Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

“So, you’re probably, uh, wondering why I’m here…” He let his voice trail off, but Emmy didn’t say a word. “I know that whole situation with Brianna wasn’t easy for either of us, but that’s, uh, over now, and I was hoping we could, uh, try to work through that.”

Well. There it was. Emmy was so surprised she had to grab the counter for support. Her mind barely knew where to begin. He had just dropped three completely independent yet equally shocking bombs in a single sentence. First, there was that bit about calling the dramatic ending of their five-year relationship due to his own infidelity with a fitness trainer Emmy had bought him a “situation”-not to mention that disgusting little addition about it not being easy for him, either. Then there was the casual pronouncement that said “situation” was over, a detail he must have assumed Emmy knew, because how could she not be following the minutiae of his life? And last, the biggest one of all: Duncan was sitting in her apartment on a cold Friday night when he’d otherwise be out with his friends, nervously suggesting that they could “work through this.” Emmy knew she was prone to exaggeration and flights of fancy-and of course further confirmation was needed-but this sounded to her like he was asking to get back together.

She had a million, trillion questions for him (Why did they break up? Whose idea was it? And, most important of all, why did he want to get back together with her?), but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she leaned back against the counter, crossed her arms, and peered at Duncan.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked before jamming his pointer finger in his mouth and gnawing on a cuticle. Number eight hundred eighteen of the things I don’t miss, Emmy thought.

“I’m not feeling so chatty tonight,” Emmy said evenly, gazing at him.

He sighed as if to suggest this was all very difficult. “Em, look, I’m an idiot, okay? I know I fucked up, and I want to make it right. The whole Brianna thing-it was a glitch, a bump in the road, a totally meaningless thing that should’ve never happened in the first place. You and me, we’re meant to be together. We both know it. So what do you say? I’m standing before you, hat in hand”-at this, he mimed pulling off a cap and holding it toward her-“begging you to come back to me.”

He walked to her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and kissed her ever so softly on the lips. Emmy let herself be kissed, let him press his mouth to hers, and reveled in the familiarity and comfort of it. Duncan pulled away, and while gently brushing the hair back off her face, looked into her eyes and asked, “So? What do you say?”

Whether she’d admitted it or not, she’d waited ten months for this very moment, and here it was, and it felt every bit as incredible as she had envisioned. Emmy returned his gaze with her sweetest possible smile. “What do I say?” she asked coyly, flirtatiously. “I say I’m going to give myself the best thirtieth birthday present on earth and tell you-right here, right now, and for the last time ever- to get the fuck out of my apartment. That’s what I say.”

“You did not !” Adriana squealed, clapping her hands together.

“I did,” Emmy said with a huge smile.

“Did not!”

“Did so. And I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt.”

Adriana hugged Emmy, pulled her as close as their tiny table would allow. They were at Alice’s Tea Cup on the Upper East Side, packed in with dozens, maybe hundreds of females of every imaginable age, rehashing Emmy’s triumphant moment. “You so did the right thing.”

“Um, yeah!” Emmy said with widened eyes. “Don’t think for a second I’m doubting it. Do you believe that asshole had the nerve to show up at my apartment, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, and ask me to take him back-all without ever bothering to apologize? He is loathsome.”

“Always was.” Adriana nodded until she noticed Emmy looking at her with a funny expression. “Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just agreeing that his actions were particularly repugnant this time.” Good lord, these girls could be so sensitive!

An extra-perky adorable waitress approached their table. “Celebrating a special occasion today, ladies?” she asked.

Emmy snorted. “What gave it away? The crow’s-feet or the three ringless wonders, out for afternoon tea, just like they will be in fifty years?”

“The three ringless wonders? That’s a new one.” Adriana rolled her eyes and glanced at Leigh, who sat, stone-faced, her bare left hand jammed under her thigh. Adriana felt bad; Emmy must not have known that Leigh had returned the ring to Russell the night before.

“Good, right? I just made that up right now. But it has a nice ring to it…ha! No pun intended!” Emmy cracked up.

“Sorry, I just figured since-” The waitress coughed and looked at her feet.

Adriana interrupted. “No, we’re sorry. Actually, we are celebrating…this one’s thirtieth birthday. And as you can see, we’re struggling.”

“Thirty? Really? You look great for thirty!” the girl said enthusiastically. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-four. “I can only hope I look so good then.”

Thankfully, Leigh stepped in before Emmy could say anything truly nasty and said, “Yeah, she does, doesn’t she? We’re ready to order.”

The waitress grinned while taking their orders and bounced off, convinced she’d just made someone’s day.

“Bitch,” Emmy hissed under her breath. “May her huge, perky boobs give her back pain by thirty.”

Adriana slapped the table. “Did you see her sun damage? Please! That girl is going to look like a leathery hag when she turns thirty. Her boobs are the least of her problems.”

“I don’t know what you two were looking at, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair,” Leigh said.

“Her hair? What was wrong with her hair?” Emmy asked.

“Well, there is nothing wrong with it now, but you can just see she’s going to be the thinning type. I sure wouldn’t want to be thirty with a receding hairline and a thinned-out center part.”

All three girls laughed.

“Yeah, well, you’re right… That was probably long overdue,” Emmy said, picking up right where they’d left off before the unfortunate waitress incident. “It’s just weird how everything unfolds, you know? I wanted nothing more than for Duncan to come back and declare his undying love for me, for us to run off into the sunset together, for him to realize what a horrible mistake he’d made, and then, the moment exactly that happens, all I want is for him to get hit by a bus. Is that normal?”

“Perfectly,” Adriana said. “Don’t you think, Leigh?” Adriana had tried to incorporate Leigh into the conversation earlier, but she hadn’t said much of anything, had just sat there with a distracted smile and occasionally murmured a “hmm.”

“Definitely,” Leigh said now, turning to Adriana. “Our little girl is growing up! I think it’s so-” The sound of Leigh’s cell phone stopped her midsentence.

Adriana watched as she pulled it from her bag, checked the caller ID, and hit Ignore. “Jesse again?” she asked.

Leigh nodded. “You’d think he’d get the message by now. I haven’t returned a single call since he got back from Indonesia.”

“Yes, querida ? And exactly what message is that?” Of course she couldn’t be so blunt about it to her friends, but Adriana had been thrilled when Emmy had called with the news of Leigh’s affair and subsequent breakup with Russell. Not that she didn’t adore Russell-everyone adored Russell. But she adored Leigh more and wanted the very best for her. Now an affair? With a married man? Who also happened to be brilliant, volatile, and wildly inappropriate in myriad other ways? This was a wonderfully unexpected step in the right direction. If only Leigh could see it that way, too…