Then I did—from the list of purchases on Marisa’s credit card, before I’d got distracted by airline transactions and a gun pointed at my face. “Stone House,” I said, sitting forward. “You didn’t recognize that name? It was a pending charge. Recent. And not pack-of-gum money.”
“Like, how much?”
“A couple of zeroes. I can’t remember exactly. But she was also in the middle of a lot of really high-end holiday shopping, so maybe it was something like that.”
Sicily tossed the owl to the side and got her phone out.
“Man,” I said. “Marisa settled into money so well you’d think she was born to it.”
“She likes to give it away,” Sicily said as she thumbed her screen. “Umma gets a little mad, sometimes, how much Mom gives to charity and stuff. Bell ringer buckets. Homeless people on the street, but there’s so many of them. She can’t fix their lives with a few dollars.”
She hadn’t quite figured it out, had she? “Bless your heart,” I said.
Sicily’s brow furrowed into her screen. “Stone House,” she announced. “It’s a day spa.”
“As opposed to those night spas.” I waited, then finally had to ask. “What’s adayspa?”
“Just a place to get, you know—”
“I really don’t.”
“Manicures? Mani-pedis, massages. It’s not a place you’d stay the night, like a resort or anything.”
“Couple of zeroes spent on mani-pedis? Yikes.”
“Seaweed wraps and stuff,” she said.
“If you say so.”
“It’s out near my school,” she said. “Maybe she made appointments for us to go together.” She looked up and saw me smirking at her. “She likes to buy presents, so what?”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Her expression turned thoughtful. “I’m not sure you do, actually.” She stood up and slipped her phone into her pocket. “Come on.”
“Where? I’m enjoying this album.”
“Album?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It’sold. I assume you’ve heard it before.”
“Catty,” I said. “The word you’re looking for isclassic.”
“Why don’t you listen to, like, new music?”
This again. But I got up and followed her back downstairs to the first floor, to the door across the hall from the master bedroom. Inside there was a smaller bed covered in delicate, ruffle-edge bedding. Everything was white and pristine, with no personal belongings visible, no photos.
“Whose room is this?”
Sicily passed behind me and went to a set of double closet doors.
“Yours, I think,” she said.
“Reallycatty,” I said. “I should like this side of you better, but, for the record, I don’t.”
Sicily stopped with her hands on the door handles. “I’m not, like,taunting you or whatever. It’s a guest room, I guess. But when anyone comes to stay, Mom puts them in the basement. It’s more private down there, but I think it’s probably because of this.”
The doors opened to each side, like wings spreading.
Inside, the closet was stacked from the floor and, above on a shelf, to the ceiling with Christmas presents. Boxes and packages and bags with bows. The wrapping papers were varied: blues and silvers, greens and golds and reds, stars, snowmen, Santas, reindeer, holly and jolly, all accounted for.
