Scot on the Rocks

skinny as the rest of us were.

The braces may have been removed, the hair bleached blond, the waistline shrunk and the skin cleared up, but I knew that she was still Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria inside. I knew it because I’m still the girl I was in high school on the inside, too.

I remembered that I used to feel sorry for her because she always looked so sad. Like a kid with her face pressed against the candy-store window — always on the outside looking in. In the eleventh grade, at the homecoming dance, Danny and I were crowned king and queen. I was having the time of my life and there sat Nina, at a table in the corner, all alone. Looking at her, I thought I knew just what would cheer her up. Entirely against his wishes, I made Danny dance with her. I thought that I was doing a good deed. As he approached her, she looked so happy. Her face lit up like I’d never seen it before as she told Danny yes, furiously shaking her head. They hit the dance floor and all eyes were on them as he held her tight for a slow song. Halfway through “Careless Whisper” he leaned down into her and, while whispering something into her ear to distract her, pulled the back of her skirt up to reveal her enormous pink granny panties and control-top panty hose to the entire eleventh grade. Laughter erupted in the school gym and it took her quite a while to realize what was going on. I had sprinted halfway across the gym by the time she began pulling her skirt back down, arriving just in time for her to tell me, with her eyes fighting back tears, “You have ruined my life.”

Thank God telekinetic powers only exist in novels.

I think.

I remember that after it happened, her mother was so infuriated that she called my mom and I was grounded for a month. Even though I had nothing to do with it. Not really, anyway. My mother said, “Either you did it or you are dumb enough to be hanging around with a boy who would. Either way, you should be ashamed of yourself and either way you’re grounded.” I guess I had great taste in men even back then.

“I was, like, totally in love with Danny for all four years of high school,” she said. The final irony of Danny’s life is that he wrote in his yearbook that his goal was to “leave Long Island or die trying” and he now lives on Long Island with his wife and four kids. And his wife is very, very fat. And Nina is very, very skinny. Should I tell her that?

“I’m sorry,” I quickly said instead. “He…he was kind of special. He was special. He really liked you back then, I remember.”

“Yeah, right, Brooke,” she said, “I wish. I was a train wreck back then. Anyway, it is so good to see you! Speaking of hotties, I heard that you used to date Trip Bennington during law school or something.”

“Actually, I did.”

“Was he nothing special?” she asked.

“Well,” I said with a laugh, as I twirled a lock of my hair, “he’s the reason why we’re here for the weekend. We’re here for his wedding.”

“Oh, my God,” she said, as if time had actually stopped. “You are going to the wedding? I would kill to go to the wedding! It is going to be the event of the year.”

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” I said.

“Not a big deal?” she asked Vanessa. “Does this friend of yours think that anything is special? All of Hollywood will be there! A-list only! And Ava is, like, the most beautiful creature on the planet. One time she came in here and I got to dress her. She is, like, the nicest person on earth.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said.

“And she’s royal,” Nina continued. “Do you think that’s special?”

“Believe it or not, Nina, we’re here to get a dress for the wedding,” I said.

“But the wedding’s tonight,” Nina told me.

“Don’t get her started,” Vanessa instructed. “We actually had this whole airport-lost-baggage thing, and so…”

“Say no more,” Nina said. “We’ve got a million dresses here.”

“We’ve got about an hour,” Vanessa told her.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, as she rushed off to find me a dress.

“You’ve got a major fan club,” Vanessa said. “Was she like that back then?”

“We called her Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vanessa asked.

“Because she was as big as three ships,” I explained, looking over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t coming back.

“Okay,” Vanessa said. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“We were fourteen,” I said, as Jack swept in with a tray of coffees.

“I figured that you could use some coffee,” he said. He had been hitting the tourist spots while we were shopping and had a “Star Map” tucked under his left arm.

“You are an angel,” I said. I clearly needed coffee by now. Nonetheless, Vanessa shot me one of those knowing looks. A raised eyebrow kind of look. One of those “He’s Jack, you say?” looks. “In a platonic way,” I quickly said. That should allay everyone’s confusion about the matter once and for all.

“Yummy,” Vanessa said, laughing at me. “Thanks, honey — don’t tell the partners that I drank this. It’s not Healthy Foods coffee.”

“Please tell the partners that I drank this,” I told him. “Maybe it’ll get me thrown off of the case.”

“Will do,” he said. “Now, where’s the chair?”

We pointed across the floor to a few chairs set up just outside of the fitting rooms. He walked past Nina as she came back with a dress.

“This will be the only one that you need to try on. I promise,” she said. “Brooke, is that your boyfriend?”

“Jack?” I asked. “No! God, no! I mean, he is, of course, very special, but, no, we are not dating.”

I rushed off to try on the dress before I could get myself into any more trouble with Nina.

Outside of my dressing room, I overheard Nina approach Jack.

In a low, sultry voice that she hadn’t used with Vanessa and me, she asked, “Is there anything that I can help you with?” Help him? Does he look as if he shops for women’s dresses?

“No,” Jack answered, “I think that I’ll just sit here and wait for Brooke.”

“Perhaps you would like me to try something on for you?” she offered. Oh, help him.

“Um, uh, no thank you?” Jack answered, kind of like a question.

“Very well,” she said.

I put on the dress that Nina had picked out for me. A haze of pale pink organza with delicate ruffles strewn about, it had tiny spaghetti straps and a fish tail that was meant to float on the floor behind you.

I took a look at myself and immediately fell in love. With the dress, not my own reflection. It was really perfect. She did a great job picking it out. It just goes to show you, we all grow up and the past is forgotten. Nina’s all grown up and she’s skinny and pretty now and has an amazing eye for clothes. Turns out we can all just get along. A smile crept onto my face as I came out of the dressing room.

“So,” I asked, effecting my best Audrey Hepburn, “how do I look?”

“Brilliant, darling,” Jack said with a Scottish accent and I smiled.

“We’ll take it,” Vanessa said to Nina.

16

We ran back to our hotel just in time to see a very pissed off former cross-dresser waiting for us in the hotel lobby. Even if you hadn’t seen him there, you would have felt him — his presence filled the entire lobby. There he was, sprawled out on a couch, taking lots of room with his long legs crossed and his massive bag of hair and makeup supplies sitting beside him.