Jack With a Twist bm-2

by Brenda Janowitz

  “You want me to bill it to your old client?” Vanessa asks.

  “Yes,” I say, practically ducking down under my desk as I see Noah walking by my office door with one of the other partners.

  “You do realize that your fiancé is now the lead on all Healthy Foods matters, right?” she says.

  “Which is exactly why he’ll let the billing go though,” I explain, “Now type.”

  “Can you get disbarred for billing personal stuff to a client?” Vanessa asks.

  “No!” I say. Yes. In fact, that’s the main reason why most attorneys get disbarred. But that shouldn’t really stop two women on a mission, should it? And anyway, this research is important. “They won’t mind at all. And they really do charge way too much for their coffee. I just went to a Healthy Foods the other day and my cappuccino was almost five bucks. The least they can do is help me out with this teensy tiny little issue.”

  “What am I searching for here?” Vanessa asks. I can hear her beginning to type.

  “Try typing in ethics and wedding dress,” I say. “And put wedding dress in quote marks so that you search for the full term, not the two words separately.”

  “You don’t have to tell me how to do a Lexis search, thank you very much,” Vanessa says.

  “Well,” I say, “I did have to tell you what to type in.”

  “That’s because what you want me to type in is crazy,” she explains. “You want me to find a case where the court holds that it’s not a breach of your ethical duties to have a wedding dress designer create your wedding dress for you when you’re representing her in a dissolution of partnership action.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Every lawyer knows that you can never find a case that matches your exact case perfectly,” Vanessa says, speaking to me as if I were a small child. Or a first-year law student.

  “When you wanted me to research whether or not ‘randomly kissing some sleazy skank’ counted as a grounds for divorce,” I ask, “did I tell you that was crazy?”

  Vanessa doesn’t respond, but I do hear the frantic tapping of keyboard keys over the phone.

  “I’ve got something on a lawyer stealing money from a wedding dress designer’s escrow funds?” she says, still typing away.

  “Nope,” I say. “I don’t want her money, just her dress.”

  “How about this one—Southern District of California. Woman sues her wedding dress designer, who promised that she’d design a custom gown, on the grounds that the dress the designer created for her was not actually unique. Seems after this designer created the custom gown for this customer, the designer then began mass-producing the dress. Someone wore the same dress to the wedding that the bride wore herself.”

  “Oh, my God, I’d be so pissed!” I say. “And who wears white to a wedding? If you see anyone show up to my wedding in white, please kick them out.”

  “The designer had mass-produced the dress in forest green,” Vanessa says. “So, the guest showed up in the same dress as the bride, only hers was green.”

  “If that happens to me, please still kick them out,” I say.

  “I’m not really finding any cases that are on point for you, Brooke. Sorry.”

  “Well, keep looking,” I say, as I open a window on my computer to begin a search on Westlaw. I hang up just as Vanessa’s saying something about having other work to do and I do, too, to be sure, but clearly my work on “wedding dress law” trumps all of that.

  As the partners stop by my office all afternoon to praise me for my good work and dedication to the firm, one by one, like a receiving line to the Queen, all I can think is: My wedding dress…

  4

  Is it inappropriate to start making a mental checklist of who I want to have in my bridal party when I’m sitting in a divorce attorney’s office with my best friend? I mean, I can still be supportive of her and her divorce even while I’m thinking about my own wedding, right? No laws against that?

  Okay, okay, so maybe it’s a tiny bit self-centered of me to be thinking about my wedding party while Vanessa laments the end of her own marriage, but I’m going to ask her to be my matron of honor, and that should probably cheer her up! Although, she’ll be divorced by the time I get married, so I guess that would make her the maid of honor. Not like she’s an old maid or anything!

  Perhaps I shouldn’t bring this up right now.

  “Vanessa, Ms. Cohen is ready for you now,” the assistant says. Vanessa takes a deep breath as she stands up. I stand, too, and give her a big hug.

  It’s been hard for Vanessa to come to grips with the fact that her marriage is ending—I mean, obviously it would be hard for anyone to go through a divorce, but Vanessa has the added pressure of little to no support from her mother and the rest of her family, in general. They all seem to think that Marcus is the second coming of Christ, despite the fact that he kissed another woman while they were married. Well, he is tall and slim like Jesus, and ridiculously handsome and rather ethereal-looking, so, if it’s true that Jesus was actually black, they may have a decent argument.

  But then there’s that whole kissing-another-woman thing. I’m pretty sure that those people who wear those WWJD bracelets—What Would Jesus Do?—would categorically tell you that the one thing that Jesus would not do is kiss another woman while married to Vanessa. It was just that one woman that one night, but still, it broke Vanessa’s heart and she still hasn’t fully recovered. Not long after she and Marcus separated, I went to dinner with Vanessa and her mother, and her mother repeatedly advised her to “get over yourself and go save your marriage.”

  My mother couldn’t understand why Vanessa was getting a divorce either:

  “How could you divorce a doctor?” my mom said to Vanessa on one of our wedding gown shopping expeditions. “Clearly, you are not Jewish. A Jewish woman would never divorce a doctor.”

  “Being married to a doctor isn’t all you’d think it would be, Mrs. Miller,” Vanessa said. “Being married to a doctor has its disadvantages.”

  “Like, for example,” I said, “anytime you’re in a crowded place and someone screams, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ he has to say ‘yes.’”

  See how good I am at defusing a difficult topic and changing the subject? I don’t want to brag, but in addition to being a big-time lawyer, I also have an undergraduate degree in child psychology.

  Oh, please. As if you don’t employ the same skills in dealing with your mother as you do in dealing with a small child.

  “Well, there’s that,” Vanessa said, “but I meant more like the fact that he’s never home. He’s never there.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, “and the whole doctor-in-the-house thing.”

  So, Vanessa’s really going through with the divorce. And now the only person she can depend on is me.

  “You can do this,” I say and Vanessa nods unconvincingly back. “Want me to come in with you?”

  “No,” she says quietly, “I think I have to do this part on my own.”

  “Well, I’ll be sitting right here,” I say. “So just let me know if you need me.”

  “Okay.” Vanessa squeezes my hand and I watch her as she walks into her attorney’s office.

  Should I have insisted that I go in there? Vanessa’s been my best friend since our first year of law school and I hate that she’s going through something so painful right now. I should have just insisted that I go in with her. I consider for a second whether I should just walk back there and insist on sitting in on Vanessa’s meeting. But having your best friend bum-rush your first visit to your divorce attorney probably doesn’t set the best tone for an attorney-client relationship, so I opt to stay out in the reception area, like Vanessa’s asked me to.

  As the door shuts with barely a sound, I sit back down and take out some work that I brought with me to do while I wait for Vanessa. I look at my research on dissolution of partnership. My initial research revealed that this was a fairly straightforward case, and I realized why Noah must have ass
umed that I could take the matter on by myself. Monique’s partnership agreement is well-written and clear—its elegant language should make this matter go smoothly and easily. This research shouldn’t really take very long at all.

  Which really frees me up to do some more thinking about my bridal party: Vanessa will lead the charge as my matron/maid of honor, with the rest of the party rounded out with Jack’s three older sisters. Even though I haven’t met Jack’s older sisters yet, I just know that when our families meet, they are all going to love each other immediately and Jack’s sisters will be my new best friends.

  I walk to the other side of the reception area to get myself a cup of coffee—after all, in one short afternoon, I’ve figured out my entire case and planned out my wedding party. Surely I deserve a snack.

  “It will be easier to start getting over him once you take that ring off,” a strange voice whispers to me as I’m pouring my coffee. I turn around to see the epitome of tall, dark and handsome leaning over my shoulder. As I melt into his hazel-green eyes, it takes me a second to realize that I’m still pouring the coffee. And that I’m engaged. I look down to see that I’ve spilled my coffee all over the countertop.

  What is it with me and coffee lately? I just got this skirt back from the dry cleaners after my last run-in with an errant cup of joe.

  “Me? Oh, no, I’m not getting a divorce,” I say, “I haven’t even gotten married yet! I’m just here to support my friend who’s going through a divorce.”

  “Oh,” he says, already turning to walk away from me, his broad shoulders sinking just the tiniest bit, “sorry about that.”

  That guy was really hot! I think. I guess I’ve still got it! Off the market and still a little heartbreaker….

  I immediately e-mail Jack a message from my BlackBerry to tell him how I get hit on left and right when he’s not around. He e-mails back a very detailed message that explains all of the things he plans to do to me later to ensure that I never ever ever stray from him, not even for one minute.

  I put my BlackBerry away with a smile and scan the room. (What can I say? Some single girl habits die hard….) The guy who approached me isn’t the only hot guy in the room. Everyone in this office is pretty hot, including Vanessa’s divorce lawyer herself, Stephanie Cohen. This would be a great place to meet someone, I think to myself, looking around the room at all of the good-looking eligible men. Not one is wearing a wedding ring, so they are all clearly single! Or about to be, any minute! What a great place to meet men—I wish I’d known about places like this back when I was single. And now that I’ve discovered this hot spot, I’m already engaged. Life can be so unfair sometimes.

  I wonder if Stephanie ever dates her hot clients after their divorces are final and they are free and single again. What? I mean once they aren’t her clients anymore, I’m not trying to insinuate she’d do anything unethical. Geez!

  As I stir my coffee, I notice the tray of mini cupcakes sitting next to the coffee set-up. Now, I know that I should be on a wedding diet, but now that Monique’s not designing my dress, maybe it would be okay to have just one cupcake. It suddenly dawns on me that now that Monique isn’t designing my dress anymore, I don’t have a dress. I’m back at square one. And I don’t even know where to go and look for a dress, since my mother made me have a nervous breakdown at nearly every bridal designer’s showroom in town!

  Don’t panic, you will find another dress. I take the napkin wrapped around my cup of coffee and tear it into halves. After all, finding a wedding dress is easy! People find wedding dresses every day of the week—how hard could it possibly be? Why, I’ll probably find one in the next store that I go to!

  Okay, I didn’t even convince myself on that one.

  I have no wedding dress! I’ve got the guy, but no dress. What am I going to wear down the aisle? Okay, be cool, be confident. You’ll find another dress. Maybe I should just take a tiny peek at a bridal magazine to start getting some ideas. Get those creative juices flowing again.

  The New York Law Journal, the National Law Journal, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal…. Nary a Vogue or a Glamour or a Marie Claire to be found. Which is really odd, seeing as Stephanie is so put together and well-dressed. Just because it’s a lawyer’s office, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have any fun magazines? Don’t they know that there are people here who need wedding dresses? Would it kill them to have a Bride magazine?

  Okay, maybe that’s pushing it, since I’m at a divorce attorney’s office. Must focus my energy on more important things. Like mini cupcakes.

  “Brooke, is that you?” a voice from behind me asks just as I’ve popped an entire mini-cupcake into my mouth. I turn around to see Monique deVouvray standing right behind me.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to swallow quickly, “Monique.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asks in her thick French accent. She’s dressed impeccably, just as she was on the other occasions when I’d seen her, but I notice that she’s got a large scarf wrapped around her head like she’s Bridget Bardot and is wearing enormous Chanel sunglasses that hide half of her face.

  “I’m just here with a friend,” I say, stirring my coffee. I don’t want to tell her that it’s Vanessa, since the last thing Vanessa needs right now is for her mother’s acquaintances to know about her divorce and how quickly it’s moving forward.

  “Well, I’m just here to talk to a lawyer so that I know my rights,” she says in a hushed voice. “Just talk. I’m not filing for divorce or anything.” She looks around the room furtively before looking back to me.

  “I won’t tell a soul,” I say as Monique pours herself a coffee—black. I marvel at the fact that she doesn’t even give a second look at the mini cupcakes. Or the hot guy with the hazel-green eyes. French women have so much self-control.

  “My prenuptial agreement is very complicated,” she says. “As a lawyer, I’m sure you understand that.”

  “Of course,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

  “Robin Kaplan is supposed to be very discreet,” she says, evoking the name of the most famous divorce attorney to the stars in New York City. “And I’ll count on you to be the same.”

  “Of course,” I say as an assistant comes over to us and tells Monique in a whisper that Robin Kaplan is ready to see her. Monique bows her head as she follows the assistant back to Ms. Kaplan’s office.

  First the dissolution of partnership and now a divorce. The tabloids will have a field day with this. Monique and her husband are a New York City institution, and have been since they first got together back in the seventies. I consider, for a moment, telling Vanessa about seeing Monique. Maybe it would make her feel better. After all, if a couple like Monique and Jean Luc can’t make it, who can? But then I consider that perhaps this conversation would fall under the attorney-client privilege that Monique enjoys with me, since I am representing her in her dissolution of partnership from said perfect husband. Who, after all these years, can’t seem to make it work. What if Jack and I can’t make it work?

  I begin stuffing mini cupcakes into my mouth.

  Vanessa and Stephanie walk out of Stephanie’s office just as I’m licking some frosting from my fingers.

  “Thank you for everything,” Vanessa says, giving Stephanie a hug. I wipe my hands on a napkin just in time for Vanessa to introduce me to Stephanie.

  “Did that guy hit on you?” Stephanie whispers as she shakes my hand, nodding her head in the direction of the tall, dark and handsome stranger who spoke to me earlier. “My assistant said that he came over and hit on you.”

  My goodness, I am so on fire that even Vanessa’s divorce attorney’s assistant noticed! My hotness simply cannot be concealed. Even a trained eye like that of a divorce attorney can tell that I am so fab that I get hit on left and right even with my engagement ring on!

  “Well, I might be taken,” I say as I flip my hair off my shoulders, “but I’ve still got it.”

  “That guy hits on everyone,” she whisper
s, “that’s why he’s getting a divorce.”

  Or not.

  I immediately reach for another mini cupcake.

  5

  I half expect to hear the theme song to Dynasty ring out every time I pull up to Jack’s parents’ house. Just twenty minutes outside of Philly, it is an enormous home that sits on seven acres of immaculately maintained landscaping, complete with its own double tennis court, Olympic-sized swimming pool and accompanying pool house that is larger than the house I grew up in.

  Seeing it tonight, now through my parents’ eyes, it’s like I’m here for the first time again. I remember when Jack took me home to meet his parents, how that ever-growing feeling of surprise grew like a pit in my tummy as we drove down the tree-lined block, houses getting bigger and grander by the second.

  I knew the house would be elegant—after all, Jack’s father is a federal judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and his mother is a socialite, so, of course their home would look like something out of an Aaron Spelling nighttime soap. It’s just that I hadn’t expected it to be quite so, well, large. Jack is totally down to earth, and on the few occasions when I’d met his parents, they seemed very unassuming as well. Although maybe I should have known that the house would look something like this from the places we’d have dinner whenever Jack’s parents met us in the city. It’s a veritable Zagat’s Top Ten whenever Jack and I dine with the Solomons: Le Bernadin, Per Se, Danube…the more extensive the wine list, the better. Usually, when my parents come into the city to take Jack and me for dinner they drive us out to Don Peppe’s in Queens, an amazing Italian joint just a stone’s throw away from JFK airport where the owner’s grandmother is the head chef and they only serve homemade red wine.

  We stop at the tiny guardhouse at the foot of the driveway to announce ourselves, and as the tremendous wrought-iron gates open for us and we drive up the winding driveway, my father announces, “Your tax dollars at work.” I say a little “thank you” to the gods above that Jack decided to head up earlier in the day to spend a little time with his parents before the big meeting-of-the-families dinner and isn’t in the car to hear the play by play of the first reactions to the house. On the car ride up, I’d tried to subtly warn my parents about the size of the Solomons’ house, since I didn’t want their mouths to drop to the floor in front of Jack. But, as it turns out, there’s really no easy way to warn your parents about your in-laws-to-be’s house without making your parents feel totally and completely inferior. Which is why I ended up not saying anything to them at all.