The Devil Wears Prada

The following day, Andy deals with Miranda’s various demands and learns that she must also attend a cocktail party with her boss that evening. The assistant diligently follows all the fashion advice she’s been given about how to dress for the occasion. When she joins Miranda in their limo, her boss doesn’t disapprove. Andy says:

This was the first time since I’d started working there that I hadn’t received a look of all-out disgust or, at the very least, a snarky comment, and all it had taken was a SWAT team of New York fashion editors, a collection of Parisian hair and makeup stylists, and a hefty selection of the world’s finest and most expensive clothing (345-46).

Much to Andy’s delight, the hosts of the cocktail party are Christian’s parents, and he spends the entire evening dancing with her. She’s already euphoric by the time she and Miranda leave the party. The editor then asks Andy about her plans for the future. Andy says that her ambition is to write for The New Yorker. Much to her surprise, Miranda offers to make a few calls on her behalf once her year internship is over. Since Andy has been toiling for Miranda for 11 months, her period of servitude is almost at an end.

Andy’s buoyant mood is immediately deflated when she gets back to the hotel. She receives two upsetting phone calls from her parents and Alex. Lily has been in a car accident because she was driving while drunk and is currently in a coma. Alex pressures Andy to return home immediately. She is torn between her need to be with her best friend and her obligation to support Miranda in Paris.

The following day in Miranda’s limo, Andy receives a phone call from her father saying that Lily may survive the accident. Miranda demands to know what the problem is. When Andy explains the situation, she reassures her boss that she won’t abandon her post. This news gratifies Miranda, who says that Andy reminds her of herself at that age.

Andy has mixed feelings about being compared to Miranda. The comment triggers some soul-searching about her priorities. Later that morning at the fashion show, Miranda wants Andy to fix a problem with her children’s expired passports in six hours. This impossible demand is the last straw. Andy immediately calls her mother to say that she’ll be on the next plane home. Turning to Miranda, who threatens to fire her, Andy says, “Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you” (371).

When Andy reaches her hotel, she receives a call from Emily, who has been given the task of firing her. Andy takes the news in stride, using her first-class ticket to fly back to America. She says, “I wanted to enjoy my last moments as the lowest-paid but most highly perked assistant in the free world” (379).

Back in New York, Andy visits Lily and sees that she’s recovering. The two friends reunite on good terms, though Andy’s future with Alex is less certain. He feels that Andy has changed too much for their relationship to work anymore.

After Lily’s release from the hospital, the two former roommates move in with Andy’s parents and sublet their apartment. Andy begins writing again. She sells all the couture castoffs she received for $38,000. This money helps see her through as she establishes her literary career.

Some months later, she receives a call from Seventeen magazine about an article she pitched. An editor named Loretta wants to buy it. She, too, once worked for Runway. When she learns that Andy was fired for insulting Miranda, she’s pleased. The two become fast friends.

Five months after being fired, Andy finds herself in the Starbucks where she used to fetch coffee for Miranda. She thinks, “It was far better to have gotten fired for screaming ‘fuck you’ than it was to get fired because I’d brought back two packets of Equal instead of two raw sugars. Same outcome, but a totally different ballgame” (387).

She then goes to the Elias-Clark building to interview as a writer for The Buzz, whose offices are in the same building. In the interval, Andy has sold several more articles and is building a reputation as an up-and-coming writer. In the lobby, she sees Miranda’s new assistant frantically scrambling through the turnstile with fear in her eyes and her arms full of the editor’s paraphernalia. When Andy arrives at the turnstile, the security guard immediately grants her access. “When I looked back to Eduardo, he smiled quickly in my direction and winked […] he buzzed me through like I was someone who mattered” (391).