The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

But only minutes before the lights went out the guests gathered around to watch its ceremonial disemboweling. Now the deep red sponge gapes from within. Then from outside comes a new sound. You might almost mistake it for the wind. But it rises in pitch and volume until it is unmistakable. The guests freeze. They stare at one another. They are suddenly afraid again. More so than they were when the lights went out. They all know what they are hearing. It is a scream of terror.

Someone was poisoned or shot or stabbed or SOMETHING.

But it’s all about the moment, a wedding. All about the day. It’s not really about the marriage at all, in spite of what everyone says.

See, mine is a profession in which you orchestrate happiness. It is why I became a wedding planner. Life is messy. We all know this. Terrible things happen, I learned that while I was still a child. But no matter what happens, life is only a series of days. You can’t control more than a single day. But you can control one of them. Twenty-four hours can be curated. A wedding day is a neat little parcel of time in which I can create something whole and perfect to be cherished for a lifetime, a pearl from a broken necklace.

Freddy and I have been together for the best part of two decades and even now there are things I keep from him and, I’m sure, vice versa. Makes you wonder how much they know about each other, those two. Whether they really know all of each other’s dark secrets.

He gave me a sort of slow smile and it was like I knew him. Like we had always meant to come together, to find each other.

Why does this remind me of the fucking TWINK.

But that’s nostalgia for you, the tyranny of those memories of childhood that feel so golden, so perfect.

It’s a strange thing when you consider that the dead on this island far outnumber the living, even now that some of the guests have arrived. Tomorrow will redress the balance.

cormorant on a steeple: that’s an ill omen. The devil’s bird, they call it in these parts. The cailleach dhubh, the black hag, the bringer of death. Here’s hoping that the bride and groom don’t know this … or that they aren’t the superstitious sort.

Spooky foreshadowing

It’s still there, I think. He must feel it too. But then attraction never really goes away, does it? I’m sure of it: he’s jealous.

Is he or are you projecting?

Afterward Will goes for a shower. He takes impeccable care of himself—his routine even makes my own look rather slapdash. I remember being a little surprised when I realized his permanently brown face wasn’t actually due to the constant exposure to the elements but to Sisley’s self-tan, the same one I use.

Why does this remind me of the TWINK?!

In my experience those who have the greatest respect for the rules also take the most enjoyment in breaking them.

Oooooh thats a weird foreshadow

It’s only the best man, slumped against the wall of one of the outbuildings. “Who’s there?” His voice sounds slurred and hoarse. “It’s me,” I say. “Aoife.” “Oh, Aoife. Come to tell me it’s time for lights out? Time to get into bed like a good little boy?” He gives me a crooked grin. But it’s a halfhearted affair, and I think those are tear tracks that catch in the beam. “It’s not safe for you to go wandering around the outbuildings,” I say, all practicality. There’s old farm machinery in there that could cut a person in half. “Especially without a torch,” I add. And especially when you’re as drunk as you are, I think. Although, oddly enough, I feel as though I am protecting the island from him—rather than the other way round. He stands up, walks toward me. He’s a big man, drunk and more besides—I catch a sickly sweet vegetable waft of weed. I take another step away from him and realize that I’m gripping the poker hard. Then he grins, showing crooked teeth. “Yeah,” he says. “Time for Johnny boy to go to bed. Think I had a bit too much of the old, you know.” He mimes drinking from a bottle, then smoking. “Always makes me feel a bit off, having too much of both together. Thought I was fucking seeing things.” I nod, even though he can’t see me. So did I. I watch as he turns on his heel and lurches his way toward the Folly. The forced good humor didn’t convince me for a second. Despite the grin he seemed caught between miserable and terrified. He looked like a man who had seen ...

Johnny has hidden secrets fro.m the past that we have yet to discover. Could he possibly harbor mental helth issues that hold him back? Bipolarity? Schizophrenia? While he is away for Will and Jules' wedding, he consumes copious amounts of alcohol (and some weed mixed altogether) to hide hidden regrets. OR!!!! Aoife and Freddy could both be hiding something; the hidden controls that set everything to transpire.

It was a bit desperate, what I did. Because maybe I was wrong, but I got this impression that, for a while, Will’s been trying to cut me out of his life. Since all the TV stuff happened, I’ve hardly seen the bloke. He hadn’t even told me about the engagement—I read about it in the papers. And that stung, I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. So I called him up and said I wanted to take him for a drink, to celebrate. And over drinks I said it. “I accept! I’ll be your best man.” Did he look a bit awkward, then? Difficult to tell with Will—he’s smooth. After a short pause he nodded and said: “You’ve read my mind.” It wasn’t totally out of the blue. He’d promised it, really. When we were kids, at Trevellyan’s. “You’re my best mate, Johnno,” he said to me once. “Numero uno. My best man.” I didn’t forget that. History ties us together, him and me. Really, I think we both knew I was the only person for the job.

It seems that Johnno is the type to reminisce and hold on to past childhood memories. Something that do too.

“Wasn’t he? That pretty boy face. Never got in trouble with the teachers, did you?” Will grins at us all, shrugs. “Never did anything wrong.” “Bollocks!” Femi cries. “You got away with murder. You never got caught. Or they turned a blind eye, with your dad being head and all that.” “Nope,” Will says. “I was good as gold.” “Well,” Angus says, “I’ll never understand how you aced those GCSEs when you did no fucking work.” I shoot a look at Will, try to catch his eye—could Angus have guessed?

WHY IS JOHNNO SO SUSPICIOUS?????? Also, I was under the impression that it was Freddy and Aoife, but now Johnno and Will are even MORE suspicious; like, what do you mean by that, Johnno?! (Or was he referring to a past Trev memory like they always do? Bc they can't seem to let go and grow up from Trevellyan mems)

because he knew he could get away with it, probably. Whereas I was scared, at least in the beginning, of losing the scholarship. It would have destroyed my parents.

Oh geez, Johnno. He tries to people please or has tendencies.

It’s Charlie. “Apparently the buttonholes are in here?” he says. He doesn’t look at any of us properly. Poor bloke. “They’re over there,” Will says. “Chuck Charlie one, will you, Johnno?” I pick one up, little sprig of green stuff and white flowers, and toss it to Charlie, but not quite hard enough to reach him. Charlie makes a sort of lunge for it and doesn’t manage to catch it, fumbles around on the floor. When he’s finally picked it up he leaves as quickly as possible, without saying anything.

I wonder if Charlie heard all their secrets during the stag event, pretended to be drunk, and they all talked about the seaweed thing while he was sober-but-fake-drunk. Maybe Charlie did the seaweed part...but the note to Julia? Has to be Olivia or her mom.

So you see, I can’t think of him as Will. To me he’ll always be Steven. I hadn’t thought of that, when I renamed myself for the dating app. I hadn’t thought that he might have lied too.

The way I gasped. The silence and the shock are both so fucking LOUD!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT, SOMEONE GIVE OLIVIA A HUG AND SOME MAJOR THERAPY. THE POOR BABY.

gossip. I heard some of the best man’s words in the cave. This is the thing about organizing a wedding. I can put together a perfect day, as long as the guests play along, remember to stay within certain bounds. But if they don’t, the repercussions can last far longer than twenty-four hours. No one is capable of controlling that sort of fallout.

I always suspected Aoife as some sort of "controller" that you wouldn't suspect. But she seemed too quiet to me, so, naturally, I saw her as a potential suspicious character.

“I’ve kept your texts,” I tell him. “I can show them to her.” It’s the last thing I have over him, the last bit of power I hold. I hold my phone out in front of him, to emphasize it.

Now WHY would you tell him this