Even more Prada fic... closer to a resolution
A/N: Second of three stories building to Miranda/Andy, because cold-hearted fashionistas and idealistic cub reporters need love too, dammit. A transition-type story, and therefore difficult to write.
Summary: Being Miranda Priestly's friend is about as weird and uncomfortable as Andy thought it would be, until it isn't. Sequel to Finding, so reading that first would be helpful.
Rating: PG-13, for language and not even that much of it, at that
Disclaimer: Duh. Not mine.
Becoming
by: Hayseed (hayseed42@gmail.com)
The first time Miranda ever called her, it was actually Emily. And to make matters worse, Andy was attempting to eat the lunch she'd intended to have about two hours before, so she was way too preoccupied to pay much attention to the number flashing on her cell.
"Yeah?" she said, very nearly swearing as a fat tomato slid out of her sandwich and splatted on the proof she'd been skimming.
"Andrea? Is that you?" Emily's voice asked.
Furrowing her brow, she picked up the tomato and attempted to blot the piece of paper with what turned out to be a copy of the article she'd been working on for next week's Sunday edition. And so it slipped out. "Fuck."
"It is you, then," Emily said dryly.
Andy just rolled her eyes. "So, what's gone pear-shaped in the world of Miranda, Em?"
"Pear-shaped?"
"I'm trying out new euphemisms for 'shit.' What do you think?" She shoved the tomato in her mouth and chewed as loudly as she could.
"I think the world of journalism has addled your brain beyond repair," Emily said. "But it's not my place to judge."
She swallowed and made it a point to smack her lips. "I doubt you called just to tell me you think I'm weird."
"No, although it has been rather lovely. I'm actually calling to set up a lunch meeting. And stop it, Andrea," she said in a sharp voice.
Grinning, Andy grabbed some pretzels from a nearby bag and started crunching on them. "A lunch meeting? With who?"
"Who do you think?"
For a moment, she forgot how to swallow and came perilously close to choking on a mouthful of pretzels. "Wait... what?" she asked, coughing.
"She's got tomorrow free at eleven-thirty," Emily said, obviously ignoring her distress. "And she's not due anywhere until almost two, so it would be perfect. As long as you don't screw it up."
"Hey," Andy protested weakly, "you called me. Obviously, she wants to see me."
"God only knows why," Emily muttered. "So, shall I have the car come by at eleven-forty-five, then?"
She drained her can of soda. "Sounds good. I'm guessing it's her choice, huh?"
Emily sniffed expressively, which Andy realized meant that not only was Miranda choosing their lunch destination, but Andy was an absolute knuckle-dragging moron for even suggesting it could be otherwise.
"Okay, then, I'll see her tomorrow morning."
About to hang up, she heard a tinny voice on the other end of the line. "Andrea, wait!" Emily was shouting into the phone.
"What?" she asked impatiently, putting her cell back to her ear.
"Don't just wear some ratty old sweater," she lectured. "You will be in public with Miranda, for God's sake. And don't chew with your mouth open, or order anything with more than two hundred calories. People will be watching."
She just shook her head at Emily's antics. "Well, I guess I can't wear my orange gaucho pants, then. Or that brand-new tube top I've just been dying to try out." She crammed another handful of pretzels into her mouth. "Jesus, Emily, I wasn't raised in a barn."
"And for the last time, Andrea, quit it!" Emily all but screamed. "I'll have you know that I've lost four pounds in the last month, and I don't give a damn what fried filth you're attempting to mock me with."
" I'll see Miranda tomorrow morning promptly at eleven-forty-five, when I will order a Caesar salad and eat it with my pinkie finger dangling in the air, wearing my finest couture knock-offs, all right, Emily?" Andy asked sarcastically. "Oh, and they're not fried. They're low-fat pretzels."
Before Emily had a chance to respond, Andy snapped the phone shut.
It wasn't the most awkward lunch she'd ever had; that particular honor belonged to the fateful day she drove down to Boston to surprise Nate at his restaurant, sat down at a table, and overheard Nate doing an over-the-top impression of his "fashion-crazy ex-girlfriend" for a loudly cackling group of waiters.
She hadn't been back, and Nate's phone calls stopped exactly five days after she quit answering them.
No, lunch with Miranda wasn't that bad. But it was close.
Sitting in the car in complete silence, hands folded in her lap, Andy felt like screaming at the top of her lungs. Just to see if it would get Miranda to say something. Anything!
Every time she looked over to even attempt to smile, initiate eye contact, something, Miranda's head would whip in the other direction, eyes firmly fixed on the window.
And the restaurant was worse. Some swank little place that probably had a reservation list as long as Andy's left leg, and the maitre d' just simpered and exchanged air kisses with Miranda as they murmured to each other in French. He gave Andy a dismissive glance -- probably saw 'assistant' written all over her -- and even handed her the menus to carry over to their table.
Of course the stupid menus were in French. And, naturally, Andy could remember exactly three words from the copy of Everyday French for the Business Traveler that had managed to get her through Paris last year. None of them were on the menu.
In the end, she randomly picked something and garbled her way through her order, gamely ignoring Miranda's raised eyebrow that said oh, really?
So she sat -- again in silence -- in front of a dish full of something that might have been unidentifiable shellfish and... apples? She hadn't been able to bring herself to take a single bite, and Miranda's eyes had all but twinkled at her distress.
After Andy spent an agonizing thirty minutes drawing random patterns in her red sauce with the tines of her fork, Miranda simply stood, placed her crumpled napkin on the table, and walked out, leaving Andy to trail in her wake.
Like always.
Andy had been regretting her mad impulse to offer Miranda the hand of friendship since she caught a whiff of the definitely unpleasant odor of her weird, inedible meal. This just sealed it.
Standing in front of the car door, Miranda was all but tapping an impatient foot. Well? her eyebrow asked. Get in.
Decisively, Andy planted herself firmly on the sidewalk, folding her arms over her belly in a protective gesture. "I... I should probably just take a cab back to the office," she said quietly.
"Don't be ridiculous, Andrea."
"Look," she said, shaking her head, "I get it. This was a bad idea."
Miranda's eyes widened slightly. If Andy hadn't been so well-versed in her moods, she never would have caught it. "What do you mean?"
"You... you're serious?" she exclaimed, stunned. "You've been treating me like a second-class citizen since I got in the car. This was supposed to be a friendly lunch, and we've barely exchanged a half-dozen words!" She grasped desperately for something, anything that would help Miranda understand. "It doesn't have to be Sex in the City, you know," Andy said, "but some conversation is generally preferred."
"If I wanted to hear idiotic prattle, I would have taken Nigel and Emily along and been done with it," Miranda replied in a spiteful tone. "I found the quiet to be very relaxing, but clearly we have different perspectives on such things."
For a second, Andy really wanted to lash out at her, but after forcing herself to consider it for a bit longer, a few of the puzzle pieces began to click into place. "All right," she said, "I understand. But sitting around without so much as a 'pass the salt' to break the monotony isn't really what I had in mind."
Miranda sighed. "Somehow, Andrea, I am not surprised that you are as difficult to manage in your personal life as you are in your professional one."
Incredulous, Andy burst into wild laughter. "Oh, my God," she said, wiping a tear out of her eye, "this has been the worst idea I ever had."
"Undoubtedly," Miranda replied dryly. "As it appears to have ended with you in hysterics on a sidewalk."
"Which is why we've got to do it again," Andy told her with a wide grin.
"We do?" Miranda asked, clearly startled.
She couldn't stop smiling. "Only don't set it up through Emily. If we're going to be friends, you can't treat me like a business acquaintance."
With a skeptical look, Miranda finally opened the car door, gesturing for Andy to get in and slide -- Miranda never slid. "How do you propose to go about scheduling future lunches, then?"
"Well, there's this thing called a phone," Andy said, unable to help herself. She had obviously been driven insane by this whole thing. "It's got buttons you push, and then it lets you talk to people. Sometimes, you can even listen to them talking to--"
"Andrea," Miranda said sternly, "if you do not stop your nonsense, I will drive off and leave you to walk the fourteen blocks back to your office." She eyed Andy's sensible work shoes with disgust. "You are certainly well-shod for it."
Laughing, Andy climbed into the car and enjoyed the silent ride back to the Mirror. She even managed to turn her head quickly enough to catch Miranda's eye before she could look away. Miranda cocked an eyebrow, and Andy just smiled.
"Jocelyn is an idiot," Miranda said as soon as Andy got the phone up to her ear. Fortunately, she'd recognized the number flashing on her screen, so she wasn't entirely surprised.
"Okay..." she drawled, not quite turning it into a question.
It was apparently all Miranda needed. "Cloisonné, again! Is it too much to ask for even a shred of innovation?"
Impulsively, she decided that nothing ventured was nothing gained. "Well," Andy began slowly, "I liked the main June layout a few months back. All the gauze and flowing stuff was really ethereal and pretty. And the big, chunky jewelry was a nice juxtaposition."
There was a not insignificant pause. And then, "You read Runway now?" The tone was flat and disbelieving.
"Sort of..." she hedged.
What Andy was unwilling to admit was that every month, she sat in a bookstore and read Runway cover to cover. She never bought it, and she couldn't quite decide why.
"Whatever happened to taking a moral stand against beauty and saving the sea otters or some such nonsense?"
If Andy didn't know it was categorically impossible, she would have sworn that Miranda had just made a joke, and a sort of light, teasing one at that. "It's totally possible to look good while winning a Pulitzer Prize, you know."
Miranda's response was dry. "Believe it or not, Andrea, I have always suspected as much."
Apparently, Miranda was a lot better at talking on the phone than talking in person. Andy just smiled, realizing that Miranda had a pretty nice voice when she wasn't using it to threaten someone.
When she spoke again, there was something behind it Andy couldn't identify. "I read a review for a bistro that just opened up about a block from Elias-Clarke. And I would like to try it, but I cannot seem to--"
"I'll meet you there," Andy said, interrupting her as soon as she saw where Miranda was going with it. "What time?"
"Fifteen minutes."
And the call dropped without so much as a goodbye, leaving Andy to stare at her phone and wonder what the hell just happened.
Four weeks later, wearing a Chanel top she found in another consignment store, Andy found herself sitting beside Miranda in a crowded theater and watching two little red-haired girls on stage, plunking away in a piano duet. The left-hand girl seemed more enthusiastic about it than the right-hand one, and Andy was startled to realize she couldn't really tell them apart any more.
Eighteen months ago, her job -- her life -- had depended on being able to distinguish between them. She dimly remembered a tell-tale smattering of freckles across Caroline's nose but of course couldn't make them out from here.
The girls finished, stood, and curtseyed. Andy applauded politely alongside Miranda, taking in her proud expression out of the corner of her eye. She was sort of confused as to how she'd wound up here in the first place -- over their latest lunch, Miranda mentioned that the girls' father wasn't coming to their recital, Andy said something dutiful about always wanting to hear them play, and here she was.
Even worse, she wound up standing backstage, hovering uncomfortably in a corner while Miranda fawned over her daughters. "That was brilliant, girls," Miranda said warmly.
"It wasn't," one of the twins said in a petulant voice. "She screwed up the last movement."
The other twin looked deeply offended. "I did not. You were playing too fast."
Andy still wasn't standing close enough to figure out who had the freckles.
"Either way," Miranda told them in an obvious effort to placate them both, "it sounded wonderful. The dissonance only enhanced the melody line."
The first twin snorted. "As if you'd know," she said with contempt. "You don't know anything about music, Mom."
Wide-eyed, Andy watched Miranda visibly wilt and something in her reared its head angrily.
She stepped out of the shadows. "I thought it sounded pretty good, too," she said. "But I guess I only played the clarinet for a couple of years in high school, so maybe I don't know any better either."
Turning around, First Twin fixed her with a nasty glare. "Who are you?"
"Hey..." Second Twin looked thoughtful. "Aren't you... don't you work for Mom?" There was a glint in her eye that Andy didn't like.
"I used to," she said. "But I got fired."
"Then why are you here?" First Twin shot back.
Andy tried her hardest to mirror Miranda's best shark smile. From the expression on the girls' faces, she came pretty close to succeeding. "It doesn't matter." She squinted, finally finding that little patch of freckles on Second Twin's nose. "Cassidy," she said, making First Twin gasp.
"I asked her to," Miranda said abruptly. She looked over at Andy, something in her eyes Andy couldn't identify. "I wanted her to meet the two of you."
"But... we already know her," Second Twin -- Caroline -- said, sounding confused. "I guess we don't know your name, though. What is your name, anyway?"
"Andy," she replied automatically. And then, considering the fact that Miranda didn't seem to have much use for nicknames, she corrected herself. "Andrea. Whichever."
"And Mom fired you, but you still wanted to come meet us?" Cassidy asked, face openly suspicious.
She shrugged. "Well, based on the wonderfully warm welcome you've given me and how kindly you treated me when I still worked for your mom, I just knew we'd get along."
Cassidy flinched a bit, and Caroline's mouth fell open.
So they remembered, then. Well, good. Andy wanted them to know that even if Miranda was going to pretend her kids weren't spoiled brats, she was having none of it.
After a long pause, Caroline stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you, Andy," she said timidly.
Miranda was obviously baffled by the interaction, but Andy just smiled and took the offered appendage. "Likewise, kiddo."
Cassidy sniffed. "I guess you're nicer than that other one, maybe. The tall, skinny one who looks worried all the time."
Struggling not to laugh, Andy released Caroline's hand so she could immediately cover her twitching lips. "Thanks. I guess."
"Well, as delightful as this has been," Miranda began in what Andy was fairly sure was a pleased voice, "it would be better to continue this conversation at a later date. A more civilized hour, if nothing else."
Andy glanced at her watch. "Yeah, it is pretty late. And some of us have to work tomorrow. So, I guess I'll call you, huh? Nice to officially meet you girls," she told the twins. "I can see why your mother is so proud of you."
As she walked off, she saw Cassidy and Caroline exchange a guilty look and allowed herself a small victory smile.
Andy dialed the number with fingers that trembled slightly. Even after more than two months of phone conversations and increasingly less awkward lunches, she'd always left the ball in Miranda's court. Miranda obviously wasn't really used to much in the way of friendly social interaction -- Andy did sometimes wonder why such a well-connected woman didn't appear to have any other friends -- and she considered it a small kindness on her part to let Miranda have as much control as she could.
But tonight was the night. Even though she didn't really have much to say, she wanted to be the one to make the call.
Telling herself it had nothing to do with the fact that she hadn't heard Miranda's voice in more than five days, Andy pressed the last button and held the receiver up to her ear, listening to the ringing and holding her breath when the line clicked.
She heard Miranda's voice telling one of the twins to go to sleep. It was unexpectedly tender, and Andy felt wistful for a weird second.
Then, "Yes?"
"Um... hello. It's me." She winced. And then went and made it worse. "Andy."
"I do have Caller ID, Andrea," Miranda said dryly.
Clearing her throat nervously, Andy suppressed a hysterical laugh. What was wrong with her? "Yeah... well..." She heard something rustle on the other end and wondered idly what it was.
"Emily brought the Book over about fifteen minutes ago," Miranda said, and Andy blinked.
Did she actually ask that out loud? "Oh," she forced herself to reply.
"The December issue is coming along quite nicely," she continued. "Nigel is doing something interesting with an angel motif."
"Huh." Andy pondered this for a moment. "How is Nigel these days? I haven't talked to him since I had to... well, not for a few months, anyway."
Miranda sighed into the phone. "As far as I know, he's fine. Apart from his obviously deluded decision to attempt to turn Serena into something resembling a junior editor. He let her help on the November shoot."
"Serena?" she echoed doubtfully. "Really?"
"There were pearls," Miranda began with a verbal shudder. "And ruffles. And puffed sleeves."
She said it in the same voice she might have said 'mass murder' or 'serial rapist,' and Andy couldn't hold in the giggle.
"After he saw the negatives, he agreed with me that she is to remain under strict supervision until further notice." Something rustled again, and Andy could only assume Miranda had resumed flipping through the Book.
"Well, it could have been worse," Andy said, feeling something in her chest relax. "She could have dressed the models up like turkeys."
"I overheard her suggesting to Nigel that for the December shoot they should tease the girls' hair up and weave Christmas tree lights in," Miranda replied darkly.
Attempting and failing to get a mental image, Andy attempted to be charitable. "That might not be... as hideous as it sounds."
"She also had some Soho nobody design several evening gowns constructed entirely from curling ribbon."
And then the image was there. And there was nothing she could do to get rid of it. "Oh," she replied weakly.
More rustling pages. "She was an excellent makeup artist, and now he's gone and given her... delusions. I don't know if there's anything to be done."
"There's nothing wrong with a little ambition." Before Andy could even finish the thought, she realized she'd possibly overstepped. They rarely discussed this sort of thing, and she was pretty sure she knew Miranda's opinion on the subject.
"Except when it is utterly misguided." Her voice was clipped.
Andy sighed. "I just meant that everyone wants to do better. And besides, no one starts off perfectly. I bet even you made mistakes when you first got into the industry."
Silence.
"Like, in the first five minutes or so," she said, attempting to make a lame joke.
"While I never, oh, told Michael Kors that his jacket looked just like one I saw at the Gap the other week..."
Andy blushed, glad Miranda couldn't see her. That had been a very humiliating ninety seconds, and Emily had laughed very hard at her once they got back to the office. Besides, how the hell did Miranda remember something like that?
"...I will confess that a great deal of effort went into developing my personal management style."
"Very tactful," Andy said, hoping to score a point against Miranda for reminding her of one of her more horrible faux-pas from her time at Runway, "but I notice you never admit to making a mistake."
"I make mistakes daily, Andrea," Miranda responded. "The trick is in making certain no one else notices them."
Andy hated to admit it, but it wasn't bad advice. "That only works for small things, though," she said.
"You'd be surprised what the correct tone can do to convince someone," Miranda replied. Andy could hear the smile in her voice and marveled at the revelation.
"I'll take your word for it," she said lightly. "So... what are you up to this weekend?"
Miranda hums. "Paris preparations," she said. "We leave next Wednesday."
"Wow... I'd forgotten it was so close. I bet Emily is going out of her mind."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," Miranda said innocently.
Andy snorted and changed the subject.
"I still can't picture you in a movie theater," Andy told Miranda seriously.
They were walking down the street together. Miranda had a meeting at Calvin Klein that morning, and Andy was wrapping up an interview in the next building, so she'd suggested they grab lunch together on their ways back to their respective offices. Sort of a pre-Paris celebration deal or something. At least, that's what she'd told Miranda.
"Why not?" Miranda asked. "The girls wanted to see the new movie with that actor in it... oh, what's his name?"
"Yeah, that description isn't as helpful as you clearly think," she said dryly.
"The handsome one. Well, I think he looks like a duck, but Caroline has informed me on more than one occasion that she plans to marry him." Miranda's expression was dubious at best.
Laughing, Andy just shook her head. "Never mind the fact that he's probably, like, twenty years older, huh?"
Miranda shuddered. "Don't say things like that, Andrea."
"Anyway..." she pressed. "The movie?"
"I don't understand why the seats have to be so close together. Or why they refused to honor my request to leave the surrounding seats empty. I even offered to purchase the extra tickets," Miranda said in a scandalized voice.
It took several beats of silence for Andy to collect herself enough to come up with a polite response. "Stadium seating's pretty nice, though."
"Viewing capabilities in no way make up for the appalling lack of sanitation," Miranda snapped.
"Well... Caroline and Cassidy liked it, though, right?" Andy asked, a twinge of desperation in her tone.
Softening, a warm smile spread across Miranda's face. "They did, I think."
There was something about Miranda in that moment, something that struck Andy's gut and made her wish it could just be the two of them like this forever. Miranda, she realized suddenly, was worth it. All the awkwardness and difficulty was absolutely worth it to get even a single second of Miranda like this.
Impulsively, caught up in the idea of preserving this, Andy snatched up Miranda's hand. "Come on, I have an idea for lunch," she said.
"Andrea, I really don't..." But Miranda allowed herself to be dragged across the busy street and pushed in front of a vendor's cart. "Kebabs?" she read off the side of the little truck.
"Yeah, they're like meat and vegetables and stuff on a stick. They're really good, and--"
"I know what they are," she retorted, lips drawing back in a sneer. "They're an excellent way to pick up a flesh-eating virus."
Andy just wrinkled her nose. "Jeez, Miranda, you make me eat weird stuff all the time. Last week, we had that absolutely disgusting veal whatever with the green sauce. Kebabs are just a steak you don't have to eat with a fork."
"Prepared by someone who likely hasn't washed his hands since the Reagan administration," Miranda said. "Andrea, it is not the cuisine itself I find objectionable."
"They say you're not a true New Yorker until you've cheated death by eating street food," she cajoled.
"I have never heard anyone say such a ridiculous thing," Miranda grumbled, but she took the steak kebab Andy thrust at her and gave it a cautious nibble. "You do realize that if I have to suffer through a case of food poisoning while I'm in Paris next week, I will never forgive you?"
"I'm not worried about you," Andy said mockingly. "Emily's the one to watch out for. She wears those spiky shoes all the time -- those things look like they'd hurt."
Rolling her eyes, Miranda took a bigger bite of her kebab. "You used to make more of an effort at appearing respectful," she said once she'd swallowed.
"What can I say?" she replied with a grin, wrapping a napkin around her own kebab as they continued their walk. "A true sign of friendship."
Miranda's expression was unreadable. "Is it?"
"Well, I hate to think all of those expensive lunches at chic restaurants with exotic, inedible food went completely to waste," she said. "If nothing else, I think I can safely say I'm not anywhere near afraid of you any more. And I don't think you hate me as much as you used to."
"As I've said, Andrea," Miranda said through a mouthful of kebab, "I never hated you."
"I find that hard to believe," Andy replied, rolling her eyes.
Sighing, she dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "I've thought you were foolish, stupid, and incompetent, but I've never actually hated you." Her voice held an introspective note. "In fact, I should probably wonder about that. It's not like you haven't given me ample reason."
"Oh, that's nice," she said. "Here I am, treating you to lunch, and you thank me by telling me I'm horrible."
Miranda shot her a long-suffering look. "Your propensity to twist words is nothing short of stunning. No wonder you're such a brilliant journalist."
With a loud laugh, Andy took a big bite out of her kebab.
"Still..." And here came that introspective tone again. "I must say, I have enjoyed our acquaintance, Andrea."
Andy blinked. How bizarre was it that those words were coming out of the mouth of Miranda Priestly, of all people? And to top it off, how much worse was it that hearing them thrilled Andy to no end? Definitely an eighteen-point-five on the cosmic weirdness scale. "Me too," she said honestly. "And the free shoes aren't bad, either."
"What?" Miranda asked dubiously. "What free shoes?"
"Oh, none yet," Andy said, grinning. "That was what I like to call a generous hint."
Miranda returned her grin and it was breathtaking. "I'll let Emily know about your interest in her footwear. I'm sure she'd be glad to let you peruse her collection some time."
Kebabs finished and conversation flowing freely, they parted ways in front of Elias-Clarke. As Andy waited for the light to change so she could cross the street, she watched Miranda saunter through the front lobby, scattering flunkies in her wake and clearly delighting in her power.
Miranda was always going to be Miranda, but somehow, Andy wouldn't have her any other way.
FINIS