Now, you may be asking yourself how a brilliant big time lawyer like myself managed to get herself into such a predicament. Funny you should ask that. I’ve been asking myself that very same thing, too. So has my mother. So has my best friend. So has my therapist. But, I digress.
It all started with an innocent little phone call. From my ex-boyfriend. Now, some people would think that that’s an oxymoron. I mean, how many women can honestly say that they’ve stayed friends with their ex? But, it was a no-fault break-up: we were graduating from law school, he asked me to move with him to California, and I said no. I stayed in New York to begin the glamorous job at the large big-time law firm that he wanted but didn’t have the grades to get, and he went off to California to settle for the not-so-glamorous job that he didn’t want but my father’s connections helped him to get.
When the phone rang, I was sitting in my big time lawyer office. I was feeling kind of good about myself, what with being practically engaged and on the verge of making partner at my firm. I mean, after all, I’d been living with Douglas for almost two years, so it was just a matter of time until he popped the big question. Mere minutes, really. And, I hadn’t cried because of a partner yelling at me in well over a week. That alone qualified me to make partner myself.
“Hi, is Mrs. Palsgraf there?” a voice queried. I smiled. Trip and I were always making really stupid law jokes with each other. It was sort of the foundation of our entire relationship. You see, there was this huge case in first year torts class involving a woman named Mrs. Palsgraf. We spent about three weeks on the case, that’s how important it was. For the entire first semester of the first year of law school, just mentioning the name “Palsgraf” was enough to throw our study group into fits of laughter. If you went to law school, you would have appreciated that one. Or thought that Trip and I were major dorks. One of the two. Either way, I told you so. Stupid law jokes. It remained the dynamic of our relationship up until the very end of it:
“Your father’s connection panned out,” he said with a boyish smile as we lined up at our law school graduation. “I’m going to L.A. I should be representing famous movie stars in no time.” We still had our graduation caps on our heads. Mine was standing at full attention, tilting upward, while Trip’s was sliding down off his dirty blonde head, as if the mere act of staying on his head for the whole of the ceremony had simply been too much for it to bear.
“I don’t doubt that you will,” I said back, looking straight at him. And, I didn’t doubt it, actually. Trip could be really hard working when he wanted to be. And also kind of sleazy. He may or may not have been still dating his girlfriend from college when we first started up in law school.
“Is this a change of residence or domicile?” I asked. Stupid law joke. You see, residence is where you are living right now, whereas domicile is your permanent residence.
“Domicile,” he said, looking down.
I didn’t even cry about it. (Which for me, as you may have picked up by now, is a major feat.)
I suppose it was because I somehow knew we weren’t going to end up together. Throughout the entire three years of law school that we dated, I just knew. There were little hints everywhere. Like the fact that when I was with his family, I felt like I was on an audition (Them: “So, Brooke, where does your family summer?” Me: “Summer? You mean like in the summer? Where do they summer in the summer? Uh, in their backyards?” Them: “Backyard… Ah, yes, is that off the coast of Maine?” Me: “Yes.”). Or the fact that it was like hanging out with the Kennedys. Seriously. They actually played flag football in their backyard and stuff. And his father was the President of their country club. And his uncle was always looking at me in a kind of inappropriate Ted-esque way. Okay, wait, if they had actually been the Kennedys, that would have been kind of cool. Or even the Shrivers. Or, say, the Rockefellers. Now that I think about it, I heard a rumor a year or so back that there were still some Rockefellers running around Manhattan. Single ones, too. Now, why didn’t I ever date a Rockefeller? Life can be so unfair sometimes.
During the summer after we’d completed our first year of law school, the week before Trip and I were to start our jobs—mine for a very prestigious Second Circuit Judge, Trip for a family friend of my uncle’s—we went to stay with his parents out at their summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. It was a wonderful weekend. You would have loved it. Well, unless you are the type who would let the little things get to you, like the fact that Trip’s mother couldn’t deign to remember my name and instead referred to me only as “that Jewish girl.” Which, luckily for me, I do not.
After I met his family, things really fell into place. I’d always assumed that the little competitive thing that Trip and I had going on was just his cute little precursor to sex (“Oh, I’ll habeas your corpus”), but it turned out that he was actually serious all along. Trip and his siblings were constantly trying to best one another, from how many eggs each one could eat in the morning to where their undergraduate schools ranked on the U.S. News and World Report list. (Trip’s ranked last.) In the pool, they tried to see who could hold his breath for the longest, and at the end of the day, they held up their arms to see who had the fiercest tan. To be fair, I really put Trip at a disadvantage in this regard, what with my slathering SPF 30 all over his body every chance that I could get.
What? You really need to be careful in the sun!
Meeting his family also really explained that look on his face when, at the end of the summer, I made Law Review and he did not.
And it definitely explains this little exchange we had one day after pulling one too many all nighters with our study group:
“OK, Brooke, you’re up. What is a writ of habeas corpus?”
“Oh, I’ll habeas your corpus!” What, you thought that I didn’t really say that?
“Actually, babe, habeas corpus is an unlawful detention, so you really mean to say, ‘I’ll habeas corpus you.’ Did you even bother to do the reading for Con Law?”
“Just take off my goddamn bra!”
See what I mean?
But, when I got that innocent little phone call, it all faded away. At the sound of his voice, all of the fun times came rushing back to me. I smiled the smile of a cat that has just swallowed a goldfish.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, “she’s out with Pennoyer and Neff.” Another stupid law joke. You see, there is this Civil Procedure case that you read the first week you are in law school. No one really understands it and…. You know what, forget it. Even I think that it’s dorky at this point.
“How are you, B?” I had forgotten how much I loved it when he called me that.
“Great. How are you?”
“Great. I’ve got news,” he said. My God, I thought, the guy’s still in love with me. After all these years, still in love. How sweet! He’s probably on a plane to New York as we speak, ready to whisk me away to California to be his. When he sees Douglas, no doubt a fight will break out. A fight for my honor. With Douglas being Scottish and all, it will probably be more like a duel. Yes, Trip will challenge Douglas to a duel. I wonder if Douglas knows how to fence? Fencing is hot.
I’ll have to let him down gently, I thought. I’m really very sensitive, you know.
“News?” I asked. Gently.
“I’m getting married.”
“Great!” I said back, a little too quickly. He kept on speaking, but I don’t think that I heard a word. I was still registering the fact that my ex-boyfriend was getting married before I was. Shouldn’t there be some rule against that?
“So, who’s the lucky girl?” I asked, grabbing for the little stress ball that was on my desk.
“Ava Huang,” he replied. Ava Huang? The movie star? No way in hell he just said Ava Huang. No way in hell my ex-boyfriend is marrying a movie star. Even if he did say Ava Huang, he must mean some other Ava Huang. Why, there must be about a million other Ava Huangs running around L.A. right at this very minute! Now, be cool, be subtle, act like you don’t even care.
“The movie star?” I asked. Way to be subtle, Brooke.
“The very one. I represent her. It’s so refreshing to talk to someone on the East Coast about it, though. Everyone here has been freaking out about it. It’s not like you guys even care about movie stars out there.” Trip is so right. We so do not care about movie stars here on the East Coast. For example, when I told Jack that my ex-boyfriend was engaged to Ava Huang, he managed to rattle off her entire filmography, complete with analysis as to which films she “looked her best” in (read: took her clothes off in).
“You’re so right, Trip. We totally don’t,” I said, clutching my little stress ball even harder. “In fact, just the other night, I saw Leonardo DiCaprio and I, like, didn’t even care about it. Didn’t even think twice.”
“DiCaprio’s back in New York this week?”
“I don’t know. You see, that’s how little we care about movie stars in New York. It’s like, I didn’t even check to see if it really was Leonardo DiCaprio. And neither did anyone else. We’re, like, far too busy reading books and stuff.”
“Gosh, Brooke, you’re taking this really well. You know, I was kind of nervous to call you. I thought that you might get upset or something.”
“Upset? Me? I never get upset! Why on earth would I get upset?”
“You know, Brooke,” he said, “We always did have that little competitive thing going on back in law school.”
“We did?” I said, “I hadn’t noticed. I must have been too busy making Law Review.”
“I made Moot Court,” he said. I could practically see him pouting through the phone wires.
“I didn’t want Moot Court,” I said, tossing my little stress ball into the air and catching it.
“That’s because you couldn’t argue your way out of a paper bag,” he said, his faux “I’m just kidding!” laughter rising an octave.
“You’re right,” I said, “I was far too concerned with my writing. I guess that’s why I got my Student Note published.”
“I guess that’s why I won the National Moot Court Competition,” he retorted.
“Because I got my Note published? How very interesting,” I said with a smile. Dead silence on the line. And he says I can’t argue?
“Well, I’m just glad that you’re not upset.”
“Not in the least,” I said.
“What was that noise?” Trip asked. Hmmm. That noise may have been the sound of me throwing that little stress ball against the back of my office door. Okay, yes, now that I’m telling you about this, I distinctly recall slamming that cute little stress ball against the back of my door, just before I cleverly said:
“You know, Trip, life is so funny sometimes. You see, I’m engaged myself!”
“You are?” he asked. I am?
“Why yes!” I said, suddenly sounding like Barbra Streisand at the very end of The Way We Were, “Don’t sound so surprised!”
“I’m not surprised at all. I just didn’t hear about it, is all. And I was just emailing with Vanessa all last week,” he said. “Any guy would be crazy not to nab you. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“His name is Douglas. He’s fabulous. He’s Scottish.”
“I forgot how much you love Euro-trash,” he responded. He was probably smiling his Cheshire cat smile when he said that little gem to me.
“He most certainly is not Euro-trash. He is a very class act. In fact, speaking of movie stars, he looks like a movie star, but he’s far too intelligent for Hollywood.”
“And probably has no time for Hollywood what with reading all of those books.”
“No offense,” I said.
“None taken,” he said.
“Yes, she can,” he assured me. “Well, then, I can’t wait to meet him.”
Okay, so it was a little white lie. But, as I already told you, I believed myself to be practically engaged at that point in time, so I figured that by Trip’s wedding, I would surely be engaged. Who knew, depending on timing, I could even be married before Trip was!