Brenda Janowitz - Jack With a Twist

I suppose that in my heart of hearts, I knew that this was how it would go down. Why on earth would I have thought that our parents would get along? Jack’s father is a Circuit Court judge and his mother is active in charity work, while my father is a kosher butcher and my mother is active in her mah-jongg game.

Is it too late to elope?

Column Five

Just asking…

WHICH fashion designer is about to bid her businessman husband adieu? Her friends, family and investors think things are très magnifique, but a hotel bill at the Lowell says otherwise….

Back at work. Thank God. I may not have a wedding dress, and the first meeting of the parents may have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start, but at least work is the one thing I understand, the one thing that’s under my control. The one area where I know that nothing will go wrong. Especially since today is the initial conference on Monique’s case—the first case ever where I get the chance to take the lead. Luckily for me, the case is pretty open and shut, so I barely need to prepare for this morning’s court date. Granted, I seem to have hit a tiny stumbling block on this case—a pesky little countersuit by Monique’s husband filed this morning right before I left to go to court—but the case is still pretty straightforward and I should have things squared away with the judge in no time at all. And before the New York Post can blow up this morning’s “blind item” about Monique into a full-fledged article. Hopefully, while I’m at federal court dealing with the dissolution of partnership case, all of the reporters will be over at family court, poking around for the divorce case that doesn’t exist. Yet. I should have this thing settled before they even realize that they’re in the wrong courthouse.

It’s refreshing to be doing something this morning that I have power over. Especially since last night, after we got back from dinner at his parents’s house, I had to calmly explain to Jack—who under normal circumstances is an absolutely perfect fiancé—that he needs to take my side whenever there is a disagreement amongst the families. But it’s not like we got into a fight about it or anything. We are not one of those couples who ever fight. Which is surprising since we’re both lawyers, but it’s true. We never fight. Not at all adversarial. We’re just not one of those couples you see who compete with one another. In fact, if we were a Hollywood couple, it wouldn’t matter at all who won an Oscar first or who made more money per picture—we wouldn’t get a divorce over it or even have a cross word over it—because we are simply not competitive with each other in the slightest bit and we most certainly never fight.

“How dare you not take my side in front of your parents!” I said last night, the second we walked back in the door to our apartment after dinner at Jack’s parents’ house. Okay, so I may have been screaming it at the time, but you get where I was going with that one. That was the most calm as I could muster, given the circumstances.

“Sides?” my perfect fiancé said. “It’s not about sides, sweetie. It’s about our families coming together.”

“You’re right, honey,” I said, “it’s not about sides.” And Jack was so right. It is so not about sides at all. It’s about our families merging into one. Even if his family does outnumber mine by an alarming ratio of four to one. “Right, Jack. I just meant that you need to agree with everything I say in front of your parents.”

My perfect fiancé looked back at me and furrowed his brow.

But, today in court, I will be in control. After all, I am a tough, no-nonsense attorney who does not take “no” for an answer. I am confident, intelligent and self-possessed. I am woman, hear me roar. See, with my can-do attitude, there is no way that I can lose in court today. Especially since it’s only an initial conference where we just cover administrative matters, so there’s actually no winning or losing to be had. And this isn’t the sort of case that ever goes to trial for actual winning or losing. It’s more of a transactional thing. Also, the judge assigned to my case is an old law school buddy of Jack’s dad.

But, I’ll still roar if need be.

As I enter the judge’s courtroom, I take a peek at the docket and notice something very odd. When I got notice of the countersuit, Monique’s husband had checked off the box to indicate that he’d be handling the matter pro se, meaning that he’d be his own attorney. It made sense to me at the time since a dissolution of partnership is so routine, but today he has a law firm representing him.

My old law firm.

“This must be a typo,” I say to the court deputy sitting at a long table in the front of the courtroom. When I say this to him, a tiny voice inside me realizes that it must be true, that my old law firm will, in fact, be opposing me in my first big case that I take the lead on. Which would also be the reason why Monique didn’t hire Vanessa. She knew that her husband would be using Gilson, Hecht. Still, I think that it can’t hurt to ask the deputy, maybe even flirt a bit, and earn myself a few brownie points with the judge’s staff.

“No typo,” he says, without even looking up from his coffee, donut and New York Law Journal.

“I’m representing Monique deVouvray and her husband is opposing the action pro se. ”

“Pro se?” he says, looking very annoyed that I’ve distracted him from his breakfast. This is probably not the way to earn brownie points. I lean over his desk so as to show some cleavage, but it doesn’t really work since I’m wearing a turtleneck sweater. Maybe he’ll applaud the effort, anyway, though.

“You know what?” I say, not wanting to piss off the man who controls the court’s calendar—and my fate on this case for the next couple of months. “Don’t even worry about it. I’ll just figure it out when you call me.”

“You must be Brooke,” a thick Southern drawl from behind me says. I turn around to see Miranda Foxley, an associate at Gilson, Hecht. I’ve never met her before, but her reputation precedes her. Word on the street—or at the Park Avenue law firms, as the case may be—is that she left her last law firm because she slept with a married partner. Happy as I am to see that the case is staffed only with a junior associate, and not a partner, it dawns on me that the whole flirt-with-the-staff-of-chambers strategy isn’t really going to work if Miranda Foxley is my opposing counsel.

Standing five foot ten, Miranda looks more like a model than an actual lawyer. Her blazing red hair flows loosely around her shoulders, down her back and it makes my hand instinctively fly up to my own locks since it reminds me that I chopped my own long hair off just a few months ago. Which doesn’t really matter today anyway, since I have it back in a bun to look professional for court, but still. And she’s unbelievably—annoyingly—thin. I could never understand how Southern women could ever be thin with all of that delicious comfort food they grow up with in the South, but Miranda is. I guess that she is able to ignore a buttered biscuit and fried chicken in a way that I never could.

Today she’s got on a fitted salmon-colored Nanette Lepore suit with a little silk camisole underneath that’s bordered with lace. I’m in my most conservative charcoal-gray suit with a black turtleneck sweater, black opaque stockings and black pumps. The contrast is striking—she’s Susan Dey in LA Law and I’m Marcia Clark before the makeover. I bet Miranda’s even got garters on under that pastel-colored number.