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it. Under one arm, she carries an empty wicker basket.
    “Oh, my God!” She steps back, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide.
    “What? What is it?”
    “I don’t believe what I see.”
    Well, join the club, lady. That seems to be the way things go around here.
    But I just invite her in, dying to know more.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    As soon as she walks in, chaos breaks out. The iPhone starts beeping. Loud, heavy footsteps clomp outside the door, and suddenly there’s a big teenage boy in my doorway wearing earbuds and a look of sleep-deprived disgust on his face. From somewhere in the house, a woman calls, “Ayla! Trent! Breakfast!”
    The basket lady reaches up and yanks the headphone out of the boy’s ear and screams, “Can you believe she is awake and dressed!”
    She’s so loud, like he’s deaf or still has the bud in, that he steps back from the impact of her voice. Then he slides a look up and down me, shrugging.
    “Good thing. ’Cause I’m leaving in twenty minutes. If you don’t like it, walk your ass to school.”
    “There’s no bus?”
    He chokes a little, like he almost wants to laugh, then looks at the woman. “You’re right, Loras. Some alien came and took Ayla. Somebody with a sense of humor and the ability to tell time and get out of bed has arrived in her place.”
    For one insane moment, I cling to this alien theory. That’s one explanation, anyway.
    He sticks the earbud back in and disappears as the woman hustles by me into the room.
    “Is so nice to see you get up by yourself, Miss Ayla!” She stoops over to pick up some clothes and toss them into her basket.
    Do I usually need help getting up?
    “Here, I’ll get that,” I say. Even though
I
didn’t drop yet another Juicy T-shirt, it’s still kind of embarrassing to have my … Wait a second. Is this my dream mother, this Loras?
    She freezes in the act of cleaning, staring at the T-shirt I just picked up, her eyes widening. “Are you sick, Miss Ayla?” She reaches toward my forehead. “Fever?”
    “No,” I say, gently moving her hand. “I’m fine. I’m …”
Just new around here
. “Hungry.”
    “Go and eat, then. I get your room, Miss Ayla.”
    Ayla again. Like the
A
on the towel. And the name on the phone … Ayla Monroe. Props to the dream for a truly sick name, by the way.
    “Thank you,” I say, probably smiling like a fool. But who wouldn’t be happy when you look like a model and live like a queen? “Sorry for the mess,” I add as she bends over again.
    Once again, she gives me an incredulous look. Whereas my real mom would probably have dumped the basket, pointed to the piles of crap, and said, “Grounded for life.”
    But this Dream Mom—
    “Your mother is downstairs in the kitchen,” she says.
    So this is the help. Well, duh. Dream would never skimp on something like support staff, would she?
    “Oh, good. I’ll go see her.” Because I’m dying to meet the mom of my dreams.
    I start toward the door, and Loras stops me with a hand. “Miss Ayla?” She’s holding out the iPhone. “I’ve never seen you go anywhere without this.” She says “this” like “thees,” with a Spanish accent.
    I take the phone. “Thank you … Loras.”
    She beams at me, and I smile back. Awkward! On the way out, I glance at the phone.
    Message from Jade Sterling. I touch the phone and read: don’t 4get me! Trent said I could ride with u. am not going with bitch mom. cu.
    Meaningless. But somehow, I know where to go, moving slowly as I drink it all in. The size, the scope, the luxury, the bomb-diggity staircase that curves forever. I stand at the top and just stare down to the jaw-dropping entryway, a wall of glass looking out over water and blue skies.
    Wait, I’ve seen this staircase before. That view. That very statue in a fountain at the bottom of the stairs. In a movie? In a …
    Magazine
.
    Every nerve ending in my body tingles as I stand stonestill, gripping the smooth wood banister. I am living the flawless