Dad.
Brielle.
Mom again.
Three cousins.
An aunt I hadn’t spoken to since Christmas.
I turned the phone facedown in the cup holder.
My staff followed me back to the commercial kitchen.
We had just started unloading when another call came through.
The number belonged to the wedding venue.
I answered.
“This is Maya.”
“Maya, it’s Greg Hanley.”
Greg managed the venue.
He sounded tired.
“I need to ask you something before this gets worse.”
I leaned against the stainless-steel prep table.
“Okay.”
“Brielle is telling people you removed food that had already been paid for.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“It wasn’t paid for.”
“That’s what I thought.”
There was a pause.
“We have cameras.”
I straightened.
“What?”
“Loading area, service corridor, west entrance. Audio on two of them.”
I didn’t say anything.
Greg continued.
“Would you object if I showed Carter what was recorded this morning?”
Carter was Brielle’s fiancé.
As far as I knew, he believed our parents were paying me.
“Show him.”
Forty minutes later, Carter called.
His voice sounded different.
“Maya, what exactly did Brielle tell you about payment?”
I looked around my kitchen.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars’ worth of food was sitting on racks around me.
“She said Mom and Dad would pay the deposit.”
“Did she ever tell you the catering was supposed to be her wedding gift?”
I frowned.
“No.”
Silence.
“She told me you offered it as your gift.”
I pulled out a chair.
“Carter, I sent her an invoice six weeks ago.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
Another silence.
Then I heard Brielle somewhere behind him.
“She’s lying about the amount!”
I heard movement.
Carter spoke again.
“Greg showed me the camera footage.”
My hand stopped on the edge of the table.
“What footage?”
“Your dad and me.”
I waited.
That morning, apparently, Carter had asked my father whether I had been paid.
Dad had answered:
“No. She’ll fold once the guests arrive.”
There was more.
On another camera, Brielle had been talking to one of her bridesmaids near the service corridor.
She had laughed.
Then she said:
“Maya is desperate for family approval. She’ll never risk looking selfish.”
I sat there staring at the invoice still sticking out of my apron pocket.
Brielle’s voice came through Carter’s phone.
“Maya, you’re ruining my wedding!”
Carter answered her before I could.
“You told me she offered this.”
“Because she basically did!”
“She sent you an invoice.”
“She’s my sister!”
“That doesn’t make the invoice disappear.”
Someone took the phone.
My mother’s voice came next.
“Maya, bring the food back. We can discuss money afterward.”
“No.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“You had six weeks.”
“There are almost two hundred people here.”
“I know.”
My father started talking somewhere near her.
Then he took the phone.
“You’re making this family look terrible.”
I looked at the stainless-steel racks surrounding me.
“You did that yourselves on camera.”
I ended the call.
My hands were shaking.
So I washed them.
Then I started checking temperatures on the food.
It was still my inventory.
And whether my family respected my business or not, I did.
The Invoice Carter Had Never Seen
About thirty minutes later, I received a text from Carter’s mother, Denise.
She asked for one thing.
The invoice.
Then another message came.
“And anything showing Brielle knew about it.”
I sent the signed order.
The invoice.
And one screenshot I had almost forgotten about.
Three weeks earlier, Brielle had accidentally included me in a group text before deleting the message.
I had screenshotted it because something about it bothered me.
It said:
“Don’t worry, my parents will make Maya do it even if we don’t pay.”
Denise called less than five minutes later.
“Are you at your kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Stay there.”
Forty minutes later, a black SUV pulled into the parking lot.
Carter got out first.
Greg was with him.
Then Denise stepped out carrying her purse.
Brielle was not with them.
Denise walked into my kitchen and looked at the racks.
She didn’t make a speech.
