“Oh my God,” Mele says. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Doesn’t it?”
A smile seems plastered onto Jenny’s face. She’s ignoring the butt plug and pretending to be fascinated with a Glad lid that Purse is using as a tambourine.
“I buy all these toys and this thing is what he loves,” Annie says. “I don’t even know where it came from.”
Jenny is walking Purse out of the kitchen. “Come on, Max,” she says. “Let’s let your mom get back to her things . . .”
Purse follows Jenny while glancing back over her shoulder. Max hops after her.
“That was chaotic,” Annie says when they’ve left.
“You seem irritated,” Mele says.
“I don’t understand how she feels so free to bring that child here, but she has to check to see if Max can go there. It’s totally classist.”
“Um, it’s not like you’re living in the Tenderloin or something.”
“Yes, but clearly, I’m not Tabor Boyard. I don’t go to the Bar Method. I wasn’t in a sorority.”
“Yes, you only went to Barnard. You just bake desserts on the Wolf range. And drink coffee from a machine built into your wall.”
Annie remembers the brownies and takes them out of the oven to cool. The smell of them tamps her hostility and turns it into hunger. She could eat the entire pan, but remembers that some are for Jenny.
“Do you think she heard us?” Annie asks.
“Yes,” Mele says, “but you shouldn’t really care.”
* * *
On Thursday, Annie waits for a call that never comes. On Friday she waits for a call that never comes, and on Tuesday she waits for a babysitter who never comes.
Annie calls Jenny; she texts, she emails, and when there’s still no response she sends an email to Tabor, inquiring about the state of Jenny, the health of Jenny—perhaps something happened to her! But Tabor doesn’t respond either.
Finally, the next Thursday, Jenny emails that she can no longer sit for Max because of her busy schedule. Annie is brought back to seventh grade, being told via note that she’s being dumped, and just as she did in seventh grade she questions herself: What did she do wrong? Was she not generous enough, pretty enough? Did she not have cool things? Did she not provide enough benefits?
She calls Mele. “Jenny quit. I shouldn’t have pushed Haight Street on her. I told her to go there one day to shop. I shouldn’t have asked if Thursday was still the party night.”
She remembers that Jenny had just ignored her and grinned at Max so closely you’d have thought she was using his eyes to check for lipstick on her teeth.
“I swore, too,” Annie says. “Once or twice, I think.”
“I think you had her at butt plug,” Mele says. “Or crab call.”
“We shouldn’t have done that! What kind of people are we!”
“Um, normal?”
“But you’re not normal,” she wants to tell Mele. “You’re single and obsessed with a man who doesn’t love you.” Annie wipes the skin below her eyes, confused by her tears. She looks at Max in his high chair eating a banana. He liked to take huge bites of his food, then hoard it for hours. Music plays on her computer in the office, and his head bobs so that he looks like a fifteen-year-old boy, headphones on, walking down Market while sucking on a billiard ball. She left you, she thinks. How can she leave you? How could she not cherish you? Her son loves Method Man and Clifford the Big Red Dog. He loves wearing her underwear around his neck like necklaces. Panty leis!
“I’m not a good mother,” she cries. Mele remains silent. “I need to be one of the moms on my aprons. I need to love mani-pedi parties, pop champagne, and yell, ‘Whoo-hoo. Girls’ night out!’ or whatever.”
“Forget all that,” Mele says. “Put yourself on the apron.”
Annie is about to say that she’s just lonely and she’s been drinking too much of the alcohol meant for her cooking. She went to Barnard. She has an MFA in graphic design from California Institute of the Arts, and yet what does she do with all of that now? She bakes brownies. She makes designs that everyone seems to be doing on Etsy. She knows everything adds up, but the sum is so vague right now and unsatisfactory.
“I don’t know why I’m so upset,” she says. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
I want to fit in with people that weren’t nice to me when I was young, she thinks. I’m lonely, she thinks. I miss Brian. She had wanted to hire someone with whom to raise her child.
* * *
When they hang up she goes to look in on Max—there’s nothing better than watching your child sleep. Here we are at the end of the day, she thinks. Here you are safe. And Daddy is out in the trenches working for us. Sometimes, life is simple and amazing and the sum of it all is right. But then the moment passes and you’re left wanting. Annie kisses her son on the forehead and then she goes to the kitchen to satisfy something she cannot name.
* * *
The next day Annie parks in front of Tabor Boyard’s home, turning her tires in to the curb. It’s Friday. Jenny will be here soon.
“Jenny forgot some things at our house,” she says to Max. “We have to return them. Maybe we’ll see Purse. Did you like Purse?”
She can’t wait until he’s at an age where he can answer her questions without knowing her motivations. Jenny is walking up the hill from the bus stop. When she sees Annie she does a kind of full-bodied hiccup, but manages to keep moving with a happily surprised expression on her face. She comes to the passenger side of the car and Annie puts the window down.
“Hi,” Jenny says. “Hi, Max! What are you guys doing here?”
Annie knows that if she doesn’t mention it, Jenny will pretend that she never quit, that she never worked for Annie in the first place. She can’t stand shy people. This is what they always do in the face of tension and conflict—pretend nothing has occurred.
“I wanted to touch base,” Annie says. “Since it took you a while to email and you don’t return calls.”
“Oh,” Jenny says and nods, an infuriating grin on her face.
“So you’ve been really busy?”
“Yeah. Really busy, so . . .” She looks to both sides of her, then back at the house.
“It must be hard to juggle everything,” Annie says. “School. Work. Max. Purse.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I couldn’t juggle everything.”
Teachers must feel good when students ape their sentiments, but Annie knows Jenny’s just saying what she thinks will make Annie leave her alone.
“You didn’t like me,” Annie says. “Am I right?”
“I like you.” Her face pales. She looks like she’s going to barf.
“My language,” Annie says. “You don’t like the way I speak or act, right?” Annie’s voice is calm, not at all angry or defensive. She really does want to understand. “Do you think I’m a bad mother?” she asks.
“No!” Jenny says. “No.”
“Why couldn’t Max come here on Fridays? Why could you bring the girl to our house, but Max can’t go to hers?”
Jenny uses a smile to deflect everything Annie just said.
“Well?” Annie asks.
“It just isn’t a good fit,” Jenny says. “Purse is walking and interacting and she’s starting elimination communication and Max isn’t doing that so—”
“Are you serious?” Annie asks. Why can’t people just say ‘potty training’?” She can’t imagine teaching Max to say, “Elimination.” He will say, “Poop.” He will say, “Mommy, I crapped my pants.”
“Tabor’s doing this intensive E.C. training thing and so Purse isn’t—”
“So maybe Max can join after she’s fully E.C. fluent or whatever?”
Max baas from the back, and Annie wishes she had bothered to clean her car. Random papers and leaflets are on the floor on the passenger side. The clutter, the mess seems endless. At that moment she believes that a stray Pirate’s Booty could make her cry.
“Moms are like me, too, you know. W
e’re not all like Tabor.”
“Okay,” Jenny says.
Annie shakes her head. She is never going to get an answer. She is never going to get in or through, and of course she was prepared for this.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Annie says. She looks over at the cellophane-wrapped brownie on the passenger side, not sure what she should do with it or what she was thinking. “This is for Tabor.” She holds up the treat.
“Wow!” Jenny says. “She’ll love it. She loved your last batch.”
“It’s quite big,” Annie says. “And extremely rich. You really only want to eat half.”
“Okay,” Jenny says. “Maybe we’ll split it. Bye, Max!” She makes a face to indicate sadness.
Max makes a noise that reminds Annie of a cartoon character expressing disbelief. Huh???
“Say bye,” Annie says in a sweet, upbeat tone. “We won’t see her again.”
* * *
It’s only when she explains to Mele what she has done that the possible consequences materialize before her eyes. She thinks: lawsuit. She thinks of Brian, how he’d have to work for his own family pro bono. His firm—its rich (and slightly smarmy) history—they’ve defended the Black Panthers, Hells Angels, Snoop Dogg, and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and now they’d be defending Annie Lane from West Portal, apron designer, mother of a nonwalker. All Brian’s work would be for nothing. Tabor Boyard will sue them so bad that all they’ll be able to afford is that one-ply toilet paper and mommies like the ones on her aprons will be like “Oh my God, is she okay? I mean should we organize a silent auction?”
“Annie,” Mele says. “I asked you a question.” They are sitting around her kitchen island. “How many did you give her?”
“Just one,” Annie says. “A big one.”
“Who do you think will eat it? Do you think she gave it to Tabor or kept it for herself?”
Max sits at her feet, moving the butt-plug-like toy along the floor like a race car. She wishes Mele, of all people, didn’t sound so frantic. Mele was supposed to keep her cool, meaning that this whole thing was either really bad or Mele was just sniffing out a good story she wanted to pillage.
“I told her to ‘take half,’ or to only eat half. That’s code for ‘It’s a pot brownie.’ ”
“She doesn’t know the code!” Mele says. “Jesus, Annie! She’s the girl in the computer lab on a Thursday night. She’s not doing a keg stand or a bong hit or tripping out watching Mickey Mouse getting terrorized by brooms!”
“It was a weak batch,” Annie says. She feels like she’s getting questioned by cops. She tries to remain still, and has kept on a pretty good poker face, but her hands are clasped tightly, her shoulders tensed up near her ears. “She’s probably never even heard of a pot brownie before anyway.”
“Great. She’ll be tripping balls.”
“But what I’m saying is that she won’t know it’s from the brownie. She won’t put it together. Like when dogs get tranquilized—they don’t think, Yup, I’m being tranquilized. Right?”
“Maybe,” Mele says. “But what if she gives it all to Tabor? Or worse, a child!”
“She wouldn’t do that. The kids are in an egg-free, dairy-free, inorganic-dessert-free zone. That’s what Jenny told me. And if she gives it all to Tabor, then great. That was part of the . . . plan, not like I had a plan, but . . .”
“You don’t even know the woman,” Mele says. “What were you thinking?”
Annie watches Max fly the butt plug. “I don’t know.” Max brings the toy to his mouth, and she snatches it from his hands. “No,” she says. “You could choke.”
He begins to cry, and she picks him up, moving her hand in circles on his back.
“Sorry,” she says. “Sorry I scared you.” As a mom she feels there’s just so much to be sorry about every day.
“Don’t judge me,” Annie says, but Mele says something that makes her feel better.
“Why not?” Mele says. “It’s what moms do. And it’s okay.”
“Okay,” Annie says and smiles at her friend, who is still here, after all.
* * *
At the park, Mele and Annie gather their things, preparing for departure. Mele rounds up their trash: an empty bottle of hand sanitizer, orange peels, a plastic baggie she stuffs into the pocket of her tight jeans with a strategic mid-thigh tear. She walks to the overflowing bin and lets go. The hand sanitizer makes her glum—this invention that no one really needs.
Like Annie, Mele will return to an empty home, and Mele wonders if she has it better in a way. She doesn’t expect someone to be there—she isn’t missing anyone. Yet, hearing it that way in her head just makes her miss and expect someone even more. She wants Ellie to be enough, but perhaps that isn’t the healthiest desire. Little Ellie will become medium Ellie and then big Ellie, and she won’t want to be the only thing that sustains her mother. Mele will need to find other ways to have fun.
She goes back to the table to get her bribe: PEZ. Annie has Max on one hip, her diaper bag on the other. Mele loosens her friend’s hair tucked under the strap.
“I can give you my recipe for the brownies if you want,” Annie says. “I have a good cookie recipe, too.”
“I’m not sure if that would fly,” Mele says.
“It might. You know moms in San Francisco do it. No judgment, right?”
“Okay, maybe,” Mele says.
She likes the idea of Sloppy Joes with “Shrooms,” in quotes, of course, paired with an elegant, inflated, Tabor Boyard salad. Also, Baileys Brownies, and why not? The recipe for Annie’s “Just Eat Half” Brownies.
“Ellie, let’s head out,” Mele says, waving the PEZ. Ellie spins on the tire swing, looking up at the sky and saying, “Boppity, boppity.” When she sees the candy she slows to a stop, then staggers to her push bike like a drunk.
“I wonder why Henry didn’t show up today?” Mele tries to say this in the same way as she’d say, “I wonder if it will rain tonight?”
“He took his kids camping,” Annie says.
“Oh,” Mele says, a streak of heat moving across her chest. Maybe he and Annie have the same kind of friendship as he and Mele do. Maybe theirs isn’t at all unique. Their dinner last night meant nothing. A hamburger is just a hamburger.
“Why are you asking about Henry?” Annie says.
Ellie gets on the bike and puts out her hand.
“Just asking,” Mele says, clicking out the candy. “Why?”
“No reason,” Annie says. “No judgment.” She raises her eyebrows.
“Because I’m thinking about him,” Mele says, being honest with her friend.
How do you unwind?
My friend Annie unwinds with pot, though she isn’t comfortable telling anyone this. She has trouble talking with other mothers. She rolls her eyes at the acceptable truths and complaints—“We’re tired! We’re sick of the kids! We hate changing poopy diapers! We can never shower!”—and the acceptable definitions.
At the last SFMC meeting, this “unwinding” question came up with a group of moms. I looked at Annie, wondering what she’d say. Usually she just smiles and looks down, but she said to the group as if they were cross-examiners: “Mani-pedis. I get mani-pedis.”
Another woman said that to unwind she exfoliates. Yes, that’s right. Exfoliates. She takes long showers and tells the kids that Mommy is not to be interrupted. She clarified to us that she doesn’t use exfoliants from drugstores but rather, sophisticated scents with ingredients like brown cane sugar, Malaysian citrus, fennel, seaweed, and basil. “My husband says I smell like a pizza,” this woman said.
Annie and I thought she was making a joke, but then she added: “He has a poor nose for things—he’s from Minnesota.”
“Wow,” Annie said. “I should try it.”
This prompted the woman to go on. “You should! My latest exfoliant is a blend of black currant and Bulgarian roses. I also light scented candles—it’s sort of like pairing food and wine. The flavo
rs all complement each other, but it has to be the perfect combination. I get lead-free wicks. Do not buy the scented candles from drugstores. They’re all cheap imitations and smell like, like, you know—a public restroom.” She sniffed the inside of her wrist. “Here. Smell. Delicious, right?”
Like a pizza.
Annie and I looked at each other and we seemed to be communicating the same thing: this conversation is happening. This is what we’re up against.
All Annie wanted was to be able to eat a brownie, then change her Facebook status to “I’m so high I can see the curvature of the world!” and get back comments that say “LOL!” “OMG!” “Got any more?” and “Me, too.”
Annie wanted her child to be able to go to any mother’s house. Annie wanted to be counted. I am going to include Annie’s brownies. They can be a bonus recipe. Because she exists here among us, and she’s a great mother and a fantastic, loyal, and exciting friend.
If you decide to make these, that’s your own deal. Don’t sue, judge, or complain if you end up curled into a ball watching Ocean’s Eleven. It’s better than a mani-pedi party, that’s for damn sure.
METHOD
Bring water to a boil, then put in a stick of butter and a load of marijuana (separate the seeds first—Annie plants hers in a nearby park). Let it cook for a half hour, then quickly strain out the plant matter. In your normal brownie recipe, replace the butter or oil with the new butter. Annie calls it “cannabutter.” Your kitchen may smell incriminating, but boy is it a treat. Now who’s the sneaky chef?
I decided not to post the supportive responses since that would violate people’s privacy. I just wanted to tell the positive mothers thank you for your overwhelming responses. Beth, maybe you’ll understand if your child is attacked and the perpetrator’s parents can’t communicate. Fingers crossed.
—Renee Grune
Renee, your comments are completely inappropriate. For you to make a personal attack on an individual who was offering sound and logical advice in a nonthreatening environment is an extremely immature response. Did it somehow slip your mind that you posted to this forum for advice, regardless of its content? Your actions over the last day can easily be described as bullying. The biggest threat to your son right now is not a child at the playground. It is you. You need extensive therapy.
How to Party with an Infant Page 11