Ruby squeezed my hands. “Vera, dear, Starlight Palms has been my retirement plan since before you were born.”
Years ago, whencolon cancerwere two words I’d only ever heard on chirpy pharmaceutical commercials, Mom, Ruby, and I had gone on several weekend trips to Palm Springs—always on a budget, of course, but every time, Ruby would have Mom drive us past Starlight Palms, an old resort that had been transformed into a retirement community and assisted living center. It was genius, honestly. A place for an aging generation to relive their youth.
“Mom diedtwoweeks ago,” I reminded her. “Her ashes are still cooling. We’ve barely had any time to grieve.”
Her grip tightened. “I am eighty-two years old. Time isn’t something I have an abundance of. Now, stuff, on the other hand, I do. Which is why I have an estate sale agency coming in on Tuesday afternoon to assess the situation.”
“But the house never even went on the market,” I said, still trying to piece the logistics together. She didn’t even offer to sell it to me. Though I could never afford market price and this house was likely part of Ruby’s retirement fund.
“Janice next door bought it for her son.”
“Her son? Her son is like a human comments section! He’s the worst.”
My voice began to escalate in volume. Sorry, Gillian Anderson.
Ruby chuckled and sat back in her seat before taking a pull from her glass of champagne and calling out to our waiter. “About that banana bread, young man!”
“Her son once stole her checkbook to write himself checks. Janice had a meltdown because she thought her identity had been stolen.”
Ruby sighed. “Well, that wasn’t ideal behavior, I’ll admit, but he did write funny notes on the description line. I believe one of them said ‘for wearing the clothes Mom buys me for Christmas.’ The way Janice tells it now, the whole ordeal was nothing more than a practical joke.”
The waiter returned with two decadent slices of banana bread and scoops of honey butter on the side.
“He better not ruin the place,” I said bitterly.
It wasn’t that Ruby owed me Primrose or that I ever expected her to leave it to me, but I had never imagined my future anywhere else. At least not for a very long time now.
“Well, thankfully,” Ruby said, “those faulty pipes and cracked foundation are no longer our problem.” She smeared the butter across the bread and took a bite. “Divine,” she said as she covered her full mouth and pushed the basket to me. “You must try.”
I glanced down at the bread, champagne, and green juice. Suddenly the smells of sickly-sweet syrup and sounds of silverware scratching against plates were all too much.
My head was too full.
Over the last seventeen years, I’d paid property taxes on the house, mostly covered the utilities, and kept the place out of disrepair. And now I had nothing to show for it.
This wasn’t just about a house, though.
I was being left. I was still Mom’s caretaker. I was tethered to her. No matter how gone she really was.
But suddenly Ruby was free, like she’d had this whole life planned and waiting for her the moment Mom died.
And I was cut loose.
Chapter One
August
“Just move out to the ’burbs,” Tess said with a groan. “Fuck, have you eaten at a Chili’s lately? Max ordered us an appetizer feast for dinner, and I forgot how hard their Southwestern eggrolls slap.”
“Theyslap?” I asked. “Are we saying that now?”
Tess shrugged on the screen of my phone. “My assistant said it the other day and she has her nipples pierced, so I trust her.”
I thought about that for a moment. Admittedly, the owner of two pierced nipples seemed like the exact right person to trust on something like this. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense. How’s the renovation going?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d rather be living in Brody’s pool house at this point, TBH.”
“I don’t think we’re saying abbreviations like that out loud, FYI.”
