Chapter Text
I.
Miranda Priestly had never been one for contemplating the mysteries of the universe. To be honest, for most of her life, she simply didn't have the time. Also, she had learned long ago that sitting about musing on things that one was incapable of changing accomplished nothing except leaving one feeling morose and helpless, two emotions in which Miranda never indulged. Well, almost never.
She had found herself indulging in both this evening, staring from the window of her hotel room at the myriad lights of Paris. A sheaf of papers lay stark, white, and accusing on the small Louis XV table behind her: divorce papers, courtesy of her soon-to-be ex-husband. Her third ex-husband. If she didn't watch out, she thought sardonically, she was going to give Liz a run for her money. The thought did little to lift her mood.
Nor did the view. The Eiffel Tower stood in the distance, as the steady glow of lights melded into a gauze of yellow and gold that lay across the city. The picture perfect scene was just that, picture perfect. Miranda knew better than most people that pictures were flat, two dimensional representations of a three dimensional world.
They never showed what happened on the other side of the pristine image presented: the ugly, messy side. The side where models didn't show up, where sets were damaged, where budgets ended up as nothing more than vague guidelines. The side where love grew cold and bitter, where angry words were shouted across what was once a shared bed. The side where people left you.
It wasn't as if she hadn't expected this. She had expected it from the moment the ring slipped onto her finger; she had almost heard it in the swell of orchestral music as they walked back down the aisle. She just wished that Stephen had the common courtesy, the courage to tell her face to face, in New York. Not by messenger, not as she attempted to keep a hand firmly on the reins of the sometimes headstrong world of fashion she controlled. Not here. Not Paris.
But then, she shouldn't really be surprised. Stephen was always fond of the dramatic, given to volcanic eruptions and grand gestures; what could be more of a gesture than to serve her with divorce papers amid the swirl of Paris fashion week. Coward.
Turning away from the window, Miranda dropped gracefully onto the Empire settee, pulling the warmth of her robe a little tighter across her chest. She was through with the tears that had fallen unbidden at the sight of the divorce petition. She knew that those tears were more about failing once again than for the end of a marriage that had been gasping laboriously for breath for more than a year now. It was hard to stomach yet another failure in what was hardening quickly into a string of personal failures, with no end in sight.
Three husbands, all of them different in temperament, in personality. And yet, those three marriages had all ended in acrimony and divorce. Doing a simple algebraic equation the twins could have mastered left Miranda with the solution at which she always arrived, regardless of the other variables.
Her.
In each equation the only constant was her. Three husbands, each representing a different sum for y and yet, the problem always ended with the same answer.
3(y + x) = bitter recriminations, horrible public accusations and ugly divorce. Since y was a changing variable, it had to be x that was the problem. X = Miranda Priestly, wife extraordinaire, she thought cynically.
Miranda knew that she had intimacy issues, that she had control issues, that she had issue issues. Her last four shrinks had all been kind enough to point this out, as if Miranda were incapable of even the most minor attempts at self-awareness. She also knew that despite an ability to see the subtle shadings between cerulean and indigo, between Persian and cobalt, that she had a pronounced inability to distinguish between love and simple need.
She knew as well that despite often Herculean efforts to adapt, she managed to sabotage almost every single relationship she had: from the never-ending string of housekeepers and assistants to dilettante friends and an increasing number of husbands. The thing that kept her awake at night, the thing that haunted her was that she had no idea how to stop. She had no idea how to be anyone other than Miranda Priestly.
And she didn't know if she cared enough to try anymore.