Chapter Text
If I simply keep walking and don’t remove my sunglasses, I can skate right past her to the elevator, and it will be plausible that I haven’t seen her, Miranda thinks, even as that proves false, and the woman’s arm is looping through hers and the impudent thing is guiding her into a shadowy corridor.
This is not how this was supposed to have gone.
At least it appears that no one has noticed them. Sometimes, when Miranda enters the Elias-Clarke building, especially on a Monday when she appears earlier than usual, everyone assumes she’s in a mood and studiously avoids looking at her and keeps out of her way. Today is mercifully one of those days. Although everyone’s assumption, for once, is incorrect. She’s here early because she slept well and had woken up energized with a few new ideas for layouts that she’d like to sketch in the full sunlight of her office.
The woman’s grinning and whispering conspiratorially,
“I can’t believe it. My good luck charm found me in the Big Apple just when I needed her most! I’ve got an hour before I’ve got a job interview I’m super nervous about. Wanted to stake out the joint a little, you know, get my bearings. But I bet a quickie would really put me in the right confident, powerful mindset to pull it off. I’ve got the one person powder room with a lock if you’ve got the time, gorgeous.”
They’ve stopped walking just in front of said powder room, and Miranda looks her up and down.
There hadn’t even been that much alcohol involved two nights ago when she’d allowed this strange, forward, rather mousey person to penetrate her in a public elevator in Atlantic City. They had had quite a bit of sex afterward in a hotel room, as well, but the initial encounter in the elevator is the part that sticks out to her as most out of character. Once you’re the type of trashy slut to do that, it’s an upgrade to being naked with a woman half your age between your legs on questionable and very scratchy sheets with the television playing a rerun of Green Acres to disguise your obscene sounds of pleasure. She’d been so in the throes of passion that it had taken her an episode and a half to finally protest.
“Change the channel.”
The woman had flipped her hair over her shoulder, said flabbergastedly,
“You weren’t actually watching Arnold the Pig get into hijinks while I was eating you out, were you?”
“Don’t be absurd. I knew Eva Gabor personally. Hearing her voice in the room is very jarring to me. I’m imagining her running commentary on my sexual performance, and it is hindering my arousal.”
The woman had laughed then, said in a truly awful Eva Gabor,
“Oh, dahlink. I zink you are lyink. I zink you are shtill very vet.”
Miranda had rolled her eyes, and the woman had kissed her shoulder and then languidly risen and crossed the room to change the channel, but all of them were fuzzy and indistinct except for Green Acres, some animated show with a boy with triangular spikes of hair, and C-SPAN.
“Fooling around to Dragon Ball Z was a hard no when I was 16 in my first boyfriend’s grandparents’ basement, and it’s an even harder no now. So your options are Eva Gabor or Nancy Pelosi, it looks like.”
Miranda had pursed her lips, sighed,
“Just turn it off. Everyone knows what kind of establishment this is. We’re not fooling anyone.”
The woman had shrugged and turned the tv off. Then she’d climbed back into bed, nuzzled her neck, whispered into her ear,
“Vhat vould you like me to do to you next, dahlink?’
“Occupy your mouth some other way than with that ridiculous accent.”
She drags her eyes over the woman again and can’t stop herself from saying,
“You’re going to an interview in that? I wasn’t aware this building had a 1940s library looking to employ the pathetic town spinster.”
“Har har. I wanted to be memorable. Show I had my own style. And interviews are about personality and experience and good old gung-ho.”
“Yes, and that style is Donna Reed if she hadn’t met James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“Uh huh. I understood the insult the first time. And anyway, Mary’s cute in that timeline. I would’ve asked her out.”
Miranda rolls her eyes,
“Your standards for female companionship are obviously suspect.”
The woman just grins and continues, undeterred,
“Come on, daylight’s burnin’! You in or you out?”
She’s said this last phrase with a waggle of her eyebrows and is looking at Miranda with undisguised lust. Miranda hadn’t necessarily been particularly in the mood for sex when she walked in the door, but it’s been a long time since anyone’s looked at her like that—genuinely delighted to see her and genuinely appreciating her body and genuinely very openly wanting to make her feel good. Probably an even longer time since she’s started her workday in the afterglow of a good orgasm.
It’s probably madness to agree to this, but it’s going to be a long week. Maybe she deserves a little self-indulgence.
“Come along, Andréa” Miranda says, turning the handle on the door to the bathroom.
“Hot dog, Miranda! It really is my lucky day.”
“Hot dog!”
Miranda had heard from the row of slot machines near her blackjack table. She had looked over to identify the speaker—a very young voice for such an anachronistic expression of glee. It seemed to have come from an attractive young woman in the ugliest outfit she’d seen in the wild in months: pleated slacks and a fisherman’s sweater. She looked like a very pretty lighthouse keeper days away from going mad from the isolation. It should’ve ended at that observation, but the woman had turned just then, and their eyes had met accidentally, and the woman’s face had changed from amusement to keen interest immediately.
She’d felt her cheeks heat at the sudden intensity of it. If she hadn’t known better, she’d’ve diagnosed that as a look of pure desire. She’d dismissed that thought quickly, though. No, it had probably been simple recognition and the feeling that she was being given an opportunity for an audience with Miranda Priestly with no assistants or other personnel around. So she’d turned back to stare unseeingly at the green felt in front of her.
She didn’t gamble often, but she’d been oddly melancholy and nostalgic as she’d signed her second set of divorce papers Friday morning and had found herself fondly remembering the week leading up to her first divorce in Reno.
The twins had been at their father’s for the weekend, so she’d left work early and driven herself out to Atlantic City Friday afternoon. It was tacky and not her usual style but maybe just what she needed to get out of her funk.
The look on that girl’s face had unsettled her, and she’d somehow stupidly managed to hit at seventeen, but stupidly luckily and statistically incredibly unlikely, she’d received a four of hearts.
And then there had been a waft of cheap grapefruit and vanilla perfume and the brushing of an arm against hers and a voice in her ear.
“Would you looky there,” the voice had said. “That was kind of a dumb move, but it paid off for you. Maybe I’m good luck.”
She’d turned to face this audacious person, who was standing very close to her, smiling broadly. She had extended a hand, said,
“I’m Andy.”
Miranda had merely stared at the hand offered to her. It was large but delicate, with neatly trimmed, clear-coated nails. And it was still waiting for her to shake it. Considering she had already made the decision to shut whatever this was down and be as rude as necessary to communicate her lack of interest in making this woman’s acquaintance, she offered her hand limply. Might as well give her that kindness before she cut her off at the knees.
“That’s not your real name. And before you amend yourself, I don’t care to know what your real name is. Please refrain from listing off your resume, and I absolutely don’t want to see your portfolio.”
But to her chagrin, their hands had still been joined, and this person squeezed hers gently and said,
“Good. Didn’t wanna show you any of that. But I’d love to show you a few other things.”
She’d looked her up and down very slowly and added,
“A few things I’d like to see of yours, as well.”
Miranda had snatched her hand away, scoffed,
“You’re disgusting. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that is not the way I do business.”
The woman had cocked her head and furrowed her brow, said,
“I don’t know what conversation you think we’re having, so let me be clear: I am very unsuccessfully attempting to hit on a hot lady I made heated eye contact with across a crowded room in a casino at the same moment the Wonder Woman slot machine awarded me the major progressive jackpot and she won a couple hundred bucks on a very risky bet at the blackjack table, so I figured it was kismet. So what do you say? You wanna hit the craps table next and blow on my dice? I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me or not tell me why the most beautiful, most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen in person is slumming it at this rathole?”
Miranda had perused the woman a little more thoroughly, then. If this woman were telling the truth, this could be a rare opportunity for her to just exist in a space with someone who had no expectations of her, someone she had no obligation to, someone who might look at her and see her as just a woman. There had been no sign of disingenuousness, no earmarks of lying. Her body language had been open and comfortable, although slightly nervous. As to be expected hitting on someone, Miranda had supposed.
“You really don’t know who I am?”
The woman’s face had registered alarm:
“Shoot! Are you my congresswoman or something? I promise I try to be an informed voter, but there are just so many politicians, and not all of them are photographed all that often, and I do—”
“No, I am no one’s congresswoman.”
“Phew,” the woman had said miming wiping sweat off her brow with a big, admittedly very charming, grin.
“What is Andy the diminutive of?”
“Andrea.”
Miranda had hummed, then,
“Andréa. Suits you. Miranda. I prefer roulette to craps, if it’s all the same to you.”
Andrea had blinked twice and then beamed, said,
“Whatever you want. But I can’t blow on your dice that way. Maybe you’ll let me blow on something else instead.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. She had come here to relax and unwind and do things she wouldn’t normally, so she might as well lean in. So she had leaned in, said into Andrea’s ear,
“Blow in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere.”
Andrea had chuckled and laced their fingers together, started leading her to the roulette table, said,
“Joke’s on you that you think I’m too young to get that reference. I’m convinced now more than ever that the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate has brought us together.”
“Sock it to me, I guess,” Miranda had said.
Miranda’s barely clicked the lock as she’s being pressed against the door of the bathroom. She drops her bag, tears off her sunglasses and tosses them toward the sink. Andrea’s mouth is on her throat, kissing and licking and sucking and skimming her teeth, and her hands are divesting her of her trench coat. Andrea groans into her ear,
“Been thinking about you all weekend. Sad that I’d probably never see you again, let alone get to touch you again.”
Andrea blows in her ear and then tongues down her jawline. Miranda shivers, goosebumps erupting. Miranda knows Andrea knows exactly what she’s doing to her from experience Friday night. What Andrea hopefully doesn’t know is that Miranda’s physical responses to physical stimuli are largely uniform regardless of the sexual partner performing them but she’s only ever gotten wet to dirty talk when Andrea had been whispering debauched things into her ear. Andrea pushes her skirt up her thighs, squeezes her quadriceps, says,
“Beat myself up all day yesterday for not getting your number.”
She palms Miranda’s sex over her silk underwear.
“And yet here you are. Spreading your legs for me.”
She pushes her palm in, and Miranda gasps. Andrea kisses her then, slides her tongue into her mouth. They kiss for a long moment, Miranda’s hips grinding into her hand, Andrea fisting a handful of her hair at the back of her neck, Miranda clutching Andrea’s hideous polyblend sweater, just reacquainting themselves. Then Andrea slips her hand into her underwear, drags her fingers from her clit to her opening and pulls away from the kiss to husk into her ear,
“A little disappointed that you didn’t wake up soaking wet thinking about what all we got up to Friday like I did. Guess I’ll have to work for it.”
She’s circling Miranda’s clit rapidly now, and Miranda huffs out,
“Good practice for showing your good old gung-ho in your interview.”
Andrea laughs,
“That’s what I like about you. You’re an idea woman.”
And they’re kissing again as Andrea unbuttons her blouse and continues her quick, aggressive movements. Miranda turns away, panting as she’s nearing the edge of release, and Andrea mouths at her chest, palms a breast, noses into a bra cup to lick a nipple. As she bites down sharply, Miranda abruptly climaxes, and Andrea gentles her touch, glides her fingers through her labia.
“There we go. Now you’re good and ready for me to be inside you.”
“Take this off, first. The texture is giving me hives,” Miranda says, tugging at the sweater.
Andrea rolls her eyes but does remove the offending garment.
“You do not have hives. I was just licking your chest. I would know.”
“My mistake. Maybe it was giving you hives. Should I check?”
“You should definitely check. But one sec.”
Andrea drops to her knees and slides Miranda’s panties down her legs carefully, helps her balance on one foot and then the other as she removes them completely. She bobs back up with a grin, shoving the underwear into her pocket.
“You can have those back if you give me your phone number.”
Her hand is back between Miranda’s legs, fingers stroking leisurely, exploringly. It feels… nice. Just a nice caress. Sex has not often been nice for Miranda. It’s been good on occasion, hot very rarely, mostly a chore to complete. But the way Andrea touches her—seemingly purely for their mutual pleasure—is very nice.
Miranda wraps an arm around her neck, traces her collarbone with a fingertip, says,
“Why would you need my phone number if we work in the same building? Surely you’ll be tracking me down on your union breaks and dragging me into every janitor’s closet and secluded vacant conference room you can find.”
“You’re right. But I’m still not giving your panties back.”
“Pervert.”
“Yep.”
Andrea enters her, then. And that’s more than just nice. That’s delicious. She throws her head back with a sigh and Andrea kisses her neck, says,
“Geez Louise. You feel so good. I could do this all day long.”
But the rhythm is off, stilted. Miranda looks down, says,
“I don’t think you could. This cannot be a comfortable angle for your wrist.”
“Right again,” she says as she pulls out. “Hop up onto the counter.”
“Hop?”
“Clock’s tickin’, honey. I got places to be. If you wanna get fucked properly, you’re gonna have to hop.”
Miranda does not hop. In fact, she pushes Andrea away a pace, unzips the side zipper of her skirt and shimmies out of it. Then she squirts a generous amount of hand sanitizer onto a paper towel and wipes down the counter, throws the paper towel away, and positions herself onto the counter.
“You’re a spiteful creature, aren’t you?” Andrea says as she stands in front of her, hands on her knees.
“Yes. Might I remind you, the clock’s ticking, honey.”
Andrea laughs and encircles her waist with one arm, kisses her soundly, and enters her again, hard and fast and deep.
“I’ve already very unwisely agreed to accompanying you to your hotel room. Why are you trying so hard to seduce me in this claustrophobic death trap?” Miranda had said into Andrea’s mouth.
She’d hardly ridden in an elevator with another person in a decade. If she’d ever necked in an elevator, she couldn’t remember it. And she’d surely never had anyone’s hand up her skirt in an elevator.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? A stitch in time saves nine?” Andrea had said absently as she’d pushed aside the gusset of her underwear, sliding her fingers through the copious wetness there as she’d dropped her mouth to Miranda’s collarbone.
“Are you listening to anything either of us are saying?”
“Hmm no, I don’t think so. Hypnotized by your pussy.”
“Don’t call it that.”
Andrea had stroked her once from clit to opening and then entered her smoothly, kissed her collarbone softly, said,
“My bad. Hypnotized by your vulva. It’s very pleasurable to me the way your vaginal walls contract against my phalanges.”
“That is worse. I rescind my previous statement.”
“Knew you’d come to see things my way. Speaking of, how many times do you think I can make you come before we get to the twelfth floor?”
“Probably more if you’d quit your incessant blathering.”
“I don’t think so. I think you like the way I talk to you.”
“Baseless supposition.”
“Hot. You get a reward for that one.”
Andrea had added another finger and pulsed her thumb against Miranda’s clit.
Miranda briefly entertains the thought that she could get used to having clandestine sex basically in her workplace as Andrea thrusts three fingers into her at a languid pace at the perfect glorious angle. It wouldn’t do to have people thinking she has a pet loan officer on the third floor, though. A connection like that could be a liability. No one would respect her if they knew she was sneaking out to get fucked by the maintenance girl or new dentist on the fifth floor. What job on earth is she interviewing for in this homeless Dust Bowl widow ensemble? The skirt is atrocious but at least wool rather than some man-made plastic nonsense.
“You’re thinking too much. We don’t have time for thinking,” Andrea says into her ear.
She then licks the shell of her ear and speeds up her fingers, presses in more purposefully with her thumb, and that has Miranda’s full attention. She’s very close, and she’s not a screamer, but she’d been a lot more vocal in that Atlantic City hotel room than she’d ever been before, so she pulls Andrea in for a kiss that will swallow any suspicious noises, just in case. She comes a second later, moaning into Andrea’s mouth, the pleasure so overwhelming that she forgets to breathe long enough that her vision starts to blur.
“Yeah. Just like that,” Andrea’s saying into her ear, still thrusting inside her gently.
Andrea kisses her just below her ear and then down her jaw and then she pulls out and cups her sex.
“This was fun. Exactly what I needed. When I get that job, maybe we can make a habit of this, huh?”
Miranda takes a moment to reorient herself. It is 7:40am on a Monday morning. She is nude except for an open blouse, a disheveled brassiere, and her stockings and garter belt. She is half sitting on a bathroom sink in a public bathroom on the first floor of the Elias-Clarke building. She has just had sex with a woman she met at a casino in New Jersey, whose last name she does not know. And this woman is proposing an ongoing sexual relationship. She cannot think of a thing to say. It’s preposterous. Entirely insane.
Andrea apparently takes her stunned silence as a yes and kisses her sweetly and chastely on the mouth and then turns to wash her hands. She then moves to take up her sweater.
“No,” Miranda says.
“No, what?” Andrea says, one arm half in a sleeve.
“Unless you’re interviewing to be the feed the birds tuppence a bag woman, you can’t wear that,” Miranda says as she shrugs out of her unbuttoned blouse and extends it for Andrea to take. “Here.”
“That is not going to button over my chest.”
“No. But you’re wearing a conservative camisole.”
“And you’re just going to walk into your office topless?”
“I have plenty of clothes in my office. And a coat that does button over my chest.”
Andrea shrugs,
“Okey dokey. Thanks, I guess.”
She puts on the blouse, buttons it as far as she’s able, grins,
“More good luck. It smells like you.”
Miranda rolls her eyes to conceal how sweet she thought that was of her to say and slides off the counter to redress.
“Fucking-a, Miranda!”
“Yes?” Miranda had smirked up at her from where she’d been licking her through the aftershocks of a second orgasm.
“You’ve done this before,” Andrea had said, one hand gripping the comforter, the other arm slung over her eyes
“I don’t know why that would come as a surprise to you. I did live through the 1970s.”
Andrea had removed her arm from over her eyes, looked at Miranda, said,
“You just seemed a little… straight-laced and repressed, I guess.”
“So straight-laced and repressed as to agree to anonymous lesbian sex with a girl half my age I just met three hours ago?”
“It takes all kinds of kinds,” Andrea had shrugged.
“Maybe if I make you climax a few more times, I’ll effectively fuck the nonsequitur clichés out of you.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Miranda drops her bag on Emily’s desk and proceeds into her office, coat still buttoned to her chin. She’s aware of the confused look on her face as she does so and allows herself a small smile as she goes to pick out a new blouse from the rack in her private powder room. Of all the people in the building, Emily would probably be the most horrified at what had taken place this morning, and that thought does sadistically amuse her.
It shouldn’t. The poor thing has been so overworked lately. Her own fault for not finding a competent second assistant. But she’s not without a touch of sympathy.
As she had suspected this morning, the week is looking to be very long. She doesn’t leave her office once until after six, and she had intended on going right back in but she pauses, decides the theme of the day is self-indulgence. She’s going home at a decent time, and she’s going to fry up some pork chops for herself and her daughters, and when they ask about her weekend, she’ll tell them she won some money at a casino and met a very silly girl who kept her company and made her laugh.
“Since we’re finished having sex for the time being, can I turn Green Acres back on?”
Miranda had been halfway asleep tucked into Andrea’s shoulder.
“It’s been hours. Surely that station has moved on to Petticoat Junction or something. And what do you mean, ‘for the time being’? Don’t you ever get tired?”
“It’s an all-night marathon. Of Green Acres, that is, according to TV Guide. And sex, too, if you’re up for it. I can’t help that I’m keyed up. I’ve been feeling like a total loser for the past couple months. My boyfriend dumped me; I’m having trouble finding a steady job. And then boom! I’m winning jackpots and having sex with the hottest woman in Atlantic City. And that’s saying something. They have all the Miss Whoever pageants here.”
“Keep the volume down. I do need to rest if you’d like to have more sex.”
“Can do, chief.”
As Miranda walks into the Elias-Clarke building Tuesday morning, Andrea is running out of it. She stops and holds the door for Miranda, says in a whisper,
“I got the job, Good Luck Charm. That’s gonna be your ringtone when you finally give me your number. Can’t do this morning, but maybe I could find you for lunch? I’ve got fifteen at 12:30.”
The “I don’t think that’s wise.” is right there on her tongue. Right there! She is not going to be an Elvis Presley ringtone for this girl! But somehow what comes out is,
“Same powder room?”
“Same bat time, same bat channel,” Andrea winks and runs out the door.
Entirely insane.
“Emily,” Miranda says as she places her coat and bag on her desk. “Have you hired the Invisible Woman as the second assistant? Or perhaps Casper the Friendly Ghost? I’m tired of looking at this forlorn, empty desk.”
“I—”
It’s then that Andrea rushes into the corridor with a coffee cup in one hand and a stack of Runway folders in her other arm.
They are all completely silent and still for a moment before Miranda straightens her already straight posture and turns toward her office, says,
“Come along with that coffee.”
She sits at her desk, says very softly,
“Would you prefer to quit or be fired?”
Andrea sets the coffee on a coaster on Miranda’s desk and then props herself on the edge of the desk. Impertinent.
“Hear me out—”
“I cannot have a woman who’s had her fingers inside me work for me.”
“Not even your OBGYN? I hear they’re always looking for more humanities majors to apply to med school. And I’m very good at anatomy, as you know,” Andrea says with a grin.
Miranda rolls her eyes. Andrea says,
“Look, I know it’s dicey. But I really do need a job, and we get along, don’t we? We’re both mature, intelligent, professional women. We can keep our hands to ourselves, right?”
Miranda raises an eyebrow at that.
“Just until I find something else. I think I can still swing an interview at Auto Universe. We’d still be in the same building with that great little powder room—”
“You are not going to want to have anything to do with me after you’ve seen me as a boss.”
Andrea raises an eyebrow now. But before she can offer a rejoinder, the door opens, and Emily walks in tentatively. She pointedly avoids looking at either of them, says,
“Your eight thirty is here.”
“So what had you gambling alone in Atlantic City?” Andrea had said, propped up on one elbow and gazing down at her, tracing nonsense patterns on Miranda’s naked stomach.
“Divorce celebration.”
“That seems like the kind of thing you ought to do with champagne on a yacht.”
“I don’t know one person I can stand to be around for five minutes who owns a yacht.”
“Well, when I get rich, I’ll buy a yacht and we can have a redo. Or maybe we could celebrate something else. For one, my being rich enough to own a yacht.”
The pattern Andrea had been tracing had started out nonsense, but it had somewhere along the line turned into steady lines from hip bone to hip bone.
“It very well could be the owning of the yacht that turns one into a pretentious windbag. I didn’t know any of them before the yacht, after all. You might want to be careful.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
They had been quiet for a moment, and then Miranda had said,
“Hmm, I take that back. I knew my first ex-husband before he bought a yacht.”
“Pretentious windbag from the start?”
“No. He used to be nice and boring. And then he was jealous and vindictive and then he became a pretentious windbag.”
“So what was the timeline? You know, regarding when you divorced him, when he turned into a pretentious windbag, and when he bought the yacht?”
The pattern had deviated further into caresses where hip and thigh meet.
“I divorced him after the jealous and vindictive phase, which was concurrent with buying the yacht. He didn’t become a pretentious windbag until he married his second wife. Actually. New theory: all of the yacht yahoos I know also have much younger second wives. It could be a comorbid condition.”
“I don’t think I’m interested in having a much younger second wife, but I’m still pretty set on the yacht. You think I can avoid pretentious windbaggery that way?” Andrea had said, fingers now skimming ticklingly over her mons pubis.
“I’m really not sure I know any women I would describe that way, so it may be carried on the y-chromosome. In that case, I look forward to celebrating something on your yacht. And don’t tell anyone, but I prefer spumante to champagne.”
“I’ll take it to my grave,” Andrea had said, dipping down into her folds. “So tell me, was ex number one worse to deal with jealous and vindictive or as a pretentious windbag?”
“Do you really want me to tell you about my first ex-husband while you’re fucking me?”
“Yeah. I thought it might be cathartic for you. You can rag on some dogshit man, but not the most recent one because that’s probably kind of raw still, and I can make you come and you’ll feel better.”
Miranda had not known exactly what had given her away that she was lonely and sad, other than the double tequila and soda she’d been drinking as she gambled alone and probably the tension in her shoulders. She had surprised herself when a laugh bubbled out. She’d said,
“It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard, but I’m still not interested in participating. I don’t think it’s wise to pair orgasms with unsavory topics of conversation. So. You can either hear about my first ex-husband or we can have sex again.”
“What a difficult decision. Whichever shall I choose?”
The thing that kills Miranda about this situation is that Andrea’s good at the job. She almost wishes Andrea’d never seduced her in Atlantic City because a good assistant is way harder to find than a good lay. Although, that may not exactly be the truth. It may be that she’s a good assistant for the exact reasons she’s a phenomenal lay. She mostly just tries to avoid thinking about or looking at Andrea at all.
Two weeks have passed, and they’ve been mostly successful in not appearing too friendly. There’d been a near miss Monday morning when Andrea had walked in in Miranda’s blouse from the week before.
“Don’t you have any decent clothes? People will suspect you’re trying to sleep with your boss if you keep running around with your breasts on display like that,” Miranda had said with half a smirk as Andrea had handed her her coffee.
“As long as the boss thinks I’m trying to sleep with the boss, I don’t care what anybody else thinks.”
Emily had come in at just the tail end of that flirtation. Come to think of it, Emily’s been barging in a lot lately.
“So,” Andrea had said just before noon on Saturday as she was fastening her bra. “I can see by the look on your face that you want this to be a one-time thing you can dismiss as a brief lapse in judgment and a post-divorce dalliance and you’re not going to give me your number. And I get that. I respect that. But would you at least do me the honor of letting me buy you a seafood lunch buffet?”
Miranda had been struck by the kindness and understanding Andrea’d offered, so she’d said,
“You did win big at the Wonder Woman slot machine. You might as well spend a fraction of your earnings treating the woman you’ve spent the better part of the night ravishing to a hearty meal.”
Miranda’s just coming back from a lunch meeting she ended early because she couldn’t stand to watch her gauche tech start-up person dining companion chew with his mouth open for one second longer, when she hears whispers down the hall.
Whispers mean gossip, which she usually has no interest in but much has changed since she unwittingly fucked an employee, so she stealthily slips behind a partition to eavesdrop.
It’s Nigel and Emily discussing “Six,” whoever that is.
“I swear, Nigel. That blouse Monday. It’s the one she wore at her interview. It’s Miranda’s.”
Aha. Six is some kind of code word for Andrea. Her cheeks heat at this.
“Why, pray tell, would she be wearing Miranda’s blouse? And how would you know? Miranda hardly wears the same thing twice, so how did you even identify it?” Nigel says.
“It smelled like her. Not this Monday. But last Monday.”
There’s a pause then. Miranda’s heart is beating fast. She’s got to get rid of this girl before they all put the pieces together.
“Well,” Nigel says. “That’s pretty incriminating. Why’d you hire her, then?”
“I obviously wouldn’t have if I’d realized it was Miranda’s perfume at the time! It smelled familiar, but I didn’t clock it as specifically Miranda’s until she came in several minutes later.”
“Ok, fine. So. What’s your theory?”
“I think she’s stalking her. One of those nutters who gets obsessed with a celebrity and tries to… I don’t know… insinuate themselves into their lives, steal their identities, boil their bunnies, etc.”
“I don’t think so, sweetie. Remember the belts incident?”
“And there’s that! The belts incident! Miranda did that whole fashion history monologue, and I swear, that sodding cow didn’t look even one whit chastised. If anything, she looked turned on!”
That had been a fun day. She’d known she couldn’t just let Andrea’s chuckle slide, and she also had known that Andrea loves hearing her talk about things she knows about and is passionate about, so it was really a win-win to appear to admonish her but really just rant about minutiae. She could’ve sworn she’d seen Andrea wink at her at the end of it as if she understood and approved of the exact kabuki they were enacting for the sake of appearances.
“That’s true. I will concede that Six consistently looks at Miranda as if she’d like to have her for dinner and she’d rather skip the knife and fork. But how did she get the blouse in the first place?” Nigel says.
Emily huffs exasperatedly, says,
“I’m telling you. Stalking. Probably broke into her house. Probably has dozens of pairs of her panties. Rolled around in her bedsheets for good measure.”
This theory does sound sort of plausible, if one is particularly distrustful. She’d contemplated a similar scenario herself most of the day that first Tuesday after Andrea had set her coffee on her desk and blatantly flirted with her: What if Andrea had followed her to Atlantic City and engineered their meeting somehow and then fucked her in the first floor gender neutral bathroom and then acquired the position of her second assistant with some kind of ulterior motive for personal gain? But the fact is she hadn’t broken into her house for the blouse. Miranda had given it to her, and she’d taken it reluctantly. And the rest is wildly improbable. If someone’s clever enough for that level of subterfuge and manipulation, why waste it on a fashion magazine editor? Why not join the CIA or run for senate or start a cult?
“I think you’re being paranoid. And maybe a little obsessive yourself,” Nigel says.
“Hey guys,” Andrea’s voice is added, at a regular, non-gossip volume.
Miranda wonders if she knows they’d been talking about her. Probably so. It probably tickled her to no end. She’s probably itching to relay the incident to Miranda and joke about needing a raise so she can buy a better pair of binoculars for peeping in her bedroom window.
“Can somebody please relieve me at the phones? I have got to go to the little girls’ room. I snagged an intern so I could come find you, but I don’t think Miranda is going to like seeing his face. He has a soul patch,” Andrea says.
Andrea’s right, of course. The only acceptable facial hair is a mustache—if it’s 1975 or you’re a fireman.
Emily’s gait can be heard leaving to go get rid of Soul Patch.
And just when Miranda has decided she’s gleaned all she can from this conversation, Nigel says,
“Whatever happened with Auto Universe?”
“Don’t know,” Andrea says. “I’ve been calling. Nobody will tell me anything.”
“They probably think Miranda will be displeased if you leave.”
“In what universe, auto or otherwise, would that be true? She burns through more assistants per fiscal year than the Gabor sisters have had husbands and wigs combined. She probably doesn’t even know my name yet.”
Miranda stifles a laugh at that and can hear some shuffling and grunting—the sounds of soft manhandling—and then Nigel’s whispering,
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I know it’s something, and Emily’s on your trail. So be careful, ok?”
“That’s why I’m trying to get the job at Auto Universe in the first place!”
If Miranda doesn’t intervene, she fears there will be confessions soon. She wheels the partition aside, and they both stare at her, slack-jawed.
“Drop this subject right now. You,” she points to Andrea, “get on with your business. You,” she points to Nigel, “with me. Come along.”
Once in her office, Miranda rounds on Nigel,
“What do you know about what they know at Auto Universe?”
“What?”
“You’ve obviously heard something.”
“I haven’t heard anything from Auto Universe.”
“But you’ve heard something from somewhere.”
He clears his throat, and they stand staring at each other like gunslingers in a duel in an old western. She says,
“I just adore waiting.”
He says,
“I may have heard that you’ve been. Nice. Lately.”
“Nice?”
“Also, someone saw you laugh at one of Andy’s jokes. In the lobby. Before work. Where you two think you’re surreptitiously meeting to chit chat every morning.”
Miranda opens her mouth, closes it. Then,
“We’re not trying to be surreptitious. We just happen to arrive at the same time and… talk for a while.”
Yesterday Andrea’d remembered a detail she’d mentioned in passing last week about Caroline’s auditioning for the school musical and had followed up about whether she’d gotten a part, and that had charmed her so much she’d been sorely tempted to suggest the powder room again and now thanks her lucky stars that she hadn’t with this new knowledge that people have been noticing that they… converse.
“Right. Because you have so much to discuss with your beautiful, twenty-five-year-old second assistant who looks at you like you’re a thick slice of prime rib and she’s coming out of forty days in the wilderness after having eaten nothing but locusts and wild honey.”
She’s been forcing herself not to look at Andrea except when they talk in the mornings before work, so she hasn’t been privy to this look he’s speaking of. It’s both a shocking revelation and completely expected.
It could’ve been reasonably surmised that Andrea would look at her this way. She’d said outright that she considered Miranda the most beautiful, most glamorous woman she’d seen in person and had shown rather than told the same, worshiping her body, making her come countless times over the course of twelve or so hours.
The shocking revelation part is that Andrea, apparently, is not attempting to hide her admiration, and it’s obvious to outside observers. As demoralizing as it would be to be rumored to be fucking an in-house loan officer or maintenance girl or dentist or copy editor and staff writer at Auto Universe, it could be career-ending and life-devastating to be known to be fucking a second assistant.
And as tight as her self-control usually is, she knows it’s just a matter of time before she succumbs to the attraction between them.
“I need to make a few calls. That’s all,” Miranda says in an almost believable facsimile of her typical cool, even voice.
“Uh huh,” Nigel smirks upon his exit.
“Edward,” Miranda purrs into the phone.
“Now hold your horses, Miranda. I’ve been meaning to ask for years: How do you know I’m an Edward Ted rather than a Theodore Ted?”
“I know many things. What I don’t know is why you haven’t hired Andréa Sachs for your little magazine.”
“Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna poach a Miranda girl right out from under her.”
“She is a writer, not an assistant.”
“Why don’t you have her write for you, then?”
His tone is teasing, rather than suspicious. For now. Miranda chooses her next sentence carefully, infuses it with the appropriate amount of disdain:
“I assure you, she has to know more about Cadillacs than she does Calvin Klein. The two weeks she’s spent here have made that obvious.”
“I was pretty bummed when I saw her on your new hires list. She’s got really good references and sample pieces.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
She had spent a fair amount of time last Tuesday evening researching Andrea, to assuage her more Emily-esque melodramatic stalking suspicions and hadn’t been surprised to have been impressed with her work. The only two things she’s witnessed Andrea not excel at have been dressing herself decently and that horrible Eva Gabor impersonation, and both could be improved with time and effort.
Insanity. She really must be losing it. She has future plans for this person who waltzed into her life two weeks ago in a casino and fucked her in an elevator.
“This isn’t some kind of trap, is it?” Edward says.
“Would I tell you if it were?”
“Hmm, s’pose not. I’ll give her a call, then.”
“And a twenty percent pay increase,” Miranda says.
“Now you’re just fucking with me.”
“You said it yourself that Andréa is a Miranda girl. Miranda girls get paid better than what you’re offering.”
“Is that all, my liege? May I kiss your ring and scuttle away back to your other serfs now?”
“Yes. And you may save your ring-kissing for the next board meeting.”
“I’d sure rather kiss your ring than Irv’s dumb skinny ass.”
Miranda laughs,
“The feeling is mutual.”
She hangs up.
It’s now just past three. It’s Friday, and most of the employees are merely pretending to work. She doesn’t feel like pretending. She feels light and free and like going for a nice cruise down a lazy river on a yacht captained by someone who’s not a pretentious windbag.
She walks, or maybe sashays, out to Andrea’s desk:
“Coat, bag.”
Then she leans in and slides a business card with her personal cell phone number written in purple ink on the back across the desk. She whispers,
“You can back-date your two weeks notice. I won’t tell if you don’t.”