Scot on the Rocks (10 page)

“Try to look Scottish American,” I said, ignoring her and taking a spin toward the buffet.

“Hi, I’m Duncan,” a man said to me in line at the buffet as I tried to remember from my outline what haggis was made from.

“Brooke,” I said and smiled. He smiled back, followed by an uncomfortable silence. We both reached for plates. I never did well with the whole uncomfortable silence thing. I’m not the type of girl who can just let the silence lie and be quiet. It always seemed to make me talk more, whether or not I actually had anything to say. “You know, Aberdeen is where Paris ought to be,” I said, quoting Robert Louis Stevenson. He nodded without smiling and then muttered something about having to tend to his girlfriend.

“Do you want me to throw pearls like that into conversation at Trip’s wedding?” Jack asked me over my shoulder.

“Robert Louis Stevenson said that,” I said.

“Ah,” he said.

“He wrote
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
” I said, defending myself with Stevenson’s literary pedigree.

“And
Treasure Island,
” Jack replied. “I know. I read your outline while you were getting your hair done. I also know that the thistle is the symbol of all things Scottish. Actually a weed, the thistle is both a legend and a symbol —”

“Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone,” Vanessa said, coming from the opposite end of the buffet, “and Alexander Fleming invented penicillin. Both Scottish born.”

“What?” I said.

“Oh,” she replied. “I thought we were just quoting random bits of information from your outline.” I sighed as we took our plates of food and found a little place to stand around and eat.

I hate when people at parties stay clustered together with only the people they came to the party with, but really, what are you supposed to do when you don’t know anyone but your two friends? Vanessa, Jack and I wound up standing in a corner, balancing our plates filled with various Scottish delicacies (and also some cocktail franks) and glasses of wine in the other hand.

“We have to make it more natural at the wedding,” I instructed Jack and Vanessa.

“Spouting out random bits of information on Scotland is never going to sound natural,” Vanessa said.

“Yeah,” Jack said, “let’s only use the information defensively. Only if someone asks.”

“Agreed,” I said, leaning back toward the wall.

All of the sudden, the lights went out. It wasn’t entirely dark, since the room was filled with candles all over, but the crowd began to murmur.

“What was that?” Jack said, looking around.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe it’s some sort of Scottish tradition! And you two thought we wouldn’t learn anything here. I guess it’s something where halfway through the party, they turn out the lights. I wonder what happens when the lights go out?”

I was thrilled. Even though the place was crawling with Scottish Americans and not actual, real live Scots, we would
still
get some quality research done. See, this was exactly the sort of thing we would need to know for the wedding that you can’t learn from Internet research alone!

“Um, Brooke,” Vanessa said. “What’s that behind your elbow?” I looked behind me and lo and behold, what was behind my elbow was a light switch.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, “I just turned off the lights!”

“Turn them back on,” Jack said through clenched teeth.

“I can’t!” I said. “I’m too embarrassed!” The murmur of the crowd began to get louder. Everyone seemed totally disoriented, and I saw some of the party planners scurrying about, trying to fix the lighting situation.

“Just do it,” Vanessa said. “Standing here in the dark is worse. Eventually, someone’s going to tell everyone where the light switch is.”

As swiftly as I’d accidentally turned them off, I lifted my elbow, quickly hit the light switch while still balancing my plate and my glass and the lights came back on. Only, the light switch must have been a dimmer switch, because it got very, very bright. Uncomfortably bright.

“Turn them down,” Jack said, teeth still slightly clenched. The murmur of the crowd got louder, still. Everyone continued to look around and just generally act confused.

“I can’t,” I said. “Then everyone will know it was me!”

“I think they know already,” Vanessa said and she was right. The entire crowd began staring at me, waiting for me to rearrange the lights.

“Sorry!” I said, as I turned around and readjusted the dimmer.

“So much for learning about Scotland,” Vanessa said, looking for a place to put down her plate and glass.

“Yes,” I said, “our work here is done.” I then made a hasty exit toward the door, without making eye contact with any of the other party guests, with Jack and Vanessa following closely in my wake.

“I
don’t think that anyone is going to see your bikini line,” Vanessa called in to me as the hair was being ripped from my flesh at the nail place around the corner from our office.

“You never know,” I called back in between rips. I was raised to believe that a woman must always be ready for battle, no matter what. Manicures and haircuts even when you don’t have any plans and pedicures and bikini waxes in the winter because you just “never knew” when some dashing gentleman caller might come around and whisk you off to an exotic weekend in Rio. Okay, granted, that has never happened to me or anyone that I’ve ever met, but isn’t that the point of the whole “you never know” thing?

“I don’t even want to know who you think is going to see your bikini line,” Vanessa said to me as we walked over to the pedicure chairs.

“Well, now,” I assured Vanessa, “anyone who wants to.” Vanessa sighed.

The tubs beneath the pedicure chairs had already been filled with hot water and honey-lemon-scented bubbles. I took off my shoes, pulled my hair out of its bun, put my feet in and closed my eyes. The hot water felt like a warm blanket and I melted into the pedicure chair. I took a deep breath and tried to relax for the first time in two weeks. Who knew that perpetrating a fraud on the entire Scottish community would be so stressful? With my eyes shut, I tried to forget about everything — about work, about Douglas, about…

“I brought you some of my old research on likelihood of confusion,” I heard someone say. I was pretty sure it was not the nail technician who was removing the polish from my toes. I opened one eye to find Vanessa thrusting hundreds of pages of case law into my hands. “I thought it might be a good jumping-off point for you,” she said. She took out her own work — piles and piles of documents she was reviewing on another case to get ready for a round of depositions, all color coded to indicate whether they would help or hurt her client.

“So tall, so thin,” Vanessa’s nail technician commented as she massaged Vanessa’s long lean legs — the product of two New York City Marathons and six-mile runs through Central Park each day.

“Thanks,” Vanessa said back, brushing a nonexistent hair behind her ear. Her hand brushed her drop earrings, making a tiny sound like a set of elegant wind chimes. Vanessa wore her hair incredibly short, like Halle Berry circa 2002, and always wore long drop earrings to fill in the space between her ears and shoulders.

“Beautiful shoes,” the nail technician said to Vanessa as she picked up one of Vanessa’s tan Chanel ballet slippers. “So pretty.” Vanessa smoothed her hair again as she smiled, careful not to hit her earrings again and draw even more attention to herself.

“Can you just tell me what these cases say?” I asked Vanessa.

“I took notes in the margins,” Vanessa said, “and I put the holding of each case on the top so that you can quickly tell what proposition of law each case stands for.”

I put the cases in my lap while I took my BlackBerry out of my pants pocket. I’d taken to carrying my BlackBerry everywhere I went (even attaching it to my pajama bottoms as I lounged around at night) in case Douglas called or e-mailed me. I checked for missed calls or e-mails from Douglas, but he still hadn’t tried to contact me.

I sent an e-mail to Jack:

From: “Brooke Miller”

To: “Jack Solomon”

Subject: pop quiz

when are the highland games played each year?

Brooke Miller

Sent from my wireless handheld

A moment later, he e-mailed back:

From: “Jack Solomon”

To: “Brooke Miller”

Subject: Re: pop quiz

Does Douglas even know this stuff?

Jack Solomon
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.

A smile came to my lips.

I began to shuffle through the cases Vanessa had given to me and marveled at the detail of her work. I looked up to tell her what a great job she had done, and in so doing, let half of the cases slide off my lap and fall into the pedicure tub. My nail technician and I gasped simultaneously and began frantically fishing for the papers, as Vanessa looked up from her own work, balanced perfectly in her lap.

“Gee, your cases smell terrific,” she said.

“I think that this is a sign from God that I shouldn’t be doing work right now. Is it really ethical to bill at the nail salon, anyway?”

“Of course it is,” Vanessa said, looking down at her work and pursing her lips for emphasis.

“Men have it so easy, don’t they,” I said. “They just wash and go. If you’re lucky, you get them to shave.” Vanessa nodded her head as if she was listening, so I kept going. “Just to go to this stupid wedding, I have to get waxed, manicured, pedicured, visit the skin doctor, and take over an hour doing my hair and makeup.”

“I’m very interested to see how your dress will reveal your freshly waxed bikini line,” Vanessa said.

“I hope that Marcus appreciates all that you have to do just to get gorgeous.”

“I seriously doubt that he does,” she said, head still buried in her work.

“Well, then I hope that he appreciates all that
I
have to do just to get gorgeous,” I said, lifting the foot that the nail technician was not filing to show Vanessa just how hard I was working.

“I’m sure he will.”

“I still can’t believe that Trip has never met Marcus,” I said. Vanessa had missed her own law-school graduation because Marcus had been asked to scrub in on his first major surgery that day and Vanessa had gone to watch.

“Such is the life of a surgical resident,” she said, as she continued to review her documents. “Now, can we try to get some work done? It’s only ethical to bill at the nail salon if you actually do work.” I nodded, making a mental note to myself to bill Healthy Foods for the six-tenths of an hour that I actually attempted to read the cases that Vanessa had given me. Even if I did spill half of them into a pedicure tub, I still thought I should get the credit.

“So far you haven’t done anything that you can bill for,” Vanessa said. I haven’t done anything that I could bill for? Didn’t she see me concentrating, like, totally hard, on those cases for a solid six-tenths of an hour? Jeez.

“Wouldn’t it be great, though, if you could just bill for primping?” I asked her. The next best thing to billing actual clients was talking about billing them. In fact, you should be able to bill for that, too. “Just bill the client for your hair and manicures and stuff? It should really be write-off-able, if you think about it. You have to look good for court, don’t you?” Vanessa kept reading her documents, although I could swear that I saw the sides of her mouth pull a bit as she tried to keep a straight face. “And, now that I’m thinking about it, you should be able to write off your makeup, too. I mean, could you imagine if you showed up for a meeting with a client without any makeup on? That would be, like, totally unprofessional.”

“Work, Brooke!” Vanessa said with a laugh.

Seeing as Vanessa was not in the mood to discuss the issues plaguing women in today’s modern world, I picked up my wet cases and began to blow on them. They were still drenched through and through, and just the mere act of holding them up was making some of them begin to rip in half. I considered putting them under the nail dryers, but thought better of it. I began to leaf through the cases I hadn’t dropped into the pedicure tub. I looked over to Vanessa and tried to balance my cases on my own lap the way she had done herself.

The nail technician began to massage my legs. I closed my eyes and sank into it. I mean, a girl can’t reasonably be expected to read cases and bill her client during a massage, can she?

“You know, I don’t even know if Marcus is going to be able to make it to the wedding this weekend,” Vanessa said, not even bothering to look up from her work.

“What?” I asked, turning to her. As I twisted my body to look at her, the dry cases slid off my lap and fell into the pedicure tub. The nail technician, having already run this drill, slowly began to peel each case out of the water and fan the papers out next to her stool.

“I think he’s going to have to work,” she said, head still buried in her documents, documents still balanced perfectly on her lap.

“Work?” I asked.

“Yes, work, Brooke,” she said, picking her head up. “What you’re not doing right now. Work.”

“What color?” our nail technicians sang out in unison. I knew which color Vanessa would choose. Vanessa always wore the same color on both her hands and feet — Hitchcock Blonde — a barely-there nude color with a dash of pink that was only two shades away from clear topcoat. It was the sort of thing you would imagine Grace Kelly in her Princess Grace years wearing.

I usually changed it up each week, never matching my hands to my feet, a move that Vanessa considered completely déclassé and was never too shy to tell me. I knew for a fact that she obeyed the same rule about matching with respect to her bras and panties.

“I don’t know,” I thought aloud. “What color do you think?” I asked Vanessa.

“Have you tried Hitchcock Blonde?” she asked.

“Maybe a red on my toes since my dress for the wedding is nude with a black overlay?” I asked. Vanessa rolled her eyes as if to say, “Why even bother to ask when you ignore my sage advice?” and my nail technician ran off to the wall of nail polish to pick out a few reds.

“Are you going to wear red on your hands, too?” Vanessa asked me with a look of disdain that indicated that if I answered yes, our friendship may very well be over, or, at the very least, she would be unable to be seen in public with me.

“I was thinking something beigy for my hands?” I said it like a question.

“Okay,” Vanessa approved. “Hitchcock Blonde?”

“Leather and Lace?” the nail technician called over to me.

“That sounds like something Beryl would wear,” I said and she nodded, even though she had no idea who Beryl was. Presumably.

“Fresh Strawberries?” she asked and I shook my head no. Too Pollyanna. We were going to Los Angeles, for God’s sake.

“Ah!” she said, seemingly having hit gold. “Weekend in Rio.” Weekend in Rio — how perfect! This weekend was going to shape up quite nicely. This was a sign. I could tell.

“That sounds like it would match my bikini wax perfectly!” I cried out and she nodded as if I had just said something that made sense.

“That sounds a little whore-ish,” Vanessa said. I thought she was working? Was she billing the client for coming up with little wingdingers like that?

“Totally whore-ish or just a little whore-ish?” I asked. Vanessa stopped to think for a second. Grabbing the bottle from my nail technician, she studied it carefully.

“A little whore-ish,” was her final determination.

“But would it look good with nude with black overlay?” I asked. “And don’t call my dress whore-ish,” I quickly added.

“Not even whore-ish,” she qualified. “Just a bit slutty.”

“I’ll take it,” I said to my nail technician and she began to paint. “Are you upset?” I asked Vanessa.

“You can pick any color you want,” she said.

“Not about my toenails, Vanessa,” I said. “I meant about your husband.”

“You’ve been living with us for two weeks, Brooke. Haven’t you noticed that Marcus works a lot?”

“You’re right, Vanessa, I know,” I said. “I’ve only seen him once in the entire two weeks.”

“I told you to use the guest bathroom off the kitchen if you were going to go in the middle of the night,” she said.

“That
was
rather embarrassing, wasn’t it?” I said.

“Only for you,” she sang with a smile.

“Well, I hope that it all works out,” I said, looking at her.

“So do I, Brooke,” she said, turning to look out the window. “So do I.”