The first frame appeared on the giant screen behind the head table, and Rachel made a sound I had never heard from her before.
Not anger.
Fear.
“Turn it off,” she whispered.
The DJ looked toward Logan.
Logan did not answer immediately.
His face had gone completely still.
“Play it,” he said.
Rachel spun toward him.
“Logan, don’t be ridiculous.
This is obviously some pathetic stunt.”
My mother reached the DJ booth and stretched for the laptop.
“Enough of this nonsense.”
Logan stepped between her and the equipment.
“No one touches anything.”
That stopped everyone.
Even Theresa.
I stood several feet away, unable to understand what was happening.
Chloe had climbed down from the platform now and was gripping the hem of her cardigan.
I hurried to her.
“Chloe, where did you get that?”
She looked up at me.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
The video began.
The image was slightly crooked and badly framed, as if the device recording it had been propped against something.
I recognized the room immediately.
My apartment.
More specifically, my kitchen.
The date in my memory came back just as quickly.
Two weeks before the wedding, Rachel had appeared at my door without warning.
She claimed she had come to deliver final instructions about the ceremony, though most of those instructions had consisted of telling me what not to wear, where not to stand, and how not to embarrass her.
Chloe had been sitting at the small table with an old tablet we kept for school games and videos.
I remembered leaving the kitchen to search my closet for the shoes Rachel insisted I wear.
I remembered Rachel staying behind.
What I had never known was what happened after I walked out.
On the enormous wedding screen, Rachel stood in my kitchen holding her phone to her ear.
The camera showed only part of her face, but her voice was unmistakable.
“Of course I don’t love him like that,” video-Rachel said.
A murmur moved through the pavilion.
Present-day Rachel lunged toward the screen as if she could physically stop the words.
“It’s edited!” she shouted.
“This is fake.”
But the recording continued.
Rachel’s recorded voice dropped into the amused tone she used whenever she believed everyone around her was stupid.
“Logan is useful.
His family opens doors.
His name opens better ones.”
The laughter that followed came from Rachel herself.
At the head table, Logan’s father lowered his champagne glass.
Logan didn’t blink.
Onscreen, Rachel paced through my kitchen.
“No, I’m not worried.
He thinks all this family stuff matters to me.”
She paused to inspect one of her nails.
Then she said, “Once the wedding is done, I’ll have what I need.”
The video froze for half a second as whoever had recorded it shifted the tablet.
