The Bridesmaid Who Called Me From the Wrong Room

The dress fit her like a warning. I stood in the doorway of my sister's bedroom, coffee going cold in my hand, and watched Josie turn in front of the mirror for the fourth time. She was twenty-four, six years younger than me, and she had the kind of face that made strangers trust her immediately. The bridesmaid dress was pale gold silk, elegant from the back, but the neckline dipped low enough that I could see the faint line of her sternum. She kept tugging at it, laughing, like the problem was hers to solve and not the dress's. "It's fine," she said, catching my expression. "You're staring like Mom." "Mom would have sewn a panel into that before you left the house." "Mom also thought crop tops were a gateway drug." Josie spun once more. The skirt flared. "It's one day. One ceremony, one reception, and then I never have to wear gold again." I set my coffee on her dresser and picked up the printed schedule she had left there. Aurelia Events, three pages, color-coded. Ceremony at four. Cocktails at five-thirty. Dinner at seven. Dancing at nine. And between cocktails and dinner, typed in cheerful italics: Bridal Party Games and Traditions. "Josie." I kept my voice level. "What is this?" She glanced over. "Oh, that's just the silly stuff. Games, toasts, pictures. Kenzie's family does a whole thing." "Kenzie's family." "Kenzie's from Savannah originally. Her people are very..." "Traditional?" "Fun." Josie grinned and pulled the dress up at the neckline again. "Stop spiraling. Kenzie and I have been friends for ten years. She asked me to stand next to her on the most important day of her life. I'm not going to insult her by asking for a chaperone." I looked at the schedule again. Bridal Party Games and Traditions. No description. No time limit. Nothing about who would be present or what the games involved. "Come with me," I said. "To the wedding?" "To the venue. You can introduce me as your sister. I'll sit in the back, I won't say a word." Josie's face changed. Not angry, exactly. Wounded, which was worse. "You don't trust me." "I don't trust the word 'games.'" "I'm not a child, Callie." She turned back to the mirror and smoothed the dress over her hips. "I know you think everyone is hiding something, because of what happened to you. But Kenzie isn't Marcus." The name landed in the room and sat there. Marcus. My ex-husband, who had also been charming and also had a decade of history with me and had also, on one memorable evening, put his hands on me in a hotel hallway in front of four of his friends while I laughed because I didn't know yet that I was allowed to stop laughing. "Fine," I said. "But keep your phone on you. Not in a purse. On you." "You're being dramatic." "Promise me." Josie sighed the sigh of a woman who has promised her dramatic older sister a hundred ridiculous things. "I promise. Phone on me. Happy?" I was not happy. But I nodded, and I kissed her forehead, and I went home to my apartment across town and lay awake for most of the night listening to the city hum. The call came at 2:17 the next afternoon. I was at my desk in the small forensic accounting firm where I had worked for six years. Half of a quarterly reconciliation sat open on my screen. My phone buzzed, and Josie's name came up, and I answered on the first ring because she almost never called during the day. "Josie?" The first thing I heard was laughing. Not hers. Men's laughing, low and close, the kind of sound that comes from a room where everyone knows each other and no one is in charge. Then Josie's voice, higher than I had ever heard it, thin and stretched. "Callie? Callie, can you—" More laughter. Someone said something I couldn't make out. The phone scraped against fabric, or skin, or a wall. "Josie." I was already standing. My chair rolled back and hit the wall. "Where are you? Are you okay?" "I'm fine. I'm fine, I just—" Her voice cracked. "I can't get out. The door's—I don't know. They're doing the games and it's not what I thought, it's—" A man's voice, amused, close to the receiver. "Aw, come on. Don't be like that. It's good luck. Everybody does it." "Please," Josie said. Not to me. To the room. "Please, I don't want to—" The line went dead. I called back. Straight to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. I called a third time, and this time the phone rang and rang and no one picked up. I stood in the middle of my office with my heart slamming against my ribs and made myself do the math. Josie had sent me the invitation two weeks earlier. I had opened it and skimmed it and thrown it in the recycling, because I was petty about the fact that Kenzie had stolen the seat at Josie's wedding that I had assumed I would have. But I had seen the venue name. Hollis Point. A private estate on the coast, an hour south of the city. I had seen the date. I knew where my sister was. I grabbed my keys, told my supervisor I had a family emergency, and walked out without waiting for the answer.