Save the Date (10 page)

“I think you’re the super-beautiful sister,” he says.

Luckily I don’t have to respond to this because a waiter pops up between us with a tray of bacon-wrapped scallops, and then Sofia and Ben join us. Sofia introduces Ben to Leo, and they shake hands.

“I’m glad Jack will have someone to dance with,” Sofia says. “Just don’t do anything to cement her Wedding Curse theory, mister.” She sounds like she’s joking, but I know that if he treats me the way David did, he’ll have one angry sister to deal with.

Leo laughs and crosses his heart. “I promise.”

“Oooh,” I say, “I think those are the California rolls going by over there.”

“Allow me,” Leo says, and dashes off to grab some for us.

“So,” Sofia says meaningfully, “you’re having fun, aren’t you?”

“I’m pretty much holding my breath,” I say, “hoping the allergic reaction was the worst thing that’ll happen. Keeping a watchful eye on the sky, though.”

“Just relax and enjoy it,” she says as Leo returns, triumphant.

Several tiny appetizers later, we are allowed onto the wide terrace where the reception is. Leo gallantly escorts me to our table and we all stand as the band leader introduces “for the first time ever, Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Ork!”

“Yikes,” I say, clapping along with everyone else.

“I’ve always found that weird,” Leo says. “I mean, it’s like her own name completely disappears.”

“Exactly! It weirded me out at Alex and Sydney’s weddings, too,” I agree.

Victoria and Kevin parade onto the dance
floor, wrap their arms around each other, and start swaying back and forth to “All You Need Is Love,” which doesn’t sound quite the same with Vicky’s peculiar harpsichord-heavy band playing it instead of the Beatles, but I guess it’s the thought that counts.

After a few minutes, the band leader says into the microphone, “And now, the newlyweds would like to invite their wedding party to join them on the dance floor.”

Leo holds out his hand to me, and I take it with an unsettling sense of disbelief, like this can’t really be happening…is it actually possible to get through this without everything going horribly wrong?

We follow Sofia and Ben onto the dance floor and Leo puts one hand on my waist, holding me in the old-fashioned dance pose, which is strangely charming. And, of course, he turns out to be a great dancer. I’m pretty bad because I’m terrible at following—I’m never sure what’s going on. But his moves are confident and his signals are really clear…and wow, if that isn’t
a metaphor for this relationship so far, I don’t know what is.

“What are you smiling about?” he asks.

“You’re a good dancer,” I say, and he smiles down at me, pulling me closer. I can feel his body lightly pressed against mine and his hand moving gently in the small of my back, guiding me around the dance floor. My skin seems to be thrumming with heat, and I think I wouldn’t mind if he whirled me through the nearest door, threw me down on the grass, and ripped this dreadful flower sack dress right off me. Of course he wouldn’t, because he’s a gentleman, but the thought makes my cheeks turn pink, and I scramble for a new item of conversation.

“I’m glad Victoria picked this song for her first dance,” I say, “because I would never pick it myself in a million years.”

“Me neither,” he says. “It has sort of a poor rhythm for dancing to.”

“Tell me about it,” I agree. “And Alex and Sydney picked songs I wouldn’t want, too, so at least there’s one piece of the wedding that I’ll be
able to choose without worrying that it’s been done before.”

“You think about that a lot, don’t you?” he says, and I guess my expression must have turned worried, because he quickly adds, “No, no, I think it’s cute—and natural, believe me. When you’re at a wedding, you can’t help but think about what you’d do for your own. I’m pretty sure I was the only boy in sixth grade who had ever thought about what his first wedding dance should be.”

I laugh. “What did you pick?”

“Oh, I’m definitely not telling you that.”

“You have to!” I poke his shoulder. “Tell me, tell me!”

“Man…okay, but bear in mind I was twelve, and it was a different time then.”

“Yeah, five years ago is simply ages,” I tease.

“In pop music, it is!” he says. “Promise not to make fun.”

“It depends on how awful it is.”

“It’s pretty awful.”

I grin, and he sighs heavily. “All right,” he
says. “I was thinking…‘I Want It That Way.’”

“The Backstreet Boys?” I cry, and then crack up. Luckily the song is over and people are milling around the dance floor, so no one is staring at us.

“Dude,” he says, “I’ve matured a lot since then! I swear!”

Tears are actually running down my face, I’m laughing so hard. He rubs his hand through his dark hair sheepishly.

“All right, I can see I’m going to have to do something drastic to make you forget I just said that,” he says. And then he grabs my hand and pulls me out through the long glass doors into the dark garden, and as I’m still catching my breath, he presses me against the wall, puts his hands on my waist, and kisses me.

“I love your laugh,” he says, then kisses me again. “And your smile. And your eyes…”

“I—” I start to say, but then his mouth is on mine, and it’s just as well, because the only thing I can think of to say is
I love you
, and that was by far the biggest mistake I made with David.

This is different,
my mind says.
He’s not David. Sofia was right. Stop worrying about the Wedding Curse…everything is going to be okay.

I should have known better. I really, really should have known better.

As my hands move across Leo’s back and he starts to kiss my neck, suddenly there is an enormous crash from inside. I jump away from Leo like I’ve just touched an electric fence. We look at each other for a moment, startled, and then run back through the doors.

I don’t know what I expected to see, but it’s certainly not this: The clarinet player has his hands around the violist’s throat, and they are staggering back and forth, knocking over the rest of the band’s instruments, shouting, and throwing punches at each other.

“What are you
doing
?” Victoria shrieks. “Stop it, stop it right now!”

Leo grabs one of my hands. “Don’t even think it,” he says. “This isn’t your fault, Jack.”

“Are you kidding me?” I say. “Do you see this? Did you notice that timing?”

The fighting band members crash into the harpsichord, and the harpsichordist leaps to his feet and joins the fray. The bandleader is yelling and waving his arms, as are several members of my family, but it doesn’t do any good.

To my immense surprise, Kevin dives in and tries to separate them, which makes me respect him a little bit more. Of course, he instantly gets punched in the nose for his efforts and comes staggering back out. Victoria runs over to take care of him, but one of her tall heels wobbles and then breaks, and with a wild yelp, she trips and goes flying into the cake table, which collapses underneath her. The entire six-layer white chocolate wedding cake, daffodils and sugar flowers and all, comes cascading down on top of her.

Also on the table were six tall flickering candles. As Victoria comes floundering out, with
frosting and cake plastered through her hair, I spot a burst of flame and realize that my sister’s wedding dress is
on fire
.

Okay. I’ve never claimed to be smart. Remember, I said that way at the beginning. Sofia is the smart one. I am just a bridesmaid. And so, I do exactly what a bridesmaid ought to do when her bride’s dress is on fire, which is to say, the opposite of what any sane person would do.

Yes, I am the one closest to her. Who knows whether anyone else would have been this dumb if I hadn’t moved first? But basically, I throw myself at Vicky, knocking us both to the ground, and roll on her dress to put the flames out. It’s not a heroic thing to do, believe me. A hero would have taken a moment to think about what he or she was doing, and then it probably would have occurred to said hero to grab a tablecloth from any of the twenty nearby tables to throw on top of her instead of one’s own body.

In fact, that’s exactly what Leo does when
my
dress, which is apparently made of gunpowder or something, bursts into flame a second later.

The last thing I hear is Vicky screaming, and the last thing I feel is Leo’s strong arms wrapped around me and the tablecloth, lifting me up, before I pass out, and then…darkness.

I wake up in a cool, white, quiet space and for a minute I wonder if this is heaven, because I haven’t been anywhere this peaceful—nor have I felt this rested—in a long time.

But then I turn my head and see Leo and Sofia sitting next to the bed, and I realize that my hands are wrapped in bandages, and they kind of hurt, and also the air smells like medicine and old people. That’s enough clues for me to guess hospital.

“Jack!” Sofia cries, leaning forward in her chair. Leo wakes up instantly, and I like how tousled and funny his hair looks after sleeping in a chair.

“Is Vicky okay?” I ask.

“You big goof,” Sofia says, but it looks like
she’s trying not to cry. “She’s totally fine. Do you know how many petticoats she was wearing? That dress could have been on fire for two hours and it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near her.”

“Awesome,” I say. “Glad I could help.”

“Superman’s got nothin’ on you,” Leo says with a smile.

“I’m going to call Mom and Dad,” Sofia says, getting to her feet. “They had to go back to deal with—well, pretty much everything. But they said to call as soon as you woke up. Are you feeling all right?”

“A little woozy,” I say, “but strangely blissful. Does that make sense?”

“I think that’s the painkillers talking,” Leo says.

Sofia leaves the room and Leo pulls his chair closer to the bed.

“Best date ever, huh?” I say. He smiles, gently takes one of my bandaged hands between his, and leans toward my face.

“Oh no,” I say, putting my other hand quickly
in his way. “No way. Are you serious? Did you not see what happened? I completely ruined Victoria’s wedding.”

“No,” he says, “the fact that the violist was sleeping with the clarinet player’s wife ruined Victoria’s wedding. That has nothing to do with you.”

“I
am
the one that got set on fire,” I point out. “That would seem to have something to do with me.”

“You have noble instincts,” he says. “That doesn’t mean you’re cursed.”

“I cannot believe you don’t believe in the Wedding Curse, after all that,” I say. I’m trying to joke about it, but inside I’m feeling horribly, horribly guilty. Was one kiss on the terrace worth ruining my sister’s wedding? I don’t think so. I should have been stronger. She must be devastated, and it’s all my fault, and there’s nothing I can do about it. “Poor Victoria. Was she really mad?”

“My mom stayed with her to calm her down,” Leo says, “while the rest of us came to
the hospital with you.”

“For a couple of little burns?” I say.

“Well, you were also unconscious.” He points to a bandage on my head that I hadn’t noticed before. “That had us all a little worried.” Now I vaguely remember whanging my head really hard on a column as I fell.

“Bah,” I say. “They should have stashed me in a corner and carried on with the reception. I’d’ve been fine.”

He chuckles, and then Sofia comes back in, holding her cell phone. “Your mom wants to talk to you,” she says to Leo. “I think she needs your help rescuing favors, organizing guests, stuff like that.”

“All right,” he says, standing up. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.” He leans down and quickly kisses my forehead, then steps out the door with Sofia’s cell phone.

Sofia sits down in his chair. She still looks sort of wobbly and sad, so I reach over and pat her hand.

“It’s okay, Sofia,” I say. “See, I’m all right. I’m
just an idiot. Nothing serious.”

She bursts into tears.

“I’m a terrible person,” she sobs. “A terrible, awful person.”

“Oh no,” I say, pushing myself up and wincing in pain. “Sofia,
shh
, it’s okay. You’re not terrible, not at all. You’re completely the opposite of terrible. What’s wrong?”

“You’re in the
hospital
,” she says, hiccupping.

“You got set on
fire
, and all I can think about is my own stupid relationship problems.”

“Uh-oh,” I say. “What happened?”

“No, we should focus on you,” she says, shaking her head and breathing in deeply.

“Um, no,” I say. “There’s nothing to say about me. Blah, blah, set on fire, end of story. What happened with Ben?”

“I think we broke up,” Sofia says, her eyes beginning to fill again.

As if I didn’t feel awful enough already. “Oh no,” I say softly.

“He wanted me to come to England with him in the fall,” she says. “He made a joke about
what our wedding would be like, and which song we’d play for our first dance, and I said something about him jumping ahead a little, and he said why not, because we love each other, and so I should come be with him when summer’s over and postpone grad school for a year, but then I said I wasn’t sure because we only just got back together and what if it all ends suddenly again, and
he
asked why I didn’t believe in us and
I
said it just felt terrible when it ended last time and I’d thought he was committed
then
and then he got all upset about my lack of commitment
now
and whether I even really cared about him at all and I said of course I do but if I go to England that’ll be me taking a huge commitment leap while he wouldn’t be doing anything that crazy and then he left and then you got set on fire, and it was pretty much all downhill from there.”

Neither of us says it, but I’m sure she’s thinking about the Wedding Curse just as much as I am. I guess there’s two ways it can manifest—obvious disaster, like seagulls and mumps and
what happened with Patrick at Alexandria’s wedding and the fire tonight—or emotional wreckage, like what David did to me…or what Sofia is going through now.

“I’m sorry, Sofia,” I say.

“Me too,” she says. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay.” I think for a moment. “Do you have any idea how the clarinet player found out about the affair in the middle of Victoria’s wedding?”

Sofia tries to hide a smile. “I think he saw a note scribbled on the violist’s sheet music.”

“Like what?” I ask. “Don’t forget to sleep with Bob’s wife later?”

She laughs. “I think it was actually
from
the wife. Like ‘Ooh, Fred, your viola is so hot.’”

“I want you to tighten
my
strings, lots of love, p.s., don’t tell Bob?” I guess.

We talk about that for a while, joking about the Yoko Ono of the wedding band, but our hearts aren’t in it, and I’m getting tired. I manage to stay awake until Mom and Dad arrive,
but soon after that, I conk out. At least while I’m sleeping, I don’t have to feel the weight of the Wedding Curse pressing down on me…and I don’t have to think about how to tell Leo I can’t see him again.