Little beach place.
The house cost five point six million dollars and sat on some of the most expensive coastline in California, but Vanessa had always known how to reduce things through tone rather than language. She could make achievement sound quaint, independence sound antisocial, and your own home sound like a temporary costume.
“Good evening to you too,” I said.
She ignored that. “Your father and I will come down tomorrow. We’re taking the master, obviously. Khloe saw that gorgeous ocean-view room on the second floor, the one with the balcony, and she absolutely fell in love, so give that one to her. You can use one of the smaller bedrooms in the back. I’m sure you won’t mind. You’ve never been precious about space.”
For a second I thought I had misheard her.
Not because Vanessa was incapable of entitlement. She had built an entire life on entitlement polished until it passed for elegance. But the scale of this was so naked it took my brain half a breath to catch up. It was nearly midnight. I was alone in a house I had owned for less than twelve hours. And my stepmother was informing me she and my father were moving in the next day and reallocating rooms like a hotel manager.
I stayed very still in my chair.
“The next day,” I repeated.
“Yes.” Her voice held the easy impatience she reserved for moments when she expected the world to rearrange itself around her without friction. “Daniel wants sea air, and honestly it makes more sense. That big house will be lonely for one person and wasteful to maintain if you’re there by yourself. We’ll make it lively. Khloe’s been desperate to get out of that apartment anyway.”
Khloe was thirty-one years old and had been “desperate to get out of that apartment” at least six times in the last four years, usually when rent was due or a relationship had imploded or a job that sounded glamorous on social media turned out not to include a salary. Vanessa treated each of these episodes as evidence of Khloe’s special sensitivity to the world. Most other people would have called them consequences.
“I don’t remember inviting anyone to move in,” I said.
Vanessa sighed softly, not enough to sound rude, exactly enough to sound disappointed. “Bianca, don’t be difficult. Family doesn’t need engraved invitations. We’re telling the driver to leave by ten. Make sure the linens are turned down in the master. Khloe has very particular skin, so tell your housekeeper not to use fabric softener on her sheets.”
I actually laughed then, once, because the sentence was so fully itself.
“I don’t have a housekeeper.”
A pause. Then, coolly, “Well. Then perhaps you should.”
