My mother made a small wounded sound. That isn’t true.
It is true, Melissa insisted. And now she’s trying to steal Jake too.
Jake looked horrified. Steal me. Olivia is my boss. There has never been anything between us but work.
Oh, come on, Melissa scoffed. The powerful female boss and her male employee. It’s a cliché for a reason.
The accusation was so absurd I nearly laughed. Melissa, I said, I didn’t know Jake was your boyfriend until two days ago, when I saw your name listed as his emergency contact.
A likely story, she sneered.
It’s the truth, I said. But here’s what I keep coming back to. Why did you make sure neither of us knew we were connected. Why deliberately place your boyfriend inside my company and keep us both in the dark.
I just wanted Jake to have a good job, she said. Meridian is prestigious.
Then why hide it, my mother asked, trembling. Why not simply tell Olivia you were dating someone who wanted to apply.
Because she would have sabotaged it, Melissa cried. She’s always trying to ruin things for me.
Jake was shaking his head. That doesn’t make sense. I’ve worked with Olivia for six months. She has been nothing but fair to me.
You don’t know her like I do, Melissa said.
Actually, Jake said, his voice gone cold and even, I’m starting to think I don’t know you like I thought I did. He turned to me. I swear I had no idea you were her sister. She mentioned a sister, always vaguely, never by name.
I believe you, I said. But has Melissa ever asked you about work. About my projects, my clients, anything specific about me.
His expression shifted as the ground gave way under a memory. She asks about work all the time, he said slowly. Specific accounts. Marketing strategies. His voice dropped. Oh God.
What, my father demanded.
Jake looked as though he might be ill. She’s always most interested when I talk about new campaigns, new client acquisitions. She’s asked me to walk her through presentations. She said she was interested in marketing.
Melissa, my mother whispered. You didn’t.
It’s not like that, Melissa said quickly. I was taking an interest in his career.
Is that why your new boutique’s marketing strategy is nearly identical to the campaign we built for Stratton last month, I asked quietly.
That’s basic marketing, she said. Anyone would use those approaches.
The Stratton campaign used a proprietary targeting method that Olivia developed, Jake said, staring at her with open horror. That is not basic marketing. It’s specific to Meridian.
So what if I picked up a few ideas, Melissa snapped. That’s how business works.
That’s how corporate espionage works, I said. And depending on what you accessed, it may well be illegal.
My father, a man who had built his entire life around appearances and propriety, looked as if he wanted to disappear into the floor. Melissa, he said. Tell me you did not use your relationship with this young man to steal business strategy from your sister’s company.
I didn’t steal anything, she said. Jake shared things with me because he loves me and wants me to succeed.
Jake stood up. I shared things with you because I trusted you, he said. Because you made me believe you were genuinely interested in what I do. I never once imagined you were using me to spy on your sister. A sister you deliberately made sure I would never really know.
By now the neighboring tables had abandoned all pretense. My mother was crying quietly into her napkin. My father looked gray.
I think, I said carefully, into the wreckage, that we need to be honest about what is actually happening here. Because this is not about one dinner or one job. This is about a pattern that has been running our entire lives.
Here we go, Melissa said bitterly. Saint Olivia. Always so perfect.
No, I said. Not perfect. Just honest, and finally tired of being manipulated and pushed out based on things that were never true.
What things, my father demanded, clinging to the last shreds of his denial.
Like the argument Melissa said we had, that never happened, I said. Like the drama I supposedly cause at family gatherings. Like the idea that I have ever once tried to ruin my sister’s happiness.
And once I had started, thirty years of buried history came up out of me, and there was no putting it back.
We should talk about my Harvard application, I said, looking straight at Melissa. She went pale but held her defiant expression.
What about Harvard, my mother asked.
Senior year I was waitlisted at Harvard, my dream school, I said. I never understood why. My grades were strong. Then the summer after graduation, our neighbor Mrs. Patel told me how sad she was that I had withdrawn my application.
My father frowned. But you didn’t withdraw your application.
Exactly, I said. Someone called the admissions office, pretended to be me, and withdrew it, using my social security number as verification. I called Harvard afterward. They confirmed there had been a call. It came from our house, on a day I was away at debate nationals. And the only person home that day was Melissa.
Melissa had gone entirely white.
Did you do that, my father asked her, his voice suddenly very quiet.
After a long, terrible moment, she nodded, almost imperceptibly. She was going to leave, she whispered. Everyone was so proud. Olivia’s going to Harvard. And I’d just be here, left behind, forgotten.
My mother made a sound like she had been struck. Melissa. How could you.
It worked out fine, Melissa said, grasping. She went to Boston University. She did great.
That is not the point, my father said, and his voice was shaking now with something I had never heard from him aimed at Melissa. Anger. You deliberately sabotaged your sister’s future.
It wasn’t the only time, I said quietly.
Jake, who had sunk back into a stunned silence, looked up. There’s more.
Tyler Bradley, I said. My high school boyfriend. He broke things off one day and wouldn’t tell me why. Two weeks later he was dating Melissa. It made no sense for years, until I ran into him at an alumni event and he told me the truth. Melissa had shown him diary pages she claimed were mine, full of cruel things about him and a confession that I was cheating. She wrote them herself.
My father turned to her. Is this true.
She stared at her wine glass. We were teenagers, she said. Everyone does stupid things as teenagers.
Not like that, Jake said. That is calculated cruelty.
There was also Grandpa’s firm, I went on. He wanted to bring someone from our generation into his consulting business, and I was interested, and then very suddenly he changed his mind, after hearing concerns about my work ethic. I never missed a deadline in my life. But somehow the rumor went around that I was flaky and unreliable, a rumor Melissa was perfectly positioned to correct and never did.
It was Jake who asked the question that broke something open. What about the trust fund, he said. We all turned to him. What trust fund, my father asked.
The one from your grandparents, Jake said. Melissa told me they changed their will to cut Olivia out because she was disrespectful to them.
My mother’s hand flew to her mouth. Your grandparents’ educational trust was divided equally. Exactly equally.
Not according to what Melissa told me, Jake said. She said Olivia was cut out completely.
Every eye turned to my sister, who was visibly squirming. I may have exaggerated some things, she admitted.
You told him I was cut out of our grandparents’ will, I said, genuinely shocked even after everything else. Why.
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