Jack With a Twist bm-2

by Brenda Janowitz

  In the winter of 2002, it was Tandy O’Donoghue’s bachelorette party. The bride-to-be danced on a table, while wearing a hot-pink boa, to “You’re the One That I Want” from the Grease soundtrack, with her maid of honor, Jen Moss, lip-synching the Danny lines to her Sandy. She refused to wear the veil with tiny penises hanging from its every inch (she insisted that they were no match for her groom-to-be’s), but gleefully drank from a penis-shaped water bottle (which she insisted was more “true to size”) and indulged in the penis-shaped cupcakes that were served for dessert (by that time, she was too drunk to form an opinion either way about the cupcakes). Tandy got herself into quite a bit of trouble when she accidentally drunk-dialed the Best Man on her way home that night.

  In the summer of 2004, it was Eileen Massey’s turn. She and her entire bridal party showed up in tiaras and bedroom slippers and danced on their chairs to “Come on Eileen.” The girls that were there still talk about the scandalous dance that Eileen’s maid of honor did with a huge blow-up penis (similar to the big Bozo blow-up dolls that were popular circa 1979), right in front of Eileen’s fourteen-year-old stepsister. Eileen’s stepmother was in attendance that evening, too, and Eileen spent most of the evening refusing to eat anything but salad, for fear of not fitting into her wedding dress and, perhaps more importantly, her stepmonster’s watchful eye.

  In the fall of 2006, Emily Carlson was the one we all came out to toast. She and her bridesmaids went crazy and decided to have a co-ed bachelorette party. The men all parked themselves at the bar to watch a baseball playoff game, while the girls stayed at the table and danced on their chairs to “I Want Your Sex.” Only the groom-to-be joined the actual party and played along with the evening’s festivities, even drinking his banana daiquiri out of a penis-shaped straw. That simple act of boldness earned him an impromptu lap dance from all of the bridesmaids, which quickly brought out the “angry drunk” in the bride. She decided that the best course of action would be to drag the groom-to-be out of the party and into the bathroom to have sex. (This is also the story of why we don’t use the first bathroom on the right at Mangia e Bevi.) Said groom-to-be came out of the closet three weeks before the wedding.

  This year, it’s my turn, and Vanessa has the entire place rented out for the night since the guest list is so huge. The super-top-secret plan that’s supposed to be a surprise is this: first, we start out with appetizers. Trays of bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and fried calamari will be passed around as the guests enter and get comfortable. The restaurant brought in trays of mini hot dogs especially for this occasion, too, since my mother insisted that you simply could not have a girls’ night out without them. Bottles of white and red wine will already be set out on the tables and to get mixed drinks, you’ll simply have to go to the bar.

  For the main course, you’ll grab a seat wherever you like (take that, sisters Solomon!) and start out with a plate of salad, topped with fresh tomatoes and even fresher mozzarella (dressing on the side, of course). You’ll then eat either chicken marsala, vegetable lasagna or veal scallopine. I’ve already decided on the chicken marsala.

  Next, Vanessa and my mom will announce with clever little smirks that it’s time for dessert, only they’ll say the word dessert as if they’re saying something really naughty, like ménage a trois, or, in my mother’s case, paying full retail price. The waiters will roll out an enormous four-foot-tall cake that all of the guests will ooh and aah over. A very tasteful male stripper will jump out of the cake and dance around with us.

  Is it any wonder my father’s seven aunts have not been invited to the party?

  Then, we will all get up on our chairs and dance to “You’re the One That I Want,” “Come on Eileen” and “I Want Your Sex.” Vanessa’s also requested that they cue up my favorite eighties song, “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.”

  There will be no penis-shaped straws.

  Just when everyone thinks that the party is over and it’s time to go home, Mangia e Bevi will dim the lights and the bachelorette party will turn into a co-ed after-hours party, with all of the guys coming in as a surprise. Vanessa, with a lot of help from Jack, had to orchestrate an entirely different e-vite for the boyfriends, husbands and assorted male friends, and then swear each and every one of them to secrecy. I think that the signing of actual legal affidavits may have been involved.

  I know all of this because I helped my mother and Vanessa plan said festivities. We’ve all been fast friends since the lobster incident at the bridal shower and had to band together in order to take control of the bachelorette party. Without our intervention, my mother informed us, the bachelorette party would turn into a Hitler Youth Rally—and, as my mother informed Vanessa, it wasn’t just the Jews that they were rallying against—Hitler was none too fond of black people, either.

  Vanessa had to make up some very clever story about how I was traumatized at a bachelorette party that I once attended (by the penis-shaped straws, no doubt) and how I now had to help plan the party with Vanessa and my mother, and only with Vanessa and my mother. Vanessa said that it wasn’t easy to get the sisters Solomon to back off at first, but then I reminded her of her sacred vow as a maid of honor, and she did what had to be done to make sure that she, my mom and I maintained control of my bachelorette party.

  “So, how did it go today?” I ask Vanessa as we sip our Diet Cokes through penis-shaped straws.

  “Fine,” she says, “it was totally fine. Wear this.”

  I allow her to place a Hawaiian lei on my neck and she puts one around her neck, too. These are not your typical brightly colored plastic leis that you’d find at a party store. No, these are seriously fancy Hawaiian leis, made out of beautiful silk flowers, keyed into the color scheme of my flowers for the wedding. “I wanted to come with you.”

  “I know,” she says, “but Marcus was there and I just didn’t want anyone else there. You know?”

  “Of course,” I say, “I just want you to know that you’ve got tons of support through every step of this thing.”

  “Well, that was the last step,” she says, tipping her lemon into her Diet Coke with the penis-shaped straw.

  “So, is it final?” I ask, taking the straw out of my drink and placing it onto the nearest table.

  “Yup,” she says, sipping the rest of her Diet Coke down, “I’m officially divorced. Let’s go get something stronger from the bar.”

  “Was it okay being there with him?” I ask as we walk over to the bar. “Did he make a scene or anything?”

  “No,” she says as she motions for the bartender to pour us shots of Southern Comfort. “He did look ridiculously hot, though.”

  “Marcus is ridiculously hot,” I say, as the bartender pours us our shots. For some reason, the shot glasses at Mangia e Bevi seem to be twice the size of a normal shot glass. Vanessa counts down from three and we down our shots at the same time.

  “I know,” she says. “It’s weird. After you’re with someone for so long, you kind of forget about what they look like. Good or bad, I guess. You just get used to them and the way they look. I haven’t seen Marcus in so long that I think I forgot how freaking hot he is.”

  I turn around from the bar and see a waiter helping my mother hang a sign that reads: “Let’s Get Lei’d!”

  “What, so now you want him back?” I say with a laugh as I pour us each a white wine from the nearest table. Vanessa laughs without smiling.

  “That looks perfect, Mimi,” Vanessa yells out as she runs over to my mother. “Can we get it a touch higher?”

  “This ‘Let’s Get Lei’d’ theme is very clever,” Jack’s sister, Lisa, says as she walks over to me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It was my mother’s idea.”

  “She’s adorable,” Lisa says, looking over at my mom. “It must be so nice to be close to your mother like that.”

  “It is,” I say, “although most of the time, I’m ready to kill her. But that comes with the territory. Are you close to Joan?”

>   “Where’s Patricia?” Jack’s sister Elizabeth asks as she walks over to us. As she stands side by side with Lisa, I recall that Lisa is the youngest of the three and Elizabeth is the one in the middle. Patricia is the oldest. I actually remember who is who! A waiter comes over with a plate of fried calamari and I grab a piece and dip it into marinara sauce to congratulate myself on being so darned smart.

  “Probably off somewhere bossing someone around,” Lisa says with a laugh and Elizabeth laughs, too. I give a tiny laugh. I’m not quite sure if I’m allowed to laugh at jokes that disparage one of the other sisters Solomon quite yet.

  “How’s Alan?” I say to Elizabeth and I marvel at how I just remembered which brother-in-law goes with which sister. The words just fell out of my mouth, and after I’ve said them, I realize that I definitely know who’s who! Just as I’m about to ask Lisa how her husband, Aaron, is doing, Elizabeth answers my question.

  “You’ll see for yourself later,” she says, grabbing a piece of bruschetta off the tray of a passing waiter. I decide not to take a piece so that my breath won’t be garlicky later when Jack arrives and kisses me hello.

  Who knows, we may even make some history of our own in the second bathroom on the left….

  “Elizabeth!” Lisa hisses. “Ix-nay on the urprise-say.”

  “I know about the surprise,” I say. “My mother’s not good with secrets. I look forward to seeing Aaron later. I haven’t really had a chance to talk to him much.”

  “Most people think that all of our husbands are interchangeable, so don’t worry,” Elizabeth says and she and Lisa laugh at the joke.

  I join in on the laughter and for a second I wonder if I’ve underestimated the Solomon sisters. I’ve sort of bunched them all together, and maybe I’ve made a real mistake in not making an effort to get to know each and every one of them separately. Their husbands, too.

  “Seriously, though,” Elizabeth says, “I’ve got to go and find Patricia before she starts some sort of trouble.”

  “She just doesn’t want old Patricia to have any fun, now does she?” Lisa says, pouring herself a glass of wine from the nearest table as Elizabeth goes off in search of Patricia.

  “You work in midtown, right?” I say to Lisa.

  “Yes,” Lisa says, taking a sip of her wine, “I’m on Third Avenue, too, just a few blocks down from your office.”

  “How about we go to lunch this week?” I say, as she pours a little more wine into my glass, too.

  “I’d like that, Brooke,” she says. “I’d really like that.”

  “We just got lei’d!” I hear in a thick Polish accent.

  Now, there is only one person in the world that I know with such a thick Polish accent, and the other is her sister, Devorah. But there is simply no way in hell that my mother thought it prudent to include my eighty-two-year-old grandmother and her eighty-nine-year-old sister to this bacchanal. Surely she realized that such novelty items as a penis-shaped straw and a stripper jumping out of a cake would be lost on two elderly eastern European women.

  Lisa and I both turn around. Sure enough, it’s the thick Polish accent of my father’s mother and her sister, Devorah.

  At this moment in time, I am extremely grateful that most of my great aunts live out of state.

  In my shock and awe at the arrival of my grandmother and Aunt Devorah, it barely registers that Miranda Foxley seems to have come into Mangia e Bevi, too. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her place her lei on top of her head, like a crown on her blaze of fire-red hair. She begins dancing to the music as she walks in and greets everyone with a big fake Southern-fried smile on her face.

  Not like I’m jealous of her or anything.

  “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Lisa says, eyes still glued on my grandmother and Aunt Devorah, adjusting their leis and accosting the waiter with the pigs in blankets.

  I rush over to my mother: “Have you lost your mind?”

  “What?” she says, fluffing out the silk flowers on her lei. Needless to say, she’s got her lei of choice for the evening color-coordinated with her outfit.

  I don’t respond. I merely bob my head in the general direction of my grandmother and Aunt Devorah.

  “You don’t know your grandmother and aunt like I do,” she says, “You see them as old women. I happen to know that they are going to have more fun than anyone here tonight.”

  “There is something wrong with you,” I say and my mother laughs.

  “Time for appetizers, BB,” my mother says. “Let’s start sitting everybody down.”

  My mother rushes over to the bar, and the bartender hands her a microphone. She announces that it’s time to begin our appetizers and the assorted party guests begin finding their chairs. I see her order a drink from the bartender and then leave the bar with three champagne cocktails.

  “Where are we sitting?” Vanessa says. “I tried to commandeer the table in the middle but Jack’s sisters are there now.”

  “Let’s sit with Jack’s sisters,” I say, and Vanessa stares back at me. “We’re going to try something different tonight.”

  “We’re pretending we’re mature?” Vanessa asks, “I’m so impressed.” We walk over to the table where Jack’s sisters are all seated, every other seat, just waiting for Vanessa and me to fill the gaps. As we pass by my mother’s table, I see my mother handing my grandmother and Aunt Devorah each a champagne cocktail. They all clink their glasses together—I could swear I hear one of them make a toast that involves the word finally!—and then take a sip.

  In the opposite corner of the dining room, Jack’s mother, Joan, is holding court at a table with her friends.

  “I Want Your Sex” comes over the sound speakers just as Vanessa and I get to our table, and guests immediately start jumping up on chairs.

  “We didn’t even get a bite to eat yet!” I protest to Vanessa as we sit down in our seats.

  “If you can’t beat ’em,” Vanessa says and hops up on her chair.

  “I’m on a wedding diet anyway,” Lisa says, and jumps up on her chair.

  I begin eating my tomatoes and mozzarella—it is simply too early to start dancing on chairs. And, I’m going to have to put something in my stomach if I’m going to continue drinking like I have been tonight.

  “Brooke!” I hear a voice with a thick Polish accent call out to me, “Get up on your chair!”

  I turn around and see my grandmother and my Aunt Devorah up on their chairs. All of the waiters and guests around them are going crazy as they shake their artificial hips in time to George Michael. This is probably the first time, in the history of Mangia e Bevi, that orthopedic shoes have rocked the chairs.

  I grab my camera, only to have a waiter take it from my hands.

  “Please allow me,” he says. “Which one is your grandmother?” I point at my grandma and then drag my chair over to where she and Aunt Devorah are dancing on their chairs. I jump up onto my chair and they put their arms around me. We all laugh and dance and somewhere in the middle of all of this, I see the camera flash go off.

  22

  “You said we were going halfsies,” Vanessa whines as I eat my chicken marsala. Little does she know, somewhere in the middle of lip-synching “You’re the One That I Want” with her, I decided that I was too hungry to share.

  “We’re still going halfsies,” I say, “I’m just eating more than my half of the chicken marsala.”

  “Well, stop eating,” she says, “I’d like to try some. The veggie lasagna’s great.” And with that, she takes the plate I’m eating from and swaps it with her own.

  “If it’s so great,” I say, “then, why are you trying to swap with me?”

  “Because you need the pasta to absorb all of the alcohol that you’re drinking,” she says and she’s got a point. I grab a piece of Italian bread from the center of the table.

  “At your own bachelorette party,” Lisa says, over the loud music playing in the background, “you’re supposed to drink t
oo much!”

  “Not as much as you drank at yours, though,” Patricia says. “I practically had to carry you home from the Culture Club.”

  I catch Lisa and Elizabeth smirking at each other. Then Lisa winks at me and I try not to laugh.

  “You did not,” Lisa says, pouring herself another glass of wine for emphasis.

  “Yeah,” Elizabeth joins in. “I was the one who had to carry her home.”

  “I got too drunk at my bachelorette party, too,” Vanessa says, fingering her ring finger with her thumb.

  “Which is exactly what you’re supposed to do,” Lisa says. “Right?”

  “Right,” Vanessa says, and then audibly sighs. “Would you please excuse me from the table for a minute?”

  I know where this is going. I’ve run this drill once or twice before. Vanessa never cries, but when she does, it’s always a doozy. After eight years of friendship, I know that when Vanessa excuses herself from the table randomly—especially when there’s some very delicious chicken marsala in front of her, no less—she’s upset about something and is running off to be miserable in private.

  Vanessa’s been putting on a brave face today, all day, but there’s just no way that she can actually be okay with her divorce being final. I knew it. So, that leads me to the undeniable conclusion that she is now running off to the bathroom to cry about the fact that her marriage is officially over in the eyes of the State of New York. Hopefully, she isn’t too upset to remember not to use the first bathroom on the right. I jump up from my seat to run after her.

  Only it’s not that easy to run through a crowd when you’re the guest of honor at a party.

  “This is so much fun, Brooke!”

  “Vanessa and your mom did such a great job, Brooke!”