“I’m pretty sure this works so well because I know how to make you money, Beau,” she growled. “What do you want me to do? Go on a diet? Are you seriously telling me to go on a diet?”
“Janey, you aren’t hearing me! We cannot work together anymore right now.” Janey looked down at her empty plate and then back up at Beau. Something had changed. She didn’t know what. This was no longer a simple breakfast. This would mark a turning point in their thirty-year friendship and their business partnership. She began thinking of all the times Beau had failed to show up at company functions, bailed on important meetings, forgot the date of their own fashion shows. She was not the problem with this company. Her chest tightened. Her cheeks burned. She was angry, and she never got angry with Beau. Not when he borrowed money and never paid her back. Not when he canceled plans at the very last minute or just didn’t show up without an explanation. She let him get away with murder because she loved him like a ridiculous younger sibling or an eccentric guileful pet, and because she’d given him the better part of the last two decades of her life. She spent more time with him than she spent with her parents or with her almost ex-husband. That was part of the reason Michael was out of the picture, for good. He’d been sick of playing second fiddle to Beau all the time, and she didn’t have enough energy for both of them. Along with her anger would come tears. But she wouldn’t let Beau see them. Janey bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.
“Are you on drugs again? Are you actually high right now? I thought you stopped taking pills on weekdays.”
“We need a break. We need some time off. I need you to get your priorities straight.” Beau carefully poured half a saltshaker over the remaining items on his plate and placed a napkin over the mess, pushing it away from himself.
“My priorities?”
“Yes. Who do you want to be, Janey Sweet? Who are you on the inside?”
She bit down harder. “I’m the same Janey who turned you into a multimillion-dollar brand. I’m the one who makes you look incredibly good on a very regular basis.”
Their waiter couldn’t have known he was choosing such an inopportune moment to return with an enormously pleased smile on his face.
“The turkey was raised on a rooftop farm in Brooklyn, the Gowanus neighborhood, fifth floor with a view of the Statue of Liberty.” He allowed his gaze to linger on Beau before looking down at his handwritten notes. “She was humanely slaughtered by a farmer named Kristen on September first. We have a live feed of the turkeys available on our website if you’d like to check it out later.” Janey could see a flirtation brewing between the two handsome men. She was momentarily distracted from her own situation by the revulsion at the thought of a herd of turkeys (were a group of turkeys called a herd?) being live-streamed from a roof in gentrified Brooklyn, coddled by hipster farmers who believed a view of the Statue of Liberty was a turkey’s life goal.
“I’ll definitely take a look tonight,” Beau said with an odd affectation. “Bookmarking now!”
“I can tell you where your potatoes came from too,” the waiter offered. “We know so much about the dirt!”
“Please!” Beau said. “You know I only eat food that comes from the earth. And I love dirt.”
“Oh shut up,” Janey interjected. “What do you want, Beau? What exactly do you want me to do? How can we end this ridiculous conversation right now?” Janey massaged her temples, her fingers warm and soothing from clutching her coffee cup.
“Janey, darling, I want you to stop stuffing your pretty little face. I get it. This year has been terrible. Your parents. The divorce. But is that really an excuse to become an addict?” he said in an exaggerated whisper.
Janey had quit smoking and drinking more than three cocktails in a single evening in her early thirties. She could count on one hand the times she’d indulged in anything more mind-altering than a Red Bull, while Beau had experimented with every pill and powder he could get his hands on.
“An addict?”
“Sugar, Janey. You’re a sugar addict.”
“Okay, so I’ll go on a diet.” Agreeing with Beau was always easier than fighting with him. He’d be off on some new tangent by the end of the day.
“That’s a start. But I don’t think it’s enough. Take some time off. Why don’t you take three months and get into shape before the start of next season? We’ll call it a hiatus.” He switched to a whimsical tone. “Don’t you love the word ‘hiatus’? It’s so much fun to say. It sounds like a holiday. Hiiiiiiiii-ay-tooooos.”
Janey cracked a false smile to cloak her growing insecurity with the situation and spoke slowly through gritted teeth. “You can’t ask me to do that. I own half this company. Stop behaving like a child. We have a busy week.”
“Forty-nine percent. Not half,” Beau shot back. “Besides, it’s in your contract.” Beau wouldn’t meet her eyes.
It infuriated Janey when Beau went from irrational to logical. “What’s in my contract?”
“That you stay the size of a fit model. In the contract we made when we first started working together. When you were my fit model. Way back. When you were still yummy. Yummy with no tummy,” he added with an exasperating wink, unaware of how hurtful he was being.
“I was twenty-four. Things have changed since then, Beau. I haven’t been your actual fit model for more than a decade.” Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the terms of that long-ago contract in her head. He wasn’t wrong; she had promised to be something ridiculous, like a size 4, but it was a document written in their twenties over three bottles of champagne in someone’s sister’s cousin’s beach house in Sag Harbor. Their twenty-something selves did a lot of questionable things. She’d also added a clause to his contract back then that he needed to stay away from the underage party boys and keep out of rehab, and one that they would always live within three blocks of each other, have a baby together if they were both single at age thirty-five, and that they would sell the business at forty and retire to an island off the coast of Madagascar.
She needed to get out of here. She reached down to grab her purse from beneath the table, taking the opportunity to swipe away a tear. “Beau, just tell me what you want.” Janey stood.
“You’re out until you drop thirty.”
CHAPTER TWO
WOMEN’S HEALTH
By Electra Ellis
Forget the coconut water and kombucha. This spring is all about H2BROC! We’re talking about the all new broccoli-infused water available exclusively at Complete Foods. The brainchild of supermodel India Ellsworthy and her entrepreneur husband, Alex Goldblatt, H2BROC provides all the nutrients you need for a meal in a single drink.