“Well, I had a lot of fun with you all,” she said. “Thanks for having me! I’d love to come back. Before I go, could I use your bathroom?”
Whitney pointed her down the hallway, instructing her to use the second door on the right. The hall was lined with glossy family photos of Whitney, Hope, and Whitney’s husband, who, to Claire’s total lack of surprise, resembled a Ken doll come to life. God, even Whitney’s hallway was gorgeous—clean and white, woven rugs placed at appropriate intervals on the hardwood floor. Not a single square inch had been neglected. A flawless apartment for a flawless family.
She walked toward the second door on the right, silently running through possible conversation starters with Amara in her head, imagining a witty exchange in the hall leading to a fast-blossoming mentorship, leading to a few choice introductions to the tastemakers of late night, leading to a thriving music career, leading to all the members of Vagabond (washed-up, Marcus’s lustrous hair starting to thin) watching her on TV and ruing the day they’d kicked her out.
But the second door on the right was open, and no one was inside. Claire looked into the bathroom (gleaming, marble) in confusion for a moment. Then she heard a low, muffled sound coming from the slightly ajar door to her left.
(Curiosity killed the cat, her mother used to say when a young Claire asked questions about the Sunday School teachings that didn’t make sense to her. Her father had burned her dog-eared copy of Harriet the Spy in their fireplace one night, saying the heroine wasn’t a good role model.)
Claire turned toward the door on the left and peered in. It was a small light gray room that had maybe been a pantry or a storage closet in another life; it was now outfitted with a desk, some shelves holding wicker baskets with looping cursive labels on them, and more succulents in one place than Claire had ever seen outside of a plant store. Whitney didn’t seem to have a job, but apparently she was so rich that she could have a home office anyway, probably for keeping track of her social calendar or for crafting.
And now Amara stood at Whitney’s desk, her arm stretched into a drawer and biting her lower lip so hard it had turned milk white, breathing quickly through her nose and rooting through the drawer’s contents in a sort of frenzy. All her cool, wry self-possession was gone, replaced by guilty desperation.
Well, Claire thought, overcome by an all-out-of-proportion unease: She’d found the Winona Ryder of the group. She stepped back silently, ready to get the hell out of there and pretend she’d never witnessed . . . whatever that unsettling thing was, and promptly hit the door handle with her elbow like a fucking moron. At the unexpected noise, Amara whipped her head up and froze, her eyes locking onto Claire’s. They stared at each other for a moment, neither of them moving. Then Amara’s nostrils flared.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, her voice like an arrow.
“I’m so sorry,” Claire said. She slammed the door shut and ran back into the living room, where Whitney stood in the center of the circle of mothers, all nodding their heads.
“Back so soon!” Whitney said.
“Yeah, I just wanted to wash my hands,” Claire said.
“Oh, and she’s hygienic,” Gwen said. “That’s important!”
Whitney smiled at Claire. “We talked it over, and we would love for you to be our new playgroup musician. Tuesdays and Thursdays, sing to our babies, bring us tidings of the outside world. What do you say?”
“Yeah, great. For sure,” Claire said as Amara reappeared in the doorway of the living room, frowning.
Whitney gave Claire a hug. “Wonderful!” she said.
“Next time, you should bring egg shakers and bubbles,” Gwen said. “The babies love those.”
Claire went to put her guitar back in its case while the rest of the women resumed an intense conversation about pacifiers and when babies needed to stop using them. As Claire zipped up her case, Amara paused next to her. “Whitney was out of soap in the bathroom,” she said in a low voice. “I was looking for more.”
“Okay,” Claire replied. Amara gave her a look of pure venom.
In the foyer, as Claire put her shoes back on, Whitney pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of her wallet, plus a fifty. “For today,” she said.
Claire hadn’t ever held a hundred-dollar bill before. Ben Franklin, that rascal, stared up at her. The idea of carrying it around made her nervous, like she should stuff it into her bra or something to keep it extra-safe.
Whitney pursed her lips and then rifled through her wallet again, pushing aside more hundreds before pulling out another twenty. “And here,” she said. “A little tip, for your first time. Go get yourself some really good ice cream, or something like that, on me.”
It was very kind, Claire thought, and also completely out of touch, like when billionaire presidential candidates are stumped when asked to give the price of milk. Claire bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. “That’s really nice of you. Thanks,” she said.
“Oh, please. My pleasure,” Whitney said, smiling that warm, effervescent smile of hers, the smile of a movie star or of a Pastor Brian. “Can’t wait to see you Thursday!”
Chapter 2
Amara spent the last hour of playgroup feeling pure, full-throated rage. Rage at Charlie, who was crying again like he was getting paid by the wail. Rage at freaking Baby Reagan, who, at a good three months younger than Charlie, was the only other baby who had yet to pull up to standing, but whose wide little eyes seemed to be telling Amara, Any day now, bitch, I’m making moves. (Amara used to fantasize about winning an Emmy. Now she fantasized about Charlie beating Reagan to the punch.) Rage at Claire the Playgroup Musician, who had seemed so interesting at first and whom Amara now wanted nowhere near them, ever again.
And rage at herself, for what she’d been doing in Whitney’s desk. When had she become such a shitty, unrecognizable person?
Amara pulled Charlie onto her lap and tried to bounce him into silence, as all the women assembled on the couch and chairs for their next activity. Oh, she was rage-filled about that too—playgroup was supposed to be a time for a bunch of shell-shocked mothers to come together and complain about how they were too tired to screw their husbands. But ever since Whitney’s Mom Instagram had started gaining traction, Whitney had begun acting like an Activities Director on a Disney cruise. Some theater had offered Whitney free tickets to a puppet show? Of course they’d bundled their babies up and trekked down to midtown. Some fitness instructor wanted them to try a stroller exercise class in Central Park? They were ready to sweat their little butts off! A discounted trial month of all-natural wellness vitamins specially curated for new mothers? Bring them on!
And now they had to sit and listen to a representative from the supplement company do the hard sell. “So,” Dr. Clark said, folding one leg over the other and leaning forward in Whitney’s armchair. “How did you all like your trial month of TrueMommy?” Dr. Clark was MIT educated and polished—the kind of woman who looked like she ate scientific journals for breakfast and then worked out for two hours afterward to burn off all the calories. She was a mother too, she told them, so she knew firsthand the way that pregnancy could ravage your body, depleting your essential vitamins and minerals so that it felt like you’d never fully get back on your feet. That was why she’d been so enthusiastic about joining the TrueMommy team. The supplements had been a godsend when she was recovering from her own second pregnancy, allowing her to reclaim her power as a woman, as a mother.