Jack With a Twist

going on.”

“Hanky-panky?”

“You know what I mean,” I say. “Just make sure that everything’s on the up and up. But don’t let them know you’re spying.”

Why is it that we nice girls must constantly be on the lookout for man stealers? That’s what destroyed my last serious relationship, and you can be sure that I’m not going to let that happen again. Maybe if Jennifer Aniston had asked Courtney Cox to spy on Brad, they’d still be happily married right now.

“That doesn’t sound very ethical,” she says, narrowing her eyes as she takes a sip of her Vanilla Coke.

“Do you want to maintain your post as matron of honor or not?” I ask.

“Maid,” she says, as the waiter dumps our bill on our table.

“Whatever,” I say. “Do you?”

“I’ve been in a lot of weddings before, Brooke,” she says, “and no bridesmaid detail ever included spying on the groom.”

“Thank you so much for agreeing to do this for me,” I say.

“But, I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” she says.

“Close enough,” I say, as I pick up the check.

Column Five

Sightings…

CONFIRMED. Halle Berry will be the next celebrity bride to walk down the aisle in one of Monique deVouvray’s creations. Insiders spotted Berry shopping for wedding bands with an unidentified brunette on 47th Street, talking about wedding plans, kinky sex and, of course, Monique’s dress.

Berry’s publicists deny the couple’s even engaged, but insiders say that she shopped at Moishe’s Jewelry Emporium before ducking into Burger Heaven for a late lunch.

15

“That sort of thing really wouldn’t come under the umbrella of what a wedding photographer does,” Melissa says to me, putting her hand to her forehead as she sits back in her chair.

Melissa Kraut is the wedding photographer Vanessa recommended to me and we’re in her fabulous studio in Chelsea. Vanessa met Melissa when she represented her, pro bono, through Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, back when Melissa was just starting out with a camera her parents gave her and Central Park as her backyard studio. Back then, she was a starving artist who needed Vanessa’s help in protecting the intellectual property rights in her work. Now that she’s doing wedding photography, she’s hardly starving any more and she’s got her own studio and her own legal team at her beck and call. Even though Vanessa no longer represents her, they’ve stayed friends. In fact, Melissa even set Vanessa up on a date the other night. It didn’t really work out, since to hear Vanessa tell it, “he was so short he only came up to my boobs,” but I thought it was nice of Melissa to think of Vanessa nonetheless.

I have this vision of Melissa covering my wedding for me, and then being so inspired by the photos of me that I become her muse and she takes even more and more photos of me, and then eventually exhibits them in Vanessa’s mom’s art gallery and I become a big international supermodel. The first supermodel ever to be only five foot four and a half.

What? It could happen. They have short models on all the time on America’s Next Top Model.

“Think of them as action photos,” I explain, “action photos of the groom.”

“Still, it’s a little out of the bounds from what a wedding photographer would normally do. Surely you understand that.” I’m suddenly very aware that I’m leaning forward, practically hanging over Melissa’s desk, and she’s leaning so far back on her chair that she’s in considerable danger of actually falling out of the window.

“Getting acquainted with your subject?” I ask, leaning back in my chair with my hand demurely on my chest so as to feign innocence. “Is getting acquainted with your subject what you consider out of bounds?”

“You want me to spy on the groom for you.”

“Spy sounds so harsh,” I whisper, sotto voce, “don’t you think?”

“I think I’d like for you to leave.”

“That sort of thing really wouldn’t come under the umbrella of what a wedding videographer really does,” Jay says to me.

Jay is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of my father who’s based out of Queens, and he’s promised to give me a “real deal” on my wedding video. We’re meeting at a pastry shop on Lefferts Boulevard and instead of the non-fat decaf cappuccino I promised myself on the way over, I’m halfway into a regular cappuccino with a chocolate chip cannoli on the side. To be fair, though, it’s not really my fault. This meeting with Jay has been the tiniest bit stressful. And not just because the wedding photographer I met with kicked me out of her office. My father told me that there was a very slight chance that Jay has connections to the Mafia, so I should be careful not to say anything negative about the Mafia when I’m with him.

Now if that isn’t an elephant in the room…. Don’t say Mafia. Don’t say Mafia.

And, at any rate, my father told me, I shouldn’t really be concerned, because Jay wasn’t high-ranking in the mob—at the very most, my father surmised, he was a soldier.

Note to self: must rent first season of The Sopranos to find out what a “soldier” is.

“Think of it as background footage for the wedding video,” I say, making an effort not to sound desperate, “it would be great fun!”

Oh, God. I just said “great fun” to a man who may or may not be connected.

“Great fun?” he says, taking a swig of his espresso. Busted.

“Well,” I quickly say, “you know. Fun. Sort of fun. We can all get to know each other before the wedding!”

“I’ve never really taken footage before of a groom at his office,” Jay says, “but I’ve done some surveillance in my day, so if that’s what you’re looking for—”

“Surveillance?” I say, almost choking on my cannoli, “I don’t need surveillance! Who said anything about surveillance? No, it’s just that my fiancé, Jack, just loves to work and so you’ll just be getting background footage of him in his natural habitat!”

“Whatever you want to call it,” Jay says, looking at the door as someone walks in. “Where does he work?”

“He’s a lawyer,” I say, “He’s a partner at Gilson, Hecht and Trattner.”

“Fancy,” he says, taking one more swig of his espresso and finishing it. “Isn’t that the firm that represents Jean Luc Renault?” I’m momentarily taken off guard by this question, since Jay doesn’t really look like the type to cover couture fashion.

“I believe so,” I say, “Why? Do you follow fashion?”

“Are they going to be covering Monique and Jean Luc’s big divorce? I’m not a pap, don’t think I’m one of those scum-suckers, but when that whole thing goes down, details about the divorce are going to be selling for a fortune.”

“No, they’re not getting divorced,” I say, ever the protector of attorney-client privilege.

“Well, smart money’s on the rumors that say that they are,” he says.

“Well, they’re not,” I say, grabbing my Sweet-n-Low packet and tearing it in half. And then into fours.

“How do you know?” he asks.

“I just know,” I say, looking back up at him. “So, do you think you’ll want to do my wedding video?”

Jay looks at the door again as another person walks in. Even though he’s had nothing to eat, he takes out a toothpick and puts it into his mouth. He flips the toothpick to the side of his mouth with his tongue and says: “You’re on.”