The Wedding Beat (27 page)

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Authors: Devan Sipher

BOOK: The Wedding Beat
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“I seriously doubt that,” he grunted. “So, is this what you consider taking care of my granddaughter? Hiding your nose in a newspaper outside her wedding?”

If it wasn’t for the sting on my thigh where he rapped me with his cane, I would have thought I was hallucinating.

“You remember asking me to do that?” I had replayed his request in my mind countless times. “I assumed you had mistaken me for Alexander.”

“I’ve got a heart condition, not a brain tumor,” he chided. “I saw how you looked at her. I’ve only seen that look once before in my life. On my son’s face, when he looked at Melinda’s mother.”

I would have teared up if I wasn’t afraid he’d hit me again.

“I need to get inside,” I said.

“Damn straight.”

He rocketed through the growing crowd, swinging his cane like a machete and lurching from side to side with his unsteady gait. “Old fart with bad knees coming through,” he said. I barely kept up with him.

“I already passed the entrance exam,” he barked at the policeman, breezing by and dragging me behind him by my jacket sleeve.

“Wait a second there, sir,” the officer said. “I need this gentleman’s name.”

“He’s with me.”

“I need to check everyone’s—”

“This is my grandson. My numbskull grandson who showed up at the last minute without letting anyone know he’s coming.”

The cop looked skeptical.

“Are you going to deprive an old man of his grandson’s company?” It was a heartfelt plea, minus the flinty theatrics. The officer waved me in.

As soon as we were inside the travertine marble foyer, Melinda’s grandfather pulled me to the far end of the oblong antechamber through a set of brass doors and into a stone stairwell.

“Melinda’s in the basement bridal room,” he said. I sprang toward the stairs, but he swatted me and pointed to a set of doors on the other side of the stairwell.

“There’s a small chapel in there.”

As much as I appreciated his help, I didn’t think this was the time for a tour.

“It’s someplace you can lay low,” he said. “I’ll tell Melinda I want a private moment with her and ask her to meet me in the chapel.” Sounded like a plan. “You’re on your own after that, buster.”

I didn’t know how to thank him, so I said precisely that.

“I called you my grandson back there,” he said. “If you want to thank me, don’t make me out to be a liar.”

He limped down the stairs, and I launched through the doorway, finding myself in a short corridor leading to even more doors. As I pushed them open, I heard male voices singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

I glimpsed ruddy men in tuxedos and dropped to the floor.

“For he’s a jolly good feh-eh-low. The rest will be denied.”

There was a chorus of guffaws and the clinking of glasses while I crawled backward through both sets of doors. Loudspeakers in my brain broadcast the emergency alert “Abort plan!” Jumping to my feet, I sprinted down the stairs, but came to a dead halt when I spied a silvery chignon ascending from below. Beneath the chignon was Genevieve, eyes cast downward, watching her step in her slate gray, long-sleeved gown.

“There’s
simply no time,” she said to a bridesmaid accompanying her. “Melinda can speak to her grandfather after the ceremony.”

Doing an about-face, I bounded back up two more landings, and through an open doorway, closing the heavy wooden door behind me. Turning round to get my bearings, I was greeted by a blast of Bach from a pipe organ. I was standing in the rear of the temple’s balcony, looking out at the ten-story arched basilica of marble mosaics and gilded tiles. There was an elaborate wedding canopy of wisteria vines and orchid blossoms, and guests were already filling the dark-wood pews below. I was running out of time.

I put my ear to the door and listened for footsteps. Not hearing any, I pressed against it. I heard a click. I didn’t want to hear a click. A click was not my friend. I pushed again, but it didn’t budge. I was locked in. No, I was cursed.

I pictured being trapped on the balcony for the wedding, forced to witness the event against my will. Unless I reenacted the ending of
The Graduate
by screaming out Melinda’s name—and then requesting she come upstairs and rescue me.

Sweat trickled from my brow, but I refused to panic. I was going to succeed. I
had
to succeed. Scanning the balcony, I saw an exit on the other side. I crept along the back wall of the synagogue, past a bank of glowing, jewel-stained windows. Then I made a quick turn into another stairwell.

And down.

I half ran, half leaped, sliding along each landing and pivoting to the next set of steps until I was on the ground floor, dashing through a set of doors and into the foyer. I was in full gallop when Alexander emerged from the opposite end. I reversed course and propelled myself back into the stairwell.

I was panting as I paced the small vestibule. Back and forth.
Occasionally banging my head against the stone wall. I heard the muffled sound of the organ playing Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” It might as well have been “Taps.” I peeked through a small window in the door and could see the bridal party lined up two by two in the foyer: the men in deep gray tuxedos and the women in lighter gray, cap-sleeved gowns, carrying bouquets of white orchids. The sheer inevitability of it all was overwhelming. It occurred to me I should step aside. Make an unobtrusive exit after the ceremony began.

Then I saw her.

A fairy-tale princess in cascading white tulle floating across the polished floor. Her bare, slender arms hovering around her embroidered silk corset. Her face framed with soft curls.

I don’t know how long I stood there transfixed, but before I knew it, the maid of honor was entering the sanctuary, and the antique walnut doors closed shut behind her. Melinda was alone. I took a deep breath. Everything in life is a choice, and I was choosing to be happy.

I opened the door. “Melinda,” I said, moving toward her.

She recoiled in surprise.

“There’s no excuse for what I’m doing.” I searched her eyes for encouragement, but all I found was disoriented distress. “Except I’m in love with you, and I think I have been since New Year’s. Since I saw you at that party.” I was finding language to be a terribly inefficient way of communicating. “Of course I remember meeting you there. I remember the first thing you ever said to me. You were standing on the terrace and asked if I had a bungee cord. You said you wanted to make a quick escape. Well, I’m your bungee cord. Or I want to be. I want to be the one who lets you fly and keeps you safe.”

She didn’t say anything. Not at first. But that didn’t last long.

“Now?”
she said. “You’re telling me this
now
?” She hurled the words at me.

“Better late than never?”

She looked at me like I had two heads, and then she slapped me. Hard. I didn’t expect that.

The doors to the sanctuary burst open, and as I turned to see more than four hundred faces staring at me, Alexander coldcocked me.

Now,
that
I should have expected.

As I staggered around, I thought to myself,
He’s entitled.
After all, I was intruding at his wedding. Embarrassing him in front of family, friends and the mayor of New York City. I realized that my behavior was abominable.

Then I lunged at him, headfirst into his solar plexus. Or something bony in that vicinity.

Guests shrieked and scattered as he fell backward onto the white aisle runner. I was on top of him. Briefly. Before the groomsmen pulled me off of him. I’d like to say I gave as good as I got, but I’d be lying. They were beating the crap out of me.

“Stop it!” Melinda screamed.

I saw stars. I heard sirens. Well, one siren. Getting louder. Coming closer. Then I felt my body rising. Was this it? Is this what it felt like to have sacrificed everything for love? If so, I wondered why my arms hurt. Then I realized two groomsmen were lifting me by my armpits for Alexander to have one last go at me.

“You have some nerve showing up here,” he spat. He was pulling back his arm to do maximum damage when someone’s fist caught his chin.

Hope’s fist, to be precise. The ambulance siren was still wailing as she stood there with a gurney, two paramedics and Liam, video camera glued to his eye.

Alexander was still rubbing his jaw when Hope came back for seconds, socking him full force in the stomach. He doubled over.

“That’s for Doctors Without Borders,” she said, shaking out her hand.

“Who the hell are you?” Melinda was bewildered.

Hope looked at her as if she was mentally challenged. “I’m your freakin’ fairy godmother.”

“Don’t listen to anything she says,” Alexander coughed out. “She’s a stupid whore.”

I pounced on him. My hands reached for his neck. It was too thick, which just added insult to injury. I pressed my thumbs into his trachea as we both tumbled to the ground.

“Don’t ever say that again,” I snarled. I didn’t know what had come over me, but I kind of liked it, assuming I didn’t end up dead or in jail. “Do you hear me?”

There was no response. I pushed harder.

“Yes,” he gurgled. I released him. A feeling of infinite power swept through me as I rose to my feet. I was king of the world, or at least a few square inches of it. Until I saw the stricken expression on Melinda’s face, and my knees buckled.

The paramedics were quickly at my side, carrying me to the gurney. There was blood—I wasn’t sure whose—on my hands. I wiped my arm across my mouth and it came away with more blood. That pretty much answered the question.

“Melinda,” I called out as I was wheeled away. There was so much I wanted to say. So many things I wanted to explain. “I’m sorry for messing up your wedding.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Sanity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

T
he siren continued to blare as we careened through the streets of the city. I lay on the gurney, painfully aware of each bump in the road. Hope stabbed me with the third needle in as many minutes, and Liam moved his camera in for a close-up.

“Will you turn that thing off?” I grunted.

He shook his head.

“Why the hell not?”

“That’s good,” he said. “Show some emotion. The lying-inert stuff’s kind of lame.”

Hope shushed him. He turned the camera on her, and she blushed. “Don’t get Gavin riled up,” she said, talking like I wasn’t there. “I just gave him a sedative.”

“I don’t need a sedative,” I said, “and I don’t need to go to the hospital.” I tried to sit up, but a crippling pain in my side convinced me to abandon that plan of action.

“Hulk Hogan here’s ready to go another round,” said Liam.

My phone rang, and I fumbled with it. My fingers were moving in slow motion, but I was determined to answer in anticipation of hearing Melinda’s voice.

“Gavin, why didn’t you return your brother’s calls?” It wasn’t Melinda. “He said he left you three messages about potential wedding venues.” Ever since Gary and Leslie announced their engagement, my mother had become their unofficial event coordinator. The surprising part was that Leslie claimed to be enjoying her help.

“They’re thinking about getting married in New York, and you’re the expert. Why do I hear a siren?”

“I’m kind of in an ambulance.” I braced myself for a shriek that didn’t come.

“Did you have an accident?”

The simplest answer was “Yes.” Still no shriek. “I’m fine,” I added.

“Make sure the doctors know you’re allergic to chlorine.”

“I don’t think they’ll be taking me swimming.”

I thought I heard her laugh, but it could have been the drugs.

“Will you call me from the hospital?” Her voice was calm. And soothing. I’d forgotten how good she always was at dealing with emergencies. When I was a kid, I had broken arms and I had totaled cars, one time simultaneously, and she was Supermom, riding to the rescue without question or complaint.

“I’ll call,” I heard myself promising.

“I love you, Gavin,” she said before hanging up. Those were precisely the words I wanted to hear. I just wished there was someone other than my mother saying them to me.

I turned to Hope as a dark thought percolated in my groggy
mind. “You don’t think Melinda will go through with the wedding, do you?”

I could hear Alexander begging for forgiveness. Worse, Melinda offering it. I watched them walk down the bloodstained aisle. Then I opened my eyes.

There were fluorescent lights overhead, and daylight streamed in through a small window. I was in a hospital bed, attached to an IV. I had a throbbing headache. I went to rub behind my ear and found gauze wrapped around my head. There was more wrapped around my rib cage.

A young nursing student stood at the foot of my bed, holding my chart. She smiled at me and said, “You just missed your girlfriend.”

I saw Hope’s writing on a Post-it note beside the bed. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

The note said “Good morning, Hulk. I’ll come by again on my break.”

I noticed she had also left me a get-well-soon card. I opened it up. “They don’t really make an appropriate greeting for this kind of situation, but I hope you feel better.” It was signed “Melinda.”

I bolted up in the bed, ignoring my body’s protestations. “When did she leave?” I asked the nursing student.

“Who?”

“Melinda,” I nearly shouted. No response. “My girlfriend.”

“You said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

“Did you see someone leave this card?” I waved it spastically.

“I just told you, she walked out about a minute before you woke up.”

I swung my legs out of the bed.

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

I grabbed the IV stand and headed for the door.

“Get back in bed.”

That wasn’t about to happen. But neither was running down the hallway. A piercing pain made me grab hold of my right side.

“You have two broken ribs and cranial contusions,” she scolded while nervously shadowing me. “Where are you going?”

I wished I knew. I half shuffled, half stumbled down the hallway. Until I came to a crossroads. Well, cross corridors. Melinda could have gone any of three directions.

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