“She’s in meetings,” Carson declared primly when he answered Piper’s line. “Who’s calling? Would you like to leave a voicemail?”

Lauren took a deep breath. She was standing naked under a robe in a tiny, dark room. She was trembling with nerves and excitement and anxiety over whether this was the right choice.

But then she relaxed. This was getting to the root of it. She had to dive in. “Yes,” she told the assistant. “Yes, I would.”

Six

Hummus, babe?” Lane’s hand caressed Ronnie’s bare shoulder, and she jumped. He pulled away, surprised. “You okay?”

“Um, uh-huh.” Ronnie’s voice was high-pitched and strained. She glanced at the tub of hummus. This was a ritual of theirs: sitting on the balcony, watching the sunset, and eating healthy snacks Lane prepared. “I’m not really in a hummus mood, though.”

“Wait till you’ve tried this, though. It’s organic. And the company is doing great things with vaccine funding in emerging-market countries.”

“Okay, fine.” Ronnie reached for the bag of accompanying pita chips. “If it’s good for the vaccines.”

Lane was political about every decision he made, whether it was which candidate to vote for or which types of biodegradable sandwich bags to buy. He wanted to leave the world a better place, he always said, and actions spoke louder than words. Ronnie tried to keep current with all his rules and choices and positions, but she hadn’t been raised with the luxury of options, so sometimes his rationale seemed frivolous. In Cobalt, everyone bought one brand of milk: the cheapest brand. No one gave a shit if the cows were mistreated. No one cared if the blueberries were organic. Actually, no one she knew from home ate blueberries because they were too expensive.

Her phone beeped. Lauren had sent a text. It was a screenshot of Kiddo!, a message board for neighborhood moms; a parent was railing about the state of the baby slide at the local playground—someone had had the audacity to take a marker to the underside of the thing, marring its perfect appearance, and one of the scribbles kind of looked like a curse word. Don’t these people have better things to worry about? read Lauren’s text. God forbid our babies start swearing!