Twenty-Four Miranda
Twenty-Four
Miranda
2028
He’s what? ” Miranda hollers.
“Yeah, here. In the hotel. With the rest of the Kidz Klub people,” Sicily says, pacing as Miranda tries to make sense of the news. She had been trying to enjoy a nice green smoothie courtesy of the villa kitchen’s astonishingly well-stocked appliance inventory when Sicily burst through the door. For a moment, Miranda was sure that Kent had said something to her. But the real news was even more unsettling.
“But how could he be here?” she says. “As a guest ? Germaine knows he humiliated me on national television. And there’s no way those two are friends, unless he was part of her secret little rendezvous in Singapore, too. Hey, are you okay?”
Sicily has stopped pacing and is wrapping her arms around herself, looking like she’s about to cry.
“I don’t know. Yes. I’m fine.”
“Wait—Sis. Why are you so upset about Tyler?”
Sicily puts up her hands and shakes her head. “I just—don’t like him. It’s something stupid. From when we were kids.”
“When we were kids ...” Miranda shakes her head. “Was he mean to you? I don’t remember seeing ...”
“No.” Sicily squeezes her eyes shut. “He was—my first.”
“Your—?” Miranda says. “Oh. Oh. Seriously? How did this never come up? Was he that bad?”
Sicily sighs. “He was ... fine, it’s just. I don’t think I was really ready at the time.”
“Sicily.” Miranda suddenly forgets any bone she has to pick with Tyler, all her focus zeroing in on Sicily. She needs to ask, but it’s already plainly written on her friend’s face. “Was it consensual?”
Sicily groans. “Yes, I mean I think so—I didn’t say no, I think I said okay, I think I sort of wanted it to happen, but I don’t know. It felt awful afterward.”
“Hey, hey.” She reaches out carefully to touch Sicily’s shoulder. “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no. He assaulted you. Whatever word you want to use, it’s not okay. And I’ll fucking kill him.”
Sicily half laughs, then begins to cry. Miranda pulls her into her arms. Sicily laughs again, then hiccups into Miranda’s shoulder. “That wouldn’t be a very good start to a wedding.”
“Who gives a shit?” Miranda murmurs. “Aw, Sis. Why didn’t you tell us? You keep way too much bottled up all the time. We’re your best friends, for god’s sake.”
“I was so embarrassed,” Sicily says, muffled, into Miranda’s shoulder. “He said he wanted to do it with all the girls.”
“Fucking hell! Sorry,” Miranda says when she realizes she’s shouted in Sicily’s ear. “That’s what he was doing during goddamn Bennington Bookshop . I was next on his list—he was just working his way through the cast.”
“He’s a scumbag.” Sicily pulls back and wipes her nose on her sleeve. Then she takes a big breath.
“Are you glad to have that off your chest?” Miranda asks.
Sicily nods. She looks better.
“Good,” Miranda says. “Because we have to confront Germaine about this. We don’t have to tell her anything you don’t want to—but I need to know why there’s a serial misogynist running around her wedding.”
“I didn’t know she was inviting everyone from Kidz Klub ,” Sicily says. “Even the limo driver looked like an older version of your guy, Miranda.”
“What? Zane?”
“Yeah.” Sicily shrugs. “I don’t see how it could be him, but who knows anymore.”
Miranda feels an odd tug somewhere inside her. She pauses, looking at her half-finished green smoothie and the bridesmaid getting-ready outfit she laid out the night before.
Then she marches out the door.
“Where are you going?” Sicily calls, jogging after her.
Miranda heads to the front of the hotel and peeks around the fountain. Sure enough, there are three limos parked on the drive and chauffeurs for each conferring by the front door. One checks his watch and heads in their direction toward the farthest car, getting ready for the next pickup run.
It’s Zane.
He’s older and his face is drawn, his head bald beneath the driver’s cap by choice or by nature, but it’s him. He turns to get into the limo, and Miranda swears, hurrying Sicily back down the path so they won’t be seen.
“What the hell?” she whispers. Those are all cars Germaine booked. She would have checked the company’s references with her wedding planner, run security checks on all the drivers. There’s no way she invited Tyler or booked Zane by accident. “What kind of sick game is she playing?”
She and Sicily head back toward the villas but pause where the path forks.
“What are you going to do?” Sicily asks Miranda, who is clearly heading for the path of Germaine’s suite.
“I’m going to go demand an explanation, and you’re coming!” Miranda says.
“I don’t know.” Sicily sighs. “I still need to shower. I’m all gross. Maybe it’s best to just take a breather before it’s time to get ready ...”
“No.” Miranda grabs Sicily by the hand. “Absolutely not. This is weird and we are addressing it. Now. ”
She ignores Sicily’s protests and drags the both of them to Germaine’s villa on the other side of the pool. Miranda shoulders past Susan the wedding coordinator and pulls right up to Germaine, who’s sitting in front of the mirror with a stylist orbiting around her and a gleeful, then surprised, then bewildered, look on her face as she registers Miranda’s furious expression and Sicily’s sweaty clothes and puffy eyes.
“Um. Good morning—” Germaine starts.
“We need to talk, G,” Miranda says.
“I’m just—” Germaine is completely caught off guard. She looks at the stylist. “Marie, can you maybe ... give us a minute?”
“Yeah, give us just a minute, Marie,” Miranda echoes, and then shepherds the woman out of the bedroom and closes the door.
“So!” Germaine says, looking happy but baffled. Her hair is lopsided and half-curled. “I didn’t expect you until eleven o’clock, but—”
“Why is Tyler X here?” Sicily cuts in, and Miranda feels a fierce spark of pride in her for being the first to speak up.
“And Zane?” Miranda adds.
Germaine opens and closes her mouth with deer-in-the-headlights eyes. “Those two were supposed to be ... sort of a surprise, I guess?” she says with a sheepish smile.
“What the hell kind of surprise is that meant to be?” Miranda snaps. “I’m not prepared to see Zane. And you know how badly Tyler’s hurt me—and it turns out, he’s hurt Sicily even worse.”
“Why are you pulling these stunts, G?” Sicily says. “This was supposed to be a fun reunion weekend for us, not to mention the happiest day of your life.”
“Okay, okay,” Germaine says. “Listen. I know how these guys have hurt you, and that’s the point! I wanted to make them see you triumphant and thriving and gorgeous. You don’t even have to talk to them if you don’t want to, but I also thought ... if you wanted any opportunity to air grievances, you could. This could be a fresh start for all of us.”
“I don’t think I even want Tyler to see me.” Sicily shakes her head.
Germaine looks at a loss. “But these are guys who thought they were so much better than us, and they’re not! Is it so bad I wanted them to face the people they’d hurt?”
But Miranda’s heard enough. “Scores can never be settled, G! Nothing can be settled. We just have to accept who we were, the things we did, and the things that happened to us.” She shakes her head; something about what Germaine is saying sounds very tired—like something Miranda has heard before. “It’s the only way we can move on. Forgive ourselves, forgive the world, whatever. Otherwise we’ll be bitter and stuck in the past. I don’t want to be stuck the way I used to be—I want to be free from it all. You can’t ‘walk back the crash,’” she mutters at the end, realizing that it’s Crashed and Burned she’s being reminded of.
Germaine looks close to tears, but unfortunately, Miranda is on a roll and can’t stop. “I want to move on from Zane, from my mistakes, from the things people said about me, like Kent—”
“What about Kent?” Sicily says. “What went on between you two? You’ve both been weird since you met last night.”
Miranda closes her eyes. “Nothing. I shouldn’t have brought—”
“No, what?” Sicily demands. “Did he hurt you, too? Did you sleep together? My mind is jumping to the worst possible places, Miranda.”
“He called me a whore, okay?” Miranda doesn’t mean to sound as harsh as she does. “He worked at my agent’s office over a decade ago, and I overheard him saying that I should just go into porn and stop wasting everyone’s time.”
“Shit.” Sicily rubs her hands over her face.
“Sorry,” Miranda says. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do now?” Sicily wails.
The three look at each other, wild eyed. Why are they tormenting themselves? Why does all of this matter, and why does it still hurt so much?
When are they going to grow up?