The Wedding Beat (17 page)

“The valets won’t let me near the place.” It was Gary calling from the front gate. “Sorry I’m late. Are you ready to leave?”

The honest answer was no, but I wasn’t ready to stay either.

I’d been deliberating while interviewing guests. Deep down I knew that Ari was right. There were times when you needed to let go and take a chance, but I hadn’t decided whether this was one of those times.

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be something I decided. It was supposed to be spontaneous. I liked being spontaneous. I just preferred to do it with some preparation.

In fairness to myself, this wasn’t a no-brainer about having fun and maybe hooking up with someone. It meant violating rules that could have severe repercussions. But were there really any rules when it came to sex and love? Thousands of years of
history from Adam and Eve to Bill and Monica said no. Then again, they all suffered for their indulgences.

I watched Brooke sashay toward the dessert table, and for a moment I couldn’t remember what it was I was deliberating. The only important question was whether
she
wanted me to stay, and there was only one way to find out. I was advancing toward her, on the verge of asking, when Gary had phoned. I took that as divine intervention. Though it might have just been bad luck.

Gary was standing on the side of the street next to his Prius. He looked good in a green hoodie and jeans. He had the same ex-soccer player build, but his face was somewhat fuller than when I last saw him. He was wearing silver eyeglasses, which was new for him, and as he embraced me in a bear hug, I saw he also had some silver in his dark brown hair and small laugh lines around his eyes. It was jarring. What happened to my baby brother running down the stairs of our house in his footed pajamas?

“Leslie was going to come with me, and then she wasn’t. Then she wanted to know if there was any food you would want, and I said what you would want was to get picked up on time. Then she got hurt, and I got pissed. Or vice versa. Either way, I had to apologize, which took more time, and here I am with my lame excuse.”

I wanted to stay. It suddenly hit me. I really wanted to stay with Brooke. I deserved to have what Gary had. What everyone seemed to have. Someone in their life to torment them. To love them. To keep them company. I didn’t know if Brooke could be that person for me, but if I left I’d never know.

I told Gary about her, and it occurred to me he might think I was choosing a woman I barely knew over him. There were fault lines in our relationship since childhood, and as the
younger sibling he often accused me of taking him for granted. It had been the standard outburst whenever I missed his soccer tournaments. Blowing him off on a Saturday night after he drove across town to pick me up could trigger an eruption of buried resentment.

He looked wounded. I was being a terrible brother. “It’s not important,” I said. “I go to these weddings and get caught up in the romantic atmosphere. Occupational hazard. Sorry.” I was in town for less than twenty-four hours. What kind of a jerk tells his brother he doesn’t want to spend any time with him?

“Is she hot?” he asked, cutting to the core of the matter, as far as he was concerned.

“She’s very cute.”

“Cute as in, ‘She has nice dimples’ or ‘She looked smokin’ in the towel’?”

“Smokin’.”

“You have to stay.”

I was grateful to hear him say that, but I still felt guilty. Noticing my hesitation, he said, “If you don’t stay, I will.”

He was joking, but not entirely. He seemed preoccupied. I wanted to find out what was going on with him, but it wasn’t a conversation to have on a street. “I’m not sure Leslie would appreciate that,” I said.

“Well, the Leslie thing is getting old. You know?”

“It’s been only seven months.”

“Almost eight,” he said. “There’s a lot of women in the world who look good in towels. Even more who look good out of them.”

I was afraid I was being a bad influence, which was an odd role reversal. “She obviously cares about you,” I said.

“I care about her, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.” How could two such different people come out of the same womb?

“Get back to your party,” he said, smacking me on the back. “Remember: ‘Better to be a king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime.’ That’s a DeNiro quote. Look it up.” He slid into the driver’s seat and lowered the window. “Call me if you need a place to stay tonight, but I’m warning you, I’ll never let you live it down.”

As he sped off into the night, I could hear Kanye West championing the good life over the DJ’s loudspeakers. I half ran back to the tent, eager to see Brooke. Her table was in the back, and I hurried over. But she wasn’t there. I didn’t see her standing nearby. Or at the bar. A crowd had gathered on the dance floor around Ari and Roxanne, who were rocking out to Kanye’s rapping, but Brooke wasn’t among them.

Outside, guests were wandering around the property. It was hard to make out faces from a distance in the darkness. The lanterns that were hung along the periphery contributed more shadows than illumination.

I checked the terrace and inside the house. A woman was entering the white marble bathroom on the main floor, but it wasn’t Brooke. I started to panic. It occurred to me I had never asked Brooke how late she was staying. Was it possible she had left?

I raced to the front gate. A couple was waiting for their car. More people were approaching. No sign of Brooke. I tried calling her, but it went straight to her voice mail. I didn’t even know if she had brought her phone with her. She could be back in the tent. She could already be gone. She could have left while I was talking to Gary, or while I was searching for her. I paced back and forth, unsure what to do next. I risked missing her if I went anywhere else, but standing out front for the rest of the night was ridiculous. Sweating and dizzy and incapable of making a rational decision, I dashed back to the tent.

Rihanna’s latest single was playing, and Ari was doing backflips to hoots and catcalls. It was like watching someone perform an Olympic floor exercise in a tuxedo. I still didn’t see Brooke anywhere, but I made eye contact with Roxanne, who was standing on the sidelines.

“A woman should never marry a man more limber than she is,” she said, raising a champagne glass in my direction.

“Have you seen Brooke?”

“I think she went down to the beach,” she said as Ari grabbed her round her thighs and lifted her into the air. “Ari!”

It was easier to see the edge of the bluff by daylight. Finding the steps at night was no easy task, and getting down them even less so. It was a good thing I hadn’t been drinking, because there were a hell of a lot of them. I huffed and puffed my way downward on pure adrenaline, holding on to low shrubbery for balance. I couldn’t see Brooke or even where the steps ended. I pitched forward when I hit sand, grateful to have made it to the bottom and not at all looking forward to the return trip. Letting my eyes adjust to the dim light, I spotted Brooke sitting near the undulating surf, and I stumbled toward her, catching my breath.

She looked up, startled, as I collapsed by her side. “I thought you left,” she said.

I shook my head.

“So, you’re happy you decided to cover the wedding?”

I nodded.

“I told you they had a good story. I have a client getting married in May with an even better one, if you’re willing to put up with my pitching you another piece.”

I nodded again.

“Are you off duty now?” She lifted an open wine bottle that
had been half-buried in the sand beside her. “I pinched a party favor from the bar. It’s not Manischewitz.” She laughed as she handed me the purloined pinot, and I took a swig. I watched the waves lap at the shore and exhaled deeply.

“Can I ask you something?” I said. It was her turn to nod.

And I kissed her.

The universe didn’t burst into heart-shaped confetti. I had taken her by surprise, and she pulled away. I was crestfallen. Then she threw her arms around my neck and drew me to her. We kissed again, and this time there were cymbals and electric guitars. My hands found the smoothness of her spine while high above us Rihanna pleaded, “Please don’t stop the music.”

We didn’t make it to her bedroom. We barely made it back to her apartment without having to pull over on the highway, and as soon as the door closed behind us, we were tangled in each other’s limbs.

“You’re so beautiful,” I murmured, slipping a thin strip of fabric off her shoulder and replacing it with hungry kisses.

Soon we were rolling naked on her living room carpet. We rocked in slow motion. Nothing existed but her eyes, her breath. Her lips, her neck. Her touch.

“Do you have condoms?” she asked, her arms and legs wrapped tightly around me.

Fortunately, my wallet was within reach. Rising to my knees, I held her to me like a second skin while grabbing for my pants. I whispered in her ear, “Let’s go to the bedroom.” She shook her head coquettishly while stroking my back. I nibbled on her earlobe and attempted to stand.

She shook her head more emphatically. “No,” she said,
pushing me backward to the carpet. “I don’t let guys in my bed until we’ve been dating at least a month.”

Then she got on top of me.

Sunlight was flooding the apartment when I opened my eyes. Sheer curtains billowed in the morning breeze. My back was stiff from sleeping on the floor, but otherwise I felt good.
Very
good.

I got the towel off,
I thought to myself with bemused pride. But that wasn’t what was making me feel so light-headed. Something had happened over the course of the night that I hadn’t anticipated. Something beyond the physical. Though that was how it began, as we clung to each other, wordlessly revealing secret longings. Then we lolled in each other’s arms and talked late into the night. About pizza cravings and fish tacos and Los Cabos and last relationships and what we wanted in our next ones.

It was the first time I’d talked about Laurel without my chest constricting. I was even able to joke about her criticism of my recycling habits. Maybe I was moving past the pain. Or maybe I was moving forward. Luxuriating in the memory of Brooke’s embrace, I felt deep affection. I turned over to snuggle, but she was gone.

She wasn’t on the sofa or in the kitchen making coffee. Assuming she was in her bedroom, I put on my boxers and ventured toward the inner sanctum. I stood in the doorway opposite a pristine queen-sized bed with a voluminous white duvet. I knocked, but there was no response. I listened for the telltale sound of rustling clothes or running water. Nothing.

Then I saw her sitting on the bedroom balcony at a table with an open laptop, her cell phone to her ear. She was in a
white terrycloth robe with her hair haphazardly clipped high on her head. She looked effortlessly enticing. I opened the glass door and kissed the nape of her neck, imagining what it might feel like to do so every day.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said, smiling up at me. She covered the phone with the palm of her hand. “Are you feeling charitable?”

It was an odd question. “Very,” I said, fondling a loose lock of her hair.

She pressed a button on her phone and set it on the table. “Alexander, I’m putting you on speakerphone. Gavin, meet Alexander. Alexander, meet Gavin.” She playfully hooked a finger under my waistband, and I wondered just how charitable I had volunteered to be.

“Gavin,” a tinny voice exclaimed. “Brooke has said amazing things about you.”

She tapped my arm. I looked down, and she was typing something on her laptop. “Don’t hate me,” she wrote. “Alexander is the client I told you about, and he was begging to talk to you.”

Did she tell him I had slept over? I was torn between machismo pride and professional concern. Pride won out as Brooke massaged my inner thigh.

“I would love to tell you about my upcoming May wedding,” he said. Of course he would.

“He met his fiancée on a plane in Spain,” Brooke interjected.

“It wasn’t raining on the plane,” he quipped. I resisted the impulse to groan.

“He got off in Madrid, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind.” Brooke’s sky blue eyes lit up while narrating the story. “He drove five hundred miles to surprise her at her hotel in Barcelona, and proposed two days later.”

“Very romantic,” I admitted. Also a little crazy, but I was
beginning to think the two were synonymous. I was already contemplating a return trip to LA as soon as possible, and wondered whether I should tell her.

“You two should set up a time to talk,” Brooke said, shifting a little too easily into full PR mode. A calendar appeared on her computer screen. “How’s next Thursday?”

My neck stiffened. It flashed through my mind that Brooke had slept with me only to get another story in The Paper, but I felt guilty for even thinking it. Working at The Paper was making me cynical.

It was going to cost me only an hour to meet with Alexander, and not even that if I got a story out of it. I agreed to lunch before we hung up. Brooke jumped into my arms and exuberantly kissed me good morning.

“So what do you want to do now?” I asked, gripping her waist in a way I hoped suggested what I’d most like to do, but I would have been happy doing anything as long as she was by my side. “How about a walk on the beach?”

“I would love to,” she said, caressing my pecs (which I instinctively flexed). “But I have to meet a client in an hour.”

“How about after?” My plane didn’t leave until late afternoon.

“Unfortunately, I have a haircut.”

“That sounds like something that could be postponed,” I said, sliding my hands down around her hips.

“Not really,” she said. Not what I was hoping for. “It would take a month to get another appointment,” she explained.

“Then I’ll go with you,” I said, proud of my quick thinking.

“I can’t imagine a more boring way for you to spend a day in LA.”

“Maybe you’re underestimating the allure of curling irons,” I said, stealing another kiss.

She didn’t respond right away. To the kiss or the plan. “It’s really crowded at the salon,” she finally said. “Half the time I can’t even find a seat.”