But then the waiter brings me my iced coffee (my fourth of the day so far), with two Sweet-n-Lows and skim milk, just the way I like it, and I love her again. I love my best friend. I drink the iced coffee in two big slurps, careful not to spill any onto my white shift dress, and then move in on the ice water at my table setting. Picking it up (I was instructed by Vanessa that I cannot walk around with anything but clear-colored beverages while wearing a white dress), I walk over to Vanessa and Elizabeth, ready to start acting like the charming bride-to-be that I know I can be. If only I weren’t quite so tired.
I notice that Vanessa is smiling at Elizabeth with her lawyerly I’m-so-excited-to-work-on-this-lame-ass-case-with-you face and I realize that she’s just making nice with Jack’s family for me. I guess she really does deserve to be my maid of honor. Or matron. Whatever.
“We worked really hard on those,” Elizabeth is saying to Vanessa, just as Lisa, the youngest sister walks over to join us.
“Yes,” Lisa says, “we wanted them to be evocative of the flowers we’ll be having at the wedding, but not the same exact ones, so that the real flowers will be a big surprise!”
Vanessa already knows, in painstaking detail, what flowers I’ve picked out for my wedding. She’s segued into the classic you-are-so-funny-and-clever-in-the-way-that-you-handled-that-judge/witness/child-under-the-age-of-five! face and I do the same. Yes, you were so clever with the flowers, sisters Solomon!
“Are you Lisa?” Vanessa says, eyes squinting as she waits to hear if she’s guessed right.
“Yes!” Lisa says, “you must be Vanessa.” Vanessa will later tell me that everyone guessed she was Vanessa since she was one of the only black people there. I will take this not as an indictment on me and the types of friends that I have, but as an indictment of Gilson, Hecht, and law firms in general, and how they really need to make more affirmative action initiatives in terms of hiring.
“There you are!” my mother says, rushing over to Vanessa and me. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
I suppose that I don’t have to mention here that my mother is wearing a crisp white linen suit.
“Love your suit,” I say to my mother, in much the same tone that Hannibal Lecter uses when he says that very line to the Senator.
“Why, thank you, BB!” my mother cries, oblivious to my tone, “I saw it at Saks and I just couldn’t resist! How often do you get to be the mother of the bride at your own daughter’s bridal shower?”
Jack’s two sisters shrug and smile. My mother either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that Jack’s mother actually got to do that very thing on three separate occasions.
“Well, you look fabulous, Mimi,” Vanessa says, giving my mom a hug.
“If you wear white to my wedding,” I say, drawing my mother in for a hug and then whispering directly into her ear, “you are dead to me.”
“You preapproved this outfit, BB,” my mother says, trying to release herself from my grasp.
“You tried it on for me in Saks in blue,” I say, “this is not blue.”
“Oh, BB, you’re so funny,” my mother says, laughing like a crazy person, “that’s my BB. What a nervous little bride-to-be! Oh, Joan, I didn’t even see you walking over here! Hell-o!”
“So lovely to see you,” Jack’s mother says to us, giving us both a hug and a peck on the cheek. “What a wonderful day, isn’t it?”
My mother and I both smile and try not to laugh. I know exactly what my mother is thinking right now because Joan is wearing, yet again, palazzo pants.
Did they have a fire sale on these things at Armani or something? This pair is navy, and she’s wearing them with navy sling-backs and a light-blue cropped jacket with three-quarter sleeves.
“My cousin made these delightful cards for us to put on the table,” my mother tells Joan, taking pale-pink index cards out of her pocketbook. “You put them on the table and everyone writes down marital advice for BB. Then, BB reads them aloud when she’s opening her gifts.”
“Oh, Mimi,” Joan says, feigning disappointment. “We won’t be playing any games at the shower. The girls and I figured there were simply too many guests for such things.”
“Oh,” my mother says, keeping her smile glued to her lips, “of course. But…”
Joan walks away, Jack’s sisters in tow, toward the front of the room before my mother can finish her thought. Or maybe it was the back of the room. It’s hard to tell which end is which with all of the brightly colored ribbons floating down from the forty-foot ceiling.
“That’s an adorable idea,” Vanessa says in a hushed voice. “Why don’t we do these at our tables and at your family’s tables?”
Vanessa is referring to the fact that even though, I, myself, am an only child like my mother, my father’s family is actually quite large. So large that he has seven aunts. His father’s family was a traditional eastern European family with the eight children to back it up. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to remember who is who and which cousins correspond to which aunt. I definitely have Aunt Devorah and Aunt Jean’s families figured out, but as for the other five that don’t live in New York, I’m completely hopeless. Every once in a while, I’ll have dinner with one of Aunt Devorah’s brood and we’ll outline an ornate plan to create a massive Miller family tree, but that plan usually falls by the wayside by the following Tuesday.
If Vanessa knows the names of all seven of my great-aunts, I will have to strangle her on the spot.
“All of the tables are mixed up,” my mother says, with a frozen smile. “Each table is half Jack’s family, half ours. Half Jack’s friends, half yours and BB’s.”
“Right,” Vanessa says, “well, it was a cute idea anyway.”
My mother smiles at Vanessa, trying to keep her composure, and I reach over and hug my mother. This time it’s a real hug, not one where I grab her and then whisper threats in her ear.
“And you look beautiful today,” I say to her.
“May I have everyone’s attention?” Joan says at the front of the room. Or what must be the front of the room, since that’s where she’s now standing, trying to quiet the massive crowd. Somehow, out of nowhere, a podium with a microphone has materialized. “Is this thing on?” she asks, tapping the mike.
Jack’s sister Patricia nods her head at her mother and adjusts the mic upward for Joan.
“I just want to welcome all of you here and thank you for coming. I know that I speak for my family and Brooke’s family, too, when I tell you that we are all so happy to be sharing this very happy occasion with all of you. Now, I invite all of you to take your seats and enjoy your lunch!”
Inexplicably, everyone begins to applaud before scurrying about to find their seats. My mother walks with Vanessa and me back to our table—Table One, of course. Since Vanessa and I already set down our place cards, I’m anxious to rush back to our table so that we’re able to put my mother next to either Vanessa or me. The rest of the table is made up of Jack’s mother and his three sisters, and I just know that Jack’s mother and sisters will feel the need to mix the families up. I wonder if they’ve already moved Vanessa’s and my place cards around so that we don’t sit with the person we speak to every day.
Vanessa and I had hoped that we’d be at a table with some of our friends. Since I’ve been working so hard, I’ve barely seen any of my old friends from Gilson, Hecht and I definitely haven’t seen any old friends from law school. Hell, I’ve barely even seen my friend Esther, who works at my very own law firm. And she’s been getting really serious with her blind date guy and I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time for her to tell me all of the juicy details.
But, instead, we’re sitting at Table One. My only saving grace is that Vanessa told me that it’s good form for the bride to visit all of the various tables at her shower, so once I’ve had a bite to eat, I’ll be free to get up from the table.
My mother links her right arm into my left and Vanessa’s right arm into her le
ft and we begin to walk back to our table. As I walk arm in arm with my mother and Vanessa, I realize that maybe it isn’t such a bad thing for the three of us to be sitting at the same table. There’s strength in numbers, right? Sure, Jack’s mother and three sisters still outnumber us, but on our side, we’ve got two attorneys and a pushy matron from Long Island, so we’re nothing to sneeze at.
“Vanessa,” my mother asks, “do you know what we’re having for lunch today?”
“I had my hands full with the table seatings,” Vanessa says, “I wasn’t really involved with the menu. But, I’ve taken summer associates here for lunch before and they have great salads. It’s like something out of Architectural Digest the way they pile them so high. You’ll love them.”
“Well,” my mother says, “I hope I can get mine with the dressing on the side.”
“Oh, me too,” Vanessa says.
Salad? I can’t have a salad for lunch! I’m so tired that I feel like I’m hungover and everyone knows that the one thing you need most when you’re hung over is grease. A nice, big plate of delicious grease. What are the chances that they’ll be serving a side plate of French fries with those salads? I consider asking Vanessa that very question when I see the waiters set down a few plates of the salads that they’ll be serving today. In an instant, I forget all about the fries. In fact, I can’t think at all. I stop dead in my tracks and it has the effect of making my mother jerk forward, forcing Vanessa to do the same.
I don’t even notice that I’ve stopped walking until Vanessa announces that I’ve just caused her to lose a shoe. Leaning forward, I examine the salads that the waiters have set down onto Table Twelve, certain that there’s some kind of a mistake. It’s got to be a mistake. There is no way in hell that these are the salads that we are supposed to be eating today at my bridal shower. Because what’s sitting on top of the incredibly high salads that the waiters are serving is something that I’m absolutely sure can’t be there.
Lobster.
This must be a misunderstanding. There is simply no possible way that the Solomons could be this passive-aggressive. The man I am about to marry cannot possibly be born from the loins of a woman who, in the face of a holy war over serving lobster at my wedding, has instead chosen to serve it at the bridal shower she’s throwing for me.
And then my mother gets in on the action. She doesn’t say a word, but I can see in her plastered-on smile that she is having the same thought process that I am having at this very moment.
“Oh, my God,” Vanessa says and then covers her mouth when she realizes that she actually said it. Luckily, none of the guests at Table Twelve overhear her.
“Let’s not make a scene, girls,” my mother says quietly, “we’re too good for that. This is the party that they planned, and this is what they chose to do. We don’t agree with it, but let’s not stoop to their level and make a scene.”
Would not making a scene exclude crying? Because I can feel the tears beginning to form behind my eyes and I have to take a deep breath to keep them at bay. I turn to look at my mother and can practically see the smoke coming out of her ears.
“It looks delicious, doesn’t it?” Joan says, coming up behind us, on her way to our table. “You said that you don’t keep kosher normally, so Edward made the suggestion that a little bit of lobster today might be nice! Wasn’t that a great idea?”
My mother and I don’t say a word. We simply both look up, expressionless, and stare at Joan.
“Well, I, for one, don’t eat lobster,” Vanessa says, and I wonder if Joan is going to ask her if she keeps kosher.
“You don’t?” Joan says, “Well, that’s okay, we’ll just tell the waiter. There’s a substitution—salmon—for anyone who doesn’t want lobster. Do you like salmon?”
Vanessa looks at me and I look back at her. Vanessa, unable to come up with a response, shrugs her shoulders in response to the salmon.
Across the room, I see my Great-Aunt Devorah get up from her table and walk out of the restaurant.
This is all Jack’s fault. This is all Jack’s fault.
My mother, Vanessa and I all order the salmon substitution, on principle alone, while the Solomons all gobble up their salads, oohing and aahing about how delicious they are, and are your salads good, too? My mother will later tell me that the fact that the Solomon girls all order their salads without the dressing on the side, with the dressing plopped right on top like a big fat blob, says a lot about their character. I don’t really know what she means, but I will later just nod in agreement since I’m so angry about the lobster. Solidarity. Nothing like a mutual enemy to get a team to come together.
This is all Jack’s fault.
We don’t open any presents since Joan says that there are simply too many guests, so the whole shower is over in about two and a half hours, which Joan says is the perfect amount of time for a bridal shower.
I wonder aloud how on earth Jack and I will get all of our gifts home, and then, as if on cue, Jack, his father and all three of the brothers-in-law come in to help us out.
As per the usual, the brothers-in-law are all in uniform: pastel Loro Piana cable sweaters? Check. Pressed khaki pants? Check. Black Gucci loafers? Check. I don’t even try to figure out who’s who. I don’t care who’s who. I only care that Jack, the man I am going to marry, is walking right toward me.
In that instant, I just know that everything will be all right. Jack will fix everything.
Jack walks toward me, running his fingers through his shaggy brown hair, and I can’t help but smile. The stress of the day just fades away and I forget about everything—about how tired I am, about how stressed I am at work, even about the lobster. Jack walks toward me, holding a bouquet of flowers that I recognize as being the same flowers we’ll be using for our table arrangements at the wedding, and it all just fades away. It’s just Jack and me in that room.
As he gets closer, I stand up to give him a hug and a big kiss. Everyone starts clapping for us as we kiss and I feel like the main character in a romantic comedy. He’s Richard Gere and I’m Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. No, wait, actually, she played a prostitute in that movie so I’m not Julia Roberts. Okay, he’s Tom Hanks and I’m Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail. No, Tom successfully destroyed Meg’s business in that movie—we’re Hanks and Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. No, wait, in Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks had a kid and if it turns out that Jack has some love child stashed away somewhere, that would not be good. What kind of a cute romantic comedy would that be?
Wait—I’ve got it! He’s George Peppard and I’m Audrey Hepburn! I can finally have my Breakfast at Tiffany’s fantasy now. Yes, that’s it. And, anyway, she was really more of a “party girl” than Pretty Woman prostitute, so that’s okay. And she had such cute outfits in that movie.
Okay, so that’s it. We stand there, in the middle of the bridal shower, kissing, and I’m Holly Golightly (sans the $50 for the powder room) and he’s Paul Varjack (sans the whole kept-man thing) and I’ve decided to give the cat a name and we’re kissing in the rain. Or, we’re kissing at Mega, but you get the general point I’m trying to make. Then, he gives me the flowers and I tilt them toward me to take a sniff. We’re going to have lilies at the wedding—my favorite—and I just love the delicious scent they give off.
Only, when I tilt the flowers back, I see something strange inside of the wrapping. And it’s not the baby’s breath. No, there’s something blue in there that does not belong. And it’s not a little something from Tiffany and Co. I look up at Jack and he’s giving me a smirk, just staring at me. Waiting for something.
I put my hand inside the bouquet and take out the blue thing. It’s the blue back of a discovery request, with the familiar Gilson, Hecht and Trattner listed as the attorneys who drafted it.
Jack is serving me with a set of Interrogatories. At my own bridal shower. I look up at Jack and he smiles at me.
“Gotcha, counselor,” he says.
Am I the only one who is starting to thi
nk that this isn’t very funny anymore?
19
“Can we move the appointment to this weekend?” I ask my mother.
“Again?” my mother says, “you want to move another wedding dress appointment?”
“I just have so much work to do,” I say, looking around my office at the boxes of documents that are piled high, one on top of the other.
“You always have so much work to do, BB,” my mother says, “it’s time for a break.”
“I’ll take a break as soon as I’m done with these Interrogatories,” I say, getting ready to hang up the phone. I had to skip our last wedding dress appointment since I had to meet with Monique to get the information I’d need to complete the Interrogatories, so I know that my mother is nearing her breaking point.
“That’s what you said about the document requests,” my mother says, “You said we could shop once you were done with those. But, now the wedding date is approaching quickly. Having a dress custom made is already out the door, I’ve accepted that, but at the rate we’re going, we’re not even going to have time for alterations for something off the rack.”
“We’ll find something,” I say, doing my work as I speak to her. “We always do.”
“Finding the perfect wedding dress isn’t like running to Saks to pick up a little black dress. You saw how long it took us to find Monique.”
Why does she always have to bring up the Monique thing? It drives me nuts the way she makes out like I’ve chosen my work over my relationship just because I took on Monique’s case. When she knows that I’m just working hard to try to prove myself at work. Simple as that. Why does she have to infuse meaning into it? Why does she have to make it mean more than what it actually is?
I promise to make the appointment we have scheduled for tomorrow night and this seems to allay my mother for the moment. We hang up and I turn back to my computer screen. The words all seem to blur together, and I find it hard to focus my eyes. I pick up the Interrogatories Jack served on me and try to make notes on them, but they, too, seem to have words and letters scrambled across the page.
Jack With a Twist bm-2 Page 16