Chapter One Julia
CHAPTER ONE
Thirty days later
“Never half-ass New York. Snag a bagel, walk with purpose, draw into your lungs that intoxicating mix of exhaust fumes, garbage, and the best food you’ll ever fucking taste. Let the city mark you.”
—Remington
Julia
“So maybe you two should just go… um… walk around the neighborhood for a bit.”
“Are you serious right now?” I asked, leaning into the front seat of the minivan from my spot in the back, just so I could peer into my parents’ eyes and figure out if they were, in fact, being serious.
“You want us to just randomly wander the streets of New York City when it’s going to be dark soon and we have no idea where we are? ”
According to the internet, once it got dark in the city, the criminals came out.
“Dead serious,” my mom said, glancing over at me with a sardonic smile.
“We’ve got an hour to kill, and I’ve had more than enough time in the car with you guys over the past few days.
You and Liam can go find some food, and it won’t be dark for another hour.
You’re going to have to get to know the neighborhood since we live here now, anyway. ”
For the thousandth time in the past month, I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
We were seriously about to live in New York City and be in possession of a massive fortune.
Howwwwwwwwwwww…??
We’d lived a relatively “comfortable” lifestyle before the inheritance, financially speaking.
Our house was nice enough and we had plenty of food, but our comfortability was in a super Midwestern sort of way.
My parents’ tiny supermarket paid the bills (or so I’d thought), any labeled clothing came from nationally branded mall stores and places like Kohl’s, and our family cars came from Jim’s Dodge Country down the road (where Jimmy Bob had been dealing vehicles since before I was born).
We weren’t uncivilized and we knew how to fit into a normal city, but I had no idea how we were going to learn to fit into a place like Gardenwood.
Thank God we had Bernard; we at least stood a chance with his expertise at our disposal.
For starters, he’d sat us down and thoroughly schooled my family on the details of the inheritance, once we’d decided to accept.
“I don’t want to scare you, but there will be interested parties who won’t want you to inherit,” he said, pacing as he spoke to us like no information had ever been this important.
“Those parties could benefit from knowing the details of the will and manipulate the outcome, so it is imperative that you tell no one the stipulations, do you understand?”
He gave us a cover story and answers, in case anyone had questions, but under no circumstances were we to let on that we’d recently come into money via an inheritance.
The Lowells had always had a fortune, but they didn’t flaunt it—that was the vibe.
Clint and Shawna have always wanted to live in New York, and after a lifetime of hard work and skilled investments, they’re finally doing it.
Key phrases: diverse investment portfolio, robust interest earnings, investors.
As if that weren’t enough, Bernard had been instrumental in getting us ready for the move, showing up at our house every day with itemized lists of things we needed to accomplish in order to get planted in the new house.
He arranged everything, waving around a black credit card that magically made everything he wanted to happen… happen.
People showed up to pack our things. Other people showed up to move boxes.
A team appeared at our doorstep to clean and stage our house to get it ready to put on the market.
Although, my dad pumped the brakes on that, changing his mind the day a broker showed up and stuck the For Sale sign in the yard.
He couldn’t say goodbye to the farmhouse he loved, and we still hadn’t decided what to do with the dogs (and cats and chickens), anyway, so instead of selling the house before the move, we called my cousin Lauren instead.
She was already working two jobs and putting herself through college, so she jumped at the chance to live rent-free in exchange for taking care of the house and animals—and working at the store—while we determined if we were staying in NYC past the six months or not.
“Anything to get out of this car,” my brother said, reaching for the handle of the sliding door and pulling it open.
Cool air rushed at us as we stepped out of the Honda, and I stared at the “house” in disbelief yet again.
My parents might’ve forgotten their key and the paper with the backup security code in case they misplaced their key (which was why we were just sitting in the car in front of the building, waiting for Bernard to save us), but we were, in fact, the owners of the building in front of us.
Impossible.
Im-freaking-possible.
It had ornately carved columns beside the gold-trimmed black double doors, and the words “Riverside Manor” were etched into stone above it.
It’d been designed by a famous architect in 1899 and had ten thousand square feet of living space inside that, according to the photos and videos we’d seen, was unbelievably luxurious.
It was stunning.
It was picturesque.
It was ours, what the hell.
Liam and I started walking up the block, which seemed very quiet for a New York City street. It was building-connected-to-building-connected-to-building, like a street of mansions all smooshed together (just like I’d seen on Google), and it had You’ve Got Mail vibes in the very best way.
“You know someone’s probably watching us right now,” Liam said as he zipped up the front of his jacket. “Some socialite is peering out her window this very minute wondering why the fuck a minivan has dared to set its ugly little wheels in the fancy neighborhood.”
“I definitely think Dad missed the mark when he turned Bernard down on the car thing,” I agreed as I walked beside him. “The Odyssey’s going to get us the wrong kind of attention.”
Bernard had also been trying to help my parents by preparing them for what was going to be our fancy new life.
Like finding us a “more comfortable” luxury vehicle that was in line with the norms of our new neighborhood, but my parents were far too practical to take his advice and insisted on keeping their minivan.
Why would we buy a Maserati SUV when the Honda is almost new?
As we walked down our street, Liam and I freaked out about the grandiose buildings that were part of our neighborhood.
Our neighborhood?!
Impossible.
“Check out that one.” Liam pointed to a residence with two enormous lions—one on each side of the entrance—that looked exactly like the ones that sat outside the New York Public Library.
It should’ve looked absurd, having huge animal statues in a quiet residential area (wearing wreaths of autumn leaves, no less), but in Gardenwood it somehow worked.
“Maybe we should have lions,” I said, my stomach getting a little nervous as I remembered we’d be going to school with people who lived in these very buildings.
Dear God, what would we ever have in common with people who had lion statues?
“We definitely should,” Liam agreed, his eyes on the stone cats.
We’d had a family meeting—multiple family meetings, actually—after Bernard dropped the inheritance bomb on us, because my parents wanted to make sure we did the right thing.
Money is important, they’d said, but family is everything.
We talked through all the scenarios and all the endings, we talked through what we’d be losing and what we’d be gaining if we moved, and then the four of us had voted—with actual secret ballots—on whether each of us wanted to make the move or not.
And it’d been unanimous—the Lowells all wanted to move. Although, “want” was a confusing word in this instance.
“Need” was probably more appropriate.
Because, as it turned out, the grocery store had been upside down for a long time. Like, to the point that my parents had literally been about to lose the store and maybe even the house, which they’d second-mortgaged in an attempt to keep the store afloat.
I’d had no idea that right about the time Bernard showed up on our doorstep with his massive news, my parents had been out of options.
So of course I voted to move—how could I not? What were the other choices? And who walked away from millions of dollars, regardless?
On top of all that, Liam insisted it was a good time for me to get out of Springfield because my “obsession” with my ex wasn’t healthy.
And he was both right and wrong, by the way.
It wasn’t good for me and escape was probably healthy, but I was not obsessed with Will and that comment really pissed me off.
Mostly because, before we left, Hannah told half the school that I was a “stalker who wouldn’t let go of Will” because she saw me drive by his house one time.
One time.
I’d spent half my life hanging out at Will’s, yet she moved to Springfield and a month later had my former boyfriend’s devotion and the ears of half the school listening to her filth.
Don’t think about it, I reminded myself. Forget all about everything back home and focus on this fancy new life sponsored by Lou.
Another thing about the move decision was that it became far less terrifying once we realized who our benefactor was.
Remington was actually the guy we knew as “Lou.”
Lou had been a little old man who lived in a fishing cabin just outside town. None of us knew how long exactly he’d lived there before he’d started placing grocery orders a few years ago.
Ironically, we didn’t do online orders. But we did for him.
And we didn’t do delivery, either, but we did for him.
Because how could we not? Lou was… Lou.
He emailed his order every Sunday night, complete with SKU numbers and prices, and Lou became, in a weird way, like family to us, even though we knew nothing about him.