15. Clink, Clink

I walk into the office Monday morning exhausted and determined. 

It’s time to put Mission: Protect the Queen into effect. 

I’ve spent every moment since resolving the Lanvin crisis yesterday wracking my brain for how I can possibly help Miranda with this custody battle. A million potential ideas, none of them good, and each of them digging me deeper into a pit of helpless despair. 

At some point—3 AM, maybe later—I start questioning myself. Am I overstepping? It’s presumptuous, isn’t it, to think I can possibly make a dent in Miranda’s problems?

I remember lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling, counting the hairline cracks in the plaster. The city was quiet, or as quiet as New York ever gets, and my brain wouldn’t shut up. Every idea felt ridiculous, every solution out of reach.

I felt as helpless as I did back in Paris, sitting in that hotel suite across from Miranda, her grey bathrobe tight around her. I had never considered Miranda vulnerable, but in that moment—coming to terms with another divorce—she was human to me.

“Is there anything else I can do?” I’d asked. In a job where I’m constantly handling a million things at once for this woman, I rarely have a moment to breathe, and yet there I was, asking for something else to do for her—because seeing her wrecked shook me to my core.

“Your job,” was all she’d answered, with a sharp nod and emphatic eyes. 

And as I lay there last night, staring up at my cracked ceiling, I remembered that moment in Paris. The lights flickered at the same time it hit me:

I needed to do my job. 

God, it was so simple! Of course, simple didn’t mean easy, and so I spent the rest of the night putting together my plan, catching maybe a half hour of sleep before it was back to work. 

I slip into the seat at my desk and pull up Miranda’s schedule. 

I’m not one of Miranda’s lawyers. I can’t perform a magic act and make this custody battle disappear. But I’m a damn good assistant, and I can do my job. 

I crack my fingers and get down to business. 

— 

Six days of mental gymnastics later, I barely remember what my own schedule looks like. Miranda’s? I could recite it in my sleep.

Which is why, when Doug texts to confirm our earlier plans to grab drinks, I don’t hesitate. If I can rearrange Miranda Priestly’s life, I can squeeze in a cocktail for myself.

“Wait, run that by me again?” 

It’s Saturday night, and Doug is looking at me like I’ve completely lost it, though with the multicolored pulsing lights of the bar strobing across his face, I think he might look like the crazy one. 

“It’s nothing, really,” I roll my eyes. “I’m just shuffling meetings around so she gets more time with her girls.” 

It’s not exactly a lie. I’ve absolutely turned Miranda’s schedule into a sliding block puzzle, constantly trying to find the right configuration where everything gets done for Runway, her meetings with her legal team aren’t on days where the most important Runway things are happening, and she gets the most time possible with Cassidy and Caroline. 

But it’s definitely not nothing. 

One week in, and I’m running on fumes with no end in sight. I’m not sure I can keep it up. 

I will, though. I’ll keep going until I drop from exhaustion and mental strain. I’m just not confident I’ll have the energy reserves to get back up again. 

But until then, it’s full steam ahead with Mission: Protect the Queen. 

“Andy,” Doug gives me a look equal parts concerned and amused. “That can’t be in your job description.” 

I smirk. “My job is to make Miranda’s days run smoothly. So, yeah. It kind of is.” 

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. 

One could definitely argue that I’m overstepping the line from professional to personal. But how is this really any different from hauling boogie boards across the city, tracking down unpublished manuscripts, or doing science fair projects? 

Miranda set the precedent. I’m just following it. 

And if she doesn’t approve … 

Well, if I do my job well enough, she’ll never know. All she’ll know is that her days are as smooth as silk. 

I take a long sip of my Long Island Iced Tea. I really don’t want to consider the alternatives. 

“And all this free labor—what exactly are you getting out of it?” Doug props his chin on his hands, staring at me as if I’m an interesting new species on display at the Central Park Zoo. 

“A less pissed off Miranda, for one.” 

Time with her girls is some sort of magic. Every night she’s able to leave early enough to have dinner with them, she comes back the next morning looking a little less like she wants to order me to burn the world down for daring to inconvenience her. 

Of course, I can’t tell Doug about the flip side. 

Days when she meets with her lawyers are still awful—everyone ducks for cover—but my burgeoning 4D chess skills ensure that nothing too critical happens on those days.

But overall, I’m a week into my mission and I like the results so far. 

“That’s it? No promotion or pay raise? Not even a possibility of getting your reference and getting out of there before the year mark?” 

I’m taking another sip of my drink but nearly choke at that last one. 

“What are you talking about?” I croak out, dabbing my napkin at my hopefully not ruined Prada blouse. 

Doug tilts his head, brows creased, taking me in. 

“Well,” he starts carefully. “The original idea was to make it there for a year, get a good reference from Miranda, and then have your pick of jobs in publishing, right? Have plans … changed?” 

I slump back in my seat. 

That had been the plan, hadn’t it? It’s what I told Nate every time he complained about me missing a dinner, or his birthday. 

“It’s just for a year.” 

I’m not entirely sure when it happened. But somewhere between one of those last arguments and now, the goalpost moved—and I didn’t even notice.

I want this, I realize. Running around after Miranda, learning about fashion, editing articles in the quiet of her office at night, writing my own and seeing them in the glossy pages of Runway. Somewhere along the way I stopped wanting to do ‘serious’ investigative journalism, and I started wanting this. 

I meet Doug’s eyes. His smile is soft, and I don’t realize why until I feel a tear roll down my cheek. 

“Yeah,” I say quietly, probably not loud enough for him to hear over the noise of the bar. “Plans have changed.”

Doug’s smile widens, and he lifts his drink, clearly waiting for me to do the same. 

“To changing plans,” he says. 

“To changing plans,” I repeat. 

The sound of our glasses clinking together steadies me—like something clicking into place, finally making sense.