new one’s not so funny. Very nice, though. But not funny.”
“Brooke, dear,” Aunt Muffin said. “It’s Brooke.”
“What?” Uncle John asked. I was certain that he would be calling me Brenda for the duration of the evening.
“Aunt Muffin and Uncle John, please let me introduce you to my date. This is my fiancé, Douglas.”
“Nice to meet you,” Uncle John hiccupped.
“Fiancé? You’re not married?” she said, glancing down at my hands. Her eyes immediately flew to my left hand and she took a quick peek at my faux engagement ring. Thankfully, her dress took up so much square footage that she was unable to get close enough to me to realize that the ring was fake. She nodded her head. “Oh. Well,” Aunt Muffin said, grasping her hands together in a way that I was pretty sure she thought showed that she cared, “this must be a very hard day for you. No offense,” she said, turning to Jack. And then, turning back to me, she asked: “Does he speak English?”
“None taken,” Jack said.
“Actually, Muffin,” I explained, “Trip and I are still very good friends.”
“Trip asks you to move to California, you say no. He asks Ava, and look what happens,” she said, waving her arms to indicate that she was talking about the wedding. Then, grasping my hand again, she whispered, “It’s good that you’re not bitter about it, though.”
“Bitter?” Jack asked under his breath, “No. Insane enough to make her best friend dress up as a Scotsman and pretend to be her boyfriend? Yes.”
“What was that, dear?” Aunt Muffin asked him.
“He was just saying how very happy we are for them,” I explained.
“Well, that’s sweet,” Aunt Muffin said. “See, my generation, we didn’t really stay friends with former beaus. I wasn’t really happy for any of them.”
“Well, we’re still friends,” I said. “I even helped Trip get his first job out here as an entertainment lawyer. Working for one of my father’s friends.”
“Goddamn Jews control all of Hollywood,” Uncle John said, waving his arms to indicate that he was talking about the wedding. “But I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I only
“Are you Scottish?” Uncle John asked Jack.
Jack looked down at his kilt. Uncle John didn’t say a word and simply continued looking at Jack for his answer.
“Yes,” Jack said.
“So, tell me about this tartan of yours,” Uncle John said.
“Well, it’s blue for starters.”
“I know that the Scots are particularly proud of their tartans,” Uncle John said. “Family thing, and all. I do business with tons of Scots.”
“What type of business is that?” Jack asked.
“So, tell me about yours,” Uncle John said.
“Me? Well, I’m a lawyer.”
“About your kilt, silly, not your business,” Uncle John said.
“Well, it’s also got some red in it,” Jack said.
“Used to have this one business colleague of mine who was a Scot,” Uncle John said. “Asked him about his kilt once and he talked about it for damn near a half an hour! So, don’t be shy. You can tell me all about yours.”
“Well, it all started centuries ago when my family —”
“Will you two please excuse us?” I said, cutting Jack off. “I see some old friends that we absolutely must say ‘hello’ to.” As we walked away, I heard Uncle John comment to Aunt Muffin: “Those Scots really love to talk.”
We navigated the rest of the cocktail hour with relative ease, stopping only time to time to engage in such delightful exchanges as this:
Wedding guest: So, are you Scottish?
Jack: What gave it away?
Wedding guest: Do you know Evan McCullough?
Jack: He’s from Perth, is he?
Wedding guest: No, Scotland.
Jack: It’s a big country, you know.
Wedding guest: Oh, okay. You should get to know him, though. He’s a nice guy.
Jack: Right.
Before we knew it, it was time to go into the main room for the reception. And we didn’t even get a chance to sample the potato bar.
20
“Oh, my,” I practically gasped as we walked into the room where the reception was being held. I looked in disbelief at the breathtaking space that was before me. It was another master-piece — another cavernous banquet room, completely transformed. Like the room we had just left, this room was decorated beautifully with fragrant flowers, lush fabric and candles everywhere you looked. It was all at once formal, yet entirely comfortable — done up to the hilt, yet understated.
A wraparound balcony hovered above the two-story walls, tea lights lining its banister. Each table had a very complex, very beautiful floral arrangement floating on its tabletop. Huge glass candelabras held up miles of ivory roses and lilies, surrounded by tall, majestic candles, standing at full attention like the guards at Buckingham Palace. Somehow, I knew that the candles would not dare to drip. Each chair was magnificently dressed in a very thick, luxurious ivory satin with a bow tied around the back.
The dance floor had been painted white with Trip and Ava’s monogram elegantly adorning its center. I had never seen anything like it before in my life — I could have sworn I even saw a dove or two flying around the room.
“Do you think that this is what heaven looks like?” Jack asked, looking up and around as he walked.
“I hope so,” Vanessa said, trailing off as she brushed her hand against one of the chairs.
“Speak like an Aussie just once during this reception and you will soon find out,” I told Jack.
“So,” a wedding guest asked Jack as we tried to find table eleven, “what do you think of the political situation in Scotland?” Jack and I shot each other blank stares. My goodness, a guy puts on a kilt and all of the sudden, everyone expects him to be an expert on all things Scottish….
“Well,” Jack said, “what do you think I think of it?” The man nodded back at Jack knowingly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the bandleader bellowed. His voice was equal parts Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. “Would you please give a large round of applause to Mr. and Mrs. Trip Bennington!”
Ava and Trip came gliding into the room, smiling. The bandleader stepped aside and made room for a singer wearing a little silver cocktail dress, covered in sequins. The band played “At Last” and the singer, giving Billie Holiday a run for her money, sang along.
“At last,” the singer began to sing slowly, crooning about the end of her lonely days.
One more song to knock off my list of songs that I want played for the first dance at my own wedding. It seems that every wedding I go to, I lose one more. (Except for that one wedding I went to where the couple danced their first song to Guns N’ Roses’s “November Rain.” I think that the happy couple missed the fact that it was actually a sad song.) At the rate I’m going, if I don’t get married soon, my betrothed and I will be dancing our first dance to “The Piña Colada Song.”
After Trip and Ava had danced through about half of the song, the bandleader returned to the mike to invite guests to join the bride and groom out on the dance floor. I didn’t make a move. It’s an unspoken single-girl pact:
