“Ladies,” Douglas said, his voice dripping with sex, reaching for each of our hands to kiss.
And with that, I passed out.
22
It is a universal rule that the cad must always come back. I don’t know why, he just does. Just read any Jane Austen novel and you’ll see what I mean. And I should know. I’ve read a lot of Jane Austen novels. So why, then, do you suppose I was so surprised and confused when
I came to a few minutes after passing out, in a tiny little room with a tiny little waterfall trickling in the background. The first thing I saw was Jack’s face, hovering over mine, looking very worried. He had a napkin dipped in ice water and he was dabbing it on my forehead as I lay sprawled out on a heavily upholstered love seat.
“Oh, God, Jackie. I just had the worst dream,” I said, looking up to the ceiling. It was hand painted with an intricate deep blue pattern. “We were at Trip’s wedding and out of nowhere, Douglas showed up. Not you Douglas — the real Douglas. I fainted and I could have sworn that I heard Trip’s mother say, ‘Who brought that Jewish girl?’”
Jack didn’t say a word and kept dabbing at my forehead. I looked down and was face-to-face with his kilt. “Oh, my God, it wasn’t a dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” he said, and as I turned to look at him, I could see that we were in the bridal suite. It was dimly lit, the only source of light being from the vanity mirror’s lights. Jack had pulled up one of the chairs from the table next to the vanity to sit next to me.
There was a plate of pigs in blankets and sushi sitting on the table, half-eaten by Trip and Ava. Beside it, there was an ice bucket with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot turned upside down. I got a visual of Trip shoving spicy tuna rolls down Ava’s throat as she chugged champagne by the glassful under the guise of a panic attack. Jack dipped the napkin back into the ice bucket and gently put it to my forehead.
“It wasn’t a dream? You mean, we’re really here?”
“And so is he,” he said.
Douglas is here. And I’m here. And Jack is here, dressed up as Douglas. Who is here! And I just passed out and made a huge scene at my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Why, oh, why couldn’t I have just cracked my head open and died like a normal person when I’d passed out and hit the floor? Life can be so unfair sometimes.
“I am so embarrassed. I can never go back out there. Let’s leave. No, we can’t leave. What will we say to everyone?”
“Already covered. Vanessa handled it quite well, I must admit,” he said with a chuckle.
“Thank God for you and Vanessa. What did she tell them? Did she fess up? Tell everyone the truth?”
Yes, that’s it. Maybe Vanessa just confessed. That would be easier at this point, wouldn’t it? It would be a relief to stop playing this silly little charade. I mean, it’s not as if I was really keeping my dignity intact — ever-so- slightly or otherwise — and the people whom I really cared about knew what a loser I’d been lately and seemed to love me nonetheless. (I think.)
“God, no,” Jack said. “Are you insane? She told everyone that Douglas is Marcus.”
Thank God she lied. Thank God my friend Vanessa is a big fat liar. Thank God she looked at them dead in the eye and told them a bold-faced lie.
“So, now you’re pretending to be Douglas and Douglas is pretending to be Marcus?”
“Pretty much,” he said, getting up to dab the napkin in the ice bucket again. “I can’t wait to see Douglas try to do an American accent.”
“He actually does a great American accent. He used to imitate me all the time. Well, mimic me, really, when he was annoyed,” I said as Jack came back to the couch with the napkin. “Anyway, it was still pretty hysterical.”
“I bet,” he said, and I realized that it really wasn’t all that hysterical. Douglas did it a lot — he would call it “the voice” — when we were hanging out with his European friends. Douglas would accuse me of speaking “American,” not English, and it would tickle his European friends pink to see him bring me down. It tickled
They would pretend that they couldn’t understand things I said with my “American” accent, really just an excuse to talk among themselves and completely ignore me. Which Douglas was rather good at doing.
“You guys are really the best,” I said to Jack. “I am so lucky to have you.”
“You know I would do anything for you,” he said.
“That is so sweet. You really would?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but just looked down at the kilt and his bare legs. Jack’s not-so-subtle way of saying, yes, he really would. I smiled. I never had someone before who would do anything for me.
“Right,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows to look at Jack.
“Right,” he said, leaning in.
“Right.”
And with no one there to distract us, he kissed me. And it was worth the wait. At first it was delicate, sweet, as if I were a fine piece of crystal that he didn’t want to break. Then, more passionate, lustful, as if he had been waiting his entire life to kiss me.
His lips were soft and he tasted like Scotch and sugar. I put my hand on his right cheek and it was warm to my touch. When I finally opened my eyes, he was looking right at me. It was a look I had never seen before. Serious, earnest, burning — downright smoldering. I was beginning to melt. We kissed shamelessly for God knows how long when finally one of us realized that it might be bad form to spend the whole of your ex-boyfriend’s wedding making out with your date in the bridal suite. It was probably Jack who came up with that realization, because I didn’t seem to see a problem with it.
I stood up and smoothed out my dress as I made my way to the vanity mirror. I couldn’t stop myself from giggling and looking back at him, still sitting on the couch. As I applied some lipstick to my pout, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jack staring at me. He looked like an old-time movie actor, like Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart reincarnate, communicating everything he felt with just one look. Except I don’t think that Grant or Bogie ever wore a skirt. But you get where I was going with that one.
“Ready for some more lies and deception?” I asked, turning away from the mirror, hoping that I looked like an old-time movie star myself. Audrey Hepburn, I hoped, but I can’t say that Audrey ever wore a number quite as revealing as my Halston.
“Let the games begin,” he said, putting his arm out for me to take.
“Oooh, that was good,” I said, marveling at the accent, which was maturing quite nicely. “You are getting really good at this. Admit that you’re kind of enjoying doing the accent.”
Jack smiled. I wished that I could have frozen time at that very moment. It was that delicious stage in a relationship where anything seems possible. I wished that I could take a photo of us right then and there — Jack looking at me adoringly with the smile of a man who knew how to get what he wanted, and me gazing up at him as if he were my hero. I was so happy at that precise moment. Such unadulterated happiness. That sort of thing never lasts, does it?
We should never have left the bridal suite.
We walked out of the room, holding hands, and the second we looked up, Douglas appeared and grabbed me like a caveman.
“Mind if I borrow her,” Douglas said in his American accent, “dude?” He didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing my arm and leading me out onto the dance floor. I was shocked that he didn’t knock me on the head with a stone and drag me out to the dance floor by my hair. His grip was so tight, I was certain that it would leave a mark. Jack began to follow us, but I turned around, putting my finger up as if to casually say “I’ll be back in just one short moment.” Jack reluctantly backed away. I hoped that he knew that I just needed that one short moment to rid myself of Douglas so that I could get back to him.
“For fuck’s sake, would you mind telling me what’s going on?” Douglas asked.
