Scot on the Rocks (22 page)

“So?” he asked, pushing the tiny little box over to my side of the table and picking up a glass of champagne. It was a teeny little square box — it was difficult to believe that something as big and important as an engagement ring could fit inside its diminutive walls. For a moment I wondered whether or not this was the ring he had given to Beryl, but realizing that it didn’t really matter, opened the box and looked inside. It was a princess-cut diamond on an elegant platinum band. At first glance, it looked enormous and grand, all sparkles and fire, but when I looked a bit closer, I noticed that its cut made the diamond look large because it was all surface, with very little left underneath.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said, placing the ring back into its box.

“I asked you to marry me. Isn’t that what you want?” he asked. I stared out at the dance floor. “Brooke, I’m speaking to you.”

“No,” I said, with my head still turned away.

“No, you won’t marry me, or no, that’s not what you want?”

“Both. Neither,” I said, turning to face him.

“How can that be? Are you willing to throw this all away? Everything we had together?” I wondered why it was okay when he was the one throwing it all away — that when it was him, it was something that I just had to accept, but when it was me who was throwing it all away, that we had to discuss it. “Remember that time we went out for a casual Sunday-night dinner on the Lower East Side and we ended up dancing on the tables at that place until 4:00 a.m.? What was the name of that place?” he asked, running his index finger along the underside of my arm.

“Remember that time I had to have one of my wisdom teeth removed in an emergency surgery and you wouldn’t cancel your dinner plans that night to take care of me?” I asked back. He took a sip of his champagne.

“I’d rather remember that time you were burned out at work and I surprised you with a week away in the Caymans,” he said, twirling a lock of my hair with his finger. “Remember our little bungalow on the beach?”

“Remember that time Vanessa’s grandfather died and you wouldn’t come with me to the wake because you told me that you didn’t like death?” I asked. He put his glass down onto the table.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. He looked down.

“That’s not the question you should be asking me. The question is why did it take me so long to do this?”

“Darling,” he said.

“Don’t ‘darling’ me. That one isn’t going to work on me anymore. You proposed to someone else, Douglas.”

“But I’ve told you. That’s over now,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Yes, Douglas, and so are we,” I said with equal ease.

A
no
to his marriage proposal was clearly not what Douglas was expecting from me. I left him at the table with his mouth still wide open as I jumped up and walked out of the grand ballroom. I was walking a bit taller as I made my dramatic exit out of the reception, pushing the doors open with as much force as I could muster as I left. (Or as much force as my body would allow me to muster in three-and-a-half-inch heels, which were really, really beginning to hurt the balls of my feet.) When I got into the hallway, I didn’t know where I should go, so I headed back to my unofficial headquarters for the night — the ladies’ room. I sat down on one of the chairs in front of the vanity and looked at myself.

For a second, I didn’t even recognize the reflection staring back at me. Who was I? What was I doing? What was I thinking? How did I manage to make such a mess of things? Careful not to disturb Damian’s handiwork, I grabbed a monogrammed guest towel, dipped it in cold water, and dabbed it onto my neck and wrists.

“We are spending an inordinate amount of time in the ladies’ room,” Vanessa said as she walked into the bathroom. “I feel like I’m thirteen again at a bar mitzvah.” I looked up at her. “What?” she asked. “I grew up in New Jersey.”

“Then in that case, we should be burning a memory candle for Trip and Ava,” I said, wondering if that particular Long Island party tradition was the same in New Jersey. Back then, we would spend hours on end during the receptions of our friend’s bar and bat mitzvahs to burn memory candles for them: a strange concoction of monogrammed matches, napkins and anything else we could get our hands on, which we would then melt together by pouring the melted wax from a burning candle into a wineglass stolen from the caterers. We would then bestow this deformed
objet d’art
onto the guest of honor, oftentimes to have said guest of honor’s mother toss it in the trash before ever bringing it home.

“Ah, yes,” Vanessa said, “the sacred memory candle. I think it’s not such a good idea to put anything flammable next to the bride right now. By now, I’d say she’s 150 proof.” She took out her lipstick and lip gloss and began to touch up her pout.

“Yes,” I replied, “I suppose it would be very bad form to set the bride on fire at her own wedding.” Vanessa and I laughed.

“After you ran off, Douglas stormed out,” she said. “I think that he left.”

“Good,” I said, delicately massaging the temples of my head.

“It
is
good,” Vanessa said, pressing her lips together to make her lip gloss even. “I just have no idea how I’m going to explain why he came unexpectedly, ate and then ran.”

“He really likes chicken?” I offered. Believe it or not, I really was trying to be helpful.

“But he’s on a diet, so he couldn’t stay for dessert,” she said, fiddling with her false eyelashes. I touched her arm to remind her not to unnerve Damian’s handiwork and she sat down on a bench next to me.

“Am I an idiot?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Vanessa replied. Without hesitation, I might add. I wondered if a real friend would have waited or if a real friend just tells it like it is. I haven’t, in my life, had too many people who just told it to me like it was, but it dawned on me that maybe that’s what makes real friends so rare.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘No, Brooke, of course you’re not an idiot.’”

“But you are an idiot,” Vanessa said. Not backing down, was she? Vanessa is either a really,
really
good friend, or just not a very nice person.

“But, tell me, Vanessa, how do you really feel?”

“Brooke, there is a man out there who is crazy for you. Has been since the day he met you. And he has been making a complete fool of himself for you. And you have to ask me if you are an idiot?”

She was right. I
was
being an idiot. Jack was, like, totally, completely, madly in love with me. Who couldn’t see that? And I was, like, totally, completely, madly in love with him. Why didn’t
I
see that? I looked at myself in the mirror and took a deep breath. I put on some lip gloss (What? You have to look good for these major life moments!) and got ready to march out of the bathroom and profess my love to Jack. I was going to set things straight and make everything right again.

I would get up and march out and Vanessa would say, “Way to go, Paula!” like Debra Winger’s best friend says to her at the end of
An Officer and a Gentleman
when Debra gets her man. Even though Vanessa isn’t exactly your shout-out kind of girl. And I guess it would have been strange for her to call that out, what with my name not being Paula and all. But you get the general sentiment I was going for. Maybe when I found Jack and proclaimed my love for him, he would pick me up like Richard Gere picks up Debra Winger and carry me out of this godforsaken wedding just like Richard takes Debra out of that godforsaken factory. Even though Jack was kind of skinny and I was kind of, well, not skinny. But maybe my professed love for him would give him superhuman strength! And this five-star wedding certainly wasn’t a godforsaken anything, but it would still be super romantic for him to lift me up and carry me out into the sunset. Or onto Sunset. Whatever.

“You’re right, Vanessa,” I proclaimed. “I’m going out there to tell Jack how I feel right now.” All ready for her to shout, “Way to go, Paula!” or “Way to go, Brooke!” as the case may be, she said:

“You can’t, Brooke, he already left.”

“Oh,” I said, freezing in my tracks. The door to the ladies’ room swung open as a guest came flying in and I almost got hit.

“That doesn’t matter,” Vanessa said, as I walked back to the vanity mirror. “We can still have a great time. We are still going to salvage this night. Go out there and dance until our feet hurt.”

“My feet already hurt,” I said, slumping onto the stool next to hers.

“Okay,” she said. “Then, we are going to dance until our feet hurt
even more.
” I took off my shoes and began to massage the balls of my feet. “And drink too much and just have a blast.”

“I drank too much last night,” I informed her. “And I think that I already drank too much tonight, too.”

“Work with me, here, Brooke,” she said, and pulled me up by the arms. “No sulking allowed at your ex-boyfriend’s wedding.”

“Isn’t that the perfect place to sulk?” I asked her.

“Let’s go,” she said, practically pushing me out the door.

And go we did, right back into the reception. We took a spin toward the bar, and ordered two glasses of champagne. Seemingly the only two single women there, we stood around and tried to look busy.

We went out onto the dance floor and danced for a song or two. I was totally distracted at first, only thinking about Jack and how he had left, but sometime into “Dancing in September” I started to get into it.

Just as Vanessa and I started to get into the swing of things, a slow song came on next. So as not to look like those old women you always see at weddings dancing to slow songs together, we retreated from the dance floor. I hate slow dances at weddings. It always slows the action down, just when things are heating up. And reminds me that I’m alone. Just when I think, as a single girl, that I’m okay being alone at a wedding, a slow song comes on to remind me that I am not. I suppose when I’m married, I’ll come to embrace these romantic moments at weddings, but for now they flat out suck.

“And now,” the bandleader bellowed, “will you all please take your seats as Trip and Ava cut the cake!”

All of the guests jumped up and circled around the dance floor to watch Trip and Ava. The cake was beautiful — ten layers of pure white frosting covered in roses and pearls made entirely of sugar. I turned to Vanessa and wondered if she was thinking of her own wedding cake.

Trip and Ava held a large sterling-silver knife and cut into the cake together, eyes glued to each other the entire time. Trip took a fork and began to feed it to Ava, slowly, gently, as if she were a baby eating whole foods for the first time. He leaned down and gave her a little kiss as she was still chewing. They both began to laugh and turned to the photographer for their Kodak moment. Through the haze of wedding guests, I could see Beverly’s blond lackey looking on from the side, sort of the way Katie Holmes’s Scientology “handler” seems to be ever-present whenever she steps out into public.

“Do you think they are going to last?” Vanessa asked me, and it caught me off guard.

“Oh, I —”

“I know,” Vanessa said, “what an awful thing to ask as the couple is cutting the cake. But do you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do. But I always think that at weddings.”

“Me, too,” Vanessa said.

As Ava picked her fork up to feed Trip, I could see Beverly’s blond lackey looking on with a panicked expression. I was sort of curious what Ava might do, too. Ava put the fork into Trip’s mouth and got the tiniest bit of frosting on one side of his upper lip. The crowd all laughed and cheered and Trip posed for a photo before wiping the frosting off.

The band began to play some sort of traditional wedding song as waiters quickly began serving the cake. Vanessa politely shook her head
no
when a waiter came to us with pieces of cake.

“Isn’t it supposed to be bad luck not to have a bite of wedding cake?” I asked Vanessa, as I longingly watched the waiter walk away.

“No,” Vanessa corrected me, “it’s only supposed to be
good
luck if you do.”

“Either way, I think we need some of that cake.”

“I’m not really hungry,” Vanessa said.

“Get me some of that goddamned cake,” I said as a waiter walked by with another piece. I politely nodded and smiled at him, as if I had not just cursed at my best friend over a baked good, and took a piece for Vanessa and me to share.

“None for me,” Vanessa said as I handed her a fork. I ignored her and began eating.

“I think you only need
one
bite for the good luck to kick in,” Vanessa said.

“Well, I need all the good luck I can get,” I told her as I continued devouring the piece of cake.

“Yeah,” she said, “Me, too. Save some for me.” And with that, she began to dig into the cake. Within seconds, we were onto our second piece, adorned with a sugar rose (undoubtedly a symbol of
even more
good luck), which we split in two. I ate my half with my hands while Vanessa ate hers carefully with her fork.

After we finished, we took another spin around the reception — from the bar to the bathroom, meandering through some of the tables filled with the more famous faces in attendance. (I
knew
that was Matt Damon!) After a few laps, we finally found ourselves back at our table, all alone. Jenna was up dancing with her husband, and the other guests from our table were scattered about. It dawned on me that this may have been the first wedding Vanessa had ever attended alone. She fidgeted and looked unsure of what she should do. She began to pick at a dinner roll.

“Isn’t anyone going to ask us to dance?” she asked me, looking around the reception with hope in her eyes.

“It doesn’t look like there are any single guys here,” I said. I thought but didn’t say: “And even if there were, odds are they would be too insecure/immature/arrogant/flat out rude to even ask.”

“So,” Vanessa said, looking around the reception again, “I guess we’re all alone now.”

“Welcome to the world of the single girl.”