Jack with a Twist (24 page)

W
hat do you call a ballroom filled with thousands of lawyers and judges?

A: The Federal Bar Council Luncheon honoring the Honorable Edward Solomon.

B: My worst nightmare.

C: [Insert your own cheesy lawyer joke here.]

Enormous signs announcing the Federal Bar Council Luncheon point us toward the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, where Noah is forcing me to eat lunch today against my will. You can spare me the free salad and piece of catering-hall salmon. I, myself, have never wanted to work through a lunch before so badly in my life.

I walk in the door, flanked on either side by Noah and Rosalyn, both of whom are sworn not to leave my side the entire luncheon. Inside of two minutes there, Noah spots an in-house attorney from Healthy Foods and darts away with a pocket full of business cards to network.

“I’m much tougher than Noah,” Rosalyn tells me. “You really only need me to protect you.”

I give Rosalyn a smile and she holds my hand as we find our firm’s table—Table Thirty-six. Rosalyn and I sit down and order iced teas just as Vanessa walks over to us.

“I’m at Table Thirty-seven!” she announces to Rosalyn and me, “how funny!”

And you thought I wouldn’t see anyone from Gilson, Hecht.

I shoot a look of horror in Vanessa’s direction, and she assures me that even though Gilson, Hecht bought ten tables, all of which are scattered about the room, it doesn’t matter anyway, since Jack is seated on the dais with his father.

A half hour later, the salads are set on the table and the program begins. Noah sits down and mouths the words
I’m sorry
to me from across the table, but I pretend to be far too engrossed in my seven grain roll to take notice.

Jack’s father’s law clerk gives a stirring introduction—full of the equal parts fear and ego that you’d expect from a Third Circuit law clerk—and then Jack takes the microphone.

“Thank you all for being here,” he begins and launches into his introduction. He looks around the room until he finds my table. Our eyes meet and Jack loses his train of thought for a moment. I wonder if anyone’s noticed, but then Rosalyn gently grabs my hand under the table and I realize that everyone’s staring at me.

“Ah, where was I?” he says. “Yes, with my father’s father. That’s right. Isaac Solomon was one of eight children born to his parents. He was the first of all of his siblings to come to America from Poland. He and my grandmother were only eighteen years old when they arrived at Ellis Island. He worked his fingers to the bone just so that he could afford to bring the rest of his family to this country. And because of that, there was never any money for my father when he was growing up.

“Seeing all of the struggles his own parents faced in being immigrants coming to America, my father decided, sometime in elementary school—was it elementary school, Dad? Is that how this story goes?—that he wanted to be a lawyer, so that no one could ever take advantage of him in the way that people had taken advantage of his own immigrant parents.

“My father’s mother worked as a housekeeper to a wealthy family who helped get my father a full scholarship to Andover, and from there it was easy for him to get a full scholarship to Harvard. From Harvard undergrad, it was then on to Harvard Law, where he met Judge Martin, and together, they were the only two Jews in their class at Harvard. Imagine that.”

Huge peals of laughter come from the more Jewish law firms, while the more white-shoe law firms smile tightly.

As Jack goes into his father’s career path from large law firm to United States Attorney’s office to the bench, I take a sip of my iced tea and then place my cold hand on my forehead.

“We can leave when he’s done speaking,” Rosalyn whispers to me. “The second the crowd starts to applaud, let’s you and I sneak out the back.”

“Thank you,” I whisper back. I look up and see Noah staring at the two of us sternly.

“Shhh,” he hisses, finger over his lips.

“He’s an amazing attorney, and an even better judge, and I know that that’s why everyone in this room respects him. He’s my father, and I love him,” Jack says, to a round of roaring applause. The judges on the dais all begin shaking Judge Solomon’s hand and patting him on the back.

“I think I’ve had enough,” I whisper to Rosalyn and we both get up quietly and walk out of the room. I don’t even look at Noah—I know he would disapprove of my leaving, so there’s no sense in turning around to see his disappointed face.

“Wanna go get a drink?” Rosalyn asks me as we leave the ballroom. “I think you could use a drink.”

“I think I’d actually just like to go home,” I say, feeling suddenly totally exhausted. “I’m ready to go home. If you think that would be okay, that is.”

“Of course,” she says and we walk out of the hotel. “I’m going to go back to the office for a bit. Let’s go get cabs.” We get on the taxi line and in seconds, two taxis pull up to the curb to let off passengers, as if on cue. Rosalyn and I say our goodbyes as we open the doors to our respective cabs. A woman wearing a large scarf wrapped around her head and enormous Chanel sunglasses that hide half of her face comes out of the cab that’s in front of me, and I realize that it’s Monique, wearing the same get-up she was in that day I saw her at the divorce attorney’s office.

“Monique?” I say, “is that you?” I’m not sure who’s more surprised to see the other at the Waldorf in the middle of the day—her or me.

“Brooke,” Monique says, “what are you doing here in the middle of a workday?”

“The Federal Bar Council luncheon is today,” I say and hope that she doesn’t think that I was playing hooky from work on a day that the newspapers announced that she was getting a divorce from her husband. “But, I’m on top of it, you don’t have to worry.”

“On top of what?” Monique asks me, eyes darting around furtively.

“Let’s go inside,” I say, realizing that she’s checking the area for paparazzi and that I should probably be doing the same. When I got to work this morning, the place was swarming with media. Reporters immediately recognized me from the first
New York Post
article the second I stepped out of my taxicab and stuck microphones and cameras in my face as they asked me about the status of the Monique/Jean Luc divorce. I managed to eke out a tiny “No comment” as I pushed my way through the crowd to my office building, where the doorman grabbed my arm and pulled me into the building, like a lifeguard helping a little kid out of the adult pool.

Monique and I walk back into the Waldorf with our heads bowed slightly and make a beeline to the bar just off the side of the grand entranceway of the Waldorf-Astoria.

“The divorce rumors,” I say, as I walk into the bar with Monique. We take the table in the corner, and I seat Monique facing the wall so that she’s not easily visible to any reporters who might come in. “I was going to call you later to let you know that we are on top of it, and we are going to take care of it.”

“Oh,” she says, shrugging, and motioning for a waiter to come and take our order. “I saw that in today’s
Post.
Would you like a drink?”

“But the story,” I say. “How can you be so calm at a time like this?”

“I’m just so relieved that the dissolution of partnership didn’t become public,” she says, as she orders champagne for the two of us. I consider interrupting her and ordering something other than champagne, but then reconsider. Somehow it seems only natural to be drinking champagne if you’re at the bar at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in the middle of the day. “Brooke, if word had gotten out about the dissolution of partnership, that could adversely affect the company’s stock. And the stock of our shareholders.”

“The dissolution of partnership? I thought you’d be more concerned about your impending divorce going public.”

“Divorce?” Monique says to me, taking off her sunglasses, “How silly. Jean Luc and I are not getting divorced, so there’s no gossip to get.”

“I saw you at Robin Kaplan’s office,” I say, my voice almost a whisper. “A divorce attorney’s office.” For a moment, I begin to panic as I think that maybe she was only there because she was designing a wedding dress for Robin, but then I look at her whole Brigitte Bardot get-up that she was sporting that day and again today and think that there’s no way I could be misinterpreting what is going on.

“Oh, Brooke. That was just an impulsive French woman trying to spread her wings and see how she felt,” Monique says, laughing for full effect. “I wasn’t ever
really
going to divorce Jean Luc. I love him, I want to be married to him, that’s the reason I want to dissolve our business partnership.”

“Then what about the Lowell? Wasn’t he really staying there?”

“Ah, yes,” she says, looking down. “He was. But now he’s back at home, where he belongs. And I’m meeting him here today for a little romantic rendezvous.”

“I don’t understand,” I say as the waitress comes back with our glasses of champagne.

“After all these years, the one thing that I’ve learned about marriage is that you must keep your work life and your personal life separate. Combining the two can be a lethal combination. Especially in the case of Jean Luc and me. But we still love each other. Nothing ever changed that. And sometimes a couple needs time apart from each other. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Then why is he fighting us to the death?” I ask, shaking my head side to side involuntarily.

“Men and their egos,” she says, laughing, taking a sip of her champagne. “You know that, don’t you? If you don’t, you should probably figure it out before you get married.”

“Well, that’s not going to be a problem,” I say, looking down into my champagne, “Since I’m not getting married now.”

“But why?” she asks, look of shock registering on her face.

Without even thinking, I begin to cry and recount the whole messy story to Monique. Any time I try to stop crying, in an effort to start acting professional, the tears flow ever harder. Monique doesn’t seem to notice that she’s my client, not my therapist, as she listens with rapt attention, pausing for only a moment when she fishes out an embroidered antique handkerchief and passes it to me, putting her hand on my shoulder as she does so.

I’ve never cried in front of a client before and I pray to God that Noah doesn’t find out about my waterworks being on display here today. Which could be tricky, being that he’s in a ballroom just down the hall from us.

“I’m so embarrassed,” I say, dabbing the corners of my eyes with Monique’s hankie. “Please forgive me.”

Monique stands up, motions for me to do the same, and then wraps her arms around me.

“It will be okay, my dear,” she says, “it will be okay.”

I regain my composure in time to thank her and hand her back her hanky. It’s crisp linen edges are soaked through and through and it practically sticks to my hand. “On second thought, why don’t I get this dry cleaned before returning it to you?”

“It is okay,” she says, with a kind smile, “don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you,” I say, as we sit back down at our table.

“It took me a long time, too,” she says, “so don’t be sorry, don’t be embarrassed. It is okay.”

“Took you a long time for what?” I ask, sniffling slightly, but my tears beginning to subside.

“To figure things out,” she says, taking a slow sip of her champagne.

“To figure what out?” I ask, taking a gulp of mine.

“What’s important and what’s not.”

“With all due respect, Monique,” I say, “I think I know what’s important. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying—Jack isn’t the man I thought he was, and I’m just cutting our losses now before anyone gets even more hurt.”

“But, Brooke,” she says, taking my hand from across the table, “that is what I mean. You are talking about this as if it is a business transaction. As if you thought you did your due diligence on a company you wanted to buy, and now that there are some things with the company that you don’t like, so you want to cancel the deal.”

“Not things I didn’t like,” I correct. “Things I didn’t even know.”

“That would be a solid argument if we were talking business,” Monique says, “but we’re not talking about business. We’re talking about love.”

Without even asking, Monique hands me another antique handkerchief about thirty seconds before I’m about to need one again.

I
walk out of the bar with Monique and back into the hotel lobby to see her off to her romantic rendezvous with her husband. She hugs me goodbye and I give her a big hug back. In the distance, I can hear the tell-tale click of a paparazzo close by, ruining our moment. I hope that Monique doesn’t hear it too, and can just go off and have the fabulous reconciliation with her husband that she deserves.

“Do you hear what I hear?” Monique asks me, furrowing her brow. Vanessa and I had wondered, back when we first met Monique, whether or not she’d had Botox injected, but now, with her brow wrinkled like a question mark, I’m sure that she has not.

“Hear what?” I ask, thinking that if we can just ignore them, maybe they’ll go away. Okay, well, the paparazzi probably won’t go away, but maybe she can just ignore them and go about her afternoon.

“Watch this,” Monique says, a determined look on her face.

And with that, Monique marches right over to the enormous white column that the photographer is hiding behind, and pulls him out into the open by his ear, like a schoolmarm disciplining a misbehaving pupil. My mouth drops to the floor as I see that the lone photog is none other than my wedding videographer, Jay Conte. Well, former wedding videographer, but you know what I mean.

“What on earth are you doing here?” I demand, rushing over to them.

“My job,” he says. “Just like I’ve been trying to tell your client here. I’m just doing my job.”

“Is your job ruining people’s lives?” I say. “Please, Jay, just go.”

“Brooke,” Monique asks, “you actually know this man?”

“Long story,” I say, my face turning three different shades of red, “But yes.”

“Ladies,” Jay says, “I’ll go—”

“No,” Monique interrupts him, “don’t go. In fact, please feel free to report that I was here. You even have my full permission to take a picture of me walking to the elevator. Let’s clear things up here and now—Jean Luc and I are here together. We are back together and everything is fine again. We are meeting up to spend some time alone this afternoon in the bridal suite—yes—the bridal suite, and I don’t expect you’ll see us leaving the suite until tomorrow morning at the earliest. So, there you go. There is your precious gossip. I know that you would rather run blind items about relationships falling apart, but now you have your story. I am sneaking around in a hotel to spend time alone with my husband. I hope you are now satisfied.”

As Monique walks away from Jay and me, I can see a spring in her step. She practically dances her way to the elevators, pulling the scarf off her head as she does. Jay doesn’t take a single shot of her.

“So, I’ve had a tiny little matter come up that I was meaning to call you about. Do you have some time to talk now?” Jay asks, putting a toothpick into his mouth, and I roll my eyes.

“What do you think?” I say through clenched teeth.

“No problem,” he says, “I’ll just swing by the office tomorrow.” He scurries off before I have a chance to get in another word and leaves me alone in the foyer.

Standing outside the bar, between the front door of the hotel and the ballroom where the Federal Bar Council is still being held, I’m torn as to what I should do. Monique’s words mean so much to me, her actions even more, but I’m just not sure if I’m ready to walk back into that ballroom yet. As I make my decision, turning to walk out of the hotel, I hear someone calling my name. In an instant, I realize that I left without saying good-bye to Vanessa, and that it must be her, coming to check on me.

But things are never really that easy, are they? Instead, I spin around to find Miranda Foxley chasing after me. I immediately turn back around and start walking even faster to the exit.

“Brooke,” she calls out. “Wait! Please just wait for one second.”

She catches up to me and I turn to face her: “You are the last person in the world that I want to see right now, so please just leave me alone.”

“Brooke, I understand that you don’t like me,” Miranda says. “But you really should hear Jack’s closing statements.”

“You know what, Miranda?” I say, “I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Look, I know that you and Vanessa think I’m a horrible person. And, I guess that in many ways that I am. But I don’t mean to be. I don’t set out to do the things that I do. The truth is, you just can’t help who you fall in love with.”

“Please,” I say, “
you’re
going to try to lecture
me
on love now? Give me a break.”

“I know,” she says, “I know. I’ve got a crappy track record, an even worse reputation, and I deserve everything that everyone says behind my back. I’ve made more mistakes in my life than I care to admit, but…. Look, you can’t tell me that you don’t know, just as much as I do, that you can’t help who you fall in love with. I know that you do—I can see it in your face right now. You want to hate Jack right now, maybe you even
do
hate Jack right now, but you’re still in love with him. You still love him. And he still loves you.

“I thought it was bad when we were in discovery and he couldn’t stop talking about how amazing you were and how much fun you used to have when you worked together, but now it’s even worse. He mopes around the office like a sad puppy and all he really wants is to talk to you. To talk things out.”

“Is everything here okay?” Vanessa says, rushing out of the ballroom and over to me. “I’ve been e-mailing you for the last hour to make sure you got home okay, and I didn’t hear back. I was just about to hop on the Long Island Rail Road to start the search party with Mimi.” And then to Miranda: “You can go. I’ve got it from here.”

“Okay,” Miranda says, “but, Brooke, please hear what Jack has to say.”

Vanessa grabs me and hugs me tight.

“Do you want me to take you home?” she asks me.

“You know what?” I say, “maybe Miranda’s right.”

“Not possible,” Vanessa says.

“True,” I answer, smiling. “But still, let’s hear what Jack has to say.”

“Fine, but I’m coming to sit at your table,” Vanessa says, grabbing my hand, and we walk back to the ballroom together.

“Oh, my God,” I gasp, “is
Noah
your mystery man?”

“He’s
married,
” Vanessa says. “What do you think, I’m pulling a Miranda?”

“Is that our new term for cheating?” I ask.

“It’s our new term for making a move on a married man,” she says. “Yes. Think of it as the new Miranda warning—you do
not
have the right to hit on a married man. Anything you do with said married man
can
and
will
be used against you by every other woman you know.”

“You know what? I kind of feel sorry for her.”

“I feel worse for the wives of the men she’s messed around with,” Vanessa says. Said like a wife who’s been betrayed. I feel a tug of sadness for Vanessa and all she’s been through.

“Oh, honey. Me, too. I feel terrible for the wives. What she did, what she
does,
is awful. I mean, I’m not saying that what she did was in any way excusable, I’m just saying that I feel sorry for her. It’s like she just can’t help but fall in love with the wrong guy.”

“Are you trying to say that
you
fell for the wrong guy, too?” Vanessa asks, as we approach the ballroom.

“You know what? I don’t think so, but I guess we’re going to find out right now.”

The double doors to the ballroom open with a swoosh and the people at the few tables nearest to the doors turn around to look at us as we quietly make our way to the SGR table. I sit back down in my seat and Vanessa takes Rosalyn’s seat. Noah looks at me from across the table and smiles. He mouths the words
I’m glad you came back.

I mouth back the words,
“Me, too.”

Judge Solomon’s law clerk announces that Jack is going to be giving the closing statements, and the crowd applauds as Jack takes the mike once again.

“Thank you all for coming today to honor the Honorable Edward Solomon. My father. The man we all love and respect, and by being here today, you’ve truly honored him. Thank you for that.” The crowd all stands to applaud. Then, as everyone begins to take their seats again, Jack turns to his father: “Dad, you’ve made me the lawyer I am today. The
man
I am today. You’ve taught me how to fight to the death in a courtroom, and I’ve litigated against the toughest adversaries in the jurisdiction without flinching because of it. But the one person I could never go against is you. I always thought that having respect for you meant never standing up to you, but I was wrong. Now, I think that having respect for you would actually be to show you that I’ve become the man you’ve always taught me to be. To be strong, to take responsibility for things. To stand up for what I believe in.” Jack says, to a round of roaring applause. The judges on the dais all begin shaking Judge Solomon’s hand and patting him on the back. The Judge’s law clerk begins to get up from his seat, thinking that Jack is done speaking, but Jack doesn’t move a muscle. He stays firmly planted at the mic. He runs his hand through his shaggy brown hair and takes a deep breath.

“Dad, I love and respect you, but I don’t want lobster at my wedding if Brooke doesn’t want it. And, Dad, if you want lobster, then that’s fine, but then you won’t be at my wedding, and I’ll have to respect that, just as you’ll have to respect my decision here today. Because I love Brooke Miller and I’m going to do anything in the world to get her back. I let my fear get in the way of the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’m correcting that mistake here and now. Being afraid cost me the most important thing in my life and I’m going to get it back. I’m going to get it back right now.”

And with that, Jack jumps off of the dais and begins walking straight toward my table. Everyone stops and stares as he makes his way through the massive ballroom, straight through to my table.

I get up from my seat and walk toward him.

Finally! My real, live
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
moment! You know, without the whole $50-for-the-powder-room and kept-man thing, though.

What? Wouldn’t you want your
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
moment to be cleaned up a bit, too?

“I want to settle,” I say as we meet in the middle of the ballroom, both gasping for air.

“Being with me is settling?” Jack says. He runs his fingers through his shaggy brown hair and I can tell that he’s not sure whether he should put his arms around me. “I thought that my speech wasn’t half bad.”

“No,” I say, “Not settle on
you.
Settle with you. Our case. I want to settle our case. And then I want to marry you.”

“Whatever you say, counselor,” Jack says as he leans in to kiss me. And we kiss and we kiss and we kiss. And we don’t care that Jack’s dad is there, watching us with his mouth down on the floor. And we don’t care that we’re standing in a room full of judges and lawyers. We kiss and it’s like the rest of the world has ceased to exist.

I’m vaguely aware that as we stand there kissing, some people in the crowd begin to clap. Soon, it becomes a roaring applause and I detach myself from Jack’s face long enough to look out and see everyone standing up and applauding for us.

I turn around to see Jack’s father standing and applauding for us, too. He then grabs the mike and says: “Jack, I’m very proud of you. I’m proud of the man you have become. So, if you and Brooke don’t want lobster at your wedding, then I don’t want it, either. And Brooke, if I’ve done anything to offend you and your family over the last few months—well, it sounds like I’ve done a lot to offend you and your family over the last few months—I truly am sorry. I hope that you all will see fit to forgive me.

“I really am happy that Jack’s found a woman like you, and my family would be lucky to have you as a daughter-in-law. Beauty and brains, that’s our Brooke!”

“Of course we forgive you, Judge Solomon,” I call out, hoping that it’s loud enough for him to hear.

“Why don’t you try calling me Dad?” Judge Solomon says, and the crowd begins to applaud again.

I am
so not
calling that man Dad anytime soon.

“Now, I think that I’ve got a conflict of interest here,” Jack’s father says. “So, who’s going to marry these two for me?”

A voice booms from the back of the ballroom. Large and commanding, it’s a voice that doesn’t need the assistance of a microphone. I turn around and see a familiar face: Judge Martin, walking toward us, yelling, “I will!”