Scot on the Rocks

you do not, under any circumstances, let your single girlfriend sit alone for the first dance. Even if you have a date, you sit with her. Now, Vanessa is married, I know, but I thought that the rule should still apply.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Vanessa asked Jack. “Ask her to dance!” she said. Jack and I looked at Vanessa. “Yes, I’m all right. Go!” she said, with a smile on her face. I guess when you’re married it makes no difference to you if you sit alone for a dance or two. You know that you’ve got a dance partner for life, even if he’s not there to dance with you right at that very moment.

“M’lady?” Jack asked in his Scottish accent, taking my hand in his. He kissed it gently.

“How come you do the accent perfectly with me, but with everyone else you lapse into the Australian?” I asked him, spoiling the mood.

“Shut up and dance,” he said as he led me onto the dance floor. He spun me around and I fell right into him. There was something very definite about the way he held me in his arms as we danced.

“This room is really beautiful,” he said, looking around.

“Do you think that Vanessa is okay?” I asked, subtly spinning Jack around so that I could look over his shoulder to check on Vanessa at our table.

“She’s fine,” he said, leaning into my ear.

“I feel bad leaving her alone like that. I don’t want her to feel lonely, you know?” I said. “It’s such bad luck that Marcus had to work this weekend, don’t you think?”

“Well, at least she was able to make it,” Jack said, sounding like a man who often has to cancel his own weekend plans.

“That’s true,” I said, remembering a few canceled weekends of my own.

The singer continued on and Jack pulled me closer.

“What do you think your wedding will look like?” Jack asked me.

“Oh, you mean if I ever get married?” I said laughing.

“If you ever get married,” he said, spinning me around, completely ignoring the self-pity. The dance floor was beginning to fill up with wedding guests.

“I don’t really know. I never really thought about it.”

“What do you mean you never thought about it?” he asked. “I thought that you wanted to marry Douglas?”

“I did,” I said. “I mean, I do. I just never thought about what our wedding would be like.”

“I thought that little girls always dreamt about what their weddings would be like?” he asked, dipping me down. We were face-to-face, Jack’s arm behind my back being the only thing holding me up.

“Not me,” I said as he brought me back up. “I never did. Now, don’t get me wrong, I always dreamt about what the guy would be like, but not the wedding so much.”

“So, what would the guy be like?” he asked, pulling me closer for a spin.

“Oh, I don’t know — smart, funny, kind — wears pants, you know, the usual stuff,” I said as I spun around.

“And Douglas was all of those things?” Jack asked, pulling me back to him.

“Well, as you know, the man was not a big fan of pants.”

“No, seriously, the other stuff. Was he kind? Funny?”

“No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t any of those things at all,” I said, suddenly realizing it for the first time.

“Oh,” Jack said, looking down at me as if he wanted to say more. Our eyes were locked, but neither one of us said a word.

The singer murmured something about being in heaven and I couldn’t help but agree.

I was sure that he was going to lean down to kiss me, but in an instant, the song was over and we found ourselves standing apart, applauding the band.

“Well, okay then,” Jack said, “I’m going to go and get a drink. Would you like anything?”

“No, thank you,” I said. I was beginning to think that I’d had enough champagne — I was tipsy and confused over what had just happened. Or what had just not happened. “I’m fine. I guess I’ll go check up on Vanessa now.” I stumbled back to our table.

“I didn’t want to leave you here all by yourself,” I said to Vanessa as I sat down next to her.

“I wanted you to go. You looked like you were having fun out there. Were you?” Vanessa asked me.

“Was I what?” I asked, tearing apart a dinner roll and taking a sip of my water.

“Having fun with Jack out there?”

“I don’t know,” I quickly answered. “I probably would have had more fun sitting at the table by myself, like you were, but knowing that I had someone in my life, rather than just having someone to dance with at that moment.”

“Oh,” Vanessa said.

“You’re so lucky to be married. If I had married Douglas, none of this would have happened. Everything would be perfect. My life would be so much easier.”

“Just because you get married, it doesn’t mean that your life gets any easier, Brooke.”

“Easy for you to say,” I cried out, “you’ve been married for forever! You have no idea how hard it is to be single.”

“You have no idea how hard it is to be married,” she said quietly.

“Every wedding invitation is a torture test,” I persisted. “You’re either invited without a date and thus banished to the pathetic singles table, or you’re invited with a date and it’s a nightmare to find someone who will go with you. I should have just married Douglas.”

“He didn’t ask,” Vanessa said, looking to me.

“Then I should have married Trip. Or at the very least, tried coming out to L.A. with him.”

“Things with Trip weren’t perfect, though.”

“Then I should have married Danny, my high-school boyfriend. You don’t know him, so you can’t say anything nasty about him, can you?” I took a swig of champagne.

“You think that you would be happy if you had married Danny?” she asked, eyes still on me.

“Well, not even necessarily married to Danny, but just married in general. I should have just gotten married, period. If only I had gotten married already, my life would be so much easier.”

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Vanessa said as she started to cry. “Would you excuse me for just one moment? I need to use the ladies’ room,” she said and bolted from her seat.

Dumbfounded, I followed her into the ladies’ room, struck by the irony that we were at my ex-boyfriend’s wedding, yet somehow, Vanessa was the one who was crying. I burst inside and she was nowhere to be found. Remembering how I used to hide out in the bathroom to avoid the mean girls one very long summer at sleep-away camp, I began checking the stalls. When I came upon the one that had six-hundred-fifty-dollar gold Manolo Blahnik strappy stilettos peeking out of the bottom, I knocked on the door.

“Leave me alone,” she said.

“No,” I replied.

“Please, Brooke,” she said, “I want to be alone.”

“I think that being alone might just be your problem,” I said and gave the door a gentle push. “What happened just now?”

“What are you doing?” she said from inside.

“I figure if you’re not coming out, I’m coming in.”

“Back away from the door, Brooke,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll be waiting right here.”

A minute or two later, she walked out of the stall, feet dragging as if they carried the weight of the world on them. I had never seen Vanessa break down like that before in the entire eight years that I’d known her. She was always the strong one, the tough one, but here she was, all dressed up in her dressiest black-tie dress, with big fat tears falling down her perfectly made-up cheeks.

“Vanessa,” I said, gathering her to me for a hug. She pulled away and I watched her as she went to sit in front of the dressing-room mirror.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, carefully dabbing away a tear from the side of her eye. I sat down on one of the other chairs in front of the mirror. She continued to cry as she fixed her makeup even though her face remained strangely composed. She dabbed at each one before it fell down her cheeks. I didn’t know what