Brenda Janowitz - Scot on the Rocks

Vanessa and I made Law Review together and then went to the same law firm for our second-year summer. We’re both litigators, which means that our offices are mere footsteps away from each other on the eleventh floor.

Which worked out perfectly for me the day after my breakup with Douglas, since I couldn’t get out of bed and needed someone to go to my office and turn on the lights and computer to make it look as if I were actually there.

I lay in bed in Vanessa and Marcus’s guest bedroom for most of the morning, simply unable to move. Everything around me reminded me of Douglas. The picture of Vanessa and Marcus on my bedside table — a happy couple; the earrings that I had forgotten to take out of my ears the night before — a present from Douglas; the red silk drapes covering the windows — his favorite color for me to wear.

How could this be happening to me? Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this? Why didn’t I deserve to be a happy couple, like Vanessa and Marcus?

My eyes opened at around noon, when the telephone began to ring. I listening to it ring, over and over, and threw the covers over my head in an effort to make it stop. The answering machine picked up, far and away out in the living room, and I heard Vanessa’s voice calling out to me.

“Brooke?” she said. “Brooke, if you’re there, pick up. Pick up! Pick up, pick up, pick up….”

My cell phone rang next. I pulled the covers back and threw my arm out to the bedside table to pick it up.

“Didn’t you hear the phone?” Vanessa asked.

“No,” I lied, eyes still shut.

“Okay,” Vanessa said, “well, nothing’s really going on here. I checked your voice mails and your e-mails and I told your secretary you were in court on some pro bono case.”

“Thanks, Vanessa,” I said.

“Are you still in bed?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you should get up and eat something,” she said, “it’ll make you feel better.”

Vanessa was right. You should always listen to doctor’s orders. Or doctor’s wife’s orders, as the case may be. I rolled out of bed and padded into the kitchen.

“What else is going on over there?” I asked, taking the half-eaten roll of cookie dough out of the fridge and plopping myself down on the couch.

“Quiet day,” she said. “What are you going to do about your stuff?”

“Stuff?” I asked, flipping the television on.

“Your stuff, your things,” she said. “As in, what are you going to wear to work tomorrow?”

“My stuff,” I said. Right.

“You can borrow mine until you get back downtown to pick up yours,” she said. That would have been a great idea if I could actually fit into any of Vanessa’s things.

Vanessa was right. I should pick myself up, dust myself off, and go down to Douglas’s apartment and collect my things. That would be the mature, responsible thing to do. I should just go down there, pack my bags, and go about moving on with the rest of my life.

Two hours later, I’d hit the makeup counters at Saks, bought a new pair of black pumps and was headed up to the fifth floor to get some new outfits when my cell phone rang. I could see Jack’s work number pop up on my caller ID and I answered it.

“How’s it going?” Jack said.

“Fine,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the music playing on the fifth floor of Saks. It was kind of loud.

“Did you win?” Jack asked.

“Win what?”

“Vanessa said you had a hearing on one of your pro bono cases?” Jack said.

“Oh, yes,” I said, “that. Of course I won. It went great. Great! Great, great, great…”

“Excuse me, miss,” a salesperson asked, “would you like me to start a fitting room for you?” I smiled and nodded, and quietly handed her the clothing I was holding.

“Brooke, are you shopping?” Jack asked.

“Well, you can’t expect me to sit at home eating raw cookie dough all day,” I said. “Saks can be very therapeutic.”

“No,” Jack said, “I expect you to come to work. Where you belong.” Clearly, I was talking to a man. A woman would understand that I belonged at Saks.

“Douglas and I are having some problems,” I said, brushing my hand against a row of spring dresses. “So, I just need a day to get back to myself.”

“Vanessa said he kicked you out of the apartment,” Jack said.

“Well, yeah,” I said, “that’s sort of, like, the problem.”

“What are you doing in Saks?” he said. “Come to the office and I’ll take you out for lunch.”

“I don’t want lunch, I just want Douglas,” I said. I hoped he understood that I was saying that I wanted Douglas back, for things to be the way they used to be, and not that I was actually suggesting that I wanted to eat Douglas for lunch. Although I was not opposed to the occasional afternoon rendezvous….

“Well, it’s over, so why don’t you let me take you for lunch,” he said.

“Can you even pretend to be supportive?” I asked.

“You want me to support your going to Saks?” he asked.

“I don’t have any clothes or makeup,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to pack anything on my way out.”

Jack didn’t respond. I could tell that he was brushing his hand through his hair as he thought.

“Well, then,” he said, clearing his throat as he did, “I’ll pick you up at Saks right now and take you to the apartment to pack a bag. It’s the middle of the day so he won’t be home.” I could tell that he was deliberately refraining from saying Douglas’s name, sort of the way Harry Potter only calls Voldemort “he who shall not be named.”

“Thanks, Jack,” I said, “but I’m fine.”

An hour and a half later, I walked out of Saks with three enormous shopping bags, two garment bags and a tiny shopping bag that held all of my cosmetics. It was amazing that you could spend that much money at the cosmetics counter and the sum total of your purchases could fit into a tiny bag that would barely hold a pair of shoes.

As I pushed open the door to the Fifth Avenue exit, there stood Vanessa in front of a town car holding a sign that said “Brooke Miller.”

“What on earth are you doing here?” I said, my eyes almost brimming up with tears at the sight of her.

“Jack said that you were here, so I thought I’d take you downtown to get your stuff.” She grabbed a shopping bag and garment bag from me and signaled for the driver to pop open the trunk. “We’ll do it quick and painless, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

“Thank you,” I said, a tear escaping from my eye.

“Breakups suck,” she said, putting her arm around me.

As the car sailed down Fifth Avenue, Vanessa and I sorted through my shopping bags, deciding which items I would have to return and which she would be borrowing.

We arrived in front of the Soho Triumphe and Vanessa got out of the car with me. I told her that I thought I should do this part alone.

“Hi,” I said to the doorman as he stopped me on the way in, “I’m Brooke Miller, I live in 32G. Well, lived,” I said, unsure of my new status. I finally settled on saying: “I’m in 32G.”

I got up to the apartment and opened the door. Even though it had only been mere hours since I’d left, it already felt as if I didn’t recognize the place. Everything somehow looked colder, more antiseptic, and I didn’t see a trace of myself in it. I walked over to the windowsill and saw a picture of Douglas and me, taken when we were down in the islands for Christmas the previous year, nestled among the other objets d’art he had lined up on the sill like little soldiers.

It’s not over, I thought. If it were over, that would have been the first thing I’d have thrown out. My first step in moving on. (I probably would have hurled it right out the window, but let’s not get technical.)