Chapter 2 The Wedding

The wedding was in Napa Valley, which meant it was expensive, pretentious, and attended by people who said vintage when they meant old. Maya arrived on Friday afternoon, camera bag slung over her shoulder, wearing jeans and a blazer and the expression of someone who was pretending not to be out of her depth. Priya met her at the hotel with a glass of champagne and a look of genuine delight. You came! I was starting to think you would chicken out. I did not chicken out. I just took three days to psych myself up. That is not chicking out. That is strategic preparation. Priya linked her arm through Maya's. Come on. The groom's family is arriving, and I want you to meet someone. Someone? Just someone. A friend. Of mine. Of yours. Of nobody's. Someone who needs a plus one and you need a story. Priya's eyes twinkled with that particular brand of mischief that only best friends possess. Trust me. Maya wanted to trust her. She really did. But something about the way Priya said trust me made her think this was going to be terrible. The groom's family arrived in a flurry of designer luggage and expensive perfume. Maya watched from the bar, her champagne untouched, her camera forgotten, as a man walked through the hotel doors and stopped dead in his tracks. He was tall. Too tall. Broad-shouldered in a way that suggested he spent more time at the gym than he did at home. He wore a suit that cost more than Maya's annual rent, and his hair was the kind of dark that looked expensive even when it was slightly messy. He carried himself like a man who had never been told no and had never needed to. He was also looking directly at Maya, and his expression was not pleasant. Maya, Priya said, appearing at her elbow. This is Julian. Julian, this is Maya. She is my friend. She is a photographer. She is also, apparently, going to be your fake girlfriend for the weekend. Maya's champagne went down the wrong pipe. She coughed, she sputtered, she choked, and Julian's expression shifted from confusion to concern to something that might have been amusement. Fake girlfriend? he said. Long story, Priya said. Trust me. Maya did not trust her. But she also did not have a better option, so she nodded and said hello, and prayed that whatever disaster was coming, she would survive it. --- Julian was still watching her when Priya steered Maya across the lobby, and Maya had the distinct impression he was trying to decide whether she was a threat or a joke. He settled, it seemed, on both. Priya linked her arm through Maya's and whispered, Don't panic, but he's exactly as terrible as I warned you, and then she released her and went to fetch another glass of champagne, leaving Maya standing alone in the path of a man who looked like he had been carved from the same expensive stone as the building. He nodded once, the smallest of acknowledgments, and said, So you're the photographer. Priya mentioned you might be useful. Maya said, I'm useful. I'm also standing right here, so you can include me in the conversation. Julian's mouth did something that might have been the ghost of a smile. They moved to the bar, where Priya slid between them like a referee at a boxing match. The plan, she announced, was simple. Julian needed a date for the weekend. Maya needed a date for the weekend. They would be each other's date. No one outside the three of them would know it was an arrangement. It would solve both their problems and cost nothing but a little acting. Maya looked at Julian, who was studying the champagne in his glass as if it held the terms of a merger. You do this often? she asked. Pretend to be someone's boyfriend for a weekend? Julian said, I do many things I don't advertise. Priya said, He's shy. Julian said, I'm not shy. Priya said, You're shy about feelings. Julian said, I'm not shy about feelings, I'm selective about whom I have them with. Maya found herself, against every instinct, a little impressed. The three of them sat on a low couch near the windows, and the negotiation began in earnest. Priya wanted believable tenderness. Julian wanted plausible deniability. Maya wanted, she realized, to not be the only single person at a wedding full of couples who would pity her or envy her depending on the hour. We don't have to be good at it, she said. We just have to be convincing for two days. Julian tilted his head. Two days is a long time to be convincing. Maya said, Then we'd better get our story straight. Julian's gray eyes met hers, and for the first time he looked at her not as an obstacle but as a collaborator. All right, he said. Tell me about the woman I'm supposed to be in love with. Maya opened her mouth and found she had no idea what to say. They spent the next hour building a fiction, line by line, the way Maya built a composition through a lens, deciding what to keep in frame and what to leave in shadow. They had met, Julian decided, at a coffee shop, because coffee shops were where ordinary people met and he was trying to seem ordinary. Maya had, Priya suggested, spilled something on him, because Priya found the idea hilarious and would not be talked out of it. A latte, Maya supplied, on his shirt, and he had been annoyed, and she had been apologetic, and somehow that had become a conversation, and the conversation had become a number, and the number had become three months of whatever it was they were calling this. Julian practiced saying her name the way a man might, with a slight softening at the end, and Maya practiced not flinching when he did. By the time the sun dropped behind the hills, they had a story, if not a relationship. Priya toasted them with the dregs of her champagne and declared the union blessed, then wandered off to find the bride, leaving Maya and Julian alone with their invented romance. He drained his glass and set it down with a decisiveness that suggested the matter was settled. I'll play along, he said. For the weekend. Don't read into it. Maya said, I never read into anything. I photograph things. I don't interpret them. Julian looked at her for a long moment, then stood and offered his hand to pull her up from the couch. We start tomorrow, he said. Try to look like you like me by then. Maya took his hand, and the electricity of the contact surprised them both, though neither would admit it. We'll see, she said, and followed him toward the elevator, the fiction of them already beginning to feel less like a lie.