“Right.”
“But that’s the general idea.”
I conjured an image of Dr. Shaw in a ski mask freeing lab animals. “I like your mom.”
Noah smiled slightly. “Her primate freedom fighting days ended after she married my father. The in-laws didn’t approve,” he said with mock solemnity. “But she still gives money to those groups. When we moved here, she was all riled up about Lolita and she had a few fundraisers to try and raise enough money to get a bigger tank.”
“What happened?” I asked, as Noah took a long drag on his cigarette.
“The bastards kept raising their price with no guarantee that they’d actually build the thing,” Noah said, exhaling the smoke through his nose. “Anyway, because of my dad, she just gives money now, I think. I’ve seen the return envelopes in the outgoing mail.”
Noah took a sharp right, and I reflexively glanced out the window. I hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery—I was sitting inches away from Noah, after all—but now noticed that somewhere along the way, North Cuba had transformed into East Hampton. Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the enormous trees that lined both sides of the street, dappling our faces and hands through the glass of the windshield and sunroof. The houses here were experiments in excess; each one was more ostentatious and absurd than the next, and there was no uniform look to them whatsoever. The only thing the modern, glass house on one side of the street had in common with its opposite, a stately Victorian, was the scale. They were palaces.
“Noah?” I asked slowly.
“Yes?”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“And who is this friend?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Then, after a beat, “Don’t worry, you’ll like her.”
I looked down at the shredded knees of my jeans and my worn sneakers. “I feel ridiculously underdressed for a Sunday brunch scenario. Just saying.”
“She won’t care,” he said as he ran his fingers through his hair. “And you’re perfect.”
27
ROWS OF PALM TREES SPRUNG UP FROM THE sides of the narrow street, and the ocean peeked out from the spaces in between homes. When we drove to the end of the cul-de-sac, an enormous automated iron gate opened for us. A camera was perched at the entrance. The day was getting weirder.
“So … what does this friend do, exactly?”
“You could call her a lady of leisure.”
“Makes sense. You probably don’t have to work if you can afford to live here.”
“No, probably not.”
We passed an enormous, garish fountain in the center of the property; a muscled, barely clothed Greek man clasping the waist of a girl who reached into the sky. Her arms transformed into branches and spouted pale, golden water in the sunlight. Noah pulled all the way up to the front entrance, where a man in a suit was waiting.
“Good morning, Mr. Shaw,” the man said, as he nodded to Noah, and then moved toward the passenger side door to open it for me.
“Morning, Albert. I got it.”
Noah exited the car and opened the door for me. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he avoided my stare.
“You must be here often,” I said cautiously.
“Yes.”
Albert opened the front door for us and Noah breezed right in.
As extravagant as the landscaping, fountain, driveway, and gate were, nothing, nothing could have prepared me for the mansion’s interior. On either side of us, arches and columns towered into a double balcony. My Chucks squeaked on the flawless patterned marble floor, and there was another Greek-inspired fountain in the center of the inner courtyard, with three women carrying watering jugs. The sheer enormousness of the place was staggering.
“No one can possibly live here,” I said to myself.
Noah heard me. “Why’s that?”
“Because this is not a house. This is like … a set. For some mafia movie. Or a tacky wedding venue. Or … Annie.”
Noah tilted his head. “A scathing, yet accurate analysis. Alas, I am afraid people do actually live here.”
He sauntered carelessly to the end of the courtyard and turned left. I followed him, wide-eyed and wondrous, into an equally expansive hallway. I didn’t notice the small, black streak of fur hurtling in my direction until she was only a few feet away. Noah whisked the dog into the air just as it charged me.
“You little bitch,” Noah said to the snarling dog. “Behave.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Mara, meet Ruby.” The squirming mass of fat rolls and fur strained for my jugular, but Noah held her back. The pug’s smushed face only magnified the sounds of her fury. It was disturbing and hilarious at the same time.
“She’s … charming,” I said.
“Noah?” I turned around to see Noah’s mother standing about twenty feet behind us, barefooted and impeccably dressed in white linen. “I thought you were out for the day,” she said.
Out for the day?
“Like an idiot, I left the keys here.”