Scot on the Rocks (20 page)

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.

I
t 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 the 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.

I stood up and smoothed out my dress as I made my way to the vanity mirror. I couldn’t stop myself from giggling and looking back at him, still sitting on the couch. As I applied some lipstick to my pout, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jack staring at me. He looked like an old-time movie actor, like Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart reincarnate, communicating everything he felt with just one look. Except I don’t think that Grant or Bogie ever wore a skirt. But you get where I was going with that one.

“Ready for some more lies and deception?” I asked, turning away from the mirror, hoping that I looked like an old-time movie star myself. Audrey Hepburn, I hoped, but I can’t say that Audrey ever wore a number quite as revealing as my Halston.

“Let the games begin,” he said, putting his arm out for me to take.

“Oooh, that was good,” I said, marveling at the accent, which was maturing quite nicely. “You are getting really good at this. Admit that you’re kind of enjoying doing the accent.”

Jack smiled. I wished that I could have frozen time at that very moment. It was that delicious stage in a relationship where anything seems possible. I wished that I could take a photo of us right then and there — Jack looking at me adoringly with the smile of a man who knew how to get what he wanted, and me gazing up at him as if he were my hero. I was so happy at that precise moment. Such unadulterated happiness. That sort of thing never lasts, does it?

We should never have left the bridal suite.

We walked out of the room, holding hands, and the second we looked up, Douglas appeared and grabbed me like a caveman.

“Mind if I borrow her,” Douglas said in his American accent, “dude?” He didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing my arm and leading me out onto the dance floor. I was shocked that he didn’t knock me on the head with a stone and drag me out to the dance floor by my hair. His grip was so tight, I was certain that it would leave a mark. Jack began to follow us, but I turned around, putting my finger up as if to casually say “I’ll be back in just one short moment.” Jack reluctantly backed away. I hoped that he knew that I just needed that one short moment to rid myself of Douglas so that I could get back to him.

“For fuck’s sake, would you mind telling me what’s going on?” Douglas asked.

“Obviously, you’ve figured it out by now,” I said, keeping a smile plastered on my face so that anyone who saw us would think we were just two regular wedding guests, dancing around and having a pleasant conversation. Not a cheating cad and his ex having a most decidedly
un
pleasant conversation.

“And, obviously, you have completely lost your mind.”

“I’m not the one who flew out to L.A. to stalk me,” I said.

“I was invited to this wedding,” he informed me.

“I kind of thought it was assumed that you were
un
invited when you announced that you were sleeping with someone else, were getting engaged to said other woman, and then threw me out of our apartment.”

“I was trying to be romantic, coming out here and surprising you,” he said, turning his eyes on. The earnest eyes. The “would I lie to you?” eyes. Did he really think that after all that we’d been through, I would fall for the eyes?

“Well, you’ve partially succeeded. I certainly am surprised.”

“Aren’t you at all happy to see me?” he asked.

“Well, seeing you again at least gives me the chance to tell you that I never want to speak to you again,” I said with a smile. Mr. and Mrs. Martin could see me from across the dance floor and I didn’t want to give them any cause for concern. Mrs. Martin waved at me. I smiled and waved back at her.

“Brooke, you can’t mean that. There’s not even a little part of you that’s happy to see me?” He was obviously getting desperate, now turning the sad puppy eyes on. Once upon a time, that look used to work on me, too. I used to think that he really meant it and would forgive him for whatever he’d done. Now, I just saw it for what it was — manipulation to keep me under his control. I was surprised at how quickly he had lost his effect on me. It was as if I could turn it on and off the way you would change the channel on a particularly bad made-for-TV movie.

“You. Are. Fucking. Wearing. Pants.”

“I thought that you wanted me to,” he said.

“I do. I did,” I quickly corrected.

“Well, then, better late than never, I say.”

“Look, if this were only about the pants, this probably would be a very touching gesture, but the fact remains that it is not,” I said.

“We’ve broken up,” he told me. I wondered why he was informing me of this very, very obvious fact. Did he think that I hadn’t noticed that we’d broken up? Did he think that I thought that people who were still an item kicked each other out of their apartments and got engaged to other people? Did he think that people who weren’t broken up were busy making out with their best friends at their ex-boyfriend’s weddings? Were people accusing us of still dating and this was why he was pointing out that we had, in fact, broken up to me?

“Yes, I’m painfully aware,” I said.

“No, not us. I mean…” He stammered. Stammering. Poor lost little boy manipulative trick number 732. It’s a matched pair with the eyes. I’ve been a bad boy. So bad that I can’t even cough out the words. Hugh Grant — hooker — Jay Leno show — enough said.

“What?” I asked.

He continued stammering and batting his long eyelashes as Vanessa and Jack came up next to us, dancing.

“Mind if we cut in?” Vanessa asked. “I’d like a dance with my husband,” she said, accentuating the word
husband
in case any other wedding guests could hear us.

“Of course!” I cried out before Douglas could articulate his dissent.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked the second I was back in his strong arms.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “Now that I’m with you.”

“What the hell is going on?” he whispered, pulling me closer. “What is he doing here?”

“I have no idea,” I said, taking advantage of the opportunity to put my face close to his. I could smell my own perfume on his neck and I smiled and thought about the bridal suite.

“Did you know he was coming?” he asked me, pulling his face back. Before I could answer (my response was going to be a very witty: “I didn’t know what Douglas was doing when we were living together, so I certainly don’t know what he is doing now”), we had somehow switched partners and I found myself face-to-face with Douglas again.

“Darling,” he said. Douglas always called me
darling.
I used to love how it sounded with his accent:
dah-ling.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, looking over his shoulder at Jack and Vanessa. Jack was looking over Vanessa’s shoulder at me. I smiled at him.

“Look, we’ve called off the wedding. Brooke, darling, I’ve made a huge mistake. I only hope that it’s not too late to fix things,” he said.

Too late to fix things? It was too late to fix things when we were still
in
the relationship. Only I didn’t know it then. The emperor really doesn’t have any clothes on, but all along I was thinking that he had on a custom-made Italian suit.

Jack was right — I needed to concentrate more on what things really were, and not just what they looked like. Regardless of how Douglas looked, on the inside, he was a lying cheat. And I was too good for that. Jack, on the other hand, had a wonderful inside. It just
so happened
that he had a wonderful outside, too. Not like I care about that superficial stuff anymore or anything.

As Douglas stood there, faking tears and confessing his love to me, I realized that this relationship was never really real — it was something I had created in my head and had chosen to believe in. Even after two years of being together, living together, I have had more meaningful relationships with certain pairs of shoes.

“I love you,” he continued. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I never meant to hurt you. Marry me. Let’s pick up where we left off.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Douglas was coming back to me. And asking me to marry him, to boot. It was all I had ever wanted, only I didn’t want it anymore.

“Have you lost your goddamned mind?” I said as he leaned in to kiss me, presumably to prove his deep love and affection. He moved back, the shock of a woman actually saying no to him registering on his face.

“Darling, I love you. Haven’t you heard what I’m saying to you?”

“Yes, but it’s that —”

Before I could finish the thought, he grabbed my face and kissed me. Hard.

No response to what I was trying to say, he just kissed me. Apparently he thought that a kiss from him would answer my questions. It did not. He kissed me and held me to him and it was a struggle to release myself from his grasp.