My gut churns. “I haven’t exactly told them yet.”
Her eyes fly open. “Oh my God, Paige, they must be expecting you to show up any minute now.”
“I know. I should probably call them.”
“Yeah, I’d say so. The longer you leave it, the angrier they’ll be.”
Letting out a long sigh, I say, “Yup. I better get it over with.”
I pull my cell out of my coat pocket and open my Facetime app, then wait while my mom’s phone rings. When she picks up, I see she’s sitting at an outdoor restaurant in one of her many uber-expensive summery dresses. She smiles brightly into the camera and holds up a drink. “Paige, darling! Are you almost here?”
“Is that Paige?!” my grandmother shouts. Her face appears on the screen. “Hello, darling girl! Are you on the island yet?”
“Not exactly, Gran,” I say. “But soon.”
She wrinkles up her nose and moves in a little closer. “Have you gained weight, dear? Your face looks very round.”
“I may have been stress-eating a bit,” I answer, even though inside I’m ready to slap myself for feeling the need to justify my weight to her.
Vivian makes a hissing noise and waves her hand at me. “No! Do not answer that,” she whispers. “You’re perfect.”
I give her an appreciative nod and turn my attention back to the screen where my mother is inspecting me as closely as she can from her position near the equator. “Oh. My. God, Paige. Are you sitting on that awful couch in your dreary apartment?” Her voice is clipped and her words fast.
“Yes,” I say. “But I’m almost leaving.”
“One second,” she says. The screen goes black and I hear the sounds of a party fading while the clicking of her heels on the cement takes over. A minute later, her face reappears on the screen. She’s about to give me the mother of all lectures. “I am … furious with you. In fact, I don’t think I have ever,in my life,been so disappointed with someone. How can you be missing this, Paige? How?! It isthe mostimportanttime in your baby sister’s life. Her wedding trip. You’re missing everything. The mani-pedis, the massages, the ladies’ night on the pirate ship, with the real Jack Sparrow, Paige! The real one! And you missed it. You can’t get these moments back. There are no do-overs. This is it.”
“I know. I do. And I feel awful but I’m?—”
“Selfish. That is what you are. How did I manage to raise such a selfish human being? I tried so hard to teach you etiquette and good old-fashioned family values. So hard, but you were always so determined to…” She trails off and shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears.
“I do have family values, Mom. I do. But you and Dad also raised me to be a go-getter, a winner. And I’ve been busting my ass for Guy for six long years now, and I’m so close to having it all. So close.”
She pinches her nose and sighs. “No, you aren’t. You’re a secretary and that’s all he’ll ever see you as. That man has been stringing you along this entire time and he’s not about to stop.”
I bristle at the word ‘secretary’ as I always do. My family can’t understand why I took the job and they certainly don’t understand the importance of what I do. Even though now is not the time to try to explain it,yet again, I’m going to do it anyway. “I know it seems that way but I’m just paying my dues and learning the business, and I’m also making connections and getting all the right people to trust me.”
“You know who doesn’t trust you? Tiffany. You missed the engagement party because Guy was pitching the people at Apple?—”
“Only because Guy promised I could go to her shower, and you and I both agreed the shower was more important.”
“And did you make it to the shower?” she asks in a clipped tone.
“No, but?—”
“But only because he simply couldn’t survive without you.”
“His wife just left him the day before and he was in the middle of pitching Pepsi, which he got, and said he couldn’t have done it without me.”
“Oh my God, I can’t listen to this. Not right now. Not on the eve of your sister’s wedding rehearsal,” Mom says, her voice shaking with anger. “Tiffany is going to be devastated when I tell her you’re not coming.”
“I am coming. I promise. Tomorrow morning, first thing. Well, not first thing,” I say, glancing at Vivian, who gives me the world’s most supportive bestie look. “My new flight leaves at noon, and instead of having a stop-over in Florida, I’m flying directly to Santa Valentina.”
“The wedding is on Azure Island.”
“I know that.”
“You do?”
