Two

EVE

Meg, sweetie, after we’re done, how about we order some lemon rasam and mushroom crepes from the café.” Eve Pease rubs her sore triceps, the reward of extending this morning’s Chaturanga Dandasana an extra two minutes. “This low-pressure system has totally blocked my energy.”

Blocked energy is the culprit behind ninety-nine percent of all problems, from acne and neck creping to poverty and climate change, in Eve’s theory of the world. If people would just adopt a clean Ayurvedic diet based on their own doshas, everyone’s skin would radiate from their inner calm. She is forever preaching her regimen’s anti-aging benefits on her personal lifestyle site, The Eve of Love & Pease, and its linked social media accounts. Yet, even the most ardent of her 7.4 million followers continue to sabotage their physical and spiritual progress by falling off the wagon to gorge themselves at a poison palace like Bob Evans.

Bob Evans! What made her think of that?

Evelyn Lushbaugh Pease may have left Paragon, Indiana, way back in high school, but the Midwest has never left her. On a miserable day like this, when the icy December sleet is pelting the mullioned windows of her Weston, Massachusetts, estate, she craves her childhood comforts of salt and fat. Lots of fat. She would give anything for a bowl of thick cheddar potato soup with bacon bits, a plate of chicken fried steak with buttermilk biscuits, and a chaser of coffee with two creams.

Alas, a fermented turmeric and ginger tea will have to do.

“Let’s shoot you with this.” Megan, her daughter and assistant, places the saucer and cup of tea on the hand-tooled maple table where Eve’s legs are propped while she steals a minute of downtime. “There.” Megan stands back, assessing the tableau. “I don’t know why, but odd numbers are so pleasing. Hang in there, Mom. We’re almost done.”

They’ve run themselves ragged shooting an Instagram video for the Love & Pease “Pause & Reflect” holiday campaign. It takes so much more effort than people realize to appear down-to-earth while wearing a $479 puff-sleeved, champagne-silk Henley top with Italian wide-legged wool trousers. For Eve, it requires heaps of quiet meditation on self-denial, like, for example, not being able to stuff your face with biscuits.

She takes a sip and, indeed, the tea is soothing, if not satisfying. “I wish we were visiting Queenie at her new apartment in Malibu. I can’t take much more of this dreariness.”

Eve never would have settled in a stuffy New England town if not for her late husband and his Boston-based financial services firm. But now that Chet’s gone—God rest his soul—she dreams about trading the ten-thousand-square-foot brick Georgian mansion for a modern house half the size on a hilltop overlooking Zuma Beach. She can’t sell Heron’s Neck, the Cape Cod home, because she doesn’t own it outright; Chet’s three adult offspring were also bequeathed that gem and they are deeply attached to that private island. Plus, it’s the ideal setting to show off her Love & Pease summer collections.

“Malibu is not Christmassy.” Megan positions a whiteboard to reduce shadows from the brass-and-agate wall mirror on the gray wall. “People want traditional around the holidays. Horse-drawn carriages and sugar cookies and snow.”

“What snow?”

“Don’t complain. You look lovely in this setting.”

Megan always says the perfect thing. She’s a natural mother that way, Eve decides, studying her daughter in the golden glow from the antique iron Tuscan chandelier, which unfortunately exaggerates the baby fat under her soft chin. She is twenty-two, the result of a fling between Eve and a flash-in-the-pan musician who went by the name Jonny Walker Blak. Lord knows where he is these days, a DJ in some Swedish disco probably, or pumping gas in Jersey.

If only Megan would knuckle down on her core workouts and skip those decadent coffees and chocolate croissants, she would be stunning. Eve is sure that with a few minor lifestyle changes, her daughter would be worthy of gracing a Love & Pease online catalog. Instead, she’s been relegated to working behind the scenes.

That’s where Jake’s been such a stinker. While her stepson has never said in so many words that Megan is not on brand for the Pease image, he has implied as much through the most devious form of rejection—obsequious flattery. Meg is a genius at staging. Style? Lighting? Patterns? A natural. A rare talent. She’d be wasted in front of the camera! We can’t afford to lose her there.

“So?” Megan prompts, not looking up from her iPhone, her thumbs tapping away rapidly. “Ready to shoot?”

“I’m not sure about this.” Eve frowns at the steaming Danish mug. “Tea’s a bit too Canyon Ranch, don’t you think?” Marketing has shown that the secret of Eve’s success as an influencer is her artful melding of wellness with decadence, and this is a classic example. “Let’s do our signature martini with small-batch Vermont gin and those Spanish Gordal olives stuffed with organic lemon peel. They haven’t been moving like Jake anticipated. They could use a boost.”

“We’ve done martinis to death,” Megan says with a sigh, then lowers her phone and pushes her trendy tortoise-shell glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. “We could do hot herbal Glühwein in the vintage Meissen.”

“No, it’s been done.” Eve taps her front teeth, thinking, thinking, thinking. And then it hits her. “The Virgin Vessels.”

“Oh, my god, yes!” Megan says. “We have so many of those. We were going to mark them down after New Year’s just to clear them out of inventory.” In minutes, she’s returned with a white enamel flask, plain aside from the interlocked silver Vs printed on one side.

After setting the scene, Megan returns to her position on the opposite side of the table and adjusts the camera on the tripod to catch the thin winter light streaming through the side window. In it, Eve could pass for a woman half her real age (forty-seven).

“Let’s open with you sniffing that sprig of rosemary,” Megan suggests. “Deep in thought, happy and tranquil. The presents are wrapped. The tree is decorated. The table set. Guests are about to arrive and you’re taking a moment to . . . reflect.”

Eve doesn’t argue, snapping the rosemary from the table’s centerpiece of eucalyptus, holly, and white roses. She knows better than to question the girl’s judgment.

Megan has been taking candid videos of Eve ever since she was old enough to work a phone camera, about age twelve. Early on, she displayed proficiency for catching her mother performing ordinary tasks as the newest Mrs. Pease: stirring canned soup on the massive burners of her La Cornue range, applying a second coat of mascara at her vanity, and, later, celebrating the sunset with headstands on a back deck at Heron’s Neck.

Proud of her child’s sharp eye, Eve posted these shaky, grainy shots on YouTube, hoping an influencer would declare Megan a prodigy and suggest a collaboration. When none came forward, Eve decided to become an influencer herself because why not? She was used to risks. She excelled at them.

Eve has always been determined to spare her daughter the treacherous path she’d been forced to trod, clawing her way out of central Indiana by humiliating herself on local TV commercials and then submitting headshots and résumés to blasé casting directors in New York who rarely called her back. The process was so dispiriting she almost gave in to her parents’ pleas to return home.

If not for a fluke snowstorm that stranded a dispensable actress, Eve never would have landed a bit role on a soap opera, never would have met and befriended the soap’s star, Queenie Jarvis, and, better yet, Queenie’s financier husband, Harrington. Harrington, even better, better yet, was a close friend of one Chet Pease, newly divorced with an AWOL ex-wife and three rowdy teenagers in dire need of supervision. Had the skies that day been merely cloudy, chances are that right now she’d be cutting out Christmas cookies in a modular split-level back in Paragon.

“Love the daydreaming gaze.” Megan zooms in on her mother. “That’s it . . . go!”

Eve touches the sprig to her nose and inhales deeply, sighing with satisfaction as she swivels to the lens. “Shhh! Can you hear?” Her glossed lips form the conspiratorial smile that has sold a million tubes of Pease Puckers. She cocks her head to indicate there is no noise, aside from the fire crackling in the grate of the room’s marble fireplace. “Silence . . . time for us. You know who you are, the holiday magic makers.”

In under a minute, Eve urges her devotees to remember to carve out moments for themselves during this hectic season. “Breathe. Be still. Hold yourself precious so you can hold those precious to you. And should the kids break an ornament and your mother-in-law quip that parental discipline is a lost art, there’s always this.” From nowhere, Eve holds up the Virgin Vessel flask and unscrews the top, delivering a generous pour into the mug. “You have my permission.” With a wink, she takes a sip. “Because the holidays can be—”

“Shit!”

Eve blinks. “Geez. Really?”

Megan taps on her phone. “No. Sorry. It’s a text from Will. He’s been detained at Customs.”

Eve warily sets down the flask. Will is adorable, but he definitely has his father’s reckless streak. It’d be just like him to smuggle in a few illicit Colombian hug drugs, if only for the challenge.

Will is Chet’s youngest son, whom the Fates blessed with his father’s strong brow, his mother’s Byronian wavy hair, and a gaze of captivating intensity. Family friend Ralph Lauren once begged him to model, though she and Chet nipped that in the bud, her being all too familiar with the cocaine- and Adderall-saturated atmosphere of the fashion industry. Will has never been the type to resist temptation—in any form.

Now that he’s survived his treacherous twenties and is well on the way to becoming the mature, though still hip, online image of Love & Pease, Will definitely can’t afford a scandal so déclassé as drug running. The men who plunk down $95 for 1.7 fluid ounces of PeasePower face cream are not aspiring to be aging addled frat boys.

Eve grips the underside of the table. “What did he do now?”

“He’s saying it’s no big deal.” However, the girl’s body is practically vibrating as she texts her stepbrother. “A simple misunderstanding.”

“Let’s hope.” Relieved not to be dragged into whatever mess Will’s gotten himself into this time, Eve sips the tea, now lukewarm, and drums her fingers on the crafted table. They need to get back to the shoot.

“He says he has a big surprise and he’s reached out to Jake and Dani to make sure they’re around when he gets here. ETA is six thirty.” Megan abruptly looks up, her cheeks flushed pink as her mouth forms a silent O.

“What?” Eve asks, now on alert.

“Mom. He says he’s stopping off on Newbury Street to pick up an order from Cynthia Britt’s.”

A gasp catches in Eve’s throat. There’s only one thing a man like Will Pease would order from Cynthia Britt’s jewelry store. Only one very, very special thing.

“Get the fuck out!” Eve leaps out of her chair and toward her daughter. “Oh, baby!”

Megan drops her phone with a clunk and begins to cry. Eve snaps up a napkin from beneath three shining forks and uses it to dab away the dark rivulets of mascara dripping down the girl’s cheeks. “Sweetie, don’t. You’ll puff up.”

Ice water, that’s what they need, and lots of it, followed by a Love & Pease Totally Cool eye mask. And if that doesn’t do the trick, Preparation H. “Come on. Go and take a therapeutic shower.” She gives Megan a slight shove toward the stairs. “Use the exfoliating brush, too, and borrow my black slouchy turtleneck, the Yang. Casual but sexy. I’ll call Yvonne for an emergency blowout. Hurry!”

Giddy, Megan does as her mother instructs, lashes damp with joyful tears, while Eve grabs her own cell and, taking a deep, empowering breath, calls her stepson, Jake.

Jake has been dead set against Megan dating his brother Will ever since he caught them in bed last summer. He was horrified, and started going off on how their relationship basically amounted to incest, though it was no such thing, not at all. As CFO of the family company, he demanded Will “earn back his dignity” by working for the Pease Foundation in Colombia, Chet’s pet project, which he founded with his former wife, Madeleine, after they adopted Bella.

Despite Megan’s protests, Will complied with his domineering brother’s command, angrily flying to Bogotá the next day to join his drip of an adopted sister, now all grown up and smug. That girl’s so earnest she might as well be a nun, lurking on the sidelines of Eve’s parties with her arms folded and lips pinched in disapproval at the elegant canapés passing by on silver trays. Eve doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that Bella silently judges her for throwing a dinner party that costs more than what the foundation would pay to feed ten orphans for a year. As if she should be serving friends and business associates thin gruel instead of organic duck breast with fresh Japanese yuzu.

Anyway, who cares? That proverbial water is under the proverbial bridge. Will’s served his sentence at the foundation and paid his penance. Now, he’s back to claim Megan with a fabulous ring and Jake will simply have to suck it up.

This will be the wedding of the century. Eve is already envisioning the months and months of buildup on the Pease website. Glowing Megan in soft lighting, flowers in her hair, her gauzy dress billowing in a summer breeze against a backdrop of luscious, luxurious, irresistible product. There’ll be dress designers to promote and chefs and florists and tchotchkes galore!

“Eve?” Jake answers on the first ring.

“I have huge news,” she blurts. “Will’s back from Colombia and he—”

“I heard. This is a crisis. A fucking crisis!”

She flinches. Surely, he still can’t be that furious at his brother, not after all these months. “I hardly think . . .”

“Just got off the phone with Dani. She’s pissed, too. She’s headed over to your house. If you have plans, cancel them. We need a family meeting. This needs to be nipped in the bud ASAP.”

It crosses Eve’s mind that Jake might attempt to intercept Will to prevent him from popping the question. That cannot happen. It would totally destroy Megan, and the pain of watching your baby’s heart break in real time is too much to bear for any mother, to say nothing of a self-sacrificing mother like her.

“They’re adults, Jake. You can’t tell them what to do . . .”

“I don’t give a shit what you think, frankly.” Jake inhales and exhales, fuming audibly. “Arthur’s on the other line and brainstorming about how we can get Will out of this without too much damage to the family. Meanwhile, please keep your mouth shut. Don’t go blabbing to your seven million lemmings. This crisis needs to stay private.”

He clicks off and Eve stands there, shaking.

From those early dark days, after Jonny Blak made it clear he would not contribute financially to his daughter’s upbringing, Eve feels she has been constantly fighting some man to secure her daughter’s welfare, including a dead husband when Chet’s will revealed he’d cut out Megan entirely. Every morning she awakes prepared to go toe-to-toe with another male, whether that’s Jake or the family lawyer Arthur Whitaker, or, once, a nosy cop whose investigation into her family threatened to unravel the entire Pease dynasty.

Now, with Will’s proposal, all her hard work finally is paying off. Megan will be formally brought into the Pease fold with all the appurtenances, privileges, and wealth afforded by a legal marriage. This is nonnegotiable.

So, no. Eve will not stand by to watch Jake lay waste to her creation. She will do as she has done in the past to guarantee Megan rises to the top—which is to say, whatever it takes.