“Are you ladies doing all right?” came Heather’s voice from the front of the building.
“Yeah!” Cassidy called. “We’re good.”
“Okay, well let’s keep going then.”
Edie pushed herself off the wall like peeling off a band-aid. The names Cassidy said didn’t sound right, and they both knew it. Edie worried that if Cassidy couldn’t get her memory together to bring back her friends that Cassidy wouldn’t be able to help Edie bring back Rose.
Without a word, they seated themselves at the table and pasted on their fake smiles. Everything had to look perfect, even if under the surface things were falling apart.
When the next group approached, Edie grabbed a permanent marker and wrote ROSE TURNER on the palm of her left hand.
At noon, they relocated to the stage area. Cassidy and Edie sat at a table onstage in the shade, and the contestants stood inside a penned off area on the ground. The video panels on each side of the stage captured contestants and observers alike as Heather zipped around finalizing details.
“Why are there only two chairs?” Edie asked when Heather brought them new bottles of water.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Lee. We couldn’t find anyone on the Island’s guest list by the name of Cherish. I think maybe she didn’t accept her invitation, and I’m so sorry that we didn’t catch that sooner and let you know. But don’t worry, we found a great host for today’s contest.” She nodded to the stage right wing where a man in a polo shirt and khakis spoke with an Island Xperience employee.
“Is that who I think it is?” Cassidy asked.
Heather’s smile reached from ear to ear, stretching almost too wide. “I told you we got a good one.”
“Who is that guy?” Edie asked when Heather ran off on another task.
“You don’t recognize him?” Cassidy laughed in mocking disbelief. “That’s Eduardo, the guy who founded Facebook.”
“I thought the guy who founded Facebook had a name like Zevenberg or something,” Edie said. The name sounded wrong, like Apple and Daphne, but she couldn’t quite bring the shape of the word she wanted to mind.
“I have no idea where you came up with that,” Cassidy said and reached into her gift bag from the meet and greet.
She cracked open the seltzer, took a sip, then twisted something in her hands until Edie heard a soft snap.
“What are you doing?” Edie asked.
Cassidy poured the rum directly into the mouth of the can, creating a puddle around the tab that she slurped up before answering. “I’m making an approximation of a pina colada. Though that was mostly rum.”
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“What are you talking about?”
Before Edie could scan through her memories of her conversations with Cassidy, Eduardo stepped in front of their table, facing the crowd. He raised a microphone to his mouth and spoke to the participants below. On the sides of the stage, his face stretched a story high before the video cut to members of the audience.
“Good afternoon! Thank you all for being here, I can’t wait to get this game started. Who is ready to see if their best friend is thebestbest friend?”
The crowd below and on the sidelines cheered.
“All right. First, we’re going to separate all of you with these very special, very high-tech pool noodles that our lovely assistants are handing out. You and your bestie need to stay on opposite sides of the pool noodle to avoid cheating.”
The pairs of friends in the sun spread out over the beer-stained platform, and Edie counted fifteen groups. Already, many of them had sweat glistening on their skin as the air around them warmed and Edie counted herself blessed for the shade of the stage.
“We’re going to start off with some questions to see how well you know your friend. There’s a lot of you, so if you get a question wrong, you’re out. Pick who’s going first, and we’ll start with an easy question: When is your friend’s birthday?”
Cassidy appeared more comfortable now than at the meet and greet. She cracked jokes with Eduardo and the contestants and happily pointed out when people appeared to be cheating. Edie tried to enjoy herself, but an unease settled upon her when Cassidy started drinking. She felt the breeze breaking through the framing of the stage and could smell the grease from the food stands starting up for the day, and the sound of the audience was overwhelming when someone missed a challenge. All of it let her know that she lived in a real and undeniable present, but every time she tried to recall memories of Cassidy or Rose, it was like trying to remember the details of a dream.
“Down to the final five,” Eduardo announced. “We’re going to change things up a bit, so while our assistants get things ready, I’m going to interview our judges.”
Eduardo leaned on Cassidy’s side of the judges’ table.
“Cassidy.”
