Scot on the Rocks (5 page)

Walking into the bedroom, I took a deep breath. It smelled just like Douglas. Woodsy and manly and dark. The bed was unmade and I smiled, thinking about how Douglas and I never had the time to make it during the week. I picked up his pillow and inhaled.

Then, remembering Vanessa waiting downstairs in a car for me, I quickly took out the step stool and grabbed a suitcase from the top shelf of the closet. I didn’t need too many things. I would be back.

I went through the closet and heard a key in the door. A smile crept onto my lips. That unmade bed was about to come in very handy….

If lipped the suitcase shut and headed toward the bedroom door as I heard a voice on a cell phone. A woman’s voice.

“I’m at your apartment, baby,” she said as I stood frozen in my tracks. I couldn’t believe that Beryl had the nerve to be there. The day after Douglas threw me out. A thousand thoughts flooded my brain — should I hide in the closet? Under the bed? What should I do? Even if I hid myself, the suitcase was still there in plain sight. With all of my things in it. And anyway, who was I — Lucy Ricardo?

There was nowhere to go. It was just like that scene in
No Way Out
where Kevin Costner’s photo is coming up on the computer screen and he’s about to be revealed as the bad guy, but really, he’s not the real bad guy, someone else is the real bad guy, but he’s totally stuck inside the Pentagon with nowhere to go.

“Pastis?” I heard Beryl say. “I’d absolutely love to!”

The room began to spin. He was taking Beryl to Pastis, a fabulous ultra-trendy French bistro downtown in the Meatpacking District. A favorite of local celebs and the New York Euro scene, Douglas used to call it “our place” since we had spent so much time there over the years.

I sat down on the unmade bed and laughed at myself. I couldn’t believe that up until a few weeks ago, I used to indulge this pathetic little fantasy that Douglas would propose to me there. Actually drop down to his knees in the middle of the restaurant and proclaim his undying love to me in front of his friends and our waiter and the other diners and any celebrities who happened to be there that night. I would giggle like a schoolgirl and jump down to the ground to throw my arms around him, all the while kissing him and screaming, “Yes, yes, yes! I will marry you!” Of course, the crowd would applaud and the waiter would bring a bottle of champagne to our table. We would laugh and drink champagne and I would blind the other diners with the sheer size and brilliance of my new diamond ring. As my relationship with Douglas crept up to the two-year mark, my outfits on the nights we were going to Pastis got more and more “special” as I deluded myself further and further into thinking that my fantasy could become reality.

I used to tell myself that it was okay to have harmless little fantasies like that. Who were they hurting, anyway? And who
wouldn’t
have such fantasies? But Douglas wouldn’t be taking me to Pastis or anywhere else anymore. He was taking Beryl.

I heard the apartment door slam shut and I hurriedly threw more clothing and assorted pairs of shoes into my suitcase. I was packing so fast that I had no idea what I was putting inside the case. Somehow, I remembered to grab my jewelry, which I threw on top, zipped the suitcase shut and wheeled it out of the bedroom. When I walked into the living room, I saw an enormous crystal vase filled with three majestic calla lilies, arranged neatly.
That was what she came here to do,
I thought.
She brought in fresh flowers.
I looked to the windowsill and saw that the picture of Douglas and me was gone.

I rushed back to the car, threw myself into Vanessa’s arms, and cried the whole way back uptown.

From: “Brooke Miller”

To: “Douglas MacGregor”

Subject: I miss you

Do you miss me, too?

Brooke Miller
Gilson, Hecht and Trattner
425 Park Avenue
11th Floor
New York, New York 10022

*****CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE*****

The information contained in this e-mail message is confidential and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, we would request you delete this communication without reading it or any attachment, not forward or otherwise distribute it, and kindly advise Gilson, Hecht and Trattner by return e-mail to the sender or a telephone call to 1 (800) GILSON. Thank you in advance.

Delete.

It was the fourteenth e-mail message that I’d drafted and then deleted so far. But it wasn’t as if I could concentrate on work two days after Douglas threw me out of our apartment. My assignment for the day — talk to Douglas and clear this whole mess up.

From: “Brooke Miller”

To: “Douglas MacGregor”

Subject: hey

We need to talk.

Brooke Miller
Gilson, Hecht and Trattner
425 Park Avenue
11th Floor
New York, New York 10022

*****CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE*****

The information contained in this e-mail message is confidential and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, we would request you delete this communication without reading it or any attachment, not forward or otherwise distribute it, and kindly advise Gilson, Hecht and Trattner by return e-mail to the sender or a telephone call to 1 (800) GILSON. Thank you in advance.

Too angry and defensive. Men hate angry and defensive.

From: “Brooke Miller”

To: “Douglas MacGregor”

Subject: hi

Can we talk?

Brooke Miller
Gilson, Hecht and Trattner
425 Park Avenue
11th Floor
New York, New York 10022

*****CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE*****

The information contained in this e-mail message is confidential and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, we would request you delete this communication without reading it or any attachment, not forward or otherwise distribute it, and kindly advise Gilson, Hecht and Trattner by return e-mail to the sender or a telephone call to 1 (800) GILSON. Thank you in advance.

Send. A screen popped up asking, “Are you sure you want to send this message?” Normally, I just click
Yes
as a matter of fact, but this time it gave me pause. Did I really want to send this message? It was as good of a question as any, I supposed. My life had changed in an instant and my computer wanted to know if I wanted to take a step in making it back the way it was.

I clicked
Yes
and walked down the hall to Vanessa’s office to discuss the breakup.

“Do you think that we’ll get back together in time for Trip’s wedding?” I asked.

“You asked the man why he hates America,” Vanessa said, barely looking up from the document she was typing.

“Mistakes were made,” I said.

“You think?” Vanessa asked me, still typing away furiously on her computer.

“I can’t believe that I have no boyfriend,” I said. I eyed the photograph of Vanessa and Marcus at their college graduation that was on her bulletin board. They were holding on to each other for dear life, cheeks pressed together, smiling like two little kids. It was the day Marcus proposed to her.

“And apparently,” Vanessa kindly pointed out, “you may be a racist, or a nationalist. Or some sort of Scotsman-hater in general.”

“I just wanted the man to wear pants. Who knew that once you found a man in Manhattan who was straight and single, you then had to worry about whether or not he wanted to wear pants?”

“The things we take for granted.” Vanessa sighed.

“Are we still talking about Douglas?” Jack asked, walking into Vanessa’s office, balancing three coffee cups in his hands. I picked a paper clip up off of her desk and began to unravel it. Vanessa’s desk was always neat and ordered with everything in its proper spot. The paper clips had their own tiny tray right next to her stapler and tape dispenser. She kept her pens and highlighters in a Howard University mug, right next to her Rolodex, right next to her
In
and
Out
boxes. I always marveled at how she could keep herself so organized since my own office always looked as if it had been recently hit by a tornado. I hadn’t even
seen
my own Rolodex since I was a first-year associate.

“It’s not like I’m obsessed with him, or anything,” I explained. I didn’t want Jack to worry about me. Or see how pathetic I was being. Jack had broken off an engagement six months prior and he never became completely unhinged about it the way I was over Douglas. In fact, six months later, he seemed totally fine about it. Well, I mean, I’m sure he was upset at the time — I’m not meaning to say he’s cold or some sort of monster or anything. It’s just that he didn’t seem to have to discuss it constantly with his friends in the ensuing days. Although maybe that’s what they did at all of those firm intramural basketball games. Jack was the captain of our firm’s team, so maybe that’s what they did while reviewing the playbook, lament past relationships and cry over it the way we women would, quoting Oprah and trying to figure out where it all went wrong. In between shooting hoops, I mean.

Or maybe Jack was able to recover so quickly because he had been engaged to his fiancée for three and a half years without ever having set a wedding date. I always thought that it was totally ironic that in Jack’s junior year, he played the Nathan Detroit role in his high school’s production of
Guys and Dolls.
I was sure his fiancée didn’t find that fun fact quite as charming.

“I’m not obsessed with Douglas,” I said. “I can move on…. To obsessing about Trip’s wedding instead. Totally different.”

“Totally more healthy,” Vanessa said, with her hands in her desk drawers, getting out sugars and various other fake sweeteners for us to put in our coffees.

“If you want to be healthy,” Jack said in his best game-show announcer voice, “drink coffee from Healthy Foods. Wholesome, delicious, and also,” he continued, segueing into his normal speaking voice, “our firm’s biggest new client.”

“And the bane of Jack’s existence,” Vanessa said. Healthy Foods was, in fact, the firm’s biggest new client, having just been sued in a sixty-million dollar false advertising class action lawsuit claiming that Healthy Foods coffee was not, in fact, healthy, as the name might suggest. The firm now stocked Healthy Foods brand coffee in all of its kitchens and, of course, in the twelfth-floor cafeteria. Jack, up for partner in six months, was put on the case, since the powers-that-be knew that he would do anything for the firm in a year that the firm was voting on his partnership. As per our usual assignment, I was the junior associate on the matter. I didn’t know if Healthy Foods coffee was healthy or not, but it was pretty darn good either way. Especially when someone hand delivered it right into my hot little hands. Then it was tasty
and
convenient.

Jack was always doing sweet things like that. Last June, Jack and I were supposed to take summer associates out to lunch to our favorite midtown restaurant. With my feet practically out the door, I was called into a meeting and was unable to attend the lunch. I sat in my meeting pouting for upward of two hours, all the while fantasizing about the delicious time Jack and the summers were having without me. When I got back to my office, as if on cue, Jack swept in with a doggy bag — my favorite chocolate dessert from said favorite restaurant. We could barely see each other across my desk because the files on it were piled up so high, but even through the haze of discovery documents, Jack could see me smiling from ear to ear.

It’s hard to believe that I only met Jack when I came to the firm as a summer associate myself a few years ago. I feel as if I’ve known him forever. There I was, the summer after my second year of law school: one of the elite few walking the halls of Gilson, Hecht and Trattner, one of New York City’s largest and most prestigious law firms. Okay, so it wasn’t really an elite
few
since the firm boasts over four hundred attorneys in its New York City office alone, over six hundred worldwide, but you get the general point I’m trying to make. I was one of the elite four hundred some odd people walking those halls.

With a twenty-four-hour command center including a word-processing center, mailroom, cafeteria and supply room (not supply closet, mind you, an actual room dedicated solely to the mission of ordering and giving associates whatever supplies their hearts desired), the twelfth floor should have its own postal code. It even has a cash machine. There is a staff of eight whose sole responsibility is to send and receive faxes (all of which makes it even more shocking when your faxes are actually not sent or lost entirely). When you’re a summer associate, you think that these facts are very cool and glamorous. You don’t seem to realize that if the firm has the capacity to run twenty-four hours a day, that the associates, likewise, are expected to have the capacity to run those same twenty-four hours a day.

Which, incidentally, explains why I didn’t know that my ex-boyfriend was dating one of the most famous movie stars in the world. I’ve been doing a motion for summary judgment for the last six months. I won’t bore you with the details of what a motion for summary judgment entails — suffice it to say, a motion for summary judgment means fourteen-to sixteen-hour days, six to seven days a week. Sleep is a luxury that even on our six-figure big-time lawyer salaries, we cannot afford. Wow, didn’t that sound, like, totally dramatic?

Can that also be my excuse for why I didn’t realize that my boyfriend was cheating on me? Okay, yes, that’s good. Remind me to tell my mother/best friend/boss/therapist that later. And since you’re so chummy with my grandmother, would you be a dear and tell her that very thing, too?

When I interview unsuspecting law students interested in coming to Gilson Hecht for the summer after their second year of law school, the question I am most often asked is “What is your favorite thing about Gilson Hecht?” I love being asked that question because it is the one point in the interview where I can just be myself and not deliver the firm’s party line about the training (so-so), the mentoring program (my partner-mentor got drunk the first time he took me for lunch), and the amount of experience junior associates get early on in their careers (is that what they call the fourteen-to sixteen-hour days?). Sometimes I fantasize about just telling them the truth — that the associates at Gilson Hecht seem to want to kill themselves ever-so-slightly less than the associates at most other major New York City law firms. And that’s saying a lot. But saying that sort of thing is very much discouraged in interviews.

The reason why the “favorite thing about Gilson Hecht” question is so easy for me to answer is that the best part of working at Gilson Hecht is, by far, the friends I have made here.

Jack was already a first-year associate at the firm when I started. I was in the self-serve photocopy room up on the eighth floor, having a total
Nine to Five
moment — paper flying every which way — clueless as to what I should do to make the copy machine behave and stop simultaneously spewing out and chewing up paper, when Jack swept in and saved the day. And saved the memo I had been photocopying at the time.

“Consider me your knight in shining armor. Or khakis, as the case may be,” he said, introducing himself, baby-blue eyes gleaming. He’s been saving me ever since.

“You can stop obsessing about your ex-boyfriend’s wedding,” Jack declared. “Your problem is solved.
I’ll
go with you to the wedding.”

“Thanks, but I already told Trip about Douglas,” I explained, putting my head down into my coffee.

“And warned him that he’d be wearing a kilt,” Vanessa explained, finishing my thought for me.

“Yes, and told him that my date would be in a skirt,” I agreed.

“Kilt, Brooke, it’s a kilt,” Jack said. “Not a skirt. I’m beginning to see why Douglas broke up with you.”

“Et tu, Brute?”
I said, looking up from my coffee. “Anyway, I mentioned the
kilt
thing to Trip last time I spoke to him because I just didn’t want him to be all surprised about it at the wedding. I didn’t want to make a whole scene on his big day.”

“Because,” Vanessa explained, “we all know that Trip’s wedding is really all about you.”

“Thank you for that very sensitive commentary. You just don’t understand. You’ve been married since you were twelve.”

“And exactly what does that have to do with it?” she demanded.

“Should boys leave for this part of the conversation?” Jack asked, smoothing his shaggy brown hair from his eyes.

“You’ve just never been in my shoes,” I explained, the coffee suddenly too hot for my hands. I set it down on Vanessa’s desk. “You don’t know how hard it all is. You’ve never been thirty years old and recently dumped by the man you thought you were going to marry. You’ve never been invited to an ex-boyfriend’s wedding. You’ve never made plans to go to an ex-boyfriend’s wedding only to have your whole world fall apart two weeks before you were set to go. Look, I told Trip that I was coming to his wedding with my gorgeous Scottish fiancé, and that is what I’m doing. I will just have to get Douglas back in time for the wedding.”

“Boys should definitely leave,” Jack said, making a hasty exit without even grabbing his coffee.

“It has to work. At this point,” I explained, “it’s either bring Douglas or bust.”

“Well,” Vanessa said, stirring her coffee, “then, I guess you’re busted.”