"Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her" (Part 3)

See part 1 for all information, and author's notes following.

Once again, sorry for the break. :)

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James' mouth made a small gaping motion as if he wanted to say something, but didn't, like a goldfish that has suddenly realized he's jumped out of the bowl- into a very big, wide ocean.

Jessibelle- or was that Jessie?- looked at him very slowly, and in the candlelight in the room, each fractional tilt of her head was magnified so that it looked like she would move and stop, move and stop. His heart felt the same way.

"I hope you don't mind" she said, clearly, so distinctly, the way the face he knew had a way of saying things...

(this is stupid, James)

*Flash.*

"I helped with dinner. I sent someone out to get the flowers-" she smiled self-consciously. "Only the ones that were blocking the way."

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"Dearest Jessie..."

She knew there was trouble, a problem from the instant she got the loopily-scrawled telegram, saying that he wanted- needed- her to get up there right away. He didn't sign it, but she remembered his handwriting from school.

The mansion had not changed, and he met her on the walk, not bothering to go into the house with her, and damn it all, it looked like rain, she had spent *hours* straightening her hair into a perfect, smooth curl.

He quietly, quickly, with a smile that betrayed apology even if his words refused to, told her what he wanted to do.

The edges of her mouth struggled between a primal scream, one that could easily blow out his eardrums, and the faintest wince, the could subtly underscore the gut-blow she had just been dealt.

But a lady never lost her composure.

Would she stay?

Would that be OK...?

"I will be fine" she answered, deliberately making 'Jessie's' voice sound as Americanized as possible. "In fact, I think that's great, James."

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"I want my life back" she said simply, without warning, the second she burst in the door of the guest room they occupied as her.

Jessie was lying down, half-asleep, and sprang up like a burnt cat when Jessibelle made her grand entrance, slamming the doors behind her.

"Whaaa..?" her mouth formed the sound incoherently- she was woozy, after all.

Jessibelle didn't wear Rocket colors well. Her arms akimbo, her hip jutted, she didn't look much like Li'l Miss Georgia, and she'd be damned if a week with her wardrobe hadn't turned her into the shameless hussy she had always subconsciously aspired to be.

I wear that same skirt, Jessie thought cattily as her thoughts began to make sense again, right away. And *I* sure don't look like a raspberry tart in it.

"You heard me" Jessibelle accused, her voice a strident twang. "I want out of this petty charade. Immediately."

Jessie just gave her a funny look.

"What do you think?" she asked, innocent of Jessibelle's intention, but still sharply. "That I want to hold your froufrou little party dresses hostage?"

"I want my life back" Jessibelle stumbled again, not realizing the ridiculousness behind that statement. "Right now, if possible."

Her image, her mirror copy in a decrepit old pink thing she hadn't worn in *years*, slid onto one elbow, and scrutinized her.

"Why so suddenly?" Jessie taunted. "Did you realize that, even as me, you couldn't possibly get James to like you?"

Jessibelle's face turned six shades of livid with rage.

"I don't need to explain" she said haughtily. "It is my existence, after all, not yours."

A brief, desperate moment of panic seized Jessie's bravado and shook it to pieces. She... James thought she was Jessibelle. He thought Jessibelle, well...

It was the way he had stared, as if haunted, into her eyes over the dinner they barely touched, the way his eyes penetrated hers, and it seemed they looked into her very soul. She had felt guilty, and then delicious, a hot streak of spongy, black feeling up her spine when he asked her to come upstairs with him.

Jessibelle wouldn't have, and she didn't, either- but that had less to do with any question of morals than the small 'R' she had tattooed on her left hip, that would have surely been a dead give away.

She had control over him. In Jessibelle's body.

Her eyes met the other woman's, and she got up off the downy comforter.

"I'm going to tell him everything, right now" she decreed.

She turned her back, and Jessibelle's crimson nails found her tender arm, viciously.

"No!" she cried, overwrought. "You... can't!"

Jessie just stared at her.

"I'm quite damn sure I can, Jessibelle, so let *go* of me" she exclaimed, pulling her arm away with a wince. "What the hell is wrong with you, anyway."

Jessibelle gulped imperceivably, and looked at the door.

"I want my dress, first" she declared. "Now, please" she continued, with more confidence as her story formed in her head, the words taking shape seconds before she uttered them.

Jessie looked offended, and narrowed her eyes at her.

"Give me mine, first, you idiot" she said, harshly. "You're a genuine wacko. How do I know you don't want *my* uniform?"

"Like I would" Jessibelle scoffed derisively. "My dress, please. I asked first."

"Fine" Jessie retorted, eyes narrowed like a cat's. She reached her arms behind her back, and started to unlace the complicated bodice of the gown.

Jessibelle didn't make a move to help her.

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They had just finished stormily separating the two separate sets of clothing- her chemise, her black halter, her magenta garter, her green earring- each having brassily kicked the other's to the far end of said room.

Jessie was peering over the mirror, struggling to comb her now-dry hair into it's normal style without the frilly decorative curls. Jessibelle worked in reverse, trying to gather her hair up into a halfway respectable bun without half of it falling out in stick-straight compliance to how she had coaxed it that morning.

"Get out of the way" she muttered at Jessie, who was monopolizing much of the pier glass.

"Make me... it's not my fault your fat ass needs so much room" Jessie shot back cruelly.

"Ugh!" Jessibelle recoiled. "Well, I never..."

The door opened, and Leilei was shrinking in the door, watching the two women argue, her nervous eyes darting from one to another like she was a spectator at a tennis match.

"What do you want?" Jessibelle asked her finally, and none too kindly.

The poor girl, who had *almost* gotten use to "Jessibelle's" kindness, shrank back as if bitten.

"I'm sorry, ma'am" she said demurely. "Mr. James is requesting your presence downstairs. "

"Which one of us?" they asked in venomous unison.

Leilei gulped, and, behind the doorframe, got ready to run for her life.

"Both of you, miss."

"What is this about?" Jessie asked, less severely.

"Does it matter?" Jessibelle cut Leilei off in mid-cringe, imperiously. "It must be important."

Jessie glared at her.

"I didn't ask *you*."

Jessibelle just smiled at her. The poor child, let her have her little cracks and comments now. She had no idea...

"Oh, Jessica, *do* shut up" she dismissed her.

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They entered the drawing room- not side by side, but every now and then bumping elbows to claim who exactly was going first. Jessie ended up entering first, but Jessibelle sailed by her as if she had a purpose, going right to the grand table, while Jessie hung back by the door.

The first thing that amazed her was that the room was- full. A new team of lawyers, minus Bohrer the Horror, crouched in the same spot in the corner the old team had occupied, and the secretaries, too, had seats around the table. A distinguished-looking, elderly couple beamed in the corner, neither of whom Jessie recognized.

Her heart in her throat, she stepped towards James, who was standing with his hands clasped behind his back watching everything. An unconscious, silly smile lighting her features, she took another step forward, and he turned. Saw her. Jessie had to remind herself that she *was* Jessie, now, that he wouldn't be expecting it, and God only *knew* what had gone on the week at camp, but she needed to know...

"James" she said breathlessly.

He seemed surprised to see her there, and he had evenly fielded her question before she could ask it. Without knowing, realizing what he had just done, he read her mind and, not realizing it, assimilated her thoughts.

"Sit down, Jess" he said with a knowing smile that she didn't get the gist of. "I have to tell everyone."

*Tell everyone what?* Was what was on the tip of her tongue before he brushed her off, and drifted away. Damn him! What she needed to do was grab his arm, and say:

I'm her, and she's me.

He wouldn't get it, at first, granted, but it would surely distract him, and then she could tell him- grab him, kiss him, not bother about what Jessibelle would do with her mouth's parts because it would be her, now- that it was all a terrible, terrible mistake.

He was sheepishly, tentatively asking people to be quiet. She leaned up against the wall, frustrated, ready to pounce the *second* he finished saying whatever it was he wanted to say.

"Hey, everyone" he said, shyly, blushing. Jessie could see Jessibelle struggling with that casualness, and raised her eyebrows. If James noticed the eye contact, he didn't falter any more than usual, and he folded his arms nervously.

"I've been thinking" he said. "Now, I realize that the decisions I make relating to his home are as much yours as mine, and I've come to a big conclusion- I think it concerns all of you."

All around the room, a silent current was cast, and nails began to unobtrusively dig into armrests, scared glances being shot from employee to employee, the janitor to the cook to the maid to the gardener.

"It's good news" James hastened to clarify, a smile touching the corners of his mouth as he slowly overcame his hesitancy. "Great news, actually... I'm more happy right now than I've been in years."

Oh, good- that seemed to be the general, relieved consensus.

Warning bells began to go off in Jessie's brain. She edged forward as if she couldn't hear, as if James' strong, clear voice wasn't booming off the walls of the room second by second.

He made eye contact with someone at the table, Jessie couldn't see over the heads of the group of cooing staff members in front of her. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to see, but it didn't work- she couldn't even see James anymore.

There was a gasp from the crowd, and that was when she full on panicked, pushed her way through the gaping spectators, to the front, where she saw something that almost made her fall down, hard. Words froze on her lips save a "No... no... no!" that wouldn't come out, and her blood ran cold.

The two elderly people had tears in their eyes.

"I have to ask a question" James said solemnly, his eyes downcast. He was on his knee, and he held something in his hand, that she couldn't see. He lifted his chin to the gentleman of the couple, and, looking him earnestly in the eye, asked him for his daughter's hand.

Jessie was wildly confused, although she knew it should have made sense, it should have not been this way- she was in a horrible nightmare, and wanted out!

It got worse.

The other man nodded through the tears he was valiantly trying to hide, and cradled what had to be his wife, who, in spite of a wistful smile, was sobbing into a crisp, pure white handkerchief.

Then Jessie saw what was in James' hand- saw what everyone else saw.

A small, black velvet box.

A glowing, exquisite diamond.

The glowing, faux-shocked, teary and deceptive eyes of Jessiebrat herself.

Time stood still, and crumbled around her feet when he murmured, even as she mouthed the words herself:

"Jessibelle- I love you. I would be honored if you would become my wife." James turned red, and, in the honest, simple words that were the best, true expression of how he felt, the ones that ripped her heart out and ate it whole:

"Will you marry me?"

That was the little boy in him that just wanted happiness.

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It seemed to her that, in the few, short hours that immediately followed that moment, she didn't move, and the world continued to rotate at hyper-speed on its axis. She didn't take a step, couldn't go anywhere but that corner, sinking into the woodwork, while she absorbed it all in short, spasmodic bursts.

She didn't know what to think, what to do- all she knew was that she should never have trusted her. Ever. Jessibelle was a conniving liar- they had known that about her for years. And she agreed to trade *lives* for her, gambling him in the process? What kind of idiot was she?

A stupid one, she answered herself viciously. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Part of her thought that she would have never gotten him to notice her had she *not* been in someone else's skin, without the fear of falling and being stuck in that limbo, that rejection, that apathy... it was a safety net.

Well, guess what, damn it, the safety net broke.

She knew she needed to turn on the lights, wipe the remaining traces of her flattering makeup off her face, and stalk into the reception hall where a noisy, convivial party was being held impromptu. Stand on top of a table, cup her hands over her mouth, and yell:

It's not real! None of it is real! He should be marrying *me*, can't you tell?

Then she needed to break something over that scheming tramp's head. Something large and blunt and heavy.

Jessie's head fell into her hands, and she choked back tears. It was a personal policy of hers never to cry- and for the love of all that was stoic, especially not in front of or because of him.

She couldn't do that to herself.

Outside, somewhere beyond the dim room, someone walked by themself down the hall, whistling lightly, and she wrapped her arms around herself, wondering if anyone had even noticed that she wasn't there. More specifically, of course, if he had.

She had no doubt that he didn't. He was in there celebrating getting *married*, for God's sake. A bomb could likely go off on the west lawn, and he wouldn't blink. Jessie heard music, and wondered vaguely if he was dancing with her. How he could look her in the face and not tell that it wasn't the lips he had kissed, the face he had said he loved a million times without uttering it, the goddamned freaking face he woke up next to every morning, had done for years, on a shot sleeping bag in the middle of the woods, on every cold morning since they were fifteen and clueless.

He used to get up before her, and just *look* at her, sleeping, until his stare woke her up, annoyed, and she'd chase him through the early predawn fog with a mallet and little anger marks on her hairline.

How could he just forget that? Did they look *that* much alike?

In the gradually increasing darkness, Jessie opened her eyes wide, and pinched her nose between her fingers, as if she could stretch it.

No. She hadn't changed- maybe he had.

People had always told Jessie, who herself had never known the difference, that money had that effect on people. She didn't want to believe that about James. She didn't want to think that it was his fault.

Jessie knew that if she got up and looked in a mirror, all she would see would be her face. Their face. It wasn't really hers, not when there was a Xerox copy, a cheap replica, a rich, insufferable duplicate of her running around.

She sighed. It really was all Jessibelle's fault.

And she sat there in the dark, thinking that, and the little wheels in her head started to turn. Jessie had always been the nefarious mastermind of their duo, the one who concocted overblown, lavish, devious plans, the ones that inevitably crashed them into things.

But this was a *really* good idea.

In spite of everything else, a smirk started at the corners of Jessie's mouth. The wedding was in a week, God bless James' impatient little heart. That gave her just enough time...

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She sought out the radiant bride-to-be early the next morning, finding her in the garden, surveying the rose garden.

"This will all have to be cleared out" she heard Jessibelle mutter to herself, her ever-pale face cradled in one baby-soft hand. "The gazebo can go here, and we can use those dreadful benches.."

"Good morning" Jessie trilled behind her.

Jessibelle emitted a small yelp, and turned around with the distinct impression of one who had just seen a ghost.

"Holy mother of..." she caught the curse just in time, beneath her perfect little teeth. An instant, dirt-eating smile appeared on her face when she saw who it was, though, and she beamed at Jessie:

"Well hello there, hon" she said superiorly.

Jessie bit her lower lip, and made an exaggerated show of looking down in lachrymose avoidance of eye contact.

"That wasn't a nice thing you did, Jessibelle" she said. "You know it was dishonest.."

The belle's sharp, insulting laugh rang in merry peals.

"Aww, sweetie, give it up" she simpered obnoxiously. "The best woman obviously won." She struck a pose, and Jessie had to fake a bob to cover up her whoop of amusement.

"You sure did, Jessibelle" she managed, evenly sad.

Jessibelle turned her attention away from the flowers, and stared at Jessie, so full of condescending and self-love that she could barely stand up straight. Jessie grinned inwardly. Vanity, as usual, being both Jessibelle's greatest weakness and tendency towards self-destruction, was working it's charms.

"What do you want, now, dear?" Jessibelle asked her. "Isn't this the time where you are supposed to be crawling away with your tail between your legs?"

*No, that's your livelihood* Jessie almost shot back, but she contained herself with award-worthy self-depreciation.

"I probably should, Jessibelle, but, see, I don't like us fighting like this."

Jessibelle was hugely taken aback.

"You don't?"

Jessie shook her head.

"I'd like us to part on good terms" she said honestly. "Just to show you that there's no hard feelings... since you *did* win James fair and square, after all... "

Jessibelle was leaning so close in that any second now, Jessie was sure she was going to fall forward given the weight of her skirts.

"...I'd like to volunteer myself as your maid of honor." Jessie finished tearfully.

One could almost hear the sound of the other woman's jaw dropping.

"I... I don't know what to say" Jessibelle said, as close as she could get to being genuinely touched.

Jessie smiled a little bit.

"I realize that I would have to be terribly careful... you know, not to embarrass you with my terribly improper ways.."

Jessibelle nodded gravely.

*You pompous bitch* Jessie thought viciously. She tilted her head, and out loud, said timidly, "I have some ideas... you know, for dresses and everything."

Jessibelle grinned, her ego thoroughly stroked, and, in a random moment of sheer camaraderie, took Jessie' s hand impulsively.

"Oh, honey, of course! It'll be so much fun, to plan *my* perfect wedding..." she carried on. She leaned close to Jessie, and whispered:

"And you never know, hon... maybe James dear might let you live with us... in one of those charming little huts out by the vegetable garden.."

"Where the slave quarters used to be?" Jessie enthused.

Jessibelle was beside herself with ecstasy.

"I must tell James" she bubbled.

In a second, Jessie's hand was on her wrist, a bit tighter and more warning than was purely friendly.

"Oh, don't" she said hastily. In response to Jessibelle's inquisitive glance, Jessie just shrugged her shoulders girlishly.

"Let's keep it our little secret" Jessie insisted.

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This was how the plans were made:

Jessibelle gave specific, loud orders, and everyone else scrambled to obey. Jessie, who, as the dutiful head of the female wedding party, which was to include *forty* bridesmaids, and no less than half that amount of squealing flower girls, had never been intricately involved in the planning of a huge wedding, but made a wild guess that among the things it was *not* supposed to entail was the bride on a table, the tailors involved in the making of her dress yelping in panicked French, chasing her train around the room and scrambling to hold it while the lady herself smashed the prototype wedding cake to bits with her crystal heel, all while screaming:

"That's not proper! It's not the way I like it! What are you people, idiots?"

She supposed it was almost a good thing that James was so involved in his own end of the nuptial affairs that he hadn't had a chance to see his fiancee all week- he may have had to run screaming out the front door, never mind from the altar.

If it was possible, Jessibelle's deranged diva persona had inflated even more, grown even *less* tolerable, to the point where the maids and the ringbearer, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, all hated her guts, and wouldn't only not mind, but would likely *help* if she was about to fall into the giant cauldron where the German pasty-maker cursed over fifty gallons of sherry-buttercream frosting to ice the mammoth wedding cake. The version Jessibelle *liked.* As a rule, bigger was *always* better in her book, from the wedding rings, which involved rocks of precious gems as big as the littlest flower girl's fist, and the church, whose aisle to the alter was almost as long as a football field.

At least it felt that was to Jessie.

As maid of honor, she had the most *special* (translation: ugly) of all the extravagant gowns Jessibelle had ordered, a vomitous mixture of salmon-colored taffeta, seafoam-green netting, and chubby white silk roses scattered with abandon over the bloated hoopskirt.

It was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen.

The preparations took up most of her- hell, everyone on the estate's- time that week, when the combined process of fittings and pep talks, brainstorming sessions and R.S.V.P sorting piles, practice runs and formal dinners, seating charts and arbor-marking and vow writing and bride-soothing often lasted from five A.M when the first round of would-be caterers came in to "audition" for the task of catering the reception, to eleven at night when every thing was temporarily set aside for the night, Jessibelle having already retired hours earlier to get her "beauty sleep", so that they could all rest six hours and wake up, exhausted, to do it all again the next day.

Jessie was up later.

Making covert phone calls, scribbling things in the margin of her small notebook...

No, she though ironically, after flopping back on her pillow at two AM the morning *of* the ceremony, her plans finally set into place, for better or worse. More people should just elope.

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At about the same times, upstairs in his room, James lay his head down on his desk, on top of the paper he had just finished writing:

"My love:

"Today I promise you many things. I've told you that I'll love and honor you,

have and hold you until death do us part, but I need to tell you more than that. On our happiness together, I promise to always treat you with my best

intentions, even if they aren't the most socially proper or well-worded. I swear to try every day to make you as happy as you make me. I vow that I'll

always be there for you, try not to judge you, and be the best husband I can

possibly be. I promise to remember all this, and one day teach out children

that, sometimes, people are more than what they only appear to be..."

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The wedding day dawned bright and lovely, the sky as blue as sapphires. Since dawn, the whole place had been a sea of movement- the gardeners raising snow-white tents on the lawn, building the prefabricated arbors under the oak grove (since the roses had been saved only by James' last minute intervention), while the caterers swarmed the massive kitchen, and complained about the saturation level of the pate. Or something.

By eleven, the huge church's pews were filled with family and friends of the pair, as well as distant relations, tabloid reporters, and the odd few who just liked to watch the rich spend their money.

In the back room, while the small army of bridesmaids and their groomsmen, flower girls and their escorts, the squirmy ringbearer, the father of the bride, and the troupe of altar boys lined up in a long, neat line, the bride was having a near-nervous breakdown... because the maid of honor was nowhere to be found.

"Where is she?" Jessibelle sobbed, sending the dressers, who were in tizzies over the corset-like bodice of her dress, into new bouts of terror. "The best man is waiting... this is *such* a travesty of society! I'll be a paragon... where is she?"

Leilei, of all people, who was directing the crew of dressers, ducked into the room, and shrank back, as was her style.

"Where is she?" Jessibelle repeated frantically.

"She's sick, ma'am" Leilei said.

"She's *what*?" Jessibelle roared.

"Sick" the maid repeated. "Very much so, ma'am... apparently the food at the practice dinner last night..."

"Stop, stop, I get the point." Jessibelle, her face screwed up in cultivated disgust, held up one hand, clad in sheer, diaphanous lace. She scowled blackly. "There's only one thing to do."

"Break up one pair of bridesmaids?" Leilei suggested.

"No!" Jessibelle exclaimed in an: 'Isn't that patently obvious, you fool?' tone. She looked Leilei up and down, as if she hadn't ever taken notice of her before, like the girl hadn't been coddling her whims for years, and announced.

"You are about her size. You'll just have to do."

"Me?" Leilei squeaked. "Be your maid of honor?"

Jessibelle cringed.

"As long as you don't have to speak, you'll do" she said dissuasively. She turned her attention back to the placement of her tiara, and when she looked back, Leilei was still standing there, glancing at her with star-struck eyes.

"Get going, you moron!" Jessibelle cried furiously. "You need to get dressed!"

"Hold still, ma'am, or we'll have to reapply your foundation" the Korean makeup artist declared in broken English.

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By twelve, the procession was ready. The delicate, airy chamber music she had hand-chosen was playing on the harpsichord, the first set of flower girls were tripping out the door to the appreciative "oohs" and "ahhs" of the crowd.

Jessibelle stood in the very back, watching the line with an appreciative eye, congratulating herself more and more with each minute.

Finally, she thought. She had, at long last, sunk her claws in James. There was no limit to what she could do with him (and his inheritance) now... there was the fool, standing at the altar, looking back dreamy-eyed, like marriage was about romance.

Humph. She would have to get him enrolled in a full-time etiquette class before he would be fit to show off in public. Catching a millionaire was, after all, no good unless you could parade him in front of your friends and make them green with envy.

Maybe he can go to my finishing school, she thought with a sardonic grin. He's certainly effete enough... it's a good thing he's rich, or else I'd wonder about him...

She was so embroiled in her thoughts of how she would change him that, if she sensed someone behind her, she didn't turn. Not only was the gown too much of a burden to *walk* in, never mind complete a full pivot in, she very much expected it was her father, still pouting because she insisted on breaking tradition and walking down the aisle unescorted.

*Jessiebelle got herself here herself, and she'll go on that way* she thought proudly.

The maids of honor were starting to move. Jessibelle fixed her best impression of virginal beguilement on her face, and took a step forward.

Behind her, Jessie, on the other hand, couldn't wipe the smirk off her face if she tried.

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It was finally time. Jessibelle stepped out into the church, in slow-motion saw everyone standing, reverentially, to receive the beautiful bride, who her aunt and godmammy swore was more lovely than any before, and made her way down the aisle.

Something was wrong. The beams of love and well-wishing for *her* had turned to..

Shock.

Gasps.

Tentative laughter.

And it was then that Jessibelle realized that not all eyes were on her. Rather, they bounced back and forth... as if between the two sides of a mirror.

Summoning all her strength, Jessibelle whirled around... and swore someone was carrying a mirror behind her as a trick.

She saw her own face. Surrounded by dewy tea roses, and a veil identical to hers.

Jessie, wearing an exact copy of *her* wedding dress.

The crowd was no longer silent, now, no longer bothering to disguise their dismayed comments and troubled faces.

Jessibelle's mother had fainted at her spot at the keyboard, and the sound of her hat hitting the keyboard made a loud, tuneless clang that jarred the huge room.

From way down the aisle, the minister and James were running, running towards them, so far down that near-mile-long path.

One face of the reflection smiled.

The voice was the only difference between them, and Jessie licked her lips, and whispered, in a coarse, wet rasp that only Jessibelle would hear:

"Best wishes, honey."

Halfway down herself, Leilei couldn't help an uncharacteristic smile of mirth.

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James' eyes darted from one bride to another dazedly.

"James, honey..." one began desperately.

"James, dear..." the other echoed in an equally pleading Southern accent, the exact same timbre and cadence as the first.

"This is a mistake" he muttered, looking from one overwrought, reddened, and altogether lovely face to the other, his hand forming a fist in the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. "A horrible mistake..."

"And she's a liar!" the one on his right exclaimed.

"No, she is!" the left shot back.

"I should have *known* you'd pull a stunt like this!" they both exclaimed din anguished unison.

The left one howled: "Stop acting like me!"

"Stop acting like *me*!" her twin echoed in like.

The minister looked woozy. Jessibelle's father had hurried up to them by this point, and looked confused himself. That grand old gentleman pulled a handkerchief out of his vest pocket, and wiped his brow.

"Good gold..." he exclaimed. "Which one of you is my daughter?"

"I am" only one of them cried, reeling back when she realized the other didn't reply.

James looked inquisitively at the one on the right, the one that *hadn't* clung to her father, and reached a hand out, tentatively.

"Jess?" he asked.

"We switched" she said breathlessly, in her own voice once again. Everyone in the church was staring at the commotion by this point, and Jessie felt like she had a microphone hidden in her headpiece, but she didn't care. "For the two weeks before last" she continued. "She," indicating Jessibelle, who looked positively murderous, "went to camp with you, and I stayed here." Jessie ducked her head.

(See part four)