Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty Read online

  “Normal!” Peyton screeched. “Look at me!”

  Certainly accustomed to such outbreaks in her private Upper East Side practice, Dr. Kate smiled. “Cut down on carbs. Start working out, maybe get a trainer? I can recommend a great cosmetic derm.”

  In the last six months, Peyton had wholly committed herself—and what felt like half her sizable salary—to self-improvement. What choice did she have? Her career was based on her appearance. She made standing appointments at the derm and subjected her face and décolletage and, yes, even the tops of her hands to every imaginable laser and chemical peel legally available. One did red spots. One did brown spots. A third did fine lines and wrinkles. Another attacked errant hair. A fifth did general sallowness. A sixth worked on collagen production. For a short period of time she’d be pleased with the smoothed, lightened, hairless result. And then before she could so much as buy a new foundation, it would all come surging back, a veritable tsunami of wrinkles and spots and stubble.

  Peyton wasn’t a quitter. She upped her thrice-yearly Botox to every other month. That helped. So did the fillers in her cheeks and lips, and the vile-smelling oil she rubbed into her scalp to stimulate hair growth. Encouraged a bit, she turned to her body and began training sessions with Kendric, who charged more per hour than a shrink with a PhD. Despite having the most brutal schedule of anyone she knew—up at 3 a.m., in the makeup chair by 4:15 a.m., live on air from 5 to 8 a.m., and often hours more of meetings and researching, Monday through Friday—Peyton would drag herself out of the office and come straight here, where Kendric would put her through a savage circuit of bicep curls and dead lifts and cardio. She scored an appointment with a nutritionist who had traveled the world with Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady and committed to eating exactly what the woman demanded. She forced down eighty ounces of water every day even though it made her pee every twelve minutes; she dipped her salad greens in the dressing instead of pouring it on top; she eschewed bread, pasta, cheese, and every other morsel of food that carried even the faintest suggestion of possible enjoyment.

  None of it changed a thing, not one fucking bit. The second she focused on building muscle, her skin went to hell. Whenever she returned to her punishing regimen of lasers and peels, her gut returned. She was barely eating enough to sustain her workouts or her trips to the dermatologist, and yet all of that starving was doing nothing. Zero. The scale didn’t move a single pound. The jeans she’d worn comfortably since college still didn’t zip. No amount of injected poison or burpees or cold, hard cash could put so much as a dent into the damage wreaked by turning forty. Never mind she hadn’t even turned forty yet! Her sister, on the other hand, was still skinny as hell, unwrinkled and fresh, without a modicum of effort.

  The treadmill sped up automatically and Peyton switched from ANN to MSNBC, where Joe and Mika were discussing the new wave of college admissions arrests, including a doctor father from Beverly Hills who had explicitly offered a free gastric bypass to the squash coach at one of the UC schools if she would “recruit” his daughter. Insane, Peyton thought, as she increased the speed.

  Peyton claimed she never watched the news when she wasn’t in the studio, but that was a lie. She knew every anchor on every station. Got alerts from a half dozen news websites. Studied up on hirings, firings, and internal scandals. This was one competitive industry, and if you didn’t keep up, you were left behind. She hadn’t gotten to the morning show anchor chair by being lazy or uninformed. Oh, hell no. She’d done stints in Arkansas. South Dakota. Even one summer in Alaska. No one knew better than Peyton how important it was not to get too complacent. She was finally national, and not in the middle of the night. Next up was prime time. So long as she stayed strong and focused.

  Ten minutes into her run, Peyton tired of Morning Joe and switched over to CNN. Poppy Harlow was an acquaintance, and she liked checking in with her show in the mornings. That day Poppy was on location in London, and Don Lemon was at Poppy’s desk in the studio. Peyton was so preoccupied with adjusting the incline and trying not to hyperventilate that she almost didn’t notice Don pressing a finger to his ear before he said, “Poppy? Just one moment here, we seem to have some breaking news.” Almost immediately, an angry red graphic swirled on the screen, accompanied by a dramatic drumbeat: breaking news. Peyton rolled her eyes. Was this going to be a new development or an entirely new story? They were all guilty of overusing that pronouncement. Yes, it got everyone’s attention, but polls showed the viewership growing immune to it. A fire in the Pentagon where officials knew one hundred percent that it wasn’t a suicide bomber and no one died? Save it. Record-setting market close in China? Please. Oil spill off the coast of Indonesia? Next. Anything short of an assassination attempt on the president or a dirty bomb on the subway didn’t warrant the graphic.

  But then Don was back, and he looked riled up. “We’re going to take you live to uptown Manhattan, where my colleague Jamie is on the scene. Jamie, what can you tell us?”

  A young man with a bow tie and a serious expression stared down the camera. “Well, Don, as you know, this story is still developing. What I can tell you is that the FBI is here today in a rather large show of force, something they don’t do unless it’s warranted.”

  Wow, thank you for that brilliant analysis! Peyton thought.

  Wait. Peyton punched the emergency stop button on the treadmill and squinted at the screen. Was that her building in the background? The camera zoomed in on bow-tied Jamie, who could barely contain his excitement, and just behind him Peyton saw her very own doorman, Peter, standing rigidly on the sidewalk.

  “What the…,” she murmured, more fascinated than worried. Someone in her building was about to be arrested? She felt a pang of panic but then remembered that cretin of a plastic surgeon who lived in the penthouse and constantly posted “before” and “after” pics of women’s breast enlargements on his Instagram page under the handle @kingofboobs. He would cover their nipples with little pink heart stickers and then photograph himself cupping their breasts from every angle. He called his patients “gems,” as in “Bringing you another work of art: We took this Dr. J Gem from saggy to superhero with 330 ccs.” He would include a headless picture of a woman’s body that looked perfectly lovely in the “before” picture and like a porn star in the “after.” Every time Peyton saw him in the elevator or the lobby, he reminded her of his gratis boob job offer—after all, she was famous—and every time, she forced a smile and tried not to throw up in her mouth. It had to be him! Sexual harassment, or even all-out assault.

  Was ANN getting scooped? She flipped through the channels, shocked to see Jim, back in their studio, leaning conspiratorially toward the camera.

  “Now, bear with us, everyone,” he said in his faux-folksy way that made her want to reach straight through the television and plunge her thumbs into his eyes. “As you can imagine, this is a very sensitive subject for all of us here at ANN, one that hits close to home.”

  Jim’s left hand went to his left ear as he glanced skyward. An imperceptible nod. And then it occurred to her: the producers were updating him. Her producers! Ohmigod, was it Sean in Jim’s ear? Why was she on a treadmill when Jim was still on air? Peyton was so transfixed that she almost missed the action unfolding on the screen as they flipped back to the external shot. The building’s doors—her building’s doors—swung open. Two men in dark suits emerged and looked around. Following them were two uniformed police officers, one male and one female, and between them was…her husband.

  A small but loud group of reporters began shouting questions. Jim was narrating, but Peyton couldn’t understand what he was saying. She leaned closer to the treadmill screen. Isaac looked, well, like Isaac. He was wearing a plaid flannel button-down, a pair of ratty khakis, and those wool running shoes every man, woman, and child in the top income bracket seemed to own. His hair was sticking straight up and his jaws were clenched so tightly that his neck muscles bulged
. Peyton pressed her hand to her heart when she saw it: he was in handcuffs.

  “As I said before, this one hits close to home. But here at ANN we put you, our valued audience, first, and have decided to cover the arrest of Isaac Marcus, husband of our own Peyton Marcus, for what it is: a newsworthy story,” Jim said in a serious voice. “The FBI has been intimating that a second round of arrests in the college admissions scandal would be forthcoming, and it looks like today they are making good on their word.”

  “Oh my god,” Peyton said aloud, or screamed, or whispered or merely thought—she had no idea.

  Once again Jim pressed his ear. “Yes, I can now confirm that Isaac Marcus, husband of ANN’s own Peyton Marcus, is being arrested in conjunction with the college admissions scandal. While we do not yet have the specific charge or charges, they will likely be similar to those we’ve seen both in previous years and earlier this morning—”

  Peyton’s phone buzzed from its perch on the treadmill’s magazine holder. She grabbed it and started running for the exit.

  It was Sean.

  “Can’t you shut Jim up?” she hissed into the phone. “Pull the plug already!”

  “I’m sorry, P, I really am. He was just about to leave the studio, and then we got the second breaking news notice….He just pounced.”

  “You can’t possibly think that Isaac…” Peyton’s voice trailed off as she ran past the check-in desk and out onto the sidewalk.

  “No! But I can’t stop Jim from covering this, whatever it is. And I certainly don’t have to remind you that, executive producer or not, he doesn’t listen to me.”

  Peyton’s throat clenched. “I have to go. I have to figure out what’s happening. I just don’t understand….”

  “Let me know if I—”

  Peyton ran the rest of the way to her building, where the scene from television was playing out in real time. She wasn’t sure whether it was instinct or shock or just plain luck that kept her from screaming out his name, but Isaac spotted her before any of the cameras. He leaned in to say something to one of the detectives, who nodded and indicated to a uniformed NYPD officer to allow Peyton to approach.

  “Oh my god, are you okay?” she asked, cursing her own inane question while wanting to reach out and touch his arm, his face, anything. The same detective who’d given her permission now sent her a warning look to keep her distance.

  Cameras flashed from every direction. She could feel the buzz all around her. Was that Peyton Marcus? Could they possibly be lucky enough to catch this husband and wife drama unfold live? Even better, was she really wearing leggings and a sports bra with no makeup?

  Then, somehow, Isaac’s mouth was pressed against her ear, and she could feel his hot breath as he said, “Do not say anything to anyone. Not. One. Word. Do you understand?”

  Peyton nodded, or she tried to, but the next thing she knew, the detectives prodded him into the backseat of an SUV and the door slammed shut. The glass was tinted so dark she couldn’t see inside.

  “What can you tell us about the charges against your husband?”

  “Did this come as a surprise or did you know this arrest was coming?”

  “Do you feel there’s a conflict of interest in your reporting of the story that now involves your spouse?”

  “Any word on next steps, either for Isaac or for you, professionally speaking?”

  The questions came rapid-fire from every direction as Peyton stood, frozen. Then, out of nowhere, a hand on her elbow, which she swatted away until a familiar voice said, “Mrs. Marcus, this way,” and Peter, her doorman, led her through the crowd and into the blessedly empty lobby.

  She looked at him, uncertain what to do next, how to thank this kind man who had just saved her from certain hell.

  He pressed the button to summon the elevator and held the door open for her when it arrived. “May I suggest you don’t answer the landline for anyone?” he asked. “I will ensure no one comes up without your express permission.”

  “Thank you,” Peyton whispered, just before the elevators closed. And then she remembered: Max.

  “Max?” she yelled as she threw open the unlocked front door. “Are you here?” Silence. There was no response, and Peyton was almost relieved to find her daughter’s room empty. But where was Max and how could she reach her? She sent a first text: Call me asap, it’s important, and then followed it with a second: 911!!!! She pressed redial again but still got her daughter’s voicemail.

  What was she supposed to do in this situation? Call her mother? A friend? A lawyer? Yes, a lawyer. Her college roommate, Nisha, who’d gone on to Yale Law School and had left the U.S. district attorney’s office to start her own crisis management firm. She was brilliant and a ballbuster, and she would know exactly what to do. Stay calm. Call Nisha. But when Peyton opened her phone, panic rose in her throat.

  There was only one person to call.

  Skye picked up on the first ring.

  “Are you watching this right now?” Peyton asked.

  At first, her sister said nothing. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet and serious. “You are so totally and completely fucked.”

  3

  The Guy Magnet

  “Grande vanilla latte, extra hot, no foam, for Max!” a barista called out from behind the counter. Max jumped up from her overstuffed wing chair and headed to the pickup station.

  “Thanks,” she said, noticing right away how cute he was with his shaggy, shoulder-length hair.

  “Oh, hey, you’re a girl,” he said with a smile, revealing dimples.

  Max looked herself up and down, as though she, too, needed confirmation. She blushed.

  “Sorry,” he said, noticing her embarrassment.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” she mumbled, and practically ran back to her seat. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she have a three-sentence exchange with a cute boy that she’d never see again? Humiliated, she took a giant gulp of her coffee, which burned her tongue and the back of her throat. She tried to choke down the burning hot liquid but had to spit it out.

  Just call me the guy magnet.

  She mopped her coffee-stained T-shirt and sneaked a glance at the counter. The cute barista wasn’t even looking at her. Obviously. The coffee shop was teeming with attractive, professional-looking office workers grabbing breakfast, ones who could manage to respond to a bit of friendly chat.

  Max swiped the touchpad on her laptop, where she was editing the footage she’d filmed of her boxing lesson the day before. For the last few months she’d been meeting her mother’s trainer, Kendric, in her building’s gym, and finally she felt like she was making enough progress, skill-wise, to film a session. She had secured her new camera to the lat pulldown machine with a Gumby-like wall mount, and now, as she watched the footage, she was impressed with what she saw. Twenty or thirty seconds of her best boxing moves would make a good opening to the day’s vlog, and if she set it to good music and ended with both audio and closed-caption of Kendric saying “Way to crush it,” she could easily segue into her thoughts on the recent Supreme Court ruling. The new graffiti font she’d been playing with would be perfect in both segments.

  She scanned, cut, and pasted. Cut some more. All around her, people buzzed in and out, slurping their frappes and chatting into their phones, happy it was Friday morning, excited for the upcoming weekend. Not that she had any real plans. With Brynn gone and the rest of her graduating class off doing whatever fabulous things fabulous people did in the summer before college, Max didn’t have much going on at all. Maybe some fishing with her dad. Certainly an argument with her mom.

  Max took a sip of water from her new steel water bottle, which had been a gift from her mother. “I read it’s the coolest one—everyone has them,” Peyton had said. Which was so typical: If everyone had it, she should, too. Didn’t matter if you liked it, or needed it,
or if it was a genuinely good or useful product, so long as everyone thought you were cool for having it. It was so ironic. Everyone always accused teenagers of caring too much what their friends thought—had they ever met a Manhattan mother?

  Like the boxing lessons, for instance. Her mother had managed to weasel her way into the one semi-sporty thing that Max loved and make it all about something else. Losing weight, namely, although of course she would never, ever say that. Instead, Peyton had always carefully couched it in socially acceptable phrases, likely all approved by some teen specialist shrink she consulted. Since Max was thirteen, her mother had been saying things like “Exercise makes everything more manageable” and “Good sweat sessions help so much with sleep” and “Workouts are chicken soup for the soul,” which Max had obviously understood was code for “Don’t get fat.” Or really, “Don’t get fatter.” It was the same veiled way Peyton used to talk enthusiastically about food. “I love starting every meal with a big salad—it’s a great way to fill up on the good stuff.” “Clean eating is so important to good health.” And Max’s personal favorite: “The whole family is going to focus on eating better—we could all stand to pay attention more.” Which was flat-out fucking ridiculous: her dad was naturally, genetically skinny and her mother basically dedicated her own existence to staying that way. It was so obvious that those comments were meant for Max and Max alone.

  It was maddening. Had she put on some pounds the last few years? Obviously. It was called puberty. Had her mother heard of it? These little snippets had been poisonous when Max was a younger teenager, racked with body shame and angst, both made worse by her mother’s focus on her own appearance; Peyton would deny she herself was obsessed, but Max had seen her go from being a pretty and professional news journalist to the stereotypical high-maintenance, smooth-faced, and ageless creature that a national audience demanded. But now, at seventeen, Max had finally realized that just because her mother still desperately clung to the hollow-cheeked look didn’t mean Max had to. She was allowed to love her D-cup boobs and the roundness of her hips and to think her ass looked damn good in a pair of high-waisted jeans. So what if her thighs didn’t have that ridiculous triangle gap that all the models flaunted on Instagram? Max wasn’t a moron: she’d read about the unrealistic pressure on girls to be skinny. And the evils of Photoshop. And eating disorders. It was so irritating that, despite being proud of her own body, Max still had to hear the usual horseshit about diet from her own borderline-anorexic mother. Which of course Peyton would deny if accused. Skinny? Who, her? No, no, of course not. It was all about “health” and “taking care of yourself.”