Chapter 7 - The Panic Sets In
Back at the suburban house in Westchester, the holiday atmosphere had officially disintegrated into a full-scale corporate crisis.
I didn't need to be there to picture it; the panicked text messages and missed calls painting a vivid, cinematic picture of the carnage.
At 1:15 PM, my mother tried calling six times in a row, followed by a frantic text: Clara, please! Rachel is having a nervous breakdown in the kitchen! Her debit card just got declined at the grocery store when she tried to pick up last-minute pie crusts, and Todd just checked his online banking and saw that the auto-lease payment bounced! Please pick up the phone, your father is turning white!
I ignored it, sipping my third cup of coffee while watching Emma happily build an elaborate castle out of hotel stationary pads.
At 2:00 PM, Rachel broke her golden rule of never texting me directly when she needed something.
Clara. Stop playing games right now. This isn't funny. Todd’s truck lease payment just bounced, and my mortgage company is threatening a late fee if the automatic draft doesn't clear by 3 PM. Did you seriously freeze our accounts over a sleeping bag? Are you insane? Call me immediately.
I picked up my phone, looked at the message, and typed back a single, perfectly curated sentence:
“First come, first served. Basic math, Rachel.”
I hit send, locked the screen, and tossed the phone back onto the table.
It was a petty, delicious piece of psychological warfare, and it landed with the devastating impact of a tactical missile. Two minutes later, my phone lit up with an incoming call from Rachel herself. I let it ring out to voicemail.
According to Mark, who called me from Chicago a few minutes later to check in, the fallout at my parents' house was legendary.
"Your dad called me ten minutes ago," Mark said, his voice dripping with barely concealed amusement. "He sounded like he was having a mild stroke. He asked me if I could 'talk some sense' into my wife because apparently, Rachel is screaming bloody murder in the kitchen, the turkey is burning in the oven because nobody is watching it, and your mother is hyperventilating on the living room sofa."
"What did you tell him, Mark?" I asked, leaning back against the plush velvet sofa.
"I told him exactly what you'd expect," Mark chuckled. "I told him, 'Arthur, I don't get involved in women's business, but if Clara decided to cut off funding, you guys must have really crossed a line.' Then I told him I was in the middle of a corporate merger meeting and hung up on him."
I laughed out loud, feeling a massive weight slide off my shoulders—a weight I hadn't even realized I was carrying until it was gone.
"You're a bad influence, Mark Vance," I teased.
"I learned from the best," he replied softly. "Are you and Emma having a good Thanksgiving?"
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"The best Thanksgiving of our lives," I said, looking over at Emma, who was now happily watching a cartoon on the fifty-inch flat-screen TV wrapped in her white bathrobe. "We're ordering steak and lobster for dinner tonight."
"Charge it to the corporate card," Mark laughed. "You earned every penny of it."
