Chapter 3 - The Screen Behind Me
I didn't turn around to look at the screen. I didn't need to. I could feel the light from it changing on the back of my neck, warm to cool, and I could hear the way the room shifted when the image changed.
The invoice had been enough to make them quiet. The security footage made them stop breathing.
I lifted the microphone just enough. My hand wasn't shaking. I thought it would be, but it wasn't.
"Play the next file," I said.
It was quiet, the way I said it. Not loud. I wasn't talking to the guests anymore. I was talking to our coordinator, Jen, who stood off stage left by the lighting board with her hand over her mouth. She'd been holding the clicker since the rehearsal. She nodded once and pressed it.
Behind me the screen went black for half a second. Then it jumped.
The storage room at the venue was not pretty. Cinder block walls, a single overhead fluorescent, garment bags hanging on a rolling rack. The time stamp in the corner read 05-14 2:37 PM. Two days before the wedding. The footage had no sound and the camera was high, angled down.
And there was Victoria.
She wore the same silver beaded gown she had on now, or one like it, her blonde hair tucked behind her ears. In the footage she pulled one garment bag forward, unzipped it halfway, and lifted the fabric inside with both hands. Ivory satin caught the light. My satin. The off-the-shoulder neckline I'd chosen. She held it up against herself for a second, then laid it back down and pulled the other bag forward. The crystal one. She unzipped that one too. She compared them side by side.
I heard a sound from the front row and realized it was Lila. She'd made a small, involuntary noise and covered it with her hand.
Beside me, my husband took a half step toward the screen before he caught himself. His tuxedo jacket pulled tight across his shoulders. He stared at the figure on the screen, then at his mother in the front row, then back.
"Mom, you took her dress?" he said. It wasn't loud either. It was confused, the words coming out slow as he put it together.
Victoria was already standing. She hadn't sat back down since I'd opened the clasp. Her chandelier earrings were swinging because her hands were up now, palms out.
"I was trying to help," she said. Her voice was thin and carried in the microphone I was still holding. I hadn't meant to catch it but the mic picked up everything. "I was trying to help."
The footage looped. It showed her again, zipping the crystal bag closed, lifting it off the rack, and carrying it toward the door. It showed her leaving the satin bag hanging, pushed to the back of the rack where the shadow fell.
The room reacted all at once. It wasn't gasps, not exactly. It was a hundred small breaths and hands. A woman two rows back covered her mouth with both hands. A man near the gold balcony railing leaned forward and didn't move. The photographer by the side aisle lowered his camera without taking a shot.
Victoria looked around at them and her face changed. The distress I'd seen before turned harder, more urgent.
"Stop, you don't understand!" she said, and she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at him. At her son. Her arm was extended toward the screen like she could block it. "Stop, you don't understand!"
He flinched. I felt it more than saw it, the way his shoulder twitched next to me. For a second I thought he was going to step toward her. His weight shifted that way. Then he looked at me, at the satin now fully visible under the open crystal layer I was still holding at my shoulders, and he stopped.
I let the footage play. I let everyone watch her hands on the bags one more time. The clasp at my chest was still undone, the crystal outer gown hanging open and heavy. The ivory underneath was smooth against my skin. I could feel the difference in temperature between the two fabrics.
Lila hadn't moved except to pull her chair back a few inches, creating space between herself and Victoria. Her eyes were on the screen, then on me. She nodded, just once, barely there.
I brought the microphone back up. My throat was dry. I swallowed and let a pause sit there long enough that people leaned in.
I didn't say the line yet. Not all of it. I said, "Keep it rolling."
Jen left the footage looping. The time stamp flickered. Victoria handling the garment bag, lifting the dress, carrying it out. Over and over.
May you like
Victoria's hands dropped to her sides. Her bracelet caught the chandelier light.
I was still at the altar, still in both dresses at once, and the screen behind me kept telling the truth without me having to say another word.
