And then Page confirms what Tom’s brother had hinted at, that Page had been the bright star in the family from the moment she was born, a happily planned birth. That as she grew up, she excelled at everything while Odilie disappeared into the shadows. “I think the final straw for Odilie was that I got into Schermerhorn Academy on scholarship. She left for the city shortly after I was accepted.” Page looks down at her drink, stirs it with a long piece of celery. “But I only lasted one semester there. I got kicked out for smoking weed and then I was shipped back to Wyneck so fucking embarrassed. Shortly afterward, my dad got a job in Michigan and moved us there. I think he was embarrassed, too. To have had this fledgling star of a daughter suddenly fuck up so royally. He never would have left his hometown otherwise.” She chomps on the celery, little thready pieces of it stuck between her teeth, as I try to figure out what any of this has to do with me, with Odilie’s imitation game.

“Back in Michigan, I still did well in school. I got a bunch of money to go to U of M. Right out of college I started working in real estate, like my dad, but in Bloomfield Hills. Luxury real estate. I was good at my job. I had spent my entire childhood in Wyneck on the periphery of the lives of people with second homes. Third homes. I wanted in on that life, but I knew I’d have to start thinking bigger to get there. So I came up with a business plan. What if all these multimillionaires with their ski houses and lake houses and ranch houses and beach houses and off-shore-account houses and investment-property houses, what if they were all part of an exclusive club that allowed them to use each other’s homes when they were vacant, which is most of the time? Kind of like an ultra-exclusive Airbnb.” Her eyes grow wide, a tiny smile edging at the corner of her lip. She is relishing telling me this, I realize. Pitching it to me like I’m some kind of backer.

“I broke my ass trying to get a meeting with this investor I knew, who’d had some success with a fitness app. He said to me, ‘This is a good concept, but if you’re selling a luxury product you want to look luxury, know how these people operate, and I’m not sure you can do that. If you can land a bigtime series A investor, maybe in New York or San Francisco, I would put money in the second round.’” She stirs her half-eaten celery in the drink absently as she continues her tale.