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.’
if you think it’s too big, you don’t deserve it
‘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.
Next thought: she was the most horrid, unappreciative, ungrateful bitch alive for even thinking such things about Russell. She certainly wasn’t this resentful a year ago. When he approached her at the book party Brook Harris was throwing in honor of Bill Parcells (who had just written a memoir of his years as the Cowboys’ coach), she recognized him instantly. Not that she ever watched ESPN – she didn’t – but with his boyish smile and dimples and reputation as one of the most desirable bachelors in Manhattan, she knew enough to be extra charming when he introduced himself. They’d talked for hours that night, first at the party and then over Amstels at Pete’s Tavern. He had been almost shockingly up-front about being sick of the dating scene in New York, how he was over dating models and actresses and was ready to meet, in his words, a ‘real girl,’ implying, of course, that Leigh was a perfect candidate. Naturally, she was honored by the attention: who wouldn’t want Russell Perrin pursuing her? He fulfilled every single little box on every single checklist she’d drafted in the last ten years. He was, by all accounts, exactly the kind of man she hoped to find but never actually thought she would.
Now here she was, almost a year into a relationship with a gorgeous guy who also just happened to be sensitive, kind, caring, and madly in love with her, and all she felt was smothered. It was abundantly obvious to everyone else in Leigh’s life that she had finally met The One; why wasn’t it clearer to her? As if to drive this point home, Russell turned her face to his, looked into her eyes, and said, ‘Leigh, sweetheart. I love you so much.’
‘I love you, too,’ Leigh answered automatically, without a second’s hesitation, although a third-party observer – even a perfect stranger – might have questioned the sincerity behind her declaration. What were you supposed to do when someone you liked and respected very much, someone you wanted to get to know better, announced after two months of otherwise casual dating that he was head over heels in love with you? You did what any confrontation-averse person would do and said ‘I love you, too’ right back. Leigh figured she’d grow into those words eventually, be able to say them with more conviction once they got to know each other better. It upset her that a year later she was still waiting.
She forced herself to look up from the page and assumed a syrupy-sweet voice. ‘I know it’s been really hectic lately, but it’s like clockwork every year: the second the calendar hits June, everything turns chaotic. I promise it won’t last forever.’
Leigh held her breath and waited for him to explode (which so far had never happened), waited for Russell to tell her he wouldn’t tolerate being patronized and that he didn’t appreciate being spoken to like she was the parent and he was the toddler who had just mashed peanut butter into the carpet.
Instead, he smiled. And not a smile filled with resentment or resignation; it was genuine, full of understanding, and impossibly apologetic. ‘I don’t mean to pressure you, baby. I know how much you love your job, and I want you to enjoy it while you can. Take your time and come to bed whenever you’re ready.’
‘While I can?’ Leigh’s head snapped up. ‘Are you really bringing that up again at one in the morning?’
‘No, sweetheart, I’m not bringing that up again. You’ve made it perfectly clear that San Francisco is not in your plans for right now – but I’d really like it if you weren’t so closed-minded about it. It would be an incredible opportunity, you know.’
‘For you,’ Leigh said, sulkily as a child.
‘For both of us.’
‘Russell, we haven’t even been together a year. I think it’s a little early to start talking about moving across the country together.’ The level of annoyance in her voice surprised them both.
‘It’s never too early when you love someone, Leigh,’ he said, his own voice even and steady. This very evenness, which had appealed to her so much in the beginning, could now infuriate her; his refusal to get mad, his complete mastery of his emotions, made her wonder if he ever even heard what she was saying.
‘Let’s not talk about it now, okay?’ she asked.
He sat up and slid to the end of the bed, closer to the corner where Leigh had placed her comfy reading chair and soft white-light reading lamp. The oversized down comforter – the one she’d spent weeks searching for, testing every brand on the market for softness and puffiness – slid to the floor and nearly knocked the bonsai tree off the nightstand. Russell didn’t appear to notice. ‘Why don’t I make you some tea?’ he asked.
Again Leigh felt like she needed to harness every ounce of willpower not to scream. She didn’t want to go to bed. She didn’t want tea.
