The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(22)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Hadley laughed. “Can you even drive on the right side of the road?”

“Yes,” Oliver said, flashing her a look of mock anger. “I know it’s shocking to think that I might be able to operate a vehicle on the wrong side of the road, but I’m actually quite good. You’ll see when we take our big road trip to North Dakota one day.”

“I can’t wait,” Hadley said, reminding herself that it was only a joke. Still, the idea of the two of them crossing the country together, listening to music as the horizon rolled past, had been enough to make her smile.

“So what’s your favorite place outside of the States?” he asked. “I know it’s absurd to think there might be somewhere else in the world as wonderful as, say, New Jersey, but…”

“This is my first time overseas, actually.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Lot of pressure, then.”

“On what?”

“London.”

“My expectations aren’t particularly high.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “So if you could go anywhere else in the world, where would it be?”

Hadley thought about this for a moment. “Maybe Australia. Or Paris. How about you?”

Oliver had looked at her as if it were obvious, the faintest hint of a grin at the corners of his mouth.

“North Dakota,” he’d said.

Now Hadley presses her forehead against the window of the taxi and once again finds herself smiling at the thought of him. He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it.

She watches with bleary eyes as the world rushes past, and tries her best to stay awake. Her phone rings four times before she realizes it’s not the cabbie’s, and when she finally fishes it out of her bag and sees that it’s her dad, she hesitates for a moment before answering.

“I’m in a taxi,” she says by way of greeting, then cranes her neck to check the clock on the dashboard. Her stomach does a little somersault when she sees that it’s already 11:24.

Dad sighs, and Hadley imagines him in his tux, pacing the halls of the church. She wonders if he wishes she hadn’t come after all. There are so many more important things for him to be worrying about today—flowers and programs and seating arrangements—that Hadley’s missed flight and the fact that she’s running late must seem more of a headache than anything else.

“Do you know if you’re close?” he asks, and she covers the mouthpiece and clears her throat loudly. The driver flinches, quite obviously annoyed at being interrupted.

“Excuse me, sir,” she says. “Do you know how far now?”

He puffs out his cheeks, then heaves a sigh. “Twenty minutes,” he says. “Thirty. Eh, twenty-five. Thirty, maybe. Thirty.”

Hadley frowns and returns the phone to her ear. “I think maybe a half hour.”

“Damn it,” Dad says. “Charlotte’s gonna have a stroke.”

“You can start without me.”

“It’s a wedding, Hadley,” he says. “It’s not like skipping the previews at the cinema.”

Hadley bites her lip to keep from saying “movie theater.”

“Look,” Dad says, “tell the driver you’ll give him an extra twenty quid if he can get you here in twenty minutes. I’ll talk to the minister and see if we can stall for a bit, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, looking doubtfully at the driver.

“And don’t worry—Charlotte’s friends are on standby,” Dad says, and Hadley can once again hear the humor in his voice, that trace of laughter behind his words that she remembers from when she was little.

“For what?”

“For you,” he says cheerfully. “See you soon.”

The driver seems to perk up quite a bit at the idea of a bonus, and after striking a bargain he turns off the motorway and onto a series of smaller roads lined with colorful buildings, an assortment of pubs and markets and little boutiques. Hadley wonders if she should try to start getting ready in the car, but this seems far too daunting an endeavor, and so instead she just looks out the window, biting her fingernails and trying not to think about anything at all. It seems almost easier to go into this blindfolded. Like a man about to be shot.

She glances down at the phone in her lap, then flips it open to try to call her mom. But it goes straight to voice mail, and she snaps it shut again with a heavy feeling. A quick calculation tells her it’s still early in Connecticut, and Mom—being a bear of a sleeper, completely oblivious to the world until she’s had a shower and a massive amount of coffee—is probably still in bed. Somehow, despite their uneven parting, Hadley suspects her mother’s voice might be just the thing to make her feel better, and she wishes for nothing more than to hear it right now.

The cabbie is true to his word; at exactly 11:46, they pull up to an enormous church with a red roof and a steeple so high the very top of it is lost to the mist. The front doors are open, and two round-faced men in tuxes hover in the doorway.

Hadley sifts through the stack of brightly colored bills her mom exchanged for her, handing over what seems like an awful lot for a ride from the airport, plus the extra twenty she promised, which leaves her with only ten pounds. After stepping out into the rain to heave her suitcase from the trunk, the driver pulls away in the taxi, and Hadley simply stands there for a moment, peering up at the church.

From inside she can hear the deep peals of an organ, and in the doorway the two ushers shuffle their stacks of programs and smile at her expectantly. But she spots another door along the brick wall out front and sets off in that direction instead. The only thing worse than walking down the aisle would be to accidentally do it too early, wearing a wrinkled jean skirt and toting a red suitcase.

The door leads to a small garden with a stone statue of a saint, currently occupied by three pigeons. Hadley wheels her suitcase along the side of the building until she comes across another door, and when she shoves it open with her shoulder the sound of the music fills the garden. She looks right and then left down the hallway before taking off toward the back of the church, where she runs into a small woman wearing a little hat with feathers.

“Sorry,” Hadley says, half whispering. “I’m looking for… the groom?”