Jack With a Twist

mind for the very first time—this might not work out the way I had originally planned.

Thank God I didn’t invite the siblings.

Both sets of parents meet Jack and I in the center of the lobby and we all awkwardly greet each other. The wedding coordinator spots us and waves. When I found out we’d be working with one of the Pierre’s wedding coordinators, I had this vision of our wedding coordinator being some hilarious European gay man, straight out of Father of the Bride (Steve Martin incarnation, of course). Or even J. Lo in The Wedding Planner with her totally fabulous hair and makeup (but without the whole stealing the fiancé thing). What the families really need now is an outrageous personality who can take our minds off our differences and get us to focus on what’s important. We need someone who can take the emphasis off the families and put it where it belongs: onto the bride and groom. Well, really just the bride, because, let’s face it, weddings are really all about the bride.

Oh, please! As if you wouldn’t want the world to revolve around you when you’re planning your very own wedding?

So, what we need is someone to defuse this time bomb of a situation we’ve got going here. We need a referee, a distraction, or, at the very least, someone to gang up on. In a word, we need Martin Short speaking with an unintelligible faux Euro accent. What we’ve got instead is Catherine Glass. Shiny blond hair swept up into a French twist, pearl earrings and a navy-blue suit, she looks entirely nondescript, nonoffensive, and just plain old non. Isn’t the wedding coordinator supposed to be some crazy colorful character? Or at the very least as fabulous as J. Lo? What a disappointment.

Catherine shows us to her office, where she has a conference room table set up with nine different types of table linens, four different menus, dozens of photo albums of past events at the Pierre piled up high, and seven chairs going around it. She sits at the head of the table, where her oversized leather notebook is placed, and my family files onto one side of the table with Jack’s family across from us. I consider, for a moment, asking everyone to get up and all sit randomly, the way we all sat at the Solomons’ house for that fateful dinner, but then I think better of it, hoping instead that no one will notice that we are lined up as if we were contestants on The People’s Court.

“So,” Catherine begins, barely looking up from her notebook as she takes notes, “how many guests were we thinking of inviting to this affair?”

“We’d like to keep it small and intimate,” my mother says, folding her hands in front of her on the table. I do the same and smile back at my mom.

“Yes, we totally agree,” Jack’s mother says and I allow myself to take a deep breath. Maybe this afternoon won’t be as difficult as I thought it would be. See, we’re all in agreement already! “I’m not sure how many people you’ll have from your side, but we were thinking that six hundred might be a good number to shoot for.”

“Six hundred what?” my father says.

Jack’s mother laughs. “Barry, you’re so funny.”

“Six hundred guests?” I say, looking at Jack. He and I had always talked about having a small wedding. Jack picks up an album and begins leafing through the pages.

“Yes,” Jack says, barely looking up from the album, “only six hundred. We should definitely cap it at six.”

“I know that your family is bigger than ours,” my mother says with a smile, “but how could you possibly have six hundred guests?”

“Well, Edward has many business contacts that he’s got to include,” Jack’s mother says.

“Are you inviting the entire United States judiciary?” my father asks, looking at Catherine. I know that he’s hoping for a laugh from her, but she keeps a clipped smile on her poker face. I wonder if she’d play the role of dispassionate observer if she knew that my father was paying for the whole thing and tends to be a fairly huge tipper, even when it’s inappropriate and/or discouraged to give a tip.

“Perhaps we should talk menu first,” the wedding coordinator asks, pen poised and ready to write. “What were we thinking for an entrée?”

I see my father’s expression brighten, ready, no doubt, to start talking sirloin.

“We were thinking lobster,” Jack’s mother says first and I see my father’s face fall. My mother, all of the sudden, seems very interested in her fingernails.

“Lobster?” my father says, attempting a smile, “but, Joan, this is a Jewish wedding.”

Everyone just sort of stares at everyone else for a moment and I just silently pray that I don’t have to explain to the Solomons that lobster is so not kosher, which is why my father objects to serving it at a Jewish wedding.

“We were thinking filet,” my mother says, taking a deep breath as she looks up from her hands with a broad smile on her face. “Filet mignon.” The “‘which my husband will lovingly pick out and supply himself” part is implied.

“Excellent choice,” the wedding coordinator says, barely lifting her head up as she jots down notes.

“Maybe we should do a duet—the lobster and your meat,” Jack’s mother says. I’m sure I’m just imagining it, but it seems like she says the words your meat as if she’s talking about my father serving meat from mad cows. I know she’s a vegetarian, but surely she knows how high quality kosher meat is?

“Now you want a surf and turf?” my father says. No one seems to have any idea what my father is talking about, but I do. If only Jack’s mother had served the beef tenderloin my father brought her that first night they all met, maybe some of this hostility could be avoided.

“Joan and I really had our hearts set on lobster,” Jack’s father says. “Don’t you like lobster, Brooke? Whenever we go to the Palm, you always order lobster instead of the steak.”

“Well, I….” I manage to eke out. I always make fun of Jack for his inability to stand up to his father, but now, sitting here in the hot seat, with Jack’s father’s eyes on me, accusing me of loving the non-kosher creatures of the sea, I can almost understand where Jack is coming from. I really can’t imagine having a man like Edward as my own father. I can’t even imagine having him as the judge in one of my cases. (Judge Solomon: “Isn’t that right, Brooke?” Me: “Yes, Your Honor! I’m guilty!” My client: “You’re fired.”)

“Brooke and I love lobster,” Jack says, running his fingers through his hair. Et tu, Brute?

My father turns and looks at me as if he’s King Lear. But he needn’t worry about me.

Now, I know I eat lobster all the time in my regular day-to-day life. And Jack’s right, I would probably eat lobster every day if I could, but the point is, you simply cannot serve lobster at a Jewish wedding. Well, actually, you can (which has now been made exceedingly clear to me today by the Solomons), but the point is, when your father is a kosher butcher and he is paying for the whole thing, you simply cannot serve lobster at a Jewish wedding.

Don’t panic, I think. Be calm. Be cool. Use your super litigator skills to make this man and his father realize that they do not, in fact, want to serve lobster at a Jewish wedding. They want to serve the meat that my father will pick out lovingly cut by cut. But, be so smart as to make them think that they came to this conclusion themselves. The sort of Jedi mind trick young engaged women everywhere are forced to use on their fiancés and future in-laws every day.

“You can’t serve lobster at a Jewish wedding!” I cry out very, very fast. I catch my breath and realize that I’ve jumped a bit out of my chair in my zest. So much for The Force.

“Anyway,” my father says, “some of our family members keep kosher and they would not appreciate being served lobster at this Jewish wedding.”

“Do you keep kosher?” Jack’s mother asks, furrowing her brow, with the same tone I’d imagine her using if she’d asked my father, “Do you practice cannibalism?”

“That’s not really the point—” my mother begins, before being cut off by my father.

“My Aunt Devorah does, for one,” my father says, “if you’ve got lobster on the plate, she won’t be able to eat the meat that’s next to it. She can’t eat something that’s touched lobster. So, what’s my Aunt Devorah going to eat?”

“No one really ever eats the entrées anyway, Barry,” Jack’s mother says to my father, reaching across the conference room table and putting her hand over his. “She’ll probably just fill up at the cocktail hour and skip the main course altogether!”

“Probably not,” my father says, “since at the rate we’re going, we’ll probably be serving