The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger Read Free Book Online

to have that. You
should’ve heard how hard-core this woman was on the phone,” I said.
She looked at me, expressionless. “But, whatever, I can’t worry about
it. I did just get a job at a really famous magazine with one of the most
powerful women in the industry. A job a million girls would die for.”
     
     We
smiled at each other, but her smile was tinged with sadness. “I’m
so happy for you,” she said. “Such a beautiful, grown-up daughter I
have. Honey, I just know this is going to be the start of a wonderful,
wonderful time in your life. Ah, I remember graduating from college and moving
to New York. All alone in that big, crazy city. Scary but so, so exciting. I
want you to love every minute of it, all the plays and films and people and
shopping and books. It’s going to be the best time of your life—I
just know it.” She rested her hand on mine, something she didn’t
usually do. “I’m so proud of you.”
     
     “Thanks,
Mom. Does that mean you’re proud enough of me to buy me an apartment,
furniture, and a whole new wardrobe?”
     
     “Yeah,
right,” she said and smacked the top of my head with a magazine on her
way to the microwave to heat two more cups. She hadn’t said no, but she
wasn’t exactly grabbing her checkbook, either.
     
     I spent
the rest of the evening e-mailing everyone I knew, asking if anyone needed a
roommate or knew of someone who did. I posted some messages online and called
people I hadn’t spoken to in months. No luck. I decided my only
choice—without permanently moving onto Lily’s couch and inevitably
wrecking our friendship, or crashing at Alex’s, which neither of us was
ready for—was to sublet a room short-term, until I could get my bearings
in the city. It would be best to find my own room somewhere, and preferably one
that was already furnished so I wouldn’t have to deal with that, too.
     
     The
phone rang at a little after midnight, and I lunged for it, nearly falling off
my twin-size childhood bed in the process. A framed, signed picture of Chris
Evert, my childhood hero, smiled down from my wall, just below a bulletin board
that still had magazine cutouts of Kirk Cameron plastered across it. I smiled
into the phone.
     
     “Hey,
champ, it’s Alex,” he said with that tone of voice that meant something
had happened. It was impossible to tell if it was something good or bad.
“I just got an e-mail that a girl, Claire McMillan, is looking for a
roommate. Princeton girl. I’ve met her before, I think. Dating Andrew,
totally normal. You interested?”
     
     “Sure,
why not? Do you have her number?”
     
     “No,
I only have her e-mail, but I’ll forward you her message and you can get
in touch with her. I think she’ll be good.”
     
     I
e-mailed Claire while I finished talking to Alex and then finally got some
sleep in my own bed. Maybe, just maybe, this would work out.
     
      
     
     Claire
McMillan: not so much. Her apartment was dark and depressing and in the middle
of Hell’s Kitchen, and there was a junkie propped up on the doorstep when
I arrived. The others weren’t much better. There was a couple looking to
rent out an extra room in their apartment who made indirect references to
putting up with their constant and loud lovemaking; an artist in her early
thirties with four cats and a fervent desire for more; a bedroom at the end of
a long, dark hallway, with no windows or closets; a twenty-year-old gay guy in
his self-proclaimed “slutty stage.” Each and every miserable room
I’d visited was going for well over $1,000 and my salary was cashing in
at a whopping $32,500. And although math had never been my strong suit, it
didn’t take a genius to figure out that rent would eat up more than
$12,000 of it and taxes would take the rest. Oh, and my parents were
confiscating the emergencies-only credit card, now that I was an “adult.”
Sweet.
     
     Lily
pulled through after three straight days of letdowns. Since she had a