Revenge Wears Prada (16 page)

Andy was still trying to process the information about their dozen potential investors and how much money they were willing to throw around, but this part about how their magazine would distinguish itself sounded like even more of a fantasy. “Really? Because I’ve become pretty familiar with the whole wedding universe, and trust me, it’s not easy to come up with fresh material all the time. Not a whole lot changes from year to year.”

“Irrelevant!” Emily scoffed. The bubbles began to slow. Emily bounded out of the tub, her perfect skin slicked with water. Settling back on her bench opposite Andy, she sipped her tea and said, “Ours is going to be überstylish. Upscale. The luxe version of weddings. The phrase ‘sample sale’ will never appear in our pages. Nor will ‘affordable honeymoons,’ ‘smart ways to save money,’ or ‘beautiful bouquets for less.’ There will be no articles on where to find good deals . . . on anything. No David’s Bridal, no baby’s breath, no dyeable shoes of any kind.”

“You do realize we’re in the midst of a worldwide recession, don’t you?”

“Which is exactly why our readers will want something aspirational! You think ninety-nine percent of the people who read
Runway
can afford so much as a single pair of stockings featured in the issue? Of course not,” Emily said.

Despite her pragmatic streak, Andy could feel herself getting excited. “That’s true,” she said. “
Runway
isn’t their catalog—it’s their inspiration. It gives smart, style-savvy women who don’t necessarily have the funds to dress in couture anything a muse when designing their own style, when it comes time to choose things
they
can
afford. It would make sense that all those women who are inspired by the out-of-reach looks in
Runway
would be just as inspired by the out-of-reach weddings we’d feature in
The Plunge
.”

Emily beamed. “
The Plunge
?”

“Don’t you love it? ‘Take the plunge,’ ‘plunging necklines’ . . . it’s simple, dramatic, effortless. It’s perfect.”

“I do. I freaking love it.
The Plunge
. You’re brilliant, that’s exactly what we’re calling it!” At this point Emily stood up and actually did a little naked jig. “I knew you’d get it. Why don’t you start thinking of where you want to go for our inaugural issue. Maybe Sydney? Or Maui? Provence? Buenos Aires? Trust me, this is going to be fabulous.”

Emily, impulsive, crazy Emily, had been right. Of course there had been roadblocks and obstacles along the way (the raw loft space that wasn’t ready until six months after the promised date; more difficulty securing a printer than either of them had anticipated; sifting through the no fewer than
twenty-five hundred
résumés they’d received after posting eight separate positions), but for the most part, the path from brainstorming to execution had been relatively smooth, thanks almost exclusively to Emily’s blind faith and ambition and Miles’s well-connected and well-financed friends—Max being the biggest contributor of the whole lot, with an 18
¹
/
₃
percent stake in the company. A group of five other investors shared 15 percent, which left Andy and Emily with a third each. They were the clear owners with 66
¹
/
₃
percent between them; they could outvote anyone else and ensure that they had the ultimate say over all major decisions concerning the magazine.

The Plunge
was edited with a nod to high fashion and refinement: one-of-a-kind designer dresses; diamond jewelry worthy of being passed down through the generations; guides on how to select the most elegant silver servers, rent a private island for your honeymoon, curate unique and finely crafted registry lists. It started out small, a quarterly with only forty pages or so an issue, but within two years Andy and Emily were publishing
seven times a year (every other month with a June special issue) and had more subscribers and newsstand buyers than they’d projected at the outset.

As Emily had predicted, very few of their readers could afford the lifestyle proposed by
The Plunge,
but they were all savvy and stylish and luxury-aware enough to use the gorgeous photos and detailed articles as inspirations for their own weddings. The first few months of the magazine’s existence hadn’t been quite as splashy. They covered any weddings with the least hint of glamour or sexiness that they had access to: one of Emily’s colleagues at
Bazaar
who married a hedge fund guy at a yacht club; a friend of Emily’s from college whose fiancé had directed a dozen famous action flicks; Emily’s celebrity dermatologist, who agreed to have her wedding to a well-known on-air news personality covered so long as
The Plunge
also mentioned her new Restylane-like filler by name. The brides and grooms may not have been household names, but the weddings were always lavish and the resulting photographs lent the magazine a hint of prestige it couldn’t have attained through registry suggestion lists and ring guides alone.

Ironically it was Andy’s connection who got them the couple that launched
The Plunge
from semiobscurity into a national curiosity. Max was invited to the wedding of a socialite he’d grown up with, a beautiful girl with a trillionaire Venezuelan father who was engaged to marry the son of a Mexican “businessman,” nod-nod, wink-wink. It had only taken a single call from Max and the promise that the bride could have final say over which photos were used. The resulting feature, with all its gorgeous, insider photographs of compounds in Monterrey and stunning Latina women dripping in diamonds, had gotten a lot of attention at all the gossip and entertainment sites online, and even a mention in a
60 Minutes
story about the FBI, the Mexican “businessman,” and his security team’s arsenal of automatic weapons, which made the Navy Seals look underprovisioned.

From there it had been easy to book weddings. Both Andy
and Emily had copies of Miranda’s contacts’ numbers from
Runway,
and they weren’t shy about using them. They developed a routine as finely choreographed as a ballet. Both girls would scour websites, blogs, and gossip magazines for news of engagements, give it a few weeks for all the excitement to die down, and then call either the star directly or their publicist, depending on how close either’s relationship was with
Runway
or Miranda. At that point they would blatantly drop Miranda’s name, mention that they’d collectively worked under her for
years
(not a lie), and explain (in not too much detail) how they’d “branched out” to a high-end wedding magazine. They would follow up each phone call with a FedExed copy of the Mexican wedding issue, wait exactly one week, and then call once more. So far, seven out of eight of the celebrities they’d contacted had agreed to have
The Plunge
cover their wedding for a future issue, so long as they were still free to sell pictures to a weekly in the interim. Andy and Emily never argued with this provision; their photography, the in-depth interviews they conducted with their couples, and the homey, accessible way Andy wrote the articles set them worlds apart from the grocery aisle competition. Plus each issue that featured a famous actress, model, musician, artist, or socialite made it easier to persuade the next celebrity to sign on, usually without a lot of the
Runway
name-dropping. The formula had been working beautifully for years now, and they were running with it. These real-life celebrity weddings had become not just the highlight of each issue but also the magazine’s defining feature and selling point.

Sometimes she could still barely believe it. Even now, flipping through the just-published November issue with Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman on the cover, it was hard to comprehend that the entire magazine existed because of Emily’s vision a few years earlier and all their mutual brainstorming and ideas and hard work and mistakes since then. Andy had gone into it hesitantly, yes, but the magazine was her love, her baby. They
had built something from scratch that they could be proud of, and every day she was grateful to Emily—for the magazine, and for its happy dividend, her introduction to Max.

“Do you think Madonna will be there?” her mother asked, bringing her paper cake plate to join Andy, Kyle, and Jill at the table. “Don’t she and Harper go to the same Kabbalah studio or something?”

Jill and Andy turned to stare at their mother.

“What? I can’t read a copy of
People
in the dentist’s office?” she asked, picking at her cake. Since she and Andy’s father had gotten divorced, Andy’s mother had grown increasingly careful about what she ate.

“I actually wondered that myself,” Andy said. “I don’t think so because she’s in the South Pacific for something right now. But the publicist has confirmed that Demi will be there. Not as fun now that she’s sans Ashton, but interesting nonetheless.”

“Personally, I would like confirmation that nothing on Demi Moore’s body is real,” Mrs. Sachs said. “That would make me feel better.”

“You and me both,” Andy said, shoveling in the last bite of cake. It was all she could do not to scoop her entire hand into the cake toddler-style and shovel it into her mouth. She’d choose nauseated over famished any day.

“Okay, crew, fun’s over. Jake and Jonah, please bring your plates to the kitchen and kiss everyone good night. Daddy’s going to fill the tub now and give you both your bath while I give Jared his bottle,” Jill announced, looking meaningfully at Kyle. “Then because it’s my birthday and I get to do whatever I want, I’m going directly to sleep and Daddy is going to be your point person tonight should anything come up, okay?” She hefted Jared onto her hip and kissed his cheek. He swatted at her face. “Any bad dreams, ‘I’m thirsty’s, ‘I’m cold’s, ‘I want a hug’s, you wake up Daddy tonight, okay, my loves?” Both boys nodded solemnly and Jared squealed and clapped his hands.

Jill and Kyle corralled all three boys, thanked Andy’s mom for the cake, kissed everyone good night, and disappeared upstairs. A moment later Andy heard the bathtub begin to run.

Mrs. Sachs disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and came out with two mugs of decaf English Breakfast tea, still steeping but already fixed with milk and Splenda. She pushed one across the table toward Andy.

“I heard Kyle ask you earlier if everything is okay . . .” Andy’s mother concentrated on wrapping her tea bag around a spoon.

Andy opened her mouth to say something and quickly closed it again. She wasn’t one of those girls who called home three times a day from college or would recount the intimate details of her romantic relationships to her parents, but it was harder than she thought—damn near impossible—not to tell her own mother that she was expecting a child. She knew she should tell her,
wanted
to tell her. It felt totally unnatural that besides her doctor and the lab techs, she and Mr. Kevin were the only two people on the planet who knew that she was pregnant, but she still couldn’t bring herself to say the words. It didn’t feel real, and as conflicted as she was over everything with Max, it certainly didn’t seem right to tell anyone, even her own mother, before she told him.

“Everything’s fine,” she said, not meeting her mother’s gaze. “I’m just tired.”

Mrs. Sachs nodded, although it was clear she knew Andy was withholding something. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“Eleven, out of JFK. I’m getting picked up here at seven.”

“Well, at least you’ll have a couple days somewhere warm. I know you don’t really get to relax when you’re covering a wedding, but maybe you’ll find an hour or two to sit outside?”

“Yeah, I hope so.” She briefly considered telling her mother about the call from Elias-Clark but knew a huge conversation would ensue. Better she got some rest than wind herself up for a night of Miranda nightmares.

“How’s Max? Is he upset you’re headed out so soon after your wedding?”

Andy shrugged. “He’s fine. He’s going to the Jets game on Sunday with the guys, so he probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Mrs. Sachs was quiet at this, and Andy wondered if she’d gone too far. Her mom had always liked Max and loved seeing Andy happy, but she didn’t pretend to understand the Harrison family wealth and what she saw as their need to be constantly social.

“I ran into Roberta Fineman last week at that federation luncheon I went to in the city, did I tell you that?”

Andy tried to feign indifference. “No, you didn’t mention it. How is she?”

“Oh, she’s doing really well. She’s been dating someone for years now; I think it’s serious. I heard he’s a dentist, a widower, and that they’ll probably get married.”

“Mmm. Did she mention Alex at all?”

She hated herself for asking, but she couldn’t help herself. Even after more than eight years apart, with only a single run-in since then, it still shocked Andy how little she knew about Alex and his current life. Google failed to provide anything but the basic biographical information she already knew and a lone article three years back that quoted Alex raving about the live music scene in Burlington. Andy could see that he’d gone to grad school at UVM and from what she could tell, he still lived in Vermont. He’d mentioned a girlfriend, a fellow skier, when they’d run into each other but hadn’t given many more details. He wasn’t on Facebook, which didn’t surprise Andy. Lily either didn’t know much more or chose not to tell her—probably the former, since she knew Lily and Alex only mailed each other holiday cards and, once, when he was considering matriculating there, he had e-mailed about her experience at UC Boulder.

“She did, yes. He’s finished his master’s and he and his girlfriend are moving back to New York. Or maybe they already did?
She has a creative profession, I can’t remember what exactly, but she has a good opportunity in the city, so I guess Alex will be looking for something there.”

Interesting. Alex and the creative, pretty skier were still together, three years later. Even more interesting: he was moving back to the city.

“Yeah, he told me about his girlfriend when I ran into him at Whole Foods. My god, that must have been, what? I had just started dating Max . . . three years ago. I guess it’s serious with them.”