She Exposed Me Over a Christmas Basket novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: The Video
Saturday morning, my phone woke me up with a hundred and forty missed calls.
I was in my apartment in Ocean Park, coffee half-made and December sunlight streaming through the open window.
The HR manager called.
My assistant called.
Two journalists who I didn't even know had my number called.
"Wilmarie," the HR manager said, in a funeral voice. "You need to see a video."
"What video?"
"The one with Alondra."
Alondra Colón.
Twenty-seven years old, receptionist at the Condado hotel, long nails, dyed blonde hair, and a beautiful smile she saved for the guests.
I'd hired her three years ago.
She'd cashed in her gift cards every single time, without missing one.
I opened the link.
On the screen, Alondra appeared, standing in the hotel lobby in her blue uniform, eyes full of tears.
"Hi everyone," she said. "I want to tell you something I'm really ashamed of."
She wiped a tear with the back of her hand.
"I've worked at Casa Brisa for three years."
"My boss's name is Wilmarie Figueroa."
"Owner of seven hotels."
"With houses, a yacht, trips to Dubai."
I don't have a yacht.
Or a trip to Dubai.
I have a mortgage and a cat.
"And this December," she continued, voice cracking, "our boss isn't going to give us even one Christmas basket."
"Not one."
"Four hundred employees."
"Single mothers, fathers, people who bust their backs all year long."
"And she can't be bothered to buy us even a loaf of bread."
She covered her face.
The camera shook.
Then a cut, and her tear-streaked face filled the screen again.
"Please, share this. This can't stand. Let everyone know who Mrs. Figueroa really is. A cheapskate. A miserable boss."
The video ended with an animated heart.
Below it, the view counter read four million two hundred thousand.
And the comments.
There were thousands.
"What a piece of work."
"Boycott Casa Brisa."
"That woman needs to be canceled."
"I stayed at her hotel in Old San Juan and it was ugly, now it all makes sense."
"Let her go to Dubai and pay for her stinginess."
I set the phone down on the counter.
I breathed.
Behind me, the cat meowed.
"Relax," I told him. "This isn't about you."
What Alondra didn't know, or didn't say, was a very simple story.
For the past four years, every Casa Brisa employee received a two-hundred-dollar gift card for every holiday.
Three Kings Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Patron Saint Festivals, and Christmas.
And another one on their birthday.
The idea had been my mom's.
Doña Rosa cleaned rooms at a hotel in Isla Verde when I was a kid.
She always said that on her birthday, no one had ever even thanked her.
When she died, I created the Rosa Fund with part of my salary to hand out those cards.
It was almost five hundred thousand dollars a year.
It came out of my own pocket.
Not the company's.
I'd never said that out loud, because it felt tacky.
And now a twenty-seven-year-old receptionist was calling me miserable in front of four million people.
The HR manager was still talking on the phone, which had been left on speaker.
"Wilmarie, are you still there?"
"I'm here."
"What do we do? The press is calling. The hotels are getting cancellations. People are insulting us on social media. We have to deny it. Post the cards, show that..."
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not denying anything."
"Wilmarie..."
I poured myself some coffee.
I thought about what Alondra said.
"Not even one Christmas basket."
I thought about what people were saying.
"What a cheapskate."
And something absurd, almost funny, occurred to me.
"If they want a Christmas basket," I said, "they'll get a Christmas basket."
"I don't understand."
"Draft a statement."
"What do you want it to say?"
I dictated slowly, walking through the kitchen with the mug in my hand:
"To honor Christmas traditions, this year the gift cards are canceled."
"In their place, every Casa Brisa employee will receive a Christmas basket."
There was a long silence on the other end.
"Wilmarie, the cards are worth two hundred dollars."
"I know."
"Every holiday."
"I know."
"And a basket costs... I don't know, forty, fifty."
"I know."
"That's a ninety percent cut."
"Exactly."
"And why?"
I smiled.
I looked at myself in the microwave's reflection, hair a mess and the dark circles of a woman who hasn't slept well in months.
"Because if they're going to judge me for what I didn't do," I replied, "at least let them judge me for what I actually do."
"Wilmarie, this is insane."
"Post it."
"But..."
"Post it now."
I hung up.
Two minutes later, the statement went out on Casa Brisa's official channel, with my signature, in blue letters on a white background.
Thirty seconds later, social media exploded.
And ten minutes after that, my phone buzzed again.
This time it wasn't the journalists.
It was the employee message group, with over three hundred people who had just read the statement and were all typing at once.
The first message said only: "WHAT???"
The second: "Mrs. Wilmarie, is this a joke?"
The third was from Alondra.
A crying emoji.
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