Chasing Harry Winston

“Leigh? Say something.”

“I hear you,” Leigh squeaked through a sob.

“Okay, don’t move. Do. Not. Move. Understand? I’ll be there momentarily.”

Leigh heard Emmy hang up, but she couldn’t bring herself to close her own phone. Why had she just said she was going to break up with Russell? It wasn’t at all what she’d been thinking for the past couple of days, during her massage, on the ride back to the city. She’d merely reached the conclusion that she must be honest with him-at all costs-about Jesse. That even if it was only to selfishly assuage her own guilt, starting off a marriage based on cheating was probably not a brilliant idea, and Russell deserved to know the whole truth from the beginning. That said, she was also reasonably sure that Russell-with the proper reassurances-could be convinced to give her a second chance. It wouldn’t have been pretty or enjoyable for either of them, but if she worked hard enough at assuring him that it was a complete fluke with Jesse (which it was) and would never happen again (not a lie), she figured they had a pretty decent chance of getting through this. What she hadn’t even considered was that she might not want to get through this…until she’d blurted out those very words just moments before.

Leigh bought a cup of coffee from a tiny corner health-food shop with no proper half-and-half or fake sweeteners-where were all those goddamn Dunkin’ Donuts when she needed one?-and retied her scarf tighter around her neck. She was about to walk into Russell’s lobby when she heard Emmy’s voice shouting behind her. She turned to see a cab screeching to a stop, a tan but panicked Emmy hanging out the back window.

Leigh stood and waited calmly in the doorway, watching as her friend threw three twenties at the driver, collected a few dollars’ change, and dragged her rolling suitcase from the trunk.

“When did it get so fucking freezing?” Emmy hissed as she tried to yank the suitcase’s handle up from its tucked position.

“About two seconds after you left,” Leigh said, aware that she should help her friend but feeling no real inclination to do so. For the moment it felt perfectly fine to stand there and watch her own breath come out in hot streams against the frigid air. She was breaking up with Russell. Breaking up with Russell. Was she really going to up and end it, just like that? Call off the engagement, give back the ring, become un-affianced? Yes. Yes, she was.

“My god, this is uncivilized! Uninhabitable! Why do we choose to live like this?” Emmy kissed Leigh on the cheek. “Russell’s not home, right? So we can go upstairs?”

Leigh held open the door and waved Emmy through. She used her key to summon the elevator that opened directly into Russell’s full-floor loft, and both girls helped pull Emmy’s suitcase on board. The panorama of stainless steel and black lacquer that greeted them when the elevator doors swept open was enough to shock Leigh back to the present; immediately upon seeing Russell’s collection of metal sculptures and his decorator-chosen black-and- white prints, she felt the familiar feel of her fingernails digging into the flesh of her palms.

“Welcome!” Leigh sang with mock cheeriness. “Something about this place just warms the heart, doesn’t it?”

Emmy left her suitcase by the door, tossed her down puffer coat over a dining room chair, and flopped awkwardly onto Russell’s impossibly chic, rock-hard sofa. “I could name three dozen women off the top of my head who would kill to spend just one night in this apartment.”

Leigh shot her a warning look.

“I’m just saying…”

“You’re right, of course. Which makes it all the more ironic that I’m not one of them.” Her voice was quiet and serious, and for a moment Leigh wondered why she wasn’t already crying.

Emmy patted a patch of couch next to her, but her hand ended up making a smacking noise. “Christ, that’s hard,” she muttered. “C’mere, sit down and tell me what’s going on. I feel like this came out of nowhere.”

Leigh walked toward Emmy but sat down on the Ligne Roset daybed opposite her. “It must seem that way, I guess. Hell, it sort of feels that way. But not if I’m going to be really honest with myself.” Leigh felt her throat constrict and almost felt relieved that she was finally experiencing something resembling a normal reaction.

“What’s going on? Have you two been fighting?”

“Fighting? No, of course not. Russell’s as sweet and supportive as he’s ever been. I don’t know, I’ve just, well, I don’t know…”

“Ohmigod!” Emmy slapped her head. “How could I not have guessed? He is a man, after all. Russell’s cheating on you, isn’t he?”

Leigh could feel her eyes open wide, but she couldn’t get any words out.

“Oh. My. God. That shit! Mr. I’m So Fucking Perfect is cheating on you? Leigh, sweetheart, unfortunately for both of us, I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. Christ, I can’t believe that he’d actually-”

“He’s not cheating on me, Emmy. I’m cheating on him.”

That seemed to quiet everything down for a solid thirty seconds. Emmy looked as though she’d been struck, her face contorted with surprise as she struggled to process what she’d just heard.

“You’re cheating on Russell?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not currently. But I did.”

“With who? Whom. Whatever.”

Leigh sighed. “It’s not important. What matters now is that it’s over, but I have to think it happened for a reason. People who are ecstatically happy in their relationships don’t cheat.”

Emmy held up her hand as if to ask for quiet. “It’s not important?” she asked. “Leigh, darling, you’re one of my two best friends on this planet. Not to make this entirely about me here, but come on! It’s bad enough I had no idea you were sleeping with someone else while it was happening-and I recognize now’s probably not the ideal time to be pissed at you for it-but to even suggest that you aren’t going to tell me after the fact is absolutely ludicrous! I mean, do you really-”

“It was Jesse. Jesse Chapman.”

Emmy threw up her hands in exasperation. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know how she does it. It’s like she has some sort of sixth sense for these things. Or maybe you just fuck enough people yourself and you can just feel when someone else is doing it, too. Un-fucking-believable. That girl is just unbelievable!”

“What are you talking about? Who is unbelievable?”

The sound of Leigh’s voice seemed to snap Emmy back to reality. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that Adriana’s been insisting for weeks now-maybe months-that you were sleeping with Jesse, and I insisted you weren’t. Swore up, down, and sideways that it was the most ridiculous idea imaginable. I mean, you’re engaged to Russell, for chrissake-”

Emmy stopped midsentence and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Leigh, I’m so sorry, that came out all wrong.”

Leigh shrugged. “Well, for the record, I’m not ‘sleeping with’ Jesse, and I never was. It happened exactly once, and it will never, ever happen again. So next time you talk to Adriana, you can tell her she was wrong.”

Emmy’s phone rang. The look on her face when she checked the caller ID confirmed it was Adriana.

“My god, does she have you wearing a wire?” Leigh said, shaking her head.

“That whole Latina intuition, so she claims.” Emmy clicked off the phone and tucked it back in her purse. “So, at the risk of sounding, uh, insensitive here, can I ask why you feel like you have to end everything with Russell? I mean, if Jesse was a onetime thing-and you want it that way-well, am I a completely horrible person for suggesting you just try to put it behind you?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Does that mean you have feelings for Jesse?”

“No! Well, yes. Sort of. But Jesse actually has nothing to do with this. It’s about Russell and me.”

Emmy pulled a bottle of water from her bag, took a swig, and offered it to Leigh. Leigh shook her head no.

“I hear that,” Emmy said carefully. “But I’m sure you’ve also considered that whole thing about not telling someone something hurtful just to unburden yourself. Like, if it’s not going to help them to know, they’re better off not knowing?”

Leigh had to remind herself to unclench her hands and try to lower her shoulders away from her ears. She didn’t want to feel so annoyed with Emmy, but it was getting difficult to disguise. Obviously she had considered all