Learning to Trust the Enemy

Julia’s Prologue

Julia’s Prologue

“If I die in Nebraska, I’m leaving everything to the hot dog people.”

—Remington

Sometimes life is ridiculous.

For example, on the eve of what would come to be known as one of the most monumental days of my life, I was hauling around an old ice cream bucket just in case I wasn’t done feeling sick.

I’d had an unfortunate run-in with some surprise cashews after school, which led to an ER visit, and now someone was at the door.

Wonderful.

And the rest of my family was in the backyard with the new kittens.

Perfect.

I hit the porch light and pulled open the door, unsteady on my feet, expecting to see one of the neighbors.

Instead there was a man standing there.

A silver-haired man in a very nice suit, looking like a mob boss or an FBI agent. His gaze was alert—intense—as he watched me.

“Hi,” I said, pushing open the screen door, wondering where this well-dressed stranger might’ve come from. “Can I help you?”

“Good evening, miss. Are Clint or Shawna available?”

It was almost as if his voice had applied air quotes around my parents’ names, like his lips had never uttered such unsophisticated Midwestern labelry before.

His appearance on our porch felt… worrisome.

Ominous.

My stomach clenched.

Damn you, cashews. I knew I should’ve blown off the “free cookies” table in front of the counselor’s office, but I’d been so depressed after hearing about Will and Hannah that I’d completely eaten my feelings instead.

I kept my hand on the door handle as I felt tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead. “Um, may I ask—”

“Hey.” Liam, my twin brother, popped up behind me. “What’s up?”

I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Liam to just casually what’s up a stranger from God-knows-where who was standing on our stoop with the intention of doing God-knows-what.

“My name is Bernard Elizando, and I’m looking for your parents, young man,” the guy said in an accent that could only be called cultured. It wasn’t technically British, I didn’t think, but it was so locked-in on formality that it felt… noble. “Might they be available?”

“They’re feeding the cats out back,” my brother volunteered, ignoring my handle-grasping hand to push the door all the way open in a gesture that begged the potentially murderous stranger to enter our house. “Come on in.”

“We don’t even know him,” I whispered under my breath as the man stepped over the threshold. “What are you doing?”

“He rang the doorbell and said ‘might they be available,’ ” Liam said in a surprisingly good imitation of a British accent. “Bernard’s obviously not the Golden State Killer.”

“I can assure you I’m not here on violent business, Miss Lowell,” the man said, meeting my eyes. He wasn’t smiling, but there was some sort of reassurance in his calm expression, amusement in his ice-blue eyes. “I simply need a moment with your parents.”

“I got you, Elizando,” Liam said, leading the guy through the living room and toward the back door. “Do you want anything to drink? Busch Light? Water?”

Stop offering refreshments to foreboding strangers, you idiot!

“No, thank you,” Bernard replied. I trailed behind them as Liam slid open the patio door and they both stepped outside.

And as the ick of nausea returned to my body, my world went off the rails.

Because after introductions were made and an entire conversation transpired about the adorable feral kittens living underneath our hydrangea bushes, Bernard Elizando started saying the craziest things I’d ever heard.

He calmly informed my parents they’d been named the primary beneficiaries in the will of some guy named Remington. Apparently there was money and a house, which now belonged to them.

Us.

My mom’s mouth dropped wide open as Bernard shared the news, and my dad laughed like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“I’m so sorry, Bernard, but that name doesn’t even sound familiar to me,” my dad said, shaking his head. He smiled a confused grin and asked, “Are you sure you have the correct Clint and Shawna Lowell?”

“Of course,” Bernard said, and that response felt right. I somehow just knew this steely-haired man never made mistakes. He quickly listed off our address, the address of my parents’ market, and a brief bio of my parents’ life.

“That does sound like us,” my dad quipped, still looking amused as hell.

“And this stranger seriously left us money and a house in his will…?” My mother squinted and her eyebrows scrunched together. “That doesn’t make sense. And we don’t have to do anything to accept this inheritance…?”

“There actually are some stipulations, Ms. Lowell,” he said with a nod.

“Okay, here it is,” she replied lightly, pursing her lips.

“Entirely aboveboard, I promise,” Bernard assured her.

But then he spewed utter madness.

He looked my parents in the face and told them (in his very dignified voice) that the house they were to inherit was in New York City.

It was a five-story single-family home on the Upper West Side, and the fact that my parents didn’t just die on the spot when he said that told me they had no idea what this meant.

But I did.

And I gasped so loudly when he said it was in the Gardenwood neighborhood by Riverside Park, not that anyone in the backyard (aside from me and Bernard) knew what that clarification meant either, because holy, holy shit.

I’d binge-watched The Woods (prep-school drama series) multiple times, so of course I knew, but my parents and brother—clueless as to what this implied.

Gardenwood, also known as the beau monde blocks (a pretty nickname for the neighborhood), was an area where Manhattan felt quieter and more residential, where uptown old money lived in buildings that looked like rows of ornate mansions, all glued together.

I listened in shock as Bernard gave my parents a brief description of the “house”—two kitchens, wine cellar, elevator, five wood-burning fireplaces, two-thousand-square-foot roof deck with Hudson River views—and then he informed them we would need to live in it for no less than six months if we wanted to inherit.

Those were the two stipulations: We had to live in the house for at least six months, and Liam and I had to attend the very exclusive Gardenwood Academy during that time.

I took in a deep breath of fresh air and clutched the ice cream pail a little harder, fairly certain I was going to have to vomit in the next five minutes but unwilling to walk away from the conversation because what the hell?

? Every sentence he uttered was more unbelievable than the last, though the sudden notion of moving far away from the place where Will had moved on from me and was probably actively planning his homecoming proposal for Hannah as we spoke kind of sounded like sweet escape.

God, how can he be dating her already?

“Wait a minute,” my dad said, screwing his thick eyebrows together and looking at Bernard like the man had just suggested he glue feathers to his chest and start clucking like a chicken.

“Are you telling me that in order to ‘inherit’ whatever this stranger left behind, we’re supposed to up and move to New York for six months? ”

“Precisely,” Bernard said, as if he wasn’t aware my dad was mocking the idea. “In the next thirty days.”

“Oh, well, we can’t do that,” my mom said, looking worried. “I’m a teacher and can’t leave my classes—school just started. Liam’s got baseball, Clint’s got the store—”

“She’s right, Bernard,” my dad said, nodding. “There’s just no way we can move our entire family across the country, especially when we know nothing about this stranger who apparently left us something.”

I swallowed and closed my eyes, dizziness washing over me. I could feel sweat on my back, on my forehead—God, I need to go in—but I just couldn’t walk away from this bizarro situation without some sort of answer or resolution to the great WHAT THE HELL.

“I understand, Mr. Lowell,” he replied. “But perhaps you’d like to give this a little more consideration. I can return in the morning for further discussion, if you’d like.”

“That won’t be necessary,” my mom said. “Springfield is our home—”

“What are we talking here, inheritance-wise?” Liam interrupted, unconcerned with the two kittens that appeared to be scaling the front of his T-shirt as he asked the million-dollar question.

“Obviously we’re not gonna pull up stakes for two grand and a shanty; I mean, come on, Bern.

You gotta give us a little more info before we can agree to move to the 212. ”

I expected my parents to call him out for being rude and mentioning money, but all eyes turned to Bernard as we collectively wondered.

How much?

I put a hand over my stomach as the queasiness got even worse.

Bernard flipped his gaze to my dad and asked, “You’d like an estimate on the inheritance amount?”

“If possible,” my dad said, looking embarrassed. “I mean, just a ballpark would be nice, uh, in the decision-making process.”

I swallowed.

“A ballpark.” Bernard gave a nod, tilted his head just a fraction of a degree, and said, “I believe that ballpark would sit somewhere in the range of…”

And then he said a massively huge number.

A number with a lot of zeroes.

Multiple, multiple millions.

“Million?” my dad wheezed.

My mother gasped. “Did you say million? Dollars?”

“Holy shitballs!” Liam yelled.

At the exact second I threw up into my bucket.