Adriana collected herself. She’d be damned if she was going to let this woman patronize her. She flashed her most brilliant smile and reached out to touch the woman’s arm. ‘First time?’ Adriana asked with an amused little laugh. ‘How I wish. I was just a bit taken aback, since I thought we were headed to Bulgari.’
‘Ah,’ the woman murmured, clearly not believing a word. ‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do here today, now, won’t you?’
Ordinarily it would take every ounce of willpower in Adriana’s reserve to refrain from saying something nasty, but something about all the surrounding sparkle seemed to take the fight right out of her. Instead, she smiled. ‘Actually, I’m not quite sure what I’m here for …’
The woman was probably in her late forties, and even Adriana had to admit that she looked pretty good for her age. Her navy suit was feminine, flattering, and professional, and her makeup was expertly applied. She extended a hand toward a little seating area and motioned to Adriana to take a seat.
The driver discreetly slipped away as Adriana settled herself onto an antique velvet divan. It was overstuffed and inviting in all its plushness, but she could only manage to perch carefully on one end if she didn’t want to collapse backward. A plump woman in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform set down a tray of tea and cookies.
‘Thank you, Ama,’ the saleswoman said without a glance.
‘Gracias, Ama,’ Adriana added. ‘Me gustan sus aretes. ¿Son de aquí?’ I like your earrings. Are they from here?
The maid blushed, unaccustomed to being addressed by clients. ‘Sí, señora, son de aquí. El señor Winston me los dió como regalo de boda hace casi veinte años.’ Yes, miss, they are. Mr. Winston gave them to me as a wedding present nearly twenty years ago.
‘Muy lindos.’ Adriana nodded approvingly as Ama blushed again and disappeared behind a heavy velvet curtain.
‘How do you speak such fluent Spanish?’ the saleswoman asked, more out of politeness than any genuine curiosity.
‘Portuguese is my first language, but we all learn Spanish as well. Sister languages,’ Adriana explained with patience, even though she could barely contain her excitement.
‘Ah, how interesting.’
No, it’s not, Adriana thought, wondering if she was about to set some sort of time record for having a man propose to her. Toby couldn’t actually be about to propose … could he? No, it was ridiculous; they’d only just met at the beginning of the summer. Far more likely was that he’d started feeling a bit anxious about her imaginary ‘secret lover’ and had decided – correctly, of course – that a little bauble might swing the pendulum in his favor.
‘It’s unusually cool today, isn’t it?’ the woman was saying.
‘Hmm.’ Enough with the chitchat already! Adriana wanted to scream. I. Want. My. Present!
‘Well, dear, you’re probably wondering why you’re here,’ she said.
Understatement of the century, Adriana thought.
‘Mr. Baron has asked me to present you with’ – as if on cue, a sixtyish gentleman in a three-piece suit with a jeweler’s loupe around his neck appeared and presented the saleswoman with a small velvet-lined tray, which she held out to Adriana – ‘these.’
Splayed perfectly on the black velvet lay a pair of the most beautiful earrings Adriana had ever seen. More than beautiful, actually – absolutely stunning.
The saleswoman gingerly touched one of them with a manicured fingernail and said, ‘Lovely, aren’t they?’
Adriana exhaled for the first time in over a minute. ‘They’re exquisite. Sapphire drops, just like the ones Salma Hayek wore to the Oscars,’ she breathed.
The woman’s head snapped up and she stared at Adriana. ‘My, my, you do know your jewelry, don’t you?’
‘Not really,’ Adriana said, laughing, ‘but I do know your jewelry.’ It was a wonder – no, it was downright astonishing – that Toby had remembered her admiring Salma’s Oscar earrings in an old magazine. That alone was incredible enough, but the fact that he then saved the photo and found an identical pair, two months after the fact, was almost incomprehensible.
‘Well, actually, these are the exact ones Ms. Hayek wore to the Oscars. They were lent to her and we’ve received many requests for them since then. However’ – she paused for dramatic effect – ‘they now belong to you.’
‘Ohhhhhh,’ Adriana breathed, momentarily forgetting herself once again and fumbling to try them on.
Fifteen minutes later, with the celeb-worthy sapphire drop earrings firmly in place and a bottle of Evian in hand, Adriana leapt into the backseat of the Town Car. She was pleased with herself, not just for her new acquisition but for what it represented: a steady, committed boyfriend who adored her and showered her with love and affection (and Harry Winston). She finally understood why all the other girls so yearned for this kind of stability. Who needed hundreds of men and all the headaches that came with them when you could find just one who had everything? Sure, Dean the TV actor was delicious, there was no denying it, but how delicious would he be when he hadn’t worked in five years and was living in some actor dorm in West Hollywood? There was no denying that she had very much enjoyed the surgeon from Greenwich and the Israeli spy and the Dartmouth fraternity boy. She had savored each and every one of them and, truth be told, countless others. But that was before, back when she was a mere child, not a grown woman with a grown woman’s desires. Adriana fingered the dangly blue gems and smiled to herself. This was going to be the perfect weekend, she was sure of it.
‘You don’t get paid enough to make house calls,’ Russell murmured as he stroked Leigh’s back gently, with just his fingertips.
‘You’re telling me,’ she said, praying he wouldn’t stop. She snuggled in closer against his wide, warm, nearly hairless chest and buried her head in his underarm. She had always loved their cuddling, and even now it encouraged her; she might not want to have sex with Russell, but at least she wasn’t repulsed by his touch. Leigh remembered Emmy going through that with Mark, the boyfriend before Duncan. She claimed the sex had never been great, not even in the beginning, but things grew steadily worse – mostly in Emmy’s mind, she admitted – until she recoiled in disgust every time he tried to touch her. The story had always haunted Leigh, someone who understood perfectly what it felt like to shrink away from a boyfriend’s kiss, but that was precisely why she found these snuggle sessions so reassuring. She wouldn’t want to lie naked in bed with Russell, spoon with him and enjoy his touch, if there was something wrong … would she? No, it was a clear indication that everything was as it should be. What woman didn’t have shifts in sexual desire at times? According to the article in Harper’s Bazaar she’d read at the nail salon the week before, a woman’s libido was a tenuous thing, affected by stress, sleeping patterns, hormones, and about a million other factors she couldn’t control. With a little time and a lot of patience – something Russell had exhibited in spades until very recently – Bazaar swore that most women would return to normal. She would simply wait it out.
‘So what’s he like?’ Russell asked. ‘Is he really as crazy as everyone makes him out to be?’
Leigh wondered when Russell had Googled Jesse. ‘What do you mean? He seems like … I don’t know, like an author. They’re all nuts.’
Russell rolled over on his back and slung his arm over his eyes to block out the early-morning sun that streamed in around the sides of the window shade. ‘Yeah, but he sold five million copies and won the Pulitzer and then vanished. For six years. Was it really a drug problem? Or did he just lose it?’
‘I have no idea. We’ve only had one lunch; he hasn’t exactly confided in me.’ Leigh tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice but it wasn’t easy. ‘Look, I’m not dying to go out there, either.’
Which was true enough. There were definitely things Leigh would rather do with two days out of the office than drive to the Hamptons right before Labor Day weekend.
‘I know, sweetheart. Just
don’t let him push you around, okay? He may think he’s some hotshot, but you’re still his editor. You call the shots, right?’
‘Right,’ she said automatically, although she was really thinking how much it rankled her when Russell sounded so much like her father. Mr. Eisner had said those exact words to her the night before in what was probably intended to be a helpful pregame pep talk, but which to Leigh had sounded like a condescending lecture from the consummate professional to the flailing amateur.
Russell kissed her forehead, pulled on a pair of boxers, and strode to the bathroom. After turning the shower to its hottest setting, he headed to the kitchen, closing the bathroom door behind him. There he’d wait for the bathroom to get all hot and steamy – just the way he liked it – while he made his daily power breakfast: soy protein shake, fat-free yogurt, and three scrambled egg whites. This ritual irritated Leigh beyond description. What about all that wasted water? she asked him over and over again, but he merely reminded her that water was included in the monthly maintenance fee she paid, so it didn’t particularly matter. It was just one of the things about him she found utterly maddening. She completely understood the need for him to wear a full face of TV makeup once a week when he recorded the show, but she loathed watching him remove it. He used her makeup remover and pads and swabbed so delicately under his eyes and around his nose, and although she couldn’t quite pinpoint why, she found it revolting. Not quite as revolting as when he forgot to remove it and she ended up with pillowcases smeared with man foundation, but still – the whole thing was just gross.
She chided herself for being so rigid and intolerant and took a deep, relaxing breath. It was only nine o’clock on a sunny Thursday morning and already she felt like she’d been awake for forty-eight hours and lived through a world war. Exhausted yet still simmering with low-level anxiety, Leigh hauled herself from bed and ducked into the steam-drenched bathroom.
She managed to throw on a pair of white jeans and pack everything else before Russell finished his own shower, so she blew him a kiss through the bathroom door and quickly left. She rolled her small suitcase to Hertz on East Thirteenth Street and, after accepting all the insurance offered – better safe than sorry! – Leigh grabbed a large iced latte from Joe, popped two pieces of Nicorette, and slid into the driver’s seat of her red Ford Focus. The trip took less time than she’d planned; in a little over two hours she pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant called Estia’s. It was shaped like a little clapboard cottage, just as Jesse had described it; she went inside to use the bathroom and gulp another cup of coffee before calling him.
He answered on the fourth ring.
‘Jesse? It’s Leigh. I’m at Estia’s.’
‘Already? I wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon.’
She felt her blood pressure rise even higher. ‘Well, I’m not sure why, considering we spoke just yesterday and I told you that I’d be arriving between twelve and twelve-thirty.’
He laughed. His voice sounded like he’d just woken up. ‘Yeah, but who’s ever actually on time? When I say noon, I really mean three.’
‘Oh, really?’ she asked. ‘Because when I say noon, I actually mean noon.’
He laughed again. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get dressed, and I’ll be right there. Have a coffee. Try to relax. We’ll get right to work, I promise.’
She ordered yet another coffee and flipped to the Thursday Style section someone had left on the counter.
She heard his entrance before she saw him, since she was staring fixedly at the newspaper, pretending to be completely absorbed in an article on natural boar-bristle hairbrushes. All around her, the restaurant patrons – all locals and, from the look of it, not associates of the Billy Joel set – waved and called out their hellos. One particularly crusty-looking old guy in workman’s overalls and a sewn-on name tag – the original, not one of the retro ones on sale in the Bloomingdale’s young men’s department – that read smith, raised his coffee mug and winked at Jesse.
‘Morning, sir,’ Jesse said, clapping the man on the back.
‘Chief,’ the man said with a nod and a swig of coffee.
‘Still on for Monday night?’
The man nodded again. ‘Monday.’
Jesse made his way down the breakfast counter, greeting each and every person along the way, before taking the empty seat next to Leigh. Although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, Leigh thought he looked better today than he had at either of their previous meetings. Still not hot or even handsome in the conventional sense, Jesse again looked casually rumpled and, as stupid as it sounded, cool. It was partly the way he dressed – a slim-cut vintage plaid shirt with Levi’s that looked custom-cut for his body – but it was also something more than that, something in the way he carried himself. Everything about him screamed ‘effortless,’ but unlike the self-conscious grunge of the nineties or deliberate bed-head hair, Jesse’s look was genuine.
She realized she was staring.
‘What’s going on Monday?’ she asked quickly; it was the first thing that came to mind.
‘Not into the usual niceties, huh?’ Jesse asked with a smile. ‘Me, neither. Monday is poker night and it’s Smith’s turn to host. He lives in a minuscule studio apartment above the village liquor store, so he arranged for all of us to meet at the East Hampton Airport – he’s a flight mechanic there. We’re going to play in the hangar, which I’m rather looking forward to. It will be doubly festive since we’ll be celebrating both the end of summer and the end of the Great Asshole Invasion – at least until next year.’
Leigh shook her head. Maybe all the gossip and tabloids were right, and Jesse really had lost his mind. A few years earlier he was jet-setting on international book tours, gorging himself on the world’s finest food and clothes and women, using his newfound literary fame to chase every next hot party, and now he was sequestered away in this working-class neighborhood of eastern Long Island, playing poker in deserted airplane hangars with mechanics? The new book had better be damn good, that’s all Leigh knew.
As if reading her mind, Jesse said, ‘You’re desperate to get started, aren’t you? Just say it.’
‘I am desperate to get started. I’m only out here for two days and a night and I still haven’t the first clue what you’re working on.’
‘Let’s go, then.’ He slid a $10 bill to the woman behind the counter and led the way outside. The instant his feet hit gravel he lit a cigarette. ‘I’d offer you one, but something tells me you’re not a smoker.’
He didn’t wait for her to answer; instead, he jumped into his Jeep.
‘Follow me. The house is only a few minutes from here, but there are lots of turns.’
‘You sure I shouldn’t check into the hotel first?’ Leigh asked, twisting a piece of her ponytail around her finger. She was staying at the historic American Hotel in Sag Harbor village, a place that was just as famous for its clubby, wood-paneled, old-fashioned hospitality as it was for its mammoth martinis.
Jesse leaned out his window. ‘You’re welcome to try, but I called on my way over here and they insist that check-in isn’t until three. I’d be more than happy to wait till then, trust me …’
‘No, no, let’s get moving. I’ll take a break this afternoon to check in and then we can get back to work.’
‘Sounds like a dream.’ He rolled up the window and threw the Jeep into reverse, the back wheels kicking up dust in his wake.
Leigh rushed to her rental and pulled out behind him. He turned left onto Sagg Road and drove straight through the village and past the hotel, which he indicated to Leigh with a wave in his rearview. The main street was absolutely adorable. There were quaint boutiques, family-owned restaurants, and local fresh-food markets interspersed with the occasional art gallery and wine shop. Parents pulled kids and vegetables in red wagons. Pedestrians had the right of way. People seemed to be smiling for no reason. Everyone had a dog.
They drove through town and toward the bay, which
was fronted by a marina straight out of central casting, and then over a bridge before careening back into the winding, wooded roads. Jesse’s driveway was half a mile long and unpaved and the glints of light that darted through the trees gave it an ethereal feel. As they drove a bit farther, Leigh spotted what looked like a guesthouse off the side of the path. It was a small white cottage with blue shutters and a charming little porch for rocking and reading. Another five hundred yards beyond that was an elaborate – and brand-new – children’s outdoor play area. It wasn’t one of the brightly colored plastic Fisher-Price ones, either; rather, it appeared almost hand-carved from a rich mahogany and included a rock-climbing wall, tree house, canopied cupola, sandbox, kiddie-sized picnic table, and two slides. This left Leigh momentarily breathless. She knew Jesse had a wife (although he had given Leigh the impression that she wasn’t in the Hamptons), but she had never, ever envisioned him as a father. Of course it made complete sense – it would almost be strange if he weren’t – but something about seeing proof of this made her feel vaguely irritated and a little disappointed.
By the time they reached the house, her heart had started to beat faster and her breath began to shorten in the telltale signs of anxiety. In front of her, Jesse climbed out of his Jeep and approached her car. She felt a sweat break out on her forehead, and she wished she could be parked on her couch, reading a manuscript or chatting with Russell about his upcoming interview with Tony Romo. It’d be worth it even if he wanted to have sex and watch SportsCenter and the upstairs neighbor was hosting a dance party full of leg brace-wearing guests. Anywhere but right here, right now.
Jesse opened Leigh’s car door for her and led her down a walkway to the front porch, a wide expanse of open space decorated with only a hammock and a love-seat swing. Beside the swing was an empty bottle of Chianti and a single dirty wineglass.
‘Are your children here? I’d love to meet them,’ Leigh lied.
Jesse looked around the porch, appearing confused for a minute, and then smiled knowingly, like he could read her mind. ‘Oh, you mean the playground? It’s for my nephews – not my own.’
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 99