My stepmother moved into the $5.6 million beach ho…

Khloe just showed me your little beach place. How exciting.”

Little beach place. The house cost five point six million dollars and sat on some of the most expensive coastline in California, but Vanessa had always known how to reduce things through tone rather than language.

She could make achievement sound quaint, independence sound antisocial, and your own home sound like a temporary costume. “Good evening to you too,” I said. She ignored that.

“Your father and I will come down tomorrow. We’re taking the master, obviously. Khloe saw that gorgeous ocean-view room on the second floor, the one with the balcony, and she absolutely fell in love, so give that one to her.

You can use one of the smaller bedrooms in the back. I’m sure you won’t mind. You’ve never been precious about space.”

For a second I thought I had misheard her.

Not because Vanessa was incapable of entitlement. She had built an entire life on entitlement polished until it passed for elegance. But the scale of this was so naked it took my brain half a breath to catch up.