Barbarians at the PTA

by Stephanie Newman

  “Victoria, are you there?” His tone was almost a whine. “I’ve been having a hard time and I want you back. I even found a therapist.”

  There had to be a catch. Colin had no interest in looking inward.

  “I went twice. She told me I didn’t need treatment.” That was the Colin I knew!

  “Good for you.” I said in a rah-rah voice, as though he’d scored a goal or made a great catch.

  “Yes. I’m ready for us to try again.”

  “Sorry you’ve had a hard time, but our relationship is over. You need to move on, so please don’t call me again.”

  We hung up. I wasn’t about to waste any more energy on my ex-fiancé. Rachel needed me, and I had to save my strength.

  A couple of days later, after running home from the Westchester office during a break, I came upon my daughter in her room. She was upstairs, sitting at her desk, her back to the door. “Hi, honey. How are you?”

  She snapped her laptop shut as soon as she heard me. Her posture was stiff and tense.

  “Rach?”

  When she finally turned around, her face was streaked with tears. I froze.

  “Yes?” Her tone was clipped, miserable.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I have to study now.” She turned back around and stared into a book, and I breathed in. This wasn’t over.

  About a half hour later, she went to take a shower, and I headed straight for her room. The computer was right where she’d left it, but this time the cover was up, open to her Instachat feed.

  Rachel knew that access to social sites was contingent upon my occasional monitoring of her accounts; it was what the authorities advised. I wasn’t crazy about looking over her shoulder, but in this case, I felt I had to.

  I peered at the screen. Her profile photo showed her smiling, wearing a hoodie. Her bio was the words: “Yep, still me,” followed by soccer ball, microphone, and dog and cat emojis.

  I scrolled down, looking at her posts. In one, she’d put up a picture of our house and written “#MovingDay.” She’d posted on the day of her first soccer practice, and again a bunch of weeks ago at our house while on a playdate with Collette. There was a photo, their hands extended, nails polished in matching shades of blue. That must have been the picture Rachel had mentioned posting on their joint account.

  I scrolled down to the most recent thing. Rachel had put up a photo of herself and several kids from her former school, writing “Besties and Onlies.” The girls in the picture had commented, “Wish you were here,” and “Miss you.”

  Did that mean the kids from the city were her only friends? I forced myself to read further. Lexi, Jess’s daughter, had commented: “So go back!” And Katie, Audrey’s kid, had echoed that sentiment: “No one wants you here.”

  Though Zoe and the others from the city had made nice comments, they hadn’t made much of an effort to get together, even when I’d offered to drive. Zoe’s parents were embroiled in a custody battle and Savannah had practices and travel games. I wasn’t sure if they were really busy or if they’d moved on.

  Rachel was now turning off the shower and heading down the hall. After she’d thrown on a pair of pajamas and sat down on the bed, I kissed her wet head. “Please talk to me about what’s going on.”

  “Why? It’s not like you can do anything.”

  “I want to know what’s troubling you. As long as you talk about problems, they can be fixed. Please tell me, so we can figure this out together.”

  She looked up, pondering. “Well . . . .”

  She teared up and described the biting comments, and her fear that other kids would join in and everyone would laugh at her.

  “What should you do if anyone taunts you or makes mean comments?” I asked.

  “Try to ignore it and not show they were getting to me. Just like you told me.”

  “Right. If they don’t get a rise out of you, they’ll move onto something else. I’ve also said that I think you should find some different people to sit with at lunch and recess.”

  For some reason this part of the equation was proving difficult for her to navigate. “I don’t have that many choices really.” She slumped forward looking weary, and showed me how to remove the comments—just a simple right click: “One and done, Mom.” Not so fast. While the hateful words were gone, the sentiment that she was not wanted remained and continued to burn.

  I’d been on the receiving end of something similar at the Newcomer’s dinner. I’d yet to see a mom at Barnum who made decisions for herself—with the exception of my patient Amy, and she was ostracized. I thought again about how all moms followed Lee, and how their thought process filtered down to the kids. It was like a “groupthink” experiment gone awry.

  Things had been easier in the city. Here in Mayfair, everyone was similar in terms of education, profession, ethnicity, and financial position. There was only one group—you were in or out, and the pressure to conform was extreme.

  I glanced over at Rachel. “There must be other kids, Rach.”

  She shook her head.

  “Please explain why you haven’t tried to spend time with . . .” I racked my brain, “What was her name? Maya! She’s in your class, right?”

  Rachel looked at me with tearstained cheeks. “Lexi and Collette don’t like her.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s it. If they say someone isn’t cool, and you hang out with that person, then they’ll think you’re weird.”

  So Barnum was a poisoned well. If the “in” girls didn’t like you or your friends, you were tainted.

  “I understand that hanging with ‘the group’ is important to you. But isn’t it better to look for people whose company you enjoy than push in with kids who aren’t friendly? Just find one nice person—who cares what Lexi and Collette say?”

  Rachel sniffled and buried her face in her hands. “It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do. Those girls make it very hard. And they’re very popular. If they say bad things about someone, everyone believes them. And if they tell people not to hang out with someone, everyone listens. If I hang out with Maya, all the girls will make fun of me.”

  So Collette and the other girls were now picking on and excluding Rachel.

  Lee’s enmity for me had spread like a virus, afflicting my child, and making it impossible for her to have any kind of social life in our new town.

  Seven

  I’ll Never Do Lunch in This Town Again

  The first thing I noticed was the smell: ammonia burning its way through my sinuses, searing every tissue in its path like that potent Japanese mustard I hated. How could the kids stand this place?

  I had no interest in seeing Lee or any of her friends. But I wasn’t letting them steal volunteering out from under me, not after finally being able to spend time at school after years of full-time work. There was no way I was canceling.

  After getting a pass in the front office, I headed for the cafeteria, where the word of the day was “drab.” Cinderblock walls, steel picnic tables, and hard wooden benches as far as the eye could see. Multigallon trash canisters lined the room’s perimeter, their wideopen jaws awaiting the latest haul of pizza crusts and goldfish discards. The aides seemed miserable, and I couldn’t blame them.

  I introduced myself to the other volunteers, two moms whose daughters were in the second grade. One of them asked me if I’d heard the district had been awarded first place in the state’s orchestra and strings competition. And did my child play in the band? I told her that Rachel had briefly taken a turn at the recorder, but decided to quit when several of our former neighbors called the doorman to report that a wailing sound, possibly the cries of an injured animal, was emanating from our apartment. They laughed, and then it was time to ready the tables for the first group of kids.

  Moments later, the room began to buzz with entering students. The kindergarteners walked in two-by-two, their colorful lunchboxes swaying, as they skipped to their seats. Two girls began gi
ggling over mac and cheese and smiley-face cookies, as the boys across from them broke out into a sword game with their milk straws.

  The girls clapped and slapped hands. I broke into a smile. “Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat.” I hadn’t heard that one in years. The girls were face-to-face, like they were the only two kids in the room, mirroring each other’s delight. On the other side of the cafeteria, several boys in football jerseys who looked to be about eight, laughed and threw Cheetos at one another. The buzzer sounded and they lined up in two messy rows, snaking out of the cafeteria and up the hall.

  The upper grades made their way in, and it became a war zone. I was on high alert wondering how the girls would treat Rachel. I hoped that seeing them in their element would give me some ideas about how to strategize with her, help her meet different kids.

  Turning to the task at hand, I set down greasy paper plates of pizza in front of the children. Rachel sat quietly at the end of the table of girls. The others were chatting, interrupting one another and laughing.

  Suddenly, Lee appeared in tennis whites, her shapely legs on display as she approached one of the tables. “Excuse me, Ma’am.” An aide was running behind her, flagging her down. “You need a pass from the main office.”

  “You must be new,” Lee snapped. Turning her back on the woman, she handed several takeout containers to Collette.

  I was hoping Lee would stay across the room, but she strode over to me. “Jess said you’d be here today.” She stared, waiting for a response. Before I could formulate one, a woman in a roomy college sweatshirt headed straight for us.

  “Lee?” Her voice cracked. Lee smiled mouth only. “You rang?”

  “We met at a rec game last spring. I’m Robin.” She paused and cleared her throat. “I’m here to drop off Ally’s EpiPen. Anyway, I came over to talk to you in person because I, uh, tried to text you.”

  Lee frowned. “What did you want to speak about?”

  Robin looked over at the closest table of kids, who were busy debating whether Nicki Minaj or Cardi B was a better rapper. “Well, Ally’s been asking for a playdate with Collette. I was wondering if we could get them together one day after school?”

  “Let me get back to you, okay?”

  Robin nodded and lowered her eyes. For a second I wondered whether she’d bow and back away. Instead she sped out and down the hallway.

  Lee scrolled through her phone. “There’s no way mah Collette would spend even fahve minutes with her loser daughter,” she muttered, before looking up at me. “Why are you still standing there?”

  I felt like making a snarky comment, telling her I’d come for the collaborative atmosphere, but the secretary cut me off. “Mrs. DeVry?” she called from the doorway.

  As Lee was leaving the room, a screeching sound drew my attention back to the tables, where the red-haired girl I’d seen that first morning was digging her heels into the floor, squatting to push the bench backward and stand up. Lee’s daughter, Collette, had used wooden chopsticks to push a small container of soy sauce to the edge of the table, where it tipped over onto the redhead’s lap.

  She managed to stand and wipe her pants, and was slowly making her way over to the trash bins. Collette and one or two others giggled, and the rest of the group ate their pizza, business as usual. I felt a catch in my throat, glad Rachel was at other end of the bench and temporarily out of danger, though I couldn’t shake a feeling of despair. Kids could be so cruel. I really hoped it would get better for Rachel and the redhead.

  I ignored the impulse to go over—volunteers were not allowed to interact, just hand out food—and made my way to another table, where I served a pair of twin boys in identical gold LeBron James jerseys, and then the rest of the group. On one side was a kid with a cleft chin, next to a curly haired child in a bright blue T-shirt bearing the image of a large smiling dog. “I Love Poodles,” the caption read. Suddenly, one of the twins elbowed the poodle kid hard, causing him to fall off the end of the bench.

  Physical danger crossed a line, and just as I was about to intercede, a tall aide pointed at the kid with the cleft chin, who appeared to be the ringleader. “You have been warned, Jake. Leave Lucas alone.” Jake and several others snickered. Lucas moved to the other side of the table, focusing intently on his lunch tray.

  My stomach lurched. No wonder people repressed their childhoods.

  I’d made my way over to the other volunteers and was about to ask if they wanted to go out for coffee, when Sharon texted, asking me to join her for lunch. I accepted, grateful for a friend.

  We met at the Organic Hub, the new health food restaurant close to the station. It was a tiny place, next to a frame store, a small wooden room with a few bistro tables, chairs, and a counter. Sharon stood up when I walked in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “So glad we could do this,” she said, pushing her dark bangs out of her eyes. “How are things going? Does Rachel like school?”

  “Moving in fifth grade hasn’t been easy.”

  Sharon nodded. “Why did you choose to do it now, as opposed to next year when they’d be in middle school?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should tell her about my great aunt’s house. I didn’t want to sound showy, and I definitely wasn’t going into the scene at the altar, though I wanted to be authentic with her. I compromised, “It was a good time for us to leave the city, and the house came up.”

  “How long have you guys lived here?” I asked.

  “Seven years. I can’t believe that it’s been that long. We came here for the schools when Neil was turning four. My job with the planning bureau required city residency, so I had to quit. The first few months I was isolated because the pre-K was two towns over. That was brutal. But once Neil started kindergarten, I met people.”

  “And you like it now? It stinks that you had to give up your career.”

  Sharon was about to speak when the server came over with a smoothie. “Can I get you anything?” she asked me.

  I glanced at the menu. “Everybody around here seems crazy for avocado toast. What do you think? Is it as good as they say?”

  Sharon laughed, “Let’s do it!”

  “Two orders of avocado toast,” I smiled at the server. We were seated next to a window. Two women in matching black yoga pants strolled by. Didn’t anyone wear street clothes anymore? They were walking in step with their identical wheat-colored dogs. I said, turning back to Sharon, “I was interested in what you were saying, about moving and having to quit work.”

  “I was with the real estate department. It was a lot of paperwork. And then our first year here, my husband, Michael, and I decided that it made sense for me to go back to school for graphic design.”

  “How has that been?”

  “I like it, and I can structure my hours around the kids’ schedules. And you?”

  “Psychologist. I love my job; people are fascinating.”

  “Especially around here.” Sharon leaned forward. “Some of the girls’ moms are interesting. They can be pretty clique-y.”

  “I think you mean bitchy.”

  Sharon looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or give me a sympathetic shake of the head. “Neil had some playdates with a few of the girls in kindergarten. Some of their moms were insufferable.”

  I nodded. “Still are. I’ve been trying to steer Rachel toward some of the other girls, but she seems afraid to befriend the ones who aren’t in the right crowd.”

  Sharon nodded. “Their grade has a bunch of snotty moms and kids. But there are some nice people, promise.”

  I nodded, remembering my silent vow to stand up more firmly to Lee. I still wasn’t sure exactly how to do that without making things even worse for Rachel.

  Sharon was speaking again. “Does Rachel play sports? She’ll meet kids that way.”

  The food came quickly, and although it didn’t rise to the level of the religious experience everyone had promised, the toast was filling. We paid the bill and promised to get together soon.

  I was ma
king my way to the car, thinking how Sharon had said that some of the girls’ moms were “insufferable,” when a dark SUV sped past. As I registered the vehicle’s insignia, a symbol resembling a chrome peace sign, something brushed my leg. It was a third buff-colored dog, the latest iteration of the hypoallergenic mix that was favored by Mayfair’s cognoscenti. No need for an identifying marker on his rear.

  Watching the pup retreat, I slid into the front seat of my compact car thinking: In Mayfair, kids were “popular,” dogs, blond, and cars, black and roomy.

  The fifth graders were gearing up for the upcoming basketball season, practicing on Saturdays. Rachel had been randomly assigned to a team with Lexi and a couple of others from class. To my relief, Collette was on a different squad. I hoped playing in the rec league would be a good experience for my daughter. Today was her first preseason scrimmage.

  We were at the gym. While Rachel went onto the court, I took a seat in the bleachers, planting myself next to a tall, lithe woman in fashionably ripped jeans. I thought I recognized her from the classroom and also as the woman Lee had displayed the photo of at dinner. “Hi,” I said, “I’m Victoria. I think I saw you at pick-up. Our daughters are in the same class.”

  She shook my hand, “Phoebe. I heard a new girl had moved in.” I was about to ask who her daughter was, and if she’d played basketball before, when Lee and Jess walked into the gym with their girls.

  Phoebe stood up immediately. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping down a few rows until she reached the one where Lee and Jess were now seated. I watched, pressure rising, as she positioned herself next to them. I guess I didn’t rate when the Star-mothers were around.

  There was the same in-group/out-group nonsense I’d heard patients rant about. I felt like leaving the gym, but wanted to watch the scrimmage, and pulled out my phone, hoping my email messages would distract me.

  When I wasn’t dodging the PTA clique, I was trying to block out the conversation of two men who were seated down the row from me, watching the kids warm up. “That one has a good shot, though it needs work. See how she doesn’t put enough movement in the wrist?” I rolled my eyes. His companion offered an opinion. “See how that one moves. Now she’s a ballplayer.” Rating players on athletic ability and promise, these guys sounded as though they were scouting for a professional draft.