3.
It’s been so long since I’ve been hungover, my first thought when I wake is I’m dying. This wonderful thought continues as I rip the sheets off my body, dash to the bathroom, and hurl into the cool toilet.
By the fourth time, I’m sure I’ve thrown up something important.
Some vital organ has to be missing at this point. Holding my breath, I flush, then lie on the floor. Yes. It’s the only thing that slows the salsa-dancing walls. I could stay like this forever, on the cold tile.
There’s this nagging in my skull, like I’m forgetting important things.
Goddamn it, what exactly happened last night? I look down, and I’m in a giant white button-up that is absolutely not mine, my bare legs spotted
with bruises.
I can’t remember anything.
My stomach somersaults violently.
Far, far in the distance, the echo of my phone ringing reaches me. I groan, my nose pressing so hard against the floor I can smell the lingering bleach. There’s a desperate need in me to remain horizontal, but I force myself to crawl out and make it to bed.
I should be grateful I’m even alive at this point. I should have been extra careful knowing where I was, what I’m here for.
My eyes shut as I make a snow angel in the thousand-thread-count sheets, feeling around for my phone.
I find it, bring it to my face. Missed call from Taina. No big deal. My fingers scroll to the other missed calls: an unsaved number. That one logged over a dozen missed calls.
The time reads 2:00 p.m., and suddenly, sense rushes into me.
Two fucking p.m., as in, half an hour till Eliza’s wedding.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
God fucking damn it.
I try to hop off the bed, but my legs tangle in the sheets, and I face- plant on the floor with a smack. But adrenaline is pumping through me now, and like a guided missile, I’m in the shower scrubbing every ounce of alcohol from me. In fifteen minutes, I’m clean, teeth brushed, and basic mascara and blush on.
Damn it, I can’t find my contacts or my backup glasses. My eyesight isn’t too horrendous, but I can’t make out faces unless they’re directly across from me, and lights become long stripes that ruin my field of vision.
But I can’t take another minute to look for them, mainly because without them, I can’t see well enough to find them. I must have been well and truly drunk because I usually leave them right beside me.
My hands frantically search through my duffel, and I pluck out a blond wig and shove it over my head. I don’t have time to secure it with pins and clips as I normally do, so I pull it down as much as I can, then dig within my bag until I feel a thin wire, and I excitedly pull up the item.
They aren’t my prescription glasses, but these are oversized round ones that make my eyes look cartoonish. I put them on and try to think. The plan failed, but I’m resourceful.
Resourceful enough to stop a wedding from happening in less than an hour? Remains to be seen.
I yank on a tiny blue dress I stole from Taina and grab my heels before dashing out the door. What the hell is wrong with me? How could I have drunk so much that the entire night is just a dark blur? This is my only source of income, for God’s sake. I let my personal business get in the way of this job, let my misery from the eviction drive me to drink, to make my pity party a priority.
Something about the words pity party scratches at my skull, but I have to keep it moving.
All right, it’s time for a wedding-wrecking Hail Mary. I’ll create mass chaos and confusion and claim I’m a mistress. I’ve only had to do this once, and it was the first wedding I ruined, and it ended with me thrown over the priest’s shoulder as I was dragged away, but at least it worked. A last resort.
Something that can be disproved but disruptive enough to delay the wedding. Hopefully, it will be long enough to gain more time and really find proof of infidelity.
When I get on the elevator, I put on my heels and recall the hotel layout from memory. At least I wasn’t an idiot every day of my life; I’d already studied the hotel map, the venue attached to the back, and the gardens beyond.
God, if everything works out, I promise never to drink again. I know I said that after Taina’s wedding, and after my first divorce, and that time I
bought a $20,000-winning scratch ticket and lost it while buying myself a celebratory layer cake at the grocery store, but I really mean it this time.
I make it to the first floor, and repeat the mantra while mad dashing through the lobby. It’s not a confusing layout; this place is just so damn big I’m out of breath by the time I make it to the hallway with the reception rooms.
Of course, it’s massive here too. I crane my neck up to see the stretch of ceiling, this one painted like the sky scattered with clouds, heavenly. My vision starts to tilt, and I shake it off. I should have drunk some water before leaving, but the wedding will be starting— Shit, now.
I sprint to the room with the double doors on one side. Eliza isn’t waiting there, which means everyone is already inside the ballroom at the end of the corridor. I could be too late. If I am, no big deal. I’ll find a window to fling myself out of.
My heels are on the brink of shattering as they slam against the polished marble. I almost collide with the oversized doors as I grip the golden knobs. I pull and they move, just too damn slow. I have to use my foot as leverage on one door and yank the other to slide between them, my curves getting squashed as I tumble through the opening. I catch myself before my face meets the floor.
A few people in the back row, resting on chairs so heavily covered in flowers it looks like they’re sitting on top of a garden, spot me.
Eliza is under the arch of roses, her husband is looking down at her, and the pastor is reading from his book. I’m not too late. They’re not pronounced yet. Not yet.
I pick myself up from the floor and scream, “I object!”
Now everyone is facing me. All at once, heads turn. I can actually hear the collective shuffle of bodies. People gasp, some clutch their jewelry. My skin heats from it all, or maybe it’s the lingering hangover, but I’m too deep
now.
I jog forward, objecting again.
Nobody moves as I rush toward the arch. I mean, how many times does a wedding get objected to? I can’t blame them. They’re probably in shock.
I grab James by his tie and yank his face to mine. “You told me you’d marry me!” I shout, hearing the collective gasp from the unwillingly but
fully immersed audience. “How could you do this to me?”
“What the hell is this?” James asks, his voice shaking.
The pastor’s hand reaches out. “Now, what is going on?”
James slaps my hand away from him. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell am I?” My voice climbs even more. “I’m the mother of your unborn child!”
The gasps turn into shouts, buzzes of conversations. James jerks around, denying this, calling me crazy, but nobody is listening to him.
Especially not when tears start spilling down my cheeks, and I hold my stomach dramatically. The last part is definitely not an act. A few more minutes of excitement and I might throw up again.
When nobody listens to him, his eyes narrow in on me. He grabs my
shoulders tightly.
His nails pierce my skin.
“Get off me!”
When I try to wiggle out of his grip, he shoves me. I fall back into the arch, and the metal and my back collide like two cymbals banging against each other. My bones rattle as I land on my ass, sending the pain reverberating up my back.
The arch tips slowly. I reach up and grab the back of Eliza’s dress, yanking her away from it as it falls over.
Right into the pastor.
Oh, I’m going to hell.
That has got to be a major sin. Injuring a pastor? Not as forgivable as the many offenses I’ve already accrued.
I hurriedly right myself, grabbing an edge of the arch and lifting. But the man isn’t the only thing tipping over.
The pastor falls back on a wall of delicately placed candles. Glass shatters, and most of the flames flicker out, except for some that join with another and another until a gathering of light grows at the center of it all.
Fire first, pastor later.
I rush forward without thinking, reaching the flame with nothing to smother it with. I have enough sense not to use my hands but not enough sense to keep from blowing on it as if it’ll snuff out the flame.
When I stomp on the fire with the bottom of my shoe, a shard of glass pierces through it and carves a tiny home into my foot.
I shout, instinctively jumping away, but I lose balance and fall back— toward all the broken glass.
Arms grip my hips, pulling me back from the potential damage.
My savior yanks off his long blazer as he passes me, smacking it over the flame until it’s smothered. Once it is, he turns on his heel, and I freeze.
This close, nose to nose, my vision is good enough to make out a face.
It’s the man from the garden.
Flashes of memory blink through my head in rapid clicks. Giggling as Anders pulled me away from making water angels in a fountain out in the gardens. Tossing french fries into each other’s mouths from way too far a distance to ever make it. Getting a piggyback ride through the halls. Fingers cupping my chin as Anders held a bottle of water to my dry lips.
“Anders!” I say at the same time he says, “Lucinda!”
Even with my haphazardly-put-together disguise, he recognized me.
My throat desperately needs a gallon of water. I tear my attention off him, and several people lift the arch while someone pulls the pastor up.
Most everyone is on their feet now, and it sounds like the beginning of a concert, with all the chatter and buzzing of movement. Anticipation is pounding through the bottoms of their shoes, causing the floor to shiver.
James is shouting at Eliza, gesturing toward me, screaming that he has no idea who I am. Eliza turns to face me, pulling up her dress and stomping over.
The veil catches around her face, and she yanks it away and snaps, “Who are you?”
With the veil and my lack of sight, I didn’t see her well enough, but this close, her features become clear. Her nose isn’t supposed to be as straight and pointed as it is right now. It’s supposed to be rounded, and lower. And her skin should be riddled with enough freckles, no amount of foundation could cover them all, unlike the tan, clear skin I see. Her lips should be thinner, her jaw rounder, not full and sharp.
I never understood the phrase time stood still. Not for my two weddings, not when Taina got married and I walked her down the aisle, and not when I got my first client. Not until right now, when I realize this isn’t the best friend of the woman I ran the background check on. This bride isn’t
Eliza.
I slap my hand to my mouth.
My thoughts all come too quickly yet too slowly. If I stop pressing my hand against my mouth, bile will spill from it.
How could this have happened? I’m sure this was the time for Eliza’s wedding. I triple checked the times and dates.
A shadow pours over me.
“Lucinda, what’s going on?” Anders asks, and somehow, he seems less accusatory and more concerned with my well-being. “You said this wasn’t the wedding.”
I swallow down a lump of bile. Every word that comes out stutters into something incoherent. I wonder if I can begin speaking Spanish and pretend I don’t understand a thing. Sure, they heard me speak fluent English already, but I can gaslight over fifty people. I’ve done it before.
The bride takes another step toward me. I move back into Anders’s
body.
He waves a hand in my face. “Lucinda?”
Is it too late to pass out and hope everyone just leaves me to die?
“Oh my God,” I whisper, removing my hand from my mouth, speaking to the bride. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know your fiancé, this is—I’m just—”
How the hell do you explain something like this? There are no words. I want to find the nearest body of water and fling myself into it. “I’m sorry.”
As fast as my feet will take me, I sprint down the aisle, ignoring all the stares and the shouts. My bad foot half drags as I push through the double doors. The other doorway is wide open when I make it to the opposite side of the hall.
People file out, smiling, chatting, forming two lines.
Eliza and her husband walk through them, hand in hand. As I approach them, I can see that Jennie is dragging behind, a tight smile on her face as she follows the couple. Because I went to the wrong hall, and I didn’t stop her best friend’s doomed-to-fail marriage.
Oh God.
I keep moving until I’m at the end of one of the lines. James high-fives and fist-bumps the people as he goes, like a football player getting praised after a touchdown. Eliza presses kisses on cheeks, nods along the way, but coldly. Like the royals greeting people they consider peasants. Not like the
great Princess Diana.
Then Jennie spots me.
Her green gown glides behind her, making her appear to float as she approaches. Her blond hair is pinned in a delicate bun, pearls like the ones sewed on to her gown clipped all around it. She looks absolutely stunning.
In the same way they described Lucifer as being the most beautiful angel.
She removes her hand from her husband’s arm, wraps her arms around me, and presses her mouth so close to my ear she’s kissing it as she speaks.
“I hate you.”
Well, shit.
Jennie didn’t give me a single break, even after I met her in her hotel room while the rest of the wedding celebrated at the reception. I could barely hear after the first minute, when her screaming popped my eardrum. I didn’t say a word. Only sat there and listened to her disappointment, her reminder that her best friend would have to suffer from this doomed marriage.
There’s no defense here. She came to me for help, and I failed her.
Failed Eliza. I remember the hope and joy of getting married—despite nerves and hidden reservations. That feeling of something being wrong, and the swift, heavier obligation that if you had gotten that far, you had to stick it out. And the other feeling, too, of loving someone and them being in love with someone else.
Like my second marriage. I bet Eliza has had the same conversations with herself I had. He’s just friendly with her. They’ve been friends for years. You’ll look crazy if you bring it up. You’ll be humiliated if it turns out to be true—and it can’t be true if you avoid it.
Even now, years later, there is this missing fragment in my chest, permanently shattered from heartbreak. It doesn’t matter how much time passes, it only eases the pain, but the scars remain. This haunted feeling that I’m irreparably flawed.
And now Eliza will have to feel that way too. I couldn’t help her, like nobody could help me.
I had no time to pack, and with the lack of time and proper eyewear, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something in the rush of leaving. Even though most of my meeting with Jennie is a blur, I got the gist of it. Not getting paid. I ruined Jennie’s best friend’s life.
She got me the worst seat in economy—though I’m lucky she paid for a seat at all—set me up with a thirteen-hour, two-stop flight from the tiny
island in the Caribbean back to Taina, and threatened to call security if I stayed on the premises any longer.
On the flight, I try to sleep, but the seat won’t recline, and some kid won’t stop kicking the back of it like I’m the one who forgot his gaming console back at the hotel. All this misery, and I don’t even get the comfort
of nearing home.
Because there is no home to go to.
Even if there is comfort in the safety of Taina’s support, it’s tainted by questions I don’t want to answer. Faces I don’t want to see. And dreams falling further out of reach.
