Jack with a Twist (2 page)

“Absolutely,” I say, taking the glass, and trying to push my mother’s drink as far away from her as possible without actually tipping it over the edge of the coffee table.

“So, Brooke,” Monique says, “Tell me a little bit about yourself. I want to know everything. Tell me about what you like, what you don’t like. Everything.”

“She wants something with sleeves,” my mother says, reaching across the bowl of candy that Monique has placed on the table, in a play for her champagne glass. Hasn’t that woman learned her lesson?

“Mom,” I say, trying to appear happy to be here with my skinny lush of a mother.

Monique intervenes: “Let us do this,” she says, “Mother, you will look at mother-of-the-bride dresses while I go with daughter to look at some dresses for her. Yes?”

“Well, I don’t want to steal my baby’s thunder,” my mother says as Monique guides her to a rack of beautiful dresses. Monique only does couture, so every dress is put together entirely by hand, with extensive beadwork and exquisite seams and workmanship. She has a few samples on hand for my mother to study and, like a baby with something shiny in her hands, my mother is mesmerized. We leave her at the rack.

Monique and I walk over to another area of the showroom where she has a number of muslin garments in different styles.

“First,” she says, “we put you in just a few things to see what styles you like best. What works best. Yes?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Is there a style that you know you want for sure?”

“I’m pretty open.”

“Very good,” Monique says, “Then we try. Off you go.”

I go into the dressing room with Vanessa and she zips me into the first dress, an A-line with a sweetheart neckline.

“So, are you okay with all this today?” I ask Vanessa.

“Of course,” she says, smiling as she smooths out the dress for me, “I’m having a blast. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because,” I say, looking at myself in the mirror. “Well, you know. I just don’t want today to bring up any bad memories for you or anything.”

“I’m okay,” Vanessa says, still smiling, “I’m just happy for you.” I turn to face her and I notice that she’s still wearing her wedding ring. I wonder if she was wearing it all day and I just didn’t notice it, or if she put it on in the car so that she won’t have to face any questions about her impending divorce from an acquaintance of her mother.

“So, what do you think?” I ask, as Monique comes into the fitting room.

“Beautiful,” she says as she picks up an enormous sketchpad and starts to draw. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty good,” I say.

“This next,” she says, gesturing with her pencil. Next up: a spaghetti-strap bodice with a huge ball gown skirt.

We go in to dress, and I turn to face Vanessa as she zips me up. “Do you want to talk about it at all?”

“No,” she says. “But I have an appointment next week to meet my divorce lawyer for the first time. I was thinking that maybe if you weren’t busy….”

“Of course,” I say, “I’ll be there. But, am I coming as your lawyer or your friend?”

“Friend,” Vanessa says with a smile and I smile back at her.

“Now that we don’t work at the same law firm anymore, I
could
represent you, if you want,” I offer.

“You’re a commercial litigator,” Vanessa points out, “so if I want to start a copyright action, you’ll be the first person I call. For this, though, you can just come as my friend.”

“Done. So?” I ask, twirling around like a little girl trying on her mother’s dress. “Do you like this one?”

“Too princessy,” Vanessa says, as I walk out of the fitting room for Monique to take a peek.

“Beautiful,” Monique says again as she looks up from her sketch pad. “How do you feel in it?” She says the same thing for each of the six other muslins I try on for fit.

After the scoop neck with a straight skirt, Monique has me change and come back to the love seat. First, she tells Vanessa and I about how she makes each individual wedding dress. To demonstrate her point, she takes out some of the dresses she is working on to give us a sense of her workmanship. Each one is more beautiful than the next—miles of lace, tons of tulle and acres of silk—I’m almost afraid to touch the pristine white fabric. One dress in particular catches my eye. It’s got a deep V down the front, ending in a gorgeous crystal brooch, with a flared trumpet skirt. The detail is absolutely impeccable. As Vanessa and I ooh and aah over it, my eye catches a tiny ink stain at the base of the dress. I look at Vanessa to see if she notices it, too, but she’s already on to a cowl neck with an A-line skirt.

I’m completely paralyzed—what should I do? Should I dare tell
the
Monique deVouvray that there is actually something wrong with one of her gowns? One of her masterpieces? Someone’s dream dress? What if this woman’s wedding is this weekend and there’s no time to fix the dress? I don’t want to be responsible for ruining someone’s dream!

Worse yet, Monique could have a you-break-it, you-buy-it policy. And let’s face it, if my mother thought I looked fleshy in a simple gown, I’m quite certain she won’t approve of all of the flesh that would be on display in this number.

Okay, this is fine. Be cool, be confident, and act like you didn’t even notice this little mistake. Just move on to the next dress. I covertly check my hands for blue ink.

“Brooke, I see you’ve noticed my blue good luck ribbon!” Monique calls out.

“I didn’t touch anything!” I say. I was never quite good at playing it cool.

“Flip over the fabric,” she says, walking over to me. “It is a tradition that when you are making a wedding dress for someone by hand you sew in a blue ribbon for good luck. I do that for each of my dresses. So, now let us see the sketches I have drawn up. Just to give you idea of what I will do for you.”

Monique has created six fabulous sketches for me—each one incorporates different details that I mentioned as being my favorites and the styles that flatter me most.

The second I see it, I know. I just know. The sketch jumps off the page and practically speaks to me. Although it’s a rough black-and-white drawing, I can practically see my face in the scribble where a head should be.

The bodice has an off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline fitted tight to the body with bones inside the thick silk. It has capped sleeves that flow naturally from the neckline and give the dress an air of romance. The bottom of the dress is an elegant A-line, not too princessy—just the right amount. The final perfect detail is a beautiful silk ribbon that ties around the waist. It is elegant and understated and everything I could possibly hope for in a wedding dress.

“That’s it,” Vanessa says, pointing at the sketch.

“I know,” I say, turning toward her and smiling.

“Ta da!” my mother says as she comes out of the dressing room in one of Monique’s gowns. I am immediately concerned about this for two reasons: the first is that Monique did not tell my mother to
try on
any of the sample dresses. Rather, she merely brought her to a rack and told her to start looking. The second is that it’s not a mother-of-the-bride dress at all. It is one of Monique’s wedding dresses.

“Did Monique give her more champagne?” I whisper to Vanessa. Vanessa laughs out loud and then quickly covers her mouth with her hand.

Now, if I were Monique, I would have screamed, “Take that dress off right this instant, you drunken deranged idiot!” But, Monique is far too classy for such things. Instead, she says, “Ah, yes, Ms. Miller, what a gorgeous figure. You look good in everything I create. Let me help you out of that and we can discuss your mother-of-the-bride dress.”

My cell phone rings as Monique and my mother are walking back to the fitting room. I look at my caller ID and see that it’s my fiancé, Jack.

“Jackie,” I say. Just seeing his number come up on my caller ID makes me smile uncontrollably.

“Brookie,” he says. “How’s it going?”

“Fabulous,” I say, fantasizing about how perfect we are going to look together on our wedding day. Even if Jack showed up in a paper bag, he’d look great—all shaggy brown hair and gorgeous baby blue eyes—but I’m sure that he’ll wear an actual tuxedo. A brown paper bag wouldn’t really match my couture.

“That good?” he asks. “So, I guess your mother is behaving herself?”

“Well, no,” I say, glancing over at my mother who is now dancing by herself to the soft jazz Monique has playing, spinning in tiny circles like a little girl at her own birthday party. “But, it doesn’t matter. Jack, I found it.”

“Found what?” he asks.

“The one,” I say, barely believing it as the words come out of my mouth.

“I thought
I
was the one?” he asks. “Don’t tell me that you found another guy to marry?” He pauses dramatically. “Well, even if you did, you found him at a bridal boutique, so I’m sure I can take him.”

“No, I mean—” I say. “Okay, yes, you are
the one,
you know that. I didn’t mean that.”

“What
did
you mean?” he says and I can practically see his devilish little smile through the phone lines.

“I mean, I found it! I found the perfect wedding dress.”

S
ince Jack and I have been engaged, we’ve been living in delicious sin in a two-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park. Okay, okay, we’ve actually been living in sin since
before
we got engaged, but you get the general point I’m trying to make. The point is that things are fabulous, even if we did jump the gun on the whole moving-in thing just a bit. But if anyone asks you, just tell them that we were engaged before we moved in together.
Especially
my grandmother. She is eighty-two years old and a very traditional Jewish woman from Poland who most certainly would not understand living with someone to whom you are not married. In her day, a nice Jewish girl would never live with someone without the benefit of clergy. Unless you were hiding out from the Nazis, in which case it would then be perfectly all right to cohabit for a period of time. And maybe even make out a little bit. I’m not sure about that one. But to be officially, legally living in sin? Well, that’s a big no-no.

Which is why she has no idea that Jack and I actually live together. I almost got busted at our last holiday dinner—after a few too many glasses of Manischewitz kosher wine (yes, I know, tastes like grape juice, but still amazingly effective in getting you tipsy), she cornered me and wanted to know all about my fiancé. She started with the easy questions, like where did he grow up? (A suburb outside of Philly.) How many siblings does he have? (Three sisters.) What does his father do for a living? (Federal judge for the Third Circuit.) Then, she asked a seemingly innocuous question that completely threw me for a loop: “Where in the city does Jack live?” When I carefully told her that he lived in Gramercy, she was delighted. She said: “How lovely! Do the two of you live close to each other?” So I did what any girl in my position would do. I cheerily responded, “Yes!” Which really isn’t lying, if you think about it. We
do
live close to each other. Very very
very
close. All I actually did was to leave out the part about
how
close we live to each other. I just couldn’t bring myself to actually tell her about the we-sleep-in-the-same-bed part.

Oh, please! As if you’d be running to tell your eighty-two-year-old grandmother that you were living in sin.

But a life of sin has been working out for Jack and me just fine.

“So, there’s talk of this big new case coming in to the firm,” Jack says to me on Saturday morning. We’re seated at our breakfast bar with mugs of hot coffee and the newspapers sprawled out.

I know. A lazy Saturday morning with your fiancé, a hot cup of coffee and
The New York Times.
Heaven.

“That’s great, honey!” I say, taking a bite of my toasted sesame bagel. “Which partner is bringing it in?”

“Mel, I think,” he says and I nod in agreement. “Which is perfect since he loves my work.” I nod again, since I know that if Mel is, in fact, the senior partner bringing the new case in to the firm, Jack’s got a great chance of being assigned to it and taking the lead on it.

I should explain: Jack and I met when we worked together at my old law firm, Gilson, Hecht and Trattner, which is why I know all of the partners there and how things work in general. I’ve since left big-firm life for a smaller law practice, but Jack is still at Gilson, Hecht, where he recently became a partner.

“This could be really huge for me, Brooke,” Jack says and I look up from my coffee at him. He moves a stray curl of my shoulder-length auburn hair back behind my ear with a finger.

“You’ve already made partner, Jack,” I say, putting my hand on his cheek. His face is rough to my touch since he hasn’t yet shaved this morning. He looks so sexy when he’s got that slight trace of a shadow. “Everyone loves you and thinks you’re amazing. You’ve proven yourself at the firm. That’s why they made you a partner in the first place. Don’t you get to sit back and breathe at this point?”

“Brooke, I really need this,” he says, “there are over three hundred associates at Gilson, Hecht and over one hundred partners—I just need that one big case to come my way to establish me as a force to be reckoned with in the firm. Rumor has it that this case may even involve a celebrity, so there would be media recognition, too.”

“Ooh, celebs,” I coo. “I hope it’s J. Lo.”

“She doesn’t like to be called that anymore,” Jack says, “and I’m being really serious here. I want to take my career to the next level. Soon we’re going to be thinking about children and I want to be able to support them in the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.”

I smile and take that as a cue to glance down at my diamond engagement ring—not only is it beautiful, but it’s especially meaningful to me, since it’s the ring that Jack’s grandfather gave to Jack’s grandmother when he proposed all those years ago. They were married for sixty-two years, so a ring like that’s got to be lucky, right?

The Asscher cut of the center stone is deep and thoughtful. You could get lost for days just staring down at it, deep into its center. Which has been happening to me with increasing frequency since Jack gave it to me.

Whenever I look at my ring, I can’t help but think about how happy I am to have found Jack. That mythical “one.” To be settling down with the man that I love. Now that we’re engaged, I feel so secure. Before the ring, you live in constant fear that your guy will just come home one day and tell you that he doesn’t love you anymore or that it’s not you, it’s him, or that he met someone else, or some other such nonsense.

That’s probably because that’s happened to me in real life more times than I’m willing to admit, but I’m sure that I’m not the only woman alive who’s ever felt that way. Let’s face it, if you’ve survived being single in your mid to late twenties in New York City, you’re bound to have had your heart totally trampled one or two times.

Or forty-seven, but who’s counting?

Truth be told, the last serious relationship I was in before I got together with Jack was with a guy who came home one day and out of the blue told me that he didn’t love me anymore, that it wasn’t me, it was him, and as a kicker, that he’d also met someone else. (And a bunch of other nonsense.) But I don’t have to worry about that with Jack.

I don’t think.

Do I have to worry about that with Jack?

“Are you even listening to me?” Jack asks, positioning his face close to mine.

“Of course I am, honey!” I say, looking up with a smile. What was he saying just then?

“You were just staring at your ring,” Jack says, matter-of-factly.

“I was not,” I say, smiling a little wider, “now tell me about the case.”

“I really don’t know any details about it,” he says, “No one does. It’s just a rumor right now. Firm-wide speculation that Mel’s bringing in a big case and that he’ll want one of the junior partners to take the lead on it, thus solidifying that junior partner’s status in the firm for the rest of his or her life. Nothing that special.”

“Well,” I say, edging closer to him, “you’re going to get the case and you’ll be amazing. And I’ll be the loving, doting fiancée who is here to help you every step of the way.”

“
If
I even get it,” he says, looking down.

“
When
you get it, you mean. You know what we need here?” I ask Jack, walking toward the living-room closet.

“What?” he asks, running his hand through his shaggy brown hair.

“To tell the future,” I say, and at the precise moment that I say it, I find just what I need—a gag gift that Vanessa bought for Jack and me right when we got engaged: a Magic 8 Ball.

“That’s not a real Magic 8 Ball,” Jack says, as I pull the gag gift out of the closet, “That’s a gag gift. It’s a special
Love
Magic 8 Ball. It’s pink, for God’s sake. I don’t think that those can actually tell the future.”

“Well, you broke the real one,” I say, remembering the original Magic 8 Ball that Jack, Vanessa and I used to consult all the time when we worked at Gilson, Hecht together as associates. We’d pull it out anytime we had a tough decision to make—whether it be a legal cause of action, an e-mail being sent to opposing counsel, or what to order in for dinner that night, that magical sphere always had the answers for us.

“The real Magic 8 Ball was mine to begin with,” Jack says, walking over to me, “and anyway, I only broke it because I was mad at you, if I recall correctly.”

“You broke it because you were mad at me? How very Stanley Kowalski of you,” I say with a chuckle. When you’re six feet tall and rail-thin like Jack, you can’t really pull off the tough-guy thing very well. It actually turns out to be sort of cute, which, if you really think about it, is
so not
the intended effect.

“Brooke!” Jack screams from his gut, as if he were screaming “Stella!” at the foot of a long staircase. He calls out “Brooke!” again, this time falling down to his knees and ripping his pajama top apart for good measure. “Brooke! Brooke!”

I suppose that I don’t need to mention here that Jack was a drama geek back in college? So much so that he actually wanted to become an actor after he graduated. Two years of waiting tables (and the fear of God put into him, courtesy of his father, the United States Circuit Court judge for the Third Circuit) kicked him of the thespian habit, though. However, he does still enjoy the random dramatic flair from time to time.

“I’m sure whatever it was, it wasn’t really my fault,” I say. It’s important to train your man early into thinking that nothing is ever
really
your fault. I learned that little tidbit from Vanessa. Which is really good advice. And just because she’s presently going through a divorce doesn’t necessarily make her opinions on marriage null and void, I don’t think.

“Magic 8 Ball,” I say, shaking the pink globe around. “Will Jack get the big new case coming into the firm?”

“It’s not a real Magic 8 Ball,” Jack says, swiping it away from my grasp, “it says right here that it is a Love Magic 8 Ball, so it can really only tell the future of your love life.”

“Humor me anyway. What does it say?” I ask.

Jack turns it over to read the response: “It says, You may get lucky.”

“See?” I say, “it
does
work! You’re going to get lucky! The case is as good as yours! Fame and riches await!”

“No,” he says, sidling up to me, “It’s a Love Magic 8 Ball, so I think it means that I’m going to
get lucky
.” And with that, he throws me onto the couch and showers me with kisses.

“Lucky, indeed,” I say and sink into his kiss. This sort of thing never happened back at the firm with the old Magic 8 Ball.

Back then, Vanessa, Jack and I were the Three Musketeers. Since Vanessa and I were the same class year, we seldom worked together—it was usually just Jack and me. Jack was the senior associate on all of our cases, with me as the junior associate for five years running, but nothing ever happened between us during that time. Okay, okay, a few things happened during that time—a massive flirtation and a handful of unbelievable, monumental kisses (the kind they write love songs about)—but in an effort to keep our jobs, we didn’t really pursue things.

The story of how we finally got together is really terribly romantic—after being the best of friends for years, he came with me as a fake date to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding and we fell completely, madly, desperately in love right that very evening! Well, actually, it wasn’t quite that simple, since that evening ended with us getting into a huge fight and not speaking for three weeks afterwards, but
after
those three weeks, we fell completely, madly, desperately in love. But it just sounds more romantic to make it seem like it all happened that same night.

(Note to self: must read and approve all wedding speeches and make sure there is no mention of any fighting and only a focus on falling completely, madly, desperately in love….)

What? Any good bride worth her taffeta maintains creative control of the wedding speeches.