‘Gee, I don’t know,’ Leigh said. ‘Sounds like a shitty deal to me.’
‘Yeah, seriously. Fucking miserable. A free three-bedroom, its only responsibility a once-weekly trip to the post office. Christ, Adriana, how could you even suggest it?’
‘Please, querida! The post office? Uch! We have an arrangement with UPS; they come to the apartment, pick up the mail bundle, package it, and ship it. You’ll only need to collect it from the lobby mailbox,’ Adriana said in her best isn’t-it-obvious voice.
Leigh slammed her hands against the table. ‘Holy shit, it just occurred to me. The penthouse means the top floor.’
‘Stating the obvious, Leigh,’ Adriana said.
‘And the top floor means no one banging on the ceiling! Ohmigod!’ she started to laugh and cry at the same time. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about anything in my entire life!’
Emmy made a dramatic show of raising her arms and staring at the ceiling. ‘Penthouse A, here we come!’
‘And you, Adriana?’ Leigh asked. ‘Where, my dear, are you going to live while Emmy and I sleep in blissful nonclomping silence? Do I sense some cohabitation in your immediate future?’
Adriana smiled. This might be the best part of all. ‘Well, Toby did ask me to move in with him,’ she said as the girls clapped, ‘and while things are going really well with us – surprisingly well, actually – I think that’s even more reason not to jump into anything.’ She stopped, sipped her tea, and pretended to ponder something. ‘So … I’m going to take the money I’ll earn from the consultant project and the columns and rent my very own little apartment in Venice Beach. Just a little studio, as close to the beach as possible. Near the farmers’ market, I think.’
Emmy turned to Leigh and sighed. ‘Leigh, do you believe it? Our little girl is growing up. Doing everything all on her own!’
Adriana held up her hands for silence. ‘Not so fast, querida. I do have one favor to ask of you, and it’s a big one.’ She could feel herself tense up, praying that Emmy would say yes.
Emmy peered at her with curiosity. ‘A big one, huh? Bigger than Penthouse A? Hit me, Adi.’
‘I was hoping you might let me, uh, borrow Otis for the year? Oh, Emmy, I know he’s your pet, and I know it’s crazy to drag the poor thing across the country, but we’ve just bonded so much these past few weeks. In a weird way – and please don’t laugh at me for this – I think of him as my good-luck charm. My life just sort of fell into place when he arrived. Would you mind terribly?’ Adriana knew Emmy wouldn’t mind – would in fact be ecstatic that she wanted to keep him – but there was no harm in letting Emmy think she was pulling one over on her, right? It was a small gift for a best friend.
‘Hmm,’ Emmy murmured, pretending to mull this over. ‘I guess it would be okay. I mean, who am I to stand in the way of someone’s good-luck charm? If you’d like to take Otis with you, then by all means, he’s yours.’
‘To Otis,’ Leigh said, raising her teacup.
‘To Emmy on her birthday. In the immortal words of our waitress, may everyone look so good at thirty!’ Adriana added, holding her teacup aloft.
Emmy was the last to raise her cup and clink it with her friends’. ‘To the three ringless wonders. May we be every bit as wonderful but hopefully not so ringless in another thirty years.’
‘I’ll toast to that!’ Leigh said.
‘Me, too,’ Adriana added, filled with excitement about everything that lay ahead. ‘Cheers, queridas. Cheers to us.’
it’d be nauseating if it weren’t so goddamn cute
Three Months Later
‘Emmy!’ Leigh called from Adriana’s old bedroom, which with the addition of her fluffy down comforter, a cluster of silver picture frames, and her favorite reading chair she had easily made her own. ‘The car’s downstairs. We’re going to be late!’
She heard her friend stomping back and forth between rooms, inevitably packing every item that wasn’t nailed down. ‘Have you seen my Nano? Or my phone charger? I can’t fucking find anything!’
Leigh zipped up her neatly packed carry-on roller and carefully placed the matching satchel on top of it. She ran through a mental checklist and, after satisfying herself that she hadn’t forgotten anything, pulled her belongings into the hallway. She walked into Emmy’s room – previously the de Souzas’ guest room – went directly to her dresser, and plucked both Nano and phone charger from the giant glass fishbowl Emmy used as a catchall. ‘Here. Throw these in your purse and let’s go. We are not missing this flight!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Emmy mumbled, yanking a brush through her hair. ‘This is an obscene hour to be awake, never mind actually moving. I’m doing the best I can.’
It took another fifteen minutes to get Emmy out the door and ten more for the car to circle around the block, pick them up, and head to JFK. They were exactly thirty minutes behind Leigh’s preferred schedule – just because the airlines suggested you should be there two hours beforehand didn’t mean that two and a half wasn’t better – and normally she’d be a wreck, but today she was too excited to let anything bother her. It had been almost three months since they’d last seen Adriana, sent her off with a blowout going-away dinner at the Waverly Inn with twenty-five of her nearest and dearest friends, and they were finally headed west for a visit.
Once Adriana moved, Emmy hadn’t even bothered giving thirty days’ notice on her apartment; she just paid two months’ rent and moved out immediately. Leigh expected it would take some time to sell her place – after all, it had taken her over a year to find it – but the broker called two days after the first viewing to say they had an offer. She ended up selling it to the very first couple who saw the place (newly engaged, naturally, and giddy with excitement) at twelve percent more than she’d purchased it for a year earlier. Even less the broker’s commission, Leigh earned enough on her initial investment to finance a few months’ worth of doing absolutely, positively nothing – or at least nothing constructive – before she began school in September.
‘So, do you think we’ll go to the Ivy?’ Emmy asked, cradling her Starbucks thermos between her hands. ‘I mean, I know it’s hideously clichéd and trite and all that, but it is our evaluation brunch. I sort of think we have to go for it.’
Despite the predawn hour, Emmy couldn’t seem to stop talking.
‘I don’t know,’ Leigh said, hoping she wouldn’t encourage her.
‘Can you believe it’s been a year since that first dinner at the Waverly Inn?’ Emmy asked.
‘I know. Crazy, isn’t it? It feels like yesterday.’
‘Yesterday? You’re fucking nuts. It feels more like a decade ago. This must have been the slowest year of my life. It’s as though time just stood still. Like I’m living in this complete warped time freeze of—’
‘Em, sweetheart, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I need you to stop talking. Just until we get there,’ Leigh said.
Emmy held up a hand and nodded. ‘Enough said. No offense taken. I have no idea why I get like this. It’s like exhaustion and this compulsive need to talk go hand in hand. The more tired I am, the chattier—’
‘Please.’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’
Leigh’s phone rang. She got that flippy feeling in her stomach when she saw the caller ID. ‘Hi!’ she breathed into the phone. ‘What are you doing up so early?’
‘What would you say if I told you I set the alarm just so I could wish you a safe trip?’ Jesse asked, sounding tired but happy.
‘I’d say you were a giant liar and that you should tell me the real story.’
He laughed and Leigh felt herself start to grin. Just the sound of his laugh was enough to make her feel giddy with excitement. ‘Well, in that case, you probably already know I’ve been up all night. Literally, just sitting here, waiting to call you.’
‘The up all night I’ll believe, but try again on the waiting.’ She turned to see Emmy glaring at her while flapping her hands open a
nd closed to imitate talking. Leigh smiled and blew her a silent kiss.
‘All right, you got me. Up until three writing, then from three to six playing Grand Theft Auto, then coffee, then calling. More believable?’ he asked.
‘Much.’
With any other man, she would’ve been horrified to discover a video-game addiction. It had even once been on her list of nonnegotiable deal-breakers (right there alongside excessive back hair and/or sweating, a penchant for bathroom humor, and any type of religious fundamentalism), but despite her ardent attempts at disapproval (mocking, eye-rolling, relentless teasing), she secretly found it adorable. And truth be told, she rather liked it when he let her choose the gang-bangers’ outfits at the beginning of each game. Was this love? She wasn’t ready to say that yet, but damn, it had to be close.
‘Are you in the car?’ he asked.
Leigh sighed, picturing him stretched out under the covers, getting ready to sleep for a few hours before hitting up Estia’s for his late-morning rounds. ‘Yeah. We’re actually almost there, so I should go. I miss you.’
‘I miss you,’ Emmy whispered. ‘Oh, Jesse, baby, I miss you so much. How can I live without seeing you for an entire four days? Ohmigod, like two star-crossed lovers.’ Leigh reached over to poke her friend, but Emmy managed to flatten herself against the car door.
‘What’s she saying?’ Jesse asked.
‘Nothing at all.’ Leigh laughed. ‘I’ll call you when we land, okay? Get some sleep.’ She resisted making a kissing sound into the phone for Emmy’s benefit.
‘My god, it’d be nauseating if it weren’t so goddamn cute,’ Emmy said with a long, dramatic sigh.
It was nauseating, Leigh knew this, but she was too happy to care. Jesse had called incessantly for two straight months after ‘the incident,’ as they both now called it; he e-mailed, left messages with her assistant, texted her phone three, four, fives times a day. She screened him each and every time, not wanting to confuse her already screwed-up life any more. Just because it felt complicated didn’t mean it was; regardless of how many times he called or apologized or tried to explain himself, the fact remained that Jesse was married. Period. She’d made a big enough mistake already just by sleeping with him; she didn’t need to make everything worse by getting further involved.
Which worked, all said and done, until she decided to leave Brook Harris. She was still going into the office every day, but it was only to help transition her authors to their new editors. Henry had wisely taken Jesse on himself and, in that way that only an über-experienced editor can, had coaxed Jesse into cleaning up the writing without mortally offending him. When she read the galley, Leigh could only shake her head at its improvement: Jesse surely had another huge hit on his hands. Leigh had even managed to keep him mostly out of mind until the day he e-mailed her in all caps. It had no subject line and read, ‘MEET ME AT THE ASTOR PLACE STARBUCKS TONIGHT @ 7 P.M. I JUST WANT TEN MINUTES. AFTER THAT, I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE IF YOU WISH. PLEASE COME. J.’
Leigh did what any sane female faced with such an e-mail would do: deleted it to resist the temptation of replying, cleared her trash to resist the temptation of recalling it, and then called tech support to restore all her recently deleted e-mails. She briefly toyed with the idea of forwarding it to Adriana and Emmy for input and analysis, but then ultimately decided it would be a total waste of time; obviously, she would go.
By the time she arrived at Starbucks that night – a Monday, no less! – she was a wreck. Second-guessing herself like crazy, reminding herself what an absolute moron she was for even entertaining the idea of talking to Jesse, ex-lover and ex-author extraordinaire. What was the point? So she liked him – so what? There, she’d admitted it to herself. What did she want for that, some sort of prize? It only made it stupider and more masochistic to subject herself to such a meeting, one that would surely bring even more disappointment in an already less-than-stellar month. The fact that Jesse finally arrived, ten minutes late, flanked by an Asian girl so young she could be his daughter did not improve Leigh’s outlook.
‘Leigh,’ he said with a huge smile, holding his hand out to her. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Mmm,’ she replied, not standing up to greet either of them. Not that there was any need to stand – the smiling girl was pulling up a chair, and soon she and Jesse were both seated across from Leigh.
‘Tuti, I’d like you to meet Leigh. Leigh, this is Tuti … my wife.’
Leigh’s eyes shot first to Jesse, who appeared not the least bit uncomfortable, and then back to the girl, who upon further inspection Leigh decided was probably even younger than she’d first thought, although not as pretty. Tuti had beautiful thick black hair, but it was cut in an awkward shape for her full face. ‘Oh dear god,’ Leigh said aloud before she could stop herself.
Tuti giggled sweetly, and Leigh saw that she had a significant overbite. Had this happened under any other circumstances, Leigh thought she would have found this girl adorable. Charming, even. But tonight? Like this? It was more than she could bear.
‘Tuti, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve, uh—’ She was automatically going to say ‘heard a lot about you,’ but it was too fraught with meaning. Instead, she said, ‘I hate to run, but I was just stopping by.’
With this announcement, Tuti’s face fell. ‘So soon?’ she asked with a frown. ‘Okay, then I am going to get something to drink and leave you two alone. Leigh, Jesse? Something?’
Jesse patted her shoulder and shook his head no, and Tuti scampered off toward the counter.
‘What were you thinking, bringing her here?’ Leigh heard herself ask, as though her brain and mouth were no longer in contact. She popped three Nicorettes into her mouth and waited for the calm to wash over her. ‘No, don’t answer that. I don’t care what you were thinking. I just want to go.’ She began to gather her things, but Jesse clamped his hand down over her arm.
‘She’s twenty-three and from Indonesia. Island of Bali, village of Ubud. I ended up there about a year after Disenchantment was published, went with a group of super-rich Europeans for a month-long party at someone’s daddy’s house. That was all well and good until one of them overdosed, and then the next day al Qaeda blew up that nightclub in Bali.’
Leigh nodded. She remembered that.
‘Needless to say, the party moved on, but something kept me there. I left Kuta, the city of the bombing, and headed inland, toward the mountains and the rice-paddy villages, where I’d read all of the artists and craftsmen and writers of Bali live. And sure enough, Ubud was just overflowing with them. The place was incredible! Every day was a festival of some sort, a huge, brightly colored celebration of the seasons or a holiday or a life event. And the people! My god, they were gorgeous. So welcoming, so open. Tuti’s father and I became friends. He’s only four years older than me, and he has her …’ At this, Jesse shook his head. ‘He’s a talented woodworker, more of an artisan really. We met one day when I went to his shop, and he invited me home for dinner. Beautiful family. To make a long story much, much shorter, I owe Tuti’s father a great deal. He got me back on track with my life – in a lot of ways he saved it, I think – so I didn’t really have a second thought when he asked me to marry Tuti.’
Leigh wasn’t sure where this story was headed, but she was fascinated – not to mention it now made perfect sense why the tabloids hadn’t gotten hold of the story. Damned if she was going to show him that, though; instead, she took a sip of her coffee, tried to appear aloof, and said, ‘She’s very sweet, Jesse. I can see why you married her.’ What she didn’t say was Why are you telling me this?
Jesse laughed. ‘Leigh, I was being quite literal when I said I married Tuti because her father is very dear to me, and he asked me to. She was a child – still is – and I’m unspeakably fond of her, but we’ve never had a romantic relationship, and certainly never will.’
‘Ah, yes, well, that makes perfect sense.’ She didn’t want to go the sarcastic route, but this
whole situation was so confusing.
‘After nine-eleven, the U.S. placed Indonesia on its short list of terrorist countries. So even though the island of Bali is ninety-eight percent Hindu – as opposed to the rest of the country, which is the same percentage Muslim – Tuti was denied a visa to so much as visit America. Her parents worked their entire lives to send her to the States for an education – as they did with her older brother – but the new political situation made it impossible. That’s where I came in.’
‘You married her so she could get a visa?’ Leigh asked, shocked. Didn’t that only happen in the movies?
‘I did.’
Leigh could only shake her head in disbelief.
‘Do you really find it that appalling?’ Jesse asked. ‘This is why I didn’t want to get into it before now.’
‘I don’t think appalling is the word I’d use, but it’s definitely … weird.’ Leigh peered at him, examined his face. ‘Didn’t you ever want to get married one day to someone you actually love? Or was that not even a consideration?’
‘I know this probably sounds strange to you, but to be perfectly honest, no, that was not a consideration. I’d recently come off this massively successful first book, and I was all caught up in the traveling and partying and women; marriage was the last thing on my mind. What was I really sacrificing by marrying Tuti in name only? She lives with three room-mates in a walk-up on the Lower East Side. Goes to school at night, has a new boyfriend who seems like a nice kid. I take her out for lunch twice a month, and she loves bringing her laundry to my apartment because my cleaning lady does it for her. It’s like having a niece, or a little sister. And it’s never had any kind of negative impact on my life … until now.’