize it. One of her failings that day — she'd admitted this in self-reflection — was getting caught up in the moment of besting Irving Ravitz.
Any day Miranda could pull the rug out from under that arrogant, supercilious little man was a day to be relished.
After springing the trap on Irving, she'd completed her plan by betraying Nigel. Giving the job he was counting on to Jacqueline Follet. Later, in the car, flush with victory and feeling invincible, she'd tried to tell Andrea how alike they were. She'd tried to reach out — straining the bounds of employer/employee propriety — to tell the girl of her plans for Andrea's future.
She'd botched it. Like she botched any personal relationship she attempted.
In quiet moments at home, Miranda had admitted to herself that her interest in Andrea Sachs went far beyond what was appropriate. After Andrea's Nigel-inspired transformation from ugly duckling to beautiful swan, Miranda had regularly devoured her with her eyes. Called Andrea into her office at the least excuse, just to interact with the woman.
She missed those interactions.
She missed Andrea.
So she'd set her course. Andrea would find no job of worth available. Eventually the young woman would have to come face Miranda, ask that the blacklisting be lifted. When that happened, Miranda would see to it the girl groveled a bit. Then she'd take her back. Not just take her back — make her first assistant. Emily's time to move on was approaching. Emily would get the recommendation she coveted. There were positions within Runway Miranda thought the English woman would bring value to.
With Emily ensconced in the next step of her career, Andrea would again see to Miranda's day-to-day needs.
All would be right with the world.
* * *
On a Thursday afternoon at the end of May, Andy went to a hairstylist she knew and trusted.
"Short," she told him. "Butch."
The stylist raised an eyebrow but didn't question. That was why Andy trusted him.
The haircut was quite attractive on her. By combing it differently, it would serve Andrei's needs as well.
* * *