“His light doesn’t work.”

I looked up to see Cole standing in the dim corner of the living room, by the bathroom. I shrugged. “So? He doesn’t need the warmth anymore. That was just when he was a chick.”

“Do you mind if we hang out on the back porch? Just ’til the power comes back on?” He held Cocky under his right arm, like a football. A football he now scratched the chest of.

I grabbed the newly purchased bottle of wine, hefting to my feet. “Sure. I’ll grab some glasses.”

After my third glass, our bare feet hanging off the edge of the porch, my head on his shoulder, I decided to tell him about that night. Rehearsal Dinner Night. We’d lost Cocky to the darkness, his cluck occasionally heard from somewhere far in the yard. Every once in a while, Cole would dig his hand into the peas and toss them out into the grass. Sometime next summer, Cyndi Kirkland would be pulling out pea sprouts and cursing his name. At some point, around the second glass, his right hand had slid into mine, our fingers linking, and stayed there. It was on the third glass that my head had rested on his shoulder and my mouth had opened.

“It was crazy,” I said out of nowhere. “What I did that night. The article had it right, what happened.”

“Crazy isn’t always a bad thing.” That was all he said, and I was glad. I let out a big breath and then told, for the first time ever, the whole story.

CHAPTER 103

On a farm, things happened. Hospitals were not close by, and Tallahassee was too far away if there was a problem. So we had things. Ipecac syrup was one of those things. If a kid, or a stupid adult, or an animal ate something they shouldn’t, Ipecac caused a violent vomiting spell that got out all of the nasty. And Ipecac was what I reached for in The Plan.

It was easy to set up. The restaurant was serving crème brulee for dessert, topped with a medley of berries. I put the syrup in a flask, in a thigh holster. After the first round of toasts, I excused myself, walking right past the bathrooms and into the kitchen. I hugged Rita, the chef, and held up the flask. “Mind if I give the head table some extra flavor?” That was all it took. We were a dry county, liquor scant except in our private homes. She smiled. “Just pretend I didn’t see you. The platters are numbered, your table is number one.”

I’d like to say that I hesitated, my fingers twisting at the flask’s silver neck, but that’d be a lie. Two days of pent up anger, an hour of polite dinner conversation with false friends… it all pushed my actions, and I left the kitchen a minute later with all twelve of my table’s desserts tainted.

After that, there was nothing left to do but sit, sip my champagne, and watch.

When Ipecac hit, it was sudden. Explosive. If you gave someone too much, you could hurt them. I didn’t give my victims too much; there was about a half cup in each dessert. Scott was, brilliantly enough, the first victim. I saw him take his first bite, and I stood up, moving a few steps back and leaning against the wall, my champagne glass hanging from my recently manicured (professionally!) fingertips. Bridget saw me move and shot me a strange look, her elbow moving, out of sheer habit, to notify Corrine. Corrine glanced over, shrugged, and took her first bite of dessert. I stared point-blank at Bridget until she looked away, focusing on her dessert as if it was the most important thing in her life. Which, right then, it would be. Our table was up front, a long piece that cut the room in half, three couples on each side, Scott and I crammed on the end because weddings have this obsession with putting the bride and groom front and center, damn their need for elbow room to cut a steak.

My shoulders against the rose wallpapered wall, I watched the clock, a big silver piece that looked like it’d been around since the Civil War. Four minutes after Scott stuck that first bite into his deceitful mouth, it happened. He was speaking to Bobbie Jo at the moment, her sitting to his left, and there was no warning, no clutch of his stomach, holding of his mouth, no running to the bathroom. He just opened his mouth and vomit spewed out, soaking her lavender cardigan, unbuttoned low over those ridiculous breasts, her scream loud enough to make every head in the room turn. I giggled, watching Bobbie Jo’s date, her cousin Frank, as he tried to move away, his hands frantic in their push against the table, but Scott wasn’t done, his second attack came while trying to stand. Scott got his chair pushed back, got his feet under him, his hands on the table, and then it came again. We’d had fried green tomatoes with dinner. A piece of poorly chewed tomato caught the ear of Scott’s Best Man, Bubba, and hung there for a moment, the big guy flailing at the piece, then he was the next victim, and Tara and Scott got coated by his wretch.

It was a horrific unfolding, the medicine hitting everyone within the same three minutes, every head in the room turned, mouths opened, and murmurs gaining volume as it kept getting worse. Stacey was the first to hit the floor, vomit already covering her lips and chin, her hand over her face, her heels loud on the floor as she ran down our table’s side, then hit a pool of stench and slipped. I heard the splat as her dress, a Calvin Klein she had bragged over, hit the puddle. She screamed, her cry joining the sea, and tried to stand, her skinny legs flailing, slipped, tried again, and failed. It was hard to stand up when you wouldn’t put your hands on the floor. It was hard to put your hands on the floor when the floor was covered in stomach contents.

One bystander had told Variety Magazine that it had been ‘almost like a circus, with so many things happening you didn’t know where to look.’ I agreed with that statement. The week after the disaster, the cinematographer had asked, her voice tight with disdain, if I wanted the video from the event. I had already paid for it, after all. I had taken the video and sat on my living room floor, popped it in the DVD player, and watched it. That was the first time I felt guilt. I felt sick. I saw in high definition the moment that the poor sweet boyfriend of Tara’s bent over. I saw my first grade teacher, old Mrs. Maddox, trying to hobble for the exit among the masses, clean guests infected by screaming, puking bridesmaids, innocent victims caught along the way in the bottleneck that was the sole exit.

“It was evil,” I said quietly. “Doing it there. In front of everyone. Especially in a town where appearances and decorum are so important.” It was hard to respect someone when you’d seen them vomit all over their grandmother, then run for the exit. That had been Corrine. Her ninety-two year old Grammie had chosen that unfortunate moment to come over and say hello, her frail hands gripping Corrine’s chair for support when disaster hit.

“Isn’t that why you did it there? To punish them?”

“Yeah but… I went too far.” I didn’t feel bad about the wedding party. It was all of the others whose night had been ruined. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. I cringe at their faces, so much of their money wasted, their perfect son’s perfect night destroyed…

Everyone had known it was me from the beginning. Maybe it was my manic laughter as I stood at the front of the room and watched the stampede. It was certainly confirmed by Rita, who pointed a flour-covered finger straight in my direction. I had shrugged, accepted the blame. It wasn’t like I’d ever thought about discretion. I’d wanted them to know. I’d wanted them to realize what they had caused, what Bobbie Jo and Scott had caused. I wanted them to know that you didn’t screw with Summer Jenkins and get away with it.