Andrea's relationship with her family also suffers. Matters finally come to a head when her co-worker, Emily, gets mononucleosis and Andrea must travel to Paris with Miranda in her stead. In Paris, she has a surprise encounter with Christian. Later that night, Miranda finally lets down her guard and asks Andrea what she has learned, and where she wants to work afterwards. She promises to place phone calls to people she knows at the "New Yorker" on Andrea's behalf once her year is up and suggests she take on some small writing assignments at "Runway". Back at the hotel, Andrea gets urgent calls from Alex and her parents asking her to call them. She does and learns that Lily is comatose after driving drunk and wrecking a car. Though her family and Alex pressure her to return home, she tells Miranda she will honor her commitment to "Runway". Miranda is pleased, and says her future in magazine publishing is bright, but phones with another impossible demand at Christian Dior's Paris fashion show. Andrea decides that her family and friends are more important than her job, and realizes to her horror that she is becoming more and more like Miranda. She refuses to comply with Miranda's latest outrageous request, and when Miranda scolds her publicly, Andrea replies, "Fuck you, Miranda. "Fuck you"." She is fired on the spot, and returns home to reconnect with friends and family. Her romantic relationship with Alex is beyond repair, but they remain friends. Lily recovers and is lucky to receive only community service for her DUI charge. In the last chapter Andrea learns her dispute with Miranda made her a minor celebrity when the incident made "Page Six". Afraid she has been blacklisted from publishing for good, she moves back with her parents. She works on short fiction and finances her unemployment with profits made from reselling the designer clothing she was provided for her Paris trip. "Seventeen" buys one of her stories. At the novel's end, she returns to the Elias-Clark building to discuss a position at one of the company's other magazines and sees Miranda's new junior assistant, who looks as harried and put-upon as she once did. Weisberger stated in publicity materials that Priestly's demands are partial fiction and a composite of actual experiences she and her friends had in their first jobs. Some reviewers state that Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of "Vogue", was the inspiration for Priestly. After the film was released, another one of Wintour's assistants was identified as the model for Emily.