Grace wanted to believe them, and for the next few weeks, it looked as if, perhaps, they might be right. She dug through the boxes of paperwork left in the study and found the statements for a forgotten savings account with enough money to pay their bills that month. Her mom was in talks with a new agent about a gallery show and a couple of potential commissions, and with school almost over, Grace could find a summer job. It wouldn’t be much, she knew, but it might just be enough. Sure, there was still a hollow ache in her chest that Grace couldn’t bear to think about — like staring into the sun — but every guide to grief and bereavement said that would ease, in time. Things were getting back to normal.
Then the letter arrived from Portia’s lawyer.
“That . . . She’s . . . Mmmph!” Hallie screamed in frustration, beyond words. She stormed out, leaving Grace clutching the crisp page.
Ownership of assets . . . Ms. Portia Weston’s legal right . . . Vacate the property . . .
She lowered the letter, her hand shaking. “Mom?”
There was no reply.
“Mom?” she said, louder this time. Their mother was staring at a magazine cover, head tilted slightly as she gazed at some starlet posing in the ocean.
“Would you say that’s an azure blue, or more of a cobalt?” she asked. “There are hints of aqua in the waves, but . . . No, it’s definitely more cobalt.”
Grace stifled a whimper. If there was any way of surviving this upheaval, it was down to her alone to find it.
Grace waited across from school for the downtown bus the next day, trying to distract herself from the epic task ahead of her. She watched as students streamed through the gates: hipster, steampunk, Harajuku girl, goth, mathlete. Their mom had insisted on sending her and Hallie to an alternative charter school, the kind of place where Grace took mandatory personal empowerment classes along with her science and math immersion, and her fellow classmates were as likely to be tech wizards with Silicon Valley start-up funding as wide-eyed homeschoolers who were trying to integrate with society for the first time.
“Grace!” Hallie yelled from across the street, hanging with her group of cooler-than-thou graduating class — all red lipstick and weird vintage fashions that, to Grace, looked like something dragged from the back of their grandmother’s closet. “Tell Mom I’m staying over at Mirabelle’s tonight.”
“Tell her yourself!” Grace yelled back.
Hallie looked exasperated. She detached herself from a guy wearing an ugly tweed jacket and a handlebar mustache, and sauntered across the street, not paying any mind to the traffic that had to screech to a halt in front of her. “Come on, Grace,” she pleaded. “It’s not like Mom even notices when I am there.”
“She noticed enough to give you a midnight curfew,” Grace replied, immune to Hallie’s eyelash batting and pitiful puppy-dog stare. Hallie’s helpless expression dropped; she glared at Grace with kohl-smudged eyes.
“You can be so immature, you know that?”
“And you can be back by midnight.” Grace turned away as the bus shuddered to a stop in front of them. Hallie made a muffled scream of protest, and stormed back to her hipster friends, her long black skirts flaring out in her wake.
Grace swiped her pass and made her way to a free seat in the back. She was sick of being the one keeping tabs on her sister — Hallie was right, their mom was tuned out of the world right now: spending all day painting up in her studio, then surfacing out of nowhere at random hours to demand they eat their vegetables and get their homework done. But just because they could run around until dawn if they wanted, didn’t mean they should. Hallie had been more of an erratic drama queen than ever since the funeral, and for all Grace knew, she was liable to wind up dead in a gutter outside some East Bay rock show at three a.m.
Or worse, hooking up with boys who thought Hitler was a role model when it came to facial hair.
Grace disembarked downtown and made her way past blocks of towering office buildings and chic storefronts to Portia’s fancy apartment building. She and Grace’s father had moved there only a few months ago: a prestigious address with brocade-trimmed doormen and views of the park. Grace stood a moment outside, staring up at the dark-green canopy as she steeled herself for what was to come. She’d never actually visited before; there had always been some excuse about Dash’s nap routine, or renovation work. But now, with the pale sandstone towering above her, Grace felt like she was trespassing in a world to which she’d never been invited.
“Miss?”
Grace turned. The doorman was holding the polished glass door open, waiting. “Sorry,” she murmured quickly, ducking past him.
Inside, it was more of the same: marble floors and glossy mirrors, and everything gleaming like it would smudge if she so much as looked twice at it. Grace crossed the lobby, nervous. “I’m here to see Portia Coates,” she told the man behind the vast reception desk.
He stared at her blankly for a moment, then his expression cleared. “You mean Mrs. Weston?”
Grace swallowed. “Right. Her.”
“Let me call up for you.”
Grace waited while the man murmured into his phone, struck by the sudden fear that Portia would refuse to see her. They didn’t have the kind of faux friendship she knew other friends managed with their stepparents, and although Grace had always been relieved by the distance between them, now she wished they’d at least pretended to be close. Maybe then Portia might feel some sense of duty to her stepdaughters, instead of having her lawyers treat them like squatters.
“You can go up,” the man finally said, nodding toward the elevators. “Fifteenth floor. Penthouse.”
When Grace emerged from the elevator, Portia was waiting in the cream carpeted hallway, wearing a pale silky dress and expression of wide-eyed delight. “Grace, darling, what a surprise!” She beckoned Grace closer and enfolded her in a brief, bony excuse for a hug. “How are you? How is your poor mother holding up? You poor dears.”
Grace pulled back. “We’re fine,” she managed, thrown by the outpouring of enthusiasm. “I wanted to talk to you —”
“Of course, come in, come in! I’m afraid Dash is out with his uncle right now, but let’s sit down and have some tea.”
Grace followed her into the apartment. “Shoes.” Portia pointed to the neat row by the door. Grace awkwardly kicked off her sneakers. There was a pause; Portia was still waiting expectantly, so Grace bent to straighten them in place. “Do you want a tour? We just finished the guest suite.” Portia added, “The designer is a genius, I swear.”