Chasing Harry Winston

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 nodded. “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.”