The Devil Wears Prada Read Free Page A

following
graduation, I’d scrounged together what little cash I could find and took
off on a solo trip. I did Europe by train for a month, spending much more time
on beaches than in museums, and didn’t do a very good job of keeping in
touch with anyone back home except Alex, my boyfriend of three years. He knew
that after the five weeks or so I was starting to get lonely, and since his
Teach for America training had just ended and he had the rest of the summer to
kill before starting in September, he surprised me in Amsterdam. I’d
covered most of Europe by then and he’d traveled the summer before, so
after a not-so-sober afternoon at one of the coffee shops, we pooled our
traveler’s checks and bought two one-way tickets to Bangkok.
     
     Together
we worked our way through much of Southeast Asia, rarely spending more than $10
a day, and talked obsessively about our futures. He was so excited to start
teaching English at one of the city’s underprivileged schools, totally
taken with the idea of shaping young minds and mentoring the poorest and the
most neglected, in the way that only Alex could be. My goals were not so lofty:
I was intent on finding a job in magazine publishing. Although I knew it was
highly unlikely I’d get hired atThe New Yorker directly out of school, I
was determined to be writing for them before my fifth reunion. It was all
I’d ever wanted to do, the only place I’d ever really wanted to
work. I’d picked up a copy for the first time after I’d heard my
parents discussing an article they’d just read and my mom had said,
“It was so well written—you just don’t read things like that
anymore,” and my father had agreed, “No doubt, it’s the only
smart thing being written today.” I’d loved it. Loved the snappy
reviews and the witty cartoons and the feeling of being admitted to a special,
members-only club for readers. I’d read every issue for the past seven
years and knew every section, every editor, and every writer by heart.
     
     Alex and
I talked about how we were both embarking on a new stage in our lives, how we
were lucky to be doing it together. We weren’t in any rush to get back,
though, somehow sensing that this would be the last period of calm before the
craziness, and we stupidly extended our visas in Delhi so we could have a few
extra weeks touring in the exotic countryside of India.
     
     Well,
nothing ends the romance more swiftly than amoebic dysentery. I lasted a week
in a filthy Indian hostel, begging Alex not to leave me for dead in that hellish
place. Four days later we landed in Newark and my worried mother tucked me into
the backseat of her car and clucked the entire way home. In a way it was a
Jewish mother’s dream, a real reason to visit doctor after doctor after
doctor, making absolutely sure that every miserable parasite had abandoned her
little girl. It took four weeks for me to feel human again and another two
until I began to feel that living at home was unbearable. Mom and Dad were
great, but being asked where I was going every time I left the house—or
where I’d been every time I returned—got old quickly. I called Lily
and asked if I could crash on the couch of her tiny Harlem studio. Out of the
kindness of her heart, she agreed.
     
      
     
     I woke
up in that tiny Harlem studio, sweat-soaked. My forehead pounded, my stomach
churned, every nerve shimmied —shimmied in a very unsexy way. Ah!
It’s back, I thought, horrified. The parasites had found their way back
into my body and I was bound to suffer eternally! Or what if it was worse? Perhaps
I’d contracted a rare form of late-developing dengue fever? Malaria?
Possibly even Ebola? I lay in silence, trying to come to grips with my imminent
death, when snippets from the night before came back to me. A smoky bar
somewhere in the East Village. Something called jazz fusion music. A hot-pink
drink in a martini glassoh, nausea, oh, make it stop. Friends stopping by to
welcome me