“Where are the cakes? You’d think you’d see more,” she asked Marcus, who was taller and had a better view than she did. He stopped, peering over the crowds, and finally shrugged. “I see lots of cake books and posters, but not a lot of dessert,” he admitted after a minute. “There’s no actual organization to this place.”
They jogged down the first aisle; the sound of banging from the front door was swallowed up by the chatter of thousands of overly-excited women, and the patter of salesmen. “Marcus,” she said after several frustrating minutes of looking. She pulled him around to face her. “This place is huge! We’re never going to find anything by running around like this!” She looked around, her brow creased in concentration. “These people had to rent these booths, right?”
“Never been to bridal show, but similar conventions, yes. You have to rent the booths.”
“Then someone, somewhere, has list of who’s renting where.”
Marcus looked back where they came from. “I didn’t see an information booth by the entrance. Somewhere else, like near a stage perhaps?”
The largest television, the one hung on the back railing, went white and static blasted through the speakers for a moment before it went black. Dani looked up and the screen said INPUT 1 and then switched to INPUT 2.
“Come on!” she cried, and darted toward the back wall, only just swerving in time to miss a stroller of twins. She called over her shoulder. “Find the person with the remote! They would have something!”
“Here!” Marcus called as he disappeared down a side aisle she hadn’t seen. Dani nearly fell trying to turn the corner and keep up with the older man.
A portly, balding man in a white shirt and tie, clipboard firmly clasped under his arm, was alternately squinting at the monitor and squinting to see the controls in his fist, and then looking back again, oblivious to the ebb and flow of humanity moving around him.
“EXCUSE ME!” Dani said. She held her hands up, palms open when she saw the fear in his eyes from Marcus running full speed directly at him. It was Marcus who scared him. Not me. right? “Excuse me.” She smiled as prettily as she could. It didn’t do much to offset Marcus’s scowl, but it was something. “We’re looking for Great Cakes; are they here?”
“Ah...” the man looked from one to the other twice, and blinked. “Congratulations?” He started shuffling papers on the clipboard and dropped the remote.
Marcus reached for it and handed it back to the man, who thanked him profusely and dropped the clipboard.
A sound from the front door, like the day Dani’s senior year of high school ended, caught the man’s ear. It was a muffled roar, indistinct and strange, that drew the man’s attention. He frowned, and grabbed for his walkie talkie on his belt, while Marcus, trying hard not to be noticed, glanced at the pages.
“Pardon me!” The man snatched the clipboard back, and turned to run toward the entrance, as much as anyone could run in that crowd.
“Tell me you got it!” Dani said, eyes scanning the area around them, not liking that it sounded like trouble when the place was so full of people. If someone brought out a weapon, people could die. Lots of people could die. A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.
“We get it, get out, and no one needs to get hurt. They’ll come after us; they won’t risk losing us in a stampede. And there WILL be a stampede if they upset the balance here,” Marcus said softly as he turned, but with a different purpose in mind. He was looking for something, she realized. Landmarks. For the first time since this whole mess had started, Dani felt a glimmer of hope. Something was going right.
“Where?” she asked, wishing she knew what he was looking for.
“Down here, back row!” Marcus turned, immediately colliding with a man who spun, reeling. He nearly drew his gun, and instead started stammering apologies until he saw the wildness in the stranger’s eyes. Dani grabbed Marcus’ arm as the man drew himself up, thrusting his chest out and shoving himself into Marcus’ space, aggressive and mean.
“Marcus...”
It was a warning, not that it was needed. Marcus didn’t so much as move as the man, still nearly a foot shorter than him, stuck a finger in Marcus’ face and shouted the word, “Elaina!” then nodded, apparently satisfied, and ran off in the opposite direction.
“What the hell?” It was Marcus who spoke first.
Dani looked at Marcus and shrugged. “You were saying?” She had a bad feeling about this. That man was not there for any weddings. The enemy had breached the walls.
Marcus came to the same conclusion. “This way!” He pelted to the back row.
Thankfully there were fewer people back here. Correction, there were no people back here, save the ones tending the booths. Most of the vendors were sitting with heads propped on whatever comfortable surface they could find. This was the cheap seats at the convention, the smallest booths, rented by businesses more likely to be out of someone’s home than an actual storefront. Here the displays carried a hint of desperation, playing to a crowd already tired and bored. The giveaways were nothing so grand as vacations, but instead were more along the lines of free pens or refrigerator magnets.
GREAT CAKES was distinguished only by a cloth sign that hung to one side, slightly crooked as if it, too, was resting until someone showed. Dani scanned the booth, and came up blank. No birds, no cakes of any kind. Instead, three scrapbooks stood open to different pages, showing desultory confectionary across a purple velvet swatch of fabric. A plate of cupcakes stood off to one side, bearing a sign warning people not to eat or even touch. The other side of the table offered purple and white lanyards with a pink plastic cupcake dangling from the end. What purpose they served was anybody’s guess.
“Ms. Pinal?” Dani said breathlessly.
The woman behind the table could not have looked less like the woman in Orlando. She was thin to emaciated, which possibly was a comment on the taste of her cakes. Whereas her mother was triple-chinned, this woman barely had enough flesh to cover the jaw.
“Yes?” she asked, blinking like an owl just waking up. “Can I help you? Oh, wait...you’re together? I mean...congratulations!” She drew one of the books over until it was planted squarely in front of Dani. “I have some pictures here, beautiful examples...”
“We’re friends of your mother!” Dani hated interrupting, but they didn’t have much time. Any minute now the rest of the world was going to descend.
“Really?” Ms. Pinal tried to sound enthusiastic, but to Dani it sounded like a half-hearted attempt at best. She scowled and shoved the book back where it had been, careful to center it perfectly in the middle of the table.
“She sent you a statue...” Marcus said, holding his hands apart to indicate a small size.
“The bird?” Ms. Pina blinked again, and it occurred to Dani that the girl was a bird. Not an owl, perhaps, but she had the hooked nose, the furtive way of moving, and the disconcerting eyes.