“We need to get you some setting spray,” said the makeup girl to Shay, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s just the last thing before your dad comes to get you.” She turned to the rest of us and said, “Mom one and Mom two, you need to be out there, sitting in your reserved places.”
In an instant, or so it felt, Delia was also there at my side, armed with something that flashed in her hand. She reached up with it and I heard a sharp CLICK of metal on metal, snapping closed, and it felt like something had just sharply bitten me underneath my arm. She snapped her fingers, frantically beckoning for the part-time makeup girl to get something from the opened makeup case that had been set on the vanity. The makeup girl rummaged around in the case before she pulled out a wad of cotton balls, a mini-bottle of antiseptic and a Band-Aid that would certainly do the trick.
“It will bleed just a little bit. Nothing for you to fret over,” Delia said as she swiped the cotton and bandage from the makeup girl, who promptly returned to preen over Shay. “But you’re a sturdy lady, aren’t you, Ansley? You seem to understand beauty and pain, taste and blood. They go well together in the right moment, don’t they?” she said softly, just loud enough for me to catch it. I threw a quick glance over her shoulder, trying to catch Shay’s eye, Mom’s, anyone’s. They were rightly wrapped in whatever drama the bride was concocting at the moment.
I didn’t like the look of Delia’s smile either. Too-perfect teeth hiding behind those designer red lips. She dabbed at the wound she’d created under my arm, softly humming a tune that was vaguely familiar in the spinning fog I was in. Something crisp like autumn days and catchy, something I sort of remembered from back when I was Bryceson’s age, maybe a little older. She shook the bottle of antiseptic before she tipped it, wetting another cotton ball. I think it was the thought of having her touch me that had me take the damp bit of cotton from her. Her smile dissolved into a sneer, her face darkening as she watched me soak the fresh wound and the reddening area around it.
“Perhaps you should ask Charlie to lick it for you. He’ll clean it up quite nicely, like he did your salty, little pussy,” she said so quietly, I’d barely caught it in its entirety.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Delia’s suddenly twisted into an edge of a baffled smile, one that was awfully authentic. “What’s that? Are you quite all right, my lovely? You look a little peaked.”
#
You know those moments where everything around you just becomes a hazy wash of colors and light, but you can’t discern any perceptible shapes or outlines of the people there? The sounds are just low white noise in the background. If someone touched you on your bare skin right then and there, it would shock you into a comatose state, forcing you into a dark oblivion you’d never be able to return from. That would be it.
And you know this. You’ve always known this.
It would be the end of you.
In that moment, when the bridal suite became a whirlwind mesh of blinding, deafening pastels and cacophony, I felt Delia’s hot breath against my face, and all I wanted to do was run far away from her. My legs were heavy, rooted there. I knew if I tried to lift one and then the other, it would feel like pulling them out of a vat of glue.
My quickening pulse was thunderous in my head. Burning bile rose in my throat. Delia’s expression had softened as quickly as it had grown dark beforehand, and somehow, I knew if I even mentioned what she had said, what I’d actually had heard from her, she’d be quick to brush it off and frame it as wedding stress, that I was hearing things, that I’d need plenty of rest after the ceremony, maybe even another month added on at the center. Delia would gaslight me because she was good at it. She’d done it before, I was certain of it, and she’d not hesitate to do it again, even to someone she barely knew.
She knew what she was doing, and thanks to my own personal predicament, she knew no one would believe a word out of me.
I didn’t know if I’d believe me either.
“You’re flushed, Ansley. Are you all right? Should we have someone fetch you some ice water?” she said. Her voice dripped with saccharine-soaked concern.
Mom tore herself away from Shay to check on me just as my dad, tuxedoed up and looking completely unsure of what to do, joined us in the bridal suite. The wedding organizer, the woman who’d been fluttering about in the dining hall, was there as well and motioned for all of us to take our places, but Mom shot her a quick warning look, instantly shutting her up. The planner nodded and turned her attention to Shay, Dad, Emma, and Bryceson, who had fallen awkwardly into his role as ring bearer. She gave him the little velveteen pillow and crouched down in front of him to detail his directions.
“Ansley, if you feel like you need to sit or just rest in your room, it’s perfectly fine,” said Mom as she felt my forehead and cheeks. “You’re feverish.”
“I’m good, Mom. I am. You need to go out there and—” And the room kept turning itself inside out, making me lose my balance.
Mom was there to grip my arm and straighten me, patting down the front of my dress as she did. Her face was etched with worry. “When was the last time you drank some water?” she murmured.
“Should I go out there and tell everyone we’re running a little late?” asked the planner.
Shay whirled around, facing the three of us on the other side of the room, her nostrils flaring, cheeks blooming red. “Do you need some time, Ansley, or is this just one of your moments that we can bypass for now? Seriously,” she snapped. “I’m telling you all, I am getting married tonight, and that’s the end of it. I am so sick of dealing with her bullshit. It’s always something. Always something,” She directed her anger right at me, hitting where it hurts. “Do you need a Valium, Ans, or is that one of the drugs on your naughty list?”
“Shay Ellen, that is quite enough,” Mom scolded. “Both of you need to pull yourselves together, become ladylike, or you will be spending the remainder of the evening apologizing in a microphone to the guests and staff here. Do you understand?” She was looking right at me when she said that.
My head was buzzing, going numb. A part of me thought I needed to do something to get Shay’s attention, to make a scene, to force the family to get the hell out of Dodge somehow. Nothing about this was right, and Delia, who kept nodding and frowning in perfectly practiced empathy in Mom’s direction, had just convinced me well enough that nothing about this was right, nothing about the whole experience felt right, and that Shay was about to marry into a family of creeps.
By then, everyone there was staring at me, as if I could just trigger the correct move to make. Even Delia had on a mask of concern, but her icicle eyes were lit in amusement. It’s was as if she liked seeing me squirm, as if she was daring me to say something stupid and call her out on what I’d heard, but I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction no matter what my gut was advising me to do.
And something kept nagging at me, that prickling going up my spine, spreading to my arms, the chill of it traveling to my fingertips. Something wasn’t right. Bubbles of bright color popped when I blinked. Then everything went all blurry again.
“Can I have a moment to—?”
But I couldn’t finish whatever it was I was trying to say. I remember feeling as if the floor was coming up, just out of reach, and it was Shay who caught me that time. She’d suddenly bolted right for me and hoisted me up by the arms. The room rocked. She put her cold palms against my cheeks, and it helped cool me down, but something was still off, like the air was rippling, and the ringing in my ears blocked out whatever it was Shay was saying, something in the fog over and over again.
The crack in her voice was rising, verging on hysteria. She turned to Mom and the others in the bridal train, shouting at them, frantically motioning them out. Mom seemed about to speak, none too happy about how things were going, but Shay shot her a look that instantly shut her up and had her urge Emma, Bryceson, the assistants, and Delia out the door, away from the tension.
When Sha
y turned back to me, her eyes were wide and manic, and I could’ve sworn I saw a blood vessel burst in one of them, creating a red road map of mad squiggles. I wanted her eyes to stop, to keep silent.
I wanted her to stop.
None of that felt exactly as it should have in that moment.
#
There are blank spots. I can’t remember much of the in-between during key moments. Does anyone though? For me, however, it happens often when there’s tension, and my head hurts, and I can’t hear much that I probably should. I barely remember fuzzy bits and pieces there in the bridal suite. The whole room was saturated in soft, golden tones coming in through the windows of the bridal suite; the sun was announcing the reclining hour, signaling the early evening.
Shay was saying something to me, her eyes surprisingly clear and bright. I was moving towards her, reaching out to her with the bridal bouquet in my hands. I don’t know how they got there, but it seemed that I would’ve done that anyway. It seemed right. She smiled as she took the bouquet from me, so I presumed everything had settled between us somehow while I wasn’t entirely there. I gathered up my bouquet that had been carefully set on the loveseat nearby, patted down my dress here and there, and got into place, readying myself to lead her out the door to the ceremony
By then, my mind had come back into focus. I was there with her, and all I could think about in that moment was whether or not there were alternate exits out of the place in case I really needed to run.
In case each and every one of us needed to run.
NINE
The dining hall was alive with laughter and color. I’ve since forgotten much of it, how I’d even gotten there, from the bridal suite, to the ceremony in the courtyard, finally to the reception. I’d been seated, as indicated by the glitzy placard, at the end of the connected chain of tables that had been set up specifically for the immediate wedding party. It suited me just fine even though I knew in my heart that as much as Shay had been trying to get along with me during her weekend, the thought of having me sit near her was then too much for her to bear. The wedding planner must have been ordered to switch my placard with whoever the heck it was who was sitting by Bryceson, some middle-aged guy I didn’t recognize who had a bad comb-over and wore a dark green tuxedo that was completely out of place. Judging by the looks on Shay and Mom’s faces, they hadn’t been expecting that to sit with the wedding party. He seemed right at home though, joshing with Bryceson and then cheering loudly while holding up his champagne glass high in the air after one of the groomsmen’s speech to the bride and groom. I didn’t get the jokes and references that had been tossed in, and because everyone else had, and had laughed at each and every one of them, I instantly felt out of place there among them.
I felt completely alone, utterly out of the picture. There’d been this life, these key moments, which I’d obviously missed because I’d been so consumed by my own problems. My heart burned a hole in me, and my temples throbbed. The air around me was suffocating, and I wanted to go. However, I knew that if I left the reception, I’d not hear the end of it from my family, especially Shay, and I couldn’t do that to her.
Besides, no matter how anxious I was about being by myself, feeling left out of everything, there was still that lingering sense that something was coming, that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t just Delia’s out-of-character, inappropriate aside, which had alarmed me well enough. It was the feeling one gets—well, the feeling that I often get—before a storm strikes. The air was flat and eerily silent all around, untouched by the white noise of the wedding party. Everything on the outside must have seemed as normal as a wedding ought to appear. The snapshot fragments I remember about the ceremony had been lovely, I suppose, with only a few minor hitches (e.g., Bryceson plopping himself down at the foot of the minister instead of going back to his seat; Shay looking annoyed as Nathan read his vows from a piece of paper he’d kept tucked away in his jacket; someone in the back hiccupping throughout the whole second half of the ceremony). The photography session went well, too, despite the groomsmen acting like assclowns with their flask-sharing and constant quips at the wedding planner, who kept trying to keep them under control while the photographer posed everyone in various shots on the terrace under the fairy lights.
Even the reception itself had been beautifully set up. The dining hall had been decorated in ivory and garnet red, and the hideous moose and elk trophies had been removed from their spots on the walls, replaced with antique mirrors and landscape paintings in gilded frames. Ceiling swags spun from ivory organza had been looped above, meeting at a giant chandelier in the middle of the room.
And the main course. Aside from a little tiff amongst my seatmates, God, it was just…perfection, and it almost made me forget that sense that something was definitely off. Almost. I don’t know who’d planned the menu, but I knew it hadn’t been anyone from my family. None of us, except for Mom perhaps, had been much of a gourmand. Once the soup bowls had been cleared, we were served either Chateaubriand or spit-roasted Cornish hen. There was even a vegetable Moroccan tagine with couscous to satiate those who’d gone meatless. A couple of the Card cousins—highlighted and svelte twentysomething sisters I’d been sitting in-between—had torn right into the tender slices of meat on their plates, having completely bypassed the soup starter altogether. Not that I blamed them. The broth had been so light on flavor, we may as well have been supping on hot, salted water sprinkled with parsley flakes. If I’d spent more time watching the two of them eat, I probably would’ve lost my appetite for the Cornish hen and summer vegetables I’d chosen. The meat was moist and tender, and the wine that had been paired with it served to only enhance its fatty-rich flavor.
By the time the three of us had finished, our plates were bare, and one of the girls brought up her plate to her face to lick it clean. Her sister reached across me to swat at the plate-licker’s hand.
“Sorry about that,” she’d mumbled at me. “If you wanna trade places, I can smack her upside the head.”
Plate-Licker let her platter clatter onto the table. Her fingers curled; her hands balled into fists. She then peered around me at her sister, her eyes firing arrows. I sat as far back in my chair as I was able, not wanting to be a part of a fight that was already brewing.
“Cake’s coming,” she growled at the other, more mannerly one.
“Yeah, so? You don’t lick your plate like that in public. You gonna do that with your dessert plate, too?”
“We have to keep it clean for second meal dessert. It’ll taste nasty otherwise.”
“What the hell are you talking about, ‘second meal dessert’? What does that even mean?”
“You know what it means. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
McManners gave her sister a strange look. I couldn’t tell if it was meant to direct her to explain herself or to shut up.
“It’s like those old Taco Bell ads for ‘Fourthmeal.’ Remember that?” said Plate-Licker. “Instead of tacos, we’re courting dessert.”
“That is so fucking retarded.”
Plate-Licker shot me an apologetic smirk. “Forgive my ‘special’ sister for her lack of political correctness.” Then she reached over and sharply rapped her sister on the back of her hand with a knuckle, prompting McManners to flinch and attempt to smack her back from across me. I was close to being caught in a twisted knot of hands and arms, being in the middle of their row like that.
“See what I did there? We don’t say ‘retarded’ anymore. That’s rude,” said Plate-Licker. “Instead, we say ‘differently abled’ or ‘special.’ I thought you were meant to be a model of good behavior.”
“You licked your plate, so evidently, I taught you nothing.”
“You know, in some countries, licking the plate clean is a compliment to the chef.”
McManners shook her head at her sister. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I think so.”
“You’re wrong.”
“It’s true.”
“You’re so wrong, you couldn’t be any more wrong.”
“Get your cell, and let’s look it up then.”
“You’re thinking of slurping your soup. Like they do in Japan. Not plate licking. It doesn’t matter anyway. Our phones are useless in here, remember?”
“Look how clean I made it though. What chef wouldn’t take that as a compliment?”
I’d held back my snicker, only for the sake of keeping it together, but I still interjected with a “Why don’t I just switch places with one of you” as I pushed my seat back and got up.
Plate-Licker motioned for me to sit back down. “It’s fine. It’s better if we have a barrier between us,” she said, making a face at her sister.
“She’s right. We’d probably kill each other. Probably tear each other to shreds,” said McManners, shooting her sister a rapid-fire birdie.
“You’re definitely sisters,” I said, my halfassed attempt at cooling them down with polite, normal conversation. “So how many years between the two of you?”
“Two, but it feels like twenty sometimes,” said McManners.
Plate-Licker shot her sister a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
“You’re the oldest anyway, so it’d be like you’re in your forties. Almost as old as Aunt Melanie.”
“Forty’s not that old.”
Plate-Licker nodded thoughtfully. “Seriously. She doesn’t look a second over thirty. All those collagen injections.”
“I heard she’s on a liquid diet,” said McManners. “But it’s just the usual stuff tossed in a smoothie blender with some macha, some kale and pearl powder. Then, presto ala mundo! It’s healthy!”
“I can’t believe people are stupid enough to ingest pearl powder.”
“But think of the benefits in all the crushed gemstones they’ve not discovered yet. We could make some money testing it out. Topaz, opals, onyx—”
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