Free Wedding Season by Darcy Cosper Page B

look pretty, too.” I give his arm a squeeze.
    “That was so nice I’m ready to run out right now and get hitched myself,” he murmurs as we pass the laden pews on our way to the church’s entrance. “What do you say, Joy?”
    “Gary, I’m flattered. But how about if you just save a dance for me instead?”
    “I’ll do that.” Gary kisses my cheek, and we follow the newlyweds out of the cathedral’s cool dusk and down the church steps into the bright day.

Wednesday, April 11, 200—
    I’ M IN THE OFFICE , looking over one of Tulley and Pete’s drafts for Modern Love—a love affair between a full-breasted young federal agent and the strappingly handsome computer hacker she’s been assigned to arrest—when the phone rings and I jump, accidentally sending a squiggle of red ink across several perfectly acceptable paragraphs. I guess I’m a little wound up.
    “Hi, baby girl.” It’s James. “Still up for lunch?”
    “Yes, please. Had any divine inspiration about Charlotte’s wedding present?”
    “Since you mention it, an angel came to me last night and said unto me, ’Thou shalt honor the bridal registry.’”
    “Well, that solves that. Did the angel tell you where they’re registered?”
    “The usual fetish shops. Kitchen fetish, bathroom fetish. Charlotte’s a fag.”
    “Because she shops the same places that you do, James?”
    “Because she shops at the same places my boyfriends do. Professors can’t afford to sleep on seven-hundred-thread-count sheets, darling.”
    “You sleep on them for free, don’t you?”
    “Nothing’s free. Speaking of which, how’s your poor little rich boy?”
    “Gabriel is fine. I hate it when you call him that.” Icrumple a piece of paper and toss it recklessly toward a recycling bin across the room. The ball of paper makes it in. Charles, at his desk, applauds.
    “Why do you hate it, baby? Grandma always says it’s as easy to love a rich man as it is to love a poor man. We’re just proving her point.”
    “Gabe is not rich.”
    “He has a trust fund, Joy. His parents live in tasteful splendor in Beacon Hill when they’re not summering in understated shabby chic splendor on Nantucket or wintering at some posh resort on St. John.”
    This I cannot deny.
    “Gabe’s
family
is rich,” I tell James. “Gabe, as you know, works for a living.”
    “I know, darling.” James takes a pacifying tone. “He’s a very talented photographer. I’m not attacking his character. I’m delighting in your luck.”
    “You’re an old-fashioned tart, James.”
    “Introduce me,” Charles stage-whispers. “I love a tart.”
    “Like hell I will.”
    “What?” says James.
    “Not you,” I tell him. “Where shall we meet?”
    “Let’s go to Boîte. It’s right around the corner from one of the places where Charlotte registered. One o’clock?”
    “That den of celebrity? We’ll never get in.”
    “I slept with the owner.”
    “God, James. You probably did it just so you could get a table.”
    “That’s not such a terrible motive, is it?”
    “I’ve heard worse, I guess. One o’clock, then.” I set the phone down, and Charles gives me the evil eye.
    “Why don’t you ever invite your brother over to see the office, Vern?”
    “Because. Were the two of you to ever be in the sameroom, I am convinced that it would result in some kind of natural disaster, and I don’t want to be held responsible.”
    “Some people call that good chemistry. We might be perfect for each other. Would you rather be responsible for keeping me apart from the love of my life?”
    “Nice try, Vern, but no dice. You know I don’t believe in fate.”
    “But observe your metaphor, dear. Dice. Luck. You contradict yourself.”
    “Not at all.” I push the
Love Bytes
manuscript around on my desk. “Fate assumes an outside force of some intelligence or a fixed structure that determines our lives, something we can’t avoid or change. Luck is the name we give chance when it works