‘This contract needs to be signed immediately so I can FedEx it before close of business, and Pablo from the art department said he needed any cover notes for the Mathison memoir as soon as humanly possible. Oh, and—’
‘Annette, can we hold off on this stuff for a minute? I need to make a call. Will you close the door on your way out? I’ll only be a moment.’ Leigh tried to keep her voice calm and even, but she felt like screaming.
Annette, bless her heart, merely nodded and quietly pulled the door closed behind her. Not sure she would ever again have the strength to make the call if she didn’t do it that second, Leigh picked up the receiver and dialed.
‘Well, that was fast,’ Jesse answered. It sounded like a taunt. ‘What can I do for you, Ms. Eisner?’
‘I’ve checked my schedule, and I’ll see you in the Hamptons.’
He demonstrated enough restraint not to gloat, but Leigh could feel him grinning. ‘I appreciate that, Leigh. I’ll be out of town for the next couple weeks doing research. Would the second weekend in August work?’
Leigh didn’t bother looking at her planner or the calendar she kept open on her computer screen. What did it matter? Henry had made it clear enough: If it worked for Jesse, it worked for her.
She took a deep breath and bit down on her thumb hard enough to leave a tooth mark. ‘I’ll be there,’ she said.
mommy drinks because i cry
Izzie led the way to the elevator in her building and punched the number eleven. ‘So you’re telling me that some gorgeous Australian took you for a walk on the beach late at night after hours of drinking and dancing and that – despite your solemn pledge to yourself and your friends that you’d, pardon my French, fuck anyone in possession of a foreign passport – you still didn’t sleep with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Emmy, Emmy, Emmy.’
‘I couldn’t, okay? I just couldn’t! We were rolling around in the sand, making out like crazy. He was such a good kisser. He took off his shirt, and my god—’ Emmy groaned audibly and closed her eyes.
‘And? I’m not hearing anything bad so far.’
‘And the second he went to unbutton my jeans, I freaked out. I don’t know why, I just did. It was so … so surreal to see this guy on top of me, about to enter me, and I didn’t even know his last name. I couldn’t do it.’
Izzie unlocked the apartment door and Emmy followed her into the small marble-floored foyer. ‘Did you really just say that he was about to “enter” you?’
‘Izzie,’ Emmy warned. ‘Can we stay focused here? I wanted to do it, I really did. I was so attracted to him. He was totally sweet and nonthreatening and Australian, and it would’ve been the perfect vacation fling. But I still made him stop.’
Kevin looked up from the desk where he was sitting across the living room and smiled. ‘This conversation sounds significantly more interesting than my patient who just e-mailed to describe the consistency of her discharge.’ He closed the laptop and crossed the living room, kissing Emmy on the cheek and then enveloping Izzie in a warm, welcoming bear hug. ‘I missed you, baby,’ he murmured quietly into her ear.
Izzie pressed her lips to his and stroked his face with the back of her hand. ‘Mmm. I missed you, too. How was the shift?’
‘Um, excuse me?’ Emmy interrupted their private exchange. ‘I hate to break up this sweet reunion, but as you two are already married and I have no one to confide in, I’d like to focus on me for a little while …’
Kevin laughed and patted his wife on the ass. ‘Fair enough. I’ll throw your stuff in the second bedroom and get some drinks. You girls wait outside.’ He headed toward the kitchen and Izzie looked after him wistfully.
‘He’s nauseatingly amazing,’ Emmy said.
‘I know.’ Izzie sighed with a barely suppressed smile. ‘He’s so fucking nice. It would probably be unbearable if I didn’t love him so much. Come on, let’s sit on the balcony.’
Emmy could envision places she’d rather sit than at the balcony’s wrought-iron table in a wrought-iron chair under the blazing South Florida sun, the air thick with humidity. Like on the carpet directly in front of the air-conditioning vents, for one.
‘Does one ever stop sweating here?’ Emmy asked Izzie, who appeared completely unaffected by the swelter.
Izzie shrugged. ‘You get used to it after a while. Although I have to say, not many people choose August for a visit to Miami.’ She turned to catch the sun, but only after winking at Emmy. ‘Okay, so we were at the part where he was about to enter you …’
The sliding glass door opened and Kevin, a tray full of drinks and accessories in his hands, shook his head in dismay. ‘I can’t seem to escape this conversation. Seriously, Em, can we fast-forward a little?’
As Izzie jumped up to help Kevin, Emmy wondered where the girl found her energy. The unrelenting heat and humidity made Emmy feel like her entire body was liquefying.
‘There’s not much more to say,’ Emmy said, grabbing a handful of grapes from Kevin’s tray. She plucked a bottle of water from a small ice bucket he had set down and said, ‘Are we not boozing? I thought neither of you was on call.’
Izzie and Kevin exchanged a quick look. ‘Yeah, we’ll open something in a minute. But first’ – he handed Izzie a canvas tote bag –’we have something for you.’
‘For me?’ Emmy asked, confused. ‘I should be bringing you guys something … I’m the guest.’
Izzie opened the canvas bag and handed Emmy a small box, festively adorned in yellow paper and rainbow-colored ribbons. ‘For you,’ she said.
‘This is really very sweet, but I think it’s only fair to warn you guys: If this is some sort of gift certificate for Match.com or a dating handbook or any sort of information on freezing my eggs, there’s going to be trouble.’
Izzie must have known she was only kidding, so Emmy was surprised to see her smile fade a little. ‘Just open it,’ she urged.
Never one to open a gift delicately – was it really worthwhile to stockpile used wrapping paper and bows? – Emmy ripped it open with relish. She was unsurprised to find a folded white T-shirt nestled among the yellow tissue paper. She and Izzie had been doing this for years, since they were old enough to earn their own money and responsible enough to post boxes on a regular basis: sending each other T-shirts with funny, obnoxious, clever, or just plain stupid sayings, always hoping to one-up the last contribution. Just a couple weeks earlier Emmy had sent Izzie a wife-beater that read trust me, I’m a doctah and Emmy had responded by FedExing a doggie T-shirt – intended for a cute toy breed but addressed to Otis – that read i only bite when ugly people pet me.
Emmy held the baby tee up. ‘world’s best auntie’ she read aloud. ‘I don’t get it. What’s so clever about—’ The look Izzie and Kevin exchanged stopped her midsentence. ‘Ohmigod.’
Izzie just grinned and nodded. Kevin squeezed her hand across the table.
‘Ohmigod,’ Emmy murmured again.
‘We’re pregnant!’ Izzie shouted, knocking over two bottles of water as she jumped up to hug Emmy.
‘Ohmigod.’
‘Em, seriously, say something else,’ Kevin advised, his brow furrowing in concern for his wife.
Emmy was aware that her arms were wrapped around Izzie, that she was holding on to her sister with a fierce determination, but she was unable to formulate any words. Her mind raced to the places it always did when someone first references a pregnancy: the day, just a year or so earlier, when she’d witnessed her first live birth. Izzie had dressed Emmy in scrubs, instructed her how to behave like a med student, and brought her into the delivery room to watch a totally ordinary vaginal delivery with no complications. None of the sixth-grade health videos or gory tales she’d heard from friends or Izzie prepared her for what she witnessed that day, and now it all came rushing back. Only the stranger on the table was now her sister, and she couldn’t shake the mental image of a little bald baby head emerging from her sister’s private parts.
But before she could even begin to process that, her mind switched tracks entirely. Next up was a mental inventory of all the baby boutiques and Web sites she had spent so many years visiting, cooing over fuzzy booties and monogrammed burp cloths, filling her imaginary shopping cart with all the cutest things. Now she would have a real reason to shop – for her very own niece or nephew! – but how would she ever decide? Of course she would have to buy the little one onesies with clever sayings like nobody puts baby in the corner and mommy drinks because i cry, but what about that darling little cashmere roll-neck sweater, or the sheepskin-lined infant Uggs, or the limited-edition Bugaboo in the lime plaid print? All those little socks that look like Mary Janes were essential, as was a mini terrycloth robe. She would skip anything too functional or precious – let other people buy the Boppy nursing pillows or the bottle warmers or the engraved Tiffany spoons. She would make sure that Izzie’s baby had all the Manhattan essentials. If she didn’t, who would? Certainly not this baby’s future parents, who would surely be too busy delivering other people’s babies to seek out the newest, coolest, cutest stuff. Yes, there really was no choice. If ever there was a time to rise to the occasion, this was it. She would live up to the T-shirt’s moniker and be the best aunt imaginable. And who knew? Perhaps she would get to use these things for her own baby one day; her kids and Izzie’s kids could share their clothes and toys, just as their mothers had their whole lives. They’d be more like siblings than first cousins! In fact, now that she thought it through, she realized that Izzie could wait to time her second with Emmy’s first, and then they’d both be pregnant together. They could go to prenatal yoga classes and Izzie could explain what was happening every step of the way in that calm, professional voice she used with her patients, and when it finally came time to give birth, they would do so a few weeks apart, so each sister could be there for the other. Yes, this really was a good plan, especially considering that—
‘Em? Are you okay? Say something!’ Izzie cried.
‘Oh, Izzie, I’m so happy for you guys!’ Emmy said, standing up. She hugged her sister again and then threw herself at Kevin. ‘I’m sorry, I was just so shocked.’
‘It’s crazy, isn’t it?’ Izzie asked. ‘We’re barely used to it ourselves. I thought it wouldn’t be such a big thing since pregnancies and babies are, well, are our life, but it’s so different when it happens to you, you know?’
Well, technically speaking, she didn’t know. If things kept up the way they were going, she might never know. But she also knew that Izzie hadn’t meant it that way at all. ‘How far along are you?’
Izzie reached into Emmy’s lap and held both her sister’s hands. ‘Don’t be mad, Em …’
‘What? Are you, like, due next month? Are you one of those freaks who can be nine months pregnant and everyone thinks you’ve just had a few too many Krispy Kremes? Come to think of it, I had noticed your face looking a little puffier.’
‘I’m thirteen weeks. Just started my second trimester. Due in February.’
Emmy concentrated on doing the math. Four weeks in a month, four goes into thirteen more than three times … ‘You’re already over three months? Didn’t, like, Katie Holmes and Jennifer Garner announce it to the American public when they were a couple months gone? And my own sister waits until she’s in her second trimester?’
‘Em, it killed us not to say anything, but we desperately wanted to tell you in person. I wanted us all to be together, face-to-face, with the cute T-shirt …’ Izzie looked stricken with worry; as tears pooled in her eyes, it made Emmy want to cry herself.
‘No, Izzie, don’t. I’m just kidding, I promise! I love the way you told me. It wouldn’t have been the same over the phone,’ she raced to say as the tears streamed down her sister’s face. With only a moment’s hesitation for Kevin’s sake before remembering he was practically her brother, Emmy ripped her own tank top over her head and pulled on the new top. ‘Look,’ she said, turning to show Izzie, noticing that Kevin had all-too-politely averted his gaze. ‘I love it. I love that you’re having a baby! I love, love, love the way you told me. I love you so much, Izzie. Come here, for fuck’s sake, and hug me again!’
Izzie sniffed, wiping a tear from her cheek. ‘It’s the hormones. I’m all over the place these days.’
‘She is.’ Kevin nodded.
‘Never mind about that. Let’s celebrate! I’m taking you guys out tonight for the best dinner in Miami. Where should we go? Joe’s Stone Crab?’
Kevin took a nap before dinner while Emmy and Izzie spent nearly two hours huddled together, hashing out every detail of this new development. Yes, they were going to find out the gender whether they wanted to or not because they’d inevitably want to see their own ultrasound and both, obviously, knew how to read them. No, they hadn’t talked about any names yet, although Izzie loved Ezra for a boy and Riley for a girl. They discussed the adorableness of giving girls boys’ names and how irritated their mother would be if the baby wasn’t named after her own parents. Emmy asked Izzie to describe the baby’s current developmental stage and Izzie conked out midsentence.
Emmy pulled a blanket from the hallway closet and covered her sister. Poor thing must be exhausted! Pregnant and working thirty-six-hour shifts and the excitement of telling your sister the big news. As she snuggled up to Izzie and closed her eyes, Emmy could barely contain her own thoughts. Yes, of course she was so excited Izzie was having a baby. Little Isabelle, who sucked her thumb until she was eleven and was deathly afraid of spiders and was so incredibly, brutally, undeniably tone deaf that the whole family used to beg her not to sing in the shower, was going to be someone’s mother. The little girl who had always mimicked Emmy’s mannerisms and begged to be included in her plans would soon be giving birth to her own child. It was almost too weird to comprehend. And when the thought crept in – however fleeting it was – that her younger sister was having a baby and she, Emmy, didn’t have so much as a boy she liked e-mailing, well, she pushed it right out of her head. There was no place for that kind of selfish thinking, not when you wanted to support your sister and be the best aunt possible. No, she simply would not allow herself to go there, period.
Kevin gently shook them both awake. ‘Weren’t you two supposed to wake me?’ he asked, switching on a lamp.
Izzie buried her head under the blanket and moaned. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s almost eleven, and I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’m motivating to go out to dinner now.’ He leaned down and kissed Izzie on the forehead. ‘Sweetie? You want to come to bed?’
‘Aarrgh’ was all Izzie could manage.
‘Ditto,’ moaned Emmy. She spent sixty-five hours a week in restaurants and always welcomed the idea of staying home. It just wasn’t relaxing to walk into a restaurant – any restaurant – as a customer. Her brain kicked into manager mode and she couldn’t help but count the staff-to-patron ratio, observe the efficiency of the bartender, determine how quickly the management was turning over the tables. It was easier just to stay in and forage for something in the fridge. But then she remembered. ‘Ohmigod, you’re having a baby!’
Izzie laughed and kicked her sister in the ribs. ‘Yeah, we really weren’t kidding about that.’
‘One look at your chipmunk cheeks and it all came rushing back,’ Emmy grinned.
‘Bitch.’
‘Cow.’
Kevin held up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m out of here. Izzie, just close down the place when you come to bed, okay?’
Izzie turned to Emmy. ‘Would you hate me for going to sleep now? I know it’s, like, practically noon for you, but the all-nighter last night sort of killed me.’
Emmy sighed dramatically and shook her head in mock disappointment. ‘Just because you’re pregnant and working round-the-clock shifts delivering babies all night isn’t an excuse, you know. Fine, I guess I’ll survive on my own for the next eight hours.’
Izzie poked Emmy and hugged her. ‘I’ll be more fun
tomorrow, I promise.’
They tossed Emmy a couple of towels and vanished seconds after saying good night, a move Emmy didn’t find entirely unwelcome. She was still a little groggy from her nap, but remembering Izzie’s pregnancy made her jittery with nervous energy. Grabbing her cell phone and the latest Elle, she rode the elevator to the ground floor and exited the back lobby to the building’s dramatically lit and landscaped pool area. Except for two guys in their twenties drinking beer and playing backgammon at one of the far tables, the place was blissfully deserted, so Emmy rolled up her capris and flopped down next to the hot tub, exhaling as she dunked her feet in the steamy water.
She dialed Leigh.
‘God, I’m glad to hear from you,’ Leigh said after picking up on the first ring.
‘Why? It’s a perfectly good Friday night and you’re engaged to one of the hottest guys I’ve seen in the flesh. Don’t you have better things to be doing?’
‘Russell’s younger sister – the swimmer – is in New York for the weekend, so he stayed at his place with her tonight.’
‘Got it. That’s the one you like, right?’
Leigh sighed. ‘Relatively speaking, yeah, I guess. She’s adorably sweet and friendly and outgoing and all-around nauseatingly perfect. She’s pretty much exactly like the other one.’
Emmy listened to the familiar sound of Leigh popping a piece of Nicorette from its foil packet and biting into it. She could almost feel her friend’s relief. ‘Better that than some passive-aggressive bitch who’s going to make your life a living hell. You could do much worse for sisters-in-law than annoyingly friendly,’ she said.
‘True. But I need something to complain about.’ Pause, chew, chew. ‘What’d you do tonight? Oh, wait, I forgot – aren’t you in Florida?’
‘I sure am. It’s Africa hot here.’
‘How’s Izzie? It’s been forever since I’ve seen her.’
‘Izzie is …’ Emmy debated how to tell Leigh. She knew she should sound more excited – hell, she was excited – but something about the late hour and the hot water, combined with the shock of hearing Izzie’s news, had exhausted Emmy. She was genuinely thrilled for Izzie and delighted with the idea of becoming an aunt, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to cry.
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 96