When I get to 527 Park the next day, I see flashing lights. An EMT taking Audrey out on a stretcher. She is pale, half conscious, the impish grin gone. Audrey had always been the (mostly) sober busybodyof the group. Seeing her laid out like that, drained of color, her waterproof mascara smeared, her face limp, made me feel so guilty. I’d invited Audrey to 527 Park, drawn her deeper in, and then neglected her. I race to the private doctor who sits in a clinic on the fifth floor on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in case residents need anything and can’t be bothered to leave the building. He hardly has a flu shot to tend to, but it’s part of the menu of 527 amenities.
“What happened? Is she okay?”
“We’re not sure. Maybe a blood clot?” the concierge doctor says. “Do you know if she is prone to those? Does she have preexisting conditions?”
Preexisting conditions? This whole thing was supposed to be about barre classes and luxe pumping rooms. I notice the spot in Audrey’s vein where a wellness infusion went. It is red and swollen, the size of a golf ball. The EMT finds a vein on the other arm to insert a needle attached to an IV bag. The concierge doctor is twitching. He snorts and holds his nostrils between his fingers. His gaze can’t focus. His eyes fill with the black iris of a cocaine bender. I grab the nearest EMT, a snake tattoo sneaking out from beneath his shirt collar.
“Is she going to be okay? What do you think caused it?” I look at Audrey, so delicate and vulnerable and blank. “Where is Sloane?” I feel faint, too.
“This is what happens when people play doctor,” he says, helping to lift her into the ambulance. Audrey opens her eyes and looks into mine. I touch her hand and feel her use the little bit of strength she has to grab my fingers. “You’re nothing like who I thought you were. Thank you…” She has a glazed, distant look in her eyes, and as they close the doors, I think I hear her searching for— “Daisy. Daisy.”
Daisy? Why did she want Daisy? It had been Daisy who hired a man away from his previous job as the head of building sanitation toinsert IVs in these women, and who left me there to clean up the mess. Daisy who introduced all of us to a world beyond the one we’d all felt stuck in, welcomed us into utopia, and now she’d never let us forget it.
Every day Daisy made her rounds, welcoming new moms, encouraging regulars, a love junkie soaking up the adoration. She needed us to express gratitude with every sip of oat milk latte, every bite of organic berry. Audrey had every right to sue us, break her NDA and go public, but Daisy must have known that she’d never do it. Not unless she wanted to go back to her ordinary life. Have a pigeon shit on you on a park bench. Lay a poplin blanket on the scalding asphalt.
Daisy didn’t just offer us something new, something posh and complimentary and comfortable; she served it up with the unspoken threat that she could take it all away at any time. What then? Where would we go? Most of the 527 Park moms had cast aside the nanny search, tossed the day care applications, told their partners that they’d found a better, cheaper way. A lot of moms went back to work, confident that their babies were in the best possible care in a Tony D’Nario–designed playroom. Working or not, we were all invigorated by the idea that at the most isolating time in our lives, we’d become part of an unlikely sisterhood. A communal village.
What if all that just went away?
It wasn’t just me. We’d all become so reliant on Daisy. We’d perk up like donkeys at a manger anytime she walked into a room.
Some women started to spend so many nights at the condo that I worried they didn’t want to go home. Without us even realizing it, one mom spent two weeks in a studio apartment—a model that no real estate agent ever showed, because if you have 5.7 million dollars to spend on an apartment, why would you want a seventh-floor studio on the Middle East Side? She finally emerged to find that her husband had put out a missing person report. It was on NY1. Even then,Daisy hadn’t told her to go home. She’d only asked why she didn’t want to. “You can tell me,” Daisy said, touching her arm.
We were a judgment-free society, Daisy liked to say. I pulled her aside that day. “This is basically kidnapping. She has to take the baby home,now. No one except us can stay overnight anymore. Okay?” Daisy looked at me with the empty gaze of a mannequin. “Okay?” I said again, a hint of force that I almost never used with Daisy.
As she stood to leave, she said, “Whatever.”
When I was fourteen, I ran away from home. It wasn’t even like I was pregnant or got suspended or had some catastrophic fight with my mom. I just stared at half a chicken cordon bleu and creamed spinach that she’d heated up, leftovers after a date took her to Christie’s Seafood & Steaks, and I knew I had to get away. I got as far as a twenty-four-hour House of Pies, where I fell asleep in a booth and woke up in the back of a police car. My mom dragged me back home. I stared at Daisy walking inside, carefree, and in that instant, I smelled the leftovers. Creamed spinach screaming at me to get out.
Maybe before I became a mother, I would’ve run. Maybe then I’d be all right on my own. But 527 Park changed me. It proved that I could push through hell and emerge with purpose. These women needed me. My baby needed me. So I ignored the signs, ignored that days went by when I didn’t see Daisy. I ignored the penthouse.
I watch the ambulance’s flashing lights split down Park, taking Audrey to the ER. I feel the heavy peril of being the responsible friend. The friend who needs to stay behind to pick up the pieces if Daisy ever pulls the ABC Carpet out from under us.
I walk back inside and go straight to the playroom to check on Sloane, who is making a soufflé in an Easy-Bake Oven. I check on Holden. He’s settled into an afternoon nap, Mozart in the background. I ambush Miss Iowa to find Stuart’s or Stu’s phone number, but there is no emergency contact in the system.
I find Olivia in Daisy’s condo, asleep on a chaise, purple eye patches drooping beneath the dark circles under her eyes. I tell her what happened to Audrey. “They took her to New York-Pres. Do you know if she has any preexisting conditions?”
“How would I know?”
“Because you’re friends?”
Olivia shrugs. It’s like she’s gone numb. Or maybe she’s stoned or maybe she’s tired of feeling all the time—for her girls, for the partner-track deferred—that she can’t feel for this thing, too. Was I any better? I hadn’t checked on Brit after I’d seen Quinn’s cubby cleaned out. “Well, have you heard from Brit? Maybe she can help?”
Olivia speaks slowly, biting a cucumber slice. “Haven’t seen her in weeks. What about Audrey’s husband, Sebastian? He’s an architect. Call him?”
“His name is Sebastian?” Olivia nods, adjusting a stray eye patch. I realize that this should not have been my main takeaway, given that Audrey was being rushed to the ER, but this new piece of information changed everything for me. I’d spent months thinking “Stuart” was checking out my tits. Sebastian was such a hotter name.
It’s up to me to bark orders at Claire. “Pick up Sloane and take her home with you until Audrey gets home from the hospital or we track down Sebastian…” Then, to myself: “Sebastian!” I hand Claire the Black AmEx, just as Daisy had handed it to me. Claire gives me a little salute, her cheeks, still round with baby fat, blushing at the attention. I grab her arm, not tight or anything, but the touch startles her. “Claire? Remember the NDA? Tell the doctors and Sebastian we tried a glow-up IV drip at that Next Health Botox place on Twenty-First Street when it happened.” I let go.
Claire utters a tiny “Yes, ma’am.”
I grin, rubbing a thumb on the fleshy part of her arm. “Good girl.”
I look everywhere for Daisy. Maya says she saw Daisy head upstairs to the penthouse hours ago. I never tell Daisy—or anyone—how paranoid I’ve started to feel. The knot of impending doom every time she disappears upstairs. What is up there? Is it better than us? The other day, when she came downstairs, she collapsed on the sofa smelling of eucalyptus oil, her Turkish linen robe opening to reveal the entirety of her milky thighs, a hint of a fresh wax. I reassured myself that the growing discomfort was just the usual insecurities of female friendship. Had Daisy become bored with what we’d built? Bored by all the mooching mothers? Bored of me?
And yet, even as I dreaded her disappearances, I appreciated the leadership role they had provided me. I’d been the one to step in and handle Audrey’s health scare. I’d been the one who enforced the nondisclosure agreement and instructed Viktor to end all the intravenous treatments. Audrey had thankedme, not Daisy. Weak little me—of the urology issues and the drab lilac sweater, with the yarn pulled across the bottom.
—
