Jack With a Twist

easy. I truly am happy that she’s figured things out and knows what she’s doing.

I just wish that I did, too.

26

Canceling your own wedding has got to be one of the most humiliating and humbling experiences a girl can ever have. It’s pure torture telling your friends and family the news, trying to explain what happened, and that’s all before you’ve even thought about having to return all of the presents. Then, you’re faced with the worst part of it all—having to call each and every one of the vendors and losing your deposit as you cancel the most important day of your life. Even when your mother and father do most of the actual canceling for you, it’s still pretty awful.

The process began for me with my mother stoically packing up all of my engagement and wedding presents, one by one, and then shipping them back to their respective senders with a kind note. Next, my father called the Pierre Hotel to tell them that the whole thing was off. It pained my father to call the Pierre to cancel his little girl’s wedding. It truly killed him to give up on the plan for my wedding day—a day he and my mother had dreamed about since the day I was born. And even more so to actually lose the twenty percent deposit he’d put down on the whole thing. When he made the call, he had that expression on his face that he reserves only for impromptu visits from the health department, tax audits or a particularly bad New York Jets game loss. Actually, I’m not really sure what he was more upset about: losing the deposit money itself, or that he was unable to “chisel them” down to a smaller amount the way he’d bragged to my mother and me that he could.

Most of the wedding vendors have been nothing short of kind and understanding. I’m sure I’m not the first person in the world to have had second thoughts and cancel her wedding—they’ve been through this before. Most of the people we spoke to were absolutely professional and appropriate. For example, when my mother called Maximo the florist to call off the wedding, he told her, in his charming Spanish (or definitely Italian) accent, that she needn’t worry—a woman as enchanting as her daughter was sure to find another man immediately. In fact, he explained (or, she thinks he explained—this was over the phone and his accent is really very thick) that while he had to keep the deposit money as per the contract, he would use the deposit money for my next wedding, which undoubtedly would be coming up very soon. My hairdresser, Starleen, after bursting into hysterical tears when I told her the news and then composing herself because she “wanted to be strong” for me, was very supportive of my decision to cancel the wedding and agreed not to keep the deposit. And that’s not just because I hadn’t actually given her a deposit yet. She truly meant it from the bottom of her heart. And even Savannah Moore, the bandleader (who, it bears mentioning, I didn’t want to use in the first place), refunded all of the deposit money to my father, saying that she wouldn’t feel right keeping it, since she had a wait list in place for our wedding date and would definitely be rebooking a different party for the night. Probably within the hour.

Yes, all of the vendors we’d used had been a pleasure to deal with, even in the darkest hours of my life. Or my parents’ lives, as the case may be. They made this very difficult time for me and my family easier, and the transition from bride-to-be back to single girl as painless as they could.

But not Jay Conte. Not my wedding videographer to the mob. You’d think that after you bail a guy out of jail—well, technically a detention center, but close enough—you’d have formed a bond with him. But, no. Even after your father calls him to explain to him that your wedding is off, he will still track you down like the rat that you are in your place of business.

“Brooke,” my assistant says over the intercom. “Your wedding videographer is here to see you.” I can hear her faintly giggling in the background.

My wedding what? Did she not get the memo that my wedding was off? Clearly, I no longer have a wedding anything anymore. Jay Conte, of all people, should not be here at my office. As I try to articulate this to my assistant, I hear more giggling over the line.

Oh, God, I think. What on earth is going on out there? Has he threatened her life? Has he threatened my life? Is he already trying to kill her or something? But then I hear more giggling. This is worse than I could have imagined. There’s a lot of giggling going on out there. Is my assistant—dare I say it—flirting with him?

Oh, God. This is the first thing they teach you in the movies. Do not flirt with the mobster. Do. Not. Flirt with the Mobster! Have we learned nothing from Scarface?

“Uh,” I babble into the intercom, “who?”

“Me,” Jay says, materializing in my doorway. “I brought you flowers, but your assistant loved them, so I gave them to her.”

“You brought me flowers?” I ask.

Oh, no! Is he hitting on me? Has he come here to ask me out? I should have seen this one coming—I guess he was secretly thrilled when he heard the news that Jack and I split up and ran down here as quickly as he could to profess his love for me! I had a feeling that I’d seen him trailing me when I went to Monique’s brownstone for meetings. Vanessa said I was crazy, but I knew that I was right! Damn it—why am I so darned irresistible?

“Yes, flowers. Roses, actually. Because I knew you’d be in mourning,” he says, taking his fedora off and holding it across his chest, as if he was about to recite the National Anthem. Or the pledge of allegiance. “For the death of your relationship.”

Whaaa?

“Well, thanks,” I say, “I guess. But, really, that was unnecessary.”

“Good,” he says. “Because your assistant out there really is quite a looker.”

“She’s my secretary,” I say, sitting down behind my desk. Jay takes that as a cue to sit down in one of my visitor’s chairs.

“So, I spoke to your father,” he says. “I really am sorry about what happened with you and Joe.”

“Jack,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “Jack. What did I say?”

“It’s not important,” I say. I lean back in my chair as I puzzle over how to ask him why he’s actually here if the wedding is off.

“Well, there’s another reason for my visit here today,” Jay says, taking a toothpick out of his jacket pocket and sticking it into his mouth. He moves it to one side of his mouth with his tongue, where it sits for the whole time he’s talking. “I know that you’ve called your nuptials off, but we have a contract.”

How come when Jay says the word contract the on your life part sounds like it’s implied?

“Yes,” I say, sitting up straight in my chair as I shift it back to the regular seated position, “I understand. You keep the deposit money. Didn’t you speak with my father about this?”

“Yes,” he says, toothpick still firmly placed in the side of his mouth. “I did speak to your father. But you do realize that you can’t just cancel on me, don’t you? That’s not how it works.”

Oh, God. I have a mobster in my office and he’s pissed at me for canceling on him. Any minute he’s going to tell me: “Say hel-lo to my little friend….” And I’m too young to die!

“Can I get you two some coffee?” my assistant says into the intercom. Ah, saved by the bell. Or assistant, as the case may be. “That was so rude of me not to ask earlier.”

“I’d love some, sweetheart,” Jay says. “Black.”

Now, I suppose that I don’t have to tell you here that if any attorney ever used the term sweetheart on his or her assistant, that attorney and that attorney’s law firm would immediately be slapped with a million-dollar lawsuit for sexual harassment. They give us lectures and workshops about this sort of thing constantly, so I really know what I’m talking about. But using such unpolitically-correct terms of affection apparently works for Jay, since my assistant giggles and says: “Coming right up!”

“Brooke?” she asks. “Anything for you?”

“May I please have a glass of water?” I say, barely choking out the words. And a cigarette, I think. Now, I know that I don’t smoke, but since that’s what they give prisoners before they get executed, I figure that now’s as good of a time as any to get started.