These Girls (27 page)

Renee adored sleep. Even when she was at her most broke, she scoured the Internet for deals on high-thread-count sheets, and she added drops of lavender essential oil to the washing machine water when she laundered her bedding. She had three fluffy, soft pillows, and a down-filled comforter. Lying down on her bed felt like sinking into a cloud. She loved cocooning there on Sunday afternoons, with a romance novel and a cup of chamomile tea on her nightstand. If it was raining, that was even better, but Renee sometimes took to her bed on sunny weekend afternoons when everyone else was out jogging or tossing around Frisbees. It felt utterly decadent.

Now she’d discovered Eloise’s secret. The extra hours Renee had suddenly unlocked meant she got a good chunk of work done every morning even before heading into the office. She changed clothes three or four times, flat-ironed her hair, and
she still had time to walk to work! It was a miracle. She sensed that her body was growing tired, that a bone-deep weariness was forming beneath the surface, but Renee knew she only had to push through a little longer. By now she’d shed an entire size. She was becoming the person she’d always wanted to be—someone organized and energetic and disciplined.

This morning at 5:00, Renee’s eyes had flown open, as if an alarm had suddenly shrilled by her ear. For a moment, she felt nostalgic for the days when she’d lazily roll over in bed, pulling her covers up to her ears and curling into a ball. She used to love drifting in that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness, letting her mind wander through half dreams. But that urge had been erased completely; Renee couldn’t bear to stay in bed for another moment.

Now it was lunchtime, and she’d already whipped through more work than she usually accomplished in a full day. She’d even created a solid lineup memo for the “Getting Warmer” page. Every month, the magazine awarded mercury ratings to six products, fashion trends, and entertainment options, and Renee had to come up with candidates. Some were no-brainers—a still shot of a star from the month’s anticipated blockbuster movie, or a photo of Beyoncé gyrating onstage to pair with the release of her new album—but it took a bit of work to remember seeing, say, pictures of two actresses wearing long scarves with cut-off jean shorts so she could legitimately finger it as a trend. Nigel liked having fifteen candidates for the page so he could draw big, vaguely sadistic
X
s over his rejects. This month, Renee was offering him twenty-two.

She stood up and stretched, glancing out the window as she did so. It was a chilly, gray day, but she changed into the flat shoes she kept tucked under her desk and headed downstairs. Renee stepped through the glass doors and began walking around the block, checking her watch as she turned down
Fifty-Fourth Street and up Sixth Avenue. The air felt swollen with the threat of rain, but all Renee could think about was beating her record of fourteen laps in an hour. After years of forcing herself to exercise, she’d been transformed into the type of woman she used to envy; she was addicted to those walks. On rare days when she had a lunchtime meeting, she pushed a salad around her plate while her feet beat a quiet, frantic tattoo on the floor under the restaurant table, as if they were rehearsing for the moment when they could propel her forward again.

She wove through the crowds, faces blurring as they passed her. Thirteen laps down. Renee glanced at her watch and quickened her step. She had eight minutes left. She could do this! Her heart thudded against her rib cage, and her breath came in quick gasps. The wind picked up, and she ducked her head into it, pumping her arms for momentum.

The first raindrop splattered on her hair as she rounded the corner to start her fifteenth lap. By the time she’d taken a dozen steps, it was coming down steadily. All around her, people covered their heads with newspapers or popped open umbrellas. Renee bent her head lower and kept going. She couldn’t turn back now; she was so close. She churned her arms faster and gulped in air. As she passed a hot dog vendor, steam wafted toward her and she inhaled the smell of cooking meat. She thought of the hot dogs she used to love eating for lunch, the pink, rubbery meat covered with a thick layer of spicy mustard and relish, and she almost gagged. She pushed on. Her cheeks were slick with rain and her hair was getting ruined, but she focused only on the sweep of the second hand of her watch and the gray sidewalk before her.

Then the sidewalk rose up in front of her. She blinked a few times and realized she was lying down, her right arm bent awkwardly beneath her.

“Are you okay?” a woman asked, her voice seeming far away.
Renee could see shoes gathering around her—black heels and colorful sneakers and shiny wingtips.

A man squatted next to her. She felt his hand on her arm. “Do you have epilepsy? Or are you pregnant?”

Renee shook her head, then immediately regretted it. She began to push herself up, but her palms screamed a protest. She rolled over onto her back and came up to a seated position.

“Don’t try to stand yet,” the man said. “I saw you go down. I don’t think you hit your head, but you should still get checked out.” She blinked again, and his face came into focus: gray hair and a matching beard, dark-rimmed glasses. He was covering both of them with his red umbrella. The rest of the crowd was already moving on, sensing the crisis had passed.

“My purse,” Renee said, working the words around her tongue, which felt thick and uncooperative. Her bag had flown a few feet ahead of her, and the contents were spilled out onto the sidewalk.

“I’ll get it for you. I’ve got a daughter your age,” he said, as if she needed added incentive to trust him. Renee almost laughed—if he was a thief, he’d probably be sorely disappointed by the crumpled five-dollar bill and coupons in her wallet—but then pain hit her in a wave that pushed nausea up into her throat. Her knees were scraped, one of her ankles hurt, and all of her joints ached, as if she’d simultaneously sprawled across the sidewalk and across time, suddenly arriving at eighty years old.

The man tossed her things back into her purse: her sunglasses and wallet, tubes of makeup, a tampon in its unmistakable white plastic sleeve, and her bottles of pills. His hand hesitated, and she saw him bring a bottle closer to his face.

“Did you forget to take your medicine?” he asked, coming back over to help her stand. He held up the bottle and shook it. “Do you need one of these?”

“No, no,” Renee said. She felt unsteady and was grateful she’d changed into her flat shoes. “They’re just diet pills.”

He dropped the bottle back into her purse. “That’s probably what made you faint,” he said. “They’re like speed, you know.”

“I just tripped,” Renee lied. “Really. I’m fine.” She smiled brightly and took her purse back.

He shook his head and started to say something, then apparently thought better of it. Or maybe he just didn’t have the time to talk. He handed her the purse, and, a moment later, he and his bright umbrella had disappeared into the surging crowd heading across Fifty-Fourth Street.

Back at her desk, after she’d covered her knees with Band-Aids and repaired her makeup, Renee realized she hadn’t eaten since the previous afternoon. No wonder she’d fainted. She went to the cafeteria and stared at the hamburgers and slices of pizza warming under a hot light, but she couldn’t imagine eating anything that heavy. She finally ordered a bowl of chicken noodle soup and forced down every drop. She’d have to remind herself to eat from now on.

She rolled the incandescent thought around in her mind, savoring each word:
I’ll have to remind myself to eat.

As she headed back to her desk, Renee thought about all the time she’d wasted obsessing about food—it probably added up to actual months of her life—and the amount of loathing she’d heaped on herself for not being able to control her appetite. All those mornings kicked off by grim news from the scale, all those nights when she fell asleep beating herself up for that scoop of ice cream or big bowl of spaghetti. How different her life could have been. These skinny, happy pills were a miracle.

She sat down at her desk, wincing as she bent her skinned knees, and clicked her mouse. Her sleeping computer screen jolted to life. A dozen new messages had popped up, including one from Becca, with a link to a flight departing Kansas City in
another few weeks and flying directly into JFK. She was planning to arrive on a Thursday afternoon and stay until Sunday evening.

Does this sound good? Becca had written. If so, could you recommend a hotel?

Of course, Renee wrote back. She added links to a few mid-priced hotels, realizing that her share for three nights would run close to four hundred dollars. She imagined opening her front door to see Becca standing there, and thought about how they’d fill all those hours together. Would Becca want to explore the city on her own, or would she expect Renee to take off from work so they could be together the whole time? Renee had only a few vacation days left, and she needed them to go home for the holidays. Plus she was essentially doing two jobs now, with her social media campaign consuming more and more hours as she tried to blanket Twitter and Facebook and her blog. She’d have to figure something out—cut out early one day, or meet Becca for lunch. Maybe she could sneak Becca into a press conference. And she’d have to think of a list of cheap, fun activities for the weekend, like sightseeing and going to discounted off-Broadway shows, so they could stay busy in case their conversations remained as awkward as they had been on the phone.

Renee rubbed her temples against her thrumming headache and forced herself to turn back to work. She surfed through Facebook, scrolling down Jessica’s page and noticing that, so far, she had a hundred and twenty-six friends. Jessica had written a status update this morning asking people to name the one beauty product they always kept in their purse. She had just three comments, one of which read:
Vaseline, because it works really well for chapped lips. Does this help? Love, Auntie Rae.

Renee bit her lip to keep from smiling as she imagined Nigel’s face when he read it. Poor Jessica.

Something caught her eye toward the corner of the page. It was an advertisement with a compelling red-on-black headline in an elegant font:
Beauty Obsessed? Click here.

Renee obediently clicked and found herself on Diane’s Face-book page. She’d already collected six hundred and seventeen friends—nearly double Renee’s number.

Renee flopped back in her chair and stared at the screen. So Diane was taking out Facebook ads. She must be buying them herself. Renee knew that Diane’s Wall Street trader fiancé had just bought a two-bedroom apartment and Diane had moved in with him. So even though she and Diane earned the exact same salary, Diane had a lot more disposable income. Renee thought back to the press conference for the fingerprint eye shadow brush, remembering how she’d seen Diane standing outside, slipping on oversize designer sunglasses before hailing a cab to go back to
Gloss.
Renee had watched her climb into the yellow taxi, then she’d turned the other way and walked three blocks to the subway.

Renee couldn’t outspend Diane, or outsmart her. So she’d have to outwork her. Renee reached into her purse and swallowed a Tylenol, then another diet pill—not because she was hungry but because her brain needed a kick start. She had to come up with a fantastic blog post and a Facebook post that would conjure up a good discussion. Or maybe she should go on Facebook first and try to minimize Diane’s lead?

If only her head would stop pounding.

She thought about the mother she’d seen at the grocery store last weekend, who was trying to keep a struggling toddler seated in the cart while pulling her other young son away from sugary temptations. Every time the mother let go of the boy’s hand to load up her cart, he sprinted toward the candy displayed by the checkout aisle. When she ran after him, the
toddler tried to stand up in the cart. The mother finally got them both contained and reached for a box of rice, knocking a half dozen other boxes to the floor.

“Just stop it!” the mother finally yelled. She looked so overwhelmed. “Everybody
stop
!”

Renee knew exactly how she felt.

Twenty

ABBY’S CONSCIENCE KICKED IN
midway through her Thai chicken curry.

Pete was talking about the two of them taking a vacation to the Caribbean, painting a scene involving snorkeling and sandy beaches and piña coladas at sunset, while she nodded her head mechanically and barely spoke. She couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Joanna’s face as she’d stared at Bob and then Abby in turn. Joanna clearly suspected something. Maybe Abby subconsciously wanted this to happen; she was growing restless, and she hated having to hide her feelings for Bob. If he didn’t love Joanna, he needed to make a choice. Abby wouldn’t become one of those women who clung to a married man, coasting along for years on empty promises of a future together.

It was up to Abby to force the next step.

“So maybe in the spring,” Pete was saying. For him, it was as if their break hadn’t even existed. He didn’t seem to want to question Abby about why she’d asked for it, or why she’d suddenly asked to see him tonight. The sense of disconnection she’d experienced with him at the movies intensified. She felt so lonely.

“It’ll still be chilly here, and we’ll get a good deal because it won’t be as crowded,” Pete said. A dab of orange satay sauce stained his chin, and looking at it made Abby want to cry. He was a nice guy, and she’d treated him terribly.

“This was good.” He leaned back and patted his belly. “Weren’t you hungry? You barely touched your food.”

She burst into tears.

“Whoa, honey,” Pete said. He handed her his napkin and it was stained, too, and that made her cry even harder. “Are you okay?”

“I can’t do this,” she said, meaning all of it—going out with Pete, sneaking around with Bob, and enduring images of Bob and Joanna in bed.

“Abby, what do you mean?” Pete asked, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “We don’t have to go away on vacation if you don’t want to.”