attention to things like feelings or the care and feeding of his daughters.
Instead of trying to understand how much Letty missed her home, her mother had withheld food. Letty’s most striking memory of her childhood was the feeling of hunger—her stomach lurched now with the memory. And hiding what she was eating and feeling guilty for everything.
And, given that she didn’t have the same willowy body type as her sister, the more weight she gained, the worse her mother treated her. It had taken so many years for her to realize that she wasn’t wrong for being an average-sized woman. Every time she battled back her mother’s voice in her head, she felt stronger. She’d faltered when Simon had made it seem like he was dumping her because of her dress size, but she knew he was dumping her because of him—at least most of the time.
Still, every time she went to visit her parents, she hoped that things would be different. The hope that they would magically go back to the people they were when they’d lived in less opulence persisted, even though her rational mind knew that it would never happen. She hoped that her mother would appreciate her for being kind or smart or resourceful, but it always came down to the fact that she was not thin. Longing filled her with each step she took toward what she knew would be an uncomfortable evening.
As she peered inside the house, she had no sense that she belonged here. So different from the old house. She even missed the orange Formica countertops from their old kitchen and the brown shag carpeting from their tiny living room. As she pulled open the heavy glass door to her parents’ current house, she felt more of a chill than the move from the humid air and the air conditioning warranted. Everything in the house was white, as though it was specifically designed to make people wary of getting too comfortable.
But then, her father had made some lucky real estate investments that had rolled over into other kinds of investments, and their life had changed completely. In short, money ruined everything.
Elena had offered her younger sister cover whenever possible, but she wasn’t always around anymore. And when Elena was away, making money from her gorgeous features and rockin’ body and dating billionaires—like today—Letty’s mother liked to use her model sister as a cudgel to attempt to undermine Letty’s self-esteem.
Letty wondered if she would ever find the feeling of home again. Unbidden, an image of Max floated through her mind. It was weird because they’d just met, and he’d been insufferably rude at first. Yet, heat floated over her skin at the memory of the way his gaze had raked over her with a kind of heat that she’d never experienced.
Her heels made clacking noises against the white, marble floor. They always dressed for dinner, regardless of how meager the servings would be for the Gonzalez women. As she approached the kitchen, she heard her mother yelling at their current housekeeper about something not being right. She pressed her hand to her empty belly, trying to force down the need to be sick as she passed the powder room on the way to the dining room. The sound of her mother’s voice made it imperative that she avoid the kitchen right now.
The dining room table wasn’t set, so they must be eating out by the pool. She found her father there, dressed as though he’d walked off the set of Miami Vice in the late eighties and had never changed his costume. Her mother’s efforts at image-control for the family had not been nearly as successful with her father as they had been with her sister.
Her father simply didn’t care. As an adult, she’d often been embarrassed by her parents. For all their trying to fit in with people who came from more or more established money, they were gauche in a way that she hadn’t realized until she was around other rich people.
He didn’t look up from his tablet or otherwise acknowledge her. Letty dropped into the seat she assumed was hers and flipped through her phone for a few minutes. Before coming tonight, she’d done research on the Delgado family to prepare for the questions her parents were sure to have about her current employer.
Her mother had never stopped trying to get her to lose weight; she still viewed her younger daughter as a commodity. When Letty had worked for Art Basel, her mother had lorded it over the people in her social circle. On more than one occasion, she’d expected Letty to use her position to exact revenge against someone who her mother felt had slighted her or her father—by withholding an invitation or omitting their name from a program. Letty hadn’t complied, which was just another way that she disappointed her family.
Sweeping out of the house with a glass of what Letty assumed was Pinot Grigio, her mother floated toward the table. Her mother always floated toward Letty’s father. She soothed and massaged his ego in a way that made Letty and Elena exchange knowing looks and roll their eyes. With their father, their mother never expressed her disappointment with a scathing glance or a disappointed click of the tongue. Their mother’s mercurial personality had become a joke that they shared to blunt how painful it had been.
“I heard you found a job.” Of course, her mother would have heard. Her daily lunch at the club was more effective than a high-level security briefing.
“Yes. I did.” She knew better than to elaborate on her answers before her mother had made her feelings about the new position clear. Even though excitement at working with an artist as talented as Max bubbled up every time she thought about the project, she knew better than to show any weakness in front of her mother.
“Max Delgado is handsome.”
Oh no. This was going to turn into her mother matchmaking again—for Elena. If she thought Max was handsome, he wasn’t going to be for Letty. According to her mother, Letty was too fat to date someone handsome—probably even too fat to be with someone ugly and rich. Not that her mother would ever use those words, but she’d made it clear through her actions. And not that Letty was really fat; she was only fat in her parents’ circles in Miami.
That was probably why she’d been so taken in by Simon’s seduction at first. He hadn’t hesitated to meet her sister or her parents, he’d charmed them all. And he was handsome. With shame, Letty remembered how smug she’d been when her mother had seemed impressed with Simon’s interest in her.
“He’s a very promising artist.”
Her father finally looked up. “Do you have enough money?” He was always trying to pay off his daughters, as though—somewhere deep inside—he might feel some kind of guilt about their piss-poor parenting skills and want to make up for it. Letty hated taking his money, which she would have been forced to do at the end of the month if she hadn’t found this job, but he still offered.
“I was going to invite you to Palm Springs with me this winter.” Her mother finally, thankfully, poured Letty a glass of wine. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to do that with me, now.” Her mother pouted. Letty hated seeing her mother pout; it was as though she thought she could get away with being even more passive-aggressive that way.
“What’s in Palm Springs?” Maybe she could pretend to be curious for her mother’s sake. Sometimes it was just easier to go along with her mother’s bullshit.
“Well, there’s this health spa that I’ve been dying to try.” And then her mother’s eyes lit up. “You juice fast all day and get colon hydrotherapy every afternoon.”
“Sounds fun.” She took a sip of the only juice she was ever interested in consuming—fermented grape—and waited for her mother to continue.
“And there’s hiking.”
Letty imagined the hiking was challenging on no food and a thoroughly clean colon, but she kept that to herself. She preferred trail mix as hiking fuel. The only good thing that had come out of the three different summer fat camps her mother had sent her to was that she’d gained a love of physical activity. She’d avoided a fourth summer fat camp by joining the field hockey team at her high school. Even though she’d never been thin, she’d always been strong and athletic. As an adult, she reveled in her strength.
She could tell that her mother was going to try to press her into going to this desert colonic death camp with her and was relieved when the food came out even though Letty and her mother got a