Brenda Janowitz - Scot on the Rocks

“And probably has no time for Hollywood what with reading all of those books.”

“No offense,” I said.

“None taken,” he said.

“I’m sure Ava can read, too.”

“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!

Yes, married! It wasn’t so far off to think. You see, Douglas and I had a real whirlwind romance. The night we met, he swept me off my feet, and I fell head over heels in love with him without even thinking twice about it.

It was a perfectly magical evening at the charity party the Guggenheim Museum threw each year on Halloween. The Guggenheim has long been my favorite New York museum, as the museum itself is a work of art, with its sweeping lines and interior painted a pristine white. The artwork adorning its walls seems the perfect accessory to the main attraction — the architecture. The Met, to me, was always too immense and imposing, and the MOMA was simply too complicated.

For their annual masquerade ball, orange spotlights wash over the museum’s milky walls and floors, giving the space an intense and entirely unfamiliar glow. A string quartet plays quietly in a corner, reminding you that you are at the most exclusive charity ball of the season, rubbing elbows with the best and brightest New York has to offer. Waiters surround you, enticing you with the sweet smells of hors d’oeuvres too fancy to even identify. Follow the clickety clank of wine and champagne glasses, and you will find that the bar is off to the side, leaving a large space in the middle of the entranceway, which will later be used for dancing, once the guests have paired off.

“Act like we’re together,” Douglas whispered, as he slunk over to me seemingly out of nowhere with eyes shifting all over the room. He was dressed as a rugby player and I was dressed as a French maid.

Oh, please. As if you never used Halloween as an excuse to dress like a slut.

“Excuse me?” I said in my most righteous voice. Granted, he really had me with the accent, but what exactly did he take me for? Okay, don’t answer that one.

“Please,” he begged with enormous brown puppy-dog eyes, “this girl has been following me around all evening long. If you pretend to be my girlfriend, I will treat you to a dinner at any restaurant in the city that you want.”

Without waiting for an answer, he pressed his lips against mine.

My knees got weak. I actually felt my knees get weak. He later told me that he “had” to do that, since said girl-stalker was quickly approaching us. I never saw her, though.

“So, do you want to get out of here?” he asked me with sexy bedroom eyes. I didn’t really know who he was or where he was going, but when he looked at me with those eyes and leaned into me the way he did, there was no place else I’d rather have been.

“Yes,” I replied breathlessly. And with that, this man that I had just met grabbed my hand and we were off into the cold New York City night. Although it was only the end of October, it already smelled like winter. He introduced me to his friend, Franc, and Franc’s girlfriend, Allie, a couple of Parisian transplants. Neither had come dressed up to the party. They were both young and attractive, but somehow, they didn’t look as if they fit one another. We all hopped into a taxicab together and Franc gave the cabbie directions to a loft party in Tribeca. Now, I probably would have followed Douglas to a pizza place in Queens to play tabletop Pac-Man if he’d asked me to, but I was nonetheless delighted to be going somewhere as hip and fabulous as a loft party that was probably even more exclusive than the party we’d just left. I immediately looked down at my French maid getup and quietly removed the little doily that was on my head.

I was between Allie and Douglas in the back, with Franc in the front. Douglas’s left leg pressed against my right and I smiled to myself. This is one of those perfect New York City nights when you live for the moment and don’t think about tomorrow, I thought. I turned my head toward Douglas and caught him looking at me. We locked eyes and I began to think wicked thoughts.

“I don’t want to go to another party!” Allie screamed to the front, interrupting my thoughts, “I want to go home!” Franc looked back at her and laughed and shut the plastic divider that separated the front of the cab from the back of the cab and told the cabbie to keep driving. The cabbie had to stay toward the middle of the road to avoid the massive potholes that were lined up like a collision course along Broadway.

“I am getting out right now!” Allie yelled again, opening the divider as she yelled. When Franc didn’t turn around, Allie pretended to open her car door, with the cab still moving, for effect. How very French, I remember thinking to myself. The cabbie began to yell something in a foreign language while Franc tried to calm him down. I looked at Douglas and he rolled his eyes. I smiled a quiet smile back as he mouthed the words drama queen to me. I giggled a silent giggle that only Douglas could see and he put his hand on my leg. I giggled out loud.

“I am getting out of this cab right now!” Allie screamed, and the cabbie pulled over to the right-hand side of the street to a chorus of assuring “She is not getting out!” coming from Franc. Allie, on the left side of the cab, swung the door open wide into traffic just as we stopped on the right-hand side of the street. As quickly as she opened the door, another cab came whizzing by and knocked Allie’s cab door right off its hinges.

Everything was silent for a moment. The cabbie turned around, and upon seeing that Allie was all right, began to yell at Franc very fast in a foreign language. Franc began to yell back in French and Allie sank deep down into her cab seat. Douglas got out to referee and I stayed in the cab with Allie. I was surprised that she didn’t feel sorry for what she had done, rather, she somehow thought that it was the cab driver’s fault, or Franc’s fault, or just anyone’s fault but her own. I heard Franc outside talking, now in English, to the cabbie about what he should do and how he could fix things. When it seemed that Franc had squared things with the cabbie, Douglas opened the right-hand door of the cab, where I was sitting, and put out his hand for me to take.

“Shall we?” he asked.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Everything will be fine. Let’s go to that party now.”

I agreed, but suggested that we walk instead of taking another cab. Douglas laughed and we began to walk. I told Douglas that I somehow felt like a fugitive leaving the scene of a crime or something and asked him if he thought that Franc and Allie would really stay and do right by the cabbie.

“Allie? No. Franc? Yes,” he replied. I agreed, but told him that I still felt as if we were fugitives. He told me that he did, too.

It was cold, so we soon began running, holding hands and laughing. We were running in the middle of the streets; it was so late at night there weren’t any cars on the tiny downtown side streets. I was scared that I would fall, but I somehow knew that Douglas would catch me if I did. We reached Varick Street, where the next party was still going strong. You could hear the pounding bass of the music coming out of the windows and see the empty cups lining its sills.

“I don’t really feel like going to another party, do you?” Douglas asked with those bedroom eyes. It was so cold out that I could see his breath as he spoke. I shook my head no.

In an alleyway somewhere off Varick Street, still feeling like fugitives, we kissed again.

One heavenly month later, Douglas begged me to move in with him. Seriously. It was, like, embarrassing. I really couldn’t say no. I mean, the guy was deeply, madly, passionately in love with me! You would have done the same thing. But, don’t worry about me, because I did it all very much by the rules. Literally. I was reading that book called The Rules at the time. It’s all about snagging a man and then getting said man to marry you. Quickly. Okay, so even on its truncated deadlines, that book didn’t suggest even having sex with a man within the first month of dating, much less moving in with him, but those girls never met Douglas. And if my grandmother asks you, we may have been living together, but we most certainly were not having sex. You know what, if my grandmother asks you, don’t even tell her that we were living together. That’s just easier. And anyway, I don’t think that Grandma even realized it at the time. Even when Douglas picked up the telephone, he had such a thick accent that she usually hung up thinking it was the wrong number. But I digress.

The whole thing seemed to be in the bag. By the time I got Trip’s wedding invite, I’d be blissfully engaged (or even married!) to my handsome Scottish boyfriend. Piece of cake, right?

No! That’s not right! It was definitely not a piece of cake! By the time Trip’s wedding came around, not only was I so not engaged, but Douglas and I had also broken up, leaving me both boyfriend-less and homeless! And he proposed to another woman! Who, as you might have caught earlier, had a stupid, stupid name!

Aren’t you even paying attention?!

Luckily for me, my best friend Vanessa was paying attention. Post-breakup, she was my rock. She was even kind enough to let me stay with her and her husband Marcus. After I showed up on her doorstep crying hysterically, begging to come in, that is.