DISCLAIMER: The Devil Wears Prada and its characters belong to Lauren Weisberger and 20th Century Fox. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
ABCs of DWP (K to O) II
By pdt_bear
Prompt: Knot
Words: 88
Some days when Nigel knew the day was already going to be more stressful than the usual, he'd forego tying a full Windsor and opt for an Ascot instead -- all the better to loosen and wipe away at the sweat that didn't exist. Then again, there were also the times where he'd leave the neck wear alone and simply accept that the invisible link of so many years serving as Miranda Priestly's right-hand man was both a blessing and a curse tied together in a Gordian knot.
Prompt: Luddite
Words: 92
Even though the phone was (probably) still at the bottom of the fountain in Paris, its number and address book could not be forgotten. The bouts of phantom vibrations of a Sidekick that was no longer hers did not make moving past Runway any faster. Nor could she easily ignore that first call in the morning.
It had been many months since Paris, yet her fingers could still auto-dial three numbers by rote: Miranda (cell), Runway (executive offices), and Emily (cell). No amount of distractions could erase these numbers from her mind.
Prompt: Macabre
Words: 131
There were some days where she envisions a dance of death – luridly gruesome; a scarlet dress matched by Louboutins and a slow but stately clicking of heels against a marble floor. There were other days where she'd dream of holding Irv under a heavy pool of water and just squeezing all the tension out of her shoulders and throttling the man.
Most days she'd do a neat box step and avoid the potential disasters that Irv thought he would cleverly sprinkle across the corporate battlegrounds. There were the times where Irv's clumsy footwork didn't make him a formidable leader, never mind dancer. It was these times where Miranda wondered if she should make a maneuver to clean the dance card of the Elias-Clark board and lead some better partners instead.
Prompt: Narcotic
Words: 99
It would have been entirely too easy to take up the drink to dull the pain and numb the senses. Yet Miranda Priestly was not the one to take the easy road on most things. Anything worth having was worth the effort to have it done right; to settle for anything less was unacceptable.
At the multitude of functions she attended, she'd nurse the same glass of champagne over the course of an evening until it became undrinkable, and then she'd replace it with another – to have and to hold, but seldom to drink, and certainly not to excess.
Prompt: Oxymoron
Words: 148
It was a contradiction in terms (almost) to expect all those at Runway to be leading the trends in Fashionable style. Each of them had found an individual taste that they could carry off with much aplomb and savoir-faire. If that was the unspoken rule at Runway, then Andrea Sachs proved to be the exception to many a rule.
To this day, Emily remained unsure how HR could have looked at Andrea's generic and muddled clothing choices that day and decided that she could interview for the second assistant position (that, and her not knowing who Miranda Priestly was).
Yet, for someone who had no interest in Fashion, Andrea managed to demonstrate continued competence at most other things, which balanced the sometimes stupid clothing choices she made early in her tenure at Runway. It was this competence that Miranda remembered, even more than that awful sweater she'd worn.
The End