“What?” Amara asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s quite generous.”

“Sorry, Thea?” Whitney asked as Thea continued to type away on her phone. “I hope you don’t mind me asking but, what are you . . . are you typing something about the TrueMommy?”

“Yeah, I know a few other mothers and moms-to-be,” Thea said. “I’m warning them too.”

“You don’t have to . . . ,” Whitney began helplessly as Thea pressed send.

“Women have to look out for one another,” Thea said. “Right?” Her phone began to buzz with responses, which she showed to Claire:

Weird! Never heard of it but thanks, I’ll keep an eye out.

Yeah, not surprised. Wellness stuff is generally a crock of shit.

Her phone buzzed a third time, and Thea rolled her eyes. “This is my wife’s sister, who lives in Hoboken. She’s a total nutter. Her greatest ambition was to be a trophy wife, and she got it. I have a hard time believing she and Amy come from the same gene pool. I suspect the milkman.” She laughed, but then bit her lip as she read the response, first to herself, next aloud to the other women:

“Uh don’t know where u heard that, but no scam. It’s totally amazing. Tell me these ladies are not the hottest healthiest mothers in all of New Jersey!!”

“Oh. Oh, no,” Whitney said, putting her head in her hands.

Thea held up the phone, showing them a picture of a bunch of blond women sitting on a rug, babies in front of them. Then she handed the phone to Claire. “Amy’s sister is the extremely tan one,” she said as the little ellipses that meant Amy’s sister was typing appeared at the bottom of the screen. With an electronic whoosh, the message came through as Amara, Whitney, and Claire looked down at the phone.

My playgroup!! Minus Tara, who took the picture. She’s got this thing about photos because her cousin’s baby’s picture was used on some child porn site, which is like OMG but also I’m not going to NOT take pictures of my baby, so can u not make me feel bad about it?

Claire, Amara, and Whitney looked up at one another, the realization hitting them all at the same time.

“Oh, my God,” Whitney said.

“Motherfucker,” Amara said.

Claire handed the phone back to Thea. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “but we have to go.”

Chapter 36

Gwen sat in a far-back corner of her walk-in closet, going over her plan for the next few weeks. Christopher had his own closet and never came this far into this little room of hers—she’d hung up a bulwark of old clothes from her parents that she couldn’t bear to get rid of, and the musty coats and bathrobes acted like a charm to ward him off, smelling as they did of her grief at losing her mother and father and her disappointment in him as a replacement. The one time he had barged in on her, she’d simply pulled her father’s old sports coat off a hanger and pretended to weep into it, and Christopher had backed out, telling her to take all the time she needed. So now it was a perfect place to store anything she didn’t want him to see. She took any extra TrueMommy shipments she had lying around, a leather-bound planner full of her records and notes, and cash that she hadn’t yet been able to deposit in her private bank account, and put them in old shoeboxes from Bloomingdale’s, then shoved them back onto a very high shelf when she wasn’t using them, just in case Rosie came in sometime to explore. The closet, which had been intended as a servants’ quarters back when the house was first constructed, was big enough for an armchair and bright with recessed lighting. She found it funny that her closet doubled as her office, an appropriate fit for the kind of double life she was leading.

She’d told Christopher that she needed to be alone and rest for a little while, and he—walking on eggshells around her and trying to be the perfect husband over the past couple of months in the hopes that she was fool enough to give him another chance—had promised to keep the girls occupied. As she made notes in her planner, the faint sounds of the rest of her family playing together rose from downstairs. Rosie let out a happy shriek as Christopher roared. Gwen could picture him chasing their laughing little girl around the room as Reagan watched and clapped her hands, babbling, “Dada,” her favorite word.

The girls would miss him. She intended to fight for near-full custody once she dropped the divorce bomb on him, and she thought she had a strong case. He had a pattern, after all, and if he couldn’t control himself around women and gambling, could he really be trusted to parent these girls as well as she could? He would feel terrible and self-loathing, and she would be just generous enough with her concessions that he’d be grateful and not fight her too hard or dig too deeply into finances. She’d let him visit, and the girls could go stay with him sometimes, but for the most part, they’d live at the Connecticut house with her. Sooner or later, she’d be able to find a new man to be a good father figure for them. She knew what to look for this time—a steady, unremarkable man with a well-paying job who felt grateful to have her. Someone who knew that she was supposed to be out of his league and would work every day to keep her and her girls happy.

She looked at the planner in front of her. She was getting so close now. She circled a date in October when she’d start to wind down the whole thing. She could start the new year fresh, with only a small, loyal group of customers. She smiled. A fresh start sounded wonderful.

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

Chapter 37

Whitney stood on the steps of Gwen’s brownstone behind Amara, Claire, and the rest of the hurriedly contacted playgroup women flanking them, all of them slightly out of breath, their children having been left with various husbands. Whitney trembled like she had a fever as Amara rang the doorbell. “I hope you know,” Amara said under her breath, “that if Gwen turns out to be a lying monster, that still doesn’t excuse you screwing her husband.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Whitney said.

Then Christopher answered the door, cradling Reagan in one arm. That charming smile she had loved so much beamed straight out at Amara and the mass of women. It faded as he saw Claire and then disappeared completely when he registered Whitney’s presence. She felt a stab of pain, like the plunge of a needle into unbroken skin, at the look of revulsion that passed over his face, and then a deeper, more abiding sadness at the death of an old Whitney—a Whitney who thought that the passion of a handsome, wealthy man could save her. That Whitney and her ignorance shriveled into dust as this Whitney looked straight ahead. She had more important things to worry about now. She felt capable of lifting a car with her bare hands. Of murder. Of anything.

“Is Gwen here?” Amara asked Christopher.

He nodded, confused. “She’s resting upstairs in the bedroom,” he said. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not sure if this is a good time. . . .”