Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

“I’m really not kidding about this,” Emmy said. She made eye contact with the waiter as he passed by their table and ordered three glasses of champagne when he approached. “This is the start of my new life, and trust me, it’s long overdue. First thing I’m going to do on Monday is call up Chef Massey and tell him I’m accepting the job. What job? you might wonder. The one where they want to pay me boatloads of money and give me a huge expense account so I can travel all over the world and stay in the nicest hotels and eat in the best restaurants for inspiration. Inspiration! For new menu ideas. Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? And who’s the fucking idiot who’s been saying no the last two months because she didn’t want to desert her poor, lonely boyfriend? Yours truly. Didn’t want poor baby Duncan to feel abandoned and unloved while I jetted off somewhere fabulous. So yes, this time I’m going to call him up and take that job, and then I’m going to fuck every single solitary appealing man I meet. Foreign, sexy, beautiful men. And I do mean every last one. How does that sound, girls? Acceptable?” The waiter returned with their champagne. “So please, let’s toast.”

Adriana made a noise that for anyone less beautiful could only be called a snort but coming from her sounded exotic and feminine. Both girls turned to look and she suddenly felt out of sorts. Her friend had just announced plans for a major life change while she herself had been coasting effortlessly along the same path for years. Was Adriana’s role as the group’s jet-setting partyer in jeopardy, or had she just had one too many drinks? There was something unsettling about Emmy’s proclamation. And if there was one way Adriana was not accustomed to feeling, it was unsettled.

She held up her glass and forced a smile.

Emmy smiled back and said, “There’s just one condition. I want company.”

“Company?” Leigh asked. She gnawed her bottom lip, catching a flake of skin between her front teeth. She looked anxious. Adriana wondered why the girl always looked nervous these days, especially since everything was going so beautifully for her.

“Yes. Company. I’m willing to completely slut out if you ”-Emmy pointed to Adriana-“agree to have a committed, monogamous relationship. With a man of your own choosing, of course.”

Adriana inhaled. She incorporated one of her favorite moves, which consisted of absentmindedly touching a fingertip to her lips, letting it rest there for a moment, and then graze along to the spot right below her left ear. It prompted four men at the adjoining table to stare and Nicholas to come running. She felt that familiar thrill of being watched.

The girls ordered main courses, another round of drinks, and a plate of the truffle mac and cheese to share.

“So? What do you say?” Emmy asked.

“Did my mother put you up to this?”

“Yes, sweetheart. It was all your mom’s idea for me to pledge to fall into bed with every man I meet over the course of the next year just so you’ll agree to date only one person. She’s a clever one,” Emmy said.

“Come on, people, let’s be serious for a minute,” Leigh said. “Neither one of you will actually go through with this, so can we change the subject? Emmy, you made your point. If you want to dive headfirst into another five-year relationship, that’s certainly your prerogative. And Adriana, it’s more likely that you’ll become an astronaut than date only one man. Next topic.”

“It’s not like I dared her to do something really drastic, like get a job…” Emmy grinned.

Adriana forced a return smile even though she found it difficult to laugh at herself, especially when the jokes concerned her lack of employment. Her mother’s irritating voice reverberated in her head. “Wow. Playing hardball, are we, querida ? Well, guess what? I accept your challenge.”

“You what?” Emmy asked, furiously twisting a lock of hair.

Leigh’s glass halted halfway to her mouth. “You’ll do it?”

“I said I’ll do it. When do we start?”

Emmy bit off an asparagus end, chewed daintily, swallowed. “I say we take a little time to figure out the terms. By the end of next weekend, we’ll agree to have a plan?”

Adriana nodded. “Done. And that will give you”-she waved her champagne glass in Leigh’s direction-“a chance to figure out what your resolution will be.”

“Me?” Leigh’s recently plucked brows furrowed. “A resolution? Why? It’s not even New Year’s. Just because you two are crazy doesn’t mean I have to be.”

Emmy rolled her eyes. “Leigh? Please. What does she need to change? Perfect job, perfect boyfriend, perfect apartment, perfect nuclear family…” Emmy’s voice became nasal and singsongy. “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” she chanted, and dismissed Leigh’s look of displeasure as momentary crankiness.

“Yes, that may be so,” Adriana said, looking only at Leigh. “But she’ll have to come up with something. You can do that, can’t you, Leigh? Think of one single aspect of your life that you’d like to change? To work on?”

“Of course I can,” Leigh said in a snippy tone. “I’m sure there are a million things.”

Adriana and Emmy exchanged looks, each knowing what the other was thinking: Leigh might have all her ducks in a row, but it wouldn’t kill the girl to loosen up a little and enjoy herself.

“Well, you have two weeks to choose one, querida ,” Adriana announced in her huskily authoritative voice. “In the meantime, let’s toast.”

Emmy hoisted her glass like it was a lead paperweight. “To us,” she announced. “By next summer, I will have prostituted myself out to half of Manhattan and Adriana will have discovered the joys of monogamy. And Leigh will have…done something.”

“Cheers!” Adriana called out, again attracting the attention of half the restaurant. “To us.”

Leigh clinked her glass halfheartedly. “To us.”

“We are totally, completely, royally fucked ,” Emmy leaned in and stage-whispered.

Adriana threw her head back, half with delight and half out of habit, for effect. “One hundred percent screwed,” she laughed. “Pun intended, of course.”

“Can we get out of here before we begin a shame spiral the likes of which none of us has ever known? Please?” Leigh begged. The red wine Nicholas had comped them was starting to give her a headache and she knew it was only a matter of time-minutes, probably-before her friends moved from charmingly buzzed to loudly drunk.

Adriana and Emmy exchanged looks again and giggled.

“Come on, Marcia,” Adriana said, shimmying her way to a standing position while pulling on Leigh’s forearm. “We might just teach you to have some fun yet.”

“Come to bed, baby. It’s almost one-don’t you think it’s time to call it a night?” Russell pulled off his T-shirt and turned on his side to face Leigh, resting his head full of black curls on his right hand. He rubbed the sheets with his left hand and patted them a little, a gesture that was meant to be tempting, appealing, but that Leigh always found a little threatening.

“I just have a few more pages. Is the light bothering you? I can move to the living room.”

He sighed and picked up his book, Strength Training Anatomy . “It’s not the light, sweetheart, and you know that. It’s the fact that we haven’t fallen asleep together in weeks. I just miss you.”

Her first thought was that he sounded like a whiny, petulant child; this was, after all, one of the most sought-after manuscripts of the year, and it was crucial that she have it read for the next morning’s acquisitions meeting. It had taken eight impossibly long years of dedicated hard work to finally-finally!-be within striking distance of senior editor (there were, after all, only six at Brook Harris, and she could potentially be the youngest one), and Russell seemed to think that after a year of dating he was entitled to commandeer her entire life. She wasn’t the one who had asked him to stay over tonight, who had just shown up on his doorstep on her way from her weekly poker game, long lashes all a-flutter and all Baby, I just had to see you.