13

AMAYA

Two Days before the Wedding

The only silver lining is that, with the wedding around the corner, the celebrations had now moved out of the Fonsekas’ home and into the Mount Lavinia hotel.

Kaavi’s bridal shower was the next day—Don’t worry, ladies, the bridal shower part is for the aunties, but you can be assured the night won’t end without some dirty, flirty, after-hours fun, Kaavi had joked in a recent video. The formal bridal shower will be held over afternoon tea at the hotel terrace, with the after-party to continue down by the beach. No one over thirty-five allowed was the informal notice given. I guess that’s when the transformation into Colombo 07 aunty began, at least in Kaavi’s opinion.

The bridal shower was supposed to start at 4:00 p.m., so of course, when I showed up at 3:55 p.m. I was the only one there. I kept forgetting about island time, and how it was an unspoken rule that everyone would always be half an hour late. It did nothing to help my anxiety.

I wondered whether Spencer had checked into the hotel today or if he was coming with the rest of the group tomorrow? My palms felt clammy at the thought of bumping into him again. It’s been so strange seeing him here—out of his element but still so smoothly fitting in. But that was what drew me to Spencer in the first place. His understated confidence, overruling the childish arrogance I had once worn like a security blanket. Peeling off the layers I had built up to guard against feeling vulnerable, until he knew every bit of me, every inch. The way he could make me smile and laugh and tremble and gasp and lose my breath, and finally, the way he made me his entirely.

I had to stop thinking about him. He was the center of my plan, yes, but I couldn’t have him distract me from it.

I decided to wander around the hotel instead. I hadn’t been here in many years and had forgotten how absolutely beautiful it was. Originally the governor of British Ceylon’s house, it was converted to a five-star hotel in 1877. The legend goes that British governor Sir Thomas Maitland fell madly in love with a dancing girl, Lovina, during a welcome party held in his honor when he first arrived to the island. So much was he enraptured that he ordered the construction of a secret tunnel that led from his wine cellar to Lovina’s home, so that the lovers could meet in secret. Even though no evidence of this passageway has ever been found, the hotel was a beautifully preserved echo of a time long past.

Someone once told me, at a wedding when I was a child, that I shouldn’t wander through the corridors in the old wing alone at night. They said the ghost of a dancing girl could be heard echoing on the hardwood floors. The tap, tap, tap of her steps, accompanied by the tinkling of bells on her anklets.