Janey had worried more than once that CJ was going to make her boys manorexic with the way she wore her own body image on her sleeve, but Steven was good at keeping them grounded. No one liked meat and potatoes more than CJ’s husband. While he usually laughed with his wife about her various diets and elixirs, he wasn’t above laughing at her. The last time they threw a dinner party at their apartment, CJ insisted on the Paperless Post that everyone bring his or her own protein. Steven went out to the GNC around the corner and brought home the largest jug of Muscle Milk protein powder he could find, helpfully offering to mix it into everyone’s paleo casseroles.
Now it was CJ’s turn to roll her eyes. “It is too easy to feel like a bad mom on a daily basis. If I don’t fuck ’em up this way, I’ll find a whole new way to fuck ’em up tomorrow. I’ve been reading this new book by a French feminist that says American moms are way too clingy. She thinks we ought to ignore our kids more.”
Janey was startled by the beep of her phone. Since putting on her out-of-office message, her emails had slowly dwindled to a mere trickle as her contacts realized she was unavailable.
“Oooo,” she said out loud without realizing it.
“What?” CJ asked.
“Oh. Nothing. I mean. Well.” Janey was embarrassed. “I didn’t tell you about this shaman I met the other day, did I?” She knew full well that she had not told CJ anything about Stella or about The Workout.
“No. No, Janey Sweet. You did not tell me about the shaman you happened to meet the other day.” CJ became momentarily distracted by a small man riding one of those hoverboard scooters, the ones with two wheels that seemed to move of their own volition, past their table.
“Is that Justin Bieber?” she asked as two elephant-sized bodyguards rushed to keep pace with their charge.
Janey shrugged and laughed as she began to describe her chance meeting with Stella in the Wandering Juice, sharing matcha with her and then getting an invite to The Workout.
“It was so strange,” Janey said. “Stella, the shaman, brought me to a class with her, and the woman leading it, Sara Strong, she actually began crying. And I’m not talking about a couple of alligator tears. She wailed like a baby under serious duress.”
CJ looked cross. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you went to The Workout. With Sara Strong! Did you meet her?”
“I did. She seemed nice. I didn’t even think about it until right this second.”
“She seemed nice? Sara Strong is a fitness god. The Workout is like the most coveted workout in all of New York City. The coolest moms at school go. They all talk about it like they’ve just been invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. I can’t believe you and your new shaman didn’t bring me with you.”
“She’s not my shaman first of all, and it wasn’t my invite to give.”
CJ pouted and slurped a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth. “Tell me more about the shaman. Stella? Is she covered in bad Sanskrit tattoos?”
“No. At least not that I could see. I don’t know what to say about her. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s incredible. Humble and real. Nothing at all the way I pictured a guru-y person to be.”
“Isn’t that nice.” Janey could tell CJ was still miffed at not having gotten a Workout invite. To alleviate the tension, Janey began to read the email out loud to her friend.
“Maybe you could come to this with me? She’s inviting me to an achuma ceremony.”
“What’s that?” CJ asked, interest spreading across her broad face.
Janey shrugged. “This is what it says: ‘We use all the techniques I have absorbed through my world travels to rapidly dissolve stress and come to a place of sustainable inner zen. You will be introduced to something I believe is the great healer of the twenty-first century, the achuma cactus, a healing cactus that has been used by shamans for more than twenty thousand years.’ Wait a minute…have humans been able to do that for twenty thousand years? That seems like a stretch. Did humans speak twenty thousand years ago?” Janey was baffled by this description.
“Keep going,” CJ insisted.
“?‘The mescaline-based cactus assimilates into your system throughout a nightlong ceremony, which shall take place underneath the full moon. I am the intermediary between you and the cactus.’ So I guess it is like peyote?” Janey expected CJ to know more about this kind of thing.
“I don’t know. I’ve never actually tried peyote or ayahuasca. I wanted to when we were on our honeymoon in Tulum a thousand years ago but we couldn’t score any. Let’s go!”
“Can I get you ladies more coffee?” Janey looked up to see the same handsome waiter who recounted the life story of the turkey just a couple weeks back when she’d come to the Horse Feather with Beau.
“Two more lattes, please,” Janey replied.
“Wonderful.” He lowered his voice. “And I am so sorry I didn’t ask you this before. We were superbusy and crazy this morning, but what milk can I put in your latte? Do you want whole? No, of course not. Ick! Skim, soy, almond, coconut, or camel?”
“Excuse me? Camo?”
“No, camel milk. It’s so, so yummy yum. Completely lactose free, you know. Homogenized just like goat milk, but with like double the nutrients.”
And for fun, and because she knew she could, Janey smiled up at him.
“Where were these camels raised?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Staten Island. There’s a new hormone-free grass-fed camel range out in Richmond County.”
“Of course there is. I think I’ll have soy.”
“Is camel milk white?” CJ inquired.
“More taupe,” he explained with complete confidence.
“Okay, then I should probably stick with skim.”
“Of course. I’ll get those two lattes right away.”
Without knowing why, Janey craned her neck to look at the door. Then it made sense. She’d always been able to sense Beau’s presence when he walked into a room. There he was. She watched him as he removed his jacket, doing what he always did, dropping it three inches shy of the coat check desk so that the poor girl had to dive over the counter to catch it before it hit the floor. He did this to ensure all eyes would be on him as he walked to his (their) regular table in the corner.
Janey fidgeted nervously with her ponytail, finally pulling it out to let her hair cascade down her back.
Janey watched as a beautiful young woman joined Beau at the table and slithered like a malnourished python into the seat Janey often occupied. She squinted to focus harder as their waiter lingered next to the girl.
Was that their intern?
“Did you know he’d be here?” CJ asked.
“He’s always here. We are always here. Together. It’s not a big deal.” She didn’t want to admit she was eager to see him, to share space with him. That it made her stomach churn and delighted her at the same time.
CJ knew she was lying and ignored it, changed the subject to last night’s episode of The Bachelor.
A few minutes later, the waiter returned bearing their lattes and an absurdly small pitcher.
“I brought you some camel milk on the side so you can give it a sip. I think you’ll love it. They sell this in Whole Foods for eighteen dollars a bottle!”
Milk was milk and Janey was far from squeamish, but something about drinking anything from a camel made her queasier than Beau sitting just twenty feet away from them. Her foot began to tap involuntarily on the smooth wood floor beneath the table, her knee rattling the container of taupe liquid in front of her.
“Thanks so much,” she said with barely mustered enthusiasm.
“Want to hear a funny story?” the waiter asked.