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the notarized paperwork, Delfina and the Adells’ undocumented staff saw the federal logo on his sedan and skittered out the back door.
    Down the hill in the San Fernando Valley, the bankruptcy court whipped the Parkers’ house out from under them like a magician pulling a tablecloth off a fully set table. Abrakazam . It was gone. In a tornado of dust balls, Lee lost her bed and her bedroom and her piano. Everything she owned that couldn’t easily hide behind a couch was sold or given to Goodwill. Storage was too expensive. Lee lost college and the corner where Shelby had impatiently waited for her. She lost her dad, too. Gil Parker did something Lee didn’t think parents were allowed to do: he ran away from home.
    In the aftermath of both disasters, Valerie needed a job and a home; Esther needed a maid who could keep her mouth shut. A deal was struck. Val would help the Adells maintain the illusion that they were still rich. Be the help, actually. When the Adells had company, Valerie would wear a maid’s uniform and a lacy white cap straight out of the nineteenth century. She would serve cold salmon salads and hot tea. Plates from the left, beverages from the right. She was to be neither seen nor heard.
    â€œA teenager ?” Mrs. Adell’s face blanched when Valerie asked if Lee could live with her.
    â€œShe’s quiet and studious. It would only be for a little while. She has a job.” Unexpectedly, tears welled in Valerie’s eyes. It happened. Life’s battering had busted her ability to control her tear ducts. A few days before, she’d broken down at the sight of three bobbing balloons in front of a Verizon Wireless store.
    Mrs. Adell patted Valerie’s arm with her clawlike hand. Unable to conceive children, Esther Adell had always envisioned herself as the type of mother who would tear up at themere mention of her offspring. It was the sort of fantasy only childless women have. “She’ll be discreet?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    They made a deal. Valerie and Lee were forbidden to talk to anyone in the main house or tell anyone where they lived. It was a rider in their clandestine landlord-tenant contract, subject to immediate eviction with the first infraction. Their “address” was a post office box in the Valley. They parked their car in a vacant strip of dirt down the hill. Friends were not allowed to pick them up even near the Adells’ electrified gate, or visit them in the pool house, or—heavens, no—ease the Californian heat with a dip in the infinity pool just outside their wall of windows.
    Esther Adell held on to the ruse that she was still rich the way a hyena clamps its jaws on a fresh carcass. Nothing could persuade her to loosen her grip. Her luncheons were repetitions of the same dance: bejeweled, crinkled women buzzed about each other with stinging air kisses. “That hairstyle never gets old, dear.” Reeking of spray gel, they spumed their importance with chatter about giving back.
    â€œTo much is given, so much is expected.”
    All the while treating Valerie as if she had no ears and no feelings.
    â€œDear me, my coffee has spilled onto my saucer. It’s literally impossible to find good help.”
    Each morning when Lee awoke on the moldy sofa bed, she was again struck by the insane setup. The Adells lived in a designer home and pretended to be rich. Below them, the Parkers lived in a pool house and pretended to be homeless.
    Crazy.
    After her shift ended, Lee sat in her sauna of a car and prayed that it would start. She once read that it takes half a teaspoon of gas to ignite an engine and that’s about all she had in the tank.
    â€œC’mon, baby,” she whispered, feeling the floral stink of work bake onto her skin. “Just get me to the gas station across the street.”
    The key clicked to the right. The car started. Lee crumpled in relief. Pressing her foot to the gas pedal as lightly