Bad Moms

by Nora McInerny

  I laugh. “Hell yeah you did!”

  It keeps going, like a game of whack-a-mom—where you never know where the next confession would come from.

  “I let my seven-year-old watch Hellboy!”

  “I can’t tell my twins apart!”

  “I secretly got my tubes tied in Mexico on spring break, because if I have one more kid, I will absolutely snap!”

  “I told my kids that if they’re mean to me, I’m going to get cancer and die!”

  Each confession is met with roars of applause, even the ones shouted in languages I don’t understand. It could have gone on like that all night, but Principal Burr butted in with a one-minute warning. Oh shit. I need a strong finish here.

  “The point is this: If you’ve got the whole motherhood thing down? You probably should vote for Gwendolyn. But if you’re a bad mom like me and you have no fucking clue what you’re doing, and you just want everyone to stop making you feel worse than you already feel about yourself? Vote for me.”

  42

  Principal Burr

  I’m flabbergasted. I’m astounded. I’m witnessing history, here at McKinley. The numbers speak for themselves, but I still get to say the words.

  “McKinley, please meet your new PTA president . . . Amy Mitchell!”

  I haven’t seen the moms this excited since Fifty Shades of Grey came out on video on demand.

  Amy is stunned and hugs me like I cast the votes myself (I assure you, I did not).

  Then every mom is hugging me, including Jaxon’s mom, who holds on a little too long. Long enough that I feel like I should tell Jan about it when I get home. She’s not going to love knowing that another woman pressed her body against mine for over five seconds, but she’s going to love that I have something new to talk about. Something good.

  43

  Amy

  I’d stepped onto that stage ready to eat a big slice of humble pie. Ready to just lay down my sword and give up. But something else happened. Right between the woman confessing to us that she tells her kids that church is a “no-kid zone” just to have an hour alone and some woman yelling for a solid minute in what I can only assume was Russian. It was what Oprah calls an “Aha! Moment,” when the clouds part and the lightbulb lights and the math problems all make sense and you hit every green light on the way to work. I didn’t have anything to own up to or apologize for. I wasn’t a bad mom. I’m not a bad mom. And neither are these moms. I’m a normal mom. I’m just a mom. Every woman in that room had gone from nursing a baby (or bottle-feeding and feeling like shit about it because of . . . other moms) to nursing a host of insecurities about her role as a parent. Who do we blame when other people’s kids are messed up? The mom. And who do we blame for our problems when we’re all grown up? Our moms!

  When Jane gave my journal back, I spent the night reading through it. I was a very careful recordkeeper as a kid, and the details were astounding and sometimes very, very boring. I realized that I kept track of my own grades to be able to double-check my teacher’s calculations at report card time. I idolized my mom for her successful career, and I resented her for not giving me 110 percent of her attention. I wrote a three-page diary entry about how my mom was the Worst Mom Ever, because after coming home from a four-day business trip she didn’t want to walk in the front door and immediately drive me to the mall so I could buy a Fiona Apple CD. The first semester of middle school, I made the honor roll. I was thrilled with myself, until my mom pointed out that next semester I could aim for the High Honor Roll.

  I remember myself as a soccer champion, but that journal led me into a serious nostalgia rabbit hole, and I dug out old yearbooks and notebooks. My fifth-grade behavior report said I shoved Andrew Kelleher’s face into the drinking fountain after he beat me in badminton in gym class and chipped his front tooth. My senior yearbook is filled with inscriptions of every time I lost my shit after our team lost a soccer game.

  “Hey Amy! Never forget when you kicked the game ball over the train tracks after we lost to Cooper! C/M! LYLAS!”

  “Amy, remember when you called the Henry coach a bitch and got a two-game ban? You’re crazy. Never change.”

  All those stories are true, and even though I don’t regret kicking that ball over the train tracks, I’m not proud of how I acted when I lost, or how I acted in general. I took all the things I resented about my mom and did the exact same things to my own girl and resented my mom in the same way that Jane now resents me. And then I perpetuated a whole system of motherhood that is based on competition and comparison. A system that had affected every single woman in that room. It’s a mom-shaped snake eating its own tail.

  And we are all so, so tired of it. That was enough for me, truly. It was enough to just feel, for a few minutes, like I was enough.

  And then the numbers came in. The screen behind me illuminated. It was time to vote. The projector showed the kind of setup you’d see on CNN: on the left side of the screen, a professional headshot of Gwendolyn, pretending to brush the hair out of her eyes while looking just beyond the camera. On the right, a photo of me that must have been pulled from Google Images circa 2009. When was the last time I had bangs? And why was it so pixelated? Under each photo, the election results ticked away in real-time, as moms texted in their votes. It looked high-tech and expensive, like something Gwendolyn would have “donated” to the school to assure her win. But as the numbers rolled in, they only rolled in under my photo. It was my number climbing and climbing. I was going to win?

  Gwendolyn had been looming behind me like a Trump to my Hillary. I had taken the stage with sweaty hands and shaking knees and felt her eyes boring holes in my skull the moment the microphone left her hands.

  I don’t know when Gwendolyn left the stage or the building. I just know that when the numbers stopped moving, when the very final count came in, I had 95 percent of the vote.

  Self-actualization is great and all, but damn, it feels good to win.

  44

  Carla

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Dunkler?” A deep male voice booms behind me, but I know better than to admit my identity to a stranger. Besides, Amy and Kiki and I are celebrating Amy’s historic victory. Kiki had apparently spent the afternoon cutting her junk mail into what I can only assume she meant to be confetti and is throwing handfuls of shredded credit card offers into the air with glee. Amy was mobbed by a bunch of desperate moms ready to pledge their undying loyalty to her, and I am obviously her bodyguard, trying to make sure they couldn’t get their sad all over her.

  “Mrs. Dunkler?” The voice is attached to a hand, strong and warm, and the hand touches my shoulder. Instinct kicks in, and I dip into a low squat, lunge forward, and thrust my elbow back into my attacker’s belly.

  “Carla!” Kiki screams. “You killed him!”

  I HAVEN’T KILLED ANYONE. NOT TONIGHT AT LEAST. BUT I have just knocked the wind out of Mr. Nolan, who is gasping for air on the floor like one of Bernard’s betta fish, which we all know he kills on purpose. Even with a limited supply of oxygen, Mr. Nolan is, objectively, a fine piece of meat. A fine piece of meat who needs to learn some fucking manners. “What the fuck.” I sigh, offering him my hand and pulling him to his feet. “You can’t just creep up behind a woman and expect not to get the shit kicked out of you.”

  Mr. Nolan coughs, his deep brown eyes welled with involuntary tears. “I needed to talk with you about something,” he chokes out.

  “Look, we were in kind of a hurry. I’ll move my car off the lawn when we’re done here, relax.”

  Mr. Nolan shakes his head.

  “No,” he struggles to reply, “it’s about Jaxon.”

  THESE PAST FEW WEEKS, I’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT KINDERGARTEN and Mrs. Fagnani and all the bullshit that kept me from showing up for my kid. I’d let myself think that I fit in here, with Kiki and Amy. I let myself think that where I came from didn’t matter, that I could find a place here, the way that Jaxon had. And now this guy was trying to tell me that me and my boy didn’
t belong. That a little bit of assistance on his summer essay was proof that we were both trash that belonged at Clifton.

  MR. NOLAN IS STILL STANDING THERE, RUBBING HIS BELLY.

  “Mrs. Dunkler,” he asks, “do you have a moment?”

  Kiki and Amy have moved on from the scene I’d caused, and are chatting excitedly, holding each other’s hands like they’re about to do “Ring Around the Rosie.”

  I cross my arms and crack my neck, getting ready to face the music. I stare Mr. Nolan right in his beautiful eyes. Damn, he’s even hotter than his yearbook picture from last year.

  “What is it?” I bark, and he digs a piece of paper out of his stupid, handsome shoulder bag.

  “I think you need to read this,” he croaks. “It’s Jaxon’s first essay of the year.”

  “Is there a problem?” I ask him, faking confusion. I knew exactly what Jaxon’s essay said. I had written it the night before school started. Besides, I was pretty sure we were going to have an election after-party and talking about school was already ruining my buzz.

  Mr. Nolan shakes his head. “Just read it,” he says with his gentle smile.

  “Fine,” I say, snatching the crumpled loose-leaf out of his hand.

  What I Did on My Summer Vacation

  By Jaxon Dunkler

  Other kids might think that my summer was boring. We don’t have a lake house we go to, and I didn’t go to Six Flags or to Europe or even to Wisconsin. We didn’t go anywhere this summer, and that’s why it was so great.

  My mom is always busy. Ever since I can remember, she’s worked really hard. She always feels bad about it, but I really don’t mind. I get to eat all the pizza rolls myself, and I don’t have to watch any of those shows where rich women are always arguing at a dinner table. She loves those. My mom probably doesn’t know that, but I’m glad she works a lot, because it taught me how to work hard, too.

  The only reason I get to play traveling baseball is because my mom works so hard to make sure we can afford the registration fees. It’s not much to some families, but it’s a lot to our family. She could use that money to get a new car, or to take more karate lessons. But instead, she uses it to make sure I can play baseball, even though she can’t come to any games. I think she feels bad about that, too, but the only moms who can sit through four hours of baseball a night are the moms who don’t have to work, or the moms who can work on their laptops when we go into extra innings. My mom can’t wax vaginas in the stands. Well, she probably could. I bet the dads would love that.

  While Mom was at work, I went outside to practice my pitch. I did sprints up and down the block. I’m a big guy, so it’s not easy, and when it was hard, I remembered that as hard as I was working, so was my mom.

  This doesn’t sound like a fun summer, does it? But the best part about summer is that my mom gets home earlier. Or, maybe not earlier, but that the sun is still out. Sometimes, she’d stop for takeout on the way home, and we’d eat greasy chicken with our fingers, and sit on the front porch. She’d tell me stories about her life growing up, about how she and her mom were always running from one city to the next because Gramma was sure that life would be better somewhere else. It made me feel lucky that I’ve lived in the same little house for so long.

  Also, I played a lot of Fortnite. That was cool.

  Mr. Nolan is still looking at me when I finish the essay. I don’t bother trying to pretend I’m not crying. My little buddy wrote this?

  “He’s a good kid, Mrs. Dunkler.”

  “Ms.—and no shit he’s a good kid.”

  Mr. Nolan opens his shoulder bag again and pulls out a handkerchief. Not a dirty old Kleenex. A real handkerchief. Is he a ghost from the past or something? I take it and wipe the mascara trails from my cheeks.

  “Well,” he says, looking around us as if anything interesting is happening in the school auditorium on a weeknight, “I guess I’ll see you around?”

  Is he . . . nervous? Does he want to take a dunk in the Dunkler?

  I smile at him. “Yeah, I’ll be in touch to schedule one of those after-hours conferences you were talking about.”

  He blushes.

  “So you did get my letter.”

  Shit.

  AMY AND KIKI AND I STAY UNTIL THE LAST MOM LEAVES THE auditorium, sitting in a small circle on the stage I’ve been avoiding since Jaxon puked during his kindergarten concert because he ate too many cheesy gorditas in the car on the way here. It’s quiet—really quiet—the kind of quiet that would make you uncomfortable with anybody other than the people who really, truly get you.

  “Guys?” Kiki whispers. “I’m so glad we’re friends.”

  My first instinct is to say something sarcastic, but I can’t. Because I’m glad we’re friends, too. And we are friends. I’m friends with a superhot cool mom and this geeky little weirdo mom. For the past twelve years, I’ve been a mom, a wife, a divorcée, an overworked and underpaid boss, a daughter . . . and that’s it. Have I been a friend? Or had one? When did “friend” fall off my list of titles? It’s not like I was totally friendless, I had lots of women to hit the club with or grab a drink with. I just didn’t have friends like this. When you’re younger, friends are your everything. And then when you’re a mom, friendship goes from being a pillar of life to, I don’t know, a random board just nailed onto something else.

  Adult friendships are hard. Or, being a friend and an adult is hard. Being a friend and a MOM is hard. I think that’s why so many women say their husband is their best friend. Saying that is easier than acknowledging that once we’re moms, we’re usually forced into friendships with the moms of our kids’ friends, who might suck.

  But Kiki and Amy are just . . . my people. They are in no way the kind of people I would have picked out of a lineup, but they’re the best damn friends I’ve ever had.

  * * *

  To: Amy Mitchell

  From: Tracy

  Subject: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

  Amy,

  Nobody has heard from Gwendolyn since the election last night. Her calls go straight to voicemail. Given your ostentatious victory last night, it seems very suspicious. As Gwendolyn James’s Best Friend, I feel it is my duty to defend her. I will of course file for a re-count with the election committee. But do I need to call the cops??

  Xoxo,

  Tracy

  45

  Amy

  Gwendolyn James is not missing. I know exactly where she is, and what she’s doing. Gwendolyn James is on my couch, wrapped in the quilt my mom had made from Mike’s favorite band T-shirts.

  CARLA, KIKI, AND I WERE THE LAST TO LEAVE MCKINLEY. AFTER ten PM, the custodial crew started turning off the lights and locking up, and we moved our party of three to the front stairs. It was a crisp night, but my heart was still racing from our victory and I couldn’t feel anything but the warm glow of happiness inside me. When had I last felt like that?

  “At the risk of sounding like a fucking Lifetime movie,” Carla said, fishing in her bag for her keys, “I fucking love the two of you.”

  “I’ve loved you since the day we met!” Kiki squealed, pulling us both in for a hug.

  The car was still parked on the front lawn. There were a few tread marks on the sidewalk, but otherwise, Carla’s Fast & Furious–style driving hadn’t left a mark on McKinley’s perfectly manicured landscaping.

  Kiki was squeezing into the backseat when I saw two headlights glowing in the parking lot. We weren’t alone.

  I shut the door on Kiki and leaned down into the passenger side window. “You guys go ahead, I’ll get a taxi home.”

  “Oh, we don’t mind waiting AT ALL,” yammered Kiki. “I’m perfectly fine staying out as late as we need to.”

  Carla shot me a knowing look and shifted into reverse, revving her engine. “Later, Aims,” she called out, as she powered off the lawn and into the street, Kiki screeching in terror in the backseat.

  I WAS THE LAST PERSON THAT GWENDOLYN JAMES WANTED to see. I knew this because that’s
exactly what she said when she rolled down the window of her Model X (the only SUV she could consciously purchase, and one that happened to also be the most expensive available). For someone who didn’t want to see me, she still kept her window rolled down, so I knew she didn’t mean it.

  For a moment I thought I’d walked up to the wrong car, that maybe there was another blond mom driving a white Model X with a license plate that says GWNJAMES. I’d never seen Gwendolyn look so . . . human. Underneath all the no-makeup makeup, with her pale, blotchy skin exposed? She looked like any other mom who’d had a bad day.

  “Did you come to gloat?” She snickered, examining her face in her rearview mirror.

  I had spent an unhealthy amount of time imagining my next interaction with Gwendolyn. I’d fallen asleep the past few nights running through imaginary conversations where I took Gwendolyn James down a peg or ten, where I looked her in her beautiful sapphire eyes and let her know what a cold, heartless bitch she was for trying to ruin Jane’s life. In these fantasies, Gwendolyn would remain aloof and frozen, completely shocked at my audacity. She wouldn’t blink an eye, but I’d know that even getting a word in was a win. Even tonight, as the results were tallied, I’d thought about how great it would be to rub this victory right in her unlined, blemish-free face.

  Gwendolyn turned from her reflection and looked me in the eye. One eyelash extension hung from the corner of her right eye. I knew they weren’t real. A day ago, I’d have taken this information and cataloged it as Things to Gleefully Tell Carla and Kiki Later.

  “I came to see if you were okay,” I said, surprising myself. For all the time I spent imagining rubbing this victory in her smug face, I actually meant what I was saying.

  Gwendolyn laughed. “I’m fine. It’s allergy season, and I don’t have my essential oils with me, so—”

  I slowly reached my hand in through her car window and up to that loose eyelash extension. I felt like I was sticking my hand into a lion’s cage, but Gwendolyn stayed there, still, as I brushed that eyelash extension from the corner of her eye. It clung to my pointer finger, which I offered gently to Gwendolyn. She looked at me like I had lost my mind.