“What did you just say, Natalie?” I asked. My voice was very low, very quiet.
“Oh, please, Sydney,” Samantha interrupted smoothly, patting my wrist with cool, ring-laden fingers. “There is no need to make our private family arrangements a matter of public performance. Let’s focus on your father’s birthday.”
“No,” I said, pulling my wrist back as if her skin were electrified. “Natalie, what did you mean by Mom being generous with me?”
Natalie’s eyes flashed with that familiar, older-sister impatience—the look of an exasperated adult dealing with an unruly, slow-witted child. “I mean what I said. Don’t play dumb. Let’s just drop it.”
We didn’t drop it.
Twenty minutes later, out on the asphalt parking lot beneath the flickering amber streetlights of 26th Street, while Dad and Marcus were inside settling the coat check, I stepped directly into Natalie’s path as she walked toward her Audi.
“Tell me what you meant,” I demanded. The chill of the autumn night bit through my denim jacket, but my blood was running white-hot.
“Are you serious, Sydney?” Natalie crossed her arms, shivering slightly. “You want me to spell it out in the gravel? Fine. Mom has been quietly covering your lifestyle expenses for over a year because you can’t make your rent and you’re too proud to admit your job is a dead end.”
The breath left my lungs in a sharp, painful hiss. “What?”
“She told me everything, Syd,” Natalie sneered, her voice dropping to an accusatory whisper. “She told me you came to her crying fourteen months ago because you were three months behind on your apartment, your credit cards were maxed out, and you were facing an eviction notice. She’s been bailing you out every single month so Dad wouldn’t find out and have a heart attack! And instead of being humble, you sit there at dinner looking surly and pretending you’re an independent career woman.”
I stared at my sister. The world tilted slightly on its axis. The streetlights smeared into long streaks of amber grease.
“I have never,” I said, pronouncing each syllable with absolute precision, “asked Samantha Turner for a single penny in my entire adult life.”
