Scot on the Rocks

He happened to look great. As a man, I mean. Last time I saw him, Damian was in New York, dressing and performing as a woman. Don’t laugh. He did a really mean Diana, and his Barbra wasn’t too bad, either. His face has a very feminine quality to it, so with the right hair and makeup, you would swear he didn’t have an Adam’s apple.

Damian now had cut his hair short and was dressed in form-fitting black pants with a black button-down shirt, which framed his six foot four very, very tall, very, very thin body perfectly. To complement the look, he had his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest (no chest hair, of course) and was wearing a Louis Vuitton belt that had little LVs all over it. He looked as if he could be in an ad for something expensive.

“We’re late,” Vanessa said. “Damian looks pissed.”

“We’re not late,” I told Vanessa. “We are on time.”

“Correction,” Jack said. “We would have been on time if we hadn’t stopped for shoes.”

“Okay,” I said, “first of all, there is always time for shoes.” What kind of talk is this coming from Jack? Even if we were running late to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding, I still would not stand for such blasphemy.

“That you can’t really walk in,” Jack persisted.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Vanessa asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack said, “walking, shoes…Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“You are so naive,” I said as we approached Damian. He rose from the couch slowly and stared at us disapprovingly. And he did rise, mind you; he didn’t stand up or get up or anything that we normal people would do. Rather, Damian rose deliberately, like Moses parting the Red Sea.

“Okay, running like that — not attractive,” Damian said.

“Dame, you remember Brooke and Jack,” Vanessa said, still out of breath from the mad sprint from the taxi to the lobby. “And you had better not have been talking about me just now.”

“Good to see you, girls,” he said, looking us up and down. “We don’t have much time.” And with that, he began to walk toward the elevators. Because of his height, he moved as if in slow motion, gliding down the hallway, while the three of us followed quickly in his wake.

“Did he just say ‘pleased to meet you, girls?’” Jack asked, grabbing my arm. I laughed as we all got into the elevator.

“We’re cutting your hair today, Brooke?” Damian asked me. My hand instinctively flew to my head, the way a mama bird protects her baby birds.

“No,” I said. “I am not cutting my hair.”

“Damian,” Vanessa said.

“Brooke can’t cut her hair,” Jack said, “it’s her trademark.”

“Thank you, Jack,” I said, “I’ve had it this length all my life. And anyway, Douglas loves my hair.”

“Chop it off,” I could have sworn I heard Jack say under his breath just as we got to our floor.

Entering the suite, Damian got down to business. “Okay, first things first,” he commanded, “get that booty into the dress you’ll be wearing for tonight. I need to see it to figure out a hair and makeup concept.” He waved his arms out like a magician and gave a dramatic pause before saying the word concept — as if he should have been accompanied by a lone spotlight beaming down on him as he said it — and pronounced the word concept as if it were two: concept.

As I ran into my bedroom, giddy with excitement, Jack’s cell phone rang.

“Hello?” he answered. “Oh, hi there…. No, I’m actually not available today to do some work on that case…. Maybe you could get Michael to do it?…Well, I would come in today, but for the fact that I’m in L.A. for a wedding…. Yes, I am aware that we have an L.A. office…. Yes, I understand,” he said, making a play for our USA Today. Grabbing and ripping its pages, he brought the phone down to the newspapers he was tearing up. “Uh, Ronnie, you’re starting to break up…. I think that I’m losing you…. Oh, you can get Michael to do it? Great! Hello? Hello?” And with that, he slammed the phone shut. “Ah, technology,” he said. “It has made our lives infinitely easier.”

“This is why I love being a lawyer,” Vanessa said. “What case was that on?”

“The Healthy Foods case,” he said. “I’m going to order some snacks from their competitor from room service. Anyone want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Vanessa said. “Some of us are actually loyal employees.”

“You just had their competitor’s coffee an hour ago,” Jack said.

“No one said being a loyal employee was easy,” she replied.

Taking the dress out of its Barneys garment bag, I felt just like a little kid with a brand-new toy. I slowly unzipped the bag as carefully as a child opening a Christmas present (not like I would know what that’s like, being Jewish and all, but I unzipped the bag as carefully as I would imagine a child opening a Christmas present would). I admired the dress for a moment. It was just as beautiful as when I first laid eyes on it in the store. Sliding it on, I was beaming as I zipped myself up. I did a little spin in it before moving on to the shoes.

I removed my new shoes from their box and admired them, too, for a moment before sliding them onto my feet. The salesperson had called the color blush and the model name beauty. They were satin open-toe three-and-a-half-inch heels with enormous rhinestone detailing just above the toe. They were like an outfit in and of themselves.

I was sexy. I was sensational. I was elegant and refined. It was me, on the best day of my life. I walked out, ready for the compliments to wash over me.

“Very funny, girl,” Damian said, dismissing me with the turn of his head. Not the reaction I was going for.

“What’s funny?” I asked Damian, who was already walking toward the windows to take in the view. “What’s funny?” I then asked Vanessa, practically tripping over the fishtail as I spun to face her.

“Nothing, honey,” she assured me. “My cousin here is just being a Hollywood prick. See, this is why everyone hates L.A.”

“Don’t nothing me, girl,” he said.

“Shut up, Damian,” Vanessa said.

“For the love of God,” I cried out, “What. Is. FUNNY?”

“That dress,” Damian said. “That dress is funny. It’s a copy of the dress that Miss Ava wore to the Golden Globes last year.”

“That dress costs more than most people’s rent,” Vanessa said. “How can it be a copy?”

“Oh, my God,” I said, suddenly breathing much quicker than before.

“And it’s not even a good copy,” Damian said.

“So,” Vanessa said, “then maybe no one will notice that it’s a copy.”

“Oh. My. God,” I said, grabbing at my stomach to make sure that I was still breathing.

“It’s nothing,” Vanessa said. “Brooke, you’ll wear my dress and I’ll wear this one.”

“Not with that caboose, she won’t,” Damian said.

“Who the hell do you think you are talking to?” Vanessa demanded.

“I meant her,” Damian said, pointing to me.

“Oh,” Vanessa said.

“OH. MY. GOD,” I said, falling onto the couch and putting my head between my legs the way they tell you to on airplanes in case of a plane crash.

It was just like that scene in Rebecca. When the mean old maid makes the new wife dress up just like the dead first wife and go to a party with all of the dead first wife’s friends and everyone looks at the new wife and is, like, totally appalled. It’s like Nina is that mean old maid and Ava is the dead first wife and I’m the new Mrs. Winter. Or deWinter. Or whatever the hell their name was.

Maybe if I’d remembered Nina’s freaking name this afternoon this wouldn’t have happened! I am a bad person. I am a very bad, bad person….

“Everyone, shut up!” Jack said from the other side of the room, taking control of the situation. It was the way I’d seen him take control with tough adversaries, reluctant witnesses and difficult partners. For all of his constant joking around, when Jack meant business, people usually listened. The room was silent as we all sat