The Girl with the Wrong Name (22 page)

It’s anger.

It may be masked behind that Southern belle smile, but it’s as plain as day for anyone bothering to look.

Emma rips the white deli paper from the flowers with too much force. She hands Cyra the bouquet but keeps three daisies for herself. She begins to tear off the petals, one by one, with taut fingers. It looks like a violent game of “He Love Me, He Loves Me Not.” She finishes shredding them and takes a deep breath. Then she turns to me and marches toward the camera. She leans in too close to the lens and drizzles the loose petals like ashes into a tiny pile in my outstretched hand.

Of course. I’m the flower girl.

Cyra takes my free hand and guides me through the front door of K.O.P. “Go on,” she says from behind the camera. “Just like we practiced.”

Emma’s and my voices begin to sing in unison.

“Dum, dum, da-dum
. . .
dum, dum, da-dum
. . .
”
An a capella “Wedding March.”

I become a slow dolly shot through the freshly painted white lobby of K.O.P. I move in gradually on Andy and the Justice of the Peace. My left hand holds the shredded white petals in front of the camera as my right hand takes them in pinches and sprinkles them across the floor, creating a sad excuse for an aisle.

Theo-Cam reaches Andy and then pivots back around to Cyra and Emma, who are walking up slowly from behind, arm in arm.

Emma is still trying to sing “The Wedding March,” but the closer she gets to the camera, the more her voice begins to quaver, and the lower her head begins to droop. Tears begin to roll down her cheeks as they grow more and more flushed, the veins more visible in her neck. And then she abruptly stops singing.

She stares, stone-faced, at Cyra, her gaze drifting down to the string of pearls on her neck. I’ve seen that gaze before. I saw it through Emma’s gauzy veil the day I ruined her wedding.

“What’s wrong?” Cyra asks.

Emma doesn’t answer.

“Em, what’s wrong?” Cyra repeats.

“Sorry, nothing!” Emma says, recovering her fake smile. She hands Cyra over to Andy, robotically, but hovers too close to them. She can’t take her eyes off the pearls wrapped around my sister’s slim neck.

The Justice begins the ceremony. “Dearly beloved . . .” He recites the usual script right up until “the ring, please.” And then dead silence again.

“Em,” Andy murmurs. “Em,” he repeats. “The ring.”

I can see it in her eyes: Emma has left her body. Her hands take over, reaching for Cyra’s neck, latching onto the pearls.

Cyra jerks her head back. “Em, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says. “I just can’t . . .” She rotates the pearls ten degrees on Cyra’s neck so that the largest one hangs dead center down her chest again. “I’m sorry, I just had to do that.”

“It’s okay,” Cyra assures her. “Um, the ring?”

“Right,”
Emma says. She lowers her head, reaches into her white purse, and presents my dream ring to Andy. Little diamond daisy petals glowing around a gold center. Cyra and Andy both smile with relief, and the Justice returns to the script.

“Do you, Lester Andrew Wyatt . . . ?”

“I do,” Andy says, sliding the ring on Cyra’s finger.

“And do you, Cyrano Sylvia Lane . . . ?”

“I do,” she says.

“Then by the power vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

They share a passionate kiss. But without any violins, or a crowd to applaud, the only sound left in the lobby is the sound of Emma’s crying. She steps forward and reaches around both of their shoulders. “That was beautiful,” she weeps. “I am so happy for you both.”

They thank her and share a long three-way embrace. Cyra’s hand reaches toward the camera and pulls me into the hug.

Then Emma turns around and begins a painfully slow walk back to the front door, shrinking smaller and smaller into the background.

“Emma,” my squeaky voice calls out. “Emma, where are you going?”

But Cyra crouches down to me and whispers, “Leave her be. Just leave her be for now.”

“Okay,” I say as the door slowly swings shut.

Now I know why Emma was so racked with guilt. I know why she feared revenge from Cyra’s ghost. She hadn’t just married Cyra’s boyfriend. She had married her husband. Did anyone but Emma and Andy know that?

fast-forward
. . .

I watch in fast motion as Andy and Cyra shake the Justice’s hand and say their goodbyes. Andy picks up his backpack and then me, and we travel into the halls of K.O.P., passing all the untouched dorms, until we reach the common room with the TV, where he sets me down. The TV flips on, and SpongeBob races around the screen at high speed until Cyra crouches into frame, holding Andy’s backpack.

Cyra unzips the front pocket of Andy’s backpack and opens the brown paper bag she handed him earlier. She pulls out four items, placing each one on the floor in front of Theo-Cam: a sandwich in a plastic baggie, two Tropicana juice boxes, and an apple.

“Okay, Thee.” She smiles. “Andy and I are going to take a little bit of grown-up time to celebrate, just the two of us, and you can watch all the SpongeBob you want. We won’t be far away—just down that hallway, so you won’t be alone. And we won’t be too, too long, so just hang tight here for a while, and then we’ll come grab you, and we’ll head back home. Okay?”

This time, I hesitate. “Okay,” my tiny voice replies.

“Not too, too long, I promise,” Cyra says.

“Mm-kay,” I mumble reluctantly.

“Hey, Snuggle Bear,” Andy says, dropping into frame next to Cyra. “I think something’s missing from that lunch.” He reaches into his tuxedo pocket and pulls out three Reese’s peanut butter cups, placing them on the floor next to the apple. “Beats an apple any day, am I right?”

Pause. “Yeah,” I mumble.

“And what do you say?” Cyra prompts with uncharacteristic condescension.

“Thank you,” I say flatly.

“Thank you,
who
. . . ?” Andy squawks with playful indignation.

“Thank you, Andy Reese’s.”

“You are welcome!” he says. “Oh, man,” he marvels, looking at me. “Look at that face. Pure as the driven snow.”

“What is it?” Lou asks. “What’s wrong?”

I back my chair away from the console. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I don’t need to see this.”

“Why not?”

My body is all sweat and chills. “Because I know what happens.”

I can feel her slipping away from me. Yesterday, she didn’t exist, and now she’s the most vibrant, living thing I’ve ever seen, and somewhere in the next hour of this tape, she’s going to disappear again. A birth and a life and a death all in a hundred and twenty minutes. No, I don’t need to see this. I don’t need to lose her twice.

I suddenly hate everything about video recording. I despise it with all my heart, because you could lose someone over and over and over. Now all I want is to forget her again. I want to un-know everything I know and un-see everything I’ve seen. I want to make my mind a blank slate—just cross her out and start from scratch. Just like my mother had done.

But then, what is the point? Why have I put myself through all this? And that is exactly what I’ve done. I have put
myself
through all of this. Because I need to know. There is something I’ve been desperately trying to tell myself and I need to know what it is. I need to know what really happened—not just bits and pieces, but everything. Because I’m not my mother. I don’t want to live my life playing make-believe.

SpongeBob dances across the TV screen as Theo-Cam sits perfectly still.

fast-forward
. . .

SpongeBob at four-times-speed. Commercials, SpongeBob, commercials, SpongeBob. Then the camera suddenly tilts over, and my tiny hand reaches out of frame. It returns with the remote control and flips off the TV.

A sound echoes from somewhere down the hall. My sister is giggling.

The camera rises from the floor and begins to move down the hallway, past Room Seven, Room Eight, and then it stops. The plexiglass window is too high to see through, but there’s light flickering through the glass, and I can hear her voice.

“I can’t believe you did this,” Cyra coos. “This is
so
beautiful. You didn’t have to do this. I already know it will be worth the wait. You’re worth the wait, Andy.”