The Missing Bride: a cellphone novel by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 1 : Surprise Wedding

I’m Richenda

Fourteen and
I used to be bored.
Winter breaks were especially glacial

Till just recently –

Right before dinner
Mom
Put her head around my door :
“You won’t believe what happened!”
What could excite such
A dull person?

But I lacked comparisons because
This never happened before.
Slammed my book shut because –
Geometry is paralyzing –
And joined the
Guessing game.

“We won Powerball?”
“Your sister’s coming home!
To get married!”
I hadn’t seen Mirabel –ten years older – in eight years.
Truth to tell, I could barely remember her.
A lifetime ago. “Why?”

Mom – never invited in –
Leaned against the
INSIDE
Of my door.
“Make up for the past.”
Is that even possible?
Or does she want a free wedding?

Mirabel was ALWAYS
Always always always
About the money.
“So who’s she marrying?”
“I think his name was something like Rupert Golden.”

“I didn’t want to ask her to wait while I got a pen.
She said she’d send details. You know how she hates
Snooping.”
Everyone hates snooping, I thought.

Mirabel hates
Accountability.
Snooping can be fun
If you’re the one doing it.
Addictive.
“Rupert Golden’s no real name,” was all I had
To contribute.
Mom gave me her
“Like you’re the expert” face.

But fourteen year olds DO
Know everything.
We just forget
Distracted so easily.
We’ll be a whole family again
for the first time in – ages.”
So she can leave us again, I thought.

I knew.
I’d always been
Weirdly tuned from
Mirabel
“Murble”
I called her
When I learned to speak
The dazzling goddess of my
Dappled infancy.

Parents are nonsensical.
All they cared was that
She was willing to pretend
for whatever short period
that things are copacetic at the family manse.

Parents love pretending.
“When’s this happening
happening?’
“Unsettled,” said Mom.
“She wants your help to buy a dress.”
“Me?”

Up to that second I’d been a
Peeper at
The Family Drama.
Did I want to participate?
What choice did I have?

“You’ll be her only bridesmaid so she wants your
dresses to match,” said Mom,
But slowly as if just realizing
What stupidity she spoke.

“You go up tomorrow night
and the two of you come back Sunday.”
How had she agreed to this?
She still wasn’t happy.

“Unless… perhaps I’d drive you?”
“I’ve taken trains before,”
I said, trying to keep the baby whine
Out of my voice.
“I’m fourteen years old!”
“But it’s the city,” wailed Mom

Panic flaring.
“I’ve been to the city before, too,” I said.
School field trips!!!
Alone? First time for everything.

“She said she’d meet the five o’clock train,”
sighed Mom,
Obviously wondering
How had she agreed to this?
I almost didn’t like it.

So some strange woman
Could call Mom up and
Gain more freedom for me
Than I’d ever managed?

It’s a gift.
Don’t criticize its teeth.
“It won’t be dark yet,”
I said blithely.

“So is that where she’s living? In the city?”
Rumors of international travel had reached us
when Mirabel’s modeling cancelled.
And all this time she’s
Twenty miles away?

Mom seemed so unhappy.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“Maybe it’s Rupert’s place.
I’ll be trusting your good sense.”

She certainly can’t trust Mirabel,
I thought. Someone in this family
Needs to do some serious snooping.

That night someone named
Philip Valerian
Tried friending me on Facebook.
I turned him down
Like a bedspread, I
Don’t talk to strangers.