Jack With a Twist

it be rude to take another bite? Thankfully, Monique takes another forkful and motions for me to do the same. The second bite is just as close to pure heaven as the first one and we both let out an “Mmm!” at the same time. Daniel beams back at us.

Would it be a breach of ethics to try to get myself invited to the party tonight? After all, if I don’t get to have the gorgeous wedding dress of my dreams, I should at least get to attend the most fabulous party of the season, right? Okay, the truth is that I just can’t wait to taste all of the other courses this chef has got up his sleeve. And the hors d’oeuvres. I can only imagine what he would come up with. But that’s as good a reason as any to want to attend a party, right?

I’ll definitely start my wedding diet…tomorrow. This weekend at the latest.

“Now, we must get back to work,” Monique says as Daniel walks out of the studio. She helps me back onto the stand and then continues pinning the dress again, which I take as a cue to start discussing the case.

“Did you know about this?” I ask. “That Jean Luc would hire my old firm? You don’t seem surprised at all.”

“No, I did not know,” she says, “but that was the reason I didn’t want to use Gilson, Hecht—Jean Luc does use them on quite a few corporate matters of his own. Will it be a problem?”

“It won’t be a problem for me,” I say, “but you need to think about whether or not it will be a problem for you. If you are at all uncomfortable with this, we can discuss it more.”

“I have faith in you, Brooke,” Monique says, now examining the bodice of the dress, “I just want you to think about if you really want to do this.”

“I do,” I say, as Monique pins the bodice, lowering the neckline. It highlights that part of my body that I hate most—where my arms meet my torso—and makes me look like I have chicken fat protruding from my armpits. Not my best look. Not any woman’s best look, is it?

Okay. So I understand that this isn’t really my wedding dress that she’s working on. Really I do. But would it kill her to put me in a style that’s more flattering to my figure?

“Monique, I just want you to know how much I appreciate this opportunity. I’m going to work so hard for you on this case.”

“I know you will,” she says, smiling at me gently. “But, I suppose I don’t have to tell you my own personal opinion on what it’s like to work with the man you love.”

“Well,” I say, the lawyer in me coming up with a rationalization before I even have a chance to fully think my response through, “we won’t actually be working together. We’ll be adversaries.”

“But, isn’t that worse?” Monique says, tilting her head to the side.

“Jack and I have worked together before,” I explain, “and the truth is, it’s never been a problem for us before. So, it won’t be a problem now.”

“Good,” Monique says, “Now let me help you out of this muslin.”

“Let’s talk spin,” I say, as Monique helps me get out of the dress. It’s like an obstacle course with the millions of pins that she’s put all over the fabric, but she holds the dress at just the right angles for me to take it off unscathed. Well, more unscathed than I already am. “That blind item in the Post. Do you want to sue?”

“I think that would make it more conspicuous,” Monique says, putting the muslin back in the closet and then sitting down on the couch as I put my clothes back on. “This party tonight should put everyone’s suspicions to rest, once and for all. After tonight, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind how committed Jean Luc and I are to each other. The funny thing is that Jean Luc and I thought of the idea together. I guess there are still some decisions we can make as a team.”

I see Monique’s eyes begin to tear up at the edges, and I look away to pretend not to see.

“I agree,” I say, walking to the window where I look down at the swarm of reporters waiting by the door, “I think you’re making the right decision.”

“Then, it’s time for me to get ready for my party,” Monique says, and stands up from the couch where she’d been sitting.

“Well, have a wonderful time tonight,” I say. “Do you need me to be here for anything? You know, in case any legal issues pop up.”

“You are so funny, Brooke,” Monique says with a laugh. “How would it look to the reporters if one of my brides were to be here? The one who is a lawyer?”

“You can also invite a bride who is an accountant,” I offer. “Or a banker. Do you have any brides who work in investment banking?”

Monique laughs loudly and I laugh along, too, trying to pretend that I’m not desperate for a piece of free fish.

“Well, have fun,” I say, conceding defeat. “I just know it will be a huge success.”

“And so will your case,” Monique says as she walks me to the stairs. “Speaking of which, what comes next?”

“Discovery,” I explain. “It’s the part of the case where each side gets to ask the other side for information— questions, documents, depositions—they’re all part of the pretrial process that the federal court calls discovery.”

“What a funny name for it,” Monique says as we stop at the top of the stairway.

“I never really thought about it before,” I say, “but, I suppose it is.”

“I guess it’s because I’ll be discovering a lot of things about my husband?” she asks with a laugh. “Things that the court assumes that I don’t already know? Well, Brooke, I can assure you—after over thirty years together—I already know all there is to know about him.”

“There’s always more to find out about someone,” I say, thinking of a particular case I had when I was still practicing at Gilson, Hecht. In a routine discovery process, some e-mails sent by the CEO of a company were revealed that his shareholders probably didn’t know about and that his wife most definitely did not know about. Apparently, he’d purchased a mail order bride over the Internet and was keeping her and their two love children in a home in Minnesota. Even though this bit of information showcased his ability to multi-task, one of the most important qualities you’d look for in a CEO, he was still fired and served with divorce papers from wife number one the very next day. “You’d be surprised about how much you can learn about a person you really thought you knew.”

Column Five

You didn’t hear it from us…

OVERHEARD over a glass of wine at the reception following Monique deVouvray and Jean Luc Renault’s renewal of the vows ceremony: “Why is it that every time a couple renews their vows, the relationship crashes and burns six months later?”

Sour grapes? Or in vino veritas?

9

“And she says to me: ‘yes, that would be fine,’” I tell Jack as our taxicab lurches up Park Avenue. We’re fifteen minutes late already and I don’t want to keep my parents waiting at the florist. God forbid they give my mother a glass of champagne to celebrate. Then the next thing you know, she’ll be passed out in a patch of begonias and my father will have negotiated a real “steal” on the floral arrangements by using flowers that were previously used the weekend before at a funeral.

“Fine?” he asks, tilting his head down to look at me. I love it how, when we sit together in a taxicab, he always puts his arm around the back of the seat so that I can get close to him.

“Yes,” I explain. “I ask Elizabeth to be a bridesmaid and she says—and I quote—‘yes, that would be fine.’”

“I thought you said it was Patricia?” he says, turning to face me.

“Which one’s the oldest?” I ask. “It was the oldest.”

“Patricia, then Elizabeth, then Lisa,” he says, counting them off one by one on his fingers for me.