The Doors came on and all at once I felt suffocated. “Break on Through” blasted through the bar and I couldn’t catch my breath. I had to get out of there.

“Oh, my God, I looove this song!” one of the second years called out and they all got up to dance around the bar. I got up, too, and started heading for the door. I grabbed a strand of hair to twirl and felt my eyes tear up as I remembered that I’d cut it all off.

I tried to grab Vanessa to tell her that I was leaving, but she was far too busy dancing on a table to pay me any mind. Yes, she was dancing on a table. She was dancing with Sammy J, though, so I was pretty sure that it was okay and that he wouldn’t try to charge us extra for destroying his bar. Turns out, the single life agreed with Vanessa much more than I expected it to. Who would have thought? Either way, you’ve gotta hand it to that girl for making up for lost time, I suppose.

I walked outside just as a cab was approaching the bar. I put my hand out to hail it and it stopped for me right in front of Sammy J’s. The door opened and out walked — well, isn’t it obvious? Out walked Jack. Typical — the first second that I stop thinking, hoping, praying and dreaming that he will show, he shows.

“Am I too late for the party?” he asked. I couldn’t tell by the look on his face if he was here to see me, or if he was simply here to make sure that I was really leaving.

“No, the party’s still raging. You actually got here just in time,” I said, pointing to the bar. The sound of the music and the laughter was pouring out into the street.

“Then, where are you going?” he asked.

“I think I’ve had enough. Goodbyes aren’t really my thing,” I said.

“I noticed,” he said. “You didn’t even stop by to say goodbye to me on your last day.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to,” I said, studying the sidewalk intently. I found myself unable to meet his gaze.

“Do you think you can stay long enough to have a drink with me? To celebrate with me,” he said.

“I think that I’m completely celebrated out for the night,” I said. “But half the firm is in there dancing on tables, so you’ll have no problem at all finding someone to celebrate my departure with.”

“I don’t want to celebrate your departure,” he said.

“Well…”

“They made me partner,” he said. “Just this afternoon. There was this whole big meeting, and then we all went out to dinner to celebrate. That’s why I’m so late.”

“Congratulations!” I said, my guard completely down. “I’m so proud of you.” I jumped up and hugged him without thinking, and immediately released my grip, hoping I hadn’t over-stepped my bounds.

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s been quite a day.”

“I didn’t think that you were coming,” I said. “I mean, you didn’t have to come. You must be exhausted. And have so many people to call, so many things to do.”

“I wouldn’t miss your going-away party,” he said, moving a strand of my newly shorn locks behind my ear with his finger. “You know that. And, at any rate, I couldn’t wait to tell you. In fact, amidst all of the excitement of the day, all the craziness, all I could think about the whole time was coming here and telling you. All I could think about was what you would think, whether you’d be proud of me…”

“I am so proud of you,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m really going to miss you when you’re gone,” he said, leaning in to me, his voice almost a whisper.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

He put his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. He pressed his lips to mine, hard, and I didn’t want to let him go. He ran his fingers through my hair as he kissed me and his touch drove me wild.

When I looked up, I could see half of the firm’s associates with their noses pressed up to the window of the bar. Jack laughed.

“See,” he said. “I told you that one of us had to quit.”

“Well, then, aren’t you glad that I’m gone?” I asked.

“Very,” he said, and we kissed again. He pulled back and put his hand into his jacket pocket.

“I think that I have something of yours,” he said. “I think that you misplaced this.” He was holding the faux engagement ring. I took it and held it in my hands.

“Thank you,” I said, looking at the ring.

“Why don’t you hold on to that for a while?” Jack said. “Maybe if you’re lucky, someone will replace it with another one, one of these days.”

“Is that your way of asking me out?” I asked.

“Yeah, what’d you think?” he asked.

“I knew you couldn’t stay mad at me for long,” I said. We smiled at each other and he put his arm around my waist as we walked toward the bar.

We walked back into the party to a chorus of whispers and pointing. I announced to the crowd that this party just got converted from a going-away party to a “congratulations on making partner” party. All of the associates ran over to congratulate Jack, hugging him and shaking his hand, while Sammy J called out from behind the bar, “Why the hell would you want to do that?” The second years called out that shots of tequila were on them, and everyone gathered around the bar.

Vanessa joined Sammy J behind the bar to help him serve the shots. She was having so much fun back there, she decided to stay behind the bar to serve drinks with him for the rest of the night. It was great — it meant that everyone’s drinks for the rest of the evening were free (“I’m a lawyer, I can’t be expected to add up the costs of all those drinks in my head! Why else would you become a lawyer unless you were bad at math?”), but unfortunately, getting the actual drink orders straight was not Vanessa’s strong suit, either. She gave her customers whatever she felt like they should be drinking.

Jack and I drank and danced and kissed until the wee hours of the night, and we finally closed the place down at 6:00 a.m., when a bunch of the second years suggested that we all go to the rooftop of the Gilson Hecht building to watch the sunrise. We all piled out of the bar and onto the roof, including Sammy J himself. He later said that it was the best going-away party in the history of Gilson Hecht.

Epilogue

As I walked back to my apartment, on my way home from work, I had a feeling that nothing could go wrong. You know that feeling you get when everything seems to be right with the world? When the planets seem to be in alignment? One of those days when you’re actually running on time, your apartment is (relatively) clean, and you haven’t gotten into an argument with your mother/best friend/boss/therapist in at least a week? That was exactly how I felt as I walked home that day. The previous spring, I had survived my ex-boyfriend’s wedding with my dignity ever-so-slightly intact, and by fall, I was engaged to man that I loved (yes, Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack!), had a wedding date set for the following summer (which delighted both Jack’s and my parents alike), and was planning the wedding of my dreams. (Well, okay, it was really the wedding of my mother’s dreams. What, like your mother wouldn’t get involved?)

I had picked up some flowers at the corner deli and some fresh parmesan cheese for the chicken parm I was cooking for Jack that evening. Yes, in my new job where they actually encourage you to leave the office in the evening, I had become quite the little domestic diva. You would have been so proud of me. Jack absolutely loved everything that I cooked for him. Except, that is, for the times where the food was too well done for him (read: burned). But most of the meals were nothing short of gourmet.

I rounded the corner, groceries in hand, and saw Jack standing on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building. I couldn’t help but smile. This was what total domestic bliss was all about — fresh flowers, chicken parm and the man you love. No doubt we would go home, begin cooking together, glasses of red wine in our hands, and spend a blissful evening at home. No doubt we would become so overwhelmed with passion midway through the cooking, that after we put the chicken into the oven, he would pull me into his arms and kiss me fervently and pick me up and carry me to our bedroom where he would make love to me passionately. The chicken would burn and the smoke detectors would go off and the building’s super would say, “Oh, those crazy love-birds!” and Jack and I would laugh and order in pizza and cuddle on the couch together for the rest of the night. After we turned off the smoke alarms, that is.

I took a breath of the lilies that I had just picked up and was in heaven. The flowers were beautiful, the dinner would be beautiful, and at that precise moment in time, I felt as if the world were beautiful. I got closer and closer to Jack and saw him talking to someone. Someone who started to wave at me. Who was that talking to Jack?

I walked a few feet farther and stopped dead in my tracks. It was Trip. Talking to Jack. In front of my apartment building. I tried to smile and gain my composure before I walked the twenty feet that would lead me to my biggest nightmare. My ex-ex-boyfriend was talking to my fiancé, Jack, whom he thought was my faux fiancé, Douglas, whom he most certainly was not! What would I say to Trip? Should I just lie? Should I just pretend that Jack was still Douglas? What if the doorman came out and said hello to Jack? What if one of our neighbors passed by? Damn those tight New York City quarters. If this were upstate New York, I could totally get away with this!

I got closer and closer and could see that Jack and Trip were deep in conversation and laughing, even. Maybe Jack had just confessed the whole thing and they were having a good laugh over it? I could hear them now: “That Brooke! She’s a real firecracker, isn’t she?”