DARLEEN'S PHONE

The music was still playing inside, though it no longer sounded like a wedding. Voices drifted out into the garden in brief bursts: someone shouting a name, a glass breaking, waiters trying uselessly to calm people who no longer wanted to be calmed.

Mindy sat beside the hedges with her shoes sunk into the wet grass. She was crying silently, in that clumsy way makeup starts to burn around the eyes.

Mark found her on his way to the parking lot.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded automatically and, a second later, shook her head.

Mark hesitated before sitting down beside her.

"Do you have any idea what the hell happened in there? I went to the car to get Steven's present, and when I came back he was trying to rip Daniel's head off. The best man."

Mindy wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

"Darleen's phone."

"What?"

Inside the hall, someone shouted again. Then something crashed hard against a table or a wall.

Mark turned toward the open doors.

"Jesus… okay. That sounded expensive."

Mindy let out a small, nervous laugh, completely out of place.

"I'm Mark, by the way. Friend of the groom. We met at Yale."

"Mindy. Friend of the bride."

She paused briefly.

"Best friends since kindergarten."

Mark raised an eyebrow with a faint smile.

"Okay… twenty minutes ago this looked like a normal wedding. Now Steven wants to kill Daniel, I saw his mother crying near the bathrooms, and I think someone flipped the gift table over. I need to understand what's happening here. Any ideas?"

Mindy lowered her gaze to the damp grass.

"A week ago we threw Kat her bachelorette party. We invited almost all the girls from high school."

Mark lit a cigarette.

"Bad idea and too much alcohol. Classic."

"Not just that," she said. "Some of them brought photos. Along with tequila."

Mark glanced sideways at her.

"I'm starting to think the photos were worse."

Mindy didn't answer. She kept staring at her hands resting tensely in her lap, wrapped around the phone.

"I don't know if you realize most of us have known each other for years."

"I assumed so. Pretty normal for weddings, right?" Mark replied while glancing toward the banquet hall, where the shouting kept growing louder.

Mindy nodded, looking away.

"Do you know Darleen?"

"No. I don't know her."

Mark let out half a smile. This was easily the strangest wedding he had ever attended.

Mindy took a deep breath.

"Darleen was always the most popular girl in high school. The kind who keeps pictures of everything and everyone. She and Kat were really close. That's why it shocked everyone so much when we found out she'd had something with Steven."

Mark frowned.

"Steven cheated on Kat with Darleen?"

"Darleen said it was just one drunken night, two summers ago."

"This is insane."

"Yes. But that's not even the worst part."

Mark studied her more carefully.

"There's more?"

Mindy took a while to answer.

"That was the summer Kat and I went to the Greek islands. Steven couldn't come because of an internship. Darleen kept photos of all of it. Them together. And our photos too. Greece photos, photos of the two of them, photos that should never exist outside a locked phone, and a lot more. Most of them capable of ruining the future weddings of half the people in that room."

Mark exhaled smoke slowly.

"What kind of photos?"

Mindy turned red.

"In ours? Too many Greeks. In hers? Too many familiar faces."

Something shattered inside the hall again. Kat ran past the doorway clutching her dress in both hands. Steven ran after her shouting her name. His voice was drowned out by another shout, then a crash, then a silence that lasted far too long.

Mindy closed her eyes.

Mark stood up.

"This is getting out of control. They need to talk calmly."

She grabbed his jacket.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you."

"Mindy, they're destroying their own wedding over something that happened two years ago."

She swallowed hard.

"That's exactly what I thought. That it wasn't a reason to call off a wedding. The past is the past."

Mark stared at her.

"Then let's go fix this."

Mindy shook her head slowly.

"That's what I tried to do."

Mark frowned.

"What did you do?"

For the first time, she looked up at him fully. Her eyes were swollen, red, desperate.

"I took Darleen's phone while she was in the bathroom. I thought that if I deleted the photos, nobody would ever find out."

Mark went completely still.

Mindy tightened her grip on his jacket.

"I don't know what I touched. They all sent themselves. To every contact she had."

Inside the hall, someone screamed a name nobody answered anymore. Then came the sound of a glass smashing against the floor. After that, a silence so clean it felt frightening.

Mark stared at her without speaking.

Mindy lowered her head.

"And the worst part is Darleen is still looking for her phone. She said she was going to kill whoever took it."

Mark looked down.

Mindy slowly opened her hands.

The phone was still there, glowing silently between them.