I take a sip of coffee. I don’t know what to say. “I want to believe you.”
She leans back with a huff. “It’s not my fault, how she is. I was just a kid, and you left me with her.”
I shut my eyes. “I know. I had to go.”
“Why didn’t you take me with you?”
My eyes open in surprise. “How could I?”
“You were eighteen.”
“You realize Mother would have charged me with kidnapping? I wasn’t your guardian. And when you were twelve, you wouldn’t have wanted to come with me.”
She grips her coffee cup. “It’s only because I didn’t know any better. But I do know better now. I don’t want to go back to LA. I want to stay here, with you.”
Shock pins me in place. “With me?”
She looks up, her eyes pleading. “Please, Vivi? know I’ve been a brat in the past, and I know Daphne calls me a princess. People think I’m judging them, but they judge me too. I want to be better. I want us to be closer. I know I am dumb.”
“You’re not dumb,” I object.
“I know I don’t know how to do simple things,” she amends. “You might have to tell me if I say something awful or whatever because I can’t always tell. But I want to try. Will you help me? Will you trust me?”
I sigh. My heart hurts.
She’s staring at me, pleading, face full of hope. I don’t know if she means it, but I can’t say no. She’s still my baby sister.
“Okay.”
Chapter Twenty
Vivien
* * *
I push my feet against the floor, rolling the chair back to view my handiwork. I’ve erased all the scribbles and taken down the notes from when we were planning Deadwyler Night, as it’s now being called by everyone, and have been using the whiteboard to brainstorm and plan out a year of events.
It’s daunting. And exciting.
I’m definitely going to need help and more capital. I want to refurbish the chairs in the theater, refresh the paint beyond the minor touchups we’ve done, and recarpet the lobby with the inheritance money, so I don’t have to try and access it from my trust or sell the condo in Boston yet. I will eventually sell the condo, but after the whole thing with the tap class, I don’t want to risk homelessness if all of this falls apart and I can’t inherit.
I’ve been making notes of anything and everything that comes to mind. Zombie weekends. Girl’s night out. DeLorean double features with movies other than Back to the Future that have scenes with the classic car.
I wish Daphne was here. She texted me a few days ago to let me know she was still alive, and just working a lot, but would be back soon.
I hope she hasn’t decided she hates me or something. I’m new to this whole friend thing and I’m not entirely sure how it works, and I don’t want to be too needy. She probably has a million other friends.
I’ve been staying busy, going through rooms in the farmhouse, deciding what to keep, what to sell, and what to donate.
Spencer and Audrey have been helping a lot.
Spencer, I expected. Audrey has been a surprise.
She really has been trying. Learning to dust, do her own laundry, and vacuum. It’s been entertaining and scary—she almost set the kitchen on fire. But now she can make boxed mac ’n cheese, eggs, and toast. She’s learning quickly.
She has also been job hunting. I helped her write a résumé. She was shocked when I told her “spending the summer with a Russian prince” is not a skill set.
“But he was very demanding,” she insisted. “I basically had to learn how to negotiate with terrorists.”
