feel the echoes of my ancestors inside myself: as if I am another in a line of elegant hostesses, keeping the clocks wound while I await my callers.
More often, though, I wonder if I am Jack Torrance, and this is my Overlook Hotel.
* * *
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A few months back, not long after I moved in, I came across an appraisal document for those parrots. They were valued at $30,000 for the pair. Reading this, I thought of Maman gently tipping her hand: Did she know that she was throwing $15,000 in the trash? But of course she did, I realized, and she didn’t care. Because nothing was truly valuable to her except for me. Benny and I—we were her Meissen birds, precious objects she wanted to guard behind glass. She spent her life protecting my brother and me from spankings, until the moment when she died. And sometimes I feel like life has been beating us both senseless ever since.
10.
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE probably thinking: Look at the spoiled rich girl, all alone in the great big house, trolling for our sympathy when she doesn’t deserve any of it. You feel so smug, looking at me! And yet you also can’t seem to look away from me. You follow me on my social media accounts, you swipe up to study my links, you watch my YouTube fashion tutorials and like my travelogues and read every Page Six mention you can find. You can’t stop yourself from clicking on my name even though you tell everyone that you hate me. I fascinate you.
You need me to be the monster so that you can position yourself in opposition to me and feel superior. Your ego requires me.
And there’s another thing, though you would never admit this out loud: When you look at me, you also think, I want what she has. Her life should be mine. And if I were given the resources at her disposal, I would do it all so much better.
Maybe you’re not so wrong.
11.
I SIT AT THE WINDOW of Stonehaven’s front parlor, waiting to greet the couple that’s making their way through the twilight toward me. The torrential rains of the morning have slowed to a light drizzle that sparkles like glitter in the lights along the drive. I’m as wired as a teenager on Ritalin, wound up by the prospect of human interaction. (Giddy! Practically buoyant!) I’m pretty sure I haven’t spoken to another human being in two weeks, other than to tell the housekeeper, in broken Spanish, that she can’t keep ignoring the dust on the windowsills.
When I woke up this morning, I could feel that the black funk that had weighed on me for most of the year had lifted. In its place, a familiar fizz and pop, as if something inside me had been set on fire and was crackling back to life. I could see everything so clearly again.
I spent the morning washing my hair and dyeing the roots back to blond with a bottle of Clairol that I found in the grubby grocery store in town (beggars can’t be choosers). I gave myself a mani-pedi (ditto), applied a trio of Korean face masks, and then spent an hour digging through boxes until I unearthed the perfect Lounging in the Manor outfit: jeans and a black designer tee, a blazer in garnet velvet with a gray hoodie underneath. Chic, yet approachable. I snapped a selfie and uploaded it for my Instagram followers. This is what “dressing up” looks like in the mountains! #lakelife #mountainstyle #miumiu
I tore through the rooms of Stonehaven, cleaning up abandoned wineglasses and plates sticky with crumbs; hid the piles of laundry in the bedroom, straightened the fashion magazines strewn across the tables in the parlor (and then reassessed, and tossed them altogether). I arranged, and then rearranged, a little tableau of snacks in the kitchen, until I thought I might cry from the stress of it all. (To calm my nerves, I reread that day’s inspo from my own Instagram feed, a Maya Angelou quote I’d found online: Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.)
Then I sat in the front window with a bottle of wine, and waited.
* * *
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