The Missing Bride: a cellphone novel by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 20 – Neva Vu

As usual, Derek was thinking
My thoughts. “How valuable
Can they be if she abandoned them?”
I produced the answer.
“If she was afraid to go back?
The place was crawling with police.”

Derek chose his usual role:
Devil’s advocate. “What if the real Mirabel WAS killed
That night?” “Oh stop
With your existential questioning!
Verne would have to be in on it,” I argued,
And I thought each word the moment
He spoke them – ‘Don’t people like Verne
Prefer everyone as employees?”

We made equivalent snorts of
Equivocal disgust.
‘Something in her probably did die
That night.” I wanted to prove
My sister was still alive, still my sister, still
Connected.

We required cups and cups
Of good hot sugared tea –
Orange pekoe cinnamon.
“Let’s construct a murder board,” Derek braved.
I struggled with my memory of Mirabel’s eyes –
Pleading underneath her teasing.

“I bounce between neva vu
And confirmation bias.”
I felt the pressure to one-up him.
“Mirabel could have done the murders herself.”
“Kill her own roommates?”
Spoke the man who had never had roommates!
‘They made her stay in the broom closet!”
Derek plays to win.

“They were helping her by hiding her, so
Occam’s razor says
Whoever she was hiding from
Came and got her.”
I made game face. “Hard
Physical labor knifing two people.”
“Noted.” We spread the boxes
Out on newsprint.
My hopes unrestrainedly high.

Hoping Mirabel would
Jump out at me.
“Separate in two piles,” Derek can be bossy.
“Hopeless or intriguing.”
Everything was hopeless: ridiculous clothes,
Shoes with broken heels, endless piles of
Old magazines.
Union Jack sleepshirt – souvenir of
Great Britain?

Cosmetics in grubby makeup kits,
Hairbrushes, scrunchies,
Antiquated paperbacks –
(“The Power of You”)
Costume jewelry of unlikely value –
This was just junk! The police had
Riffled through it – Dominica or anyone
Could have thrown it away!
Why was Mirabel illiterate?

Dyslexia? Was that the word
Bruited to an eight-year-old eavesdropper –
Or was she just too pretty
To learn anything else?
The only exciting thing was
Professional portfolio
Stamped MONFORT COLLEGE OF MODELING.
Here’s a Mirabel I would recognize.

But all the photos seemed outdated –
Shlocky, overly posed.
There was one traumatic
Unrecognizable Mirabel in whiteface
Thorn-like silver piercings through her lip –
Speechless – a cage around her
Nude starved body. No wonder

She’d declared the fashion world
“Shit!” Only one picture
Was the “Murble” I remembered –
Filled my eyes with tears –
Pony-tailed Mirabel in Daisy Dukes,
Washing the side of someone else’s car.
Memories came surging up –
Mirabel filling the kiddie pool,
Decorating pancakes with happy faces,
Gelling my hair to crazy shapes.

If you ran these pictures backwards
They recorded something sad: the slow dawn
Of knowledge as she realized beauty
Would never be enough. Relieved
To have one question answered.
“That was really Mirabel,” I told Derek.

My real sister who
Gave me to Lord Verne so that she could
Get away. Derek dropped the fake nipple
He was studying to look over my shoulder.
“So what happened to her?”

I shook him off. Suddenly
We were out of synch. To me,
The truth was plain to see.