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9
THEO
That’s how I find myself, late in the evening, driving to someplace called “Mermaid Lane” after a brief stop at my own cockroach-infested apartment. Those cockroaches better enjoy their last day on earth. Their kingdom inside my oven is coming to an end.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I tell Sullivan, probably for the twentieth time.
“I told you, it’s no big deal. I live alone in a huge house. Well, pretty much alone—Reese lives there, too, when he’s in town. But he won’t be back for weeks.”
“Okay…”
The idea of staying in Sullivan’s mansion doesn’t exactly thrill me. His wealth already makes me uncomfortable. The beautiful wooden dashboard of his car looks like the inside of an old-timey airplane, and the clothes he bought me so casually probably cost more than I make in a month.
I guess I should be used to it from hanging around Angus, but really that’s only made me more conscious of the difference between me and the ultrarich.
I already got a pretty hefty taste of all that back in high school. My mom was so excited when I won the lottery slot at Piedmont Prep, there was no way she’d let me turn it down. But I never fit in at that place, and struggling to exist among the uberwealthy really fucked with a sense of self-esteem that wasn’t that robust to begin with.
Maybe it was something subconscious when I applied for the job with Angus—maybe, deep down, I like torturing myself. Standing next to the money and success I’ll never actually achieve…
But no, I’m not going to think like that.
I’m done being a second-rate loser, the nice girl who always finishes last.
Iwillachieve wealth and success. I’m going to get my restaurant. And Sullivan’s going to help me do it.
So what if I have to stay a week at his ultrabougie man-mansion; how bad can it be? At least he won’t have a cockroach infes?—
My mouth gapes as we pull onto Mermaid Lane.
Sullivan’s mansion isnotbougie.
Actually, it’s completely falling apart.
If Sullivan’s house were a ship, it would be an old freighter that was lost in a storm for fifty years and then came back as a ghost.
The roof is sagging, the paint is patchy and peeling, and the yard is overgrown like a jungle, with waist-high weeds, moss-draped trees, and ivy clambering up the walls. The porch is so shaggy with wisteria, I doubt you could even see out most of the windows on the main level.
The rest of the street doesn’t look much better.
Mermaid Lane is a mishmash of moldering mansions that have clearly seen better days. Those that have been renovated show a level of taste that could be charitably described as“eccentric,” standing next to shambling estates that are full-on batshit crazy. The house next to Sullivan’s is painted electric purple, while the one two doors down sits amidst a forest of glittering windchimes, lawn gnomes, and plastic pink flamingos.
“Wow…,” I say, ‘cause I’m fast on my feet like that.
“Not what you were expecting?” Sullivan gives me a sideways smirk.
He climbs out of the car, retrieving my bag from the trunk and carrying it up the front steps. It’s a duffle bag, mostly stuffed with the clothes Sullivan just bought me.
Now I’m feeling like he probably should have invested in a new porch light instead. Or some paint for this door…
Sullivan walks inside without bothering with a key.
“You don’t lock your front door?”
“There’s not much to steal.”
That’s true. The palatial space has a strange sense of emptiness. It’s dark and echoing inside, most of the walls bare, no rugs on the floor.
“Here’s the living room…” Sullivan flicks on a light.
