Jack With a Twist

Back when we were a loving, newly engaged couple who were merely living in sin and not fighting in both the courtroom and the bedroom, Jack and I had our morning routine down pat. I’d wake up first at 7:15 a.m., and hop in the shower while Jack snoozed the alarm until I was done in the bathroom. When I got out of the shower, I’d throw my hair into a towel, and get the coffee ready (that brewed every morning at 7:20 a.m., thanks to the kick-ass coffeemaker with timer settings that Jack’s cousins Judy and David bought for us for an engagement gift) while Jack showered. Then, we’d read the paper and eat breakfast together while my hair dried and I stared at Jack lovingly.

Since the Monique litigation began, things have not exactly been the same. Especially since the incident at the Pierre. Now, I sleep until 7:30 a.m. (those fifteen minutes make all the difference when you’ve worked past midnight…) and Jack takes the New York Post with him to work since I’ve usually grabbed The New York Times on my way out while he’s still in the shower.

Today, as I’m about to run out of the apartment with the Times firmly tucked under my arm, the phone rings. I briefly get that panicked feeling you get when someone calls you and wakes you up in the middle of the night. Why is someone calling here at eight-thirty in the morning? I look at the caller ID and see that it’s Vanessa.

“Whatever you do, do not look at the paper,” Vanessa says.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, sitting back down at our breakfast bar. I look at the clock and see that it’s 8:31 a.m. Jack will be out of the shower any minute.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Vanessa says, trying to sound nonchalant, “just don’t look at the New York Post.”

If I have any chance of making it out of the apartment before Jack gets out of the shower so that I can avoid him like the coward that I am, I’ve really got to leave now.

“What’s in the Post?” I ask, eyeing the paper that’s on my kitchen counter. It’s still wrapped in a roll, secured by a rubber band, and I wonder if I take the rubber band off, if I’ll be able to get it back on so as to make it look like I haven’t touched it.

“You are definitely not on the cover of the Post,” Vanessa says, “so do not look at it.”

Is this how she’s trying to get me to not check out the Post? Telling me not to look at it? Does she know nothing about reverse psychology? This woman is clearly not ready for children.

As I eye the newspaper, all I can think is: this is about Monique. This is all about Monique and Jean Luc. No doubt, my videographer has been tailing Jack and me, going through our garbage nightly, and by now knows all the sordid details of the dissolution of partnership. Hell, he probably already knows that Monique went to see Robin Kaplan, divorce attorney to the stars.

This is bad. This is very bad. The second Monique finds out about this, she is going to fire me. And then Noah will fire me! And then I’ll be jobless! On a lighter note, I won’t have to do the document production that Jack served me with the other day, but what kind of self-respecting bride walks down the aisle in five-hundred-dollar shoes while collecting unemployment?

Actually, unemployment might not be so bad. My skin will be clear from the lack of stress from work, and I’ll finally be able to find the time to go shopping for a wedding dress. Hell, I’ll have time to take a class to learn how to make myself a wedding dress! I mean, how hard could couture really be?

I’ll also have time to work out and finally start that wedding diet everyone tells me I should be on. Maybe I can even start taking tennis lessons like my mom! Then, by the time Jack and I get to Hawaii for our honeymoon, I’ll already have a killer backhand! (And much tighter glutes….)

While contemplating how much one can reasonably expect to make on unemployment and how many hours of tennis practice I’d need before I would look totally cute in a tennis skirt, I grab the paper from the kitchen counter and rip off the rubber band. I’m immediately relieved that the article is not about Monique and Jean Luc at all, so I can rest easy. I will not be getting fired today. Unemployment would have been nice, but it’s not happening for me.

Not today, at least.

Instead, right there, on the front page, for all the world to see, is the headline: Move over Hepburn and Tracy: It’s a Real Life Battle of the Sexes!

“Oh, my God,” I say into the phone and almost drop the receiver.

“I told you not to look!” Vanessa says, her voice an octave higher than usual.

“Then you shouldn’t have told me not to look!” I say, “don’t you know anything about rearing children?”

“I’m your maid of honor,” she says, “not your babysitter!”

“Same thing!” I yell into the phone.

“What are you looking at?” Jack says, coming out of the shower. He’s draped in just a towel, and using another to dry off his shaggy brown hair, and I momentarily forget that I’m still angry at him because of what happened at the Pierre.

“Nothing,” I say, trying hard to keep my eyes fixated on his baby blues, but instead just staring at his hairy chest and freckly arms.

“So, you saw it?” he asks, coming over to the kitchen counter. He drops the towel he was using to dry off his hair onto a kitchen stool and uses his other hand to pull up the towel that’s around his waist. My eyes are firmly glued to that other hand. “Brooke?”

You are still angry with your fiancé, I remind myself. Stop staring at his towel. Stop staring at his towel.

“Oh, yes,” I say, eyes flying back up to his face with a “Who, me?” expression on my own, “Vanessa just called me about it.”

“Don’t blame me!” I can vaguely hear Vanessa screaming into the phone. “Tell him that I told you not to look at it!”

“Van,” I say into the phone, “I’ll call you back.”

“So, I guess that you already saw it?” I ask Jack.

“I did,” he says, “but I thought you’d get upset, so I was hoping that you wouldn’t see it. And you’ve been running off with the Times lately, anyway, so I thought that maybe you’d miss it.”

Um, hello? As if I don’t go to www.nypost.com every day to read Column Five?

“Sorry,” I say, “did you want the Times?” I take the paper out from under my arm and hand it to Jack.

“I don’t want the Times,” he says, pulling me toward him, “I want to start having breakfast with you every day while we’re reading the Times. Like we used to. I don’t want you to run out of the apartment every day while I’m in the shower.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, as Jack sits down at one of the kitchen stools, his arms still holding mine. Then he drops his arms so that his hands are holding mine. “I’m just under a lot of stress here. I have a ton of work. Which you should know, since you assigned it to me.”

“I don’t think it counts as me assigning it to you since we don’t work at the same law firm anymore,” Jack says, baby blues smiling.

“And I’ve got wedding plans to think about,” I say, looking down at the kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry about the Pierre,” Jack says, putting one finger under my chin and lifting it up so that our eyes meet. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want us to fight,” I say.

“Me, neither,” he says, pulling me in for a hug. “I’ll talk to my parents.”

“Thank you,” I say, feeling my eyes begin to tear up for a minute, but then smiling through it. I can smell his aftershave and it gives me a tiny shiver. “Thank you.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Jack asks.

“I’d love one,” I say, and Jack jumps up from his seat and tends to the coffee. I look down again at the front