Winded from the five-flight climb, but significantly less than he used to be—the three or four times in five years he’d bothered to come to her place, that is—he looked pretty damn good, and she suspected the positive changes (thinner face, no deathly pallor, great haircut that hid the small bald spot) were the results of the cheerleader’s hard work, not his own.
“Can I come in?” he asked with one of his specialty smiles, a grin that fell somewhere between flirtatious and bored.
Emmy backed against the door and waved her hand toward the apartment, making sure he saw her own supremely indifferent expression.
It took a couple of seconds to close the door and secure the lock, and when Emmy turned around again to face Duncan, he was staring at her with unabashed appreciation. Bordering on worship, were she to be honest with herself. And for possibly the very first time in Duncan’s presence, she didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious about her appearance.
“Jesus, Em, you look great,” he said with more sincerity than she thought him capable of.
Emmy looked down at her robe, remembered the mini-makeover she’d performed after getting out of the shower, and secretly thanked the universe that he hadn’t seen her a mere thirty minutes earlier.
“Thanks.”
His eyes continued to move up and down her body, lingering appreciatively every few inches. “No, I mean like really, really great. The best you’ve ever looked. Whatever you’re doing, it’s definitely working for you,” he said without a hint of irony.
Oh, you mean screwing my brains out with virtually every attractive stranger I meet? Buying sexy lingerie? Refusing to hate my body just because you did? Yes, shockingly, things are going well.
“Thanks, Duncan” was all she said.
He looked around the apartment. “Where’s Otis?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the empty cage. “Did he finally…”
“Ha! I wish. Although I guess it’s the next best thing.”
Duncan stared at her questioningly.
“Adriana watched him during my last work trip—very grudgingly, I have to say—and she bitched about it for days. Then, out of nowhere, I get home, call her to say I’m on my way to pick him up, thank you so much for watching him, blah, blah, blah—literally, I’ve bought her a bottle of hundred-dollar wine as a thank-you and an apology—and she says he can stay for a while.”
“Stay with her?”
“Yes! Can you imagine? She said they’ve bonded. That I was underappreciating Otis and that she’s given him a new lease on life.”
“To which you replied?”
“Like you even have to ask? I said she’s absolutely right; I have underappreciated him, and it’s true he and I have most definitely never bonded. That if she’d like him to stay for ‘a while,’ I could probably find it in my heart to allow it. That was eight weeks ago. I spoke to her this morning and the two of them were on their way to the ‘birdie spa’—her words, not mine. I’m just holding my breath and praying it’s not all a dream.”
Duncan took off his overcoat and tossed it on a chair. He was still wearing a suit; he had come straight from work. He was carrying a plain brown shopping bag and Emmy couldn’t help but wonder if this was a birthday present for her.
“Here, I got you something,” he said when he saw her looking at it.
“You did?” Her voice sounded more hopeful than she would have liked. The bag was bulky when he handed it to her, heavy, and her first thought was that it must be some sort of photography book. Perhaps one of those photographic guides to great hotels, or a tour of one of the Caribbean islands they used to visit during Duncan’s rare vacations.
Emmy eagerly pulled open the bag and was momentarily shocked to discover nothing more than a single ream of printer paper.
Duncan noticed Emmy’s surprised expression and shrugged. “I sat in that damn shop for over an hour. I had to buy something.”
“Uh-huh.” So he hadn’t remembered her birthday, or picked out his own gift for the very first time. This shouldn’t have been surprising or disappointing, but for some reason, it was both.
“So, you’re probably, uh, wondering why I’m here….” He let his voice trail off, but Emmy didn’t say a word. “I know that whole situation with Brianna wasn’t easy for either of us, but that’s, uh, over now, and I was hoping we could, uh, try to work through that.”
Well. There it was. Emmy was so surprised she had to grab the counter for support. Her mind barely knew where to begin. He had just dropped three completely independent yet equally shocking bombs in a single sentence. First, there was that bit about calling the dramatic ending of their five-year relationship due to his own infidelity with a fitness trainer Emmy had bought him a “situation”—not to mention that disgusting little addition about it not being easy for him, either. Then there was the casual pronouncement that said “situation” was over, a detail he must have assumed Emmy knew, because how could she not be following the minutiae of his life? And last, the biggest one of all: Duncan was sitting in her apartment on a cold Friday night when he’d otherwise be out with his friends, nervously suggesting that they could “work through this.” Emmy knew she was prone to exaggeration and flights of fancy—and of course further confirmation was needed—but this sounded to her like he was asking to get back together.
She had a million, trillion questions for him (Why did they break up? Whose idea was it? And, most important of all, why did he want to get back together with her?), but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms, and peered at Duncan.
“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked before jamming his pointer finger in his mouth and gnawing on a cuticle. Number eight hundred eighteen of the things I don’t miss, Emmy thought.
“I’m not feeling so chatty tonight,” Emmy said evenly, gazing at him.
He sighed as if to suggest this was all very difficult. “Em, look, I’m an idiot, okay? I know I fucked up, and I want to make it right. The whole Brianna thing—it was a glitch, a bump in the road, a totally meaningless thing that should’ve never happened in the first place. You and me, we’re meant to be together. We both know it. So what do you say? I’m standing before you, hat in hand”—at this, he mimed pulling off a cap and holding it toward her—“begging you to come back to me.”
He walked to her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and kissed her ever so softly on the lips. Emmy let herself be kissed, let him press his mouth to hers, and reveled in the familiarity and comfort of it. Duncan pulled away, and while gently brushing the hair back off her face, looked into her eyes and asked, “So? What do you say?”
Whether she’d admitted it or not, she’d waited ten months for this very moment, and here it was, and it felt every bit as incredible as she had envisioned. Emmy returned his gaze with her sweetest possible smile. “What do I say?” she asked coyly, flirtatiously. “I say I’m going to give myself the best thirtieth birthday present on earth and tell you—right here, right now, and for the last time ever—to get the fuck out of my apartment. That’s what I say.”
“You did not!” Adriana squealed, clapping her hands together.
“I did,” Emmy said with a huge smile.
“Did not!”
“Did so. And I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt.”
Adriana hugged Emmy, pulled her as close as their tiny table would allow. They were at Alice’s Tea Cup on the Upper East Side, packed in with dozens, maybe hundreds of females of every imaginable age, rehashing Emmy’s triumphant moment. “You so did the right thing.”
“Um, yeah!” Emmy said with widened eyes. “Don’t think for a second I’m doubting it. Do you believe that asshole had the nerve to show up at my apartment, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, and ask me to take him back—all without ever bothering to apologize? He is loathsome.”
“Always was.” Adriana nodded until she noticed Emmy looking at her with a funny expression. “Oh, sweetheart,
I didn’t mean it like that. I was just agreeing that his actions were particularly repugnant this time.” Good lord, these girls could be so sensitive!
An extra-perky adorable waitress approached their table. “Celebrating a special occasion today, ladies?” she asked.
Emmy snorted. “What gave it away? The crow’s-feet or the three ringless wonders, out for afternoon tea, just like they will be in fifty years?”
“The three ringless wonders? That’s a new one.” Adriana rolled her eyes and glanced at Leigh, who sat, stone-faced, her bare left hand jammed under her thigh. Adriana felt bad; Emmy must not have known that Leigh had returned the ring to Russell the night before.
“Good, right? I just made that up right now. But it has a nice ring to it…ha! No pun intended!” Emmy cracked up.
“Sorry, I just figured since—” The waitress coughed and looked at her feet.
Adriana interrupted. “No, we’re sorry. Actually, we are celebrating…this one’s thirtieth birthday. And as you can see, we’re struggling.”
“Thirty? Really? You look great for thirty!” the girl said enthusiastically. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-four. “I can only hope I look so good then.”
Thankfully, Leigh stepped in before Emmy could say anything truly nasty and said, “Yeah, she does, doesn’t she? We’re ready to order.”
The waitress grinned while taking their orders and bounced off, convinced she’d just made someone’s day.
“Bitch,” Emmy hissed under her breath. “May her huge, perky boobs give her back pain by thirty.”
Adriana slapped the table. “Did you see her sun damage? Please! That girl is going to look like a leathery hag when she turns thirty. Her boobs are the least of her problems.”
“I don’t know what you two were looking at, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair,” Leigh said.
“Her hair? What was wrong with her hair?” Emmy asked.
“Well, there is nothing wrong with it now, but you can just see she’s going to be the thinning type. I sure wouldn’t want to be thirty with a receding hairline and a thinned-out center part.”
All three girls laughed.
“Yeah, well, you’re right…. That was probably long overdue,” Emmy said, picking up right where they’d left off before the unfortunate waitress incident. “It’s just weird how everything unfolds, you know? I wanted nothing more than for Duncan to come back and declare his undying love for me, for us to run off into the sunset together, for him to realize what a horrible mistake he’d made, and then, the moment exactly that happens, all I want is for him to get hit by a bus. Is that normal?”
“Perfectly,” Adriana said. “Don’t you think, Leigh?” Adriana had tried to incorporate Leigh into the conversation earlier, but she hadn’t said much of anything, had just sat there with a distracted smile and occasionally murmured a “hmm.”
“Definitely,” Leigh said now, turning to Adriana. “Our little girl is growing up! I think it’s so—” The sound of Leigh’s cell phone stopped her midsentence.
Adriana watched as she pulled it from her bag, checked the caller ID, and hit Ignore. “Jesse again?” she asked.
Leigh nodded. “You’d think he’d get the message by now. I haven’t returned a single call since he got back from Indonesia.”
“Yes, querida? And exactly what message is that?” Of course she couldn’t be so blunt about it to her friends, but Adriana had been thrilled when Emmy had called with the news of Leigh’s affair and subsequent breakup with Russell. Not that she didn’t adore Russell—everyone adored Russell. But she adored Leigh more and wanted the very best for her. Now an affair? With a married man? Who also happened to be brilliant, volatile, and wildly inappropriate in myriad other ways? This was a wonderfully unexpected step in the right direction. If only Leigh could see it that way, too….
“That what happened between us was a mistake, a onetime thing that happened months ago, for chrissake, and that we really don’t need to talk about. I just don’t understand why he has to make this harder than it is.”
Emmy laughed. “Sweetheart, you can’t blame the guy for recognizing that this is a little more complicated than that, can you? Does he know you ended things with Russell?”
Leigh’s head whipped up. “Of course not,” she said curtly. “What happened between Russell and me had nothing to do with Jesse.”
Adriana snorted. The girl was delusional! When was she going to be able to just admit she was madly in love with the wrong guy? Adriana began to plot her next column; if her perfectly sane and rational friend could be so blind, other women must suffer as well. Perhaps she could call it “Deluded Thinking: A Primer.” Or maybe “Why I Insist on Lying to Myself.” Yes, that could work nicely.
Leigh glared at her. “What?”
“Do you really believe that, querida?”
“Yes, actually, I really do. Because it’s true! Russell and I were”—she paused here, searching for the right words—“having problems long before I even met Jesse. I might concede—might—that what happened with Jesse helped open my eyes to what was going on with Russell, but even that’s a stretch. I slept with Jesse because I was feeling lonely and probably a little bit scared of what was happening between Russell and me. It was a lapse in judgment during a particularly vulnerable time in my life. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Emmy and Adriana exchanged looks.
“What? What are you two looking at each other for?”
Adriana was grateful when Emmy took the reins with her most soothing tone and diplomatic word choice. “We’re not saying you don’t think that’s true, but…well…does that mean it has to be true for Jesse, too?”
“And it doesn’t take a shrink to see that you look about a thousand times more relaxed than usual,” Adriana chimed in.
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Look, you two, you know I love you both, but this is getting ridiculous! Regardless of how I feel—felt—about Jesse, you’re both overlooking a rather important detail. Stay with me here, okay? Jesse. Chapman. Is. Married. Married, as in committed for life to another woman. Married, as in sleeping with me makes him a liar and a cheater whom my best friends should not be encouraging me to pursue. Married, as in—”
Adriana held up a hand. Nothing bothered her more than when Leigh went all preachy and puritanical on her. “All right, all right, we get it,” she said.
A different server appeared, a man this time, carrying a tray of food.
“Oh, no! I hope we didn’t scare off your colleague,” Emmy said. “We were being sort of obnoxious.”
The waiter looked at her strangely and began to auction off the food. “Lapsang Souchong Smoked Chicken Breast Salad with dressing on the side?” He placed it in front of Leigh. “And two Mad Hatters, with the scones and sandwiches at the same time, as requested. Your tea will be right out. Can I get you ladies anything else?”
“A husband? A baby? Some sort of life?” Emmy asked. “Any of those on the menu?”
He backed away from the table slowly, like she was a wild animal. “I, uh, I’ll be back to check on you. Enjoy,” he mumbled as he bolted.
“Christ, Emmy, get ahold of yourself. You’re scaring people,” Adriana admonished, although she secretly found the whole thing extremely entertaining.
Emmy sighed. “What else is new?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this past week,” Leigh said, looking across the table at her friends. Adriana thought this inauspicious. Leigh’s “thinking” almost always resulted in the type of decision that only made her unhappier. Adriana prepared herself for the sentence that would surely begin, “I’m thinking I should…”
“I’m thinking I should go back to school,” she said quietly.
“What?” Adriana screeched. Where could this possibly be stemming from? School? “Why on earth would you do that?”
Leigh smiled. “Because I’ve always wanted to,” she said.
“You have?” Emmy asked.
Leigh no
dded. “For an MFA in creative writing. I wanted to go right after graduation—remember?—but my dad got me that assistant job at Brook Harris, and kept saying that no good editor—or writer for that matter—needed an advanced degree, that the best thing I could do for my career was to get started on it.” She laughed bitterly. “What we both failed to consider was that this wasn’t the career I wanted.”
“But, Leigh, sweetheart, you’re so good at it! Just seconds away from a huge promotion, working with a huge bestselling author—”
Leigh interrupted Emmy. “Worked with. Past tense.”
Adriana sighed. Leigh could be so dramatic sometimes! “Just because you had sex with him does not mean you can’t edit him, Leigh. If every single person refused to work with someone they’d slept with, the entire world economy would shut down.”
“I agree,” Leigh said. “We probably could’ve gotten over it. And god knows Henry wouldn’t have cared, so long as that manuscript was in on time. I just meant it was past tense because I quit already. Yesterday.”
“Stop it!” Emmy shouted. A group of middle-aged tourists turned to stare at them. “You’re joking,” she whispered.
“How come you didn’t tell me yesterday, when we were shopping?” Adriana asked, gripping Leigh’s arm. “Did you just forget to mention it?”
“I needed some time to process it. I told Henry that I wasn’t in any rush, I’d stay as long as it took for a seamless transition, but that I was definitely leaving.”
“Ohmigod,” Emmy breathed.
“How did he take it?” Adriana asked. She she couldn’t help being the teensiest bit upset that Leigh had upstaged her. After all, she had her own exciting news to announce.
“He was pretty surprised. Said he’d been getting bizarre calls from Jesse for weeks saying that he had done something—an unnamed something—that had probably made me uncomfortable, that it was entirely his fault, that it would never happen again, and apparently begged Henry not to hand him over to another editor.”
“Well, that was nice of him. You don’t think Henry knows, do you?” Emmy asked.
Chasing Harry Winston Page 30