“That is exactly what I am saying.” Adriana nodded.
Emmy sighed and sat back in her chair. “I agree.”
At the same time, in nearly the same disbelieving tone, Leigh and Adriana asked, “You do?”
“Of course. I’ve had some time to do a little self-examination, and I’ve arrived at the same conclusion. There’s only one logical way to proceed: I am going to have sex with random men. All sorts and sizes and colors of random men. All kinds of sex, for that matter.” She paused and looked at Adriana. “The level of my planned whoredom will make you proud.”
Adriana gazed back and wondered if she had heard her friend correctly. She concluded that she had, but she must have missed the sarcasm somewhere along the line—this declaration was inconceivable. She said what she always did when she had no idea what else to say. “Fabulous, querida. Just fabulous. I adore the whole idea.”
Leigh used her knife to push a bit of tuna and a slice of cucumber onto the tip of her fork and elegantly brought it to her mouth. A quiet crunch, a couple of chews, and she swallowed. “Emmy, sweetheart. We were just kidding, you know. I think it’s great you haven’t been with a lot of guys. When someone asks you how many people you’ve slept with, you don’t even have to divide by three! Now, isn’t that nice? To not have to lie?”
“I’m really not kidding about this,” Emmy said. She made eye contact with the waiter as he passed by their table and ordered three glasses of champagne when he approached. “This is the start of my new life, and trust me, it’s long overdue. First thing I’m going to do on Monday is call up Chef Massey and tell him I’m accepting the job. What job? you might wonder. The one where they want to pay me boatloads of money and give me a huge expense account so I can travel all over the world and stay in the nicest hotels and eat in the best restaurants for inspiration. Inspiration! For new menu ideas. Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? And who’s the fucking idiot who’s been saying no the last two months because she didn’t want to desert her poor, lonely boyfriend? Yours truly. Didn’t want poor baby Duncan to feel abandoned and unloved while I jetted off somewhere fabulous. So yes, this time I’m going to call him up and take that job, and then I’m going to fuck every single solitary appealing man I meet. Foreign, sexy, beautiful men. And I do mean every last one. How does that sound, girls? Acceptable?” The waiter returned with their champagne. “So please, let’s toast.”
Adriana made a noise that for anyone less beautiful could only be called a snort but coming from her sounded exotic and feminine. Both girls turned to look and she suddenly felt out of sorts. Her friend had just announced plans for a major life change while she herself had been coasting effortlessly along the same path for years. Was Adriana’s role as the group’s jet-setting partyer in jeopardy, or had she just had one too many drinks? There was something unsettling about Emmy’s proclamation. And if there was one way Adriana was not accustomed to feeling, it was unsettled.
She held up her glass and forced a smile.
Emmy smiled back and said, “There’s just one condition. I want company.”
“Company?” Leigh asked. She gnawed her bottom lip, catching a flake of skin between her front teeth. She looked anxious. Adriana wondered why the girl always looked nervous these days, especially since everything was going so beautifully for her.
“Yes. Company. I’m willing to completely slut out if you”—Emmy pointed to Adriana—“agree to have a committed, monogamous relationship. With a man of your own choosing, of course.”
Adriana inhaled. She incorporated one of her favorite moves, which consisted of absentmindedly touching a fingertip to her lips, letting it rest there for a moment, and then graze along to the spot right below her left ear. It prompted four men at the adjoining table to stare and Nicholas to come running. She felt that familiar thrill of being watched.
The girls ordered main courses, another round of drinks, and a plate of the truffle mac and cheese to share.
“So? What do you say?” Emmy asked.
“Did my mother put you up to this?”
“Yes, sweetheart. It was all your mom’s idea for me to pledge to fall into bed with every man I meet over the course of the next year just so you’ll agree to date only one person. She’s a clever one,” Emmy said.
“Come on, people, let’s be serious for a minute,” Leigh said. “Neither one of you will actually go through with this, so can we change the subject? Emmy, you made your point. If you want to dive headfirst into another five-year relationship, that’s certainly your prerogative. And Adriana, it’s more likely that you’ll become an astronaut than date only one man. Next topic.”
“It’s not like I dared her to do something really drastic, like get a job….” Emmy grinned.
Adriana forced a return smile even though she found it difficult to laugh at herself, especially when the jokes concerned her lack of employment. Her mother’s irritating voice reverberated in her head. “Wow. Playing hardball, are we, querida? Well, guess what? I accept your challenge.”
“You what?” Emmy asked, furiously twisting a lock of hair.
Leigh’s glass halted halfway to her mouth. “You’ll do it?”
“I said I’ll do it. When do we start?”
Emmy bit off an asparagus end, chewed daintily, swallowed. “I say we take a little time to figure out the terms. By the end of next weekend, we’ll agree to have a plan?”
Adriana nodded. “Done. And that will give you”—she waved her champagne glass in Leigh’s direction—“a chance to figure out what your resolution will be.”
“Me?” Leigh’s recently plucked brows furrowed. “A resolution? Why? It’s not even New Year’s. Just because you two are crazy doesn’t mean I have to be.”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “Leigh? Please. What does she need to change? Perfect job, perfect boyfriend, perfect apartment, perfect nuclear family…” Emmy’s voice became nasal and singsongy. “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” she chanted, and dismissed Leigh’s look of displeasure as momentary crankiness.
“Yes, that may be so,” Adriana said, looking only at Leigh. “But she’ll have to come up with something. You can do that, can’t you, Leigh? Think of one single aspect of your life that you’d like to change? To work on?”
“Of course I can,” Leigh said in a snippy tone. “I’m sure there are a million things.”
Adriana and Emmy exchanged looks, each knowing what the other was thinking: Leigh might have all her ducks in a row, but it wouldn’t kill the girl to loosen up a little and enjoy herself.
“Well, you have two weeks to choose one, querida,” Adriana announced in her huskily authoritative voice. “In the meantime, let’s toast.”
Emmy hoisted her glass like it was a lead paperweight. “To us,” she announced. “By next summer, I will have prostituted myself out to half of Manhattan and Adriana will have discovered the joys of monogamy. And Leigh will have…done something.”
“Cheers!” Adriana called out, again attracting the attention of half the restaurant. “To us.”
Leigh clinked her glass halfheartedly. “To us.”
“We are totally, completely, royally fucked,” Emmy leaned in and stage-whispered.
Adriana threw her head back, half with delight and half out of habit, for effect. “One hundred percent screwed,” she laughed. “Pun intended, of course.”
“Can we get out of here before we begin a shame spiral the likes of which none of us has ever known? Please?” Leigh begged. The red wine Nicholas had comped them was starting to give her a headache and she knew it was only a matter of time—minutes, probably—before her friends moved from charmingly buzzed to loudly drunk.
Adriana and Emmy exchanged looks again and giggled.
“Come on, Marcia,” Adriana said, shimmying her way to a standing position while pulling on Leigh’s forearm. “We might just teach you to have some fun yet.”
if you think it’s too big, you don’t deserve it
“Come to bed, baby. It?
??s almost one—don’t you think it’s time to call it a night?” Russell pulled off his T-shirt and turned on his side to face Leigh, resting his head full of black curls on his right hand. He rubbed the sheets with his left hand and patted them a little, a gesture that was meant to be tempting, appealing, but that Leigh always found a little threatening.
“I just have a few more pages. Is the light bothering you? I can move to the living room.”
He sighed and picked up his book, Strength Training Anatomy. “It’s not the light, sweetheart, and you know that. It’s the fact that we haven’t fallen asleep together in weeks. I just miss you.”
Her first thought was that he sounded like a whiny, petulant child; this was, after all, one of the most sought-after manuscripts of the year, and it was crucial that she have it read for the next morning’s acquisitions meeting. It had taken eight impossibly long years of dedicated hard work to finally—finally!—be within striking distance of senior editor (there were, after all, only six at Brook Harris, and she could potentially be the youngest one), and Russell seemed to think that after a year of dating he was entitled to commandeer her entire life. She wasn’t the one who had asked him to stay over tonight, who had just shown up on his doorstep on her way from her weekly poker game, long lashes all a-flutter and all Baby, I just had to see you.
Next thought: She was the most horrid, unappreciative, ungrateful bitch alive for even thinking such things about Russell. She certainly wasn’t this resentful a year ago. When he approached her at the book party Brook Harris was throwing in honor of Bill Parcells (who had just written a memoir of his years as the Cowboys’ coach), she recognized him instantly. Not that she ever watched ESPN—she didn’t—but with his boyish smile and dimples and reputation as one of the most desirable bachelors in Manhattan, she knew enough to be extra charming when he introduced himself. They’d talked for hours that night, first at the party and then over Amstels at Pete’s Tavern. He had been almost shockingly up-front about being sick of the dating scene in New York, how he was over dating models and actresses and was ready to meet, in his words, a “real girl,” implying, of course, that Leigh was a perfect candidate. Naturally, she was honored by the attention: Who wouldn’t want Russell Perrin pursuing her? He fulfilled every single little box on every single checklist she’d drafted in the last ten years. He was, by all accounts, exactly the kind of man she hoped to find but never actually thought she would.
Now here she was, almost a year into a relationship with a gorgeous guy who also just happened to be sensitive, kind, caring, and madly in love with her, and all she felt was smothered. It was abundantly obvious to everyone else in Leigh’s life that she had finally met The One; why wasn’t it clearer to her? As if to drive this point home, Russell turned her face to his, looked into her eyes, and said, “Leigh, sweetheart. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Leigh answered automatically, without a second’s hesitation, although a third-party observer—even a perfect stranger—might have questioned the sincerity behind her declaration. What were you supposed to do when someone you liked and respected very much, someone you wanted to get to know better, announced after two months of otherwise casual dating that he was head over heels in love with you? You did what any confrontation-averse person would do and said “I love you, too” right back. Leigh figured she’d grow into those words eventually, be able to say them with more conviction once they got to know each other better. It upset her that a year later she was still waiting.
She forced herself to look up from the page and assumed a syrupy-sweet voice. “I know it’s been really hectic lately, but it’s like clockwork every year: The second the calendar hits June, everything turns chaotic. I promise it won’t last forever.”
Leigh held her breath and waited for him to explode (which so far had never happened), waited for Russell to tell her he wouldn’t tolerate being patronized and that he didn’t appreciate being spoken to like she was the parent and he was the toddler who had just mashed peanut butter into the carpet.
Instead, he smiled. And not a smile filled with resentment or resignation; it was genuine, full of understanding, and impossibly apologetic. “I don’t mean to pressure you, baby. I know how much you love your job, and I want you to enjoy it while you can. Take your time and come to bed whenever you’re ready.”
“While I can?” Leigh’s head snapped up. “Are you really bringing that up again at one in the morning?”
“No, sweetheart, I’m not bringing that up again. You’ve made it perfectly clear that San Francisco is not in your plans for right now—but I’d really like it if you weren’t so closed-minded about it. It would be an incredible opportunity, you know.”
“For you,” Leigh said, sulkily as a child.
“For both of us.”
“Russell, we haven’t even been together a year. I think it’s a little early to start talking about moving across the country together.” The level of annoyance in her voice surprised them both.
“It’s never too early when you love someone, Leigh,” he said, his own voice even and steady. This very evenness, which had appealed to her so much in the beginning, could now infuriate her; his refusal to get mad, his complete mastery of his emotions, made her wonder if he ever even heard what she was saying.
“Let’s not talk about it now, okay?” she asked.
He sat up and slid to the end of the bed, closer to the corner where Leigh had placed her comfy reading chair and soft white-light reading lamp. The oversized down comforter—the one she’d spent weeks searching for, testing every brand on the market for softness and puffiness—slid to the floor and nearly knocked the bonsai tree off the nightstand. Russell didn’t appear to notice. “Why don’t I make you some tea?” he asked.
Again Leigh felt like she needed to harness every ounce of willpower not to scream. She didn’t want to go to bed. She didn’t want tea. She just wanted him to stop talking.
She took a deep breath, slowly, without being obvious about it. “Thanks, but I’m really fine. Just give me a few more minutes, okay?”
He gazed at her with an understanding smile before bounding out of bed and wrapping her in a bear hug. She felt her body stiffen; she couldn’t help it. Russell just hugged harder and sneaked his face into the crook of her neck, wedging it in just above her shoulder and under her chin. His five o’clock shadow scratched her skin and she squirmed.
“Does it tickle?” He laughed. “My dad’s always said I’d eventually have to shave twice a day, but I never wanted to believe him.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m going to get some water. Want some?”
“Sure,” Leigh said, although she didn’t. She turned her attention back to the manuscript and had worked her way through half a page when Russell called from the kitchen.
“Where do you keep the honey?”
“The what?” she yelled back.
“The honey. I’m making us tea and I want to make it with warm milk and honey. Do you have any?”
She took a deep breath. “It’s in the cabinet above the microwave.”
He returned moments later with a mug in each hand and a bag of Newman’s Own chocolate chip cookies between his teeth. “Take a break, baby. I promise I’ll leave you alone after a midnight snack.”
Midnight? Leigh thought. It’s one-thirty in the morning and I have to be up in five and a half hours. Not to mention that not everyone has the naturally toned body of an elite college athlete and can afford to chow cookies at all hours.
She bit into a cookie and remembered all the years in her early and mid-twenties that she had wanted this scene so badly: the doting boyfriend, the romantic late-night picnic, the comfortable apartment filled with all the things she loved. Back then it had felt almost impossible or, at least, very far away; now she had it all, but the reality didn’t feel anything like the fantasy.
With cookies barely swallowed and tea still unfinished, Russell curled himself around a pillow and promptly fell
into an intensely deep and restful sleep. Who slept like that? It never ceased to amaze Leigh. He claimed it came from a childhood surrounded by chaos, from learning to sleep through the clamor of two parents, two sisters, a live-in nanny, and three chatty beagles. Perhaps. But Leigh figured it had more to do with his clear conscience and his clean living and, if she was going to be really honest, with the fact that his life just wasn’t really all that stressful. How hard would it be to sleep like a baby if your daily routine included two hours of exercise (an hour of weights and an hour of cardio) and lacked caffeine, sugar, preservatives, white flour, and trans fats? If you taped a weekly thirty-minute show on a subject (sports) you loved innately just by virtue of being male, and had a team of writers and producers who put it all together for you to read? If you had healthy and productive relationships with both family and friends, all of whom loved and admired you for just being yourself? It was enough to make a person sick, or at the very least resentful, which, if she was being perfectly frank, it often made Leigh.
Tonight it succeeded only in making Leigh desperately want a cigarette. No matter that she’d quit nearly a year ago, right when she and Russell started dating; not a day went by that she didn’t desperately yearn for a nice long drag. Smokers always waxed poetic about the ritual of it, how a large part of the satisfaction was packing the box and pulling the foil wrapper and plucking an aromatic stick. They claimed they loved the lighting, the ashing, the feeling of being able to hold something between their fingers. That was all well and good, but there was nothing quite like actually smoking it: Leigh loved inhaling. To pull with your lips on that filter and feel the smoke drift across your tongue, down your throat, and directly into your lungs was to be transported momentarily to nirvana. She remembered—every day—how it felt after the first inhale, just as the nicotine was hitting her bloodstream. A few seconds of both tranquillity and alertness, together, in exactly the right amounts. Then the slow exhale—forceful enough so that the smoke didn’t merely seep from your mouth but not so energetic that it disrupted the moment—would complete the blissful experience.