Chasing Harry Winston

her his arm and said, “If you’ll follow me…”

He led her past a Bebe store (on Rodeo!) and she panicked for a moment until she saw the sign. Adriana had to remind herself to breathe. She wanted to sing and cry and scream all at the same time. Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, she thought, forcing herself to take little sips of air. It couldn’t be. Could it? A quick scan of the boutique’s stunning window displays confirmed it was true: They had just entered the hallowed halls of the Oscar Adorner Extraordinaire, the guru himself: Harry Winston.

“Oh, my,” she gasped audibly, forgetting momentarily that both the driver and a haughty-looking saleswoman were watching her intently.

“Yes, it can be overwhelming,” the saleswoman said, nodding her head in faux understanding. “Is this your first time?”

Adriana collected herself. She’d be damned if she was going to let this woman patronize her. She flashed her most brilliant smile and reached out to touch the woman’s arm. “First time?” Adriana asked with an amused little laugh. “How I wish. I was just a bit taken aback, since I thought we were headed to Bulgari.”

“Ah,” the woman murmured, clearly not believing a word. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do here today, now, won’t you?”

Ordinarily it would take every ounce of willpower in Adriana’s reserve to refrain from saying something nasty, but something about all the surrounding sparkle seemed to take the fight right out of her. Instead, she smiled. “Actually, I’m not quite sure what I’m here for…”

The woman was probably in her late forties, and even Adriana had to admit that she looked pretty good for her age. Her navy suit was feminine, flattering, and professional, and her makeup was expertly applied. She extended a hand toward a little seating area and motioned to Adriana to take a seat.

The driver discreetly slipped away as Adriana settled herself onto an antique velvet divan. It was overstuffed and inviting in all its plushness, but she could only manage to perch carefully on one end if she didn’t want to collapse backward. A plump woman in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform set down a tray of tea and cookies.

“Thank you, Ama,” the saleswoman said without a glance.

“Gracias, Ama,” Adriana added. “Me gustan sus aretes. ?Son de aqui? ” I like your earrings. Are they from here?

The maid blushed, unaccustomed to being addressed by clients. “Si, senora, son de aqui. El senor Winston me los dio como regalo de boda hace casi veinte anos.” Yes, miss, they are. Mr. Winston gave them to me as a wedding present nearly twenty years ago.

“Muy lindos.” Adriana nodded approvingly as Ama blushed again and disappeared behind a heavy velvet curtain.

“How do you speak such fluent Spanish?” the saleswoman asked, more out of politeness than any genuine curiosity.

“Portuguese is my first language, but we all learn Spanish as well. Sister languages,” Adriana explained with patience, even though she could barely contain her excitement.

“Ah, how interesting.”

No, it’s not, Adriana thought, wondering if she was about to set some sort of time record for having a man propose to her. Toby couldn’t actually be about to propose…could he? No, it was ridiculous; they’d only just met at the beginning of the summer. Far more likely was that he’d started feeling a bit anxious about her imaginary “secret lover” and had decided-correctly, of course-that a little bauble might swing the pendulum in his favor.

“It’s unusually cool today, isn’t it?” the woman was saying.

“Hmm.” Enough with the chitchat already! Adriana wanted to scream. I. Want. My. Present!

“Well, dear, you’re probably wondering why you’re here,” she said.

Understatement of the century, Adriana thought.

“Mr. Baron has asked me to present you with”-as if on cue, a sixtyish gentleman in a three-piece suit with a jeweler’s loupe around his neck appeared and presented the saleswoman with a small velvet-lined tray, which she held out to Adriana-“these.”

Splayed perfectly on the black velvet lay a pair of the most beautiful earrings Adriana had ever seen. More than beautiful, actually-absolutely stunning.

The saleswoman gingerly touched one of them with a manicured fingernail and said, “Lovely, aren’t they?”

Adriana exhaled for the first time in over a minute. “They’re exquisite. Sapphire drops, just like the ones Salma Hayek wore to the Oscars,” she breathed.

The woman’s head snapped up and she stared at Adriana. “My, my, you do know your jewelry, don’t you?”

“Not really,” Adriana said, laughing, “but I do know your jewelry.” It was a wonder- no, it was downright astonishing-that Toby had remembered her admiring Salma’s Oscar earrings in an old magazine. That alone was incredible enough, but the fact that he then saved the photo and found an identical pair, two months after the fact, was almost incomprehensible.

“Well, actually, these are the exact ones Ms. Hayek wore to the Oscars. They were lent to her and we’ve received many requests for them since then. However”-she paused for dramatic effect-“they now belong to you.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Adriana breathed, momentarily forgetting herself once again and fumbling to try them on.

Fifteen minutes later, with the celeb-worthy sapphire drop earrings firmly in place and a bottle of Evian in hand, Adriana leapt into the backseat of the Town Car. She was pleased with herself, not just for her new acquisition but for what it represented: a steady, committed boyfriend who adored her and showered her with love and affection (and Harry Winston). She finally understood why all the other girls so yearned for this kind of stability. Who needed hundreds of men and all the headaches that came with them when you could find just one who had everything? Sure, Dean the TV actor was delicious, there was no denying it, but how delicious would he be when he hadn’t worked in five years and was living in some actor dorm in West Hollywood? There was no denying that she had very much enjoyed the surgeon from Greenwich and the Israeli spy and the Dartmouth fraternity boy. She had savored each and every one of them and, truth be told, countless others. But that was before, back when she was a mere child, not a grown woman with a grown woman’s desires. Adriana fingered the dangly blue gems and smiled to herself. This was going to be the perfect weekend, she was sure of it.

“You don’t get paid enough to make house calls,” Russell murmured as he stroked Leigh’s back gently, with just his fingertips.

“You’re telling me,” she said, praying he wouldn’t stop. She snuggled in closer against his wide, warm, nearly hairless chest and buried her head in his underarm. She had always loved their cuddling, and even now it encouraged her; she might not want to have sex with Russell, but at least she wasn’t repulsed by his touch. Leigh remembered Emmy going through that with Mark, the boyfriend before Duncan. She claimed the sex had never been great, not even in the beginning, but things grew steadily worse-mostly in Emmy’s mind, she admitted-until she recoiled in disgust every time he tried to touch her. The story had always haunted Leigh, someone who understood perfectly what it felt like to shrink away from a boyfriend’s kiss, but that was precisely why she found these snuggle sessions so reassuring. She wouldn’t want to lie naked in bed with Russell, spoon with him and enjoy his touch, if there was something wrong…would she? No, it was a clear indication that everything was as it should be. What woman didn’t have shifts in sexual desire at times? According to the article in Harper’s Bazaar she’d read at the nail salon the week before, a woman’s libido was a tenuous thing, affected by stress, sleeping patterns, hormones, and about a million other factors she couldn’t control. With a little time and a lot of patience-something Russell had exhibited in spades until very recently- Bazaar swore that most women would return to normal. She would simply wait it out.

“So what’s he like?” Russell asked. “Is he really as crazy as everyone makes him out to be?”

Leigh wondered when Russell had Googled Jesse. “What do you mean? He seems like…I don’t know, like an author. They’re all nuts.”

Russell rolled over on his back and slung his arm over his eyes to block out the early-morning sun that streamed in around the sides of the window shade. “Yeah, but he sold five million copies and won the Pulitzer and then vanished. For six years. Was it really a drug problem? Or did he just lose it?”