Henry isn’t at the park today, and Mele feels a bit silly about her outfit. She’s wearing fitted jeans—very fitted, and a V-neck cashmere sweater. Even though her breasts have gone from melons to oranges and seem to be further transforming into week-old tangerines, they’re still respectable, edible.
“Would you ever get a boob job?” she asks Annie, who is sitting next to her.
“Nope,” she says. “But I’m, you know . . .”
“Married,” Mele says.
“Plus implants kind of scream, ‘I just turned forty!’ ”
“That’s true,” Mele says.
“And you’re only thirty. That’s insane.” Annie lays Max down on the bench and proceeds to change his diaper. It’s gross, but Mele can’t stop looking at his bare bottom, his little balls like spoiled grapes, his legs kicking in the air. She feels fortunate to have a little girl—vaginas are so much cuter.
“How are your recipes coming along?” Annie asks.
Mele hears a bit of ridicule in the question. Maybe ridicule isn’t the right word though. Pity. That’s what she hears.
“Good,” she says. And it is good. She’s always loved that about writing—how it gives you an excuse to know something better, or know someone.
“I want you to do my babysitter story,” Annie says. “I inspire Sloppy Joes. Or something spiked.”
Mele laughs. Annie is such a character. Funny and tough, punk rock. She has a deep need to keep in touch with the person she once was (“Are you there, old self?” she imagines her friend asking her reflection. “It’s me, watered down.”). Yes, Annie has told her a lot of stories from her prior life. She thrived off a semiprecious list of youthful antics: heavy drinking, jail (just one night), promiscuous yucky sex, stealing, flashing, having keg parties in her nice suburban home when her mother was the president of the local MADD, the usual, and while all these things are now as distant as a tiny village in Nova Scotia, Annie has a hard time turning her back on the self she has outgrown.
Mele thinks she has a hard time letting it go because then she’d just be “Mom.” She’d be like Georgia, Mele, and Barrett, people who in her prior life, she would have growled at.
She thinks of the incident that happened almost a year ago. That would require something reckless or irreverent, something you wouldn’t think could taste good. Squid—ribboned to look like noodles with butter and garlic and shichimi togarashi. Something like that? Or is that just gross?
“You haven’t heard anything from that babysitter, have you?” Mele asks.
“No,” Annie says. “Looks like I’m in the clear.”
“Jeez,” Mele says. “She sure riled you up.”
“Exercise class. That’s all I really wanted. I wanted to have normal fun.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Sloppy Joes,” Mele says. “Everyone loves them. Embrace it. Be a Sloppy Joe.”
“Are you trying to find something I inspire or that you think I need?”
“Both.”
Ellie runs up to them, her hand grasping her crotch. “I need to go potty.”
“Are you sure?” Mele asks. She hates when Ellie needs to pee at the park, but during potty training you have to stop, drop, and pee on your child’s whim. Mele has caught on to the pee lies, a technique Ellie uses to get out of the gates and play in the disgusting bathroom, which usually has no toilet paper and a moaning homeless person. She sits on the potty forever while Mele stands in the cramped stall, arms crossed.
Ellie wiggles and really digs in as her answer. “I do.”
“Quickly,” Mele says.
“Real fast. I’ll pee, pee, all fast.”
“I’ll be back in five hours,” Mele says to Annie. “I’ll think about you and your babysitter.”
She leaves her friend and notices her discomfort. There’s a group of mothers on the other end of the playground, all laughing at something Annie would probably think isn’t funny at all. Mele can at least blend a bit, but with tattooed arms and blue hair and a Porta Potti mouth, Annie can’t quite merge, despite the fact she is similar to them at the core. Mele catches her friend briefly smiling at the other moms while passing by with Max. Baby steps. Annie is trying.