She had heard through the grapevine—aka Anna, who’d checked in with Keith—that Teddy was seeing someone, a sommelier in her twenties who worked at a restaurant they used to frequent together. Jane felt ambivalent about this information. On the one hand, she realized it could let her off the hook and she need not feel guilty about their breakup. On the other hand, she felt inordinately jealous. And also, wine was one of her enthusiasms, something she had shared with Teddy.
Anna had even suggested she and Jane go to dinner where the Gen Z sommelier worked so they could check her out, but Jane saw no upside—it would only incite her insecurities. In any case, at long last Jane was seeing Teddy tonight, so if she really wanted to know, she could simply ask him about his new squeeze. Teddy was guileless and would tell her whatever she wanted to know. There was something so sweet about that.
It was hard to say how the dinner had come to be. Maybe Jane had instigated it when she texted him, casually mentioning that she was craving rib eye. She had a favorite recipe that he loved. His eagerness to set a date made her suspect he wanted to see her, too. It had been almost a month, and the holidays were bearing down on them.
Jane was working solo today, a fairly small job for a teenage influencer named Chloe Bentley. Her Instagram feed (over one million followers) showcased Chloe with her girlfriends, all radiating sunshine, aglow in shades of pink, smiles lit by blindingly white teeth—their insouciant playfulness meticulously choreographed. The images were accompanied by banal aphorisms and hashtags: #girlpower, #authenticselves, #friendsforever, #believeallwomen. It was especially irksome that she’d appropriated #believeallwomen, since there was nothing at all believable about the Instagram account. Chloe wanted her followers to feel welcomed into her fun fun fun life, inviting a kind of intimacy that was entirely illusory, not to mention monetized by paid promotions.
Jane took a few deep breaths. She was going to set aside her judgments and look for a way to open her heart to this glossy ghoul.
Chloe’s mother answered the door. She had LA blond hair, shoulder-length and pin-straight, a look achieved by regular visits to blowout salons where any signs of a wave or curl would be banished. Her trim and toned physique was more than likely the result of adhering to a punishing regimen of hot yoga, Cardio Barre, and, yes, SoulCycle.
“Hello, Jane! I’m Lisa. Come on in.” She had a surprisingly warm, engaging smile. “Chloe needs a minute—she got a little self-conscious and wanted to preclean before she let you in her bedroom. Which is cute, right? Why don’t I show you around the house? Maybe you’ll spot something else that needs some help.”
The ground level of the house looked as if it had been staged by a designer with a modicum of taste in tandem with an art consultant with no taste whatsoever. It was trying to be grand and homey at the same time. There were lots of highly polished surfaces bearing only vases of fresh cut flowers. Family photos, professionally taken, were carefully displayed in polished silver frames on a Steinway that seemed sullen from neglect.
The only surprise was the butler’s pantry, where shelves were filled with rows and rows of colorful Pez dispensers, hundreds of plastic stalks precisely lined up, each bearing the head of a pop culture stalwart—Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter, Darth Vader.
“This is my one weird fetish. I loved them when I was little, so when I sort of grew up, I went a little overboard. In my defense, they are a lot less expensive than Fabergé eggs.”
Lisa was disarmingly self-aware.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, handing Jane a LaCroix sparkling water. “Chloe’s whole influencer situation really caught me off guard. It’s blown up into this huge business, and there’s so much stuff!”
“Yeah, it’s unbelievable how quickly things can blow up these days.”
“Right? I never would have imagined someone would offer Chloe thirty grand to plug a product. And she gets sent product all the time.”
Jane winced on hearing the dollar amount—thirty grand being offered to a teenage girl to post a photo and a hashtag!
“Wow, good for her.” She forced a smile.
“Yeah, and don’t I look like a fool? Working like a madwoman all these years, and now my teenage daughter practically outearns me.”
Jane was vaguely aware of Lisa’s career—something to do with consulting.
“Well, money isn’t the only metric for success, right?” Jane hoped she didn’t sound too pointed.
Lisa laughed, a strained laugh with a note of defensiveness.
“Do you mind if I let the dogs in?”
“Not one bit. I love dogs.”
Lisa opened the door and two little cotton balls, panting and squealing, scurried in.
“This is Hansel and Gretel.”
Jane crouched down. Their little black button eyes, like doll eyes, were devoid of intelligence or life. The static blankness was creepy.
“They are adorable! Where did you get them?”
Jane was a big believer in dog rescue. Why pay a lot of moneyfor a designer dog when there were so many others abandoned in shelters? She was going to rescue one of them. Some day.
“Well, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but—I had them cloned from my dog Bridget, who I loved so much, and when I knew she was dying, well... I couldn’t help myself.”
Jane, who’d thought she was no longer capable of shock, was flabbergasted.
“Yeah, I felt so guilty, I donated twice the amount I paid for cloning to an animal rescue.”
