Brenda Janowitz: Scot on the Rocks

He tore the stepladder from its hiding place and brought it over to the closet. Slamming the stepladder down, he then stepped up and pulled down a large box. He gently placed it on the bed and took off the cover, revealing a jacket. I smiled. He was joking all along. Those crazy Scots! As I put my arms around his neck, my hands inching up to his wavy black locks, he picked up the jacket, only to reveal a kilt.

“Oh, my God,” I cried, my arms falling from his neck. This was no time to mince words.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, oblivious to the look of horror now crossing my face. “This tartan’s been in the family for over two hundred years.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Go on, take a proper look, would you?” But I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to do anything that might suggest that I approved of my boyfriend wearing a skirt to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Don’t panic, I thought. Be cool. Use your super litigator skills to make this man realize that he does not, in fact, want to wear this skirt. He wants to wear pants. But, be so smart as to make him think that he came to this conclusion himself. The sort of Jedi mind trick young single women everywhere are forced to use on their boyfriends every day.

“You can’t wear that,” I instead blurted out. Yoda would not have approved.

“What do you mean, I can’t wear it?”

“I told you, ex-boyfriend’s wedding, trying to be low profile…”

“But I’m Scottish,” he told me. Did he think that I didn’t notice that or something? Did he think that American men excessively used the expression Fuck me, or that American men obsessively watched World Cup soccer or that American men had such thick accents that I could barely understand what they were saying half of the time? Were people on the street accusing this man of being American and this was why he was explaining that he was, in fact, Scottish to me? Anyway, that’s not really the point. The point is that no matter what nationality you are, in America, we encourage men to wear pants. Especially at our ex-boyfriend’s weddings.

“I know, honey, but we’re trying to go low profile. Remember, the whole low-profile thing….”

“Well, we can still be low profile,” he said.

“Don’t want to stand out….”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

“Honey, no! God, no! It’s just that I was going for the whole ‘quiet-complacent-ex-girlfriend’ thing, not the whole ‘loud-flashy - ex - girlfriend - with - the - hottie - in - a - skirt’ thing.” At this point, I felt it prudent not to even mention the fact that his wearing of said skirt would totally, completely screw up my outfit selection for the night. How does one even try to find a dress that will not clash with her boyfriend’s skirt? I thought that I would have to consult the Scottish embassy on that one.

“It’s a kilt,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.

“I know that, I’m looking right at it.”

“You called it a skirt.”

“Whatever it is, you can’t wear it.”

Putting his shirt on quickly and grabbing his jacket, he asked, “Oh, and you are going to decide that, are you?”

“Well, it’s my ex-boyfriend’s wedding that we’re talking about, so, yes, I’m going to decide it!” I yelled at him.

“Why don’t you want me to be proud of where I came from?”

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be proud of where you came from, I’m just asking you to wear some goddamn pants!”

Already down the corridor, he yelled, “Why are you so ashamed of my culture?”

Still in the bedroom, I screamed, “Why do you hate America?”

Yes, I asked him why he hated America. I couldn’t help myself. I’m really very patriotic.

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 oxy-moron. I mean, how many women can honestly say that they’ve stayed friends with their ex? But it was a no-fault breakup: 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 a year, 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-blond 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 hardworking 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 as if I were 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 Tedesque 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.