The Wedding Beat (21 page)

I spent the day declining and disclaiming, when I should have been finishing my article about two former reality-show contestants who had met while competing on
The Amazing Race
. At eight thirty, I was still at my desk instead of at the Upper East Side townhouse where Melinda’s engagement party had already started.

Well, physically I was at my desk. Mentally I was picturing Melinda in a strapless black dress and plotting ways to get her alone at her party. An impossible feat if I didn’t get out of my office.

I was ready to beg Renée for an extension on my deadline, but she had slipped out without my noticing. Often she worked late into the night. In fact, we had some of our best conversations well past midnight. Bleary-eyed, she’d reminisce about the old days when pneumatic tubes carried stories (and the occasional reptile) to the press room, where printers (the unionized kind) set articles word by word in “hot type” metal plates.

But Renée was gone. As was everyone in the department, which was unusual. But it had been an unusual week. An unusually tense one, as the deadline for voluntary buyouts came and went. Those who chose to take them were both ridiculed and envied by the rest of us, who chose to stay and play an adult version of musical chairs, in which chairs would soon be eliminated one by one, along with computers, security passes and paychecks.

People were tiptoeing around, waiting for the music to stop. They were afraid of drawing attention to themselves, so they made their escapes each night as quickly and quietly as possible. I was the only person working late in the entire wing, and
the automated overhead lights kept going off. Every fifteen minutes, I had to get up and do jumping jacks to convince the motion and heat sensors that I was, in fact, a human life form in need of illumination.

Metaphorically, of course, I remained in the dark. I didn’t know when the layoffs would start. Or if they would start. Maybe Renée was right when she said it was all just a scare tactic. If so, it worked. I would never have taken solo responsibility for a blog if I hadn’t been worried about losing my job.

I grimaced while doing my umpteenth word count. I had only seven hundred words of what needed to be a thousand-word story. I needed to get the piece done and get uptown. The lights went out again, and this time the sensors deemed my in-place calisthenics insufficient proof of my existence. So I ran up and down the hall between the cubicles, waving my arms in the air. I was confused to see Renée’s computer was still on and a coat was on the back of her chair. I stopped when I noticed her purse was also hanging there.

“What are you doing?” I heard Renée before I could see her approaching in the darkness.

I was about to tell her that I wasn’t snooping when the fluorescents flickered on, and I was jolted by what they revealed.

It wasn’t the blood itself that was so shocking, as the amount of it. Renée was holding several saturated pieces of Kleenex to her nose, but viscous red fluid was still oozing down to her chin.

“What happened?” I asked, sprinting to my desk to get her more Kleenex.

“I’m bleeding,” she grunted. She was also crying. “I get nosebleeds. It’s nothing.”

I had never seen Renée cry. It was more disturbing than the blood. As I handed her a box of tissues, I remembered reading
somewhere that nosebleeds were a symptom of leukemia.
Could Renée have been diagnosed with cancer?

“They fired me,” she rasped, and collapsed into her chair. “The bastards fired me.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think. For weeks we had been warned, but I still wasn’t prepared. Even if I had felt prepared, I would never have expected Renée to be let go.

“Heidi Takahashi called me into her office.” Renée’s body heaved as she spoke. Her words came out in staccato bursts between sniffles and convulsions. “First thing she did was introduce herself as a managing editor. Like I don’t know who she is. Like I haven’t been here since she was in diapers.”

My mind was racing. If Renée was expendable, I was a goner.

“When I started working here, there was no such thing as a female editor, let alone a female managing editor.” Her eyes reddened as her tobacco-cured voice rumbled with gritty indignity. “Women weren’t even allowed in the newsroom. We were exiled to Ladies Fashion or the secretary pool. It took me ten years to get my first A-section byline, and now this snub-nosed pipsqueak in open-toe pumps has the gall to tell me ‘The Paper is no longer in need of your services.’ She couldn’t even tell me what those services were, because she hadn’t had time to review my file.” Renée wiped at her eyes with the wad of Kleenex, distributing a bloody smear across her face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, wanting to say something more useful. I had the urge to embrace her, but I knew better. It was one thing for her to show her vulnerability and quite another for me to acknowledge witnessing it.

She pulled more tissues out of the box and plugged her nose. Tears trickled down her cheek. “This isn’t how I wanted to go out.”

I couldn’t imagine The Paper without her. Not only had she worked there for almost half its history, but she also personified its core values. Her exacting standards for accuracy safeguarded what she considered a sacred pact between the newspaper and the public. If The Paper had a soul, it was because of Renée and a handful of others. Take them away, and it was just an office building with unconventional elevators.

“Don’t give your life to this place,” she said, pointing a bony finger at me. “It will suck you dry and feast on your sinew.” She seemed less a scrappy newswoman than an Old Testament prophet as she rose unsteadily to her feet.

“Renée, do you want me to take you to a hospital?” I asked, alarmed by both her warning and her wobbling.

She shook her head slowly with a melancholy gaze. “The problem with loving a newspaper is it can’t love you back.”

With Renée’s words reverberating in my brain, I paid the taxi driver and dashed toward the columned portico of a beaux arts townhouse. I had one goal: to find Melinda. I had no idea what I was going to say to her, but doing my best Stuart Smalley imitation, I silently affirmed that I was good enough, I was smart enough and my best chance of winning her over was while I still had a job. An elderly security guard was standing in front of the massive carved door, nonchalantly smoking a cigar.

“Where’s the fire?” he asked as I ran up the front steps.

“I’m a little late,” I said, trying to get by him.

“The party started at eight,” he said. “At eight fifteen you were a little late. At nine thirty, you’re early for Thanksgiving.” A real character. Just my luck. And he wasn’t budging.

“I’m here as a reporter for The Paper,” I said, pulling out my notepad.

“I
thought they did everything on computers these days,” he said, taking another puff on his cigar. “You sure you’re a real reporter?”

“That’s what it says on my paycheck.” I was impatient to get inside.

“Well, then, you can’t be working for The Paper. They don’t have any money left to pay people.” He grinned, enjoying himself at my expense while purposefully blocking the doorway. He looked to be in his seventies with an impressive thatch of white hair and the stance of a former prizefighter eager to prove he could still go mano a mano. “So is every fancy-shmancy party considered news these days?”

“Only the shmanciest,” was my flippant response as I considered crawling between his legs. He erupted in a fit of phlegmy coughs. I wasn’t sure if he was choking or laughing.

“You better get inside,” he said. “There could be a breaking story on the tortellini.”

He pushed open the door, revealing a grand expanse of limestone walls and marble floor, with society types sipping from crystal goblets and a jazz trio playing in a corner. I navigated through the sea of mingling guests, looking for Melinda, but my height was working against me as I tried to peek over padded shoulders and French twists. At the far end of the room, an ornate winding stairway swept upward, and I headed toward it for a bird’s-eye view.

“Gavin, we missed you at dinner.” It was Genevieve, descending like the plague. I pivoted my head from side to side, scanning the room for the one face I was seeking. “The mayor already left, but he said you can call him for a quote.”

“I’ll do that,” I said while maneuvering around her, but she hooked her arm through mine and guided me back down the stairs as she whispered forcefully in my ear.

“Now,
you didn’t hear this from me, but the mayor has promised to endorse Alexander for city council next year.”

“Alexander’s running for councilman?” It was the first I had heard of it.

“He didn’t want to throw too much at Melinda all at once, but she’s going to be a wonderful asset for him.” I bristled, though Genevieve didn’t seem to notice. “Not only for the council race,” she continued. “You may not know this, but my great-grandfather was governor and two uncles were state senators. It’s sort of a family business.”

She was steering me toward a solitary socialite standing at the bar. I cranked my neck so far around, I feared I was going to pull a muscle. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flurry of activity among a group of people near the base of the stairs. The waters parted, so to speak. Melinda emerged and ascended in a red wrap dress that caressed each curve even more than the black strapless one I had imagined.

“Gavin.” Genevieve tugged impatiently on my arm. “I want to introduce you to Libby Rockefeller.”

At The Paper, the rule was there was no difference between a Rockefeller and a Rastafarian, but that didn’t mean it was ever advantageous to be rude to one of the former. Yet even saying hello would obligate me to endure chitchat while Melinda disappeared, so I deployed the strategy I learned from a foreign correspondent I had briefly dated.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m just getting over a tapeworm infestation and need to find a restroom.” While Genevieve shuddered, I fled.

There were several people standing on the second-floor landing, but Melinda wasn’t one of them. I poked my head into the nearest room. It was the kind of oak-paneled library I had only
seen in movies, with antique leather club chairs, Tiffany lamps and thousands of hardcover books.

“Thinking of buying the place?”
Alexander thumped me on the back, startling me.

“Your parents have a beautiful home,” I jabbered.

“Thanks, but my parents’ brownstone is a fisherman’s shack compared to this place. No, this is Melinda’s home.”

I had been to Melinda’s home and still had the bruises to prove it. “I thought she lived on the Upper West Side,” I said.

“You know how some kids put up tents in their backyard to feel like they’re roughing it? Melinda’s apartment sort of serves the same purpose. This is where she grew up. Her bedroom’s down the hall, and she hasn’t changed it since she was in high school.”

I was a little dizzy. I flopped into one of the chairs, wondering how much I didn’t know about her.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Alexander sat opposite me. “When I realized who she was, I almost shit in my pants. There I was on this plane to Madrid, sitting next to the Altman department store heiress. Beautiful
and
loaded.” I knew I was focusing on the wrong point, but my first thought was that Altman was a Jewish name.

“You asked me how I decided to blow off my conference and drive to Barcelona.” Alexander leaned in toward me. “The only question for me was whether I should drive or take a plane. I wasn’t going to let her have a chance to meet any other man. Ever. I mean, only an idiot would let a woman like Melinda get away. Right?”

“There he is!” A thickish thirtysomething guy with an anorexic twentysomething spouse burst into the room. “Alexander, we have to take off.”

Alexander jumped to his feet, and the two men pounded each other’s backs. “You’re not staying for dessert?”

“Do I look like I need dessert?”

I wandered out of the room and down the hall, my mind reeling. Melinda was an heiress, and I was a fool. Not because she was an heiress. Because I let her get away. I should have grabbed hold of her on that rooftop and vowed eternal devotion. No, I should have just kissed her. How could one mistake keep boomeranging back to haunt me? Oh, that’s right—because I chose to put myself in a situation where I’d be forced to deal with it over and over. I could hear Hope’s voice in my head, berating me.

I passed a half-open doorway and caught a glimpse of a pink coverlet on a canopied bed. I leaned against the door, and it swung open. I told myself I didn’t belong there. I vowed to start making better choices—as soon as I took a quick look around. There were volleyball trophies, a poster for a school play and two framed pictures on a white bureau: a young girl on a man’s shoulders, and the same girl sharing a milk shake with a woman who looked a lot like a darker-haired version of Melinda. I heard a floorboard creak and hastily turned round with a guilty expression on my face.

Melinda was standing in the doorway, her Bacall-esque silhouette backlit by a hallway chandelier. “I’m on to you,” she said.

There were so many problematic ways she could have meant that. I was at a loss for how to respond. She flipped on a light switch and eased into the room. I could swear I heard her shimmering dress gliding along her skin.

“I saw Gawker today,” she said, reminding me of one of the day’s many events I was attempting to forget. “You’ve gone to the dark side, and I don’t mean Fox News.” Her dimples made a brief appearance. “Here I thought you were the last romantic.”

Was she flirting?

“I am,” I assured her, launching a charm offensive with what I hoped was an irresistibly disarming smile. “Well, not the last, I hope.”

She laughed. “Then what’s with the divorce blog?”

“It’s not a divorce blog.”

“Whatever it is, it sounds ghoulish. Like ambulance chasing. Where are you going to find people willing to talk on the record about their marriages breaking up?”

“Some people belong together and some people don’t,” I said meaningfully. “For those who belong together, getting married is an amazing experience, but for others, going their separate ways can also be a happy event.”