Out of sight, on my mind

“Oh my gosh,” Syd breathed, shaking her head and looking up at us with a panicked expression. “Oh my gosh.”

“Syd, come on,” George said gently, placing her hand on her cousin’s shoulder. “She’s just fooling around. This isn’t anything incriminating. He probably didn’t even ask her to sit there.”

Syd shook her head furiously. “No, no, no,” she insisted. “They were dating before — you know that! And women don’t just accidentally drop into your lap and start playing with your hair. The last time I checked, Vic had a mouth — he could have told her to get lost!”

Gripping her PDA, Syd shoved it back into her pocket and started storming off the stage. “I’m going up there,” she announced, stomping through the party room. “Don’t try to stop me!”

Warily, I glanced at Bess and George.

“Oh, brother,” murmured Bess.

“This isn’t going to end well,” agreed George.

“Guys,” I said, nodding after our departing bride, “let’s go after her.”

We began to follow, easily passing through the rift in the crowd that Syd had created. Others, too, were slowly following in her footsteps, no doubt eager to see the confrontation between Syd and her sure-to-be-sorry fiancé.

“This has to be the wedding saboteur,” I whispered to Bess and George. “I saw the number on Syd’s phone — it’s unlisted, just like all the other messages. Which means somebody at this party just snapped that photo and sent it to Syd to freak her out.”

Bess’s eyes widened. “So it has to be a guy, right?” she asked. “Who else would be at the bachelor party?”

As she said this, we passed the ladies’ room on the second floor, just outside the event room that housed the bachelor party. Ellie Marvin, Syd’s mom, emerged just in time to catch sight of her daughter storming by.

“What’s going on?” she asked George, Bess, and I, all hot on Syd’s heels.

“Um…” Bess began, surely confused about how best to relay the situation to the mother of the bride.

“Syd got kind of a disturbing text message,” George explained. “It had a photo of Vic and Pandora joking around. I’m sure it was harmless.”

Ellie frowned. “Well,” she said simply, and began marching to the party room herself. Just then, I noticed Akinyi slipping in the door to the parking lot. She looked at us in surprise.

“What’s up?”

George looked puzzled. “What’s up with you?” she asked. “Isn’t it cold outside? You don’t have a coat.”

Akinyi shrugged. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“Guys,” Bess spoke up, shooting a glance at George and me. She nodded toward the event hall. Inside, I could already hear Syd’s raised voice.

“Let’s go,” I insisted, glancing quickly back at Akinyi. With a curious expression, she followed the three of us into Vic’s party.

“Why can’t you just be straight with me?” Syd was shouting, standing next to Vic at a round table where he and five buddies looked to be playing poker. All around the table, the camera crew that was covering Vic’s party had swarmed in, and multiple cameramen were jostling with guests to cover the action from every angle. Syd’s face had so much tension in it, she looked like she was about to cry. Vic, on the other hand, looked stunned.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, in the quiet, deferential tones of someone trying to talk down a rabid bear. “Syd, I am being straight with you. Pandora and I, that’s all in the past.”

Blinking back tears, Syd pulled her PDA out of the pocket and pressed a button to show Vic the photo. Cameras moved in to get the shot, so I couldn’t quite read his expression as he saw it. When the cameras finally pulled back, Vic looked a little guilty and a little confused. “What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s a text message I just got,” Syd replied. “Since you and Pandora are so yesterday, why don’t you try and explain it to me?”

“Syd,” Vic said gently, reaching out to take her hand, which Syd then pulled away. “Syd. This was totally innocent. Pandora was just fooling around for the cameras.” He glanced up at a crew member, who silently shook his head. Vic and Syd both knew they weren’t supposed to mention the cameras in front of the cameras. It shattered the appearance of “reality.”

Sighing, Vic looked around for Pandora, who I now noticed was standing about ten feet behind him. After a few seconds, she seemed to figure out that Vic was waiting for her to defend him, and she echoed breezily, “Yeah, I was just fooling around.” She paused and looked directly into one of the cameras aimed at her. “You know how wild and free I can be!”

I watched Pandora’s expression, feeling uneasy. After a few seconds, I realized why: Pandora didn’t look upset at all. If the situation were truly innocent — if she really hadn’t done anything wrong — wouldn’t she be upset to see Syd falsely accuse her? But instead, Pandora almost looked pleased by the attention she was getting. She shrugged, facing Syd.

Syd looked from Pandora slowly back to Vic. Her jaw was trembling, but she kept her mouth taut, as though she were too angry to give in to tears. She looked at her fiancé and shook her head, an expression of total despair washing over her pretty features.

“All this time, Vic, I’ve always trusted you,” she said quietly, as though she and Vic were alone in their living room. “But maybe whoever sent this text is right. Maybe I should have my doubts about you!”

Behind her, Ellie Marvin stepped closer and reached out to touch her daughter’s shoulder, but Syd pulled away. The cameras pulled in closer, no doubt hoping to catch a dramatic pronouncement.

“I can’t do this anymore!” she went on, her voice rising above the murmurs of the crowd watching and the music still blaring from the stereo. “At least, not like this.” She grabbed her left hand and jerked off her ring, flinging it at Vic’s head.

“The wedding is off!”

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14