“I’m Janey. Like Charlotte said, I used to work at B, which is a company that makes wedding dresses.” This was the first time she said she used to work at B. It rang true. “A couple of months ago someone very close to me hurt me. He told me that there was something wrong with me. And I became obsessed with fixing it. I didn’t think much about it. I just started doing anything I could to lose weight. Being judged like that shattered my confidence. And I did a lot of things that probably weren’t healthy. And I felt a little sick sometimes.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She didn’t think her story was nearly as interesting as either Alice’s or Charlotte’s. This was the first time she’d acknowledged out loud how hurt she’d been by what Beau had said and done. He was a vain and spiteful person, no longer the lively little boy she’d fallen in love with three decades ago. She had to let go of that little boy. She’d let his opinion of her be her own opinion of herself for too long. “I loved the person who made me feel bad about myself. But I don’t want to feel bad anymore.” She turned to face Charlotte. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that dress only came in a four. It never occurred to me that we were shattering people’s self-confidence. I’m really sorry.” Janey meant it. She’d known they were wading into ridiculous territory with their ever-shrinking dresses, but she’d been so focused on growing the business, she hadn’t thought about any of the consequences.
Charlotte smiled for the first time since Janey walked into the room. She had a great smile, one that defied gravity by lifting her entire face from her lips to her eyes.
“Stop it. Seriously. Don’t be sorry. We’re gonna elope when I’m better. And when I walk down the aisle I’ll wear whatever fits!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Janey sank into a deep and restful sleep after attending the therapy session. It’d been a long time since she felt so at peace. She woke to find Stella sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to her bed. The shaman’s head hung like a pendulum from her narrow neck as she looked down at the floor instead of at Janey.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice even deeper than usual. There was a lot to apologize for. Ivy had left six frantic voicemails explaining all about Sara Strong’s narcotic-infused tea.
Janey had a hundred things she wanted to ask her. What did the shaman know about the plastic surgery? Could she tell Janey why she had cocaine in her system? Was she a fraud, just like Sara Strong?
But Stella began talking before Janey could ask any of her questions.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “You have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would be like that. I got carried away with making The Workout a success. Sara has been offering to make me a partner when The Workout expands nationwide and I hate to admit this…” Tears rolled down Stella’s porcelain cheeks. “I let the idea of money get the best of me. I know I’m supposed to be above all that. My job in the universe is to be a light, to move positive energy around the world. But maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just a sellout too. I’m scared, Janey. I’m a forty-five-year-old former model with no résumé and no real skills. I have a wonderful husband who has a job that he loves that pays just about minimum wage and two girls in private school. I need college funds. I need a retirement plan.” For the first time since Janey met her, Stella was a real person.
“Sara was the first person I truly helped. I don’t know how much you know about her history, but she was a mess when I met her. I felt called to help her transform herself and I watched her transition from a broken woman who thought she’d lost everything into such a beautiful butterfly. I was so taken with that butterfly, with the idea of her, that I was blinded to anything else. Does that make sense?”
Janey stared at Stella’s collarbone. She was too thin, much too thin, emaciated really. But why hadn’t she noticed that before? When had this, a woman whose bones she could see through her skin, become the norm, the bar for beauty?
“She was your butterfly?” Janey said with a healthy dose of skepticism. She’d allowed herself to be taken in by Stella when she was at her lowest. She was in a different place now.
A tear slipped down Stella’s cheek. “I don’t expect you to understand it all. She was my student and I helped her and it made it difficult to see that she was quickly becoming a negative force in my life.”
“What do you know about the amphetamines?” Janey asked carefully. A cloud of confusion crossed Stella’s fine features.
“What are you talking about?”
There was no point in beating around the bush. “Were there drugs in the tea? At the retreat. Were you responsible for drugging Sara’s clients?”
Stella shook her head. “Why would you ask that?”
Stella appeared deep in thought. She momentarily allowed her eyes to roll around in their sockets as if she were searching the files in her brain for a very specific piece of information.
“Sara controlled what was in that tea. I don’t know what she put in it. I never asked. I had doubts. I’ve had concerns. But I never asked. Sara wanted to make everyone happy to make sure they would invest their money, and I wanted Sara to be a success. I thought her success was my success,” Stella admitted, chewing on the edge of her pinky nail.
Janey wavered for a second before telling her everything she knew. She wanted to trust her. Every cell in her body had wanted to trust this woman from the moment they’d met.
“Someone gave me drugs. I’m going through withdrawal. From speed. Sara was trying to smuggle something into the country. Remember, I told you that. That something was speed. And when she couldn’t ship it god only knows what kind of coke she replaced it with.”
The horrified look on Stella’s face was real.
“That’s not possible.”
“It is possible. The doctor told me he wasn’t going to arrest me or anything, but he recommended several very nice rehabilitation facilities.”
At that Stella burst out laughing. And, for the first time, Janey could see the humor in the situation.
“I’m sorry. Really sorry,” Stella said. “It’s just that you’re the last person I’d accuse of being in withdrawal from recreational drugs. And I can say that. I wrote a book about being a heroin addict. I was a heroin addict.”
Janey sat up and reached for the pitcher of Green.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Stella wasn’t asking her. She was begging her. “I need us to come to a place of peace.”
Only a shaman could get away with saying I need us to come to a place of peace. Janey sank back into the hospital bed. What was the point of fighting with Stella? The shaman was just as broken as any of them. Janey reached out her hand. “Namaste.”
· · ·
The doctors were ready to sign off on Janey’s release forms, but there was one final thing she needed to do before she left the hospital.
Janey felt like an intruder walking toward Miranda Mills’s distraught family while they huddled outside her hospital room. She’d practiced options for what to say to them.
Your daughter was the victim of a nefarious personal trainer who gave speed to her clients to make them addicted to her class. That sounded insane. But it was the truth.
An elderly woman in a pair of frumpy mom jeans and a lavender sweater and two men a few years older than Miranda sat outside of the model’s room. All three shared Miranda’s prominent forehead and full lips. Janey recognized them from the newspaper article as Miranda’s mother and two older brothers. The men argued in thick Boston accents, not about their sister’s medical treatment, but over a questionable trade recently conducted by the owner of the New England Patriots. “Brady can’t carry that team forever. They need to groom some young blood.”
Janey cleared her throat to announce her presence.
“Mrs. Mills?” The older woman looked up. She had a ghost of Miranda’s bone structure, but her eyes were softer, her features less defined and fierce, her nose wider and fleshier.
“Hello dear. Are you here to see Miranda?” Elaborate sterling silver rings adorned her fingers, one in the shape of a butterfly and the other a leaping dolphin. She kneaded nervously at the fabric of her pants.