Eleanor Chen arrived on a Thursday, unannounced and unapologetic.
I was in the kitchen, still in my pajamas—a sensible silk set that Mrs. Nguyen had approved of, not the unicorn ones that Sophie had given me—when the elevator doors slid open and a small woman in a massive fur coat stormed into my penthouse like she owned the place.
"Violet!" she announced, spotting me over the kitchen island. "You're alive. Good. I told the driver you would be. He wanted to charge extra for emotional uncertainty. I told him emotional uncertainty was his problem, not mine."
I stared at her. She was tiny—maybe five feet tall in heels—with silver hair swept into an elegant updo and eyes so sharp they could have cut glass. She was carrying a designer handbag in one hand and a Tupperware container in the other, and she looked at me like she had been waiting for me to introduce myself for approximately forty years.
"I'm sorry," I said carefully, "but I don't know who you are."
