The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger Page A

exhausted at this point to ask him to explain, and besides, I
didn’t really have to. About the only thing I’d had time to do in
the week between accepting the job and starting work was to learn a little bit
about my new boss. I had Googled her and was surprised to find that Miranda
Priestly was born Miriam Princhek, in London’s East End. Hers was like
all the other orthodox Jewish families in the town, stunningly poor but devout.
Her father occasionally worked odd jobs, but mostly they relied on the
community for support since he spent most of his days studying Jewish texts.
Her mother had died in childbirth with Miriam, and it washer mother who moved
in and helped raise the children. And were there children! Eleven in all. Most
of her brothers and sisters went on to work blue-collar jobs like their father,
with little time to do anything but pray and work; a couple managed to get
themselves into and through the university, only to marry young and begin
having large families of their own. Miriam was the single exception to the
family tradition.
     
     After
saving the small bills her older siblings would slip her whenever they were
able, Miriam promptly dropped out of high school upon turning seventeen—a
mere three months shy of graduation—to take a job as an assistant to an
up-and-coming British designer, helping him put together his shows each season.
After a few years of making a name for herself as one of the darlings of
London’s burgeoning fashion world and studying French at night, she scored
a job as a junior editor at the FrenchChic magazine in Paris. By this time, she
had little to do with her family: they didn’t understand her life or
ambitions, and she was embarrassed by their old-fashioned piety and
overwhelming lack of sophistication. The alienation from her family was
completed shortly after joining FrenchChic when, at twenty-four years old,
Miriam Princhek became Miranda Priestly, shedding her undeniably ethnic name
for one with more panache. Her rough, cockney-girl British accent was soon
replaced by a carefully cultivated, educated one, and by her late twenties,
Miriam’s transformation from Jewish peasant to secular socialite was
complete. She rose quickly, ruthlessly, through the ranks of the magazine
world.
     
     She
spent ten years at the helm of FrenchRunway before Elias transferred her to the
number-one spot at AmericanRunway, the ultimate achievement. She moved her two
daughters and her rock-star then husband (himself eager to gain more exposure
in America) to a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue at 76th Street and began a
new era atRunway magazine: the Priestly years, the sixth of which we were
nearing as I began my first day.
     
     By some
stroke of dumb luck, I would be working for nearly a month before Miranda was
back in the office. She took her vacation every year starting a week before
Thanksgiving until right after New Year’s. Typically, she’d spend a
few weeks at the flat she kept in London, but this year, I was told, she had
dragged her husband and daughters to Oscar de la Renta’s estate in the
Dominican Republic for two weeks before spending Christmas and New Year’s
at the Ritz in Paris. I’d also been forewarned that even though she was
technically “on vacation,” she’d still be fully reachable and
working at all times, and therefore, so should every single other person on
staff. I was to be appropriately prepped and trained without her highness
present. That way, Miranda wouldn’t have to suffer my inevitable mistakes
while I learned the job. Sounded good to me. So at 7:00A .M. on the dot, I
signed my name into Eduardo’s book and was buzzed through the turnstiles
for the very first time. “Strike a pose!” Eduardo called after me,
just before the elevator doors swept shut.
     
      
     
     Emily,
looking remarkably haggard and sloppy in a fitted but wrinkled sheer white
T-shirt and hypertrendy cargo pants was waiting for me in the reception