“The ski trip isn’t the only thing, Trish.”
Pause.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Blake, don’t you dare threaten me. Mom is going to hear about this.”
“I’m sure she will.”
Trish hung up.
Chapter 6: The Fallout and Consequences
I set the phone down, poured myself a glass of water, and drank the whole thing standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window at my backyard.
At the pool where that acceptance letter sank to the bottom.
At the spot where my mother sat and laughed and toasted with sweet tea.
My phone rang again within forty minutes.
Donna.
I let it go to voicemail.
She left a message.
I listened to it once.
“Blake David Whitfield, your sister is hysterical. I don’t know what you said to her, but you need to call her right now and fix this. That ski trip is for the whole family, and you don’t get to just cancel it because your feelings are hurt. Your father would never have done this. Call me back.”
I didn’t call her back.
The next morning, my phone started going off at 7:00.
Donna, then Trish, then Donna again, then Doug, which was unusual because Doug almost never calls me directly.
I let them all go to voicemail.
I was making Norah’s lunch for her tutoring job.
Turkey sandwich, apple, granola bar.
Same thing every day because she’s a creature of habit, just like me.
“Who keeps calling?” she asked from the doorway.
“Grandma and Aunt Trish.”
“About the money stuff?”
“About some of it.”
Norah leaned against the doorframe.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Nor.”
She studied my face for a second, the way she does when she’s deciding whether to push.
She decided not to.
“Okay. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too. Have a good shift.”
She grabbed her lunch and left.
I listened to her car pull out of the driveway, and then I sat down and listened to the voicemails.
Doug’s was the interesting one.
He sounded different from Trish and Donna.
He sounded embarrassed.
“Hey Blake, it’s Doug. Listen, I know things are heated right now. Trish told me about the texts. I didn’t… uh, I didn’t know about the planning thing. I swear I didn’t. Can you call me when you get a chance? Not about the ski trip. Just… I want to talk man-to-man.”
I saved that voicemail because that was the first honest thing anyone in that family had said to me since June seventh.
But I didn’t call him back.
Not yet.
Because the ski trip was just the first piece, and the second piece was about to land.
That afternoon, Trish’s phone rang.
It wasn’t me calling.
It was Ridgemont Academy.
The billing coordinator, the same polite woman I’d spoken to three weeks earlier, called Trish to inform her that the third-party tuition arrangement for Connor Callaway would not be renewed for the upcoming academic year.
They needed to discuss alternative payment options or financial aid applications before the enrollment deadline.
The enrollment deadline was August fifteenth, seventeen days away.
Annual tuition: $14,800.
And Trish and Doug, who lease a BMW, carry two maxed credit cards, and just last Thanksgiving asked me to help out with their property taxes, were about to discover what Ridgemont costs when someone else isn’t paying for it.
I know exactly when Trish got that call because, at 4:27 that afternoon, my phone lit up with nine consecutive text messages.
I read the first one.
“YOU ARE PULLING CONNOR OUT OF HIS SCHOOL? ARE YOU INSANE? THIS IS MY SON’S LIFE, BLAKE. HIS LIFE.”
I set the phone face down on the counter, and I waited for the morning.
At 7:45 the next morning, Trish’s phone rang again.
It was Ridgemont Academy, but this time it wasn’t Billing.
It was the headmaster, Dr. Alderman.
I know what Dr. Alderman said because Doug called me that evening and told me everything.
His voice sounded like a man whose floor had just dropped out.
“Blake, did you know about the science fair thing?”
“What science fair thing?”
And that’s how I learned what Trish had been doing with my name.
Three months before the graduation party, Connor had vandalized another student’s science fair project at Ridgemont.