Chasing Harry Winston

“What?” Emmy asked. She said it petulantly, like a stubborn, curious child.

“I think you’re really, really going to like it.”

“What? Tell me! What?”

“Well, I was wondering if you wouldn’t want to live in my apartment while I’m gone. And”-she paused dramatically and turned to Leigh, who was just staring at her-“you, too, querida. I didn’t realize you two were planning to live together, but what could be more perfect than my place? I spoke to my parents and they were thrilled about Emmy staying there, and I’m sure they’ll love it even more if you’d both be there. Three bedrooms, rent-free, of course, with only two caveats: You have to send them their mail wherever they are once a week, and you have to deal with their occasional visit to New York. Which should be significantly less frequent since I won’t be here. What do you both think?”

“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 cliched 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?”