Carrie keeps ordering in food, so the kitchen table is covered first with sandwiches, and then later in the day with sushi platters. She doesn’t take the time to make either spread aesthetically pleasing. I finally meet Cristof, who keeps making healthy meals for our family, though they go uneaten in the fridge, their little labels hanging off forlornly. He’s decidedly less French than I imagined—it turns out he’s from St. Louis, his name is really Christopher, and like everyone else in LA, he’s an aspiring actor. Clean cooking is his side hustle.

Paloma, my mom’s publicist, paces around the house—long, angry strides back and forth—with her AirPods in her ears, and she shouts nonsensical, highly detailed expletives at random. I have no idea who’s on the other end of her tirades, or why she thinks they have their heads so far up their own butts that they’re coming out their nostrils and could they listen for once in their tiny miserable insignificant little minuscule pissant lives. But apparently, these mystery callers are not cooperating.

I consider going to the backyard to get away from the madness but am stopped by the sign Paloma posted on the playroom doors. WARNING: STAY INSIDE! PAPARAZZI HAVE TELEPHOTOS/LADDERS.

“Here’s the list of lawyers,” Isla says, when she finds me hiding out in Dad’s office picking at a muffin. I’m tired of my room, which is covered in pictures of me and Shola, and more recently Levi, too, our smiling faces like an advertisement for my former life. “Trust me. Call them. I’d start with the first guy. I wanted to find you a woman, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Who’s going to pay?”

“You are.”

I laugh. I heard my dad tell my mom last night that the lawyers they hired are costing a thousand dollars an hour. Last I counted, there were at least six lawyers downstairs. “I’m serious. You’re going to pay out of your trust fund. It’s important this is separate from Mom and Dad.”

“I won’t have access to any of that money until I’m eighteen, and then only like a tiny portion of it.”

“Talk to the lawyer. He’ll help you figure it out.”

“Do you really think this is necessary?” I ask.

“Look around. What do you think?” Isla asks, and motions to the chaos beyond the office doors. The air is ripe with tension. I catch a glimpse of Paloma going by, and I wonder if she’s hiding a Fitbit clipped to her bra; maybe she’s trying to get her steps in. “By the way, don’t freak, but Hudson is coming over.”