Beryl. Is that woman using my phone? The very phone I bought for Douglas? Well, didn’t exactly buy for him, but the phone I totally used when I lived there! Has she moved in already? God, that man moves fast! He and I at least waited a month!
By 7:30 p.m., I had plan B in effect: I would reconvene a special court session at our local watering hole to discuss the matter further and figure out a plan C. Yes, plan B consisted solely of gathering the troops — Vanessa and Jack — but give me a break! I was under a lot of stress here!
After picking Vanessa up at her office, we sneaked down the back stairwell so as to avoid any partners who might catch us leaving before we had actually collapsed from exhaustion. We got to the gym at Public School 142 just in time to slip in for the last few minutes of the firm intramural basketball game against the lawyers from Arby Schweitzer.
The bleachers were completely empty, so Vanessa and I took front-row seats. The gym floor was scattered with briefcases and Redwelds full of documents with a row of BlackBerries lined up perfectly on the front-row bench. Jack’s BlackBerry stood out in the crowd since one of his nieces had decorated it with Strawberry Shortcake stickers so that he would never lose it.
Vanessa sat down on the bleachers quietly and tucked her bag underneath her legs. I, on the other hand, sat down and knocked over the entire row of BlackBerries, which fell tumbling to the gymnasium floor like a set of very expensive dominoes. None of the Gilson Hecht associates seemed to care, since our firm pays for its unfettered 24/7 access to its associates, but judging from the looks on the Arby Schweitzer team’s faces, I got the feeling that their firm did not. As I crawled on the floor picking them up as subtly as I could, I saw Jack give me a tiny smile and a slight wave. He was wearing a Gilson Hecht T-shirt with a long sleeve T-shirt underneath and had the sleeves pushed all the way up to his elbows. Jack had a million freckles covering his arms, but barely any on his face.
The score was tied and there were just a few minutes left on the clock. I puzzled over Jack’s choice of crunch-time lineup: rounding out his usual starters (the two other attorneys in our department who were over six feet tall), he had Billie Cooper, a fourth-year corporate associate and Bob Frohman, a second-year tax associate, on the court.
While Billie Cooper was the tallest girl in the entire corporate department standing at five foot nine, I knew that she frequented the nail place around the corner from our office almost as often as I did. Now, I’m no basketball player, but I’m pretty sure that you need to use your hands to do it. Although I did meet Michael Jordan once and he had lovely hands. But, I digress.
Bob Frohman from tax was so timid, I could swear that I’d never actually heard him speak. And I had a sneaking suspicion that half of the tax department hadn’t, either. At five foot four, even Billie was taller than him. When I would pass him in the hallways at work, he always looked as if he was terrified of his own shadow. At a large law firm, that sort of thing could be considered normal what with how stressful the work is, but Bob looked that way all the time. I once saw him at another tax associate’s birthday party and there he stood, in a corner all night, looking downright scared, speaking to no one the entire time. I imagined that if you ever did speak to him, no sound would come out of his mouth. Or, if it did, he would have nothing else to discuss but the Internal Revenue Code. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why Jack had put him in the game at such a crucial moment.
The ball was in play, and I sat forward on my seat, anxious for a Gilson Hecht victory.
Two minutes left on the clock.
I called out, “Defense,” and Vanessa shot me a dirty look. (Even though everyone knows that when you have courtside seats, you simply have to yell out “defense.”) Billie was holding her own on the court — paired against an Arby Scheweitzer attorney who towered over her, she managed to block a few shots. Even Vanessa was moved to lean over and quietly tell me how well she thought Billie was playing. (Vanessa never really did get into the spirit of courtside seats.) The clock was down to a minute and Billie stole the ball from the player she was defending and passed it to Jack. He practically flew up the court toward the Gilson Hecht basket, leaving the Arby Schweitzer attorneys in his wake.
Vanessa and I sat forward in our seats, ready for Jack’s big slam dunk. He got all the way down the court and paused for a moment. The breath was caught in my chest as I puzzled over just what Jack was doing. He dribbled and then passed the ball. Passed the ball to Bob Frohman. To Bob Frohman? What on earth was he doing? Was he losing the game on purpose? Was he trying to lose a bet?
Thirty seconds left on the clock.
Bob looked just as confused as everyone else as he caught the ball (barely).
“You got it, Bob,” Jack said with a nod, as he looked on and threw his long arms out to block an opposing player.
Bob bounced the ball down once and then went for it. He threw it up toward the basket and everyone whipped their heads around to see if it would go in or not. The ball circled the rim, slowly, taking its time, like the tiny silver ball on a roulette wheel. The clock buzzer rang, signifying the end of the game, and everyone looked on, watching the ball go round and round. Everyone was frozen, heads tilted up, waiting for the final verdict.
The room stayed silent until, finally, the ball fell through the hoop with a tiny whoosh and the Gilson Hecht team erupted into a chorus of screams and yells. Everyone was screaming, jumping (myself included, and even Vanessa) — everyone except Bob. He stood frozen, still looking at the basket, not registering that it had actually gone in. The team dove into a huge group hug, and Jack grabbed Bob to get him in on it. At first tentative, Bob quickly fell into it, smiling and laughing. Jack directed the team to all put their hands into the center of the circle as he counted down from three.
“Three, two, one,” he called out as the team joined him in screaming, “Gilson Hecht!”
Jack led the team in shaking the hands of the Arby Schweitzer players and then off the court. Bob looked like a kid in a candy store as he lined up to shake the other players’ hands.
Vanessa and I rushed up to congratulate Jack.
“How did you know he would make it?” I asked Jack as he threw a towel onto his head.
“I didn’t,” he said, as he disappeared into the men’s locker room. Ten minutes later, he reemerged with a wet head and we were off to our local watering hole.
This being New York, our local watering hole was actually the bar of a fabulously trendy new midtown hotel. It boasted views of the Empire State Building and Central Park, but New Yorkers are far too cool to act as if they care about such things. After all, someone might — gasp! — mistake you for a tourist.
For a mere eighteen dollars, you can have a martini so fancy, it even comes with a little orchid floating on top. Unless you order the apple martini. That one comes with an apple slice. Or a chocolate martini. That one comes with a Hershey’s Kiss on top. But you get what I mean.
Only open for two weeks, already, the place was generating a huge buzz over the waitresses walking around clad only in slips. I was unsure if the fuss was about the women being nearly nude, or if it was offensive merely because slip dresses are totally out of fashion.
“Beryl moved in already,” I told them once we had secured a prime table near the window, overlooking the Empire State.
“So what?” Vanessa said. “You were too good for that piece of trash anyway. Let him have someone on his own level.” She set her enormous black Louis Vuitton work bag on the extra chair at the table.
“I agree,” Jack said, setting his Redweld full of discovery requests down on the extra chair next to Vanessa’s bag and putting his navy sports jacket on the back of his own. “Good riddance to bad garbage.”
“Yeah,” Vanessa continued, “Beryl isn’t even a name!”
“I don’t really think that we should be making judgments based on the poor girl’s name, though,” Jack said.
“No matter what her name is,” Vanessa explained, �
��we automatically hate her. We love Brooke, we hate Beryl. That’s just the way it is.”
The waitress came to our table. Vanessa ordered an apple martini and I ordered a French martini. Truth be told, I didn’t very much care for the taste of it, but it came adorned with that little flower, which I loved. Jack opted for a beer. A very fancy and expensive beer, but a beer nonetheless. Jack always told us that guys who went to college in the Midwest order beer as a matter of course — as if it were some sort of religious thing or a condition of keeping your diploma from the University of Michigan in good standing. Jack offered up his credit card to begin a tab, which he also always assured us was another throwback to good old-fashioned Midwestern values. Even though he, himself, grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
“Why were you even calling him?” Jack asked. “Hasn’t he done enough damage already?”
“I thought I’d try to get him back so that we could go to Trip’s wedding together and I could keep my dignity ever-so-slightly intact and things could be perfect again.”
“But, Brooke, they weren’t perfect before,” Jack said. I turned to him to find him looking me dead in the eye. I had to turn away from his gaze.
“And, anyway,” Vanessa said, “what is he? Cattle? Get him? How very cavewoman of you, Brooke.” She adjusted her bateau-neck cashmere sweater as the waitress set our eighteen-dollar martinis down on the table.
“Get back my man,” I explained, pulling my hair out of its bun and pushing it behind my ears.
“How very country-western of you,” Jack said, taking a sip of his beer.
“Look, it’s not like there is some law saying that you have to go to your ex-boyfriend’s wedding or something,” Vanessa tried to reason. “In fact, there should be a law against it. Save yourself the pain. I won’t go, either, if you want. Do you really think that his ice-queen bride even wants you there?”
“Actually, I’ve heard that she’s really very nice,” I said, removing the flower from my drink and setting it on the napkin.
“Yes, if I was a stunning Academy Award-nominated actress with noble blood, I’m quite certain that I would be, what did you call her, nice, as well.” Way to help out my ego, there, Vanessa. “She does have a title, doesn’t she?”
“I forget,” I said, my eyes floating over to the view.
“She’s a countess,” Jack chimed in, sipping his beer. “Or an empress. Some ‘ess.’ I’m not sure exactly what.”
“Not helping,” I said under my breath. I fingered the cocktail napkin that was under my drink.
“I saw this whole special on her on Entertainment Tonight when she was nominated for that Oscar last year,” Jack explained.
“Still not helping,” I said a little louder. I ripped my cocktail napkin in two pieces. And then in four.
“Oh, my God, I totally saw that, too!” Vanessa exclaimed.
“Yeah, she’s part of the royal family of some obscure Asian country,” Jack continued. Jiaolong, to be exact. A tiny island-nation nestled between China and Taiwan, population just under fifty thousand; native language: Mandarin Chinese; main export: fish. Not like I Googled her or her country or anything. Who doesn’t know Jiaolong?
“Can we get back to me, please!” I said, my napkin now in eight pieces. “What am I going to do about this wedding? I RSVP’d yes and it’s in two weekends. It is, like, totally rude to cancel now. They probably already have their count in.” I took a big swig of my martini for effect.
“Well,” Vanessa said, sipping hers, “it’s not like Trip isn’t rich enough to pay for one extra person who doesn’t come.”
I guess she was right. I could just go to the wedding by myself. I mean, who needs to have a man on your arm when you are a woman of the new millennium? In many ways, having the right pair of shoes is much more important for an ex-boyfriend’s wedding than having a man on your arm. I mean, can having a man on your arm make your feet look so cute you could die? I don’t think so. Can having a man on your arm make you look three and a half inches taller, thus making you look like a svelte five-foot-eight supermodel as opposed to the five - foot - four - and - a - half little shrimp you truly are? No. Can having a man on your arm make your butt and thighs look ten pounds thinner? I think not! So, I ask you: Who needs to have a man on her arm?
Okay, I didn’t even convince myself on that one.
“Two,” I pointed out, placing the sixteen pieces of my cocktail napkin back on the table. A slip-dress-clad waitress skimmed by our table, knocking my napkin bits to the floor like pieces of confetti. I grabbed for them, but they slipped through my fingers.
“Two extra people,” Vanessa continued, without missing a beat. “He’s only, like, one of the biggest agents in Hollywood.”
“Exactly,” Jack agreed, “and it’s not like his fiancée Ava, the empress or countess or whatever she is, is hurting for cash.”
“Still not helping!” I said, lifting Jack’s beer to make a play for his cocktail napkin. “I get it. My ex is fabulously successful and wealthy and is marrying a woman who is fabulously successful and wealthy.”
“And hot,” Jack said. Hot? I suppose she was okay-looking if you consider that whole petite - dancer’s - body - with - flawless - alabaster - skin - long - flowing - black - hair - and - face - of - an - angel thing attractive.
“And has a title,” Vanessa said.
“Not! Helping!”
“And here you are with no boyfriend, no ring, and no Oscar nomination,” Vanessa said, patting my head as if I were a child who had just lost her school’s spelling bee.
“That pretty much sums it up,” I agreed. “Can we get some more cocktail napkins here?” I asked the scantily clad waitress who was now delivering round two.
“Come on!” Jack said. “You are a brilliant attorney at one of the largest and most prestigious firms in New York City. You have a wonderful family, and, if I do say so myself, wonderful friends. In your spare time you volunteer at a nursing home. That’s our Brooke. That pretty much sums it up.”
Jack was right. I was a big-time lawyer at a big-time law firm. I had a wonderful family and friends. And I volunteered at a nursing home, to boot! Sometimes I forgot how wonderful I truly was. Although, I hadn’t really had time to volunteer much, what with my caseload and all. And that sort of thing isn’t billable. But I really think that it’s the thought that counts with those things.
“Wait!” Vanessa cried, putting both hands on the table as if she was about to yell out Eureka! or Bingo! or something equally as thrilling. “That’s perfect. You can tell Trip that you can’t go because of your volunteering duties at the nursing home!”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Hi, Trip, I can’t make it to your wedding because I have to play Yahtzee with the elderly.”
Vanessa removed her hands from the table and admired the view.
“Just don’t go,” she said, head still turned out to the Empire State.
“That is not an option.”
“People get sick, don’t they?” she asked, head still turned. “Just pretend you’re sick.”
“Yes,” Jack said, “she can say that she caught something fierce spending all that time at the nursing home.”
“Okay, then,” Vanessa said, turning her head back to the table, “you should totally pay some hot escort dude to go and pretend to be Douglas. It would be hysterical. We could totally pretend that Douglas has a title, too! The wedding’s out in California, so it’s not like anyone would know! He does have an accent, after all.”
“Just because you have an accent, you think that people assume that you’re royalty?” I asked.
“Douglas certainly acted as if he thought he was royalty,” Jack said.
“No,” Vanessa explained, “an accent just makes it less of a stretch.”
“Yes,” Jack said, “and with all of those Hollywood egomaniacs there, it’s not like anyone would really notice you, anyway. You could just be the stunning, mysterious lawyer with the international man of mystery on
your arm.”
“In a skirt,” I pointed out.
“In a skirt,” Vanessa said, lifting her arms to the table again.
“But with a title,” Jack said.
“With a title,” Vanessa sang.
“This could actually work, you know,” I said, gulping down the contents of martini number two. I think I may have gulped the flower, too, in my haste.
“Yeah,” Vanessa laughed, finishing her martini, too, “except for the fact that I was totally kidding!”
“No, really,” I said, “this could totally work. This is the solution,” I said, motioning for our waitress to come over.
“No more martinis for you,” Jack said.
“He’s right. No more martinis for me,” I said to the waitress. “Three shots of Southern Comfort, please.”
“And exactly where do you think you will be able to find this hot escort dude on such short notice?” Vanessa asked.
“And, more importantly,” Jack asked, “did we learn nothing from Risky Business?”
“Well, then, I won’t use a hot escort dude,” I explained.
“You won’t do it at all because it is totally insane!” Vanessa laughed.
I looked at Jack.
“Oh, I know that look,” he said. “Don’t even think about it.”
But I kept looking at him. With that look. You know that look. That look of seduction. That look that you use to get what you want, when you want it. The type of look you’d use at the post office when you really, really, really need to get your package out that day and they tell you that you filled out the wrong form and you have to go back and get it and you do, only, you really, really, really don’t want to wait on the line again, so you sort of smile that smile and pray that the man will take pity on you/want to sleep with you/think you’ll like him if he’ll be nice to you. That look.
“That’s the look she gives word processing when she wants her job to get done before everyone else’s,” Jack said.
“That’s the look she gives at Bergdorf’s when she wants the salesman to pull out every size nine that’s on sale,” Vanessa said.
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