“I’m sure they didn’t really hate her, she just meant they needed space from each other.”

“She had problems with them.”

“She didn’t like to talk about it, just said they were all religious and stuff. They sent her to Catholic schools, she kept running away, taking trains to Germany and France, going to clubs, meeting guys. She never went to college, like her sister did, and that made them mad. She just liked to ski and swim and travel on trains and hang out. When she told them she wanted to see Hollywood, they were happy to see her go, bought her a house. To her that meant Stay away as long as you want.”

“How’d she feel about that?”

“She laughed about it. That was Dahlia. She used to say maturity was highly overrated.”

“How long were you guys friends?”

“Half a year? Maybe a little longer? We actually didn’t hang out that much because I had to work. Sometimes Dahlia would call, mostly she’d wait until I called and if she was free, we’d hang out. She had platinum cards, was real generous, but I didn’t take advantage. Being with her gave me a chance to dress up. Be my best, you know?” Her eyes welled.

“What else did she tell you about her family?”

“That’s it.”

“Did she say what her father did to make all that money?”

“Oh, yeah. He owned a bank. It was like in the family for generations.”

“How many siblings did she have?”

“Just her sister, Dahlia was the younger one. She said her sister was the smart, serious one. Studied to be an architect, or something.”

“The two of them get along?”

“She never said they didn’t. She didn’t talk much about her sister.”

“So her parents bought her a house and she took that as their wanting her to stay away.”

“I used to say maybe you should call them, try to reconnect. ’Cause I did that with my father. He’s real old-school, wanted me to marry an Indonesian guy, stay at home and raise kids. When I got those commercials he refused to watch. But now we get along.”

“Did Dahlia take your advice?”

“If she did, she never said.”

“How’d she meet Prince Teddy?”

“At first she didn’t know he was a prince.”

“She found out after they’d been dating.”

“Uh-huh. Guess she liked him for himself.”

“How they meet?”