Chapter Text
Miranda
I must have cried myself to sleep, because I am awoken by a shift of weight in the bed beside me. I know the only other person in the house is Andréa. I wonder if I pretend to be asleep if she will go away, back to the guest bedroom.
“Miranda…,” she says softly, “I know you’re awake. I know the sound of your breathing.”
Dammit. I roll over and look at her, thankful that the diffuse light from the street lamps means she can’t tell that my face is undoubtedly tear-stained. She has covered her nakedness in a robe she must have found in the closet of the guest bedroom, and I am grateful at least that I don’t have to find the strength to resist touching a naked Andréa sitting on the edge of my bed.
“You’ve been drinking, Andréa. Go back to bed,” my tone is flat, and I hope she gets the hint that I don’t want to talk.
“I’m very sober now. Besides, last I knew, this was my bed. Right here, beside you.”
There’s that fire that I’ve always admired in her, but right now I don’t have the energy to fight with her. I don’t bother answering her.
“We need to talk, Miranda.”
“I’ve said everything I need to.”
“Well I haven’t! Knowing you, you’ll just disappear in the morning. I will go to work, and we will never get this chance again because you will have, with your usual brutal efficiency, cut me out of your life without taking the time to find out what I have to say about the situation,” her tone remains quiet but decidedly angry. She isn’t going to go away.
With a sigh, I sit up in bed, propping myself up with pillows. I try to read her face, but the room is too dark and I don’t want to turn any lights on. Better to get this over and done with in the dark, to let her have her say, and hope that she is having as much difficulty reading my face as I am hers.
“What would you like to say, Andréa?”
“I want to know why. Why did you suddenly decide to cut me out of your life? Why did you suddenly decide this wasn’t working? I know we’d been having a rough patch, I wasn’t coping well with my new-found fame, but we could have worked through it together. I needed your support and advice, not for you to push me away. So explain it to me Miranda, what made you decide to change the locks and cut off all communication with me? Don’t I deserve an explanation?”
She’s right, she does deserve some kind of explanation. I just don’t know if I can tell her the real reason I pushed her away. She would just find a way to justify away all my reasons, and we would be back to where we started with nothing resolved. The problems would still be there.
“I told you, it wasn’t working for me.”
“That’s not an explanation, Miranda, that’s a cop-out. We used to talk. We would sit at the breakfast bench every morning, sharing a coffee. You would talk to me of the things that mattered to you - music, art, philosophy, politics. You were starting to tell me about your life, about your past, your family. You were letting me in. We shared everything. Then, what? One day you woke up and decided that you were done with me? With us?”
Her words are pulling at me. I used to love our long conversations in the morning. I used to love her fast mind and sharp wit. I used to love how she could meet me stride for stride intellectually. It was the first time I had experienced such simpatico with another person. I had trusted her, I had felt safe with her, and so I had begun letting her into the secret life of Miriam Princhek. It had terrified me, and yet I was willing to let her in.
“It’s complicated, Andréa.”
“I’m a reasonably intelligent person, Miranda. Don’t insult my intelligence by fobbing me off with ‘it’s complicated’. Dumb it down for me if you have to. I’ll try and keep up.”
She’s gorgeous when she’s angry, and I cross my arms over my chest to try and hold myself together.
“Fine, you want to know why. I’ll tell you why. Look at us Andréa. Take a good, close look. You are 27. I’m about to turn 46. There are nearly 20 years between us. I’m old enough to be your mother! How long do you think it would be before someone mistook us for mother and daughter? Do you really want to be in a relationship with an old lady? What about 20 years from now? When I’m nearly 70? Will you want to be a nursemaid to an old lady? You will be in your mid-40’s, in the prime of your life, and I will be a doddering old woman. What about 20 years after that? When I may be dead and you will be in your 60’s, realising that you wasted half of your life, the prime of your life, on someone who couldn’t grow old with you? Someone who was already old in the beginning?”
“Do you really believe the bullshit that you say sometimes?” I look at her in shock; she’s never spoken to me like this before. “You are 46, Miranda! You are not an old woman. You are in better shape than I am. You are slimmer than me. You eat better than I do. You could probably outrun me on the jogs I take daily. You have dieticians, personal trainers, and medical experts ensuring that you have the health and body of someone 20 years younger than you. I would hate to compare our cholesterol levels, because I’m pretty sure yours will be better. Who are you to say that I won’t be the one that dies first from a hotdog-induced heart attack? For that matter, who is to say that I won’t get hit by a cab tomorrow? You have the luxury of your private town car, but I’m the one that takes my life into my hands every day by getting on the subway, crossing New York streets, and eating nasty street food. Hell, Anna might find out I’m your ex-assistant and come down from her tower to stab me herself.” I can’t resist a chuckle at her words.
“I would put money on you outliving me for at least 10 years. And if it comes to it, yes, I will be your nursemaid, but I can also bet that you would hire the best in-home help money can buy, and you would torture and torment them every day while I laughed and loved you for it.”
I narrow my eyes at her, “You bring up another point there. We are in significantly different financial positions. You are just starting out in life, whereas I have been carefully amassing assets for years. You won’t let me help you with anything. You insist on being financially independent of me. I watch you struggle every month to pay your student loans and your rent. I see the look on your face every time we go out for dinner and I pay the bill. How long before you resent me for that? How long before the discrepancy in our financial standing makes you hate me?”
“You want to pay off my student loans? Fine, I’ll give you the account number and balance. You want me to stop struggling to pay rent? Fine, I’ll move in here with you and the girls. You want me to not resent you for taking me out for fancy dinners? Fine, let me cook fancy dinners here at home. I’m a pretty good cook, not Michelin star, but I’m sure you’d find it ‘acceptable’. You want me to accumulate assets, refer me to a good investor and I’ll put aside part of my pay to do just that. I’m just starting off in my career Miranda, that’s true. I’m not earning the big bucks. But, for crying out loud, give me a chance, yeah? With you cheering me on, there’s no opportunity I wouldn’t feel confident accepting. How long do you think it would take me to prove myself? To excel? To advance? How long do you think it would be before there were two Editors in this relationship? Or two Editors-in Chief? Do you believe so little in me that you don’t think I could be as successful as you?”
I hate it when she does this, when she puts me on the back foot and makes me vouch for my belief in her, “I’ve already told you that I see a lot of myself in you. I know you have the talent, and the ambition, and the drive to achieve anything you put your mind to. No, I don’t think it would take you long to rise through the ranks. I think one day you will be more successful than I ever have been, because you are better with people than I am and will garner a loyal following. You know I believe in you. Never question my faith in your abilities,” I can hear anger creeping into my words, and I take a deep breath to calm myself.
Her voice is low when she speaks again, and I resist the urge to lean in to hear her better, “You have compared me to you on more than one occasion. I always took that as a compliment, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I mistook who you were, Miranda. Maybe I’ve mistaken you for somebody you’re not. Maybe I thought you were somebody more like me. I thought you were someone who gave a damn, even if it was only me, the twins, and Runway that you gave a damn about. Maybe you never really gave a damn about me at all. I was just some fun little distraction after your divorce. A convenient toy for you to play with until something better came along.”
She’s learned well from me. Her voice is soft, her tone cutting, her tongue sharp. I can feel her words flaying my skin, laying me bare and raw. This is how I have made other people feel. This is how I have made her feel, the day I dressed her down for her cerulean blue sweater. I suddenly understand what it feels like to be on the other end of cutting remarks delivered in a soft, calm voice. I understand why people have fled from me in tears.
“Andréa…,” I reach a hand out to her, and am gutted when she leans away from me.
“Is that all I was to you Miranda? Now is the best time to be honest, get it all out in the open.”
“Andréa, you were never a distraction, or a diversion, or a…,” the word sticks in my throat, “A toy. You were, you are, everything to me. You remind me of who I was, before I was Miranda Priestly. You taught me the honesty of life, the truth that can be found in the simplest of things. The joy of a flower growing in the cracks of the pavement, the happiness of my daughters laughing in the park, the enjoyment that can be found in being with people you love. You showed me how to be daring again, how to take risks, how to take a chance, take a leap without a safety net.”
I reach out my hand again, and this time she lets me rest my hand over hers, “I had been accustomed to only valuing things with a price tag. You taught me to crave things that had no value. No monetary value. Whenever you would bring me a gift that I knew you had made for me, or that you had hunted through markets to find for me because you knew it would bring me joy. You taught the girls the meaning of ‘an honest dollar’ and an ‘honest day’s work’. Don’t think I didn’t know that you were taking them to soup kitchens, and having them volunteer with you at the local community centre. My daughters now understand that money isn’t everything, because of you. I should have taught them that, having grown up with nothing, but it was you who made the world real for them. It was you who reminded me that there is more to life than money and…,” I can’t help but laugh as I say the word, “Stuff.”
I turn her hand over and stroke her palm with my fingertips, “How do you do this, Andréa? How do you take all my carefully constructed arguments and topple them over like they are children’s building blocks? How do you step outside this world I live in, look around, and see a path to a different world, a better one? I don’t understand how you can be this naïve and yet so…wise.”
I look up at her, but she is looking at our hands in her lap, her long hair falling over her face. Even if there was enough light for me to see her eyes, she is hiding them from me. I wish I’d listened to Nigel earlier; I think I may have lost my opportunity to find my way back to her. I have done too much damage, and there is now a rift between us that no bridge can span. I am a stupid, foolish, old woman.
“Andréa…I don’t know what happened with me…I don’t know where I went off track. I thought I was doing the best thing for you. I thought I was protecting you, guaranteeing you would have a happy and fulfilled life. I thought you could never be happy long term with me, that you would be better off without me, that you would find someone better to spend your life with. Someone more like you, someone closer to you in age, someone who didn’t come with all the baggage that I do.”
She looks up at me finally, and I can see tears glinting on her cheeks.
“I am a stupid old woman who has played foolish games with your heart. I wish I could take it all back.”
Andy
I have taken a risk talking to you like this. I didn’t know I was going to end up at your townhouse after drinking an immeasurable number of cocktails with Nigel and Doug. But Nigel’s words ‘She still loves you, and she misses you terribly’ had clung to me all night. I couldn’t let them go. I vaguely remember Nigel bundling me into a cab at one point. I don’t remember telling the driver to take me to your address instead of mine. I remember standing on your doorstep for a long time considering the wisdom of pressing the doorbell.
Somehow it has ended up here, with me sitting on your bed, finally getting to say all the angry words that have been rattling around inside my head for the last two months. I know I’ve already lost you, so there’s nothing stopping me from saying exactly what I want to without any fear of repercussions. Truth, or Consequences. Wasn’t that the name of some town in New Mexico? Now it is the name for the void between us, as I demand the truth from you and damned be the consequences.
Every excuse you came up with for us not to be together, I have smashed out of the park. I feel like calling you an idiot, but I know that would just make you shut down, and I finally have you opening up for a change. My anger gets the better of me though. I’m tired of you treating me like a child, as if I don’t know anything about the world. I’ve lived in the real world longer than you have, with your carefully constructed identity and image. So I push you, I push you with my words, and I try to hurt you as much as you’ve hurt me.
When you finally break down, it tears pieces from me. I never wanted to make you feel the way I have been. I just wanted you to see me and hear me. I hide my face in my hair and let the tears flow freely. If you’d only talked to me before running off half-cocked like you always do, maybe we could have avoided all this. Now I worry that it’s too late and nothing I can say will change your mind. Maybe nothing you can say will mend my broken heart. I look up at you, hoping to get one final glimpse of your beautiful face before you kick me out of your home and your life for the last time.
“I am a stupid old woman who has played foolish games with your heart. I wish I could take it all back.”
Do you not realise that words can’t be taken back?
“Foolish games huh?” I hear my words as if from the bottom of a well, “Your ‘foolish games’ have torn me asunder. Do you realise that? You have torn me apart and left me broken and bleeding on the floor. You just stepped over me as if I wasn’t there, and got on with your life. You’ve torn my heart out of my body and broken it into pieces. Did you even feel anything when you did it?”
I realise I’ve gone too far when, instead of using your words to immolate me, you merely press your free hand to your chest. I briefly worry that you may be having a heart attack, perhaps brought on by the audacity of someone speaking to you like this. Nobody speaks to you like this.
“Andréa..,” your voice breaks on my name, and I wonder at the deep loss I can hear in that one word.
“What Miranda? Tell me, what?” I retreat into my anger, the only thing that seems to protect me from your proximity.
Your sudden movement surprises me, as you push away from me and stand up, crossing to the window and looking out at the street below. I sit on the edge of the bed and watch you, not sure what I’m expected to do. Should I get up and go to you? Should I stay where I am? Should I just leave?
When you finally speak, your voice sounds tired and resigned, “It nearly destroyed me to push you out of my life. I’m not the Snow Queen everyone makes me out to be. I’m not completely unfeeling, despite my reputation. I missed you every day. I felt as if the air had been sucked out of every room I was in. I struggled to breath, every minute of every day. I forced myself to go through the motions of my life as it had been before you. I tried to remember who I was before you came crashing into my world. I tried to be the Dragon Lady, the Queen of Fashion. I tried not to think of your voice, your smile, the feel of your skin on mine, the sound of your laughter. I tried to forget you. Everywhere I turned there were reminders of you. It was slowly killing me, Andréa.But I thought it was worth it, if it meant you could have a good life. Even if it meant that life was without me.”
You turn and look at me, and for the first time your face is fully visible, and I can see your tear-stained face, and the anguish in your eyes. I have never seen you so sad, not even the night Stephen served you with divorce papers. I ache to take you in my arms, but I don’t know how to cross the distance between us.
“I didn’t realise how much I needed you Andréa. How you had become a fundamental part of my existence. It was ludicrous and misguided to think that I could just close the door on you - literally and figuratively - and that I would be unchanged from the experience of knowing you. I have come to find that I am incomplete without you. I am a shell of a woman without your love in my life.”
I watch, dumbfounded as you cross the distance between us, dropping to your knees in front of me. For a moment I’m terrified that you may be intending on proposing to me, and I put a hand over my mouth to quell the manic giggle I can feel rising in my chest.
“Andréa, I am a better person with you in my life. Without you, I am incomplete. I was terrified of everything I was feeling. I was scared that you would wake up one day and realise you had made a poor choice in me. I can’t predict the future, even though I’ve already made the mistake of trying. I hope you can see that this is me, literally, on my knees, my heart in my hands, offering you everything I am and everything I have, hoping that you will forgive me for not remembering that there are two people in any relationship.”
I look down at you, completely stunned. This really does sound like a proposal, and I’m more petrified than I have been of anything else in my life. You must see something in my eyes, because you get up off the floor and sit on the bed beside me, taking both my hands in yours.
“I am not perfect Andréa. I am deeply flawed. I am accustomed to people abandoning me. I am most comfortable when I have everything planned out and in my control. I don’t know how to let people in. I don’t know how to share the load. I don’t know how to ask for help. I am used to making all the decisions on my own. But this time I am handing the decision over to you, and I will abide by what you choose.”
“Miranda…I…,” I don’t have any words left. I don’t even know if I truly understand what you are saying to me.
‘Andréa, I love you. With all my heart and all my soul, I love you. I want you to be in my life and part of my life, and me in yours, for as long as the fates allow. I want to pay off your student loans. I want you to move in here. I want to support and encourage you in anything you choose to do with your life. I want to discuss major life-changing decisions with you. I want to share cups of coffee, and argue about the virtues of wealth redistribution and the long-term impacts on the economy.”
I can’t help but snort at your last comment - it was a recurring argument that came up any time we discussed politics. I can see a glint of amusement in your eyes, and I think I know what you’re about to say.
“If you can forgive me, I would like another chance at being the life partner that you deserve.”
I examine your face, looking for any signs of doubt. Your eyes are clear, and looking at me with love and hope. Your mouth is relaxed, the corners turned up faintly, as they do when you’re not stressing over a layout or photoshoot, or considering eviscerating an incompetent employee. I think back over everything I know about you, as a woman, as a mother, as a lover, as the figurehead of a global fashion magazine. I quickly catalogue all these different facets of your personality, align them with what I know of your personal history, and compare them to how you reacted two months ago. My decision is made, and it’s a relatively easy one.
“Miranda…,” my voice is soft, and I can see a brief flash of fear in your eyes, “shut up and kiss me already.”