Page 88 of Lucy Undying

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The Story of Alicia Del Toro

Alicia Del Toro wanted her life to feel different.

It wasn’t that her life was bad. She didn’t mind being a receptionist. She had health insurance and free dental work, and it was definitely better than the jobs her parents had taken to survive. She was bilingual and clever and personable in addition to being strikingly pretty—all qualities that got her the dentist office job despite her having had to drop out of high school.

Everyone who knew where she came from told her she was “lucky.” They assumed her ambition had been adequately rewarded.

But a double-wide in the Nevada desert, always a little dusty no matter how much she cleaned, didn’t feel “lucky” to her. It felt like a starting point, not the finish line her steadfast boyfriend, Ben, and their friends seemed to view it as. It wasn’t until he started talking kids that she panicked, though. Kids were permanent. Kids were anchors. She loved Ben, she did, but.

But some nights—most nights—when she got home from work and made dinner that they then ate on the couch watching TV, she thought…This can’t be it. This couldn’t be everything the world had for her. She longed for excitement, for connection, for something bigger than herself. Something divine.

One day, a day like any other, a day like all the others, Alicia looked up from the reception desk and saw an angel.

The woman glowed. There was no other way to put it. Her clothes fit just right, her hair fell just right, her smile spread just right. There was something almost unhuman about her perfection.

That’s what I want, Alicia thought. That’s who I want to be.

As though aware of the effect she’d had, the woman paused and really looked at Alicia. Alicia was beautiful, and she knew it. But growing up without money had left its mark. Acne scars shadowed her cheeks. Her teeth weren’t straight. She was still paying off medical debt from her parents’ deaths, so her clothes were thrifted and her frizzy hair managed only with grocery store products. Alicia was real life; this woman was the movies.

The woman slid a card across the desk. “I’m having an I-Vee party,” she said. “You should come. I think you’d really fit in.”

Plenty of older men propositioned her, thinking they were entitled to her time or attention (they weren’t, and she let them know it). Not a lot of women did, so this was new. She took the card, certain it was some sort of weird sex thing. What happens an hour from Vegas, etc. But when she searched for I-Vee that afternoon, the Goldaming Life website looked exactly the same as the woman: Polished. Beautiful. Glowing.

Alicia went to the party. She sampled products and listened attentively, but she’d already devoured everything on the website before she came. The party was a light introduction; she was ready to go all in on the patented Gold Path. A path that led members to bigger and better things, bigger and better selves, than they could ever have or be on their own.

Climbing the sales ladder at Goldaming Life felt equal parts attainable and aspirational. There were members—women like her, women who had nothing to recommend them but their intelligence and compassion and charisma—who were now top earners. They made hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions, won all sorts of prizes for new membership sales, and changed their own lives by helping other people change theirs.

They’d gotten rich, yes. But more important, they were a community. A family. Goldaming Life was going to help her find the Alicia she was always meant to be, the one the universe had been waiting for.

Ben balked at the buy-in. They had bills to pay, and he wanted to save for a baby. So she did it without him. She had to use the products for two months before she could begin selling them—there were no false testimonials at Goldaming Life, only actual results from actual devotees—and she had no time to waste.

Everything exceeded her hopeful expectations. With just a few applications of the skin-rejuvenating cream, her acne scars were healed. But she didn’t want to be limited to the creams. She sold her mother’s family jewelry and subscribed to the nutrition shakes. Her metabolism sped up, so boosted that nothing seemed to stick to her belly or hips anymore.

She was a walking before-and-after. Everyone noticed. By the time she hit two months, she already had a waiting list of women eager to sign up under her. It wasn’t hard to convince others to join. She loved everything about it, and her sincerity was the best sales tool possible. She sailed past the first goal points on the Gold Path in record time.

And the community! She was meeting people she never would have otherwise, people who saw her value and potential, people who recognized how much she had to offer the world.

No matter how Ben grimaced and complained that she was getting too skinny and too busy, Alicia couldn’t be stopped. All her life she’d been working herself to the bone just to stay in the same place. And now? She was flying. Sprinting down the Gold Path. There was always a new level to attain, a new milestone to hit, a new goal just out of reach—for now.

Not only had she already earned back what she’d put in, she was bringing in enough money that she went part-time at the dental office. Even that seemed unnecessary, done to placate Ben and stay on the health insurance. She’d never felt this good, though.

But it wasn’t all golden. Nothing ever is. She was bringing in five figures a month, breaking sign-up records for the region despite the sparse population, even invited to be the face of the greater Reno area I-Vee Center (which meant at last quitting her dental job, no great loss no matter how Ben fretted), but she still wasn’t allowed into the exclusive back rooms.

All she could do was grit her teeth in a smile as yet another woman with deep pockets strolled right past her and through those sleek golden doors. Alicia didn’t know what was behind them, but it made her blood boil that she had to earn admission when others just bought it. She was stuck in the central room, the one anyone could book for an I-Vee party. Standing on those polished floors with her polished skin and her polished teeth, waiting to welcome people. Still a receptionist.

“I hate her, too,” another woman said, laughing.

Alicia turned and froze in surprised recognition. At the spring Goldaming Life Celebration—Alicia had live streamed it instead of going because Ben thought the airfare and hotel fees were too much even though it was obviously an investment in their future—Grace Ford had been named as a candidate to walk through the Celestial Gate during the next cycle. She was almost at the end of the Gold Path. The top.

It was like seeing a celebrity. Alicia’s tongue went thick and dry. This close, Grace Ford reminded her of the villain in a Bond movie—tall and icy and powerful and beautiful. A little scary, but a lot sexy.

Grace Ford paused, standing next to her and taking in the sleek I-Vee showroom. Even though it wasn’t hers, Alicia took great pride in it. She’d introduced so many women to the amazing products it held, and she was going to introduce so many more.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Grace Ford asked.

Alicia nodded. She wanted a secret. She wanted all the secrets.

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