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Chapter 25
Scottwasright.Ineeded the break. We spent the whole week enjoying each other’s company, taking lazy mornings eating breakfast by the beach and doing all the fun things I had missed. He came to the house and helped me and my dad in the garden, where he bonded with the chickens. We went to the movies, got ice cream, and I even let him buy us tickets to Disneyland for a day. I hadn’t been there in years, but the magic was real, even as an adult. Scott had a great time too, even though he was a little too concerned about planning our rides based on the wait times in the app.
My parents’ meeting with Bethany Stone went better than expected. After they met with her on Tuesday afternoon, she looked into their case and found some kind of loophole that the insurance was trying to use, claiming that my dad had a preexisting condition from all his snowboarding but was clearly unrelated to the fact that he was now paralyzed. She promised things would be changing for us very soon.
It reinforced to me that I should let people help our family. It takes a village, right? That saying usually applied to raising children, but I realized it worked in our situation, too. We needed our village to rally and support us when the unexpected took so much.
But reality was about to strike again. Well, sort of. Reality TV, which we all know isn’t actually reality in any way.
On Monday evening, the episode of True Trophy Wives was going to air. My parents were taking it surprisingly well and invited my friends over to watch it with us. Hazel and Luna came for the weekend, too, and decided to skip their classes on Monday to support our family’s TV debut. I was in the middle of getting the living room ready for the crowd of my friends (Amy, Lucas, Hannah, Evan, Scott, and Thea) when my phone rang with an unexpected number. Normally, I would let it go to voicemail, but something told me to pick this one up.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hi, is this Ivy?” a strangely familiar voice said on the other end.
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Vicki.”
I shook my head in confusion as I flopped down on the couch. Why would Vicki, Blake’s biggest supporter, be calling me right now?
“Hi, Vicki. How can I help you?”
She paused for a beat. “I’m not exactly sure how to say this. But I wanted to say that I’m sorry for how everything has gone down.”
An apology? From Vicki? There was no way this was real. “What exactly do you mean?”
She cleared her throat. “I saw you at the benefit, the evening of the showcase. When you . . . you know . . .”
“Oh, yes. I know. And after tonight, the whole country will get to see my fainting skills.”
She snorted a laugh. “At least you’re keeping your spirits up. I wish I could have had the same attitude.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for her to explain herself through the awkward silence.
“When I was a teenager, my father died in a car accident. Unlike yours, though, it was his fault. He had been drinking.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t talk about it much. I don’t like to dwell on the past. But I had to pull myself together and help my family, much like you’ve been doing the last few months. And I was unaware of your family situation until the benefit.”
“I appreciate your sympathy, but I still don’t know what that means.”
“I’m the one who told Lisa you needed to be on probation. I thought it would be better for the studio this way. I loved Blake—”
“Hold up,” I interrupted. “Loved?Past tense?”
She huffed. “Let’s not get into semantics. The point is, I didn’t know everything you were going through, and I thought it would be best to get you out. But . . . maybe I was wrong.”
I swallowed. “Thank you.” There was really nothing else I could think to say. I was shocked she apologized, but Lisa was the one who had made the decision.
“I’m going to call Lisa tomorrow to tell her that I want her to rescind the decision.”
“I appreciate it, Vicki, but there are some things that Lisa needs to understand on her own.”
She hesitated. “I can be very influential.”
“Oh, trust me, I’m well aware.” This woman was a little insane, but I couldn’t deny the power she had. “But if Lisa wants me back, I want her to make that decision without the influence of the moms at the studio.”
