Authors: Brenda Janowitz
“I know, honey, but we’re trying to go low profile. Remember, the whole low-profile thing….”
“Well, we can still be low profile,” he said.
“Don’t want to stand out….”
“Are you ashamed of me?”
“Honey, no! God, no! It’s just that I was going for the whole ‘quiet-complacent-ex-girlfriend’ thing, not the whole ‘loud-flashy - ex - girlfriend - with - the - hottie - in - a - skirt’ thing.” At this point, I felt it prudent not to even mention the fact that his wearing of said skirt would totally, completely screw up my outfit selection for the night. How does one even try to find a dress that will not clash with her boyfriend’s skirt? I thought that I would have to consult the Scottish embassy on that one.
“It’s a kilt,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
“I know that, I’m looking right at it.”
“You called it a skirt.”
“Whatever it is, you can’t wear it.”
Putting his shirt on quickly and grabbing his jacket, he asked, “Oh, and you are going to decide that, are you?”
“Well, it’s
my
ex-boyfriend’s wedding that we’re talking about, so, yes, I’m going to decide it!” I yelled at him.
“Why don’t you want me to be proud of where I came from?”
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be proud of where you came from, I’m just asking you to wear some goddamn pants!”
Already down the corridor, he yelled, “Why are you so ashamed of my culture?”
Still in the bedroom, I screamed, “Why do you hate America?”
Yes, I asked him why he hated America. I couldn’t help myself. I’m really very patriotic.
N
ow, you may be asking yourself how a brilliant big-time lawyer like myself managed to get herself into such a predicament. Funny you should ask that. I’ve been asking myself that very same thing, too. So has my mother. So has my best friend. So has my therapist. But I digress.
It all started with an innocent little phone call. From my ex-boyfriend. Now, some people would think that that’s an oxy-moron. I mean, how many women can honestly say that they’ve stayed friends with their ex? But it was a no-fault breakup: we were graduating from law school, he asked me to move with him to California, and I said no. I stayed in New York to begin the glamorous job at the large big-time law firm that he wanted but didn’t have the grades to get, and he went off to California to settle for the not-so-glamorous job that he didn’t want but my father’s connections helped him to get.
When the phone rang, I was sitting in my big-time lawyer office. I was feeling kind of good about myself, what with being practically engaged and on the verge of making partner at my firm. I mean, after all, I’d been living with Douglas for almost a year, so it was just a matter of time until he popped the big question. Mere minutes, really. And I hadn’t cried because of a partner yelling at me in well over a week. That alone qualified me to make partner myself.
“Hi, is Mrs. Palsgraf there?” a voice queried. I smiled. Trip and I were always making really stupid law jokes with each other. It was sort of the foundation of our entire relationship. You see, there was this huge case in first-year torts class involving a woman named Mrs. Palsgraf. We spent about three weeks on the case, that’s how important it was. For the entire first semester of the first year of law school, just mentioning the name Palsgraf was enough to throw our study group into fits of laughter. If you went to law school, you would have appreciated that one. Or thought that Trip and I were major dorks. One of the two. Either way, I told you so. Stupid law jokes. It remained the dynamic of our relationship up until the very end of it.
“Your father’s connection panned out,” he said with a boyish smile as we lined up at our law-school graduation. “I’m going to L.A. I should be representing famous movie stars in no time.” We still had our graduation caps on our heads. Mine was standing at full attention, tilting upward, while Trip’s was sliding down off his dirty-blond head, as if the mere act of staying on his head for the whole of the ceremony had simply been too much for it to bear.
“I don’t doubt that you will,” I said back, looking straight at him. And I didn’t doubt it, actually. Trip could be really hardworking when he wanted to be. And also kind of sleazy. He may or may not have been still dating his girlfriend from college when we first started up in law school.
“Is this a change of residence or domicile?” I asked. Stupid law joke. You see, residence is where you are living right now, whereas domicile is your permanent residence.
“Domicile,” he said, looking down.
I didn’t even cry about it. (Which for me, as you may have picked up by now, is a major feat.)
I suppose it was because I somehow knew we weren’t going to end up together. Throughout the entire three years of law school that we dated, I just knew. There were little hints everywhere. Like the fact that when I was with his family, I felt as if I were on an audition. (Them: “So, Brooke, where does
your
family summer?” Me: “Summer? You mean like in the summer? Where do they summer in the summer? Uh, in their backyards?” Them: “Backyard…Ah, yes, is that off the coast of Maine?” Me: “Yes.”) Or the fact that it was like hanging out with the Kennedys. Seriously. They actually played flag football in their backyard and stuff. And his father was the president of their country club. And his uncle was always looking at me in a kind of inappropriate Tedesque way. Okay, wait, if they had actually
been
the Kennedys, that would have been kind of cool. Or even the Shrivers. Or, say, the Rockefellers. Now that I think about it, I heard a rumor a year or so back that there were still some Rockefellers running around Manhattan. Single ones, too. Now, why didn’t I ever date a Rockefeller? Life can be so unfair sometimes.
During the summer after we’d completed our first year of law school, the week before Trip and I were to start our jobs — mine for a very prestigious Second Circuit judge, Trip for a family friend of my uncle’s — we went to stay with his parents out at their summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. It was a wonderful weekend. You would have loved it. Well, unless you are the type who would let the little things get to you, like the fact that Trip’s mother couldn’t deign to remember my name and instead referred to me only as “that Jewish girl.” Which, luckily for me, I do not.
After I met his family, things really fell into place. I’d always assumed that the little competitive thing that Trip and I had going on was just his cute little precursor to sex (“Oh, I’ll habeas your corpus”), but it turned out that he was actually serious all along. Trip and his siblings were constantly trying to best one another, from how many eggs each one could eat in the morning to where their undergraduate schools ranked on the
U.S. News & World Report
list. (Trip’s ranked last.) In the pool, they tried to see who could hold his breath for the longest, and at the end of the day, they held up their arms to see who had the fiercest tan. To be fair, I really put Trip at a disadvantage in this regard, what with my slathering SPF 30 all over his body every chance that I could get.
What? You really need to be careful in the sun!
Meeting his family also really explained that look on his face when, at the end of the summer, I made Law Review and he did not.
And it definitely explains this little exchange we had one day after pulling one too many all-nighters with our study group:
“Okay, Brooke, you’re up. What is a writ of habeas corpus?”
“Oh, I’ll habeas your corpus!” What, you thought that I
didn’t
really say that?
“Actually, babe, habeas corpus is an unlawful detention, so you really mean to say, ‘I’ll habeas corpus you.’ Did you even bother to do the reading for Con Law?”
“Just take off my goddamn bra!”
See what I mean?
But when I got that innocent little phone call, it all faded away. At the sound of his voice, all of the fun times came rushing back to me. I smiled the smile of a cat that has just swallowed a goldfish.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, “she’s out with Pennoyer and Neff.” Another stupid law joke. You see, there is this civil procedure case that you read the first week you are in law school. No one really understands it and…You know what, forget it. Even
I
think that it’s dorky at this point.
“How are you, B?” I had forgotten how much I loved it when he called me that.
“Great. How are you?”
“Great. I’ve got news,” he said. My God, I thought, the guy’s still in love with me. After all these years, still in love. How sweet! He’s probably on a plane to New York as we speak, ready to whisk me away to California to be his. When he sees Douglas, no doubt a fight will break out. A fight for my honor. With Douglas being Scottish and all, it will probably be more like a duel. Yes, Trip will challenge Douglas to a duel. I wonder if Douglas knows how to fence? Fencing is hot.
I’ll have to let him down gently,
I thought. I’m really very sensitive, you know.
“News?” I asked. Gently.
“I’m getting married.”
“Great!” I said back, a little too quickly. He kept on speaking, but I don’t think that I heard a word. I was still registering the fact that my ex-boyfriend was getting married before I was. Shouldn’t there be some law against that?
“So, who’s the lucky girl?” I asked, grabbing for the little stress ball that was on my desk.
“Ava Huang,” he replied.
Ava Huang? The movie star?
No way in hell did he just say Ava Huang. No way in hell is my ex-boyfriend is marrying a movie star. Even if he did say Ava Huang, he must mean some other Ava Huang. Why, there must be about a million other Ava Huangs running around L.A. right at this very minute! Now, be cool, be subtle, act like you don’t even care.
“The movie star?” I asked. Way to be subtle, Brooke.
“The very one. I represent her. It’s so refreshing to talk to someone on the East Coast about it, though. Everyone here has been freaking out about it. It’s not like you guys even care about movie stars out there.” Trip is so right. We
so
do not care about movie stars here on the East Coast. For example, when I told Jack that my ex-boyfriend was engaged to Ava Huang, he managed to rattle off her entire filmography, complete with analysis as to which films she “looked her best” in (read: took her clothes off in).
“You’re so right, Trip. We totally don’t,” I said, clutching my little stress ball even harder. “In fact, just the other night, I saw Leonardo DiCaprio and I, like, didn’t even care about it. Didn’t even think twice.”
“DiCaprio’s back in New York this week?”
“I don’t know. You see, that’s how little we care about movie stars in New York. It’s, like, I didn’t even check to see if it really was Leonardo DiCaprio. And neither did anyone else. We’re, like, far too busy reading books and stuff.”
“Gosh, Brooke, you’re taking this really well. You know, I was kind of nervous to call you. I thought that you might get upset or something.”
“Upset? Me? I never get upset! Why on earth would
I
get upset?”
“You know, Brooke,” he said, “we always did have that little competitive thing going on back in law school.”
“We did?” I said. “I hadn’t noticed. I must have been too busy making Law Review.”
“I made Moot Court,” he said. I could practically see him pouting through the phone wires.
“I didn’t want Moot Court,” I said, tossing my little stress ball into the air and catching it.
“That’s because you couldn’t argue your way out of a paper bag,” he said, his faux “I’m just kidding!” laughter rising an octave.
“You’re right,” I said, “I was far too concerned with my writing. I guess that’s why I got my Student Note published.”
“I guess that’s why I won the National Moot Court Competition,” he retorted.
“Because I got my Note published? How very interesting,” I said with a smile. Dead silence on the line. And he says I can’t argue?
“Well, I’m just glad that you’re not upset.”
“Not in the least,” I said.
“What was that noise?” Trip asked. Hmmm. That noise
may
have been the sound of me throwing that little stress ball against the back of my office door. Okay, yes, now that I’m telling you about this, I distinctly recall slamming that cute little stress ball against the back of my door, just before I cleverly said:
“You know, Trip, life is so funny sometimes. You see, I’m engaged myself!”
“You are?” he asked. I am?
“Why yes!” I said, suddenly sounding like Barbra Streisand at the very end of
The Way We Were,
“Don’t sound so surprised!”
“I’m not surprised at all. I just didn’t hear about it, is all. And I was just e-mailing with Vanessa all last week,” he said. “Any guy would be crazy not to nab you. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“His name is Douglas. He’s fabulous. He’s Scottish.”
“I forgot how much you love Euro-trash,” he responded. He was probably smiling his Cheshire-Cat smile when he said that little gem to me.
“He most certainly is not Euro-trash. He is a very class act. In fact, speaking of movie stars, he
looks
like a movie star, but he’s far too intelligent for Hollywood.”
“And probably has no time for Hollywood what with reading all of those books.”
“No offense,” I said.
“None taken,” he said.
“I’m sure Ava can read, too.”
“Yes, she can,” he assured me. “Well, then, I can’t wait to meet him.”
Okay, so it was a little white lie. But, as I already told you, I believed myself to be
practically
engaged at that point in time, so I figured that by Trip’s wedding, I would surely be engaged. Who knew, depending on timing, I could even be married
before
Trip was!
Y
es, married! It wasn’t so far off to think. You see, Douglas and I had a real whirlwind romance. The night we met, he swept me off my feet, and I fell head over heels in love with him without even thinking twice about it.
It was a perfectly magical evening at the charity party the Guggenheim Museum threw each year on Halloween. The Guggenheim has long been my favorite New York museum, as the museum itself is a work of art, with its sweeping lines and interior painted a pristine white. The artwork adorning its walls seems the perfect accessory to the main attraction — the architecture. The Met, to me, was always too immense and imposing, and the MOMA was simply too complicated.
For their annual masquerade ball, orange spotlights wash over the museum’s milky walls and floors, giving the space an intense and entirely unfamiliar glow. A string quartet plays quietly in a corner, reminding you that you are at the most exclusive charity ball of the season, rubbing elbows with the best and brightest New York has to offer. Waiters surround you, enticing you with the sweet smells of hors d’oeuvres too fancy to even identify. Follow the clickety clank of wine and champagne glasses, and you will find that the bar is off to the side, leaving a large space in the middle of the entranceway, which will later be used for dancing, once the guests have paired off.
“Act like we’re together,” Douglas whispered, as he slunk over to me seemingly out of nowhere with eyes shifting all over the room. He was dressed as a rugby player and I was dressed as a French maid.
Oh, please. As if you never used Halloween as an excuse to dress like a slut.
“Excuse me?” I said in my most righteous voice. Granted, he really had me with the accent, but what exactly did he take me for? Okay, don’t answer that one.
“Please,” he begged with enormous brown puppy-dog eyes, “this girl has been following me around all evening long. If you pretend to be my girlfriend, I will treat you to a dinner at any restaurant in the city that you want.”
Without waiting for an answer, he pressed his lips against mine.
My knees got weak. I actually felt my knees get weak. He later told me that he “had” to do that, since said girl-stalker was quickly approaching us. I never saw her, though.
“So, do you want to get out of here?” he asked me with sexy bedroom eyes. I didn’t really know who he was or where he was going, but when he looked at me with those eyes and leaned into me the way he did, there was no place else I’d rather have been.
“Yes,” I replied breathlessly. And with that, this man that I had just met grabbed my hand and we were off into the cold New York City night. Although it was only the end of October, it already smelled like winter. He introduced me to his friend, Franc, and Franc’s girlfriend, Allie, a couple of Parisian transplants. Neither had come dressed up to the party. They were both young and attractive, but somehow, they didn’t look as if they fit one another. We all hopped into a taxicab together and Franc gave the cabbie directions to a loft party in Tribeca. Now, I probably would have followed Douglas to a pizza place in Queens to play tabletop Pac-Man if he’d asked me to, but I was nonetheless delighted to be going somewhere as hip and fabulous as a loft party that was probably even more exclusive than the party we’d just left. I immediately looked down at my French maid getup and quietly removed the little doily that was on my head.
I was between Allie and Douglas in the back, with Franc in the front. Douglas’s left leg pressed against my right and I smiled to myself.
This is one of those perfect New York City nights when you live for the moment and don’t think about tomorrow,
I thought. I turned my head toward Douglas and caught him looking at me. We locked eyes and I began to think wicked thoughts.
“I don’t want to go to another party!” Allie screamed to the front, interrupting my thoughts, “I want to go home!” Franc looked back at her and laughed and shut the plastic divider that separated the front of the cab from the back of the cab and told the cabbie to keep driving. The cabbie had to stay toward the middle of the road to avoid the massive potholes that were lined up like a collision course along Broadway.
“I am getting out right now!” Allie yelled again, opening the divider as she yelled. When Franc didn’t turn around, Allie pretended to open her car door, with the cab still moving, for effect.
How very French,
I remember thinking to myself. The cabbie began to yell something in a foreign language while Franc tried to calm him down. I looked at Douglas and he rolled his eyes. I smiled a quiet smile back as he mouthed the words
drama queen
to me. I giggled a silent giggle that only Douglas could see and he put his hand on my leg. I giggled out loud.
“I am getting out of this cab right now!” Allie screamed, and the cabbie pulled over to the right-hand side of the street to a chorus of assuring “She is not getting out!” coming from Franc. Allie, on the left side of the cab, swung the door open wide into traffic just as we stopped on the right-hand side of the street. As quickly as she opened the door, another cab came whizzing by and knocked Allie’s cab door right off its hinges.
Everything was silent for a moment. The cabbie turned around, and upon seeing that Allie was all right, began to yell at Franc very fast in a foreign language. Franc began to yell back in French and Allie sank deep down into her cab seat. Douglas got out to referee and I stayed in the cab with Allie. I was surprised that she didn’t feel sorry for what she had done, rather, she somehow thought that it was the cab driver’s fault, or Franc’s fault, or just anyone’s fault but her own. I heard Franc outside talking, now in English, to the cabbie about what he should do and how he could fix things. When it seemed that Franc had squared things with the cabbie, Douglas opened the right-hand door of the cab, where I was sitting, and put out his hand for me to take.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything will be fine. Let’s go to that party now.”
I agreed, but suggested that we walk instead of taking another cab. Douglas laughed and we began to walk. I told Douglas that I somehow felt like a fugitive leaving the scene of a crime or something and asked him if he thought that Franc and Allie would really stay and do right by the cabbie.
“Allie? No. Franc? Yes,” he replied. I agreed, but told him that I still felt as if we were fugitives. He told me that he did, too.
It was cold, so we soon began running, holding hands and laughing. We were running in the middle of the streets; it was so late at night there weren’t any cars on the tiny downtown side streets. I was scared that I would fall, but I somehow knew that Douglas would catch me if I did. We reached Varick Street, where the next party was still going strong. You could hear the pounding bass of the music coming out of the windows and see the empty cups lining its sills.
“I don’t really feel like going to another party, do you?” Douglas asked with those bedroom eyes. It was so cold out that I could see his breath as he spoke. I shook my head no.
In an alleyway somewhere off Varick Street, still feeling like fugitives, we kissed again.
One heavenly month later, Douglas begged me to move in with him. Seriously. It was, like, embarrassing. I really couldn’t say no. I mean, the guy was deeply, madly, passionately in love with me! You would have done the same thing. But, don’t worry about me, because I did it all very much by the rules. Literally. I was reading that book called
The Rules
at the time. It’s all about snagging a man and then getting said man to marry you. Quickly. Okay, so even on its truncated deadlines, that book didn’t suggest even having sex with a man within the first month of dating, much less moving in with him, but those girls never met Douglas. And if my grandmother asks you, we may have been living together, but we most certainly were not having sex. You know what, if my grandmother asks you, don’t even tell her that we were living together. That’s just easier. And anyway, I don’t think that Grandma even realized it at the time. Even when Douglas picked up the telephone, he had such a thick accent that she usually hung up thinking it was the wrong number. But I digress.
The whole thing seemed to be in the bag. By the time I got Trip’s wedding invite, I’d be blissfully engaged (or even married!) to my handsome Scottish boyfriend. Piece of cake, right?