The Wedding Beat Read Free Page B

difference in Los Angeles, I had refrained from calling, but it turned out that my father had no such hesitation. Gary’s girlfriend was less than thrilled.
    “I kept asking him, ‘What time is it, Dad?’” Gary said. “‘What time do you think it is in LA?’ He said, ‘Why are you asking me about the time? Do you need a new clock?’”
    Gary and I had a habit of indulging each other’s rants about our parents’ infractions, though we’d usually conclude the other was overreacting.
    “They called me too,” I pointed out.
    Gary didn’t appreciate my lack of sympathy. “Last week Ilistened to you carry on for an hour after Mom suggested you get a mail-order bride.”
    I changed the topic. “I talked to a nurse on Grandma’s floor at Delray Medical Center. She said she’d have a doctor get back to me.”
    “Way ahead of you, Reporter Boy,” Gary said. Only two years younger and five inches taller, he liked to tweak my ego whenever possible. “I e-mailed the ER doctor who admitted her. He said they only kept her overnight for observation.” I was relieved to hear that. “Also found out that Bernie is in the ICU.”
So did I,
I almost responded, momentarily feeling more competitive than compassionate.
    “So can you go down to Florida?” he asked, just casually enough to convince me it was the main reason for his call.
    “I’m on deadline,” I said. My first instinct had been to go to Florida immediately. I had already checked out airfares, but I wasn’t about to tell Gary that. When it came to family obligations, he was very generous with volunteering my time.
    “Grandma shouldn’t be alone,” he said, knowing full well that she wasn’t, since our parents lived less than a half hour away. Close enough to torment her in good times and assist in bad. “You know how much it would mean to her to have one of us there.” Yes, I did, and it was clear which one of us he had in mind. “It seems the least we can do.”
    “No, it’s the least
you
can do,” I shot back, feeling guilty I wasn’t already on a plane but knowing there was little I could do there.
    “Leslie and I have been up since six. We tracked down this Dr. Stein, who, by the way, is one of more than a dozen Dr. Steins in Delray Beach. And Leslie already sent a basket of brownies and a bouquet of flowers, both of which she signed your name to.”
    Leslie was his latest in a long string of live-in girlfriends, and her effort was more predictable than praiseworthy. They had been together about six months, which was usually when his girlfriends began thinking he was interested in a long-term commitment. Unlike me, he never hesitated about opening his heart, his wallet, and his home. He just refused to close off the option of moving on if someone better came along. My parents had given up on him ever marrying. “Maybe he’ll get one of his girlfriends pregnant by mistake,” my mother had said to me. “A mother can only hope.”
    “Leslie was sorry to hear about Jill,” Gary said in a way that seemed as much about flattering Leslie as consoling me.
    “I’m thinking of calling her,” I said.
    “Leslie?”
    “Jill!”
    “Don’t,” he snapped. There was often a hint of coldness beneath Gary’s concern. Something his girlfriends inevitably learned too late. “You got dumped on New Year’s, and that sucks. But there’s no point in dwelling on it.”
    I wasn’t dwelling. I was regretting. Not just the evening but everything I had hoped would happen afterward.
    “You romanticize things too much,” Gary said. “You keep looking for the one woman who’s going to rock your world, and she doesn’t exist.”
    But she did exist. In my head. She was smart. Extraordinarily smart. I imagined she went to Harvard (where I was only wait-listed). And she was curious about the world. Not just curious. Passionate and adventurous. She had backpacked through South America. Or taught English in Estonia. Or she was the kind of person who