Free The Wedding Beat by Devan Sipher Page A

man with dreadlocks darted in. He declared that he had a manuscript for Professor Rubin, which he handed over before promptly leaving.
    “Busy day?” I asked. She glared. “Listen,” I said, “you’re absolutely right to not give out private information. I think the best thing for me to do is to just hang out. Here.”
    “Here?” she said, her eyebrows furrowing.
    “Seems like anyone in the department would come through at some point. So I’ll just stay here between classes and during lunch. I’ve got time right now.” About eight minutes, but she didn’t know that. “I can keep you company for the next week. Or two. Or however long it takes until Melinda shows up. And we don’t have to worry about breaking any rules.”
    “Loitering is also against the rules,” she said. “We have a strict policy about nonstudents.”
    “But I
am
a student.” I flashed the same NYU identification card I had used at the security desk. It was from a French class I’d taken a couple years back (
Je parle mauvais français
). I doubted it would stand up to much scrutiny, but Bride of Cerberus didn’t know that. “In fact, I was thinking about enrolling in one of your graduate writing workshops,” I added for good measure.
    “You’d need to get approval from the director of the department.”
    “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, plopping myself down on the vinyl love seat.
    “There’s a reading tonight by Joan Didion that all students are expected to attend,” she said with a hint of nervous desperation. “Information about the reading is available online.”
    The reading was at the NYU student center on the south side of Washington Square Park. I arrived an hour early and positioned myself just inside the front doors of the building.
    This was it. In less than an hour I would see Melinda again. It occurred to me that I had no idea what to say to her. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood” wasn’t going to work. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you” would be the most sincere approach, if it didn’t make me sound borderline psychotic. Then I thought of Mike Russo, and decided I would simply tell Melinda I was there to ask her out to dinner. It was direct, truthful and flattering. I was ready.
    I was also nauseous.
    I noticed my reflection in the glass doors. The unflattering lighting made my skin look sallow and splotchy, and standingalone in the lobby was like being in a fishbowl. An overly bright fishbowl with no plastic sea galleon to hide behind. I repositioned myself outside the doors as a woman approached from the park. She had a knit hat pulled down over her ears and was clutching her pea coat tight around her. Melinda’s coat! I took a couple steps instinctively toward her, but as she passed beneath a streetlight I could see red hair springing from beneath her hat, where there should have been brown curls. She looked at me suspiciously, and I quickly turned away. When I turned back, she was standing a few feet away, lighting a cigarette. I smiled nervously, and she shot me another suspicious look.
    I called Hope.
    “If a guy you met only once showed up out of the blue, would you think he was stalking you?”
    “It would depend on how cute he was,” she said.
    “I’m serious,” I said.
    “It would seriously depend on how cute he was.” I filled her in on my plan, and to her credit, she didn’t question my sanity, only my odds of success. “I’m just saying you’re operating with a suboptimal hazard ratio,” she said, regressing into doctor-speak. I suspected she wasn’t fully focused on me, because, well, she said, “I can’t really focus on you at the moment, since I’m backed up with trauma patients and need to get out of here BECAUSE … tonight’s my date with Conrad!”
    She was dismayed that I had forgotten.
    “I’m meeting him at the Modern,” she said, referring to the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art known for sleek design and steep