anything meaningful on.”
“You’re so right,” Jenna said, nodding. I sent a panicked look to Vanessa.
“Well, I think that it’s about passion,” Douglas said, “excitement and fire to keep the love alive.”
“You would say that,” Jack said. I saw Jenna looking at Jack with a confused expression. Jack and Douglas had resorted to their natural accents and looked as if they were about to jump across the table and tackle each other.
“It’s about love,” I said, trying to interject before things got ugly. “It’s starting with friendship and letting it become something more. Even if that takes a little longer than it really should. It’s about finally realizing that someone is the right person for you and looking to the future, no matter how confusing the past may have been. It’s about forgiving mistakes and moving forward. As a team. If two people are in love, anything is possible and everything else will fall into place.” I looked to Jack and tried to read in his eyes whether or not I had gotten through to him.
“And sometimes it’s just about realizing you were wrong in the first place and cutting your losses,” Jack said. Jenna looked down at her chicken.
Before I could utter another word, we were interrupted by the bandleader who announced that it was time for speeches as Trip’s mother was taking the mike. Jack went back to avoiding my gaze and Douglas’s eyes were burning into me.
“Thank you,” Trip’s mother said as she got to the mike, her voice a bit uneven. It seemed that she, herself, had been nursing a little panic attack, too. “And thanks to all of you, for being here to share in this special, special day with us. As most of you know, my son, Trip, is the light of my life. I’m so proud of the man he’s become — all of his accomplishments, all he has done. I love you, baby,” she said, putting her hand to Trip’s face. Trip smiled back at her. “It’s so wonderful to be here tonight to celebrate the marriage of my son, Trip, to Ava. You know, I never even knew that he liked Oriental girls until he brought home Ava.” Trip put his head in his hands as Ava stood and smiled stoically, sort of the way the other four actresses smile into the camera when they announce the winner of the Academy Award.
“Or working girls,” Trip’s mother continued. Trip’s father whispered something in Trip’s mother’s direction. “I mean, girls who work. Who have careers. I never knew that Trip liked girls who had careers. But at least we know that she’s not after his money!”
“Get to the toast, Ma,” Trip said.
“Ah, yes. The toast. Would everyone please raise their glasses as we make a toast. A toast — to this blending of two cultures. East meeting West! Congratulations, Trip and Ava. Or,
“And you thought that she was just an anti-Semite,” Vanessa said, clapping along with the crowd.
“Wasn’t Ava born in New York City?” Jack asked in Vanessa’s direction, still not speaking to me.
“And raised there,” I answered anyway.
“Well, if you ask me, she sounds just like someone else I know. Intolerant of other cultures,” Douglas said.
“For the love of God, are you still talking about the fucking skirt?” I asked.
“It’s a kilt,” Douglas said through clenched teeth.
“Would you just shut up already?” I said. Jenna turned away and was pretending not to hear.
“Would you please start using an American accent?” Vanessa whispered to Douglas. “Everyone is staring.”
“Just drop it already,” Jack said. “Both of you. Just drop the act. Who are you kidding? You two are a perfect match. You are both superficial, insensitive fools and neither one of you seems to be all that discriminating, in particular when it comes to where you put your lips,” he said and stormed away from the table.
“There’s my girl,” Douglas said, as he slid over to me and put his arm around my shoulder.
“I am not your girl,” I said, shrugging his arm away. “And I guess that I never really was.”
“Well, for fuck’s sake, Brooke, what’s that supposed to mean?” That menacing look, the look I had spent most of our two years together trying to avoid, was back. Only this time I didn’t care. I didn’t back down.
“I couldn’t possibly have been your girl when you were with someone else. I’d say, by definition, that would make me, at the very most, only one of your girls.”
“Darling, don’t be ridiculous,” he said, “you are my girl. Always have been, always will be.”
“Not anymore,” I said.
“Let’s do this the right way,” Douglas said, not missing a beat, getting up from the table and dropping down onto his knee, “Brooke Miller, in front of God and all of these people, will you marry me?” He put his hand in his pocket to take out a jewelry box.
“Would you get up off of the floor?” I said, grabbing at his tuxedo jacket to bring him back to the table. I was slightly embarrassed by his making a scene, but since most of the wedding guests had since made their way back out on the dance floor, no one even batted an eyelash at Douglas’s grand display. He got back onto his seat with a laugh, never once letting his eyes leave my face.
“So?” he asked, pushing the tiny little box over to my side of the table and picking up a glass of champagne. It was a teeny little square box — it was difficult to believe that something as big and important as an engagement ring could fit inside its diminutive walls. For a moment I wondered whether or not this was the ring he had given to Beryl, but realizing that it didn’t really matter, opened the box and looked inside. It was a princess-cut diamond on an elegant platinum band. At first glance, it looked enormous and grand, all sparkles and fire, but when I looked a bit closer, I noticed that its cut made the diamond look large because it was all surface, with very little left underneath.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said, placing the ring back into its box.
“I asked you to marry me. Isn’t that what you want?” he asked. I stared out at the dance floor. “Brooke, I’m speaking to you.”
“No,” I said, with my head still turned away.
“No, you won’t marry me, or no, that’s not what you want?”
“Both. Neither,” I said, turning to face him.
“How can that be? Are you willing to throw this all away? Everything we had together?” I wondered why it was okay when he was the one throwing it all away — that when it was him, it was something that I just had to accept, but when it was me who was throwing it all away, that we had to discuss it. “Remember that time we went out for a casual Sunday-night dinner on the Lower East Side and we ended up dancing on the tables at that place until 4:00 a.m.? What was the name of that place?” he asked, running his index finger along the underside of my arm.
“Remember that time I had to have one of my wisdom teeth removed in an emergency surgery and you wouldn’t cancel your dinner plans that night to take care of me?” I asked back. He took a sip of his champagne.
“I’d rather remember that time you were burned out at work and I surprised you with a week away in the Caymans,” he said, twirling a lock of my hair with his finger. “Remember our little bungalow on the beach?”
“Remember that time Vanessa’s grandfather died and you wouldn’t come with me to the wake because you told me that you didn’t like death?” I asked. He put his glass down onto the table.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly. He looked down.
“That’s not the question you should be asking me. The question is why did it take me so long to do this?”
“Darling,” he said.
“Don’t ‘darling’ me. That one isn’t going to work on me anymore. You proposed to someone else, Douglas.”
“But I’ve told you. That’s over now,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Yes, Douglas, and so are we,” I said with equal ease.
24
