Chapter 5
ISABELLA
“Cheer up, Ms. Pecora. This is your wedding and you look like you’re getting ready for a funeral!”
That’s exactly what she looks like, too.
The wedding dress designer is standing next to my sister as she stands in front of the mirror.
The dress she’s wearing is breathtakingly beautiful.
It’s a form-fitting mermaid style dress that’s embroidered with lace flowers over every inch of the fabric.
The designer just put the veil on her head.
It’s a fine lace netting with a crown of white flowers.
The whole thing cascades over her like a shaft of sunlight.
She looks amazing, except for the sullen look in her eyes. The sparkle’s almost completely gone from them and it’s almost like there’s a dark cloud hanging over all of us.
“She’s just tired,” I say to the designer. “You know, Bachelorette party last night and everything. I think we went a little too hard.”
The designer’s a rotund older woman with bottle blonde hair and big chipmunk cheeks. She laughs brightly. “Oh, I can understand that. Me and my girlfriends went to Vegas for my bachelorette party. All I can say is that I found out why they say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
She looks back over at my sister, who isn’t even responsive, really. She’s picking at the little lace flowers in her dress.
“You know what would really be nice?” I tell the designer. “Some cold water. I know I’m parched and I bet my sister is dying for a drink.”
“Oh, no problem. I’ll be right back, Ladies.”
She leaves and I walk over to my sister. “Hey,” I say as I touch her shoulder. She flinches from me instinctively, dropping the part of her dress she was so fascinated with. “I know today sucks and everything, but you’ve got to at least fake a smile every now and then.”
Annie looks up at herself in the mirror, her eyes surveying every detail of the image before her. She scoffs and says, “I always thought I’d look beautiful in a wedding dress. Looks like I was right.”
I don’t really know how to help her. I can’t imagine what she must be feeling right now.
The loss of control over her own life must be crippling.
“You know, I was reading about arranged marriages in other countries like India and places in the Middle East. And apparently, the divorce rate is way lower than in America, if you can believe that.”
“That’s probably because it’s harder to get divorced in those places.” Annie says that in a flat tone. Like an automated response. “Kinda makes you wonder what the death rate is among the husbands in those marriages.”
Any other day, we might be laughing. Outside of the context of this fucked up situation, it’s a pretty witty response. “Hope you’re not thinking of finding out,” I say, hoping to elicit even the smallest of smiles. It doesn’t work. She just continues to stare at herself in the mirror.
The designer returns with two bottles of water in hand. “Here you go,” she says brightly. She hands us each a bottle, then looks at my sister in her dress and says, “So, what do we think? Is this the one?”
“It’s a little loose in the hips,” Annie says, “but it’s fine. I think we’ll take it.”
The designer looks at me, then back at her. “Are you sure? This is only the first dress you’ve tried on.”
“I’m sure,” Annie says. She steps back and away from the mirror.
“W–Well, if you want, we can take it in a little at the hips.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I really want to get out of here, so if you could just…” She motions to the dress.
“Oh, right. Of course.” The designer rushes up to her and undoes her zipper. Once the dress is loosened, she directs my sister back to the dressing rooms.
“Well,” the designer says brightly. “That was the easiest sale I ever made.”
“You gotta love it when a customer is easy.” I reach in my purse to pay her and she waves me off.
“Oh, your father already called and took care of it. I just need you to sign off on some paperwork and you’ll be all set.”
I nod, and she leaves again, only to return a few seconds later with a clipboard holding a printed out paper detailing everything out. I don’t even look at it before signing my name on the bottom line.
“Okay,” she says. “Tell your sister to just leave the dress in the dressing room, and we’ll get it boxed up and ready for you before you go.”
“Thanks.”
And with that, I sit down and wait for Annie. These past few weeks have been so strange. I’ve been staying with my sister almost every evening to keep her company, but she just seems to be getting more and more down. I don’t know what I can do to help her.
Last week, we were watching Thelma and Louise together and I had a thought that if she wanted to, we could probably just run.
I don’t know how far we would get. Rumor has it that Dad’s reach goes as far as at least three of the five boroughs in New York and part of Jersey, and who knows how far the Mechnikovs’ reach goes.
I didn’t say anything aloud, but I did wonder if we could get as far as the desert out west like Thelma and Louise did. Honestly, I’d love to be able to drive through those beautiful mountain ranges in a convertible with my sister.
I start scrolling on my phone. Pretty soon, I come across a news report about a man found in the alley by the old pizzeria by my father’s house.
The waiter. I bite my lip as I read the article.
Mike Piscelli. It was his father’s catering business at the house.
He was the oldest of five in his family.
I gloss over the highlights of how he was found in a pool of his own blood.
The police think that it was a robbery of some sort and are looking for suspects.
I get a little nauseous when I think about what Alexei Mechnikov did to him. He beat him up pretty badly, but I didn’t think that he would die. I never imagined that I’d actually bear witness to a man getting beaten to death. Now that I’m faced with it, I don’t know how to feel except nauseous.
The man my sister’s about to marry really is a beast. I look at the time on my phone and realize it’s been about twenty minutes. I wonder if she got stuck in the dress or something.
I get up and walk down the hall to the dressing rooms. The hall is small with just four dressing rooms and an emergency exit. As I walk up, I notice that the exit door is propped open a little. Probably somebody outside having a smoke.
I get to the only closed dressing room door and knock. “Annie? You need help?”
No answer. I frown and knock again. “Annie?” Still no answer. I try the door and it opens.
There’s no one here. The wedding dress and veil are crumpled on the floor like she evaporated into thin air.
A terrible feeling comes over me as I realize the emergency exit door is open. I turn and open it, looking out into the parking lot behind the store. There are several cars parked where they had been when we arrived, but I immediately see that mine is gone.
Shit.
“Explain it again.”
I’m standing in my father’s parlor room.
He’s sitting on the corner of his writing desk in the corner behind me while Maxim Mechnikov is staring me down, ice blue eyes like daggers and his jaw clenched like a big bulldog.
I just finished telling them everything.
I don’t want to go through it again even though he’s asking.
But Dad hasn’t said a word. He’s just sitting behind me while I stand in the line of fire.
Behind Maxim is Alexei, who just has his arms crossed as he leans against the wall, a disinterested look on his face.
His knuckles only show the remnants of the last time we saw one another.
I guess this time, he’s not coming to my rescue.
“She was taking too long getting dressed,” I say again. “I went to look for her and she was gone. I saw the back door was open, so I went to look for her in the parking lot, and my car was gone too.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You drove her there and she had your keys?”
I shake my head. “If I had to guess, I’d say she hot wired it.”
I hear a chuckle behind me. It sounds so strange that at first I think maybe I’m imagining it. I take a look over my shoulder and my father is laughing. He puts his palm on his forehead, leaning into it as the chuckle turns into a full belly laugh.
“I don’t see what’s so funny, Pecora,” Mr. Mechnikov says. “This is a serious breach of our agreement.”
He lets his laugh die down, then wipes his eyes and says, “You know, I taught her how to hot wire a car when she was twelve. It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.” He looks at me.
“Your mother was furious with me when she found out. I always kind of thought it was one of those… bonding moments that you have with your kid. I never dreamed in a million years that she’d ever actually use that skill for anything. ”
Mr. Mechnikov looks like he’s about to explode. “There is still the matter of a debt that must be paid. This marriage was supposed to be a union of good faith between our families. What does that say that your own daughter chose to run instead of standing up for her own bloodline?”
“Calm down, Maxim,” my father says. He walks over to the drink caddy on the other side of the room and starts making himself a whiskey on the rocks. “My men are looking for her as we speak. They’ll find her.”
“And if they don’t? How do you plan on settling this debt? The amount of money your son stole from us—”
“He didn’t steal anything from you,” my father said, pointing a finger at him. “He didn’t need to steal. He had money.”
“If that were true, your family wouldn’t be going broke.”
My father glances at me and I turn away. I’m not supposed to be hearing any of this. I look across the room at Alexei. He doesn’t even look like he’s paying attention. His eyes are on the patterns of the wall he’s standing next to. He’s like Maxim Mechnikov’s guard dog, rather than his son.
“We’ll figure something out,” Dad says.
“How can we trust you now? How do we know you didn’t plan for your daughter to escape in the first place?”
They’re bickering, and all I want to do right now is leave, just walk away and go back to my own house and let them handle it. After all, what do I have to do with any of this, anyway? If only I could walk out of here without hearing my father’s voice.
“This is ridiculous,” I hear Dad say, and I zone back into the conversation. “They’re not trading cards. You can’t just switch one out for the other.”
“Why not? I have no guarantees that you’re not involved with your daughter’s disappearance. This way, our alliance stands and trust can be rebuilt between us.”
Alarms are going off in my head. I look over at Alexei and suddenly, he’s watching the back of his father’s head, his eyes wide with alarm.
“You have two daughters,” Mr. Mechnikov says. “It doesn’t matter to me which one you choose. All that matters is the union between our families.”
Oh, God. I turn to my father. “No. You can’t. Dad—”
“Shut up, Isabella. You can’t understand how important this is.”
“What are you talking about? This… this is about me! You can’t be seriously thinking—”
He throws his drink and the glass smashes against the wall. Then he grabs me by my shoulders and shakes me. “YOU WILL DO WHAT I TELL YOU!” He yells. “WHATEVER I TELL YOU, BECAUSE I AM YOUR FATHER!”
Tears start burning in my eyes. I feel like I’m being punished like a little kid. “Daddy,” I whimper. “Please… please don’t do this.”
He pushes me away and I almost fall over. I catch myself, but I’m standing on knees that feel like they’re going to buckle.
“This isn’t about you,” he says as he makes another drink. “This is about our family. You’re going to marry Alexei and that’s the end of it. Now, go upstairs and try on your sister’s dress. Now, so we can call the shop and have it altered if we need to.”
I don’t know what to do. I just stand there, wobbling back and forth for a minute, until he turns and stares me down.
I will myself to move. I get halfway up the stairs before my stomach lurches. I rush quickly up the stairs as the bile rises in my throat. I just barely make it to the upstairs bathroom.