All around her, the other women jumped up and down, dancing provocatively with men half their age, groping them in ways Janey couldn’t believe, and throwing back shots of mescal as if they were water. She placed the margarita on the ground and closed her eyes for a second.
And that was the last thing she remembered. She had gone to sleep, and now here she was in bed with an IV in her arm and a pounding headache. Suzy, once again looking no worse for wear, was sitting up in bed, her own IV dangling out of her forearm, reading last month’s issue of Architectural Digest.
“You really ate it last night,” Suzy said.
Janey looked at her.
“You were one and done, my dear. Lightweight.”
Janey didn’t want to admit she hadn’t even drunk her margarita. “I guess so,” she said, gesturing over to the man in the white coat across the room. He held up a hand, splaying all five fingers.
“He says you have five more minutes. Trust me, you want the whole five minutes.”
But why did she feel so awful? It couldn’t be a hangover. She must be dehydrated. Scott had said her muscles were all tensed and that she was supposed to drink fluids after the massage. But all she’d had was a lick of salt before falling asleep. Fluids would do her good.
“Did I miss another wild night?” she asked Suzy, not really caring about the answer.
“The best,” Suzy said definitively. “I live for these fucking trips. Live for them. We went into town and found a little taverna and made friends with those local boys,” she said. Janey could only imagine. “I just got back a couple of hours ago, but I had some clay and some tea before bed and I’m feeling good. That stuff is magical. It’s like herbal magic. All those vitamins and minerals. Whatever Sara is putting in there, it’s the best energy boost I’ve had since I stopped taking uppers.”
“Sounds great,” Janey said, closing her eyes for a sweet brief moment again. This was day three. There were five more days of this. She had to find Stella. She wanted out.
· · ·
“You can’t leave,” Stella exclaimed when Janey found the shaman sitting on a meditation cushion on the deck of her own yurt.
“I don’t feel good, Stella. I had an IV in my arm this morning, for Christ’s sake,” Janey said with determination. “I can change my ticket and go home tomorrow. No hard feelings. It’s not you. It’s these women. This place. Sara.”
For the first time since she’d met her, Janey saw Stella’s face darken. “I know. I’m not sure what’s going on. The first time we did this it was magical. Now it is going all wrong, isn’t it?” Stella stood, strode over to the bed, and pushed the mosquito netting aside. After brushing the henna dust from her comforter she patted the space beside her. “I think Sara is under a lot of pressure. She handpicked these women for their money and their clout because she’s dying to bring in investors to help her expand. And that’s not the right vibe at all. I get it. Go home if you need to.”
Janey was certain there wouldn’t be a refund if she left early. But what was she even paying for? The workouts? The clay? The on-call doctors or the sexy local men?
Janey released a long sigh. “I’m going to go for a walk on the beach. I’ll figure it out.”
Stella reached over and enveloped her in a bear hug. “I just want to make people’s lives better. You know that, right?” The normally confident shaman’s vulnerability was unnerving.
“Of course.”
Out on the beach Janey needed something to distract her while she walked. She fiddled around with her iPhone, looking for a podcast. If she found the right one, she might even muster up a jog. One TED Talk looked interesting. Who was Gabby Reece again? Janey clicked through. Of course. It was that professional volleyball player, the one married to the sexy surfer dude. The topic of the podcast was learning to love yourself. Well, that was fitting. Janey left her flip-flops underneath a pretty shrub with orange flowers that looked like tiny trumpets and hit play as she ambled toward the waves.
“Do you ever wake up and think, ‘Wow, I’m perfect today’?” came the assured voice of the TED speaker through her headphones.
“No,” Janey said out loud.
Janey picked up the pace, finding something between a power walk and a light jog, the resistance from the sand straining her calf muscles. “Of course you don’t,” Reece continued. “I don’t. I have friends who look at my Instagram and then say things to me like, ‘You have the most perfect life.’ I’m the first one to tell you that the way someone’s life looks on Insta is bullshit. Real life doesn’t come with filters. We are often comparing ourselves to other women who may be younger or more fit than we are. The problem is that every year as we get older we have a larger group to compare ourselves to. Stop comparing. Acknowledge other people’s greatness and you will be more powerful and centered. Others will notice and embrace your confidence. There’s nothing sexier than someone who is content with herself and trying every single day to be better and improve on her own terms.”
The advice rang too true. Janey turned the phone around and snapped a selfie of her smaller but still round belly peeking out over her jogging shorts and without a second thought posted it to Instagram. “This is forty!” she captioned it and then added, “There’s nothing sexier than someone who is content with herself.” And then she tagged the professional volleyball player.
Writing the words gave her a moment’s pause. Wait a second. Janey rewound the podcast and listened to it again. Janey looked at the date of the TED Talk and saw it had taken place more than a year ago. But the words sounded so familiar because Janey had heard them very recently. It was almost the exact same thing Sara had said during The Workout in New York and again here at the start of the retreat.
Sara Strong was an inspirational plagiarist! Janey listened to it a third time to make sure, but there wasn’t any doubt. What was up with this woman? Was she a complete fraud? Did it matter if she was? She wasn’t claiming to be a doctor or a preacher or a Supreme Court justice. Sara Strong was just a personal trainer with a following of very rich women. What did it matter if she cribbed a few lines from a famous person’s inspirational speech? It still left a sour feeling in Janey’s stomach. She was just about to dial the phone number for American to find out how much of a change fee she’d have to pay to switch her return ticket when she heard Suzy screaming from down the beach.
“Miranda’s had a heart attack!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE