Still unmoving, Claire pulled out her phone, making the tourists on the street duck around her for once. She scrolled through Whitney’s Instagram, hunting for something she vaguely remembered, past the mommy-daughter smoothies, past a new photo of them all on the retreat, beaming. Yes, there it was, a month or so back, that “DIY Massage” photo with Hope, its caption also claiming Whitney hadn’t gotten a massage in ages. Whitney’s Momstagram wasn’t gospel—it was possible that she casually misled strangers on the Internet to make her own life seem more interesting. But why would she need to lie to Claire about something so small, unless it was to cover up something much bigger?

Whitney had been so fucking adamant that they needed to forget TrueMommy, to not dig any deeper into it. And Amara had said that she was the one who brought the vitamins into the group in the first place and that she was generally the point of contact, the person who handed the vitamins out in those ridiculous goody bags. While she was handing the women their pills, was she handing TrueMommy something right back? Maybe they sent traffic to her social media, gave her kickbacks of some kind, in exchange for information.

It was a stretch, for sure. And what was she going to do, go stalk Whitney because of some half-formed hunch? Claire had promised Amara to leave it all alone, and she wanted to keep that promise. Then she remembered Amara’s face the other day when they were talking about Vicki, how Amara’s concentration melted into exhaustion when she decided she was only being paranoid. How satisfying it would be to show Amara some proof that her instincts had been right and that she didn’t have to hide something her whole life. Because Amara wasn’t a hider. Amara was a shining fucking diamond, and keeping terrible secrets would only diminish her.

A shoulder angel and a shoulder devil screamed opposing directives into Claire’s ears, but they had somehow switched body parts and pieces of clothing so they were all jumbled up—one with devil horns and angel wings, another with a harp and a forked tail—and she couldn’t tell which one was saying what. All she felt in her gut was that Whitney desperately needed a babysitter—not for a massage but for some other reason she didn’t want Claire to know.

Half a block away from the clothing store, she texted her boss there that she’d thrown up on the subway and needed to go lie down. Then she turned around and headed toward the Upper East Side.

Chapter 28

When Whitney knocked on the hotel room door, Christopher opened it with that foxlike grin of his. “Get in here now,” he said. Then he registered the stroller by her side, and the grin slipped.

“Surprise!” Whitney said, her heart pounding. “I couldn’t find another babysitter, and I was already all set to come, so . . . say hi to Hope!”

Christopher stared at Whitney for a moment, then crouched down by the stroller and dangled his hand in front of her baby. “Hello, Hope. Pleasure to see you again.” Hope reached out and grabbed on to one of Christopher’s fingers, her face opening in baby joy, and he smiled back at her. “You’ve got a grip of steel! Are you a superhero in disguise?”

Whitney exhaled. Already, Christopher acted so naturally with Hope. The perfect dad, ready with a joke or a bedtime story. “More like a super monster,” Whitney said, wheeling the stroller forward into the hotel room as Christopher stepped aside. “Wait till you see her walk around.” She unbuckled Hope and lifted her out of the stroller, placing her on the room’s soft, fibrous rug. “She’s like a drunk Godzilla!” She turned to Christopher as he came up behind her, and stroked his stubbly cheek. “Hey, you,” she said, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him, thrilling at the warmth of his mouth. She traced his throat with her finger. “Thanks for being understanding about this.”

Hope started toddling toward the Ethernet cable, and Whitney crouched down to the floor, pulling her wriggly baby into her arms. “No way, rug rat!” she said, then looked at Christopher, who was still hanging back. “Come closer,” she said, tugging him down next to her. “She may be a super monster, but she doesn’t bite. At least not yet. I’m hopeful we’ll skip that phase altogether.” Hope crawled between the two of them and stopped at Christopher, bracing herself on his lap, rising up to stare at him with preternatural concentration. He waved at her again, and Hope’s face opened in that contagious, wide-open smile Whitney loved so much. What a special child she had. In a way, it was exciting that Christopher got to spend that time with her. Her body started to unclench as the big red countdown clock in her mind flashed 00:00. She rested her head on Christopher’s shoulder, running her fingers up and down his leg, and watched her baby laugh. For the first time since Amara’s emergency text, she allowed herself to believe that, somehow, everything was going to be okay. This hour would cleanse her. She’d show up for the photo shoot tomorrow restored. And after that, she’d just take it day by day.

“Whitney,” Christopher said, stroking her hair.

“Mmm?” she answered, turning her face up to his.

“I think I should go.”

Whitney experienced a sudden rush of empathy for Wile E. Coyote, for that horrible, inevitable moment seconds after chasing the Road Runner off a cliff, when he looked down and realized he was running in midair. She’d done a reckless thing, and now she’d have to pedal her feet desperately not to break open against the ground. She gave a little tinkle of a laugh, her mouth gone desert dry.

“Oh, no!” she said, widening her eyes in feigned innocence. “Because of Hope? I know it’s not exactly the usual Wednesday, but we can still have a nice time.”

“Hope’s great,” he said. “Extremely cute baby. But when we’re together, I want you all to myself.” He gave her his sexiest crooked smile. “No distractions.”

“Believe me, I don’t want any distractions either,” she said, kissing his ear lightly. “But you know how it is with children. My babysitter canceled, and I wanted to see you. This was the only way I could make that work.”

“I get it. I do,” he said. “But it might be better for all involved if we call this one a loss and wait until next week.”

Maybe if she’d been feeling more like her normal self, she wouldn’t have needed to be with him so desperately. Maybe she could have made a little joke and left right then and there. She could have hired a more reliable babysitter for the next week, and who knows how their story would have turned out? But she wasn’t feeling like her normal self at all. “We’re already here, though,” she said. “And I hang out with Reagan all the time.”

“Don’t say— That’s different. You know that’s different.”

“I don’t understand why you’re being so weird about this,” she said. “You said you really wanted to see me.”

“I did. I do.”