The Looking Glass

by Janet McNally

  I hear the heartbreak in Jack’s voice, all bricked up with anger and resentment. I get it, I really do, but I think about what Sadie said to me, that she’d rather have a dad than not, even if he wasn’t perfect. I think maybe Jack feels that way too, deep down.

  “Sometimes you talk about your dad like he’s an actual villain,” I say. I try to keep my voice gentle. “I’m pretty sure he’s just a guy.”

  He opens his mouth to answer, but then something distracts us both. There’s a hitchhiker on the side of the road in front of us, standing with her thumb out. I didn’t know people actually did that outside of the movies. And it would be fine—not weird; really, not a problem at all—except for one thing.

  She’s wearing a yellow ball gown.

  Track 11:

  Rhiannon

  JACK PULLS OVER BEFORE I can stop him. Not that I would stop him. I mean, should I? I have no idea. Picking up a hitchhiker is probably not the best choice, but I bet there aren’t many ball-gown-wearing serial killers in the world, at least not since women stopped wearing ball gowns on the regular. (Too bad, because there’s so much potential for great names: the Chiffon Shooter, the Taffeta Terrorist, the Sequined Slayer.)

  She’s not an illusion. Jack sees her too. I know because he says half under his breath, “Pretty fancy for a hitchhiker.”

  When Jack slows to a stop next to her, of course I’m closest in the passenger seat. Close up I see that she’s about Julia’s age. Her skin is light brown and her thick black hair is wound elaborately around her head. Her dress is low-cut and lace-edged, with bell sleeves and a skirt that spreads in a wide circle around her on the asphalt. We look at each other for a moment. She’s grinning, and I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I’m smiling. All I know is that my molecules have started up again, swirling.

  “Hi,” I say. A brilliant greeting.

  “Hey,” the girl says. “Are you heading toward Ocean City? I have to be at a wedding in an hour and a half.”

  Okay. That explains something. “Are you getting married?” I ask. This can be our good deed of the day. Of the week! Get the girl to her wedding, and show the universe we’re worthy. Just like in a fairy tale.

  The girl laughs then, loudly. “God, no,” she says. “I’m just the maid of honor.”

  Okay. Still a good deed, a necessary service. Still proof of our goodness.

  “Ocean City is on the ocean, right?” Jack asks.

  She peers around me and gives him a Look. “Um, yeah.”

  Jack blushes. “I mean . . . I figured. It’s just that it’s in the opposite direction.” He points across the highway. “You’re pointed the wrong way.”

  The girl’s eyes widen.

  “You. Are. Kidding. Me.” She’s leaning on the doorframe now, her elaborate hairdo framed by my open window. “I swear, my phone GPS is out to get me. And my car, which is dead in that parking lot over there.” She points. “Or maybe my subconscious is leading me astray. Because”—she lowers her voice to a whisper—“I don’t really want to go to this wedding. I mean, not dressed like this.” She sighs. “But I have to. The bride’s my best friend.”

  The choice is clear, as far as I’m concerned. If the universe drops a girl in a princess dress on the side of the road for us, we have to do what she needs.

  “We’ll take you,” I say. I look at Jack. “Okay?”

  He looks a little surprised, but he nods. “Okay.”

  “Oh my goodness,” the girl says. “Thank you so much. You are absolute angels.”

  Jack and I get out. While he puts her bag in the trunk, the girl sort of pitches herself into the back seat. I push her skirts in and slam the door. It won’t close at first and I push harder, gather up the silky fabric and shove it further into the car. Pav barks. To her credit, the girl is laughing.

  As for me, I’m sweating by the time I get back in the front seat. I turn around while I’m clicking my seat belt.

  “How were you even driving in that dress?” I ask.

  “I had my skirt bunched up in a ridiculous way,” she says. “It was not the safest way to drive. Seriously, thank y’all for stopping.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “I’m Sylvie. And this is Jack.”

  “Rhiannon,” she says.

  The world goes all wonky. I see stars circling my head like a cartoon character might. “What?” I say. Jack looks at me. His eyes are wide.

  “Oh, I know,” she says. “It’s a weird name. Even worse when you consider my last name is Rodriguez. Killer alliteration.”

  “It’s a Fleetwood Mac song,” I say.

  “My mom was obsessed.” She notices the music then. I can tell because a light goes on in her face. She frowns. The stereo’s not playing “Rhiannon” (thank goodness), but “Blue Letter.” She looks worried, like maybe we’re obsessed with Fleetwood Mac too (or one of us is, hmmm, I wonder who) and this is an elaborate kidnapping.

  Jack is cheerful, oblivious, because he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a girl and always in danger. “We’re on a Fleetwood Mac kick, actually,” he says. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  Something in his Model Human demeanor must reassure Rhiannon. She smiles.

  “Oh, it’ll be just like my entire childhood,” she says.

  Turns out Rhiannon can pretty much carry a conversation on her own. After we take off toward Ocean City, she starts talking and barely stops. I can’t say I mind. It’s nice to have a new infusion of personality into the Volvo.

  “I know I look ridiculous,” she’s saying. “Casey wanted a Marie Antoinette–inspired wedding. I was like, ‘Do you know how Marie Antoinette ended up?’” She draws her hand across her neck and sticks her tongue out. “And she was like, ‘Well, obviously, I mean before the decapitation.’” Rhiannon rolls her eyes. “Can you believe it? On the bridal shower invitation I put: We’re going to party like we’re going to the guillotine tomorrow.” She sweeps her hand through the air as if she can see the words there. “It’s amazing what you’ll do for your best friend.”

  She’s right. I mean, I would totally dress as one of Marie Antoinette’s groupies if Sadie asked me to.

  But I kind of hope she doesn’t.

  About forty minutes later and Rhiannon’s whole life story later, we arrive in front of a gray stone church. I can smell the ocean from the parking lot—it smells like salt and seaweed and wind over sand. This is New Jersey, so there’s a little whiff of algae/sewage/chemical waste, but I try to ignore that.

  There are four other women in saffron-colored ball gowns standing out in front of the church, their hair in various states of eighteenth-century French fashion. The bride’s dress is white and ruffled and resembles a wedding cake as much as it does an article of clothing. She shades her eyes and peers toward us. Rhiannon is looking out the back window.

  “Casey doesn’t look too angry that I’m late,” she says. “I mean, I dressed like a high-class eighteenth-century whore for her, so she better forgive me.” I hear a rustling sound and then Rhiannon laughs.

  “I can’t find the door handle,” she says.

  “Coming!” I say. I get out of the car and open the door for her. She tries to get out but there’s too much skirt. She can’t get her legs to a place where they can make their way to the ground. She’s laughing, still, when I grab her hand and pull.

  Once on the asphalt, she throws her arms around me and then Jack.

  “You two have saved the day,” she says. “And you’re obviously coming to the wedding.”

  “It’s just that—we have someplace we’re supposed to be,” I say.

  Rhiannon tilts her head. A curl that’s come loose from her updo slides across her cheek.

  “Can it wait a bit?” she asks.

  I look at Jack. He smiles.

  “It can,” I say.

  Track 12:

  Where We Belong

  THE RECEPTION IS IN A restaurant right on the water, a glass-enclosed dining room and a terrace right next to the sand. Pav
lova sleeps in the bride’s dressing room while Jack and I eat a semi-awkward-but-actually-kind-of-fun dinner with three cousins of the bride, plus their dates and a great-aunt named Ruth. I like the great-aunt best. She has silver hair set in perfectly arranged waves and is wearing a grass-green shift dress she said she first wore in 1967. When I tell her that I’m a dancer, she gets excited.

  “I love ballet,” she says. “You know, I saw NBT’s Sleeping Beauty thirty years ago.”

  My heart seizes. “Did you like it?”

  “I loved it. It was beautiful.” She’s smiling but her gaze is far off, as if she’s remembering, watching a film reel of memory in her mind. Then she turns her eyes back to me. “I must say that I never totally understood Sleeping Beauty’s behavior, though. It seems like she caused all her own problems. It shouldn’t be that hard to avoid a spindle, should it?”

  “No!” I say, too loudly. “She didn’t know. No one told her. They just burned all the spindles they could find.”

  Great-Aunt Ruth looks surprised at first, but then she nods. “I see,” she says.

  Jack is watching me. He looks the tiniest bit worried. I’m not sure what I’m talking about anymore, but it’s not Sleeping Beauty. Or not just Sleeping Beauty.

  It’s not just Julia either, though. She had to have known that those pills were dark magic, that they might help for a while but would find a way to hurt her in the end.

  She chose them anyway.

  After dinner, Jack and I stand at the terrace railing, looking out over the dark sparkling water.

  “I haven’t seen you two dance once,” Rhiannon says, coming up behind us. “It’s required, you know. If I have to wear this getup all night, you have to dance.” She leans back against the railing and crosses her arms in a case closed fashion.

  So we dance, even though we haven’t been this close since he pulled me off the railing on the High Line. We stand facing each other and move a little closer, until we’re stiff-armed and swaying off beat. Rhiannon gives me a little shove when she passes and I get a little closer to him. Somehow, this helps.

  I can’t look at him, though. I look past his shoulder to the water, intermittent whitecaps glowing in the moonlight. I half expect to see a mermaid tail out there, disappearing beneath the water. At first glance, I’m happy to report, the water is mermaid-free.

  “So what’s the plan, boss?” Jack’s mouth is close to my ear.

  “Boss?”

  “Well, I’m clearly not the boss,” he says. “You’re sailing this ship.”

  “And you’re driving the car.”

  “Right,” he says. “Where are we going to sleep?”

  “That is such a good question,” I say. We could get a hotel room somewhere, I’m sure, even here in Ocean City. I have my emergency credit card, and we might as well go for broke. But I think that would feel too strange, being alone with Jack in a room with miniature toiletries and a Gideon Bible in a drawer. It’s too much, somehow.

  This is when an idea occurs to me. A plan, you might say. I don’t know if it’s a good one, but plans don’t always have to be good to work.

  “I’ve got it covered,” I say.

  Track 13:

  Walk a Thin Line

  IT’S PAST TEN O’CLOCK WHEN we pull into the parking lot of the Wegmans supermarket in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

  Really. This is my plan. I mean, I never said it was great.

  “What’s this?” Jack asks.

  I point to the sign on the building, its letters lit up in red. “It’s Wegmans.”

  He rolls his eyes, smiling. “I can see that.”

  “It’s a grocery store,” I say. “My mother’s, like, weirdly obsessed with it. We always stop when we’re on road trips. Why don’t you park over there?” I point through the windshield toward the last row of cars, bordering the left side of the parking lot. Just past the asphalt is a narrow strip of grass and then some bushes dotted with red geraniums. Even farther is a line of trees, planted as a windbreak or a border, maybe, or perhaps there’s a whole forest out there. That makes me reconsider my decision here for about ten seconds. But I don’t have another choice at this point.

  When he pulls into a parking spot, I turn around to kneel on the seat and dig through my bag. Pavlova wags her tail. It’s less than seventy degrees right now, in the silvery light of the parking lot, so Pavlova should be okay in the car for a half hour as long as the windows are cracked.

  “You’re going to have to hang out in the car for a bit after you get out to pee,” I tell her. “But I’ll bring you a treat.”

  I look at Jack.

  “You might want to bring your toothbrush,” I say.

  The first thing I remember about Wegmans is how big it is. Like, you could park a few airplanes in here if you wanted to, and still have space to sell carrots and cake mix. Jack and I wander around the prepared food section—big as a cafeteria—for a while and then climb the stairs to the “café seating” upstairs to eat our late night snack. For me: avocado sushi rolls. For Jack: a yogurt parfait.

  “So what’s the plan, here?” Jack says. “We sleep in the cereal aisle?”

  I laugh. “I thought we’d sleep in the car, actually. But at least there’s a bathroom in case we have to pee at night. And we probably won’t get murdered in a supermarket parking lot.”

  He nods. He’s smiling at me.

  It still feels a little weird.

  I look over the edge of the balcony. Below me: loaves of bread, donuts in a glass case, the elaborate fruit tarts I admired earlier. I reach out to touch the railing. I feel my molecules swing dancing and in the next moment I wonder: what would it be like to sit up here? For a moment, I want to swing my legs over the side and balance on the edge over the bakery section. Then I hear Jack’s voice.

  “Sylvie,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  I shake myself out of the weird reverie, quiet my quivering atomic parts. Or rather, Jack’s voice does.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I better get back to Pavlova. If she starts barking in the car, we’re screwed.”

  We throw away our trash and go back down to the bottom floor. The bathrooms are next to one another, just before the wide exit.

  “See you in a minute,” I say.

  After I pee, I come out of the stall and wash my hands. My phone chimes a text in my bag: Sadie.

  How’s it going? Did you find her?

  I answer right away. Not yet. She stayed with Rose for a while. Thatcher tomorrow.

  Why not today?

  We got delayed. We . . . ended up at a wedding. Long story.

  Sadie sends an open-mouth emoji face. You can tell me WHEN YOU GET TO RICHMOND. How’s Jack?

  How is Jack? I don’t know. He’s fine, I type.

  He’s going to try to get out of seeing my dad. But I’ll be here for five more days so remind him there’s no excuse.

  Short of wolves or witches, I guess.

  Of course, I text.

  There’s an older woman standing at the mirror next to me. She has a cloud of silver hair and a black uniform with a name tag that says Francesca. She’s watching me in the mirror, as I put toothpaste on my toothbrush.

  “Did you find everything you need?” she asks.

  “Like, groceries?” I say. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  She shakes her head. “I mean, do you need anything? Any help?”

  For a second, I wonder if this is her. My fairy godmother. Because if I’m honest, since the book arrived, that’s all I’ve been waiting for. Some benevolent lady who can wave her wand and fix everything and tell me what the hell I should do. I can almost see the glitter, feel the magic. But then I see the way she’s looking at me and I know she must just think I’m in trouble, homeless, maybe, brushing my teeth here in a grocery store bathroom.

  I’m not in trouble, I want to say. At least not that kind.

  “Oh, thanks,” I say, “but no. I just have really good dental hygiene.”

  She lo
oks at my reflection in the mirror. I look at hers. She’s magic or she’s ordinary. I can’t tell.

  “Okay,” she says. And then she goes.

  Track 14:

  Dreams

  IT’S NEARLY MIDNIGHT BY THE time we leave. Jack’s waiting for me just past the automatic doors. Together we walk to the Volvo on the far side of the lot, bathed in the glowing light of the tall lamps overhead. Moths circle in tiny snowstorms.

  When we get to the car we each go to our sides, then look at each other over the top.

  “How are we going to do this?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Just lean the seats back? Do they lean?”

  Jack smiles. “Of course they lean. This is a very luxurious car we’re dealing with here.”

  “Right,” I say. “It’s a Volvo.” I walk to the passenger side door.

  “Damn straight.” Jack looks at me over the roof of the car. “So we’ll just see who Pavlova chooses to snuggle with?”

  I open the door and my dog jumps out. “I guess we will,” I say.

  When I shut the door I almost reach up to put on my seat belt before I remember that we’re not going anywhere. We’re staying right here this time, right in front of this supermarket in Nowhere, New Jersey. All night long.

  Pavlova settles next to my hip (she chose me, obviously), and Jack’s already reclined in his seat, leaning straight back and looking at the sky (I think) out the back-seat driver’s side window. It’s warm in the car but not hot, thankfully, and the air smells like the geraniums planted at the edge of the lot.

  I don’t know if it makes more sense to face toward Jack or away from him, so basically I just wiggle around in my seat a little and then end up in the middle, facing the ceiling. I’m about to say good night when Jack speaks.

  “I’m sorry about what I said last night,” he says.

  As soon as he says it, I’m back in Rose’s living room on her lumpy sofa bed, ceiling fan spinning overhead. I can’t believe that was only one day ago. It feels like a week.