Chasing Harry Winston

Emmy sighed. “I know I shouldn’t hate you for having a perfect body, but I do. I really, really do.”

“Darling, these, too, can be yours”-Adriana cupped her breasts and pushed them up, causing her nightie to slide up over her hips to reveal a complete Brazilian wax-“for ten grand and a few hours under Dr. Kramer’s magical hands.” She glanced down and gave them each another squeeze. “I’m so glad I had them redone when they legalized silicone. It’s so much more natural, don’t you think?”

Emmy had admired-oh, hell, she’d worshipped-Adriana’s implants since the moment she returned with them after Christmas break sophomore year. Granted, they didn’t seem so perfect when one of them began to leak four months later and Emmy had to rush Adriana to the ER and sit with her through the night as they waited for a plastic surgeon to come rebuild her sagging left breast. But now? Swapping out the saline for silicone had been a good decision-even if it had meant another four full days and nights during which Emmy had to nurse her friend. They were flawless. So curvy and full and beautiful without looking the least bit fake…Well, perhaps they looked a tiny bit fake, but only to those who knew Adriana beforehand and, as Adi herself had said, with a laugh, “Once they’re in, they’re real.” Real, fake, who really cared when they were that goddamn perfect?

Emmy had wondered a thousand times, ten thousand times, what it would be like to possess such breasts. Or, truth be told, any breasts at all. She’d always been mostly satisfied with her own slight frame, growing more pleased with her figure as she got older and realized how rare it was for a woman to stay thin naturally. Yet even though she realized how many women would kill for her metabolism, for her toothpick-thin thighs and itty-bitty bum and jiggle-free upper arms, she yearned to know how it felt to have a woman’s body, with all the softness and curves that men loved so much. When faced with breasts like Adriana’s, Emmy envisioned drawers full of sexy, lacy bras; halter dresses that could be filled out; a world rich with unpadded bikini tops; a total inability to shop in the children’s section because her chest would never fit in a little girl’s shirt. She dreamed of never hearing the “more than a handful” adage ever again, and wearing strapless dresses without stuffing them first, and having a man stare at her cleavage instead of her eyes, just once.

Of course, she’d never have the nerve to do it. Even as she examined Adriana’s chest tonight, she knew she was too much of a wimp to ever go through with it. She also understood that her attractiveness to men stemmed from her delicateness, the natural gracefulness that resulted from having such a small body, the way her physical fragility made them even more aware of their own strength and masculinity, and not from anything as overtly sexual as big, beautiful breasts.

Emmy sighed. She yanked the towel off her head and threw it on the floor. “On second thought, how do you feel about skipping dinner tonight? I can’t move.”

Adriana held her hands to her heart. “Like you even have to ask. Less food now means better bikini bod tomorrow.”

“Well put. ’Night, Adi.”

“Good night, Em. I hope your dreams are filled with gorgeous foreign men. Don’t think we just forgot about that…”

But before she could respond, Emmy was out.

At the pool on their second day of vacation Adriana could feel Leigh watching her as she pulled a cigarette from her beach bag, lit it, and languidly inhaled. It was cruel to smoke in front of someone who missed it so much, she acknowledged this, but, hell, they were on vacation. There was no reason Leigh couldn’t enjoy herself a little and quit again when she got home; after all, Adriana did it all the time.

“Want one?” Adriana asked with a wicked smile, extending her hand in the direction of Leigh’s chaise.

Leigh glared and then leaned forward. “Let me just smell it,” she said, sticking her face in the stream of smoke. She moaned, her raspy voice sounding even deeper than usual. “My god, that’s good. If I found out I had only a year or five or ten left to live, I swear to you, the very first thing I would do is buy a pack of cigarettes.”

Emmy shook her head, causing a few brown locks to come loose from her ponytail. She adjusted her bathing suit-a sporty blue two-piece that looked more like a workout outfit than a bikini-and said, “You two are disgusting with the cigarettes. Hasn’t anyone told you what a vile habit it is? Fucking gross.”

“Good morning, sunshine! You’re a joy this morning, aren’t you?” Leigh said. She drained her remaining orange juice and pulled her straw tote onto the lounge chair. “My god, I can’t wait to get some sun. Do you believe it’s already July and I haven’t been out once this summer?”

Adriana made a show of looking Leigh up and down. “Oh, you would never know,” she said. “That translucent blue color you have going on totally works for you.”

“Laugh if you must,” Leigh sang, appearing genuinely happy for the first time in weeks, “but we’ll see who’s laughing in twenty years when you’ve both had huge chunks of skin cancer gouged out of your faces and massive amounts of Botox for all those wrinkles. I almost can’t wait.”

Adriana and Emmy watched in fascination as Leigh methodically removed two bottles and one tube of sunscreen from her tote. First she applied a thick Clarins cream, SPF 50, to every exposed inch of flesh from toe to shoulder, taking care to pull back her black bikini and work the goop into the border areas around her suit. When she finished that laborious task, she misted herself all over with an aerosol can of Neutrogena, also SPF 50, to “guarantee she didn’t miss anywhere,” as she explained to her captivated audience. With her body successfully coated and sprayed, she went to work on her face, massaging small puddles of some highly coveted imported French facial sunscreen into her cheeks, chin, forehead, earlobes, eyelids, and neck. She pulled her hair into a loose bun, covered it with a straw hat the circumference of an end table, and popped on a pair of oversized wraparound black sunglasses.

“Mmm,” she sighed, stretching her arms over her head, taking care not to displace the hat. “This is wonderful.”

Adriana glanced at Emmy and rolled her eyes. They both smiled. Leigh was particular, there was no denying it, but her ritual comforted them both with its very Leigh-ness.

“Okay, girls, enough small talk. We have a subject that needs discussing,” Adriana announced. She knew Leigh wasn’t up for talking in great length about the engagement-she’d made that abundantly clear the previous beach day with her incessant anxious chatter about the new huge author she’d been assigned (just the kind of nervous chatter the girls now tuned out after so many years of hearing Leigh say “I totally failed that final” and “I’m never going to get this manuscript back on time,” only to watch her score nonstop A-pluses through college and receive promotion after promotion at work) and one-word answers about her upcoming nuptials-so Adriana decided to let her off the hook. For now.

“I don’t know about you, Leigh, but I know I want more details of Emmy’s Paris trip,” Adriana sang, looking pointedly at Emmy. “The City of Love; I’m expecting there’s plenty to tell.”

Emmy groaned and placed her paperback copy of London Is the Best City in America open-faced across her chest. “How many times do I have to say it? There’s nothing to tell.”

“Lies, all lies,” Leigh said. “You mentioned something about a guy named Paul. Which, incidentally, does not sound like a particularly foreign name to me, but perhaps you could shed some light?”

“I don’t know why you keep making me relive this,” Emmy said with an imploring look. “It’s sadistic. I told you the whole story: Paul the half-Argentine, half-Brit, who was well dressed, well traveled, and overall exceedingly charming and attractive, chose his ex-girlfriend’s birthday party over sex with yours truly.”

“I’m sure there’s another explanation. Maybe he just-”

Adriana interrupted what was surely going to be Leigh’s overly tactful, insanely delusional game of “maybe he.” “Please! There’s only one explanation for what went on that night, assuming, as we are, that Paul is both straight and male. Emmy, be honest. Did you really want to have sex with him? Did you lust after him? Really and truly crave his body?”

Emmy laughed uncomfortably. “Wow. I don’t know how to respond. I guess? Yeah, sure. I practically threw myself at him mere hours after meeting him, didn’t I?”

“And by ‘threw yourself,’ you mean ‘nervously and subtly conveyed-or tried to-that you’d entertain the idea of another drink.’ Am I right?”

“Well, maybe.” Emmy sniffed. She was determined not to share the real reason for Paul’s speedy departure. If she admitted to asking Paul if he wanted children one day-a perfectly reasonable question as far as she was concerned-Emmy knew her friends would never, ever let it go.

“So you did not actually come across to him as a carefree, wild party girl who’s up for anything fun?”

“Oh, I don’t know! Probably not, okay? But why do you think that is? Because I’m not a wild party