Scot on the Rocks bm-1

by Brenda Janowitz

  “You do, don’t you?” I asked as he leaned into me. He shook his head yes slowly as he leaned in a little more. I couldn’t believe it. We were going to kiss. I was going to kiss Jack. Or, Jack was going to kiss me! Either way, it was happening right this very minute — we were going to kiss!

  I closed my eyes and lifted my head to his, but was abruptly brought back to reality by a familiar voice.

  “May I cut in?” Mrs. Martin asked. Our faces simultaneously turned away from each other to look at her. “Douglas, dear, do you think that your fiancée would mind if I borrowed you for a dance?”

  Mind? Yes, of course I mind! Don’t I look like I mind? Couldn’t she see that we were just about to kiss? Granted, she thinks that we are engaged and thus do that sort of thing all the time (or one should hope!), but the fact remains that we are not and we do not! I most certainly mind!

  “Why, of course not!” Jack said, in his perfect Scottish accent. “Thank you very much for asking! Brooke, you remember Mrs. Martin from cocktail hour, don’t you?”

  “I most certainly do,” I said.

  “May I say, Brooke, you’ve got a real keeper here,” she said.

  “Yes, she does,” Jack said, looking over his shoulder to me as he took Mrs. Martin’s hand to dance.

  “Don’t you just love the accent?” she added in a stage whisper.

  “Who wouldn’t?” I stage whispered back as Mr. Martin took my hand.

  “So, how did you two lovely young people meet?” Mr. Martin asked me as we began to dance. His hands were rough to the touch, like someone who has had to work hard his whole life, but his nails were neatly manicured, like a lady who lunches.

  “We work at the same law firm,” I said.

  “An office romance?” Mrs. Martin said over her shoulder, spinning Jack around so that she could look at me. “My, my! Our daughter is always telling us that it’s inappropriate to date someone in your office nowadays. That it’s somewhat taboo.”

  “Funny you should mention that, Mrs. Martin,” Jack said, taking back the lead. “That’s the reason that Brooke and I didn’t get together at first.”

  “You don’t say?” Mrs. Martin asked, intrigued.

  “Our firm had a silly little policy about interoffice dating,” Jack said.

  “It makes sense if you think about it,” I said. “The office gossip mill could kill any good relationship, and if it doesn’t last, then you have to see that person every day.” Mrs. Martin shook her head in agreement as if she had heard this same line of reasoning before from her daughter. “And, of course, it’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a woman.” Mrs. Martin continued to nod.

  “Yes, dear, I see your point,” Mrs. Martin said, “but finding true love is worth the risk, isn’t it?” I looked over to Jack and found him looking at me. I tried to formulate a response, but couldn’t help but think that I agreed. All this time, I’d been wasting my time pining away for a cad like Douglas when I had a wonderful guy right here in front of me. What on earth had I been thinking?

  “Well, with all due respect, Brooke,” Mr. Martin said, “I always thought that working together was a stupid reason not to date someone.” I looked over at Jack in his kilt and smiled. He was smiling, too.

  It didn’t matter what I had been thinking in the past. Now I had my head screwed on straight. I was going to go after what I wanted — what I deserved — from now on and nothing was going to stand in my way.

  “I’m beginning to think the same thing myself, Mr. Martin,” I said.

  “Beginning to think so?” Mr. Martin replied. “You mean you thought so. You two are engaged already!” He and Mrs. Martin both laughed.

  “Yes, thought so,” I said, laughing along with the Martins. “I just meant that I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  Jack and I locked eyes. The song ended and we all stood and applauded for the band. They cued up another number and Mrs. Martin grabbed Jack’s arms to dance another dance.

  “So, Douglas,” Mrs. Martin said to Jack, “perhaps you can show me a traditional Scottish dance?”

  “Yes, I would love to do that sometime!” he said.

  “There’s no time like the present, Douglas. Show me some moves,” she said, grabbing his arms and moving them around as if they were going to start up some sort of spontaneous break-dancing wave or something. I could see Jack over Mr. Martin’s shoulders and I gave him a hopeful smile. After all, he’s a smart guy. He can improvise.

  He began to do some salsa. Salsa? Maybe he can’t improvise. Gosh, what does this guy do when he’s in court? Thank goodness big firm litigators never really ever go to court, or this guy would really be in trouble. (Jack: “Your honor, I object.” Judge: “Over-ruled.” Jack: “Your honor, por qué?” Judge: “Sit down before I hold you in contempt.”)

  “No, Scottish moves, silly! Don’t you Scots have any traditional dances?” she asked, laughing. I’ve laughed that laugh before. I could tell that in her head she was thinking, Those crazy Scots!

  “Ah, yes, but I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know them very well,” Jack said, taking a handkerchief out of his breast pocket to dab at his brow.

  “You don’t have to be shy with me!” she persisted.

  “I’m just afraid that I wouldn’t be able to teach them very well, is all. Scottish dances are very complicated, you see.”

  “But I’m a great dancer! Try me!” she said, and I tried to formulate a getaway plan. Perhaps now would be a good time to feign illness? Or pretend we just saw some wedding guests that we simply had to say hello to across the floor? Would the Martins buy it if I pretended that we’d just spotted Matt Damon and we absolutely had to go over and say hi since we were friends from high school? Or would Mrs. Martin know that Matt Damon was slightly older than me? Oh, my God, is that really Matt Damon?

  Or, failing everything else, should I just simply grab Jack and run all the way back to New York? That wasn’t sounding like such a bad idea right about now. After we said “hello” to Matt Damon, that is.

  What? I wouldn’t want to be rude.

  “It’s just that I don’t want to butcher any of the moves,” he said.

  “It’s not exactly like any of us are going to know the difference, now then,” she said laughing.

  I could see the lightbulb go off in Jack’s head. I began looking around for the emergency exits. Clearly, this constituted an emergency situation.

  Jack began to smile.

  God, no. Please, no.

  “Good point, Mrs. Martin,” he said.

  For the love of God, no! I was pretty sure I had told him 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. Certainly that excluded said hottie in a skirt dancing a ridiculous Scottish dance, didn’t it?

  “So, go on, then,” Mrs. Martin goaded. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  And he did. He showed her exactly what he had. And it was not pretty. Depending on your point of view, that is.

  Jack began doing a Scottish dance. Well, his rendition of a traditional Scottish dance, anyway. It was a crazy mix of the hora that they do at Jewish weddings and the Irish dancing that Lord of the Dance does. He began very slowly, very gingerly, and was clearly making up the steps as he went along. I wondered if Mrs. Martin could tell.

  “That’s right, Douglas!” Mrs. Martin called out. “Make your mum proud!” (I guess she couldn’t tell.)

  He continued dancing, and a few of the other guests began to watch. Within minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Martin were actually following along. I was having none of this, though. I slowly backed away from the dance floor and made my way to our table. By the time I’d edged away from the scene of the crime, even more wedding guests were watching Jack — cheering him on — following every move he made.

  “Funny, I’ve never seen that dance before,” the Scottish waiter said to me as I reached the edge of the dance floor. Oh, my Go
d. We’re busted. We are stone-cold busted. He’s going to tell everyone that Jack/Douglas is not really Scottish! Everyone will know that I made my best friend dress up as my most recent ex for my other ex’s wedding and it won’t even matter that Jack wore a kilt, or that we almost kissed on the dance floor, or that I’ve finally come to my senses! I will be humiliated and never able to show my face in L.A. again! The whole west coast, really, if you think about it. Who would have thought that after all of this careful planning and plotting, in the end, I would get busted by the Scottish waiter? Damn the gods of coincidence. Damn these large banquet halls and their hiring of random Europeans all the time. Damn! Damn! Damn!

  “He must be from Perth,” the waiter said, shrugged, and walked away.

  Damn.

  I looked up and Jack was still doing his rendition of a traditional Scottish dance, now in full force and with most of the dance floor dancing along with him. Those who were too timid to try their luck dancing stood on the side of the dance floor, clapping along.

  “Is that supposed to be a traditional Scottish dance?” Vanessa asked me, as she nibbled on a dinner roll. Our salads were being set onto the table.

  “I don’t know. I can’t bear to look,” I told her, turning my back to the dance floor and taking a swig of white wine from a glass that was sitting on our table. I hoped it belonged to someone we knew, although at this point, I didn’t really care.

  “Do the Scots even have a traditional Scottish dance?” Vanessa asked me.

  “How the hell should I know?” I asked. “I think that we have established that I did not do the requisite research for this weekend. You think you’ve got an outline with colored tabs and some color-coded index cards with the name of a hometown and a kilt, and you’re set. But you’re not.”

  “Yes, I think that it’s supposed to be a Scottish dance,” Vanessa said, mesmerized by what she was seeing on the dance floor, unable to take her eyes away. “Only it looks like a cross between the hora and an Irish jig.” Vanessa was intently staring, head tilted slightly to the right as she puzzled over what was before her eyes.

  “I’m just warning you now, if he starts lifting people up in chairs, I’m walking out,” I said, closing my eyes against the scene.

  “Oh, my God. Do not turn around,” Vanessa said, her head snapping upright. My God! Did that man start lifting people in chairs already?

  “What?” I asked, starting to turn around. Vanessa grabbed my arm.

  “Do not turn around until I’ve had a second to come up with a plan,” Vanessa said, suddenly very serious.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I asked. “What is Jack doing now?”

  “It’s not Jack,” she said.

  “So, then what is the big deal?” I asked.

  “It’s not Jack. It’s Douglas.”

  “What?” I asked. I stood up and turned around very slowly. There he was, walking to us, as if he didn’t have a care in the world — the cad of all cads, the cheater of all cheaters — Douglas. Walking toward us, as if in slow motion. I sat there, completely helpless, like when you know you are about to be in a car accident, but it’s too late to do anything about it but simply brace yourself and hope that you don’t get too hurt.

  I stared at him coming to us, closer and closer, looking absolutely gorgeous as always — like James Bond, only more handsome. Eyes flickering with that devilish look, mouth contorted into his David Addison smirk, with just the perfect amount of stubble on his face. I could just tell that if you got close enough to him, he probably smelled great, too.

  As he walked toward me, I couldn’t help but notice that he was impeccably dressed from head to toe. It wasn’t surprising — he always had all of his suits custom made — but there was something unexpected to this evening’s ensemble.

  Pants.

  “Is that man wearing a fucking tuxedo?” I asked Vanessa.

  Stay cool. Stay calm, I thought to myself. This is not a problem. This is nothing you can’t handle. This isn’t even that big of a deal. You are simply at your ex-boyfriend’s wedding with your faux fiancé keeping your dignity ever-so-slightly intact. Piece of cake. Nothing can stop you now. Not losing your luggage. Not a run-in with your high-school nemesis. Not Vanessa having a nervous breakdown in the bathroom. Not even a Scottish waiter. The real Douglas showing up? Please.

  “Ladies,” Douglas said, his voice dripping with sex, reaching for each of our hands to kiss.

  And with that, I passed out.

  22

  It is a universal rule that the cad must always come back. I don’t know why, he just does. Just read any Jane Austen novel and you’ll see what I mean. And I should know. I’ve read a lot of Jane Austen novels. So why, then, do you suppose I was so surprised and confused when my cad came back?

  I came to a few minutes after passing out, in a tiny little room with a tiny little waterfall trickling in the background. The first thing I saw was Jack’s face, hovering over mine, looking very worried. He had a napkin dipped in ice water and he was dabbing it on my forehead as I lay sprawled out on a heavily upholstered love seat.

  “Oh, God, Jackie. I just had the worst dream,” I said, looking up to the ceiling. It was hand painted with an intricate deep blue pattern. “We were at Trip’s wedding and out of nowhere, Douglas showed up. Not you Douglas — the real Douglas. I fainted and I could have sworn that I heard Trip’s mother say, ‘Who brought that Jewish girl?’”

  Jack didn’t say a word and kept dabbing at my forehead. I looked down and was face-to-face with his kilt. “Oh, my God, it wasn’t a dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream,” he said, and as I turned to look at him, I could see that we were in the bridal suite. It was dimly lit, the only source of light being from the vanity mirror’s lights. Jack had pulled up one of the chairs from the table next to the vanity to sit next to me.

  There was a plate of pigs in blankets and sushi sitting on the table, half-eaten by Trip and Ava. Beside it, there was an ice bucket with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot turned upside down. I got a visual of Trip shoving spicy tuna rolls down Ava’s throat as she chugged champagne by the glassful under the guise of a panic attack. Jack dipped the napkin back into the ice bucket and gently put it to my forehead.

  “It wasn’t a dream? You mean, we’re really here?”

  “And so is he,” he said.

  Douglas is here. And I’m here. And Jack is here, dressed up as Douglas. Who is here! And I just passed out and made a huge scene at my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Why, oh, why couldn’t I have just cracked my head open and died like a normal person when I’d passed out and hit the floor? Life can be so unfair sometimes.

  “I am so embarrassed. I can never go back out there. Let’s leave. No, we can’t leave. What will we say to everyone?”

  “Already covered. Vanessa handled it quite well, I must admit,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Thank God for you and Vanessa. What did she tell them? Did she fess up? Tell everyone the truth?”

  Yes, that’s it. Maybe Vanessa just confessed. That would be easier at this point, wouldn’t it? It would be a relief to stop playing this silly little charade. I mean, it’s not as if I was really keeping my dignity intact — ever-so-slightly or otherwise — and the people whom I really cared about knew what a loser I’d been lately and seemed to love me nonetheless. (I think.)

  “God, no,” Jack said. “Are you insane? She told everyone that Douglas is Marcus.”

  Thank God she lied. Thank God my friend Vanessa is a big fat liar. Thank God she looked at them dead in the eye and told them a bold-faced lie.

  “So, now you’re pretending to be Douglas and Douglas is pretending to be Marcus?”

  “Pretty much,” he said, getting up to dab the napkin in the ice bucket again. “I can’t wait to see Douglas try to do an American accent.”

  “He actually does a great American accent. He used to imitate me all the time. Well, mimic me, really, when he was annoyed,” I said as Jack came back to th
e couch with the napkin. “Anyway, it was still pretty hysterical.”

  “I bet,” he said, and I realized that it really wasn’t all that hysterical. Douglas did it a lot — he would call it “the voice” — when we were hanging out with his European friends. Douglas would accuse me of speaking “American,” not English, and it would tickle his European friends pink to see him bring me down. It tickled him pink to bring me down, too, now that I think of it.

  They would pretend that they couldn’t understand things I said with my “American” accent, really just an excuse to talk among themselves and completely ignore me. Which Douglas was rather good at doing.

  “You guys are really the best,” I said to Jack. “I am so lucky to have you.”

  “You know I would do anything for you,” he said.

  “That is so sweet. You really would?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but just looked down at the kilt and his bare legs. Jack’s not-so-subtle way of saying, yes, he really would. I smiled. I never had someone before who would do anything for me.

  “Right,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows to look at Jack.

  “Right,” he said, leaning in.

  “Right.”

  And with no one there to distract us, he kissed me. And it was worth the wait. At first it was delicate, sweet, as if I were a fine piece of crystal that he didn’t want to break. Then, more passionate, lustful, as if he had been waiting his entire life to kiss me.

  His lips were soft and he tasted like Scotch and sugar. I put my hand on his right cheek and it was warm to my touch. When I finally opened my eyes, he was looking right at me. It was a look I had never seen before. Serious, earnest, burning — downright smoldering. I was beginning to melt. We kissed shamelessly for God knows how long when finally one of us realized that it might be bad form to spend the whole of your ex-boyfriend’s wedding making out with your date in the bridal suite. It was probably Jack who came up with that realization, because I didn’t seem to see a problem with it.