Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips
The silence inside the recreation hall’s basement was absolute, broken only by the angry, rhythmic hiss of steam bursting from the water urn.
Brandon stood transfixed at the threshold, his designer blazer suddenly hanging stiffly on his broad shoulders. Behind him, Arthur Vance—the sixty-two-year-old senior partner whose firm Brandon had spent three years desperately trying to impress—slowly adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles, his sharp gaze taking in every inch of the yellow styrofoam bowls.
“Brandon?” Arthur’s voice was dry, clipped, and deeply bewildered. “Is this the private luncheon you’ve been boasting about all week?”
Brandon’s face flared from ghostly pale to a deep, blotchy crimson. He lunged forward, grabbing Gwen by the forearm with enough force to pinch. “Gwen, what the hell is this sick joke? Where is the real catering? Where is the carving station?”
Gwen didn't pull away. She didn't flinch. Instead, she looked directly down at Brandon’s fingers on her arm until he instinctively recoiled under the icy glare of their guests.
“There is no carving station, Brandon,” Gwen said, her voice resonant and smooth, carrying easily into the cavernous room. “Carving stations cost money.”
“I gave you money!” Brandon roared, losing all control as he saw Eleanor Dupont discreetly taking a photograph of the noodle display on her smartphone. “I gave you money to set up a proper event! You had a job to do, and you sabotaged my mother’s seventieth birthday out of pure, spiteful malice!”
“You gave me two hundred dollars,” Gwen said calmly.
Rosalind pushed past Brandon, trembling so violently that the pearl strands around her throat rattled against her silk dress. “Don’t you dare lie on my son! Brandon makes six figures! He would never give you a pitiful two hundred dollars for my milestone dinner! You pocketed his money! You stole from your own family to humiliate us!”
“Did he make six figures when I paid for your gallbladder surgery, Rosalind?” Gwen asked, her tone conversational. “Or when I covered the lease on your Lexus for four months last spring because Brandon told me your pension was delayed?”
A collective gasp swept through the guests. Heather, Brandon’s younger sister, stepped forward, her face twisted in disgust. “Shut up, Gwen! You’re just a bitter, freeloading graphic artist! Brandon carries this whole family, and you know it! You’ve embarrassed us in front of the Duponts!”
“Eleanor,” Rosalind pleaded, turning toward Mrs. Dupont with fake tears shimmering in her eyes. “Please, pay no attention to this ungrateful girl. Brandon was raised with class. We will relocate immediately to the Valley Club; Brandon will open a tab right now—”
“Brandon’s personal card was declined at Ralphs yesterday for forty-two dollars,” Gwen interrupted cleanly.
The room went dead again.
Brandon lunged toward Gwen, his teeth bared, all veneer of Pasadena country-club charm stripped away. “Shut your mouth! You’re my wife! Everything you have belongs to me! If I tell you to use your money to cover my mother, you do it! That’s your duty! You're an embarrassment, Gwen—an utter, worthless embarrassment!”
“I am your wife,” Gwen said, her eyes flashing like steel. “Not your venture capitalist. And definitely not your scapegoat.”
She reached behind her, lifting a thick, heavy emerald-green binder from the metal folding chair. The spine creaked as she laid it flat on the table, right between two cups of instant ramen.
“What is that?” Brandon hissed, taking a nervous half-step backward.
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“This,” Gwen announced, looking past him straight into the eyes of Arthur Vance and the rest of the gathered socialites, “is eight years of Brandon Vance’s debts to his unpaid event coordinator.”
***
