Chapter 2 - The Twenty-Two Thousand Dollar Facade
The silence that followed was broken only by the hiss of the ice machine dumping fifty pounds of cubes into the bin.
"He's wearing it," I said, stepping forward before Taryn could invent another lie, "because while you’re out there drinking two-hundred-dollar champagne, your stepfather's mother is forty-eight hours away from being put on a county bus with two plastic trash bags of clothes."
"Willa, that's enough!" Dad commanded, but the authority had completely drained from his tone. He looked wrecked, trapped between the glitter of the ballroom and the grim reality of the scullery.
"Is that true, Mom?" Paisley asked. She didn't look malicious; she looked genuinely confused, her gaze darting from Taryn’s frantic expression to the papers clutched in Reid’s hand. For all her vanity and spoiled indifference over the last four years, Paisley had never been entirely cruel—she had simply lived inside the gilded bubble her mother had inflated around her. "Why would Owen be working here? Reid said they were at a leadership camp in Austin this semester."
"A leadership camp?" Owen let out a short, sharp laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping on concrete. He stepped up beside me, pulling off his hairnet and tossing it onto the cart. "He told you we were at camp? We've been living in Grandma’s house with the gas turned off since Tuesday, Paisley! We take the 4:15 bus here after seventh period four days a week!"
Taryn lunged forward, grabbing Paisley’s bare arm with enough force to leave red marks. "Get back to the ballroom, Paisley. Now. This is between adults."
"Let go of her," Dad said.
Taryn froze. "Reid—"
"I said let go of her arm." Dad walked over to the swinging doors and pushed them shut, cutting off the view of the curious onlookers in the corridor. He turned back to his wife. His face was grey. "We are not going back to the ballroom. Not yet."
"Are you insane?" Taryn's voice pitched up into a frantic shriek that drew the attention of three line cooks down the line. "There are three hundred people out there! My sister flew in from Atlanta! The regional vice president of your firm is at Table 4! You're going to humiliate us over a clerical mistake?"
"It’s not a clerical mistake, Taryn," I said, pulling my personal phone from my pocket. My screen was cracked, held together by packing tape across the top corner. I opened my banking app, pulled up the payment history, and turned the screen toward Dad. "Look at it. Every Friday. My paycheck from Briarstone: $412. Owen’s paycheck: $385. Every Monday morning: wire transfer to Willow Glen Accounting. We haven't bought clothes in eight months. Owen has been walking three miles from the bus stop in the rain because we couldn't afford the twenty-dollar monthly transit pass and pay the care home's laundry fee at the same time."
Dad stared at my phone screen. His hand rose slowly, hovering over the glass, but he didn't touch it. It was as if he were afraid the truth would burn his skin.
"Where did the thirty-nine hundred go, Taryn?" Dad asked. He wasn't yelling anymore. He sounded like a man drowning. "Every month. For two years. That’s nearly ninety-four thousand dollars."
Taryn’s eyes darted frantically around the room. She was looking for an escape, an excuse, a scapegoat. "The market was down, Reid! You remember! In 2024, when your bonus got delayed! We had expenses! Paisley’s dressage lessons, the country club initiation fee—you said yourself we had to maintain appearances if you wanted the senior partnership! You told me to make it work!"
"I told you to manage our household budget!" Dad shouted, stepping directly into her space. "I never told you to take the money meant to keep my mother alive!"
"Your mother doesn't even know where she is half the time!" Taryn screamed back, her mask slipping completely, revealing the ugly, calculated rot underneath. "She has mild vascular dementia, Reid! She doesn't care if she's in a private suite or a four-bed ward! She doesn't know the difference between silk sheets and institutional cotton! But Paisley is eighteen! These are the years that determine who she marries, where she goes to college, what circles she moves in! Do you think anyone in Dallas society gives a damn about an old woman dying in an assisted living home? They care about who throws the party!"
A dead hush descended over the kitchen.
Even the dishwashing machine seemed to quiet down as its cycle ended.
Paisley took two steps back, pulling her arm out of her mother’s reach. Her face was bloodless. "Mom... did you use Grandma Eleanor’s money for this party?"
"I did what I had to do for you!" Taryn cried, tears finally spilling down her cheeks—not tears of remorse, but the hysterical, frantic tears of someone who had realized the cage door had slammed shut behind her. "Everything I have ever done has been to make sure you had the life I never had! Reid was never going to pay for the floral installations! He thought a five-thousand-dollar dinner in the grill room was enough! He didn't care that your debutante season depends on this!"
"Get out," Dad said.
Taryn blinked, stunned. "What?"
"Get out of the ballroom," Reid said. His voice was deathly cold. "Go out the side exit. Take your coat from the cloakroom and take an Uber home."
"Reid, you can't be serious! Our guests—"
"I will go out there," Dad said, "and I will tell them that the guest of honor has suffered a sudden family medical emergency. I will settle the banquet tab with the club manager. And then I will go home, and if you are still in my house, Taryn, I will have the Highland Park police remove you for grand larceny."
Taryn’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She looked at Paisley, pleadingly. "Paisley... baby, come with me. Your father has lost his mind."
Paisley looked at her mother. Then she looked down at the floor, at the dirty water pooling around the rubber mats, at Owen’s cracked sneakers, and at the stack of dirty dessert plates waiting to be washed.
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"I’m not going anywhere with you," Paisley whispered. She unclasped the rhinestone microphone and set it down on the steel table next to a tray of half-eaten shrimp cocktail.
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