Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

She just wasn’t in the mood for the usual chitchat tonight. She was cranky, and a little bit sad for no good reason. That’s a total lie , Emmy told herself as she bobby-pinned her bangs back and haphazardly washed her face. Izzie had called a couple hours earlier with the news that she and Kevin would be having a baby boy. When Emmy gushed with excitement (genuine) and asked if they were still thinking of the name Ezra, Izzie laughed and said Kevin seemed stuck on Dylan for some reason. Dylan with a D. D like Duncan. Duncan, who-if you could ever get him talking about having children-insisted that his would be only boys, and only boys named after him. She’d been so good for so long, had resisted every single previous temptation, but tonight she felt her willpower slackening. The combination of Izzie’s baby announcement and that look she’d seen Leigh and Adriana exchange at the mention of Duncan’s name, and Emmy couldn’t stop thinking about him. She realized he could have eloped with the trainer or, worse, gotten her pregnant, and Emmy would have no idea. How had this happened? How had she ended up single at almost thirty and Adriana and Leigh-neither of whom particularly seemed to care-were both going to get married any minute now? It was so unfair. Duncan may not have been a famous director or a superstar TV anchor, but he’d been good to her, most of the time. Emmy wasn’t an idiot; she knew he liked to flirt, and she heard him all those times he swore he wasn’t ready to settle down, but who could have ever foreseen this?

She inched closer to the computer.

Her mind willed her not to open the laptop, screamed, No! No! No! You’ll regret this. Bad Idea! Bad Idea! and for a moment it sounded so realistic she wondered if Otis was actually shrieking the words, but she could only hold out for so long. Four seconds later, her fingers were flying across the keyboard. Ten seconds after that, she was face-to-face with Brianna’s MySpace page.

And seventeen high-definition inches’ worth of pictures of Duncan and the trainer. On vacation. In bathing suits. Looking absolutely outstanding.

Emmy rapidly glanced through the pictures of the happy couple sunning on a white sand beach, lounging in what looked like a private patio pool, and smiling over heaps of devoured crab claws and empty cocktail glasses. There weren’t any captions, though, which was maddening. Where were they? When? Was it a honeymoon ? She skimmed the e-mails down the right-hand side, perky little missives from Brianna’s friends, chock-full of emoticons and ellipses and too many exclamation points to count. One of the insipid messages included a link to the Kodak Gallery Web site, and Emmy sensed her torture was only beginning.

“Oh, god, no,” she moaned aloud, stretching backward in her chair and staring at the computer warily, as though it might explode. She knew she shouldn’t click on it, but there was no turning back. She sat up straight with her shoulders down and her chest jutted out, took a deep breath, and moved the cursor to the link. She was just about to click when, thank god, she remembered the dreaded guest book. Had she clicked the link, Kodak Gallery would’ve automatically remembered her from last time and saved her name in Brianna’s guest book, right along with a helpful date and time stamp. Nightmare! Relieved that she had averted disaster, Emmy quickly went to the general home page, logged herself out, and logged in under the pseudonym and fake e-mail she used for such e-stalking activities. When she opened the link this time, the album greeting read, “Welcome, Lucy! Click here to see pictures from Brianna and Duncan’s Mexican Adventure.”

Mexican Adventure? Please! They’re lying on a fucking beach, not climbing Kilimanjaro. With another deep breath, which was not the least bit calming, Emmy clicked.

Before the screen went into slide-show mode, Emmy saw that there were dozens, possibly hundreds, of thumbnail shots. She knew this was a very bad idea, that it was stupid from an intellectual standpoint and toxic from a sanity one, but by now it was out of her control. Frames one through six passed by in a flash; it wasn’t until the seventh that Emmy collected herself enough to adjust the speed. The slower pace satisfied her for another half-dozen shots, but her compulsion to study, to examine , every square inch of every single photograph consumed her, and within seconds she had turned off the automatic slide show altogether. Now she could do this properly, at her own pace.

Unfortunately, the first frame that remained frozen on the screen was one that must have been taken by Duncan. It featured Brianna frolicking in knee-deep surf, leaning forward to splash the viewer and simultaneously looking up, a movement that caused her back to arch almost pornographically. Emmy moved closer to the screen. Could her ass really stand up like that, all on its own? And those breasts! Even though the girl was leaning forward in a string bikini and appeared to have solid C cups, they were barely hanging at all! Emmy peered at them for a full minute and arrived at the regretful decision that no, they weren’t fake, they were just really young. Besides, twenty-two-year-old virgins don’t get fake boobs, do they?

Click.

Duncan filled the screen. He was lying on a pool float, a tan, newly muscled arm draped over his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun. He was wearing an unfamiliar pair of Hawaiian-print board shorts (Emmy had pleaded with him to trade in his old-man bathing suit with the alligators stitched into it, to no avail) and, wait…was that a six-pack ? She squinted. It was! Formerly doughy, pale, I-sit-at-a-desk-all-day Duncan had morphed into a goddamn beach Adonis right before her very eyes. Emmy pressed her eyes closed and rubbed them, but Duncan still looked fit-downright hot-when she opened them again.

Click.

The happy couple again…on a dive boat! Together they sat on a wooden bench, hands on each other’s knees, looking sporty and adorable in wetsuits unzipped to their waists. They were surrounded by the debris of a recent dive, racks of tanks and regulators, discarded masks and fins, and, off to the side, a Mexican man in a white shorts uniform preparing to serve them fresh fruit and juice. Emmy had begged Duncan-literally pleaded , she now remembered with growing rage-to try scuba diving with her one year in the Bahamas over Christmas. He’d flatly refused, reminding her that he sure as hell wasn’t going to spend his precious vacation time in a pursuit as active and challenging as scuba diving. He wouldn’t even go snorkeling, that bastard, because he “wasn’t into the whole floating-prey thing.”

Click.

Brianna sitting atop the covers on a four-poster bed, reading a magazine, wearing very skimpy and nonvirginal boy shorts and a barely-there tank top. Click. The two of them in workout clothes and iPods, all sweaty and rosy-cheeked post-run. Click. Duncan making a silly kissing face at the camera, even though Duncan didn’t make silly kissing faces ever , while wearing the Cornell T-shirt Emmy had bought for him at her fifth-year college reunion. Click. Dressed up for a candlelit dinner on the sand, where they appeared to feast on whole grilled fish, lots of fresh vegetables, and white wine. Click. Click. Click. Emmy finished clicking through the entire album, briefly surveyed her level of nausea, and hunkered down to start again from the beginning.

It was going to be a very long night.

“Adi, the doorman just called to say your car is here,” Mrs. de Souza announced from the doorway of Adriana’s room.