Kristopher Jansma - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

As soon as I finally decided to break up the wedding, I felt much better. Julian was absolutely right — I’d been down and out the whole trip, and what for? I’d known I was going to do it — all along — and I was feeling lousy only because I thought feeling lousy was the right thing to do. I’d groused through the interminable cab ride to JFK and I’d sulked during the five-hour flight to Vegas — the first flight I’d ever been on in my life, and I had complained all through it, even after Julian so kindly ordered up the second bottle of Clicquot. I was still bitching as I — for the first time in my life — twisted the knob on the side of my gold watch and observed the hours breeze backward. I whined while I rented the car — even after Julian paid to upgrade us to the AC Shelby Cobra — and when we finally checked in to our suite at the Bellagio, I’d been so sullen that Julian had hardly any choice but to leave me behind for the night. He had much to celebrate, what with the sale of his first novel in what all the publishing-industry magazines had called “a major deal.” I was proud of him, and at the same time so jealous I could have killed him — so it was for the best that Julian popped a few sky-blue pills and traipsed off to watch the fountains firing off in their mechanized ballet and the roulette wheels clicking and spinning and the contortionists at Cirque du Soleil twisting inside one another. If the past could be counted on to repeat, I expected to hear Julian returning to his room in under four hours, with some wan, waxed bartender in tow. I’d hear the shaking of more pills out of more bottles, followed by animalistic engagements, which I’d drown out with something on Turner Classic Movies. But until then, I stood out on our balcony, staring down thirty stories into a neon abyss. I wanted very badly to do something I knew was terrible, and only once I’d settled upon simply, really doing it did I feel a great weight lifting off me at last.

Just one thing still bothered me. I’d been asked to write this article about the wedding for Esquire , seeing as Evelyn had starred in yet another Broadway hit this season and… well, all right, truth: technically, Julian had been asked to write this article and he said he couldn’t possibly , what with the final edits for his novel due just after the wedding, so he’d handed the assignment off to me.

Regardless, now that I’d decided to ruin everything, I wondered if they’d actually want that money back. Unless, I decided, why not write about the ruining of it? Why not become part of the story? Why not go full gonzo? “Malice and Desperation in the Grand Canyon.” What a title! They’d love it — surely. Celebrating in advance, I ordered a room service filet mignon and raided the minibar.

Surely my new story would be more interesting than one about how the Aphrodite-esque Evelyn Lynn Madison Demont, beloved star of Mourning Becomes Electra , wedded the utterly uninteresting Dr. Avinash Singh. The good Dr. Singh was a geologist at UC San Diego, whose life’s single act of spinal fortitude had been to insist to his parents — Indian royalty of one of the former princely states — that his wedding be held at the Grand Canyon, here in America, and not in India as they demanded. Not for its immense grandeur or romantic color upon sunset — but so that he would not have to pause long from his study of the mile-deep chasm and its forty-million-year-old rocks.

Avinash and Evelyn planned all the usual trappings of an Indian wedding: the groom would ride an elephant along the rim of the canyon and they would exchange vows before the Agni , the Sacred Fire. I’d packed three of the New York Public Library’s finest books on the subject of the traditional Hindu wedding, or Vivaah , and two more on the mighty Grand Canyon itself — all for research purposes. Whether or not I ruined the wedding, I had always fully intended to write the hell out of the event.

Giving Evelyn away would be Mr. Demont (accompanied by his fourth and third wives) and Evelyn’s mother, the first former Mrs. Demont. Also in attendance: the bride’s childhood friend, Julian McGann, presumed heir to McGann International Trading, whose as yet untitled but already acclaimed novel would be out next summer; joined by his roommate, Some Nobody, the writer of this article, who slept with the bride-to-be on six of the seven nights prior to the wedding. (It would have been seven of seven, too, if Julian hadn’t dragged me out to Vegas early, in a clumsy attempt to put some distance between me and Evelyn.) The bride, incidentally, couldn’t have given two shits about rocks, however old they might well be, and suffered from bouts of intense vertigo that once kept her from climbing the stairs at Lincoln Center, and, so, naturally she had privately expressed some reservations about being married on the edge of the deepest chasm in the country. I considered all this as I ate my steak — every bloody bit of it — and concluded that it seemed barely avoidable that I should stop the wedding. Satisfied, I settled in to sleep.

• • •

Julian had not yet returned, to my great relief. That night I dreamed about Evelyn’s hands. Like the last time we slept together they were covered in henna for the haath pila karna ritual, a deep sienna except for a single empty circle on her right hand. I kissed this spot in my dream, as I had done in waking. Then I saw a magnificent elephant towering over us. On his back rode a man in a turban whose face was covered in flowers. He shrieked and lowered a wickedly curved sword toward us. Evelyn’s mehndi-tattooed hands flew up to cover my eyes and then suddenly I was awake and the phone was ringing: the front desk, extending an invitation to please join Julian McGann and his wife, Bethany, for breakfast.

I laughed and took this to mean that Julian, and his sense of humor, had forgiven me for my grumpy trespasses of the previous twenty-four hours and that, over caviar-freckled blinis, we would soon be back on track again. However, when I stepped into the dining room to find Julian sharing still more Clicquot with a lithe young woman in a white satin dress, I suddenly wondered if it wasn’t a joke after all.

“ Buongiorno, amico mio! Meet my wife, Bethany Szabó… erh … McGann !”

The gorgeous dark-haired woman hugged me with two smooth arms, allowing her jawbreaker-sized diamond ring to linger in my sight line as we parted.

“Have a glass,” she purred, pouring out the last of the Champagne and beckoning for another bottle. I downed my glass without hesitation and looked at Julian for some indication that he was playing some kind of elaborate prank. But he was absorbed in a Blue Period canvas on the wall — a drab, flattened beggar who seemed not quite in keeping with the flash and glamour of the rest of the restaurant.

“This is a surprise,” I said, smiling sweetly at Bethany. “Do you and Julian know each other from school or something?”

She cackled. “No, he won me. Last night in a game of craps.”

“Who had you before?” I asked, but Julian interrupted.

“I was up by nearly four, then down six. Now I’m back up — only down two — but I think, if I hurry, I can get in another hour. Maybe two more.” If he was speaking in increments of hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands I did not want to know.

He was twitchy — grabbing at the elbow fabric of his rumpled suit jacket and lifting his glass as if to drink and then setting it down again without taking it to his lips.

“We’ve got to hit the road if we’re getting to the wedding. The Grand Canyon’s five hours away, at least,” I said.