I nodded. Ellie and I were enrolled in a playgroup that met at the JCC one afternoon each week. Eight moms sat in a circle, complaining, while our kids splashed in the sink, and played with clay and blocks, and dumped oats and eggs and honey into a bowl, which they’d stir with eight plastic spoons while singing “Do You Know the Muffin Man”—or “Do You Know the Muffin Lady,” because God forbid the program send the message that girls could not be perfectly adequate and professionally compensated makers of tasty baked treats. For this fun, we paid a hundred bucks a session. What did moms who lacked the cash do? Suffer silently? Watch soap operas? Drink?
“Tumbling class?” Janet asked.
“Check.” Ellie and I attended once a week.
“Music Together?” She was smiling, a wide, slightly lopsided grin. I liked her for her teeth—a little too big, crooked on the bottom. Most of the women I met in the various groups and lessons and Teeny Yogini classes had blindingly white veneers or teeth that had been bleached an irradiated white so bright it was almost blue. My theory was that, having given up high-powered jobs to become mothers in their thirties, they now divided all the time and energy that would have gone to their careers between their children and their appearance. I’d gotten the first part of the mandate, quitting my job at the Examiner at Dave’s urging and making sure that Ellie’s every waking hour was full of enriching activities, her meals were wholesome, and her screen time was restricted, and reading to her for one half hour for every ten minutes I let her play on my iPad.
As for my looks, I kept up with my hair color, mostly because I’d started turning gray when I was thirty. However, my closet was not filled with the flattering, expensive, classic garments that the other mommies at Mommy and Me wore. Nor did I have the requisite taut and flab-free body to carry those pricy ensembles. I was always meaning to go to Pilates or CrossFit or Baby Boot Camp, so I could quit slopping around in Old Navy yoga pants or one of the super-forgiving sweater dresses I’d found on clearance at Ann Taylor to go with the inevitable Dansko clogs, the clumsy, clown-sized footwear of the hard-charging stay-at-home suburban mom.
“Since I’m coming clean, we also do Art Experience,” I confessed.
“What a cutie,” she said, bending down to inspect Ellie, who gave her a sunny grin, the kind of smile she’d never give me. “I’ll bet she’s never had high-fructose corn syrup in her life.”
“Actually . . .” I’d never told anyone this—not Dave, not any of the mothers at the JCC or on the PhillyParent message board, not even my own mother, who wouldn’t have understood why it was a big deal—but something about Janet invited confidence. I lowered my voice and looked around, feeling like a con on the prison yard. “I gave her a McNugget.”
Janet gave me a look of exaggerated horror, with one hand—unmanicured nails, major diamond ring—pressed to her lips. “You did not.”
“I did!” I felt giddy, like I’d finally found someone who thought mommy culture was just as crazy as I did. “On a plane trip! She wouldn’t stop screaming in the terminal, so I bought a Happy Meal.” I paused, then thought, What the hell? “She had fries, too.”
“Whatever it takes, that’s my motto,” said Janet. “Flying with kids is the worst. When we went to visit my in-laws in San Diego last Christmas, I bought my oldest an iPad, and brought mine and my husband’s so I wouldn’t have to listen to them fight about who got to watch what three iPads. My husband thought I was crazy. Of course, he got upgraded to first class. I told him he could either give me his seat or suck it up.”
“So did he suck?”
“He sucked,” she confirmed. “Like he was going to give up the big seat to come back and run the zoo. Thank God I had half a Vicodin left over from when I had my wisdom teeth out.”
“Mmm.” On that beautiful, long-ago morning, I hadn’t had any painkillers since my post-C-section Percocet had run out, but I remembered loving the way they’d made me happy, loose-limbed, and relaxed. A kindred spirit, I thought, looking at Janet—someone with my sarcastic sense of humor and my by-any-means-necessary tactics for getting kids to behave.
That had been three years ago, and now Janet and I talked or texted every day and saw each other at least twice a week. We’d pile the kids in her SUV and go to one of the indoor play spaces or museums. In the summer, we’d take the kids to the rooftop pool in the high-rise in Bryn Mawr where her parents had a condo. In the winter, we’d go to the Cherry Hill JCC, and sometimes meet my parents at a pizza parlor for dinner. Eloise adored Maya, who was happy to have a miniature acolyte follow her around and worshipfully repeat everything she said, and I was happy that Ellie had a big-girl friend, even if it meant that sometimes she’d come home singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It,” or tell me seriously that “nobody listens to Justin Bieber anymore.” She and the boys mostly ignored one another, which was fine with me. If Ellie had favored one over the other it would have meant I’d finally have to figure out how to tell them apart.