How to Party With an Infant (15 page)

“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. We’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 flavors 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.

—Lee Laughlin

Chill out, Renee. A little shove never hurt anyone. We used to get clotheslined in Red Rover and totally walloped in Dodgeball. Look at us now! I’m kissing my muscles. Give me your address. I’ll send you some brownies.

—A.L., West Portal

You need to make sure the wood toys use the most ecofriendly type of wood, like sustainably produced hardwoods. Avoid wood from threatened domestic redwood and overseas rain forests! Check the edges of toys and puzzle pieces for layers of pressed woods, like plywood and particleboard—ugh! They contain glues that emit toxic fumes. And watch out for paint finishes! Some use lead and solvents that severely damage your child’s developing brains. I beg you—find finishes that use linseed, flax, walnut oil, or beeswax.

—SFMC answer to “Where is the best place to buy wooden toys?”

How have your friendships from SFMC changed your life? What do you value about them? Have these friendships made you a better mother?

I signed up with SFMC and went through a few mismatches before landing on my current one. My first try lasted a day. Ellie could only sit at the time. Her play involved mouthing things and bouncing on her diapered butt while clapping.

The meeting spot for my first playgroup outing was Golden Gate Park playground, but there was just one other mom there when Ellie and I arrived. The woman and I waited in the sandpit for the others, breezing through the standard topics: child’s exact age, sleeping and feeding schedules, what we were strolling, where we lived. Conversation was a bit tough. She was a mommy natural—the kind of mom that wears those hideous baby slings made from what appear to be curtains, sings “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” with utter abandon, dresses her babies in clothes that are itchy, butch, and biodegradable, and wears hats that look like they’re made out of worry dolls. I don’t think she liked me very much—maybe she smelled the ethanol on me or saw Ellie’s disposable diaper. I couldn’t tell if her baby was a boy or a girl, something intentional, I assumed, since it was one of those organic, free-range babies dressed to look like a migrant worker. Mommy Natural was beginning to drive me nuts. She repeated every action the babies made. Hers picked up a shovel.

“You’ve picked up a shovel,” she cooed.

Ellie picked up a plastic pail. “You’ve got a pail.”

Hers looked around for more toys—“You’re looking for a new toy. You like her bucket. Ooop, Bodhi, no no. She’s playing with the bucket. Can you share? Are we learning to share?”

“I’m still learning that,” I said, trying to be funny. I had to put it
out there, but she just looked at me in that condescending, Green Party kind of way.

“I mean, we all are,” I rewrote, trying again. “As a civilization.”

“That’s true,” she said.

Christ. Fortunately, Ellie pooped, and I thought, I should, like, leave, and I did.

I didn’t realize then that the SFMC experience could get much worse, that I’d go back for a group reassignment only to be placed with women who ate mommy naturals for lunch, then worked them off with their trainers. They were the true SFMC moms: Bugaboo strollers, Mia Bossi diaper bags, good bodies, expensive sunglasses, cute snack organizers (not Tupperware), vinyl throw mats with polka dots, and babies who only wore clothes with nonbaby motifs—brown stripes, bamboo, goldfish, and lemons.