Room-maid(90)

Violet added, “It sounds like Mom made an educated guess on what would hurt you most, and ended up being correct.”

She’d been more than correct. She’d hit her target with a deadly accuracy. “Why didn’t they actually do it?” I asked. “Bring Tyler in on it, offer him the promotion?” There were too many variables to the situation, and it would have made more sense to have him be a part of it. Because things could go haywire, like me falling for him.

“Frederica said something about how he has a reputation for being really honest and they didn’t think he would do it. So they tricked him into it, too.”

That made everything worse. My own parents had known that Tyler would never be involved in a situation like this, while I’d immediately decided he was guilty.

He was never going to trust me again.

“You should call him,” Violet offered. I nodded, but there was no way I could do that yet. I needed to process this and figure out what to say. How I could apologize and make this up to him.

After a few seconds of us both sitting there in silence, she asked, “Is it okay that I told you?”

“Yes! I’m glad you did. I just don’t know what to do next and I don’t know how to stop feeling sad and angry.”

Dealing with emotions had never been our family’s strong suit, so it didn’t surprise me that Violet’s way of fixing it was to say, “I could tell you something happy. Would that help?”

“Sure.”

“Not long after you left I told Mom and Daddy that I wasn’t going to marry Howard and that I was in love with Santiago.”

“How did they take it?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” she admitted. “It certainly knocked our mother off her smug high horse.”

I had to admit, that did give me a pang of satisfaction. That my mother hadn’t been able to glory in my downfall for long.

She kept talking. “Daddy did fire me, but I’ve had four job offers in the last few days. And that’s during the holidays! Santiago thinks I should wait and see what else comes in once everybody’s back to work.”

“He’s right. And that is great news. I’m really happy for you.”

“Thank you!” She was practically glowing, excited for her future with a man she loved. I deeply envied her and wondered if it was even possible for me to get that back or if I’d been so awful to him that he couldn’t ever forgive me.

“But,” she said, “all that work stuff is going to have to wait. Santiago wants me to fly to Puerto Rico to meet his family. I think he might be gearing up to ask me to marry him. The one problem is Daddy has all my money and I don’t have access to my air miles or the private jet. I don’t know what we’re going to do to get there.”

“Fly coach,” I told her, shaking my head. She was in for a very big surprise, and she had managed to make me smile and feel slightly better. It was like the old saying—you could lead a horse to the airport, but you couldn’t make her fly commercial.

We chatted for a while longer, mostly about her excitement about possibly getting engaged to Santiago. She mentioned overhearing Vanessa and Gilbert arguing about her being the one to run for senator, and I had to admit that it surprised me that she might actually do it. But I was glad because I knew it would be good for her. Then it was really, really late and Violet told me she’d call as soon as he asked, and to both of our surprise, we hugged.

“Travel safely! And good luck and a preemptive congratulations!” I said, walking her to the door. I hoped flying coach wouldn’t put her off airline travel for life.

When I shut the door, I was swamped by thoughts of Tyler, thoughts I’d been able to keep at bay while my sister was there. How could I have ever doubted him? When the entire time I’d known him, he’d always been honest with me. With everyone. He never wanted to fudge or tell a half truth about anything. And I had actually believed that he’d spent all these weeks lying to me? Using me?

Now I felt incredibly dumb. Part of me wanted to run to him and beg for his forgiveness, but the other part thought I didn’t deserve to just waltz back into his life and say, “Whoops, sorry, my bad.” Thanks to all those dysfunctional years in my family and a lying, cheating boyfriend, I was seriously lacking in my interpersonal communication skills. I didn’t know how to talk to Tyler or how to apologize. I’d accused him of something pretty awful and refused to believe him when he told me the truth.

I’d compared him in my mind to Brad, which was totally unfair.

I hadn’t even given Tyler a chance. I’d just cut him out of my life. The way that my parents had cut me out of theirs.

It was wrong.

But even knowing all that, I wasn’t ready to face him yet. More accurately, I wasn’t really ready to face how untrusting and awful I’d been toward him.

My mother had wanted me to think the worst of him and I had.

That was not the person I wanted to be.

Regardless of who I wanted to be, I currently felt a bit like a hermit/coward. Shay had told me that I could stay as long as I needed to, but I didn’t want to go back to staying on her couch. I needed to move forward. I didn’t tell her what Violet had told me, because I had to work through it and figure out what my next step would be. I would have to start looking for my own apartment, now that I knew my aunt had deliberately steered me away from decent places that I could have afforded. I decided my next step was to go back to the apartment and get my clothes and my car and my toiletries.