“What would you say if I told you I set the alarm just so I could wish you a safe trip?” Jesse asked, sounding tired but happy.
“I’d say you were a giant liar and that you should tell me the real story.”
He laughed and Leigh felt herself start to grin. Just the sound of his laugh was enough to make her feel giddy with excitement. “Well, in that case, you probably already know I’ve been up all night. Literally, just sitting here, waiting to call you.”
“The up all night I’ll believe, but try again on the waiting.” She turned to see Emmy glaring at her while flapping her hands open and closed to imitate talking. Leigh smiled and blew her a silent kiss.
“All right, you got me. Up until three writing, then from three to six playing
“Much.”
With any other man, she would’ve been horrified to discover a video-game addiction. It had even once been on her list of nonnegotiable deal-breakers (right there alongside excessive back hair and/or sweating, a penchant for bathroom humor, and any type of religious fundamentalism), but despite her ardent attempts at disapproval (mocking, eye-rolling, relentless teasing), she secretly found it adorable. And truth be told, she rather liked it when he let her choose the gang-bangers’ outfits at the beginning of each game. Was this love? She wasn’t ready to say that yet, but damn, it had to be close.
“Are you in the car?” he asked.
Leigh sighed, picturing him stretched out under the covers, getting ready to sleep for a few hours before hitting up Estia’s for his late-morning rounds. “Yeah. We’re actually almost there, so I should go. I miss you.”
“I miss you,” Emmy whispered. “Oh, Jesse, baby, I miss you so much. How can I live without seeing you for an entire four days? Ohmigod, like two star-crossed lovers.” Leigh reached over to poke her friend, but Emmy managed to flatten herself against the car door.
“What’s she saying?” Jesse asked.
“Nothing at all.” Leigh laughed. “I’ll call you when we land, okay? Get some sleep.” She resisted making a kissing sound into the phone for Emmy’s benefit.
“My god, it’d be nauseating if it weren’t so goddamn cute,” Emmy said with a long, dramatic sigh.
It was nauseating, Leigh knew this, but she was too happy to care. Jesse had called incessantly for two straight months after “the incident,” as they both now called it; he e-mailed, left messages with her assistant, texted her phone three, four, fives times a day. She screened him each and every time, not wanting to confuse her already screwed-up life any more. Just because it felt complicated didn’t mean it was; regardless of how many times he called or apologized or tried to explain himself, the fact remained that Jesse was married. Period. She’d made a big enough mistake already just by sleeping with him; she didn’t need to make everything worse by getting further involved.
Which worked, all said and done, until she decided to leave Brook Harris. She was still going into the office every day, but it was only to help transition her authors to their new editors. Henry had wisely taken Jesse on himself and, in that way that only an uber-experienced editor can, had coaxed Jesse into cleaning up the writing without mortally offending him. When she read the galley, Leigh could only shake her head at its improvement: Jesse surely had another huge hit on his hands. Leigh had even managed to keep him mostly out of mind until the day he e-mailed her in all caps. It had no subject line and read, “MEET ME AT THE ASTOR PLACE STARBUCKS TONIGHT @ 7 P.M. I JUST WANT TEN MINUTES. AFTER THAT, I’LL LEAVE YOU ALONE IF YOU WISH. PLEASE COME. J.”
Leigh did what any sane female faced with such an e-mail would do: deleted it to resist the temptation of replying, cleared her trash to resist the temptation of recalling it, and then called tech support to restore all her recently deleted e-mails. She briefly toyed with the idea of forwarding it to Adriana and Emmy for input and analysis, but then ultimately decided it would be a total waste of time; obviously, she would go.
By the time she arrived at Starbucks that night-a Monday, no less!-she was a wreck. Second-guessing herself like crazy, reminding herself what an absolute moron she was for even entertaining the idea of talking to Jesse, ex- lover and ex-author extraordinaire. What was the point? So she liked him-so what? There, she’d admitted it to herself. What did she want for that, some sort of prize? It only made it stupider and more masochistic to subject herself to such a meeting, one that would surely bring even more disappointment in an already less-than-stellar month. The fact that Jesse finally arrived, ten minutes late, flanked by an Asian girl so young she could be his daughter did not improve Leigh’s outlook.
“Leigh,” he said with a huge smile, holding his hand out to her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Mmm,” she replied, not standing up to greet either of them. Not that there was any need to stand-the smiling girl was pulling up a chair, and soon she and Jesse were both seated across from Leigh.
“Tuti, I’d like you to meet Leigh. Leigh, this is Tuti…my wife.”
Leigh’s eyes shot first to Jesse, who appeared not the least bit uncomfortable, and then back to the girl, who upon further inspection Leigh decided was probably even younger than she’d first thought, although not as pretty. Tuti had beautiful thick black hair, but it was cut in an awkward shape for her full face. “Oh dear god,” Leigh said aloud before she could stop herself.
Tuti giggled sweetly, and Leigh saw that she had a significant overbite. Had this happened under any other circumstances, Leigh thought she would have found this girl adorable. Charming, even. But tonight? Like this? It was more than she could bear.
“Tuti, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve, uh-” She was automatically going to say “heard a lot about you,” but it was too fraught with meaning. Instead, she said, “I hate to run, but I was just stopping by.”
With this announcement, Tuti’s face fell. “So soon?” she asked with a frown. “Okay, then I am going to get something to drink and leave you two alone. Leigh, Jesse? Something?”
Jesse patted her shoulder and shook his head no, and Tuti scampered off toward the counter.
“What were you thinking, bringing her here?” Leigh heard herself ask, as though her brain and mouth were no longer in contact. She popped three Nicorettes into her mouth and waited for the calm to wash over her. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t care what you were thinking. I just want to go.” She began to gather her things, but Jesse clamped his hand down over her arm.
“She’s twenty-three and from Indonesia. Island of Bali, village of Ubud. I ended up there about a year after
Leigh nodded. She remembered that.
“Needless to say, the party moved on, but something kept me there. I left Kuta, the city of the bombing, and headed inland, toward the mountains and the rice-paddy villages, where I’d read all of the artists and craftsmen and writers of Bali live. And sure enough, Ubud was just overflowing with them. The place was incredible! Every day was a festival of some sort, a huge, brightly colored celebration of the seasons or a holiday or a life event. And the people! My god, they were gorgeous. So welcoming, so open. Tuti’s father and I became friends. He’s only four years older than me, and he has her…” At this, Jesse shook his head. “He’s a talented woodworker, more of an artisan really. We met one day when I went to his shop, and he invited me home for dinner. Beautiful family. To make a long story much, much shorter, I owe Tuti’s father a great deal. He got me back on track with my life-in a lot of ways he saved it, I think-so I didn’t really have a second thought when he asked me to marry Tuti.”
Leigh wasn’t sure where this story was headed, but she was fascinated-not to mention it now made perfect sense why the tabloids hadn’t gotten hold of the story. Damned if she was going to show him that, though; instead, she took a sip of her coffee, tried to appear aloof, and said, “She’s very sweet, Jesse. I can see why you married her.” What she didn’t say was
Jesse laughed. “Leigh, I was being quite literal when I said I married Tuti because her father is very dear to me, and he asked me to. She was a child-still is-and I’m unspeakably fond of her, but we’ve never had a romantic relationship, and certainly never will.”
“Ah, yes, well, that makes perfect sense.” She didn’t want to go the sarcastic route, but this whole situation was so confusing.
“After nine-eleven, the U.S. placed Indonesia on its short list of terrorist countries. So even though the island of Bali is ninety-eight percent Hindu-as opposed to the rest of the country, which is the same percentage Muslim-Tuti was denied a visa to so much as visit America. Her parents worked their entire lives to send her to the States for an
