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After the vows, the ceremony, the ring and the tears and the spectacular champagne: Rachel finds Sarah. She has tucked herself away in the corner, which is polite in a way that makes Rachel deeply uncomfortable and itchy with nerves. She doesn’t know how to deal with a Sarah that’s polite. Then again, she’s never really known how to deal with Sarah at all.
“You came,” Rachel says, taking a seat at Sarah’s table. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Brought a gift and everything,” Sarah says. She’s older, shockingly older – in Rachel’s mind Sarah is a blur of energy and uncombed hair, all seen through two eyes. To see her now, Rachel’s age, with new wrinkles at the corner of her eyes: shocking.
“I asked Alison,” Sarah says. “About when she got married. She kept telling me about this blender she got. Wouldn’t shut up about the blender. Guess it was a really good blender.”
“So you got me a blender.”
“Guess you’ll find out.” Sarah smiles, a flash of teeth, and there – there – Sarah Manning, mythical and leonine, winking out from this woman’s face. Then the smile closes and she’s gone. Just Sarah. She has dressed up for the wedding. She bought a suit from somewhere. It’s well-fitted.
“I’m glad you came,” Rachel says. It’s true, which is what’s so terrifying about it.
Sarah blinks. “Huh,” she says, “you aren’t lying, are you? Bloody terrifying.” She looks past Rachel, to the dance floor; her gaze finds Kira unerringly. Rachel can’t look directly at Kira or she’ll cry. She thinks Kira knows this, which is why she hasn’t sought Rachel out tonight. Rachel tilts her head, positions Kira at the edge of her blind spot – the pieces that she catches are manageable. A toss of auburn hair. The occasional gleam of a smile. She has her mother’s smile.
“I do mean it,” Rachel says. “I wanted…”
“I know,” Sarah says. “Hey. I’m…Rachel. I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone else.”
So she really does know. The fact pierces Rachel’s heart again, an elegant silver needle: there wasn’t anyone else. There wasn’t anyone else. She had sat down with Nadia and built out the list, everyone they wanted to invite – Nadia’s mother and father, her little brother, her little brother’s wife and child, Nadia’s elementary school best friend, Nadia’s college roommates. And, yes, Rachel’s coworkers – Rachel’s friends, shockingly enough – Rachel’s first girlfriend, who has fielded a truly embarrassing number of emotional phone calls after their breakup and deserves to be rewarded with champagne. Charlotte, who has neatly positioned herself outside of being called Rachel’s anything. And then they had run through the list, everyone Rachel knew, and her side of the aisle still had empty seats—
Do you want to invite—
“There were the others, I suppose,” Rachel says. “But if you understand why I invited you, then you understand why I didn’t invite anyone else.”
Sarah hums acknowledgement. Rachel watches her watch Kira, except – no – Sarah is watching Nadia. Nadia: dancing with her father, in the middle of laughing at some horrible joke or another. Her dress is like a winter breeze, her hands are a flock of birds. Her smile is another silver needle, but everything in Rachel’s life is a silver needle at one point or another. That’s what this new life is all about.
“Does she know?” Sarah says.
“Yes,” Rachel says. “She knows.”
Sarah lets out a low whistle. “Didn’t think you’d tell anyone.”
“I told her,” Rachel says, and aches with it, and steals Sarah’s flute of champagne to wash away the pain in her throat.
“Oi.”
“It’s my champagne, Sarah.”
Sarah laughs.
Sarah’s laugh sounds nothing like Rachel’s laugh, but Rachel likes it. It’s loud, loose. The sort of laugh that has been brought forth so many times that there’s no hesitation left in it.
“Do you know,” Sarah says, smiling, “I think I missed you? No one says Sarah as condescendingly as you, you bitch.” She steals the champagne back; she doesn’t even drink from it. She just holds it.
“I’m glad you have her,” she says. “And congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Rachel says. “Please don’t tell any of them.”
“Well, I have to,” Sarah says. “We need to make sure your wife gets her Clone Club phone.” At the face Rachel makes, Sarah laughs again: easy, loud, free.
“Don’t you dare,” Rachel says.
“Maybe she n’Donnie’ll get along.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“Be best friends.”
“I shouldn’t have invited you.”
“Hey, we can make a group chat. Wives of Clone Club. Delphine and Donnie an—”
“I’m going to call security.”
“And I’m going to knock ‘em out,” Sarah says. And there she is again – Sarah Manning – here at Rachel’s wedding, sitting in a new skin and a new suit in a new world with a new Rachel in it. She blinks; she looks out of Sarah’s face, right at Rachel. She says, Rachel. You know you don’t—
Ah, but she’s gone again. Sarah drains the last of the champagne, and it’s only Sarah who does it. Rachel’s fingers clench for a moment on the tablecloth, but she manages to swallow down the word wait. She reminds herself that she doesn’t need to know whatever Sarah Manning would have told her. She doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t need to know.
“I think this is gonna be Kira’s last song,” Sarah says. “And then she’ll come back. Just so you know.”
“Ah.” Rachel watches her fingers work at the tablecloth. “Sarah,” she says – slowly, painfully. Through her teeth. “I wanted—”
“I know,” Sarah says. “Hey, I know. I get it. You did it, alright? It’s done. Go snog your wife.”
“I’ve never snogged anyone," Rachel says reflexively. “I. You…oh, never mind. I’ll talk to you later, Sarah. Enjoy the champagne.”
“Enjoy the blender.”
“I already have a blender,” Rachel says, and stands.
“Figured,” Sarah says. “That’s why I didn’t get you one.”
For a moment, Rachel is absolutely certain that Sarah’s face – if she looks at it – will tell her everything. The answer will be there, written across those features Rachel knows better than anything else. She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t snatch the answer from between Sarah’s teeth. Instead she goes back to the head table; Nadia is seated, flushed and panting for breath. She’s beautiful. She is, somehow, Rachel’s wife.
“Hi,” she says, and smiles with impossible fondness. “Tom won’t stop playing Taylor Swift, I’m going to kill him.”
“We’re going to kill him,” Rachel says; she takes her seat, she takes Nadia’s hand.
“Aw, babe,” Nadia says. “How romantic.” She squeezes Rachel’s hand. Then: “So that’s her?”
Rachel doesn’t look, she doesn’t look. “That’s her.”
“Her daughter’s so sweet.”
“She is.”
Nadia squeezes Rachel’s hand again; Rachel looks up at her, her wife, her future. Impossible, impossible. That she is so beautiful. That she is so clever, and cruel, and kind. That she slowed down long enough for Rachel to catch her. That she let Rachel hold on to her. That when Rachel offered her a ring, she said yes and she cried.
“You okay?” Nadia says. “If you need to leave, I’ll co—”
“Sweetheart,” Rachel says, “I’m not going anywhere.” She kisses her.
She doesn’t need to look back, anyways. She knows that Sarah is already gone.