“No,” I say. “I was going to tell you the floor is Italian statuario marble. And you’ll have to pay to replace it if you bleed on it.”
Olivia blinks. Is she going to lunge at me? Then she breaks.
“Fuck you.”
I walk forward slowly. One foot, then the other. Closer…closer…until I’m close enough to wrap my arms around her. She drops the shard of glass. Crumples into me, sobbing into my shoulder. I press the hem of my shirt to her neck. The gash isn’t that deep, thank God, just enough to scare the shit out of both of us. We sink to the floor together, legs tangled. I hold her like she is my own child. Like I should’ve held Daisy. When Daisy threatened to kill herself.
I wipe her bangs and sweat from her forehead, wipe the tears and the blood. “I got you,” I whisper. “You’re gonna be all right. We’re all gonna be all right.”
We sit like that for a long time. Until the candle burns out. Until we start breathing again.
—
I am standing alone on the balcony, watching a storm gather in the distance, when Daisy finally decides to show up. “Damn. That was a lot of drama,” she says.
I shake my head, feeling a scary new clarity. I can see it now, hownaïve she is. How careless she is, with me, with everyone. I used to think that she was so resilient, so savvy to have survived in her line of work. But now I see that Daisy’s survival rests on a healthy layer of delusion. What if she isn’t Daisy of sunlight and whimsy, like Chloe the nymph seeking shelter in Cot’s painting? What if she is the storm?
—
It wasn’t just Olivia. The condo had started to buckle under its own weight—too much glass, too many emotions, an Ochre drizzle chandelier strung up with dental floss.
First it was the blood that unspooled on a bathroom floor, thick and gooey gobs like strawberry preserves. Bianca whispering, “Mija’s lucky. Just three weeks. She can try again.” Daisy told me I was imagining things. Somebody had cut themselves during microdermabrasion or maybe one of those vampire facials. It definitely wasn’t another medical emergency. That would be irresponsible.
Daisy, swinging on the mezzanine in one of those absurd teardrop-shaped cocoons, reminded me about liberation theology, how every social movement that wants to enact real change has to never give up. “See? This is why everything falls apart; nobody is committed.”
Then it was June in the bedroom. Two days after the blood in the bathroom, June, who used to play in a punk band out of Detroit and looked like she lived in Bushwick before it was cool, locked herself in one of the bedrooms with Xanax and a bottle of Opus One she’d lifted from the wine cellar on the fourteenth floor. Viktor knocked the door down and pried the pills out of her hands. A mom in her fifth year of a medical residency performed violent abdominal thrusts until June vomited. She let out a gibberish of grunts and moans, a primal dialect we all understood. “ARGH—OHH—UHH.”
Daisy didn’t think we should call 911, so I stayed with June untilwe could be sure she was okay. I covered her in a cashmere throw and we sat in front of the double-sided fireplace that I’d once heard Daisy refer to as “a curated heat source.”
“I can’t even think anymore,” June told me. “Years of trying, shots in my ass. I was so plumped up on hormones, like a Costco roast chicken…I becameobsessed…Baby, baby, baby. It was all I thought about…It’s why she left me…” June trailed off. I gave her a tissue. “I guess I have what I always wanted,” she said, hollowed out, her eyes adrift in the voice-controlled flames.
The next night I found Claire numb, curled up on a corner of the balcony in the freezing rain. She’d been out there for hours before anyone noticed, her velour sweatsuit so soaked, it formed a heavy second skin. I kept waiting for Daisy todosomething, but she just sipped hot tea and put on a cutesy voice: “Awww. Look at poor wittle Claire Bear.”
I walked outside, touched Claire on the shoulder, and offered her a cup of hibiscus tea. “Come in. Let’s get you dry.” Claire stood and let me drape a towel over her. Daisy watched us through the window, shaking her head. Such a softie, Em.
Looking back, the articles had been right about Daisy. She’d been our North Star, lavishing the space with her grandiose ideas about a “movement” and a “secret society.” She was the natural leader, but she’d never gone through any of this. She had no idea how dark new motherhood could get. No one realized how much the women started to also rely on me. I gave them emotional support. I trailed behind, sweeping up Daisy’s detritus.
The media coverage that came later made it sound like Daisy had brainwashed all of us. But it wasn’t like that. She just gave us license, an affirmation of our playful, joyful side. Daisy told us that we could be whoever we wanted to be at 527 Park. That when conventional society fails us, we need to create our own. “It’s aboutyou, so that youcan be better forthem.” We were all more than happy to oblige. We reverted to childhood, danced with every limb, ate what we wanted—unpasteurized cheese, sandwich meat, sushi, a bottomless buffet of listeria. We yelled and danced and masturbated and talked and compared and pinched one another’s changed bodies.
But what did being selfish mean for the moms who hated themselves? Who had no joy and only wanted to curl into a ball on the balcony and contract pneumonia?
That’s the part that Daisy never really understood.
I made sure that Olivia got stitched up and got home safely with her girls. Then I told Daisy emphatically, “We have to shut it down.”
“Yeah…no.”
“Whatever this is—it’s not working anymore. People are going to get hurt. I’m not waiting until somebody bleeds out in the pantry.”
“Em. Em. Em,” Daisy said, letting out that breathy patronizing calm that makes me want to light something on fire. “You still think this is a wellness club, don’t you? Because let me tell you something, sweet pea—it’s not a wellness club. It’s a war room.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
• • • • •
The next day, Idrop Holden off downstairs with Marcela. Holden loves the soft-play center lately, lifting himself over blocks and bouncing on an inflatable purple zebra. (“Your baby is at the ideal age to enjoy push and riding toys.”) I watch him hold himself up, studying himself in a fun-house mirror. Marcela comes up behind with a bubble machine. I grab his hands in mine and we laugh, trying to swat the soapy clouds. I kiss him from behind and he clutches a chunk of my hair. I get a glimpse of myself in the baby mirror. I didn’t realize how long and untamed my hair has grown. I don’t have time to straighten my curls anymore. Between the natural, frizzy waves, the sleep deprivation, and Roman’s clothes, I must look so untamed. A feral avatar of my old self.
I go upstairs to Daisy’s condo. Viktor is overseeing the installation of heaters on the mezzanine. I search the apartment, trying to find Daisy so that we can welcome everyone. She calls out, “Em? That you?”
