Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

“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?”

“I have no idea. We’ve only had one lunch; he hasn’t exactly confided in me.” Leigh tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice but it wasn’t easy. “Look, I’m not dying to go out there, either.”

Which was true enough. There were definitely things Leigh would rather do with two days out of the office than drive to the Hamptons right before Labor Day weekend.

“I know, sweetheart. Just don’t let him push you around, okay? He may think he’s some hotshot, but you’re still his editor. You call the shots, right?”

“Right,” she said automatically, although she was really thinking how much it rankled her when Russell sounded so much like her father. Mr. Eisner had said those exact words to her the night before in what was probably intended to be a helpful pregame pep talk, but which to Leigh had sounded like a condescending lecture from the consummate professional to the flailing amateur.

Russell kissed her forehead, pulled on a pair of boxers, and strode to the bathroom. After turning the shower to its hottest setting, he headed to the kitchen, closing the bathroom door behind him. There he’d wait for the bathroom to get all hot and steamy-just the way he liked it-while he made his daily power breakfast: soy protein shake, fat-free yogurt, and three scrambled egg whites. This ritual irritated Leigh beyond description. What about all that wasted water? she asked him over and over again, but he merely reminded her that water was included in the monthly maintenance fee she paid, so it didn’t particularly matter. It was just one of the things about him she found utterly maddening. She completely understood the need for him to wear a full face of TV makeup once a week when he recorded the show, but she loathed watching him remove it. He used her makeup remover and pads and swabbed so delicately under his eyes and around his nose, and although she couldn’t quite pinpoint why, she found it revolting. Not quite as revolting as when he forgot to remove it and she ended up with pillowcases smeared with man foundation, but still-the whole thing was just gross.

She chided herself for being so rigid and intolerant and took a deep, relaxing breath. It was only nine o’clock on a sunny Thursday morning and already she felt like she’d been awake for forty-eight hours and lived through a world war. Exhausted yet still simmering with low-level anxiety, Leigh hauled herself from bed and ducked into the steam-drenched bathroom.

She managed to throw on a pair of white jeans and pack everything else before Russell finished his own shower, so she blew him a kiss through the bathroom door and quickly left. She rolled her small suitcase to Hertz on East Thirteenth Street and, after accepting all the insurance offered-better safe than sorry!-Leigh grabbed a large iced latte from Joe, popped two pieces of Nicorette, and slid into the driver’s seat of her red Ford Focus. The trip took less time than she’d planned; in a little over two hours she pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant called Estia’s. It was shaped like a little clapboard cottage, just as Jesse had described it; she went inside to use the bathroom and gulp another cup of coffee before calling him.

He answered on the fourth ring.

“Jesse? It’s Leigh. I’m at Estia’s.”

“Already? I wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon.”

She felt her blood pressure rise even higher. “Well, I’m not sure why, considering we spoke just yesterday and I told you that I’d be arriving between twelve and twelve-thirty.”

He laughed. His voice sounded like he’d just woken up. “Yeah, but who’s ever actually on time? When I say noon, I really mean three.”

“Oh, really?” she asked. “Because when I say noon, I actually mean noon.”

He laughed again. “Got it,” he said. “I’m going to get dressed, and I’ll be right there. Have a coffee. Try to relax. We’ll get right to work, I promise.”

She ordered yet another coffee and flipped to the Thursday Style section someone had left on the counter.

She heard his entrance before she saw him, since she was staring fixedly at the newspaper, pretending to be completely absorbed in an article on natural boar-bristle hairbrushes. All around her, the restaurant patrons-all locals and, from the look of it, not associates of the Billy Joel set-waved and called out their hellos. One particularly crusty-looking old guy in workman’s overalls and a sewn-on name tag-the original, not one of the retro ones on sale in the Bloomingdale’s young men’s department-that read SMITH, raised his coffee mug and winked at Jesse.

“Morning, sir,” Jesse said, clapping the man on the back.

“Chief,” the man said with a nod and a swig of coffee.

“Still on for Monday night?”

The man nodded again. “Monday.”

Jesse made his way down the breakfast counter, greeting each and every person along the way, before taking the empty seat next to Leigh. Although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, Leigh thought he looked better today than he had at either of their previous meetings. Still not hot or even handsome in the conventional sense, Jesse again looked casually rumpled and, as stupid as it sounded, cool. It was partly the way he dressed-a slim-cut vintage plaid shirt with Levi’s that looked custom-cut for his body-but it was also something more than that, something in the way he carried himself. Everything about him screamed “effortless,” but unlike the self-conscious grunge of the nineties or deliberate bed-head hair, Jesse’s look was genuine.