Kathy had no idea what the shaman did or said to Sara, but she did spark a complete reinvention. Soon Sara was going to the gym every day and eating nothing but lettuce. Her interest in her daughter waned and she began leaving the little girl with Kathy for longer and longer stretches, until finally she left her there for good, promising to come back and get her when she could support the two of them. That had been three years ago.
Sara used her own reinvention story (minus the bit about being an absentee mother) to inject herself into the fast-growing health and wellness world, met Kate Wells, and then developed The Workout. That’s where the trail grew cold. Once Sara got famous, no one she associated with would talk about her any longer, especially not Kate Wells. And now Ivy was in St. Lucia, just a few hundred yards away from Sara Strong’s famous Workout retreat, hoping to piece together the rest of the story.
Ivy had procured a brown bob wig with blunt bangs that made her look like a Caucasian Rihanna. She texted Kelli a picture, to which her girlfriend replied with a series of sexy emojis. She was the cutest.
A little after seven, Ivy donned the wig and the white maid’s uniform the Vanderses required for their staff, like it was still the 1800s or something. All Ivy had to do was avoid Janey, or at least avoid letting Janey see her face. She’d applied a heavy layer of foundation, blush, mascara, and bright red lipstick until she hardly recognized herself when she looked in the mirror. They drove in Carlo’s ratty old Buick, which desperately needed new shocks. Every time they hit one of the many, many bumps in the road, Ivy felt like she’d been kicked in the ass.
In addition to the wig, she’d purchased two wireless pinhole cameras. One of them would stay with her, and she paid Carlo three hundred dollars to place the other one inside wherever the workout part of The Workout retreat was taking place. She promised to give him another three hundred dollars if he got any footage. She really was Jane fucking Bond.
Even in the staff areas the Vanders property smelled grand, like rich people, the kind of smell regular people attempted by buying thirty-dollar scented candles. It was a combination of cleaning products without chemicals, fresh linen, and maybe lavender oil. Ivy could smell the odors of the chicken coop clinging to her wig and body.
Carlo strode with purpose and Ivy followed. He grabbed her hand to lead her down the long hallway. Oh no. He didn’t think she was interested in him, did he? He was a ridiculous hunk of a thing. She let him hold her hand because it was easier than bumping into walls.
Ivy could hear the party well before they reached it.
“We’re at the wrong place,” she insisted. This was a health and wellness retreat of middle-aged women, not a bachelorette party. As they got closer Ivy recognized the deep bass beats of Jay Z’s Black Album. She adjusted her wig, and Carlo handed her a tray of small glasses. Wait a second. Were these shot glasses? He plunked a bottle of mescal next to them.
“They seem to think mescal is healthier than tequila. Silly white bitches don’t know they come from the same damn plant.”
He gave her a familiar tap on her backside and pushed her toward the sitting room.
Once through the enormous French doors, Ivy had to struggle to keep a straight face. There were twelve women in the room. All of them looked like they could be clients of SoarBarre: well manicured, tight bodies, perfect hair, definitely wealthy. Most of them were over forty. All of them dancing, now to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” the way wealthy women dance at weddings, imitating moves they’d seen performed by strippers in movies—kicking their legs into the air and jiggling their butts down to the floor, whipping their hair around their heads as they pursed their chemically enhanced lips.
They were joined by five hot men, locals probably, all of them shirtless and young. Each of them had an old lady hanging off him, grinding up on him, their pasty white bodies a stark contrast to the dark smooth ones.
It took them a minute to notice Ivy, but when they did they squealed.
“SHOTS!”
“YEEEEE!”
“Bring them here!”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Me first,” yelled a brassy blonde wearing a tank top that read DROP AND GIVE ME ZEN. She snatched an empty glass and the bottle, pouring herself one and raising the glass in the air.
“To us!”
Drop and Give Me Zen poured shots for all the women crowded around Ivy. They each slugged one back and waited eagerly for a refill.
Before she knew it the bottle was empty and the women had dispersed back to the dance floor. Ivy turned to walk back to the kitchen and fumbled in her pocket for the camera. Her heart pounded against her push-up bra and cheap uniform as she tried to feel for the tiny switch that would turn it on. Ally and Lemon would appreciate some photos and videos that proved this retreat wasn’t all about wellness and fitness. That would definitely undermine everything The Workout was supposed to represent. Finally, she found the switch and flicked it into recording mode. How could she film the women without them noticing? She turned to look at them. Drop and Give Me Zen was on the back of one of the men, hollering for him to take her down to the beach. The rest of them were replaying a scene from Dirty Dancing.
Fuck it. They think I’m a servant. I’m invisible, Ivy thought. She nestled the camera into her right fist so that the lens poked out between her fingers. She just held her hand at her side as she stood there filming for another forty-five seconds. She was right. No one noticed her except to yell.
“Hey girl, more mescal!” Ivy turned and nodded, which was when she finally noticed her cousin. Was Janey passed out in the corner?
No one puts Janey in the corner.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Before she even opened her eyes, Janey knew that there was a needle inserted into the vein on the inside of her right elbow.
She felt the distinct effects of a hangover—nausea, muscle ache, the kind of headache where your brain felt as though it had separated from the interior of your skull in the middle of the night and was now floating, unprotected and untethered.
But she hadn’t had a thing to drink.
Yesterday had been yet another epically long day. She’d felt supercharged with energy at the start of it, able to carry thirty-pound sandbags up and down the beach in a series of boot-camp drills that reminded her of that Tamil Tiger Terror class in Brooklyn. Months ago she wouldn’t have been able to lift one of those over her head once, much less twenty times. She’d even managed to choke down her bowl of lunchtime clay before heading out for Stella’s paddle-boarding excursion, followed by a twilight Pilates class on the beach. For dinner she again found herself back in the room, with the excuse that she needed to take a call from Shanghai to see about those samples. It was morning there, after all. Back at the yurt she’d enjoyed a lovely dinner of sweet potato gratin, a farro and spinach salad, and another filet of perfectly prepared red snapper.
“We caught it today, madam,” Carlo, the sweet-faced cook and waiter said when he brought her the tray. “Would you like a glass of wine? I can go down to the cellar and bring you a bottle.” Did he wink at her?