Model Menace 2 (3 page)

I nodded, glancing at my friends in befuddlement. “Well, yeah, I think most places in River Heights are closed by then,” I agreed, “except the diners.”

“Diners,”
Akinyi said with disgust. “Like I would want to put anything with that much saturated fat into my body! I can’t
wait
to get back to New York.”

The way this conversation was going, I couldn’t wait till she went back, either.

Akinyi seemed to read the annoyance in my eyes because she immediately softened and began waving her hands around. “I mean—I love Syd. Of course I do. And I’m happy to be a part of her wedding. I guess I’m just frustrated by the cameras, the pranks—I just think maybe Syd should have had the small wedding she originally wanted. This huge wedding was a mistake.”

This was interesting; I leaned in. “Do you mean—?” I began but before I could get the whole question out, the bride-to-be herself, Syd, grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away, giggling.

“Come sing with me!” she coaxed, clearly having a great time. With her other hand, she grabbed George, and Bess followed with an eager smile.

“You guys know the classics, right?” Syd asked with a grin, pulling us up toward the stage. “I’m talking about Cyndi Lauper—‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’?”

“I know it,” George confirmed, “but I really don’t think you want to hear me sing.”

“Me either,” I agreed, shooting a pleading look at Sydney. “I have it on pretty good authority that my singing can cause permanent hearing damage. Are you sure you want to risk it?”

Syd just laughed, stepping on to the stage and pulling George and me with her. “Oh, save the drama for your mama, you two,” she replied, turning and pointing to the screen where song lyrics would appear. “Just follow along and belt it out! I’m the bridezilla, you have to do what I say.”

Bess snorted. “Syd,” she insisted, “you are
far
from a bridezilla.”

Syd nodded to the man running the karaoke machine, and he slipped a DVD into the player. Immediately the bouncy first notes of the eighties hit filled the room. I swallowed and turned to George, who looked panicked.

“Do something,” she hissed at me. “Pull the fire alarm, break the machine. I would rather do
anything
but sing karaoke!’

I chuckled as the music bounced around, nearing the first verse. Syd reached out to one of the women in the front row, holding out her PDA.

“Can you take a picture?” she asked, gesturing to the phone’s camera buttons. “I want to document my cousin George’s first and last karaoke performance!” She turned to George with a big grin, and even though George was rolling her eyes, she couldn’t help but smile back.

Just then a funny beeping sounded, making me wonder if that had always been part of the song.

Syd sighed. “That’s a message coming in,” she explained to the woman who held her PDA. “Let me see; I have to clear it before it’ll let me do anything else. Phones!”

The woman handed Syd her PDA back, and Syd sighed, flipping through the screens with a slightly annoyed expression.

Then, suddenly, Syd screamed.

“Aaaauughh!”

She had the karaoke microphone in her hand, which picked up her scream and reverberated it throughout the room.

“What is it?!” Bess demanded, recovering before the rest of us. “Syd, what’s going on?”

In response, Syd just held up her PDA so we could see its screen.

It was a photo—of Pandora. Sitting on Vic’s lap and stroking his hair. Vic and the other guys in the wedding party were playing poker, which meant this photo must have been snapped just now, at the bachelor party.

At the bottom of the photo, a message was typed:

Still sure u want 2 go thru with this?

“O
h 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!”

T
he next morning I picked up Bess and George in my Prius and headed for the Hotel Bristol, where we were meeting Syd—and what remained of the bridal party—for brunch.

“So what do we think
really
happened?” Bess asked as we pulled into the parking lot to the rear of the hotel. “Have you given it any more thought, Nance? Who do we think set Vic up?”

I smiled, pulling into a parking space and shutting off the car. “Who, me?” I asked. “Did I give any more thought to this last night? Hmmm, let me try to remember.”

George snorted, leaning forward from the backseat. “A better question would be, did you sleep at all, Nance?” she asked. “And what’s the working theory now? I know you’ve been going over this all night.”

“Well,” I affirmed, “I
did
talk to Vic before we left last night, but he wasn’t in the best place to help me.”

“He seemed pretty crushed,” Bess agreed, biting her lip.

“Yeah.” I sighed. It was hard to watch a couple who so clearly loved each other going through so much strife. “He was really stunned by Syd’s announcement. He must have told me a hundred times: Pandora just dropped into his lap, and someone must have snapped the picture in the two seconds or so before he stood up and knocked her off.”

George looked at me, her eyes holding a suspicious gleam. “Did you believe him?” she asked. “Because another theory is, he really
was
flirting with Pandora, and whoever snapped the picture was just being a friend to Syd.”

I shrugged. “I really believe him,” I affirmed. “If he was faking being crushed, then he’s a far better actor than I ever would have thought. And I mean, we can’t be a hundred percent sure of anything in this case. But I do believe that Vic is really devoted to Syd.”

Bess frowned. “This may be a dumb question, but did Vic notice who shot the photo?” she asked. “Did he have any idea who might have set him up?”

I shook my head. “No. He said he couldn’t think of anyone.”

“Hmm.” Bess sighed, looking thoughtful.

“I do have one theory though,” I said, pulling out my own PDA and pressing a few buttons. “It can’t be anyone who’s in this photo, right?”

Lifting up my cell phone, I showed Bess and George the photo on the screen: the same photo Syd had freaked out over, showing Pandora sitting on Vic’s lap at the poker table.

“Whoa! How did you get a copy?” George asked, moving closer to get a better look.

I smiled. “Before we left, I asked to borrow Syd’s phone,” I replied. “Then I just forwarded the message to myself. I figured she was too upset to bother her with it.”

“Huh,” Bess murmured, leaning in to get a better look.

The photo was small, and zoomed in close on Pandora and Vic. But still, if I looked carefully and squinted really hard, I could make out most of Vic’s friends and groomsmen in the crowd.

“The only guys missing,” I said as George and Bess squinted to make out all the people in the photo, “are Jamal and Dragon. Which means our suspects are…”

“…Jamal and Dragon,” George piped up with an
of course
tone to her voice.

“But that’s not all,” Bess put in. “We also saw Aunt Ellie and Akinyi up by the boys’ party room. They could have very easily snapped the photo, then run outside or into the ladies’ room to send it to Syd.”

I nodded. “Or Pandora,” I added.

“But she’s in the photo!” George cried.

I shrugged. “She is, but she also set the whole thing in motion, dropping into Vic’s lap and aggressively flirting with him,” I pointed out. “I’m not totally convinced that was just a coincidence. Maybe Pandora set Vic up, and got an accomplice at the party to snap the photo.”

George frowned. “And there’s a whole other slew of suspects you haven’t mentioned yet.”

I turned in my seat to face her. “Who?”

George shrugged. “The crew?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t know what the motive would be. But that’s a lot more suspects right there.”

Bess let out a long breath. “Whew. Too many suspects.”

George nodded sadly. “And this whole thing may be a moot point,” she suggested, “now that the wedding’s been cancelled. Maybe now that the wedding is called off, the wedding saboteur will back off, figuring he or she got what he wanted.”

I shook my head, frowning. “I don’t care if this person
did
get exactly what he or she wanted,” I insisted. “Even if Syd and Vic never speak to each other again—and I really hope that doesn’t happen—I swear, I’m going to find the person who did this.”

Bess and George nodded grimly.

“Well,” George said. “I think we can knock Jamal off the suspect list. He’s Vic’s best friend since forever, and he wasn’t even here for the jet fuel incident.”

Bess nodded, but I wasn’t quite ready to rule anybody out. “He could have an accomplice—”

“Nance,” Bess said gently, “come on. You’re over-thinking this. That’s one suspect down.”

I nodded slowly. “And I don’t really see why anyone in the crew would be involved,” I admitted. “They all seem pretty genuine to me. And none of them have a personal connection to Vic or Syd, or any reason to want to see them this miserable.”

Bess looked thoughtful. “That makes sense. So let’s think about Dragon, Pandora, Ellie, and Akinyi.”

“Dragon’s the new star of
Daredevils,
” George pointed out. “He might be trying to spice things up to increase the ratings—and his own popularity!”

I nodded. “Definitely possible,” I agreed. “And Pandora—well, her motive would be obvious. She’s not over Vic.”

Bess nodded. “And that’s looking more and more likely.”

“Akinyi?” George asked, looking skeptical.

“Who knows what her problem is?” asked Bess.

“Whatever’s going on with her, she’s seemed very down on this wedding from the beginning,” I said. “She just gets more and more irritable. Maybe she would even sabotage the wedding to end it all so she could go home?”

Bess sighed, shaking her head. “Maybe.
Something’s
definitely bothering her.”

“What about Aunt Ellie?” George asked, looking perplexed. “Honestly, a big part of me can’t even believe we’re seriously considering her. She’s the sweetest, most cookie-bakingest mom you could imagine. Why would she sabotage Syd’s wedding?”

I sighed. “I admit, I’m not one hundred percent sure. But when we spoke last night, she seemed pretty frustrated by the way this televised wedding was going.”

Bess furrowed her brows. “But she agreed to it,” she pointed out. “Remember, Nance, she and Syd were
both
worried about how this TV thing would play out, but they came around when they realized how much Vic wanted it and how it would help Vic and Syd start a nest egg.”

“I know,” I agreed, “but maybe Ellie has changed her mind?”

George frowned. “Can you really see Aunt Ellie trying to poison Vic with jet fuel?”

I sighed. George was right: unless Ellie had a secret evil side, it was pretty hard to imagine her hurting anyone. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know anything at this point except that Dragon, Jamal, Pandora, Akinyi, and Ellie all had the opportunity to get that photo to Syd.”

Bess nodded sympathetically and glanced at her watch. “Maybe we should go in,” she suggested.

I opened my door eagerly. “Let’s go,” I agreed, “and hopefully get some more information!”

We entered the hotel through the back door and rode up in the elevator to the Bristol Restaurant, where we were meeting Syd and her bridesmaids. The Hotel Bristol was a historic hotel that had been operating for almost one hundred years. It was probably the nicest place to stay in River Heights. Cushy oriental rugs carpeted the floors, and black-and-white photos framed in cherrywood lined the walls, showing off the hotel’s history. There were photos from the Great Depression, from a blizzard in 1964, from a town celebration in the 1980s…the most recent was a photo from the hotel’s swanky party on New Year’s Eve 2000. Revelers in evening wear raised their champagne glasses high, laughing and shouting.

“There she is,” said Bess in a grave tone, and I followed her gaze to an exhausted-looking, bleary-eyed Syd. She sat in the center of a large table off to the side of the restaurant, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes with a tissue. Her mom, Ellie, sat close by her side, rubbing her shoulder and whispering into her ear. Syd didn’t look terribly comforted, though. Tears still leaked from her eyes, and she kept turning away from her mother to sob.

“Poor Syd,” George said softly. I nodded, and we watched Akinyi approach Syd from the other side and envelop her in a hug. Ellie patted her daughter’s shoulder and slipped away, walking toward us. When she spotted the three of us at the entrance to the restaurant, she smiled sadly.

“Girls,” she greeted us, touching Bess’s arm. “I’m so glad you could come. Syd needs her friends right now.”

“How is she?” I asked. I had a feeling that was a dumb question, since any fool could see how distraught Syd was, but I wanted to hear how Ellie would describe it.

“She’s not good,” Ellie replied. “She’s having a very rough time with all this.”

I tried to look as sympathetic as possible. “Do you think she and Vic might still get married?” I asked.

Ellie looked distraught. “Maybe,” she said skeptically. “It’s just very hard to predict at this point. I think Syd is emotionally exhausted.”

“Maybe once this TV special blows over, they could have the intimate wedding I know you wanted,” I said gently.

Ellie looked surprised. “
She
wanted,” she corrected me. “Syd wanted a small wedding in the beginning too.”

I nodded. “But just maybe—this will all work out for the best. Maybe they can have the wedding they originally wanted.”

Ellie sighed. “I hope so,” she agreed. “Overall, I just want Syd to be happy. And I know she truly loves Vic. I was up all night with her, and she was just crying and crying. She’s so confused and exhausted from everything. I think more than anything, she just wants to be with Vic.”

I nodded. Those really didn’t sound like the words of a mother who wanted to frighten her daughter, or sabotage her wedding. But still—I supposed anything was possible.

As Ellie excused herself to run up to her room to grab some more tissues, Bess, George, and I headed in to say hello to Syd. “You know what’s weird?” George asked as we crossed the restaurant.

“What?” I asked.

George gestured all around the restaurant, even back toward the lobby. “No cameras,” she pointed out.

She was right. It was kind of amazing, actually, how completely I had begun to associate Syd’s wedding with a huge television crew.

“Now that the wedding’s off,” Bess said, “I guess the cameras are too.”

Syd looked up at that moment and spotted us approaching. “Oh!” she cried, her eyes brimming with tears. “Bess, George, and Nancy. I’m so glad you’re here!”

We each hugged her, and Bess said, “Oh, Syd, we’re so sorry.”

“Thanks,” Syd said quietly, wiping her eyes.

“Do you think you might get back together?” George asked, direct and to the point as always. “I know you love him, Syd. And I just want to see you happy.”

Syd sniffled. “I’m not sure,” she whispered. “I’m just so, so tired of all of it right now. I know I love him…I just…I don’t know. It’s such a relief not to have the cameras for once.”

I leaned forward to pat her shoulder, seeing how confused she was. “I know you’ll figure it out, Syd.”

She smiled gratefully.

The three of us took our seats, and slowly the rest of the bridal party filled in. Akinyi ran right over to hug Syd and wipe her eyes. Deb stroked her hair and told her to stay strong. The only member of the bridal party that didn’t show was Pandora. Akinyi told us she felt too awkward.

“Believe me,” she said, shaking her head dismissively. “That girl has nothing but regrets right now.”

When Ellie returned, everyone who’d been invited to the brunch was there. Ellie stroked her daughter’s arm and looked at all of us. “Thank you for coming to support Syd,” she told us. “Shall we say grace before we eat?”

We all bowed her heads, and just then, I could have sworn I heard violin music coming from the hallway. Was it possible? I glanced at George out of the corner of my eye, and I could tell she heard it too.

“What is that?” I mouthed, and she shrugged in confusion.

As I was starting to doubt our sanity, the music got louder. We all turned our heads as it became clearer that the violinists were moving toward the restaurant entrance. Then, suddenly, there they were, at the doorway—three tuxedoed violinists, followed closely by…
Vic
!

He was wearing a freshly-pressed suit and carrying a huge bouquet of red roses. “Sydney,” he announced in his deep voice, and Sydney’s head jerked up. “I love you and I always will. I’m so sorry that I caused you so much pain. Will you ever forgive me?”

Syd looked stunned, and just as she found her voice to answer, Vic held up his hand to stop her.

“Wait,” he announced. “Before you answer, let me sing you a song I wrote. I stayed up all night writing this for you.”

He nodded at the violin players, and they began playing. Bess nudged me and I looked up. She just shook her head and mouthed, “Wow.”

No kidding!

Vic began singing:

As I glanced at George in amazement, Vic pulled a tiny flute out of his jacket pocket and began blowing into it. Tiny, shrill notes emerged, and George widened her eyes.