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wouldn’t kill me. We had decided to take in a movie, The Last Samurai, then grab dinner. Afterwards, we landed at Duke’s, where it was so crowded we decided to eat at the bar, where our friend Macy was dispensing white wines faster than quantum speed.
    â€œWhat’s with all these people?” I asked Macy, eyeing the invasion of uninvited guests who swamped my favorite watering hole.
    â€œDuke rented out the back room for a Christmas party,” she said. “Then he had the nerve to go skiing with his girlfriend. Noah and I are up to our elbows here.”
    Emma and I turned to each other and exploded: “His girlfriend?” at the same time.
    â€œOwe me a Coke!” Emma said, squeezing my arm. “What girlfriend? Who’s the girlfriend? We’ve never met her.”
    â€œAnd you never will.” Macy placed two glasses of chardonnay in front of us. “He won’t bring her around here. The man won’t play in his own backyard.”
    â€œWell, there’s a mystery solved.” I lifted my wineglass and held it midair. “Here’s to you, Duke, for keeping us guessing.”
    Macy laughed and shimmied her shoulders. “I had him pegged all along. I knew he liked sisters.”
    â€œI might have to take him off my list,” Emma said sadly. “If he’s serious enough to go away with this girl for the weekend, they might be a couple.” Emma had a running list of men she’d sleep with in a minute, which she was constantly revising when one of those men got married. She thought it was pure evil to break up a marriage, and almost as bad to cause a rift in an otherwise healthy relationship.
    â€œYou had Duke on your list?” Macy rolled her eyes. “You need to get out more, girlfriend.”
    â€œWell, I added him when I had to pull Russell Crowe.”
    â€œI thought you replaced Russell with Tom Cruise,” I said, knowing that Tom had gone back on the list soon after he and Nicole split.
    Emma shook her head. “No, Tom came back on a while ago, and after seeing Last Samurai, I’m glad he did.”
    â€œUhm-hm. Mr. Cruise can ride my horse anytime,” Macy tossed off as she carried two tall drinks down the bar.
    â€œWhat are the specials today?” I said, looking up at the chalkboard. Emma ran her finger around the stem of her wineglass, her mind elsewhere. “Hello? Are we eating here, or what?”
    â€œHe called me,” she said. “This week . . . yesterday, he called me. He wants to get back together.”
    Tom Cruise? Then the ugly truth hit me. “Jonathan?”
    She nodded. “I’ve been sick about it. I don’t even know if I can eat. Can you believe that? All those hours in the gym trying to burn carbs, and now one phone call and I’m fasting.”
    I squeezed her wrist. “Don’t tell me you’re actually entertaining the idea. Oh, Emma . . . no!”
    â€œHe reminded me that New Year’s Eve would be our one-year anniversary,” Emma said dolefully.
    â€œI see he still has a penchant for drama.” I remembered last December, when Emma had first connected with Jonathan. She and I were partying it up in a pack of tourists huddled on Times Square. Emma wore a silly paper crown and I had a wig of foil streamers over my head and the air was so charged with intoxicating spirit that I didn’t mind giving up champagne for a few minutes of noisy revelry in the cold.
    Emma and I were laughing when the crowd shifted and a bunch of people shoved into us, knocking Emma into one of the blue wooden police barricades. Two cops rushed over and quickly helped Emma to her feet. One of them took a special interest in brushing off her coat. Officer Jonathan Thompson lit into Emma with his blue eyes. She fell for his tousled dark curls, unmarred by a riot helmet, his easy laugh, his street stories. From that moment on, Emma was a hopeless cop groupie. She started