The Wedding Beat Read Online Free PDF Page B

in through the banyan trees. I must have taken a hundred pictures and lost track of time. The trail seemed to vanish in the darkness. I was convinced I was never going to find my way back to civilization.”
    “You weren’t traveling by yourself, were you?”
    “That’s what my grandfather asked when I told him.”
Ouch
. “I adore my grandfather,” she added.
    “It’s impressive for a woman to go to those places alone.” I hoped I didn’t sound like a misogynist as well as an octogenarian.
    “It’s insane,” she said. “I was terrified, but I’m terrified just getting out of bed in the morning. I’m not joking. I used to have these dreams when I was a kid that a plane was going to comecrashing through my window. This was way before nine-eleven, so it was just me being morbid. Oh, God. Now you’re going to think I’m one of those neurotic women you meet at parties in New York.”
    “I don’t think you’re neurotic.”
    She bestowed another smile. It was the perfect opportunity to say something devastatingly clever. Instead, I said, “I’m not a nurse.”
    “Let me guess,” she said, stopping and turning to me with an impish look. “You’re a magician.”
    “I am,” I said, matching her flirtatious tone while still racking my brain for a clever remark. It was much easier at my computer. I considered going downstairs and texting her.
    “What’s your favorite magic trick?” she asked.
    “Making a beautiful woman feel like she’s bungee jumping while she’s standing still.” I was still figuring out what I meant when I noticed she was blushing, which I took as a good sign.
    “Did you go to magician school to learn that?”
    “I guess you could say that,” I said, leaning toward her. “I spent two years in grad school, which made thirty thousand dollars of my savings magically disappear.” She was close enough for me to kiss her.
    “I’m starting a master’s program in writing at NYU to help with my book. So I’ll see your thirty and raise you ten.” Before I could up the ante, a lanky guy in a leather coat appeared behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.
    “Hey, sexy,” he cooed.
    She lit up as she embraced him enthusiastically. And extendedly. I metamorphosed into a pillar of chopped liver. After what felt like the longest fifteen seconds of my life, I loudly cleared my throat.
    “Gavin,” she said, disentangling herself. “This is Jamie.” Henodded in my direction, though he might have just been flipping his dark, wavy hair. “Jamie’s roommate knows someone who works with the guy throwing the party. We’re interlopers.”
    Well,
he
certainly was. And he seemed to be in a hurry to get to the next stop on their party hop. The walkway wasn’t wide enough for all three of us, so I was awkwardly shadowing them as we retraced our steps. He whispered something in her ear, and she briefly giggled. His skin was pale and pockmarked, and he was only a couple inches taller than me. I wasn’t intimidated.
    “We met at a Vishnu shrine in Katmandu,” Melinda said, “and Jamie gave me a ride on his motorbike to the Bandipur hills.” Maybe I was a little intimidated. “We’ve been pals ever since.” Not lovers. Pals. But if they were pals, why was his hand still glued to her waist?
    He leaned into her. Again with the whispering. “It wasn’t Bandipur,” she laughed. “It was Gorkha.”
    I had very little to offer in the way of romantic memories of Nepal. I needed to switch subjects fast.
    “What’s your book about?” I asked.
    “Nepal,” she said. I wanted to shoot myself. “It’s not going as well as I want. Someone once said a writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
    “It was Thomas Mann,” I said, convinced I had found my soul mate.
    Her eyes widened and she seemed to look at me with new appreciation. “The problem is, I want the book to be about more than just my experiences. I want it to be about what it