by Devan Sipher
Or a window.
Moments later I was scrambling up the fire escape, glad I’d had a practice run in daylight. I leaned over the railing nearest her apartment and peered inside. The room was barren. I had to double-check I was on the right floor. There were moving boxes piled along the stripped walls. The photographs were gone. The furniture was gone. And there was no sign of Melinda.
Yet the lights were on, so my guess was that she was in the bedroom. How was I going to get her attention? I hadn’t really thought this through beyond envisioning her charmed by my Romeo-like appearance at her window, lilacs in hand. I was considering my options when I heard rustling inside the apartment. I didn’t have much longer to wait before Melinda appeared from around a corner. Or, more accurately, a large box appeared with well-toned legs beneath it.
I gently tapped on the window. The box descended a few inches, revealing a startled face. But the face belonged to Alexander’s mother. She screamed. I screamed. The box fell. The flowers flew. She screamed again. There was the sound of breaking glass. Probably from the box hitting the floor. I can’t say for sure, because I was already running down the metal steps, hoping she hadn’t recognized me. Knowing full well that she had.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Mayday
Spring sunshine spilled in through my drawn blinds. It only felt like the darkest day of my life.
“Did you call the police?” Hope asked.
I eyed her with disbelief. “To turn myself in?”
“To make sure that woman was okay.”
There were many times I admired Hope for being such a conscientious physician. This wasn’t one of them.
“She could have gone into cardiac arrest,” Hope said. “She could be lying unconscious on the floor of that apartment.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not going back to find out.”
“When did you become such an asshole?” Hope was infuriated, but in my defense, it was less my doing than A.J.’s. “Is every man in this city lacking all moral judgment?”
To A.J.’s credit, he finally did call her. To his eternal damnation, it was to inform her he was getting married. When pressed, he admitted he’d been engaged the entire time they’d been dating. I thought he would have been better off going with the traditional “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“How hard is it to pick up a phone and dial nine-one-one?” Hope grumbled while gorging herself on my Frosted Flakes, which were surprisingly effective for self-medicating abrasions of the heart. “You didn’t even have to leave your name.”
“Why aren’t you worried that she called the police? There could be an APB out on me as we speak.”
“If the police were looking for you, don’t you think they would have found you by now?”
Hope had a point. Which meant I could stop wincing every time I heard a siren. The truth was I shouldn’t have run away from Genevieve. I should have stayed and held my ground, or railing, and demanded she tell me where Melinda was.
Of course, she would have sooner stabbed me with a hat pin.
“What if she’s dead?” Hope badgered.
“What if she’s not?” I lashed out. “What if she’s at Temple Emanu-El, tying her son’s bow tie as we speak? The wedding’s in less than two frigging hours.” I was caught in a vise that was slowly and inexorably closing.
Hope’s expression softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was today.” Then she socked me in the arm. “What are you still doing here?”
“Where am I supposed to be? Crashing the wedding? That would be insane.”
“Didn’t stop you yesterday.”
“I’ve done everything I can do.”
“Except tell Melinda how you feel.”
“She doesn’t care how I feel!”
“Because she doesn’t know!” Hope’s tears came so quickly, I was baffled by what had triggered them. “You owe her the truth.”
I had to stop making women cry.
“What kind of person uses an online-dating site when he’s engaged to be married?” she blubbered.
“A despicable person,” I assured her, wanting to staunch her weeping while also envying it.
“What’s wrong with me?” she moaned. “Because there must be something wrong with me. Or am I just doomed?” She was clearly asking the wrong person.
“You’re not doomed,” I said, thinking friends should really coordinate their emotional crises so they don’t overlap.
“Then maybe I’m doing this to myself. Maybe I purposely pick guys who are gong to leave. Or maybe I make them leave. So I can play out some childhood psychodrama over and over.” It was the closest she had come to talking about her father in years.
“Or maybe A.J.’s just an asshole,” I consoled.
“A.J. is such an asshole.” She was still crying. But also smiling.
My buzzer rang.
“Who’s that?” Hope asked between sniffles.
I’d been expecting Liam when she arrived. “My producer,” I said as I buzzed him in the front door of my walk-up.
“He didn’t fire you?” Her confidence in me was underwhelming, but so was Liam’s.
“He recently had a bad breakup, so he’s taking pity on me.” And by “pity” I meant that he had allowed me to beg him for a second chance, which was bestowed on the condition that I agreed to be his personal slave. He was dropping off some video footage. Along with his laundry.
There was a knock at the door, and while Hope continued seeking sugared solace, I wearily went to open it.
“You fucking son of a bitch.”
It wasn’t Liam.
Alexander was wearing his wedding tuxedo and a murderous look. His face resembled a ripe tomato.
“I told you to stay the fuck away from my fiancée.” At least I knew that Genevieve was alive.
“Technically, you told me not to call,” I said, flirting with a death wish.
“I’ll give you technical, you piece of shit.” Spittle flew from his mouth.
I was surprisingly calm for someone about to be pummeled. Until Hope came up behind me. Worse than getting beaten up by the guy marrying the woman I loved was having it happen in front of Hope. She gaped at Alexander.
“A.J.?” she said.
Alexander looked as if he had just been hit by a Mack truck.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Hope asked him.
His eyes darted back and forth between us. “Is this some kind of setup?”
Hope turned to me, accusingly. “How do you know him?” I was no longer sure I did.
“Just stay away from me,” muttered Alexander or A.J. or whoever he was. “Both of you stay the hell away from me.” He took off down the stairs.
Hope and I stood in the doorway, staring after him in shock. I grabbed my jacket and ran.
“Where are you going?” she called out.
“I have a wedding to stop.”
The imposing limestone and stained-glass facade of Temple Emanu-El rose along Fifth Avenue like an ornate fortress wall. A policeman guarded the ten-foot bronze doors. I feared he was stationed there solely to detain me. Keeping my head down, I joined a handful of people standing in line.
“Name?” the officer asked the couple ahead of me without glancing up from his clipboard.
“We’re here for the wedding,” said a middle-aged woman with “Long Island” stamped on her forehead and in her sinus cavities.
“That’s why I’m asking your name. The mayor’s attending, and only people on the official list will be allowed inside.”
“How exciting.”
“Frustrating” was more the word I had in mind. I slipped out of the line to reassess. Coming up with another tactic, I inconspicuously strolled to the street corner, then zipped down the block to the service entrance. There was an officer posted there as well.
Returning to Fifth Avenue, I was lacking options other than making a dash for the doorway and using the element of surprise to get past the co
p. I was calculating my odds of finding Melinda before being read my Miranda rights when I almost collided with Melinda’s grandfather. He was on a cigar break. Or lookout duty.
He was turned the other way, so he didn’t see me do a one-eighty and double back around the corner. Retrieving a newspaper from a sidewalk trash can, I shielded my face before inching my way forward. I glanced above the headlines. Her grandfather was still standing there. He was using a cane, but otherwise seemed to have recovered well. I doubted his doctors would approve of his smoking, but that was probably also true before his attack. Maybe I could appeal to his renegade spirit. Maybe I could kidnap him.
“Does The Paper now pay you to loiter at synagogues?”
There was no mistaking the gravelly voice or the phlegmy cough that followed the query.
“I can explain,” I said.
“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.