“Hey, Jacob. Is it okay if I just go back to my place? I’m exhausted.”
He reached over and squeezed her thigh. “Oh, I have a surprise for you. I know you’re tired. This will perk you up, I promise. You’re gonna love it.”
He was so eager, so enthusiastic. She was too bushed to deflate his excitement.
Jacob turned onto the Greenpoint Avenue exit. Empty juice bottles rolled over Janey’s feet.
“Jacob, I’m really tired.”
“I know. We’re almost there. This will wake you right up.”
She was starting to feel dizzy. Jacob pulled up next to the curb and bounced out of the car toward what looked like an abandoned warehouse. When she caught up with him he grabbed both of her hands.
“Are you ready for this?”
No, I’m not, she thought to herself. I’m not ready for anything but bed. He pulled her through a creaky metal door. All of Janey’s senses were assaulted by a riot of sound and light. Furious electronic dance music pulsed in time to brightly colored strobe lights. The room was filled with bodies in various states of dress and undress.
“What the hell is this? Did you bring me to a rave? Is this the surprise? I don’t do drugs.”
“It’s a sober rave,” Jacob yelled as he tried to pull her into the melee. “It just got started. Goes from four to seven. It’s wild. People come here and dance out all their stress and tension before going to work. I thought you’d love it. They call it conscious clubbing. The only drinks they serve are my juices. How cool is that?”
The room was spinning. A girl dressed as a bumblebee thrust a Green juice into her hand. “Welcome to Morning Glory!” she said and buzzed back into the crowd. Jacob began bouncing up and down to a Fatboy Slim beat. In the corner a tall reedy man led a group of yogis through a series of animated sun salutations. Exercise bikes attached to giant blenders lined one wall.
“Bike-blended smoothies! YES!” Jacob headed toward the bikes. “Isn’t this just the coolest way to start your day?”
She needed to sit down. Needed air. Janey sipped at the Green juice in desperation, but it did nothing to calm her roiling tummy.
“I need to leave.” But Jacob didn’t hear her. He was up on a stationary bike while two women in bright purple spandex loaded beets into the blender perched on the handlebars. “I need to go home.” She bent forward and placed both of her hands on her knees as she gulped for air.
Jacob finally cast a worried look her way and hopped off the bike.
He reached her just in time to catch Janey’s head before she hit the floor.
· · ·
She woke up in a private room in NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
“Oh thank god!” CJ’s face loomed large above her, Sam, one of the twins, shyly peeking out from behind her back. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’re not pregnant, are you? I told them you couldn’t be pregnant. But with all the men you’re juggling these days, who knows! No judgment. We’ll raise your bastard baby together!”
Janey’s head pounded as she shook it from side to side. “Not pregnant. How did I get here?”
“Jacob called an ambulance. He was here until about twenty minutes ago. He had to go relieve his babysitter. God, he’s sexy, Janey. I mean. Wow. Even with a man bun. But where were you? Were you at a rave? I didn’t even know you were back from the beach. Is this because of Miranda Mills?”
“How did you know about that?” Janey was surprised by how raspy her voice sounded.
“Everyone knows about that.” CJ pulled out a copy of that morning’s New York Post. A grainy photo of a human being covered with a sheet and carried on a stretcher over the sand was blown up large on the cover under the headline WORKOUT TILL YOU DROP—MODEL IN COMA. Janey grabbed the paper from CJ’s hand and winced as she straightened up in the bed. She must have hit her tailbone when she collapsed at that rave. Why did Jacob have to take her to a rave in the first place? What was wrong with him?
www.nypost.com
MODEL IN COMA FOLLOWING FITNESS RETREAT
By Dan Maxwell
Beloved model and handbag designer Miranda Mills is currently in a coma in New York-Presbyterian Hospital after being rushed back to New? York City from a fitness retreat in St. Lucia yesterday morning.
Sources say she is in critical condition. Mills, fifty-three, who was a much-coveted cover girl in her heyday, was attending a retreat led by the personal trainer Sara Schweitzer Yang, better known as Sara Strong, as part of her top-secret fitness program “The Workout.” The exclusive retreat held at society maven Maizee Vanders’s private beachside home is said to cost the ridiculous sum of fifteen thousand dollars and promises to help participants shed fifteen pounds in eight days.
But sources claim it wasn’t starvation or an excess of physical activity that caused Mills to have a heart attack in the middle of the Caribbean. One retreat guest claims that Mills was in the midst of a backroom breast reduction and liposuction the morning of her heart attack. St. Lucia is well known for cut-rate plastic surgery. Investigators are currently looking into whether the doctor who operated on the model was licensed to be performing surgery on the Vanders property.
Schweitzer Yang couldn’t be reached for comment. The personal trainer rose to a certain fame due to her famous clientele, which included Academy Award–winner Kate Wells. The two women had a falling-out earlier this year, and Wells released a statement about Miranda Mills through her publicist: “I have no comment on Sara’s methods for weight loss or personal wellness. But my heart goes out to Miranda, a truly bright light in our world, and her family during this devastating time.”
Janey folded the newspaper and placed it on the table next to her.
“Did you see it go down?” CJ asked. “Was it completely gruesome? Did you know you could get plastic surgery done at the retreat? This is all so crazy.”
It was all so crazy.
A baby-faced man in a white lab coat strode into the room. “I’m Dr. Knots. I need to have a word with Ms. Sweet.”
Janey tried to smile at him. “It’s all right, Doctor, they can stay.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at CJ. “Are you family?”
CJ placed her hand on her hip. “I’m her wife.”
“Fine; whatever. I’m not a lawyer or a police officer, and this is really none of my business, but how often do you use recreational drugs, Ms. Sweet?”
“Excuse me?”
“The report from the ambulance says you were brought in from a rave at a warehouse in Greenpoint. Is that correct?”
Janey nodded slowly. “It was a sober rave.” That sounded ridiculous. “They had juice there.” Even more ridiculous. “That’s it. I don’t use drugs, doctor,” Janey said with a measure of force. “What are you talking about?”