In Love and Light and Style,
G
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” —Sun Tzu
Take my eCourse: Mom Enough: Making the Most of Your 18 Years with Your Precious Children
To: Gwendolyn James; McKinley Mom Squad
From: Amy Mitchell
CC: Principal Burr
Subject: RE: Last Night
Thanks, G.
The well wishes are appreciated. A couple points of clarification:
I quit, so please unsubscribe me from these emails.
Not sorry.
Love and Light,
Amy
To: Amy Mitchell; Gwendolyn James; McKinley Mom Squad
From: Stacy Gordon
CC: Principal Burr
Subject: RE: RE: Last Night
She’s my hero.
To: Amy Mitchell; Gwendolyn James; McKinley Mom Squad
From: Stacy Gordon
CC: Principal Burr
Subject: RECALL NOTICE: RE: RE: Last Night
STACY GORDON WOULD LIKE TO RECALL THE MESSAGE: RE: RE: Last Night
To: Amy Mitchell; Gwendolyn James; McKinley Mom Squad
From: Stacy Gordon
CC: Principal Burr
Subject: RE: RE: Last Night
Sorry, everyone! Kid got my phone, not sure what she sent!
To: Amy Mitchell
From: Stacy Gordon
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
You’re my hero.
To: Amy Mitchell
From: Rose A.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
Oh my GOD, Amy. Fuck yes.
To: Amy Mitchell
From: Rose A.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
Take me with you.
To: Amy Mitchell
From: Jenn P.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
If you start a cult, I’m totally joining.
To: Amy Mitchell
From: Jenn P.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
PS—I have to ignore you in public and unfriend you on Facebook, though. Gwendolyn scares the shit out of me, and we have three more years at McKinley together.
To: Gwendolyn James; Amy Mitchell
From: Taryn O.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Last Night
Gwendolyn and Amy,
I want to take a moment to let you know that I see and validate your individual struggles and frustrations. Our roles as mothers and community leaders bring challenges and opportunities. If the two of you are interested in my conflict resolution services, please let me know. I’m also available for individual life coaching sessions.
Sincerely,
Taryn (Fern’s mom)
19
Carla
Jesus Christ, are all married moms like hostages with minivans or is it just Amy and Kiki?
Amy texted me at 10:30 AM asking if I’d like to meet for lunch. I haven’t even had breakfast yet because the Taco Bell near our house doesn’t open until 11:00. Kiki replied in under ten seconds.
KIKI: Are we allowed to do that??
KIKI: Let me ask Kent.
KIKI: He’s in a meeting until noon.
KIKI: Can I get back to you?
ME: I asked Kent. He said it’s okay.;)
KIKI: Carla, you asked Kenton?
KIKI: How did you get his number?
ME: We go to the same AA meeting.
. . .
ME: Kiki, it’s LUNCH, not an 8-day sex cruise.
KIKI: :( Sorry. I don’t have a sitter.
KIKI IS SHOCKED TO SEE ME ON HER FRONT STEPS. AND EVEN MORE shocked to see Claudia. Most people are shocked when they see Claudia. She’s like nine feet tall and looks like she was created in a lab by scientists who wanted to see what the hottest chick in the world would look like. Claudia’s our part-time receptionist and makes the rest of her money posting about diet teas on Instagram, so she’s got plenty of free time. I offered her a free facial if she’d watch Kiki’s kids for a few hours, and she said yes if I’d throw in a manicure, too. She’s savvy like that.
Kiki opens the door, and then just stands there like a mannequin.
“Get your backpack, Punky Brewster!” I yell, pushing Claudia in the front door. “You’re going to lunch!”
Kiki’s house is . . . cute. It’s cozy. It smells like oatmeal and diapers, but you can tell she cares about this place. She has framed photos of her kids on every available surface, and a huge family portrait hanging over the fireplace. They’re all wearing coordinating denim outfits and standing in a cornfield for some reason. Kiki’s girls are sitting on the couch with a pile of library books, poor kids.
“Kids?” I say, sitting down in the middle of them like the therapists on those shows about having interventions with your family members who won’t stop hoarding cats. “This is your Auntie Claudia. She’s in charge while Mommy is gone. Listen to her and don’t tell her where Mommy keeps the valuables. She’s a klepto.”
Kiki’s children seem confused by the presence of another adult in the house, like they’re an endangered species unused to seeing another creature in their habitat. You can sense them wondering what the presence of an Instagram model means for their afternoon, and why their mother is looking for her backpack. I can see in their faces that they’re about to lose their shit, but Kiki thinks quickly, reaching into her backpack for some sugar-free, dye-free, organic fruit snacks, shaking the bag like they’re dog treats. “Who wants fruit snaaaaacks?” she calls, like a tiny, white Oprah, ripping the bag open with her teeth and pouring the jewel-colored nuggets into her palm. That does the trick: the kids descend on the fruit snacks like a pack of ravenous wolves, and we seem to be in the clear.
Kiki’s “quick getaway” takes a solid fifteen minutes, which includes Kiki narrating the entire experience for her children in a tone that implies each sentence ends in a series of exclamation marks.
“Mommy is going to show Claudia the bathroom!!!”
“Mommy is going to talk to Claudia about your snack schedule!!!”
Kiki is in the middle of showing Claudia a three-ring binder filled with step-by-step instructions for each of her children’s likes, dislikes, and allergies when I grab her from behind like a kidnapper and carry her toward the door.
“Look, Kiki. Claudia knows enough English, she can figure it out. And if she has questions, she’ll call me.”
I haul Kiki out the front door and right into my car, which I’d left idling in her driveway so we could make a quick getaway.
“Clara has real attachment issues,” Kiki says, worrying, “and the twins are . . . they’re just a handful right now. They do NOT do well with sudden change.”
“Yeah,” I say, throwing my ride into reverse and pulling into the street, “I can see.”
On the front porch, Claudia is holding the twins, Clara is hugging Claudia’s leg, and all four of them are waving like idiots. I’d stuffed Claudia’s purse with all kinds of tasty processed foods: the little snack crackers filled with neon orange cheese, fruit snacks that didn’t have even a hint of real fruit juice in them, and full-size candy bars, because YOLO. These kids are about to have the best damn day of their weird little lives.
“THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!” KIKI GIGGLES, TIPPING back her third Shirley Temple. I sniffed each one of them to make sure there was no booze. It turns out that Kiki is absolutely capable of getting drunk on life, the way our gym teacher always said we could be.
In the twenty-minute ride to the restaurant, Kiki told me her entire life story, starting with her birth during a snowstorm in North Dakota when Mom had her on the floor of their bathroom because the snow had piled up so high even an ambulance couldn’t get to their house. Because they were snowed in for so many days, her parents had lost track of when she’d been born, so the date on her birth certificate is really just a guesstimate. The only thing more boring to me than a birth story is a dream, but Kiki also had time to tell me about her dream from the night before and the night before that and the night before that. Her recurring dream is that she’s stuck in a cage, and Kent won’t let her out. I’m not a psychologist, but I’ve watched enough Dr. Phil to know that sometimes dreams are your brain trying to tell you something you already know.