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She strode over to me and gave me a hug. “Thank you again, Natalie, for giving me this incredible opportunity. I want to be…” She stopped mid-sentence. “Like part of your family while I’m here. The perfect houseguest.”
Her words touched me. And the warmth of her arms around me was comforting. I felt a ping of optimism. It would be good for me to have another teenage girl in the house.
As she squeezed me tighter, my chest constricted and I felt myself shiver.
Would the ghost of Anabel come back to haunt me?
THREE
PAIGE
During the car ride to pick up my brother, I’d decided to give Tanya a chance. She seemed a little shallow, but nice enough. Not stuck-up like my sister. Or as vain. The least I could do was try…but this?
“What are you doing in my room?” I asked, forcing my voice to be as level as possible.
“Oh, hi!” she said brightly without looking up at me.
Our new exchange student was curled up on my bed, painting her toenails. Okay, I got that I had to share the bathroom with her, but this was not acceptable. Especially without consulting with me. I tried to maintain my cool, but it wasn’t easy.
She had her own room—my sister’s—on the other side of the bathroom. It was called a Jack and Jill suite, one of the so-called charming features that had sold my mother on this house. She’d thought it would help me and my sister bond. When we’d moved here, Anabel was thirteen, already long and lean with a peaches-and-cream complexion; I was twelve, stuck with baby fat, braces, and pimples. Our hormones raging, I hated her and she hated me. My mother was wrong. So wrong.
The last thing I’d wanted to do was share a bathroom with my sister, who spent more time in front of a mirror than any girl I knew. And she took long baths and showers that seemed to go on to the next day. I used to feel like I had to make an appointment to pee, poop, or shower in private.
Sometimes I’d wanted to strangle her and had told her that to her face. Though I never really wished for my sister to die, I had to admit it was nice having the bathroom to myself with her gone. I had urged my mom to give our exchange student the spare bedroom she used as her office, but she absolutely refused, stating she needed her personal space, “a room of her own,” with gala season just around the corner. My mom was on the board of numerous cultural institutions and philanthropic foundations and was always heading up some committee that organized fundraising benefits. Unlike me, who was somewhat of a loner, she was a social animal. Much like my sister had been.
My arms folded across my chest, I waited for an answer. “Well?” I asked, my voice rising.
Laser-focused on her toes, she still didn’t make eye contact with me as she chewed her gum. “What does it look like? I’m painting my toenails. Do you like the color? I found the bottle in my bedroom.”
My bedroom. Her use of that possessive adjective jabbed me like a dart. It wasn’t her bedroom. It belonged to my sister. In fact, nothing in this house was hers. I hadn’t spent more than an hour with this girl, and the chance of me liking her was diminishing by the second.
“Get. Off. My. Bed.”
“Wow! Someone needs a chill pill.” She blew a bubble and popped it loudly. “I thought it would be fun to hang out. Get to know each other. But no worries; I’m almost done.”
Simmering (honestly, I did need to chill), I watched as she moved from toe to toe. I couldn’t help noticing how slender and arched her feet were, how dainty her toes were. The metallic-red nail polish made her toenails look like little gems and reminded me of both my sister’s and mother’s. Like everything else, I had inherited my father’s flat feet, and my toes were stubby. And from playing basketball and all the training, my toenails were a mess. Jagged and broken. A few ingrown. My mother was always on at me to take better care of my feet, to come with her to have a mani-pedi, something she used to do weekly with Anabel.
No, thank you.
Rage surged inside me while Tanya took her time, carefully applying the nail varnish. I had the burning urge to pull my comforter out from under her and fisted my hands by my sides so I wouldn’t. Anger management was definitely not my strong suit. It was a trait I’d inherited from my temperamental father. So I thought.
Still stroking her nails with the wand, she brushed a strand of her suspect blonde hair off her face with her free hand. “I spent some quality time with your mum. Before she showed me to my room, I had some wine with her. A delicious California cab—”
I cut her off. “My mom let you have alcohol? You’re not twenty-one, are you?”
She blew another bubble and popped it. “I’m seventeen, but in the UK you’re allowed to drink at home with an adult. Papa and I love to share a drink whenever he’s in town.”
My parents would ground me for life if they caught me drinking—with them or without them. Or invading the liquor cabinet like one of those spoiled Gossip Girls. I’d always wondered if they knew Anabel was sneaking Stoli and Jack Daniel’s from my father’s bar at the tender age of thirteen. And, if so, why had they let her get away with it?
Tanya cut into my thoughts. “Anyway, your mum told me so much about you guys.”
I didn’t want to know. The perfect family. The perfect lies. Wine did that to my mother. Let her escape. Along with her Xanax and all the carefully planned activities that filled every minute of her vapid life.
“What exactly does your father do?” she asked.
“He’s a money manager.”
I actually didn’t really understand what my father did. He said he invested other people’s money, his roster of clients star-studded with celebrities and moguls. It was a win-win. They made money; he made money. And we got to live in this big house, go on fancy vacations, and do all kinds of other stuff only rich people did. All the money in the world, however, could not bring back my sister. Tomorrow, I’d learned, isn’t promised to anyone.
