Make Me Beg, Daddy

Chapter 11

From Cannes to Tulum, from nightclub outfits to hippy-dippy sundresses, from manicured nails to puppy dogs in thousand-dollar outfits.

It’s excessive, which of course is the point. I can already feel the growing tension in the room as my family members will start to ask themselves, What’s the deal here? Yes, it’s Viv’s world and we’re all just living in it… but isn’t this a little much, even by her standards?

Yes. Yes, it is a little much, isn’t it? It’s way too f*****g much.

It’s just Viv, Viv, Viv, all the goddamn time.

“Anything for you, sister dear,” I snarl at the screen.

She’s always wanted the spotlight.

Tonight, she gets it.

Then comes the turn.

We’ve gone from family fun, to The Vivian Special, to the first hint that something rotten is afoot.

I put up the receipts in order.

Hotel room service.

The burned scrap of loan document.

The screenshots of the album uploads disappearing, and then the pictures I took of the text message thread between Connor and Vivian.

Then I reach the coup de grâce.

The videos.

I don’t want to watch them all again myself. Nor do I have any desire to subject my entire family to the full spectrum of Vivian’s increasingly pornographic moans or Connor’s caveman grunts.

So I cut together a short clip that gets my point across just fine.

It’s a shot of the unmistakable headboard, of his hand on her hip, and then their brief, smug conversation.

“This is so f*****g reckless. We’re gonna get caught.”

“Relax. She never notices anything.”

Ten seconds that show what she did.

Plus ten seconds that show who she is.

I watch it once through to be certain it does what I need it to do. Then, satisfied, I lean back in my seat.

But I don’t feel like it’s done yet. Something’s missing, and I can’t figure out what it is.

Then, out of nowhere, it occurs to me.

What I’ve shown is a personal betrayal. Infidelity happens all the time, though, doesn’t it? Hell, half the adults at that party tonight are on their second or third marriages. It won’t have the bombshell effect I’m after.

I need to show that this is much more than that.

But how?

The only hard proof I have that anything beyond my feelings has been hurt is an ashed-over scrap of paper. No one is going to give a s**t about it.

To me, it’s the end of the world.

To them, it’s meaningless. My mother will squint at it and say, “What am I looking at, Delilah?”

And Connor, who up until that image will probably be struck dumb, will suddenly have a thing to say. She’s been going through my garbage. She’s not well.

Hm. That’s a conundrum.

While I try to find a way to frame it that conveys the enormity of what my sister and my husband have done to me, I add one important piece: the soundtrack of Silent Night, Dad’s preferred rendition, layered underneath the whole thing.

Then I export.

The little bar creeps across the screen. It takes its sweet time doing so, however. I’m left to sit there aimlessly with my chin in my hand and ponder about how the best evidence I have of the worst crime in the stack is a silly little piece nobody will believe.

As the progress bar crawls, I go make myself useful by sorting the mail.

There’s a stack of it on the desk that’s been growing since the holiday rush ate my life: vendor statements, a snowman card from the flour supplier, a health-department renewal.

And more. Junk. A supplier catalog. Junk. Insurance. Junk. The water bill. Junk. A menu from the pizza place two blocks over. Junk.

I’m three-quarters down when my hands stop.

A white envelope with a business window. Nothing dramatic about it whatsoever.

Except for one teeny-tiny little word that catches my attention.

DELILAH A. DORSEY...

GUARANTOR

I rip it open and cut my thumb in the process, so that when I pull out the contents, I leave a smear of red across the top corner.

It’s four pages, stapled together.

The first page has letterhead across the top.

V HAVEN HOLDINGS, LLC

My breath goes solid in my throat.

“‘Year-end statement of obligation,’“ I read out, “‘for the account of Delilah Dorsey, guarantor.’“

Here’s what my own mail informs me about my own life.

The premises at 4412 Fourth Avenue, which are my building and my ovens and my name over the door, are pledged as collateral.

They are pledged against a balance of four million dollars, borrowed by Connor Boyd.

The guarantor signature is dated the eighth of October, this year.

The guarantor—at least as far as this lender believes—is me.

And on the 15th of January, V Haven Holdings, LLC, intends to enforce against the collateral.

Translated into plain English:

My husband took out a loan that he couldn’t repay.

So now, in three short weeks, the people whose money he stole are coming to claim all that’s left.

My bakery.

Merry Christmas to me.

What finally moves me is my phone lighting up on the desk.

MOM: Delilah? Goodness gracious, child, have you forgotten all about your family? The caterers? The party?

MOM: It’s nearly five! Where are you?!

Shit. She’s right. I’ve been sitting in a dark office, reading the same document over and over like it might change its mind.

But even though it’s nothing but bad news for me, I’m almost glad I found this thing. Here of all places, now of all times. It’s the missing piece I needed to solidify the case beyond all reasonable doubt.

I look up and see that the export is finished. That’s it, then. Everything is ready.

The stage is set. The dynamite is lit.

All that’s left to do is chuck it in the crowd and watch the c*****e ensue.

I grab my things and hurry out the back entrance. Obviously, the Gowanus is a parking lot. It’s Christmas Eve and half of Brooklyn is trying to get somewhere with a pie on the passenger seat.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up,” I mutter through my windshield at the sea of red lights.

When I finally pull up, my mother’s porch light is on and the caterer’s van is already double-parked with its hazards going.

The clock on my dashboard says 6:04 P.M.

She’s out the front door before I’ve got the trunk open. Full makeup, hair done, one earring in.

“Four o’clock,” she accuses instead of a hello. “You said four o’clock.”

I hand her the Yule log I grabbed on my way out of the bakery because her hands are free and I’d like them not to be. “Traffic was insane. Everybody in the world is on the BQE.”

“The caterer has been standing here for an eternity. I was upstairs. I had to come down in my slip!”

I kiss her cheek. “You look great, Mom.”

“That’s not the point.” She turns back toward the house. “Hurry along, there’s lots to do.”

I tag along in her wake like the ugly little duckling she’s always seen me as. “Is Viv here yet?” I ask casually.

“Of course not. You know her.”

I thought I did, I think to myself. But not quite as well as I do now.

While Mom directs the caterers in her haughtiest voice on where to go and what to arrange and how they must never be heard from unless spoken to, I slip into the living room to check on my projector setup.

Everything seems to be in order. The folding chairs are lined up in the gaps between couches. The cables are all carefully tucked out of sight. The screen is rolled down, ready to display the contents of my slideshow. And the dangling HDMI cable awaits my laptop, the only piece left.

Satisfied, I go take over for my mom. She huffs something about “can’t find good help anywhere these days,” which the catering crew definitely hears. Then she disappears upstairs to finish getting dressed.

“Sorry about that,” I say to them with a blushing smile. “Anyway, what can I do to help you all?”

By half past six, the house starts filling. By seven, it’s standing room only. Aunts, uncles, second cousins, neighbors, friends, fellow churchgoers, on and on.

Somebody’s kids go straight for the tree skirt.

Somebody’s boyfriend asks me where the bathroom is and calls me “hon.”

Still no sign of Viv or Connor. I’d like to check my phone for his location, but I’m a little busy. Everyone seems to need my attention specifically.

“Delilah, the little one wants juice.”

“Delilah, is there a bathroom down here?”

“Delilah, is it alright if I smoke a cigarette in here?”

I hand plates around. I direct traffic toward the various bathrooms. I kindly ask my cousin Lucy’s ragamuffin boyfriend to smoke in the yard, please.

Not one person asks me how I’m doing.

Not one person asks me how I’m holding up on the first Christmas without Dad.

Which is fine. Tonight, for once, being invisible is exactly what I want.

I need one thing out of these people, and it is not their well wishes.

Vivian arrives at ten after seven.

As always, you hear her before you see her. The front hall goes up in cooed greetings like a gate opened at a racetrack.

Then it’s “There she is!” and “Oh, look at you, you’re glowing!” and “Vivian, honey, you’re skin and bones,” said in a tone that makes it clear that it’s the highest of compliments.