Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest Read Online Free PDF Page A

face my onetime competitor while dateless at a wedding, you could be certain I’d find a way to win. I was jobless, spending my days writing blog posts for free on a site I had created about being unemployed. I
needed
a win.
    In the dinners we had preceding the wedding, Lucy, who found it hilarious that two of her wedding guests had known each other in a way previous life, confessed all she knew about Boyd. That was his name, my high school debate nemesis:
Boyd
. He was, Iinferred, still rather full of himself. He was a lawyer. A litigator, of course. He’d dated one girl for a while, but they’d broken up when she moved away. He had recently run a marathon. He was terribly conservative, Republican, at times a self-professed chauvinist. “Oh, you’ll hate him,” Lucy enthused. “You might even make out with him.” I smiled and feigned indifference to what might happen. Then I went home and found that Boyd had friended me on Facebook.
Hahahahahahahaaaaa
, I thought, with imagined diabolical hand-wringing. I would be his wedding kryptonite.
    I flew to Montego Bay one early Tuesday morning in June, and at the airport located a driver with an unmarked white van, as the bride and groom had advised, to take me to our spot on the island. Upon arrival I was greeted by the hotel staff and ushered to my small room, one of the cheapest available. It offered just one window, shadowed by an overhanging roof, and my bed was topped with a large mosquito net. Contrary to the photos, my outdoor shower seemed dark and bug-enticing rather than serene and brightly tropical. On the plus side, the refrigerator in the room was stocked with Red Stripe. I popped one open, plugged in my laptop—I’d blog once daily, I had vowed—and unpacked my island attire, changing into my swimsuit and a dress and sandals for my walk to the pool, where I’d been told the happy couple was waiting.
    I was one of the first guests to arrive. Boyd was not expected until later in the week. Time to stake out the place and make arrangements as needed, I thought, marveling at how well Mission: Debate Tournament Revenge was working out already. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d do when I finally confronted Boyd—pummelhim with coconuts until he admitted his win was unfair? Stage a winner-take-all Round Two debate? Employ the age-old technique of revenge by seduction?—but it seemed like being tan and relaxed, with supple arms from morning yoga, would help.
    At the pool, I greeted Lucy and David with hugs and that universal destination-wedding croon of “How lucky are we? This is amazing!” before selecting my lounge chair and beginning the business of relaxing. Outside, everything was as expected: the sun hot, the water cool, the service pleasant, the couple thrilled to spend pre-wedding one-on-one time with someone who had virtually no (ostensible) demands, except to coexist in peace and harmony alongside them in their selected form of paradise. This was a brief lull before the rest of the guests and family arrived, and we all appreciated it for what it was. We stayed at the pool into the late afternoon and ate under the stars that night. In opportune moments, I surreptitiously dug further into the secrets of my wedding nemesis (“So, who at the wedding would you say is the most afraid of snakes?” “Are there any allergies I should know of?”). After dessert the couple went off, hand in hand, to the honeymoon villa, and I trudged back to my slightly damp room by myself and listened to the Kinks on repeat. “Strangers on this road we are/We are not two we are one” kept running through my head even after I shut down for the night. I pulled down the mosquito netting and closed my eyes.
    By Thursday evening most of the guests had arrived, and we gathered to eat in the more casual of the restaurants on the premises. That’s where I first saw him, my rival, my scourge. He looked about the same. Taller. Wearing a bigger belt. I would haverecognized him