Ugh. Should I not have said that? Norma wouldn’t like people knowing her name, so maybe I just made a faux pas. Never piss off the head housekeeper or the cook.
She led me into a tall foyer with Italian tile and a sweeping banister. An enormous glass chandelier that looked out of style with the rest of the house, like some kind of sea monster.
“That’s our Chihuly,” a voice said from the stairs.
I looked up to see Jasmine descending in jeans, high heels, and an off-shoulder top.
“If you hate it, don’t blame me,” she continued. “Once upon a time it was Serj’s had-to-have purchase, but now we are all tiredof looking at an exploding octopus when we come downstairs every morning.” She smiled and reached for my hand. “How are you, Miss Jane? I’m so glad to see you again.”
Her fingers were warm as they squeezed mine. “I’m good. Thank you so much for having me… uh, under your exploding octopus.”
She laughed. “Delighted. Oh, for me?” she said as I handed her the bottle of wine.
“It’s from the house. I didn’t nab it or anything. Norma wanted you to have it.”
“Norma,” she said, knocking my shoulder with hers like Fen does. “She’s a softy underneath all that grit, don’t you think?”
I wasn’t too sure about that. But I was sure about one thing. Something smelled really nice, lemon and mint, garlicky. Before I could ask about it, a dark figure moved in a shadow behind the stairs.
“Ani-jan, come here, my little assassin,” Jasmine coaxed. “I want you to meet Miss Jane.”
A slender girl stepped into the foyer holding her hands in front of her. Younger than me by a few years. Hair as dark as mine but super straight and long. The biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen looked at me like an animal caught in headlights. She was twitchy, and that revved up my nerves too.
“Hi,” I said. “Ani? You’re one of the twins.”
I didn’t know much about them except that they were fifteen and Eddie referred to them as “the brats.” She didn’tlookbratty.
The girl said, “It’s not an octopus.” Her voice was small, andshe kept her face partially hidden within the waterfall of her dark hair. “It has one hundred and five legs. An octopus has eight.”
I looked up. “Oh? Good point.”
Jasmine slung her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Ani likes numbers.”
“I like precision,” the girl corrected.
“She likes driving me wild, my little weirdo,” Jasmine said, kissing her cheek affectionately until the girl smiled, a little embarrassed, and pulled away. “Come, Miss Jane. We’re dining alfresco out back. No sense wasting it inside.”
I followed them through the foyer toward an airy living room with a towering wall of windows that looked out over the lake. So marvelous to have the water right outside your back door. I mean, there was just a patio, some green-green sloping grass, and then a set of docks. Really close. And unlike the lodge, this house just felt homey. I expected glamor—signed photos of rap stars, maybe. But there was something so much better. Family photos lining the wall. Pictures of Saints Perpetua and Felicity hanging under an ornate gilded cross. A flat-screen television that was actually turned on, playing anime with no sound. A coat tossed over a chair. A soccer ball stuck in the corner.
Signs of life.
Back in the lodge, us domestics cleared all that away.
“Move, Ari,” a deep voice said from a dark hallway nearby.
Ari… That would be Ani’s twin brother.
The boy grunted and stumbled torso-first into the living room, complaining, “Hey! Fucker!”
“Language!” Jasmine cautioned.
My pulse ratcheted up as Ari turned around to face the person behind him in the hallway. For a moment, it was just a tangle of skinny boy arms. Friendly wrestling, I was pretty sure. Most of it was happening behind a big monstera plant that was taller than me, so I couldn’t make out much, only that Ari had pretty much the same slender build as his twin, and the same dark, straight hair that flowed down to the middle of his back. Very metal.
In one last push, Ari got shoved back inside the living room, complaining, “Oww! Cut it out, dickhead—you win. Mama! Make him stop.”
Wait. Makewhostop?
“Stop it, boys. Don’t be boring while we’re entertaining a guest,” Jasmine instructed the breathless twin boy and the person swaggering victorious into the living room behind him.
