Jack With a Twist

Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God. I am going to sleep with the fishes. I am going to wake up with a sawed-off horse head in my bed.

Do not piss off the mobster. Do. Not. Piss. Off. The. Mobster.

“No,” I say, using the same soothing voice I’d use with colicky babies or rabid animals. “Why on earth would I ever do that?”

“Look, do you want me to shoot you or not?”

“Please don’t shoot me,” I quickly say, eyes darting around for the prison guards. I know that this is only a detention center, but where are those guards when you need them? This is just like one of those mob films where the regular everyday person is just going about his or her day, ends up in a mix-up involving the mob, and then they come after her and her entire family. I’m too young to die!

“Shoot your wedding video,” he says.

“I knew that,” I quickly say.

“Then get me out of here now.” He points his finger on the table for emphasis.

“Guard!” I say, “Mr. Conte is ready to go.”

Column Five

Just asking…

WHAT former model is so serious about her garbage that she will throw anyone who comes within ten feet of it into the Manhattan Detention Center? This is one celebrity you do not want to piss off—even though her customers think that she is as delicate as a piece of lace, this former “it” girl doesn’t think twice about throwing a paparazzo who gets too close to her or her couture right into jail. Even a pap with known connections to the mob.

Column Five would never assume, but just what was in her garbage that got her tulle into such a bunch?

21

Many a bachelorette party has been thrown at Mangia e Bevi. (And I should know, since I’ve been to quite a few of them.) It’s a tiny Italian restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen where, on any given night, you can find a gaggle of girls celebrating someone’s impending nuptials by dancing on chairs (which, at Mangia e Bevi, is strongly encouraged) and drinking their drinks through penis shaped straws.

In the winter of 2002, it was Tandy O’Donoghue’s bachelorette party. The bride-to-be danced on a table, while wearing a hot-pink boa, to “You’re the One That I Want” from the Grease soundtrack, with her maid of honor, Jen Moss, lip-synching the Danny lines to her Sandy. She refused to wear the veil with tiny penises hanging from its every inch (she insisted that they were no match for her groom-to-be’s), but gleefully drank from a penis-shaped water bottle (which she insisted was more “true to size”) and indulged in the penis-shaped cupcakes that were served for dessert (by that time, she was too drunk to form an opinion either way about the cupcakes). Tandy got herself into quite a bit of trouble when she accidentally drunk-dialed the Best Man on her way home that night.

In the summer of 2004, it was Eileen Massey’s turn. She and her entire bridal party showed up in tiaras and bedroom slippers and danced on their chairs to “Come on Eileen.” The girls that were there still talk about the scandalous dance that Eileen’s maid of honor did with a huge blow-up penis (similar to the big Bozo blow-up dolls that were popular circa 1979), right in front of Eileen’s fourteen-year-old stepsister. Eileen’s stepmother was in attendance that evening, too, and Eileen spent most of the evening refusing to eat anything but salad, for fear of not fitting into her wedding dress and, perhaps more importantly, her stepmonster’s watchful eye.

In the fall of 2006, Emily Carlson was the one we all came out to toast. She and her bridesmaids went crazy and decided to have a co-ed bachelorette party. The men all parked themselves at the bar to watch a baseball playoff game, while the girls stayed at the table and danced on their chairs to “I Want Your Sex.” Only the groom- to-be joined the actual party and played along with the evening’s festivities, even drinking his banana daiquiri out of a penis-shaped straw. That simple act of boldness earned him an impromptu lap dance from all of the bridesmaids, which quickly brought out the “angry drunk” in the bride. She decided that the best course of action would be to drag the groom-to-be out of the party and into the bathroom to have sex. (This is also the story of why we don’t use the first bathroom on the right at Mangia e Bevi.) Said groom-to-be came out of the closet three weeks before the wedding.

This year, it’s my turn, and Vanessa has the entire place rented out for the night since the guest list is so huge. The super-top-secret plan that’s supposed to be a surprise is this: first, we start out with appetizers. Trays of bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms and fried calamari will be passed around as the guests enter and get comfortable. The restaurant brought in trays of mini hot dogs especially for this occasion, too, since my mother insisted that you simply could not have a girls’ night out without them. Bottles of white and red wine will already be set out on the tables and to get mixed drinks, you’ll simply have to go to the bar.

For the main course, you’ll grab a seat wherever you like (take that, sisters Solomon!) and start out with a plate of salad, topped with fresh tomatoes and even fresher mozzarella (dressing on the side, of course). You’ll then eat either chicken marsala, vegetable lasagna or veal scallopine. I’ve already decided on the chicken marsala.

Next, Vanessa and my mom will announce with clever little smirks that it’s time for dessert, only they’ll say the word dessert as if they’re saying something really naughty, like ménage a trois, or, in my mother’s case, paying full retail price. The waiters will roll out an enormous four-foot-tall cake that all of the guests will ooh and aah over. A very tasteful male stripper will jump out of the cake and dance around with us.

Is it any wonder my father’s seven aunts have not been invited to the party?

Then, we will all get up on our chairs and dance to “You’re the One That I Want,” “Come on Eileen” and “I Want Your Sex.” Vanessa’s also requested that they cue up my favorite eighties song, “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.”

There will be no penis-shaped straws.

Just when everyone thinks that the party is over and it’s time to go home, Mangia e Bevi will dim the lights and the bachelorette party will turn into a co-ed after-hours party, with all of the guys coming in as a surprise. Vanessa, with a lot of help from Jack, had to orchestrate an entirely different e-vite for the boyfriends, husbands and assorted male friends, and then swear each and every one of them to secrecy. I think that the signing of actual legal affidavits may have been involved.

I know all of this because I helped my mother and Vanessa plan said festivities. We’ve all been fast friends since the lobster incident at the bridal shower and had to band together in order to take control of the bachelorette party. Without our intervention, my mother informed us, the bachelorette party would turn into a Hitler Youth Rally—and, as my mother informed Vanessa, it wasn’t just the Jews that they were rallying against—Hitler was none too fond of black people, either.

Vanessa had to make up some very clever story about how I was traumatized at a bachelorette party that I once attended (by the penis-shaped straws, no doubt) and how I now had to help plan the party with Vanessa and my mother, and only with Vanessa and my mother. Vanessa said that it wasn’t easy to get the sisters Solomon to back off at first, but then I reminded her of her sacred vow as a maid of honor, and she did what had to be done to make sure that she, my mom and I maintained control of my bachelorette party.

“So, how did it go today?” I ask Vanessa as we sip our Diet Cokes through penis-shaped straws.

“Fine,” she says, “it was totally fine. Wear this.”

I allow her to place a Hawaiian lei on my neck and she puts one around her neck, too. These are not your typical brightly colored plastic leis that you’d find at a party store. No, these are seriously fancy Hawaiian leis, made out of beautiful silk flowers, keyed into the color scheme of my flowers for the wedding. “I wanted to come with you.”

“I know,” she says, “but Marcus was there and I just didn’t want anyone else there. You know?”