“I’m serious. Stop laughing. Your first task is to stand in front of a full-length mirror completely naked. See yourself for who you are and stop lying. Pause the audio, find your workbook, and press play when you’ve stripped down physically and emotionally.”
Shelly across the street had recommended this book to her. Had Shelly stood naked in front of a mirror and cataloged her faults?
It seemed dumb, but if she was really going to try to change her life, she needed to actually try. So far Sloane was the only one with any ideas.
Gabby expelled a breath, grabbed the workbook, and walked upstairs. In her bedroom, she pulled off her sweatshirt and yoga pants. She was still wearing a nursing bra. Lucas was eight. That joke about “easy access” had stopped being funny five years ago. Had Phil ever laughed?
The workbook was a basic drawing of a woman, like the one pathologists used for autopsies, at least TV pathologists. Sloane wanted her to autopsy her old self, catalog her self-esteem’s cause of death. It wasn’t a single, crushing blow, it was a combination of so many little things.
Gabby was game. She was gonna change her life even if she had to count every bright white stretch mark.
“Don’t lie to yourself. Know your advantages and disadvantages. No blame or guilt. Only then can you make a plan.”
She was fully naked and wondering if she should draw a double chin on her sketch—everyone had a double chin from certain angles—when the doorbell rang again.
The mailman must have forgotten a package, hopefully something other than legal documents.
She threw on her robe and hustled.
It wasn’t the mailman. From the landing, she could see two women dressed in black. They looked serious. Not Mormons. Mormon missionaries were always eighteen-year-old boys in button-down shirts and skinny ties their moms had probably bought. Too polished for lawn care people.
Tupperware? Someone on the neighborhood LISTSERV had been hyping Tupperware sales like it was 1977, and Gabby had gone down a rabbit hole. Tupperware came in a lot of colors these days and was part of a strategy for saving the planet by reducing single-use plastic. “Be part of a movement that creates change every day,” the website proclaimed. She had clicked on the link that read, “Embrace your inner entrepreneur,” but then the kids got off the bus, and she hadn’t finished filling out the online form.
If she was going to buy Tupperware, she was going to sell it to herself. Thank you very much for the pep talk, Sloane Ellis! These ladies would have to find some other housewife to sell silicone muffin tins to.
She opened the door resolved to say no politely but firmly so that they wouldn’t ask twice. This time, Mr. Bubbles cowered behind her. Just like Phil, he had a problem with strong women.
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t need any Tupper—” she started to tell the women whose outfits were giving TV cop vibes. They wereclearly newbies to door-to-door sales. If they wanted to sell stackable storage containers for yesterday’s spaghetti, they should try to look more approachable.
The short-haired woman waved a badge in Gabby’s face. “Ma’am, we’re with the CIA. Can we come in?”
Thursday, 10:20 a.m., Greene household
What was the CIA doing at her house? Her mind reeled with visions of drug cartels, secret codes, and Claire Danes pursuing the truth at any cost in outfits remarkably similar to the women on her doorstep. She had zero clue, less than zero, what the CIA was doing at her house. Had she called Ted Cruz too many times? Everyone she knew did that. He had been her whipping boy throughout the whole divorce.
“Is this about Ted Cruz?”
The short-haired agent flashed a look of confusion.
Duh. Ted Cruz would be a Secret Service issue. Any woman with a buzz cut didn’t have time for Ted Cruz’s bullshit. She had Clint Eastwood energy.
It was something else… All those cheap products she’d been ordering from suspicious websites for almost nothing. Gabby stood back to let the CIA agents enter. “I know I shouldn’t have ordered that face mask.” It was too good to be true—$3.99, made of gold, and shipped from Russia. It was probably made out of plutonium or cocaine. “I have to stop clicking on my Facebook ads.”
Standing in her entryway next to a pile of kid shoes andbackpacks, the agent with Clint Eastwood’s stare said, “My name is Agent Alice Strong, and this is Agent Valentina Monroe.”
Agent Monroe didn’t just look like Sofía Vergara, she had a name to match. Gabby lovedModern Family.
Gabby swallowed a lump in her throat and looked directly at Agent Strong. “What is this about?”
Agent Strong glanced around the entryway that led into a comfy living room. “Where can we talk, ma’am?”
Gabby walked toward the kitchen. “If you don’t mind a mess.” She was starting to shake.
Agent Strong stared pointedly at the coffeepot, and Gabby responded, “I’ll get us some coffee.”
She was about to be interrogated by the CIA in her kitchen wearing nothing but a robe with “MOM” emblazoned across the right breast. They hadn’t even asked a single question yet, and she was sweating like she was forty-five minutes into a spin class. A coffee wouldn’t help, but she shoved the pot under the basket of grounds and flicked the red button toON.
They stared back.
