Jack with a Twist (11 page)

“W
here were you?” my mother says, bursting through the door to my office. I’m shocked to see her there for two reasons: the first is that my mother never visited me at work. The second is it’s 8:00 p.m. that night.

“What are you doing here, Mom?” I say, getting up from my desk to give her a kiss hello.

“We had a 7:00 p.m. appointment at Amsale,” she says.

“I totally forgot,” I say, trying to figure out what day it is. “I’m so sorry.”

“You forgot?” she says, “about shopping for your own wedding dress?” And with that, she puts the back of her hand to my forehead. And then her other hand to her own forehead.

“What are you doing?” I say, swatting her hand away.

“You must be ill,” she says, “I’m testing to see if you have a temperature.”

“I feel fine,” I say, walking back behind my desk and sitting down, “Why would you think that I’m sick?”

“Well, you would have to be deathly ill,” my mother explains, as she sits down on one of the visitor’s chairs in my office, “to forget about shopping. Wedding dress shopping, no less.”

“I’m not ill,” I say, “I’m just insanely busy at work is all.”

“I have never known you, in your thirty years on planet Earth, to choose work over shopping,” she says, reaching over my desk to feel my forehead again. “Surely, you must be delirious.”

“I’m not delirious,” I say leaning back in my chair out of reach of her arm, “I’m just very busy at work. And I didn’t
choose
work over shopping. I really had no choice in the matter.” I toss the document requests over to her to prove my point.

“What is this?” she asks, picking up the document request with two fingers as if it was a dirty turtle I’d found in our backyard. “Is this piece of paper supposed to validate the fact that you missed our appointment at Amsale?”

“I’m just showing you how busy I am,” I say, taking the document request back.

“Yes, I know all about it,” she says, “it’s what you told me last night when you missed our appointment at Vera Wang.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I say, looking back down at the documents I was reviewing when my mother first walked in.

“That was your excuse on Monday, when you missed our appointment at Reem Acra,” she says, grabbing the documents I’m reviewing and throwing them down on the floor behind her.

“What are you doing?” I say, getting up from my chair to retrieve the documents.

“What are
you
doing is the better question here, BB,” she says, grabbing my arm as I pass her. She stands up from her chair and we are face to face. “What are you thinking? Don’t you want to get a wedding dress?”

“Of course I want to get a wedding dress, Mom,” I say, “it’s just that I have all of this work to do.”

“When you were at Gilson, Hecht you were never this diligent about work,” she says. “I remember meeting you on many an occasion at Saks when you’d snuck out of work for the afternoon. And now, when you
really
have something that you need to shop for, you don’t have time?”

“I need to prove myself here, Mom,” I say, “you just don’t understand.”

And of course my mother wouldn’t understand. The longest job she ever held was working at the Five and Dime when she was sixteen years old. And that was just an after school job. She had the luxury of meeting my father in college and being married by the time she was nineteen. Pregnant with me at twenty-two.

“What I do understand is that I’m trying to get my only daughter—my only child—married here,” she says. “What’s important is life, not work. You’ve finally found Mr. Right. Don’t you want to celebrate that?”

“While I was waiting around for 30 years for Mr. Right to come around, Mom, I got a career and a life. I still have to honor my commitments. You’re the one who taught me that.”

“But, BB, now you’ve found Mr. Right, so you can relax a little. I’m not telling you to quit your job. I’m not telling you to drop your big case. I’m just saying to give yourself a little time off so that you can look gorgeous when you walk down the aisle to go join Mr. Right in holy matrimony.”

“This is the last night I work this late, Mom, I promise,” I say, as she releases me from her grip and I bend down to retrieve the documents she’s thrown on the floor. “Once I get done with this document production, it’s back to wedding dress shopping full force.”

“And all things wedding?” she asks, her right eyebrow arching upwards.

“All things wedding,” I say, “I promise.” My mother smiles and I know that it is because she thinks that she has won. But the truth is, the documents are due at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I couldn’t work on them any longer if I wanted to. So, after I have these documents sent over to Jack’s office, I can finally rest and get back to planning my wedding.

My mother hugs and kisses me before she walks out the door and I immediately get back to work. The documents themselves are out being photocopied and numbered, so all that’s left to do now is draft a privilege log and reread the request to make sure that I’ve given Jack all of the documents he’s requested.

I open a Word document to begin drafting the privilege log, but first indulge in a little activity I always find myself doing to procrastinate when I’m at work. I click open an Internet browser and then type in the familiar Web site of my old law firm: www.gilsonhecht.com. First I type in my own name, and wait for the search screen to come up, telling me that no result was found. Then, I type in Vanessa’s name and look at her profile:

Vanessa Taylor, Esq.

–Howard University

–New York University Law

• Member of the NYU Law Review

–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern

District of New York

[email protected]

She looks absolutely adorable in a fitted black Theory suit which she’s paired with a pale pink cowl-neck top. Since she wears her hair so short, she’s always wearing beautiful earrings to complement her look. In the picture, she’s got on long gold drop earrings that have tiny pink stones dangling from them.

Next, I go to the
S
section of the “Our Attorneys” page where I pull up Jack’s profile:

Jack M. Solomon, Esq.

–University of Michigan,
magna cum laude

• President, Drama Society

–Harvard Law School,
summa cum laude

• Articles Editor of the
Harvard Law Review

• Moot Court

• President, Student Bar Association

–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, State of Pennsylvania, Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Second Circuit, Third Circuit.

[email protected]

Just seeing his firm photo smiling back at me is always enough to make me smile myself. And I figure that it’s okay to procrastinate by doing this, since when I worked at Gilson, Hecht, I’d go and visit Vanessa and Jack in their offices to procrastinate. Since I’m at a new firm, it’s only fair that I still get to procrastinate with them.

Before turning back to my work, curiosity gets the best of me and I pull up Miranda Foxley’s profile:

Miranda Foxley, Esq.

–University of Texas

–Emory Law School

–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern District of New York

[email protected]

I absolutely cannot get over how slutty she manages to look in her attorney portrait. Even in a suit, with a background of a bookshelf filled with legal treatises behind her, she still manages to look like she’s in the mood to have sex. Red hair blazing, completely unkempt and out of control, there’s a seductive look on her heavily made-up face and a camisole under her suit jacket that is a little too lacey and way too low-cut for a traditional office photo; there should be one of those cartoon captions over her head that says, “Hey baby, wanna wrestle?”

“Are you still here?” a voice says to me, and I instinctively sit up a bit straighter in my chair and then click off of Miranda’s firm photo as quickly as a thirteen-year-old boy caught with a dirty magazine. I look up from my computer screen to find Rosalyn Ford leaning in the door frame of my office with a smile.

“Rosalyn,” I say, almost out of breath. “Hi.”

“Burning the midnight oil,” she says, “I’m impressed.”

“It’s not like I really have a choice,” I say, lifting up the discovery request to demonstrate my point, and attempting a lame smile. “These privilege logs don’t exactly write themselves.”

“Well,” she says, “you always have a choice. You know that. But, you look busy. So, I’ll just leave you to your work.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t mean to be so cranky. It’s just that I’m a bit stressed out right now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ve all been there. You’ll figure it out. How about I take you to lunch tomorrow?”

I want to tell Rosalyn no, that I have too much work to take a lunch break tomorrow, but it’s never a good idea to say no to a partner. Especially one like Rosalyn, who’s consistently been supportive of my work and my career here at SGR.

“Great,” I say. “Thanks.” I try to keep smiling, but I can’t help but think about what my mother would say about taking a lunch, but making no time for dress shopping.

“Have a good night,” Rosalyn says as she walks out. I draft a quick e-mail to my assistant to tell her that if my mother calls tomorrow between the hours of twelve noon and 2:00 o’clock, she should be told that I am in a meeting. Then I get back to my work.

Four hours later, I’ve got my documents back in my office and boxed up, my privilege log drafted and everything proofread. With my head so heavy, it’s about to hit the keyboard, I quickly draft a cover letter, print it and sign it. As I place the letter in the box of documents, I feel like something is missing. I pick the letter back up and walk with it over to my desk.

My mother is right. What’s important is life, not work. So, I should be focusing on my life. But I am such a woman of the millennium that I can inject a little bit of life
into
my work. I open my desk drawer and rifle around a bit. Finding the loudest, most obnoxious shade of red lipstick that I’ve got, I quickly put it on my lips. I pull the letter out of the box and put it onto my desk. Once I’ve smacked my lips together a few times to make sure that I’m even, I then lean down to the letter and plant a big kiss right on the letter, next to my signature line.

With a smile, I put the cover letter back in the box, tape it up and then call Federal Express to pick it up.

A
s I cab across town to meet Jack at a loft on 37th Street to hear a wedding band play, all I can think about is Jack’s reaction to the big lipstick kiss I planted on my cover letter.

When the cab stops at the building, so far west that it’s almost on the West Side Highway, at first, I think that the cab driver’s made a mistake. There is just no way possible that there is a big fancy black-tie wedding going on inside this building. The entranceway is bordering on industrial—classic nondescript 1970s-style construction with just a single door entrance. As I walk in, I announce myself to the security guard, who really looks as if he couldn’t care less who is coming or going. I get into the elevator and try to figure out which button is for the penthouse. Most of the buttons have their numbers worn away from use, so I just hit the one for the last floor in the lineup and hope that it takes me to my destination.

I look down at the silk organza gown and open-toe satin shoes I’m wearing and feel a bit overdressed as I look around at my surroundings. But as the elevator lets me off on the seventeenth floor, I realize that I’m in the right place.

The elevator doors open into a beautiful entranceway, elegantly decorated with an antique armoire and rug. I walk through to the area where the reception is being held and it is a vast space—fourteen-foot ceilings if they’re an inch—with white-lace-tableclothed tables set up around the perimeter and a medium-sized dance floor in the middle. Enormous crystal chandeliers hang from up above, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are dressed with delicate white fabric which pools at the bottom, flowing onto the floor.

Why didn’t Jack and I think about having a wedding like this? A hidden Manhattan space, big enough to fit both of our families (and just our families and closest friends, mind you) that’s nestled in a tiny corner of the city. It occurs to me that we never once tried to figure out what we wanted as a couple. Instead, we just deferred to what our parents wanted—Jack’s parents, a big New York City hotel wedding, and mine, a traditional Long Island temple wedding—to disastrous results. I wonder what we would have chosen, if we had made the decision all on our own.

“Come here often?” a low voice behind me asks.

“Well, no,” I say, spinning around. “But maybe I should.”

“Can I kiss you hello or are you still wearing that awful flashy lipstick?” Jack says, with a sly smile.

“Oh,” I say, giving him a kiss on the lips, “just admit that you loved it.”

“I loved it,” he says, taking my hand and leading me into the room where the reception’s being held. I take a glance over at the band, Moore Music. They’re playing an old big band number that is exactly the type of thing that I want for our wedding. The band is absolutely perfect.

“Did you really love it?” I ask. “Or are you just saying that because that’s what I want to hear?”

“I thought it was adorable,” he says, “I love it when my woman stakes her claim on me.”

“What?” I say, putting my hand on my chest for dramatic effect. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s see,” he says, “you were the junior associate on all of my matters five years running, so I’m pretty sure you knew that Miranda would be opening the documents for me and would be the first to see your grand declaration of love.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I say, “I must have forgotten. Now that I’m at a law firm where I have tons of responsibility, I must have forgotten about big firm bureaucracy entirely. I hope that Miranda didn’t mind.”

“To the contrary,” Jack says. “She told me to ask you what shade of lipstick that was. She’s thinking of buying herself the same one.”

“Cute,” I say. It takes all of my energy not to say something catty about Miranda and how she probably has her own stash of loud, flashy lipsticks to choose from. But saying something like that would make me seem jealous. Or threatened. Which I most certainly am not. Because Jack’s not like my last serious boyfriend who left me for a loud, flashy man stealer. So what’s there to be jealous of?

“Well, I try,” Jack says, pulling on the lapels of his tuxedo. We’d decided that, since we were coming to see the wedding band at a black-tie affair, we should dress up so as to blend in with all of the other wedding guests. “How did I do?”

“Very well,” I say, putting my hand on his chest and leaning in for a kiss. I smell his aftershave and it goes down my spine. I keep my eyes closed for a moment longer than I should.

“What do you think of the band?” Jack asks, with his arms still around me.

“I love them,” I say, “you?”

“Same,” he says, “That was easy enough. See, I told you planning our wedding would be a breeze.”

I hold my tongue.

The band announces the happy couple, for the first time as husband and wife, and the groom grabs his bride’s hand to begin their first dance.

“So, how was your day?” Jack says as we watch the bride and groom dance in the middle of the dance floor. Her white tulle gown becomes a huge blur to my tired eyes as she spins around and around.

“Great!” I answer a bit too quickly. One thing that Jack always taught me—never let your adversary know where your head is at in a litigation. I certainly don’t want him to know that I was in any way fazed by his incredibly rude litigation tactic. Yes, rude! It’s one thing to use that tactic on
other
lawyers, but it is quite another to do such a thing to your fiancée who really has better things to do with her time than review ninety thousand pages of discovery documents and get tons of paper cuts. Doesn’t he know that when you’re engaged, people ask to see your hands all the time? Note to self: must seriously talk to the judge about the paper cut/hand issue.

But, I won’t let Jack see me sweat. I will just act like the tough no-nonsense attorney that I am. I am woman, hear me roar!

Although he probably figured out how hard he made me work on that document production since I came home three hours after he went to bed last night.

But, come on, I ask you, who was the one who was
really
punished in that scenario?

“You look a little tired, Miller,” he says, grabbing my hand and leading me out onto the dance floor, as the first dance ends and the dance floor begins to fill with wedding guests.

“Tired?” I say, “why, no. I slept like a baby. Didn’t you?”

“Well, I would have slept better if my fiancée had been there to keep me warm,” Jack says, drawing his arms around me even tighter.

See? I told you so. Loss of consortium is always harder on the man than it is the woman. Although, I must admit, Jack
is
very good at keeping me warm. In fact, I’m getting a bit warm right now, the closer and closer he holds his body to mine.

“Well, I would have been home sooner,” I say, “but I’ve got this big case that I’m working on. The guy that I’m litigating against is a real animal.”

“Growl,” he whispers into my ear and then takes a little nibble. Animal, indeed! “Well, if you can’t handle such a large-scale litigation, maybe you should just concentrate on keeping your fiancée warm and drop the case.”

“Am I hearing that you’re ready to talk settlement already, counselor?” I whisper back into his ear.

“No way in hell, Miller,” he says, and spins me. I almost lose my footing as I come back to face him.

“Why not?” I ask with a smile, now on steady ground, “Isn’t it in both of our clients’ interests?”

“My client isn’t settling,” he says, drawing me in close.

“You have an ethical obligation,” I lecture Jack, “to go to your client with any settlement offer that I make to you.”

“That rule only stands if there is an actual offer,” Jack lectures me right back. “You haven’t made me any sort of firm offer.”

“Oh,” I say, sidling up to him, “I’ll give you a firm offer.”

“That’s my line,” Jack says, looking down at me, baby blues shining.

“Right,” I say, feeling my face heat up, “I confess, maybe I am just a
touch
tired.”

“I knew it,” he says, “I knew that the document request would work. I must admit, I figured you’d just come home to me and convince me to drop the suit in a very, very unethical way, but—”

“What way did you have in mind, counselor?” I ask, as he spins me and then pulls me in to him. Our faces are so close that his features all begin to blur into each other right in front of my eyes.

“Something,” he says, voice lower, “that I can assure you the Bar Association would frown upon.”

“Do tell,” I say, putting my cheek next to his.

“Surrender,” he whispers back.

“Never, Jackie,” I say and pull back. We stare each other down, each one waiting for the other to back down, but we both stand firm.

“Never say never, sweetie,” Jack says, “Now, I
know
I taught you that.”

I try to formulate a response, but just then, Savannah Moore, the bandleader of the band, comes over to introduce herself.

“Everyone’s about to sit down for the first course,” she says, “let’s sneak into the caterer’s office for a few minutes to talk about your wedding.”

We follow Savannah out of the reception room and down a long hallway. She’s a tiny little thing, dressed in a black bias-cut cocktail dress, just like the other two female singers in her band. I like that they are all dressed the same, even though Savannah is clearly the star. Doing it this way makes the band look like a cohesive unit and she obviously understands that. All of the singers dance to the music in unison, and they are all clearly having a blast up on stage, which is another thing I like. If the band is having fun, I can’t help but think that our guests will be having a great time, too.

Savannah turns around, her bouncy red hair flipping over her shoulder, as she gets to the caterer’s office door. She looks just like Ann-Margaret with her lithe frame and thick red hair. I can practically see her singing along with Elvis to “Viva Las Vegas.” Actually, that might be a really cute dance number for the wedding. I wonder if Jack’s dad would think that an Elvis impersonator at our wedding would be considered tacky.

Savannah knocks gently on the caterer’s office door, and then, not hearing a response, motions for us to come in. I detect a slight Southern accent that she’s trying to overcome as Savannah begins to tell us about how many pieces come standard in her band (eleven—four singers, four strings, drums, piano and a flute player), the price (so expensive that I’m embarrassed even to say it here, God knows how I’ll stir up the courage to tell my dad), and how many hours they play (four, with an additional hour for the ceremony for a nominal fee). Even as she explains the most mundane of details, Savannah is high-energy and sweet.

“You know who you remind me of?” Jack asks her, after she’s completed her spiel on the basics.

“Yes,” Savannah says with a smile, “I get that a lot.”

“You do?” Jack says, “Well, I was actually thinking of this associate I work with.”

He’d better not be talking about who I think he’s talking about.

“Right, sweetie?” Jack says, looking at me. “She’s just like Miranda!”

“She is most certainly
not
like Miranda,” I say a little too quickly, smiling widely as if the comparison doesn’t bother me one bit. Which it doesn’t, of course.

Only, Jack’s been raving all week about how fabulous she is. Savannah, not Miranda, I mean, but it’s almost the same.

All I can think is,
Why couldn’t he have just said Ann-Margret like a normal person?

“Well, you remind me of Ann-Margret,” I say, hoping to change the subject.

“Why, thank you, Brooke,” Savannah says, smiling, “I’m very flattered. I get that a lot, and I consider it to be such a huge compliment. She was really largely talented, and—”

“Ann-Margret was from Sweden, Brooke,” Jack says, cutting Savannah off without even realizing it, “I detect a slight Southern accent from Savannah. Am I right?”

When did Jack become such an expert on Southern accents? Is this what Miranda’s been helping him with under the guise of working on the Monique case together?

“Guilty!” Savannah says. “I’m from a tiny little town outside of Savannah. But my father always wanted bigger things for me, so he named me for the biggest city he could think of.”

Clearly, Savannah isn’t sure whose family is paying for the wedding yet, so she’s trying to be equally nice to both of us.

Big mistake.

“Well, it’s time for me to get back up there and do my thing,” Savannah says, “you two can take as long as you’d like in here to talk things over, and then you can feel free to come back out and listen to a few more numbers. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Jack says, rushing up to his feet to shake Savannah’s hand.

“Thanks so much,” I say, “thank you for everything.”

“My pleasure,” Savannah says, as she walks out the door and shuts it quietly behind herself to go back to the party.

“Maybe we should see what else is out there,” I say, once the door has closed. “Just to make sure that there aren’t any other bands that we missed. We wouldn’t want to sign with someone so quickly that we regret it later.”

“She’s the only female bandleader in the entire Tri-State area,” Jack says. “For some reason, I like that. It’s so cool that she’s a woman doing it in a man’s industry. And doing it so well. She brings a certain grace to the whole thing. And, of course, there’s her stellar reputation.”

“I still think we should see other bands,” I say, picking at a stray cuticle.

“But I thought you were sold? Didn’t you just say a half hour ago that they play the exact type of music that you want for our wedding?” he says.

I shrug in response.

“
And,
her band looks great. Don’t you want a good-looking band that’s fronted by a gorgeous woman like Savannah?” Jack asks.

“We’re finding another band.”

“You know what I think? I think your judgment is clouded because of this litigation,” Jack says, pulling his chair closer to mine. “Why don’t we talk settlement on our case and then that will clear your head for more important things—like our wedding?”