“No, I’ll be at least another hour, but I was hoping you’d wait for me. Just let yourself in and maybe order us some food? I can’t wait to see you tonight.”
“Me too,” Leigh said and was relieved when she realized it wasn’t a complete lie.
She’d just paid the driver and stepped out of the taxi when her phone rang again. She flipped it open without looking at it. “I forgot to ask, do you want sushi or Italian?” she said.
“I vote Italian,” a female voice said with a laugh.
“Emmy! Are you calling from Israel? How are you?” Leigh didn’t particularly feel like talking to anyone just then, but she couldn’t just hang up on her best friend when they hadn’t spoken in over a week.
“No, I just landed. I’m in a cab on my way back from JFK. What are you up to tonight? I was hoping I could drag you to dinner. I miss my friends!”
“I’m breaking up with Russell,” Leigh said quietly, with absolutely no intonation. It took a second before she was even sure she had uttered the words, but Emmy’s gasp confirmed it.
“What did you say? AT&T is shit. I don’t think I heard—”
“Yes, you did. You heard me,” Leigh said with more calmness than she’d felt in seventy-two hours. “I said I’m breaking up with Russell.”
“Where are you?” Emmy demanded.
“Emmy, I’m fine. I appreciate your—”
“Where the fuck are you?” she screeched so loud Leigh had to move the phone away from her ear.
“I’m about to walk into his apartment. He’s not home yet, but I’m ordering dinner for us and I’m going to do it then. Emmy, I know this must seem like it’s out of nowhere, but—” Her voice cracked and a sob choked off her breath.
“I’ll be right there. Listen to me, Leigh Eisner. I am on my way over there, okay?” Leigh heard the muffled sound of Emmy redirecting the cabbie to Russell’s cross streets. “Are you still there? We’re already through the tunnel and headed south on the FDR. I’ll be there in ten, twelve minutes. Do you hear me?”
Leigh nodded.
“Leigh? Say something.”
“I hear you,” Leigh squeaked through a sob.
“Okay, don’t move. Do. Not. Move. Understand? I’ll be there momentarily.”
Leigh heard Emmy hang up, but she couldn’t bring herself to close her own phone. Why had she just said she was going to break up with Russell? It wasn’t at all what she’d been thinking for the past couple of days, during her massage, on the ride back to the city. She’d merely reached the conclusion that she must be honest with him—at all costs—about Jesse. That even if it was only to selfishly assuage her own guilt, starting off a marriage based on cheating was probably not a brilliant idea, and Russell deserved to know the whole truth from the beginning. That said, she was also reasonably sure that Russell—with the proper reassurances—could be convinced to give her a second chance. It wouldn’t have been pretty or enjoyable for either of them, but if she worked hard enough at assuring him that it was a complete fluke with Jesse (which it was) and would never happen again (not a lie), she figured they had a pretty decent chance of getting through this. What she hadn’t even considered was that she might not want to get through this…until she’d blurted out those very words just moments before.
Leigh bought a cup of coffee from a tiny corner health-food shop with no proper half-and-half or fake sweeteners—where were all those goddamn Dunkin’ Donuts when she needed one?—and retied her scarf tighter around her neck. She was about to walk into Russell’s lobby when she heard Emmy’s voice shouting behind her. She turned to see a cab screeching to a stop, a tan but panicked Emmy hanging out the back window.
Leigh stood and waited calmly in the doorway, watching as her friend threw three twenties at the driver, collected a few dollars’ change, and dragged her rolling suitcase from the trunk.
“When did it get so fucking freezing?” Emmy hissed as she tried to yank the suitcase’s handle up from its tucked position.
“About two seconds after you left,” Leigh said, aware that she should help her friend but feeling no real inclination to do so. For the moment it felt perfectly fine to stand there and watch her own breath come out in hot streams against the frigid air. She was breaking up with Russell. Breaking up with Russell. Was she really going to up and end it, just like that? Call off the engagement, give back the ring, become un-affianced? Yes. Yes, she was.
“My god, this is uncivilized! Uninhabitable! Why do we choose to live like this?” Emmy kissed Leigh on the cheek. “Russell’s not home, right? So we can go upstairs?”
Leigh held open the door and waved Emmy through. She used her key to summon the elevator that opened directly into Russell’s full-floor loft, and both girls helped pull Emmy’s suitcase on board. The panorama of stainless steel and black lacquer that greeted them when the elevator doors swept open was enough to shock Leigh back to the present; immediately upon seeing Russell’s collection of metal sculptures and his decorator-chosen black-and-white prints, she felt the familiar feel of her fingernails digging into the flesh of her palms.
“Welcome!” Leigh sang with mock cheeriness. “Something about this place just warms the heart, doesn’t it?”
Emmy left her suitcase by the door, tossed her down puffer coat over a dining room chair, and flopped awkwardly onto Russell’s impossibly chic, rock-hard sofa. “I could name three dozen women off the top of my head who would kill to spend just one night in this apartment.”
Leigh shot her a warning look.
“I’m just saying….”
“You’re right, of course. Which makes it all the more ironic that I’m not one of them.” Her voice was quiet and serious, and for a moment Leigh wondered why she wasn’t already crying.
Emmy patted a patch of couch next to her, but her hand ended up making a smacking noise. “Christ, that’s hard,” she muttered. “C’mere, sit down and tell me what’s going on. I feel like this came out of nowhere.”
Leigh walked toward Emmy but sat down on the Ligne Roset daybed opposite her. “It must seem that way, I guess. Hell, it sort of feels that way. But not if I’m going to be really honest with myself.” Leigh felt her throat constrict and almost felt relieved that she was finally experiencing something resembling a normal reaction.
“What’s going on? Have you two been fighting?”
“Fighting? No, of course not. Russell’s as sweet and supportive as he’s ever been. I don’t know, I’ve just, well, I don’t know….”
“Ohmigod!” Emmy slapped her head. “How could I not have guessed? He is a man, after all. Russell’s cheating on you, isn’t he?”
Leigh could feel her eyes open wide, but she couldn’t get any words out.
“Oh. My. God. That shit! Mr. I’m So Fucking Perfect is cheating on you? Leigh, sweetheart, unfortunately for both of us, I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. Christ, I can’t believe that he’d actually—”
“He’s not cheating on me, Emmy. I’m cheating on him.”
That seemed to quiet everything down for a solid thirty seconds. Emmy looked as though she’d been struck, her face contorted with surprise as she struggled to process what she’d just heard.
“You’re cheating on Russell?”
“Yes. Well, no. Not currently. But I did.”
“With who? Whom. Whatever.”
Leigh sighed. “It’s not important. What matters now is that it’s over, but I have to think it happened for a reason. People who are ecstatically happy in their relationships don’t cheat.”
Emmy held up her hand as if to ask for quiet. “It’s not important?” she asked. “Leigh, darling, you’re one of my two best friends on this planet. Not to make this entirely about me here, but come on! It’s bad enough I had no idea you were sleeping with someone else while it was happening—and I recognize now’s probably not the ideal time to be pissed at you for it—but to even suggest that you aren’t going to tell me after the fact is absolutely ludicrous! I mean, do
you really—”
“It was Jesse. Jesse Chapman.”
Emmy threw up her hands in exasperation. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know how she does it. It’s like she has some sort of sixth sense for these things. Or maybe you just fuck enough people yourself and you can just feel when someone else is doing it, too. Un-fucking-believable. That girl is just unbelievable!”
“What are you talking about? Who is unbelievable?”
The sound of Leigh’s voice seemed to snap Emmy back to reality. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that Adriana’s been insisting for weeks now—maybe months—that you were sleeping with Jesse, and I insisted you weren’t. Swore up, down, and sideways that it was the most ridiculous idea imaginable. I mean, you’re engaged to Russell, for chrissake—”
Emmy stopped midsentence and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Leigh, I’m so sorry, that came out all wrong.”
Leigh shrugged. “Well, for the record, I’m not ‘sleeping with’ Jesse, and I never was. It happened exactly once, and it will never, ever happen again. So next time you talk to Adriana, you can tell her she was wrong.”
Emmy’s phone rang. The look on her face when she checked the caller ID confirmed it was Adriana.
“My god, does she have you wearing a wire?” Leigh said, shaking her head.
“That whole Latina intuition, so she claims.” Emmy clicked off the phone and tucked it back in her purse. “So, at the risk of sounding, uh, insensitive here, can I ask why you feel like you have to end everything with Russell? I mean, if Jesse was a onetime thing—and you want it that way—well, am I a completely horrible person for suggesting you just try to put it behind you?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Does that mean you have feelings for Jesse?”
“No! Well, yes. Sort of. But Jesse actually has nothing to do with this. It’s about Russell and me.”
Emmy pulled a bottle of water from her bag, took a swig, and offered it to Leigh. Leigh shook her head no.
“I hear that,” Emmy said carefully. “But I’m sure you’ve also considered that whole thing about not telling someone something hurtful just to unburden yourself. Like, if it’s not going to help them to know, they’re better off not knowing?”
Leigh had to remind herself to unclench her hands and try to lower her shoulders away from her ears. She didn’t want to feel so annoyed with Emmy, but it was getting difficult to disguise. Obviously she had considered all of this, and obviously the situation was a great deal more complicated than Emmy presumed. Leigh certainly didn’t feel compelled to—how did Emmy put it?—unburden herself to Russell just because she’d screwed up and wanted forgiveness. If that were the case, she’d make the only rational decision possible and do exactly as Emmy had recommended: feel guilty for betraying her fiancé, swear to herself that it would never happen again, and move along. The problem came when she allowed herself to acknowledge that even though she probably could, she didn’t want to move along.
She took a deep breath. “I’m not in love with Russell,” she said.
“Oh, Leigh.” Emmy jumped off the couch and made toward the daybed, but Leigh held up her hand.
“No. Please don’t.”
Emmy backed away and settled for resting her hand on Leigh’s arm.
“Here’s where I say something absolutely inane and ridiculously trite, like ‘I love Russell, but I’m not in love with Russell,’ right?” Leigh laughed and smeared a fat tear from her lower lashes to the side of her forehead. “My god, the whole situation is such a fucking mess. Who would’ve ever thought it was possible? The perfect one—Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!—agrees to marry a guy she doesn’t love because everyone else loves him and she figures that, given enough time, she will, too. Then, rather than deal with her own self-created situation in a reasonably mature manner, she chooses to screw someone she’s working with. A married someone! Thereby wrecking both career and love life in one tidy swoop. It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic,” Emmy said automatically.
“I’m talking about myself in the third person. What’s not pathetic about that?”
“Oh, honey.” Emmy sighed. “I’m so sorry. I really had no idea it was this bad. None of us did. But you can’t beat yourself up over something you don’t feel. Russell’s a great guy, and yes, he certainly seems like the perfect guy. But none of that matters if he’s not the perfect guy for you.”
Leigh nodded, “It just all happened so quickly! One minute we’re taking romantic strolls in Union Square, and the next thing I know he’s sliding a diamond onto my finger without ever even imagining the answer could be anything but yes. I just keep wondering when we ended up in such different places. I thought we were casually dating, having a good time, the perfect-for-right-now relationship. No end in sight, but not necessarily a great love affair, either. But engaged? To be married? Emmy, at the risk of sounding like the biggest moron alive—or the least perceptive one—I just didn’t see it coming. I’ve spent every minute since then waiting to feel sure, to know that it’s right, but I haven’t, Em. I’ve never, ever felt that with Russell, and I think it’s time to face the fact that I’m never going to.”
Both girls froze at the sound of the elevator rising. Before either could say another word, they heard the doors open and Russell’s footsteps make their way from the foyer to the kitchen, where the fridge quickly opened and shut again, and then he sauntered into the living room.
“Oh, hey Emmy. Sorry, I didn’t know you were here,” Russell said with a distracted look. Leigh could tell from the single fleeting glance he’d given her that Russell was not in the mood for company tonight. Well, that made two of them.
To her credit, Emmy didn’t need any further hints. She jumped off the couch, and after kissing first Russell and then Leigh, she mumbled something about a mandatory work dinner and bounded out the door. She disappeared so fast Leigh didn’t have a single minute to prepare what she was going to say. Or when. Or how.
“Hi,” Leigh said shyly, studying Russell’s face for any clue that he had overheard them. It was impossible, of course—they’d heard the elevator in the lobby and hadn’t uttered a word as it had made its way upstairs—but she couldn’t help hoping he’d caught a few slivers. How much easier all this would be if he had even the smallest clue what was coming.
“Hey. I hope I didn’t interrupt you guys. She bolted pretty fast.” He loosened his tie (the one her parents had bought him for his birthday last year), and then, as though deciding that it still wasn’t enough breathing space, pulled it over his head and tossed it onto the Lucite coffee table.
“Yeah, well, you know Emmy, always on the run.”
“Hmm. Did you order food?”
“Sorry, Emmy wanted to say hi on her way home from the airport, and we’ve been talking, just for a few minutes, and, well, I forgot. What do you want?” Leigh asked, grateful for something to do. She pulled out her phone and began scrolling through the numbers. “Sushi? Vietnamese? That place on Greenwich has great spring rolls.”
“Leigh.”
“Or we could just hit the diner if you want. A cheese omelet and well-done home fries? That could be really good right now.”
“Leigh!” His volume stayed the same, but his voice was sharper, more insistent.
Her eyes shot up to meet his for the first time since he’d walked in. Russell never got annoyed with her, about anything. What if something happened at work today? Maybe he’d gotten in a fight with that associate producer who was always such a jerk. Or maybe the network had decided to change his time slot again? They’d been talking about tinkering with the schedule, and Russell was terrified he was going to get bumped out of prime time. Come to think of it, he had said earlier that day that he wanted to talk to her about something. What if, god forbid, something even more drastic had happened, and for some unknown, unpredictable, totally bizarre reason Russell had been fired? You couldn’t very well go and break up with someone the sa
me day they got fired, could you? Not if you had a shred of human decency, you couldn’t—not even in the same month. Leigh shivered just thinking about it.
“Leigh, what’s going on with you? You’ve been an absolute wreck for weeks on end, and I have absolutely no idea why.”
“You didn’t get fired?”
“What? What on earth are you talking about?”
“I thought you were going to tell me you got fired.”
“Of course I didn’t get fired. And I know we were supposed to go over all the wedding stuff tonight, but I think it’s more important that we talk about you. What is it, Leigh?”
Well, it wasn’t going to get any easier than that. He had literally gifted her with the most perfect opening imaginable. She took a deep breath, dug her fingernails into her palms again, and started talking.
“Russell, I know this is hard—it kills me even to say it—but I want to be straight with you.” She stared at the floor, could feel him watching her. “I think we should take a break.”
Well, okay, so that wasn’t entirely truthful—a break implied a desire to work things out eventually—but at least she’d managed to get something out.
“A what?” Russell asked. Leigh looked up to see the unflappable Russell appearing completely confused, which unnerved her even more.
“I, um, I think we need to take some time. To think things over.”
At this, Russell jumped off the couch and enveloped her in his arms. “Leigh, what are you talking about, ‘take some time’? We’re engaged to be married, sweetheart. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. Do you really want to wait to start all of that?”
Russell’s hug was very much like what Leigh imagined it would feel like to get run over by a bus. Her lungs refused to fill with oxygen, and it was getting hard to ignore the pressure and flashes of light behind her eyes. But she knew she must persevere.
“Russell, I’m not sure I want us to get married,” she said softly, as softly as she could say such cruel words.
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