The Wedding Beat

by Devan Sipher

  I couldn’t stop thinking of what her grandfather had said to me. He was obviously confused. Probably delirious. Yet I couldn’t resist thinking it was some kind of sign.

  The glass doors opened again, and I saw Melinda’s mascara-stained face.

  “He’s in the ICU,” she said as she tottered toward me. “No one’s telling me much of anything.”

  I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure what was appropriate. I reached out my hand and she took it. I awkwardly patted her elbow with my other hand, and she slipped her arms around me, burying her face in my shoulder. I let myself enfold her. I could feel her heart beating. I could smell the faint scent of mandarin oranges in her hair. I was a terrible person.

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffled.

  “For what?”

  “For being such a wreck,” she said. “I appreciate your being here. I know it’s not what you get paid for. Or maybe it is. Comforting nervous brides.”

  With her body pressed against mine, I wasn’t thinking of her as a bride. “I thought I was comforting a nervous granddaughter.”

  “I’m both,” she said. As much as I wanted to be supportive and compassionate, that was the opening I’d been waiting for.

  “Are you having doubts about marrying Alexander?” I asked. If it wasn’t destiny for us to be together, I was going straight to hell.

  “How could I not?” she said, her head still resting on my shoulder. “I know how ridiculous it is to marry someone I barely know. He made this big romantic gesture, and I either had to say yes or risk being the girl who was afraid to take the leap.”

  That didn’t sound like true love, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

  “I’ve been looking for the right person for so long, you know?” She looked up at me. “How do you ever know it’s the right person? And how long do you wait? I’m already thirty-two. My mother was dead at thirty-five.” She retrieved a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. We were no longer touching, and I already missed the warmth of her breath.

  “Of course, there are things that bother me about Alexander,” she said quietly. “I wish he was here now. I wish he had taken my hand and stayed with me and said to hell with everyone else, but he’s very responsible. It’s one of the things I love about him. So how can I be upset?”

  She had every reason to be upset, but I was grateful Alexander wasn’t there.

  “You must hear this kind of thing all the time,” she said, gnawing on the nail of her index finger. She looked nervous and vulnerable. I didn’t want to say anything that would make her feel worse. “Lots of brides get cold feet, right? I’m not saying I’ve got cold feet, but if I did, what would you say to me?”

  There wasn’t a question of what I should say. I had the words in my head. Words I had used with Amy about trusting her feelings. And trusting love. It was the right thing to do. The noble thing to do.

  I just couldn’t do it.

  “Don’t marry him,” I said. Melinda’s eyes widened. “He’s not worthy of you. Do you really believe he didn’t know about your money? Or that he stayed at the party for anyone’s benefit but his own? He’s not here with you right now because he didn’t want to be. Because you’re not his priority. And you deserve to be with someone who always makes you his priority.”

  It all came pouring out without time to organize my thoughts. I was harsher than I intended to be. It was hard to hide my animosity for Alexander, but there was something I had left out. Something important, if I could just think of what it was.

  “I’m such a fool,” she said.

  “No. That’s not what I meant to say at all.” I had done this all wrong. There was something crucial I hadn’t told her.

  “You must really hate me.”

  Hate her? I’d just realized how much I loved her. That’s what I’d forgotten to say! I completely left out how I felt about her.

  “I saw that article on Gawker,” she said, “and it didn’t even occur to me what you were doing.”

  What did Gawker have to do with anything? “Melinda, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “You said enough. I get it. What better way to get a wedding-breakup story than to break it up yourself?”

  “WHAT?”

  “My grandfather could be dying, and all you care about is your pathetic blog.”

  “No!”

  “I have to hand it to you,” she said, her jaw tightening. “You’re very good at what you do. That whole sensitive-writer thing. Getting people to open up. You got me. You got me good.”

  “That’s not what I was doing.” I had to find a way to convince her.

  “Were you going to write about the poor little rich girl with abandonment issues? Or were you going to lead with how I didn’t trust my fiancé with my last name? Well, that’s not news. I never trust anyone. But I trusted you.”

  Paramedics wheeled in a stabbing victim on a crimson-stained gurney.

  “Melinda—” I reached for her, but she swatted my hand away.

  “Stay away from me and stay away from my fiancé!” Anger flashed in her eyes. And betrayal. I had hurt the person I most wanted to protect.

  “I never want to see you again,” was the last thing she said.

  The doors slid open, and she ran into the ER. She kept running down a long hallway. I watched her get smaller and smaller, until she was just a dark smudge in my shriveled world.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  No News Is Good News

  “Nothing good ever happens in a hospital,” my grandmother said, sounding even wearier than I felt. I had called her on my way to work, as was my habit, because if I hadn’t, she would have sensed something was wrong. And I didn’t want her worrying about me.

  “They’ve got Bernie hooked up to all these machines, and they’re draining the life out of him,” she said as I lumbered uptown under dense April clouds.

  “The machines are helping,” I said, forcing my voice into a cheerful register.

  “I don’t see them helping,” she replied testily.

  Our conversations were, more typically, short and upbeat. She’d pretend Bernie was improving, and I’d pretend I didn’t know better. This wasn’t a good day for changing our routine. This wasn’t a good day for anything. My goal was to get through it without breaking down completely. I had dragged myself out of bed, wanting to call in sick but knowing that would be a terrible mistake. The last thing I needed was for Melinda or Alexander to call The Paper before I had a chance to explain my actions. Not that I knew how I was going to do that.

  “I’m sorry, Gavin,” my grandmother said. “I’m just a little tired. Tell me about your new bog.”

  “It’s called a blog,” I said, though her name was more accurate. I had the urge to divulge what had happened the night before. I wanted her to tell me that all I had to do was eat a slice of her apple strudel and everything was going to be all right. But she hadn’t baked strudel in twenty years, and nothing was going to be all right. I had lost Melinda, and I was likely to lose my job. “The blog is going well,” I lied.

  “Are you dressing warm?” she asked. We were back on familiar ground.

  “It’s sixty-eight degrees here.”

  “That’s cold,” she said. Spoken like a true Floridian. “I’m sending you a sweater.”

  It wasn’t my birthday, and my grandmother had never cared for knitting. “That’s okay, Grandma. I have sweaters.”

  “I bought Bernie a cashmere V-neck the day before the accident,” she said, her voice becoming more pinched with each word. “He’s not going to be needing it.”

  I had known since February that Bernie wasn’t going to recover, yet hearing my grandmother give up hope was still unsettling, like being on one of those amusement park rides where the floor gives out from under you.

  I stood across the street from The Paper for ten minutes, letting its immensity loom over me. I dreaded going inside. It would have been humiliating enough having to admit my poor judgment to René
e, but the thought of telling Tucker was unbearable. I wondered if the Army recruiting station in Times Square was open.

  Soldiering on, I pressed the elevator call button, for once grateful I could count on several minutes of delay, but there were none. The elevator arrived instantaneously, taunting me with its eager, open-door salutation. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I heard the gears snickering.

  Paranoia wasn’t going to help me. I had plenty of real problems without viewing inanimate objects as antagonists. Yet as I walked along the fifth-floor corridor, the walls seemed to be sloping inward.

  Approaching my cubicle, I could see the message light on my telephone flashing. In and of itself, this was not unusual, but it was nonetheless fraught with perilous possibilities. The moment I sat down, the phone abruptly rang. It’s alive, I thought. The whole building’s alive. And it knows everything.

  Tamping down my rising hysteria, I recognized the number on the display panel. It was Roxanne’s. There were two reasons brides contacted me after articles were printed: to express gratitude or to complain, and thank-yous almost always came by e-mail. I let Roxanne go to voice mail. Then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled.

  When I opened my eyes, Tucker was hovering over me.

  “Could you come by my office for a few minutes?” He asked it so nonchalantly, a third-party observer might assume it was a casual request.

  “Sure,” I said, attempting to be equally casual. Like my body was functioning normally and my adrenal glands weren’t broadcasting a system-wide alert: All hands on deck!

  I followed Tucker the ten yards to his office, fighting the impulse to run the other direction and never look back.

  His secretary glanced up as we passed. I detected pity in her eyes. Or maybe it was fear. Tucker settled himself behind his desk and gestured. “Have a seat.”

  Were there three more ominous words in the English language?

  “I received an interesting call this morning,” he said, using the word “interesting” as a synonym for “career-ending.” “From a Genevieve Bigelow. I take it you know her.”

  My life was over. “Yes,” I mumbled, reminding myself even criminals have the right to remain silent.

  “She claims you urged her son’s fiancée not to marry him,” Tucker said. “Do you make a habit of demanding brides call off their weddings?”

  “I wasn’t demanding anything,” I said feebly. “I was answering a question.”

  “Isn’t it your job to be the one asking questions?” He was just playing with me. I was a dead reporter walking. Well, sitting. “Did you threaten her?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you offer her anything in return for canceling her wedding?”

  “No.”

  “Then why would Ms. Bigelow say you did?”

  I found myself contemplating the many benefits of beheadings. A swift execution was a merciful one.

  “The bride saw Gawker’s article about our blog,” I attempted to explain, “which might have confused her about my intentions.”

  Tucker’s eyes narrowed. “Well, she couldn’t have been that confused, because they still want us running a story. They just don’t want you writing it.” He flicked his thumbnail against his index finger, a nervous habit that usually surfaced when he was about to blow.

  “They want me to assign another reporter,” he said, leading up to the part about reassigning me permanently. I had an impulse to throw myself at his feet and beg him to let me keep my job. Working at The Paper wasn’t just what I did; it was who I was. I was the guy who wrote for the number one newspaper in the country. No, more than that. I was the guy who wrote about weddings, and I was good at it. It was the one thing in my life I took pride in.

  And I had blown it.

  “The problem is I don’t like being told how to run my department.” Tucker slammed his fist on his desk. “The nerve of these people. I don’t know how you have the patience to deal with them.”

  Huh?

  “I’d tell them all not to get married.” His lips briefly formed a smile. “But not until I filed my story.”

  I’d been reprieved.

  Tucker was taking my word against Genevieve’s. I wasn’t going to be a pitiful unemployed writer living on unfiltered vodka and tuna fish. I was shocked. I was grateful.

  “You’re staying on the piece,” he said.

  I was screwed. Staying on the piece wasn’t an option. I couldn’t do that to Melinda. Or to myself. “Tucker, don’t you think it would be difficult for me to continue to work with them?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you sign up for the easy journalism career?”

  There was a nasty edge in his voice. Still, I had to remember how thankful I was for the prospect of continued employment and branded alcohol.

  “It’s not just about it being easy or not.” I fumbled for words. “The truth is I think I’ve lost my objectivity. Just on this one story. I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner.” I was admitting to violating one of The Paper’s bedrock principles. But I was being honest about it, and I hoped that counted for something.

  Tucker leaned back in his chair, mulling the implications. “Well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” I nodded. “Objectivity is the most important thing,” he said, pausing for emphasis. “If you were writing about a real news event. But you write about weddings. There’s nothing whatsoever for you to be objective about. You jot down when couples met, where they married, and you’re out of there.”

  “That’s all you think I do?”

  “A trained monkey could write your stories, if a monkey knew the names of bridal gown designers.” I didn’t know if he really believed what he was saying, but he seemed to be taking great pleasure in disparaging me.

  That’s the price one pays to work at a place like The Paper. You put up with whatever is dished out, because there’s nowhere to go but down. Renée did it for almost fifty years. And I saw what that got her.

  “Now, I have a job to do,” he sneered. “No, with Renée gone, I have two jobs to do.” He spoke as if it weren’t implicit that he was actively involved in her dismissal. “She left me with a two-thousand-word story to edit on a movie about a freaking bridesmaid. God help me. So I suggest you get busy doing your job. While you still have one.” With that he turned his attention to his computer monitor.

  “There’s just one thing, Tucker.”

  “Yes?” he said, without looking up.

  “I quit.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The New Me

  “No one ever leaves The Paper,” said Renée. “Ever.”

  I had invited her to breakfast at an Upper West Side diner to see how she was doing, and she seemed to be doing pretty well as she chastised me between forkfuls of egg-white omelet.

  “They dragged me out of there kicking and screaming,” she said. “What on earth were you thinking?”

  I was thinking she’d be more supportive. Tony and Alison had taken me out for drinks. Even Captain Al had reached out. I’d been hesitant to open his e-mail, anticipating one last complaint about my punctuation. But what he wrote made no mention of my predilection for commas: “Gavin, I was saddened to learn of your departure, and I consider it The Paper’s loss. It’s been a privilege to work with you.”

  High praise from a man who despised sentimentality. So why was Renée busting my newfound balls? Especially since my action was largely motivated by the shabby way she was treated. I would have liked a little recognition of that. But what I really wanted was access to her Rolodex. I needed a new job ASAP.

  “You made a huge mistake,” she said.

  Quitting The Paper or buying her a meal? Her lack of empathy was beginning to piss me off. “Why, Renée? Why was it such a huge mistake?”

  “Because I arranged for you to get a promotion.”

  My first thought was, How? (My second was, How much?)

  “It was one of the last things I did,” she said
, giving me a look that suggested she deeply regretted the effort. It was a cruel joke to be indebted for something I didn’t even get to enjoy.

  My phone rang. As I hurriedly switched the ringer to vibrate, I saw Roxanne’s number displayed. She had already left me two cryptic messages insisting I call her back as soon as possible, but her complaints were no longer my concern.

  “Tucker didn’t say anything to you?” Renée asked, chomping on her last piece of toast. I shook my head despondently. “Figures. You just saved him ten thousand bucks.”

  I wished she hadn’t told me that. It felt almost criminal to have walked away from a five-figure raise in this economy. Unlike Renée, I had no pension to fall back on. I started thinking again about the thousands of laid-off journalists across the country, all competing for the same few positions, and I lost my appetite.

  “You can still go back, Gavin,” she said. “You’re good at what you do, and Tucker knows it. He’s a prick, but he’s not an idiot.”

  “He’s not going to let me just waltz in and have my desk back.”

  “No, he’ll make you beg for half your salary. But you’ll be employed.”

  “Until the next round of layoffs.”

  Renée flinched. I hadn’t meant to be insensitive. But a fact is a fact. What happened to Renée showed that despite the idealistic rhetoric, The Paper was no different from any other corporation. I thought that’s what she had tried to warn me about. I had expected her to applaud what I did. Applaud and share her Rolodex.

  “You’re the one who told me to get out while I could,” I said.

  “I never said that.” She dabbed her lips with her napkin.

  “Not in those exact words—”

  “If you’re going to quote someone, quote them accurately.”

  “They took advantage of you.” She turned her head away. “I’m sorry, Renée, but that’s what you said. And you were adamant I not let them do the same to me.”