Amara stared at Claire for a moment as the elevator slowed, reaching its destination. “Fine,” Amara said, as the ding sounded and the doors opened on the penthouse floor.

Claire followed as Amara wheeled her stroller down the hallway to the line of all the other strollers. Those strollers all looked like cars at a luxury dealership, probably with the latest NASA technology installed. In comparison, Amara’s stroller looked like . . . well, a regular stroller. Yup, definitely money issues, Claire thought as she walked past Amara and knocked on Whitney’s door.

Whitney greeted Claire with her usual hug, then stepped back and gave her a searching look. “Is everything okay? Can I get you something? Water? Wine?”

“Oh, no, thank you. I’m all set,” Claire said, but Whitney raised an eyebrow.

“I hope you aren’t just saying that to be professional. I’m going to keep asking, every playgroup, until you let me shower you in refreshments.”

“Then I’ll take that wine today,” Claire said.

“Yes, Claire!” Whitney said, leading her into the living room and opening up a bottle of chardonnay. “Welcome to the party.”

“I wouldn’t put the oils on the baby’s skin,” Gwen was saying to Meredith, “if you haven’t talked to your doctor about it.”

“Claire,” Ellie called. “Come over here! We’re testing out essential oils that someone sent Whitney for free, because her Instagram is blowing up. She got like two thousand new followers this week!” Ellie squinted at the labels on the bottles in front of her. “Now, are you feeling anxious, tired, or nauseous?”

“Is there an option for all of the above?” Claire asked as she unzipped her guitar.

“Oh, no, what’s wrong?” Whitney asked, handing Claire a wineglass and furrowing her brow in concern.

“Nothing,” Claire said. “Just a bad audition.”

“Well, if they don’t take you, they’re missing out,” Whitney said.

“Hear, hear,” Meredith said, then scooted her baby close to Claire. “Lexington, go give Claire a cuddle.”

The little girl laid her head against Claire’s shoulder and then began thwacking at her guitar. Ellie scooted her baby, Mason, over too, and then Hope toddled over, joining in on the hugging/thwacking. Claire couldn’t help but laugh at the baby invasion. “Help!” she said. “I’m drowning in cuteness.”

“Claire, what’s your Instagram handle?” Whitney asked, typing something on her phone. She held up the screen in front of Claire, showing a photo she had just taken of the moment and posted on her feed. In the picture, Claire’s eyes were crinkled in happiness for the first time in a long time. “You look adorable.”

“Um, I actually got rid of my social media,” Claire said. One night a couple of months ago, she’d gone down a Vagabond rabbit hole and found herself researching how to make a troll account so that she could write mean, anonymous messages to Marlena. Catching herself, she’d decided then and there to delete all the apps. That way she could also avoid the occasional well-meaning messages from loyal fans who wanted to know what had happened to her and the less-well-meaning messages from people in her hometown telling her that in times of crisis, they turned to Jesus for comfort. “I just found myself wasting too much time on it.”

“That’s smart,” Gwen said, nodding.

“You’ve got better willpower than I have!” Whitney said.

“I’m making you a concoction of peppermint, lemongrass, and lavender,” Ellie announced. “It might taste weird, but it’ll be good for you.”

The mothers looked at Claire as if they had discovered the special secret of her worth, and sure, she thought the lives they led were ridiculous and she knew she was just their employee, but still. Claire was at the eye of a hurricane, a new peace and calm coming over her as the women whirled around, that terrible Rolling Stone cover blowing away in the wind. Not even Amara in the corner could ruin it. The mothers were mothering her, and she fucking loved it.

Chapter 5

When Whitney came back into the living room after waving goodbye to a slightly tipsy Claire, the other mothers were filling out their TrueMommy surveys for the next month’s batch of vitamins, deep in conversation about their husbands.

“That’s just what Christopher was saying the other night,” Gwen said.

“Ugh, can you please get him to convince John?” Ellie said, then let out a dramatic sigh. “It is a tragedy that we’ve never managed to get all the playgroup husbands in the same room.”

Meredith clapped her hands together. “We should plan a big group dinner for all of us! Right, Whitney?”

“That’s a nice idea,” Whitney said, refilling Ellie’s wineglass. “I could do some restaurant research.” She startled, as if remembering something. “Oh, Gwen, didn’t you say you had something to show us after music?”

It wasn’t the first time someone had brought up getting together with all the husbands. Each time it happened, Whitney would nod at the idea enthusiastically and volunteer to plan. But she would never look into restaurants. All of them together in the same room—it was the worst idea in the world.

* * *

—

Whitney shouldn’t have gotten so excited about her thirtieth birthday dinner, back in November. That was the problem: She’d set it up to fail from the start. In her expectation of the night, she and Grant had a meal full of sparkling conversation and long, loving looks, and at the end of it, he made a heartfelt speech about how lucky he was to have found her, and they went home and had amazing sex, and it was like the beginning of their relationship all over again.

In reality, they spent most of the meal discussing their upcoming Christmas vacation with Grant’s extended family, a conversation full of logistics and fraught, familiar arguments. They both drank more than usual, and then their taxi hit horrible traffic on the way home, so by the time Whitney came out of the bathroom in the scarlet slip Grant always liked so much, he had already fallen asleep.

Well, they’d have the rest of the weekend to make up for it. On Saturday morning, she woke to glorious sun, one of those crisp November days made all the more beautiful by the knowledge that winter could be descending at any moment. After attending to Hope, she crawled back into bed. “Sweetie,” she said, nuzzling against Grant’s shoulder. “Let’s go to the farmers market.”

He groaned, letting out a gust of morning breath, and pulled the pillow over his head. “It’s early.”

Whitney persisted. “It’ll be fun! We can get some fresh veggies and cook a nice dinner.”