Free The Wedding Beat by Devan Sipher Page B

prices.
    “He’s dragging you all the way uptown?”
    “It’s a great place, and he’s making a statement.” The statement being that money was no object. For all of Hope’s savvy, sometimes she was still the girl from Ohio, easily dazzled byNew York glitterati. Something Conrad was well aware of. “I think everything’s going to be different this time.” That’s what she said the last time, but I wasn’t going to voice that. People standing by glass doors shouldn’t throw stones.
    She wished me luck and clicked off as a couple entered the building, hand in hand. What if Melinda came to the reading with another guy? Didn’t matter. I was going to do what I was there to do. I was a man on a mission—the James Bond of dysfunctional dating habits.
    I relentlessly scrutinized the faces of all incoming females. A freckled woman approaching from the west. Black-clad poet type with dark bangs from the east. A group of four women passed by too quickly for me to see them clearly, so I followed them inside, circling round until I was sure Melinda was not among them. As I returned to my sentry post outside, I held the door for a porcelain-skinned undergrad with long eyelashes. I suddenly felt like an aging lothario. It didn’t help that the redhead smoker was scowling at me.
    When guys did this kind of thing in movies, it seemed less lecherous. Usually there was romantic music playing. Maybe my iPod would help. With earphones in place, I continued my search for Melinda as Cee Lo Green crowed about being “Crazy.”
    The crowd thickened, and my head was pivoting from side to side when I saw a petite figure with a windblown mop of dark ringlets waving at someone to my right. I hurried in that direction. Then scurried back when I saw my least-favorite redhead waving in response.
    The two women embraced. In a nonsexual way, I noted with some relief. Then they hurried inside before I could glimpse anything but curls and coat. I trailed behind them (at a nonthreatening distance). The lights in the lobby flickered on and off, and so did my faith in my quest.
    Making a quick change in tactics, I entered the auditorium and strode purposefully to the front row. Then I turned around and scoured the audience as if I was looking for someone—and, of course, I was.
    There were close to two hundred people seated or wrestling with their coats. I slowly walked up the aisle, scanning each and every row. Melinda was somewhere in the room, and I was going to find her.
    Or so I believed for the first ten rows. By the thirteenth row, I was having a bad feeling. But there in the last row was a familiar flash of scarlet frizz and scowl, and one seat over I could see bounteous brunet tresses. She was bent over, looking for something in her bag. Though I couldn’t see her face, I knew it was Melinda. I knew it ten feet away. I knew it three feet away. I knew it as she looked up at me with a mystical expression on her tawny, African-American face.
    I was doomed to keep pursuing the wrong Melindas.
    Two hours later, I was sitting on a park bench, facing the brightly lit lobby of the student center as the last of the lecture’s attendees filed out of the auditorium. I watched a rail-thin guy with shaggy dark hair hold the door for a winsome blonde. There was something effortless about the way he put his arm around her. They stood together at the street corner, leaning against each other, her mittened hand stroking his cheek.
    “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Hope, who magically appeared at my side. Actually, it wasn’t that magical, because I had left her a message telling her exactly where I was, in case her date ended early.
    “You didn’t have to come,” I said, very grateful that she had. Her warm green eyes were wet from the cold. Though I’d neveradmit it to Gary, there were moments I imagined Hope was the woman I belonged with. She was compassionate and insightful and made kick-ass ravioli from scratch. She was also taller