Brenda Janowitz: Jack With a Twist

“Ohmigod, I cannot believe you are having Monique deVouvray design your wedding dress for you,” Esther Rhee, my favorite second-year associate says to me. “ The Monique deVouvray!”

“I know, right?” I say, leaning back in my office chair. The offices at SGR are all equipped with enormous, ergonomically correct chairs that have the ability to lean back almost a foot. Which, ironically, is probably not so good for your back.

“Did you get to meet her husband?” Esther asks. “They’re in the gossip pages all the time together and he is almost as gorgeous as she is.”

“I didn’t get to meet him,” I say.

“Actually,” Esther reconsiders, “he’s more gorgeous than she is. Did you see them at the premiere for the new Robert DeNiro film? He was so dreamy.”

“Jean Luc does sort of have that Clive Owen thing going on, doesn’t he?” I say.

“No,” she corrects, “Clive Owen sort of has that Jean Luc Renault thing going on.”

“True,” I say, doing a quick Google search on Monique and her husband, resulting in approximately one million hits. I find the picture of them at the DeNiro premiere and turn my computer screen around to show Esther.

“They are so fabulous. You can only eat salad with balsamic vinegar, grilled chicken and grilled salmon until the wedding,” Esther says, leaning onto my desk.

“I know,” I say gravely, turning my computer screen back to center and then flipping my chair back to a seated position.

“Because you wouldn’t want to offend Monique—can I call her Monique?—by getting fat and then not fitting into the dress she made especially for you,” she says. Has Esther been talking to my mother? If she calls my arms fleshy, I’m kicking her out of my office right now. “Maybe if everything goes well with Monique—I can call her that, now, right?—designing your dress for you, maybe there’s a chance that she’ll design mine for me!”

“You’re not even engaged yet, Esther.”

“I know, but I like to plan ahead,” she says. “ And I had a very promising blind date last week.”

“Has he called yet?” I ask, eyes widening. I love a good blind date story. Especially now that I’m engaged and don’t have to go on them anymore.

“Well, no,” she says, putting her head down into the set of documents she carried into my office. “But it’s only been a week and two days. So, he’s probably just really busy with work.”

“Definitely,” I say, trying to think of what Vanessa used to say to me after a promising blind date failed to call me.

We sit in silence for a moment before we are interrupted by Rosalyn Ford, one of the partners at the firm.

“I’m so glad the two of you are together,” she says, leaning against the door frame of my office. “Were you two just working on our case?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding. “We were.”

“Of course,” Esther says, holding up her stack of documents and waving them around as proof.

“Well, stop everything you’re doing,” Rosalyn says, her booming voice as loud as ever, “because they’re about to cave.”

“I thought that this case was going straight to trial?” I asked, furrowing my brow as if I really, really cared about the case. It was a joke I shared with Vanessa. As a lawyer, you are frequently in situations where partners dramatically pause while they’re talking to you, just waiting for your reaction. It’s not until well into your first year that you learn to master the various expressions you are expected to give back: the “I’m so horrified that opposing counsel would do that” face, the “I’m so excited to work on this lame-ass case with you” face, and the classic “you are so funny and clever in the way that you handled that judge/witness/child under the age of five!” face. Here, I was using the old “I am so interested in this case that I’m hanging on your every word” face and I could see over my desk that Esther was doing the same.

I’ve taught her so well.

“Well, it’s not,” Rosalyn says, her face lighting up as she gets ready to tell us the rest. “Opposing counsel called me and wants to meet me this afternoon. They’re about to cave, I just know it.”

“Congratulations,” I say. “You’ve worked so hard on this case.”

“Go get ’em!” Esther says, balling her hand up in a fist and raising her arm just like Rosie the Riveter. We all smile as Rosalyn leaves my office.

“Thank God,” Esther says once Rosalyn is out of earshot, throwing her pile of documents down onto the floor of my office, “I totally did not want to have to read all of these documents.”

“Ms. Miller,” my assistant says, her velvety voice smooth even over my intercom, “Ms. deVouvray is here to see you. May I send her in?”

“Monique deVouvray?” I say, stalling for time.

“Yes,” my assistant confirms.

“Um,” I say, “Don’t send her in. I’ll come out and get her.”

“She’s here?” Esther asks, eyes popping out of her head like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

“Apparently,” I say, getting up from my desk.

“You can’t let Monique deVouvray come in here,” Esther says, standing up and blocking my path to the door. “She is an icon of style, beauty and grace. This place is neither stylish nor beautiful nor graceful. If she sees it, she may not want to design your wedding dress for you anymore!”

“You’re right,” I say, grabbing boxes of documents and trying to stuff them into the drawers of my credenza.

“And then my chances with her will be gone!” she says.

“A little help here,” I say, pointing over at the corner, where there’s a huge stack of fake Levi’s that I’m using as evidence in a trade dress infringement case I’ve been working on.

“The documents and boxes are the least of your problems. Start with the desk,” Esther says to me, taking her right arm and sweeping all of the junk that was sitting on my desk into a drawer. The effect is striking—for the first time since I began working at SGR, you can actually see the deep cherry-red wood of my desk. My in and out trays sit quietly on the right corner of my desk, with my computer on the left. For a lawyer’s office, it looks pretty darn elegant and refined.

I could have sworn that I had also had a half-finished cup of coffee on my desk, but when I open the drawer where Esther’s thrown my things, I can’t find it. There’s just a huge pile of junk.

“I’d better go get her,” I say as Esther shakes her head furiously, clutching her documents to her chest. I know that she is thinking the same thing that I am: I am so lucky to have a wedding dress designer who is so dedicated to creating the perfect wedding dress for me that she even visits me at work!

I guess this is why her dresses are so expensive.

“Well, this is a surprise!” I say with a smile as I approach the set of couches where Monique is sitting. SGR’s offices are very understated and I hoped that to Monique, they seem elegant and refined, and not boring.

“Ah, bon jour, Brooke,” Monique says as she kisses me on both cheeks.

We settle in to my office and I notice that Monique has in her hands an antique handkerchief with subtle embroidery. See, now this is the sort of accessory I should be adding to my wardrobe. Now that I am a newly engaged mature woman, I, too, should be running around midtown holding antique hankies like a socialite. Although I guess socialites don’t work in law offices in midtown. But, nevertheless, I must remember to check with my mother to see if my grandmother has any old handkerchiefs lying around from her childhood. Before she fled Poland, that is.

“I suppose you are wondering why I am here,” Monique says, raising the handkerchief to her left eye and dabbing lightly.