Phoenix In Prada

Chapter Two: I Died on a Tuesday and Things Got Significantly Worse From There

PHOENIX IN PRADA

— EMMA —



I died on a Tuesday.

Which was, frankly, a massive professional oversight. Tuesday content is where engagement goes to die. The algorithm is practically allergic to Tuesdays, and there I was, becoming past-tense on the one day of the week my analytics couldn't support a funeral.

The mushroom had looked stunning. That's what I need people to understand. Twelve years of food content. Three million followers. I could tell you the difference between seventeen regional variations of ramen just by the steam, and I got taken out by a rogue fungus that looked like it belonged on a Pinterest board.

I remember reaching for my water bottle.

I remember the ring light blurring into a halo.

I remember thinking: well. This is going to be a nightmare to edit.

Then nothing.

Then a face that was not mine.

I screamed so loud I'm genuinely surprised the neighbors didn't call the police, the fire department, and an exorcist.

* * *

The face in the mirror was beautiful — if you're into the "I'll ruin your life and charge it to your father's Amex" look. Sharp cheekbones, hair that cost more than my first car, and a nose that looked like it had been carved by a very expensive surgeon with a grudge.

I touched my face. The reflection touched me back from the wrong angle. I screamed again.

"Emma."

I spun around. A girl stood in the doorway. Beautiful in a cold, I-eat-ice-cubes-for-breakfast kind of way.

"Earth to Emma." Her voice could have cut glass and served it in a martini. "What is WRONG with you? That face — I have told you a million times — you're going to get wrinkles. Do you want to look like a raisin? Because that's how you look like a raisin."

My mouth opened. Closed.

And then it hit me.

CRASH.

Memories that weren't mine flooded in like a burst pipe. A childhood of private jets and zero hugs. A family that treated kindness like a taxable offense. Years of being a world-class brat.

And a name: Emma Ashford.

I looked at the girl in the doorway.

Victoria.

I was in the novel. The actual novel. The one I'd been reading between recipe tests to feel less lonely. I wasn't the plucky heroine. I wasn't even the quirky best friend who gets a spin-off.

I was the Villainess. The one who gets her life ruined in Chapter 40 for being a literal demon in Prada.

I turned back to the mirror. I had survived being an orphan. I had survived twelve years of What I Eat in a Day videos. I had survived a brand deal for a detox tea that was actually just laxatives. And I died from a mushroom only to end up as a girl who spent her time making people cry?

Absolutely not, I thought. The engagement on this plot is terrible.

* * *

Being a villain, it turns out, requires a baseline level of not giving a damn that I simply do not possess.

Week One: I practiced my Mean Girl Glare in the mirror for twenty minutes every morning. I didn't look intimidating. I looked like I was trying to solve a difficult math problem in my head.

Week Two: I accidentally said please to a waiter. Victoria looked at me like I'd just admitted to wearing knock-off sneakers. I had to pivot immediately. "Please... find a way to get out of my sight before your presence offends my highlights."

He looked confused. I felt like a monster. I gave him a fifty dollar tip later just to stop the soul-shriveling guilt.

Week Three: A student dropped her lunch tray in the corridor. Before I could stop myself I was on the floor helping her pick up her peas.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, terrified.

"I'm... checking the structural integrity of these legumes," I snapped, while handing her back her spoon. "They're offensive. Fix them."

I walked away. My heart was pounding. I was failing at being a villain so hard it was almost impressive.

* * *

Then there was the Clara problem.

I needed to find her. I knew the plot. I knew she was a walking time bomb of revenge. I had cried over her story in my old life eating leftover takeout alone at eleven at night, and I was not going to let it end in a tragedy again.

But I hadn't accounted for Pete.

Pete was Clara's head of security, and Pete was a human brick wall in a very expensive suit with zero sense of humor. He didn't use words. He just... appeared.

Library? Pete. Parking garage? Pete. I once tried the ladies' room and he didn't go in — but he stood outside the door like a gargoyle with a radio and I could FEEL his judgment through the wall.

The only upside to being blocked by a professional bodyguard was that I had spent weeks watching Clara from a distance. And something was off.

Last week at the gallery I finally got close enough to watch her properly. I saw her pick up a sculpture, check the price tag, and nearly have a stroke.

Classic Nathalie, I thought. Still checking prices even though she's a billionaire now.

But then James appeared. A monument of a man. And Clara didn't flinch. She didn't push him away like the Ice Queen in the book. She leaned into him like he was the only thing keeping her on the planet.

She looked happy. She looked soft. She looked like a woman who was actively trying to remember how to breathe because a handsome man was touching her arm.

The Nathalie from the book was a cold-blooded revenge machine. This girl looked like she was discovering feelings for the first time and finding them deeply inconvenient.

I stood there being stared down by Pete and turned it all over in my head.

What if I wasn't the only one who ate the wrong mushroom?