In hindsight, Quinn knew what she should have done. She’d walked into that room believing that she had a plan. But that travesty of a Parent Association meeting wasn’t it.
She would put the discussion at the very end of the meeting, so she could showcase all the hard work the Parent Association was doing . . . and when the moment came, she would be charming. Self-effacing. Up on that stage she would have been the bloody parenting Oprah, opening herself up just enough, throwing in a joke here and there about how her stiletto boots make great hammers in a pinch and that she and Ham pretended the spaceship got hit by a meteor. She would have turned on the charm, won them over—and the whole thing would eventually ebb away into nothingness.
But when she looked out at the sea of faces—and all she saw were people greedy for juicy gossip, people who wanted nothing more than drama, any one of whom could have been the video taker—she couldn’t give them the satisfaction.
And the only thought that went through her head was . . . How dare they?
She was Quinn Barrett—and she ran the hell out of the Parent Association, to make Little Wonders and their kids’ (not just Ham’s!) experience the best it could possibly be.
The idea that they could be so gleeful about her trauma . . . it set something off in her brain. Something primal. And something, apparently, pissed off.
She turned into a raging bitch in heels.
No, not a bitch, she thought, long after the fact and three glasses of chardonnay in. An asshole.
Because bitches were women in society getting shit done. But an asshole? An asshole just lashed out.
And that’s what she had done.
How dare people turn on her?
No, not people. Quinn’s teeth ground and she took another swig of wine.
Shanna Freaking Stone.
Quinn remembered with scary accuracy the moment Shanna spoke her infamous words. The way her mouth moved. Her serenity, like she was the freaking Virgin Mary.
“I will.”
She had been up on that stage, holding out the gavel like it was the queen’s scepter. Daring people to take it. And nothing could have shocked her more than hearing someone take her up on it.
“You’re obviously going through some things,” Shanna had said, her voice demure, as if she was sparing the audience from the unseemly. “And this has become too much of a burden for you.”
“A burden,” she said, nearly choking on the words. “A burden.”
“And you have Hamilton, who is . . . three, and comes with those challenges.”
“What challenges?” Quinn shot out. “What are you implying about my son? Hamilton is perfectly fine. This is not about him.”
“But it is. Because, do you think you’re the best mom you can be to Hamilton right now?” Shanna stepped forward, her gaze zoned in on Quinn.
The fact that this conversation . . . no, this interrogation, was taking place in public was horrifying enough. And Quinn could have challenged her. She could have guffawed and reiterated all of the work that she did to make the Parent Association function. But instead . . . she was just too tired.
God, she was tired.
Because the truth was . . . she had seen the video, too. And she had seen her son so afraid of his mother that he pissed himself.
All of her fight had completely vanished. The past five days had been hellish, online and off. This meeting, which she had planned and prepared for, had gone so far off the rails she didn’t recognize the room, the people, herself anymore. In the beginning, the important thing—the only thing—she wanted to accomplish was to reassert who she was, smooth everything over, and get everything back to normal.
And now, she was too tired to care.
So she did the only thing she could do.
She stepped off the stage.
Shanna seemed surprised by this. Her eyes flicked to the woman she’d been sitting next to—her little blue-haired minion Daisy—as Quinn approached.
Quinn came to stand directly in front of Shanna. In her heels she was taller than Shanna, but not by much. And it gave her absolutely no psychological advantage over the soft serenity her adversary displayed.
Slowly, she flipped the gavel over in her hand. And held it out to Shanna.
“Take it. Have fun organizing the Thanksgiving play, and the Snowflake Breakfast, the goddamn raffle baskets—I’m sure with the support the parents of this school are famous for, you will do just swimmingly.”
Shanna reached out, took the gavel. Then she leaned forward and whispered in Quinn’s ear.
“Get some rest.”
The bitchiest of bitchy things that anyone could say.
The only triumph Quinn could claim, as she stalked out of there, was that she held back from slapping Shanna across her smug faux-concerned face.
She collected Ham from Miss Rosie and the other teachers—they were having a mini dance party that Ham was loath to leave—and they got out of there.
There would have been a formal vote, no doubt. Someone—Suzy Breakman-Kang probably (the little instigator) who would’ve formally nominated Shanna for the position. Jay no doubt would have seconded—anything to avoid taking on actual responsibility. The board would vote, the whole coup would’ve been over in minutes and relatively bloodless.
She wasn’t there to see it though. By the time the room flooded with congratulatory applause for their new dear leader, she and Ham were on their way home.
Which was where Quinn stayed for the next four days, licking her wounds, considering her options, and reliving every moment of the parent meeting’s humiliation.
The video, and now the parent meeting—turned out she was getting used to humiliation.
If Stuart had been at the meeting, she decided, she could have managed. He would have smiled at her, steered the conversation, pivoted her into showing off her softer side, the way he did when she showed him off to clients. But Stuart wasn’t there. He was in surgery. And it was very very hard to argue for him to stop saving a child’s life to come to a preschool Parent Association meeting.
Even if his wife was under fire.
Of course, by then Stuart was aware of the video.
She had told him as soon as he texted her back on Monday—which, due to his being in surgery, was several hours later. Quinn was on the phone with her own lawyer (Grayson & Grayson was one of the best and oldest firms in Boston—only the very best for the Barrett family) when Stuart emerged from a victory lap with a recovering surgical patient’s grateful parents, thus in one of his best moods.
That good mood didn’t last.
Honestly, his reaction had not been what Quinn had expected. She thought . . . she thought he’d at least flinch as he watched the video. After all, that was his wife embarrassing herself and his son who was getting the brunt of her temper.
“Okay,” he’d said. They’d met for lunch. In a dive diner they both secretly loved and where no one they knew would be. Still, she didn’t take off her sunglasses as she queued up the video and let him watch it.
“. . . Okay?”
“Okay.” He shrugged and returned to his bunless garden burger—even in a diner he insisted on keeping his meal as healthy as he could. Ever since he’d taken up spinning, he referred to food only as “fuel.” Usually, she admired his sense of control—her lunchtime Pilates classes weren’t for nothing. But right then, Quinn would have taken him being a little out of control. A doughnut with chocolate sprinkles would have gone a long way to showing her that he was as upset over this as she was.
“I see a lot of parents, and all of them are stressed out, and sometimes they lose control. I’ve learned the best thing I can do is step back and say ‘Okay.’”
“Okay . . .” Quinn tried to understand. “And that’s what you think is happening here?”
He was stepping back? When it was his own kid? His own wife?
“Obviously not to the same level as a parent of a child undergoing a lumpectomy or spinal reconstruction,” he replied. “And to be honest, I’ve never seen you quite so . . . out of control.”
“I know, and I’m sorry—” she began. Finally, something she was ready for—censure. That, she could parry. But he cut her off.
“But I know you’ll fix it.”
“You . . . you do.”
“Quinn.” He shot her that smile. The one that made her heart skip beats and inspired some truly impressive drunken karaoke. “That’s what you do. It’s what I love about you. You fix things. You wanted to become a designer, you did. You wanted to marry me, you made it happen, from the flowers to the honeymoon.” He smirked at her. “You wanted to have Hamilton—I thought it would disrupt everything, but you make it work. And you’ll fix this. You’ll make it perfect.” He turned his attention back to his burger. “I assume you already spoke to Grayson & Grayson.”
She’d nodded, filled him in on the little they had said. He nodded and chewed. He didn’t rail at her, or at the video taker—he wasn’t mad on her behalf, on Ham’s behalf, on his own behalf. Instead, he trusted her to take care of the situation.
On the one hand, it was perplexing. Here she was, living through the worst moment of her life, and he was . . . eerily calm about it. On the other—it was reassuring. He had complete confidence in her abilities to deal with it.
“There are worse things that happen to people every day. I know, I’m the one telling parents about them.” He raised his hand for the check. Then, he turned his gaze to her, held out his other hand. She put hers in it—he squeezed. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes. I’m just surprised you’re not more upset.”
“Oh,” he said, raising her hand to his lips. “I am upset for you.”
“For you, I mean,” she replied.
“Why would I be upset for me?” he said, cocking his head to one side.
“Because . . . people know it’s me, and I’m your wife. Our families, your parents . . . my work, your work . . . it’s going to be affected. At the very least, it’s going to get mentioned.”
He took a moment. His eyes turned hard, his romance novel look nowhere to be seen. He worked his jaw, as if there was a last bit of garden burger stuck in his teeth. Then, the check came back, and he swiftly removed his hand from hers. “Then,” he’d said, as he ruthlessly signed the receipt, “I suggest you start fixing it.”
Maybe that was why she had gone so hard at the Parent Association meeting on Wednesday. Maintaining her position there was the first step in “fixing it.”
And . . . well, no point in rehashing how well that went.
The day after the Parent Association meeting, she forced Stuart to do drop-off at Little Wonders (he only grumbled a little, since he knew he was in deficit as he’d missed the meeting) and she called in sick to the office. Not that they expected her, anyway: Jeremy told her that Sutton was covering her appointments, and he was overseeing the miniscule final details of the Beacon Hill house himself. Thus, she “should do what she needed to do.”
She also had to shut down her Instagram and Facebook, as all of her posts with pictures of Ham were loaded with the cruelest comments imaginable about her parenting.
Meanwhile, she watched the view count on the video go up and up and up. Slower and slower, but still dauntingly high.
Her lawyers had sent out cease-and-desist notices, but when the video had been copied and copied again, they didn’t have much effect. One or two of the first posted videos disappeared, but her lawyers were right—getting them all down was going to be like playing whack-a-mole. And, annoyingly, her lawyers also agreed with Shanna—that the question of whether or not the recording was unknown was up for debate.
“We could take this to the state supreme court!” one of the younger ones said on the phone, a bit too eager to put Quinn’s life on display (and bill her hours). Spotlighting the video with a costly and cynical legal battle did not seem like the best way to “fix it.” She didn’t want the Streisand Effect renamed the Halloween Mom Effect.
What she needed was to bury this.
Friday, wearing her biggest pair of sunglasses and braving drop-off, Quinn again called in sick.
She could continue to endure drop-off and pickup, she decided, at least until Alba returned. She could never take Ham out of Little Wonders. He loved it there.
Although a phone call from Alba that morning put the kibosh on that plan of having Alba start drop-off duty again.
“My daughter is having a baby!” Alba said via the spotty connection. “I’m going to be a grandmamma!”
“Congratulations, Alba,” Quinn had said, biting her lip. “I’m so glad you got to spend this, er, unplanned week with your family . . . you’ll be back on Monday?”
“Actually, Miss Quinn . . . my daughter, she’s due sooner than we might have told the priest. I need to be here for her.”
“For how long?”
“. . . It’s my first grandchild, Miss Quinn.” Quinn could practically hear Alba shrug.
And that’s all there was to it. Alba might be back in a few months—or she might not. It might have been because of the video—or it might have been solely because of Alba’s daughter’s lack of birth control. Either way, Quinn would need to find another nanny/housekeeper/all around lifesaver.
Ham was going to be devastated.
Yes, there was absolutely no way she could remove him from Little Wonders now.
So, Friday afternoon, she managed to corner the principal, Ms. Anna (picking up Hamilton at the absolute latest possible hour, avoiding as many parents as she could), seeking reassurance about his place in the school.
And for the first time in a week, she got a glimmer of understanding, and, dare she say it . . . hope.
“Mrs. Barrett, Hamilton is part of our family. We look forward to continuing with his education. Regardless of the recent incident.”
“Really?” Quinn couldn’t help but exclaim. Relief practically had her knees buckling.
“I realize that this has not cast the best light on you—or on the school, and I have fielded some phone calls to that effect,” Ms. Anna said, and Quinn’s stomach dropped again. “But the school’s legal representatives have assured me nothing in the video threatens our charter. And any bad light on the school will soon blow over.”
Lawyers were being called everywhere, it seemed. Who knew a Halloween parade would spur such a rush of hourly billing?
“Although I think it is the right decision to take a step back from the Parent Association. So you can focus on Ham, and his reaction to the video.”
“But—he doesn’t even know about the video!” Quinn said, horrified. “I can’t even imagine him seeing it.” Her entire body was revulsed by the idea.
“He knows something is wrong,” Miss Anna said. “Ms. Rosie says that he’s been remarkably subdued for such an energetic boy. And he’s had more accidents than usual.”
She had done an awful lot of laundry this week, Quinn realized.
“Mrs. Barrett, children bounce. They are resilient. We are here to support Hamilton through this and will help you. And personally,” Miss Anna continued, taking Quinn by the shoulder, “I have a grown son. And I’m just glad that my parenting occurred before the rise of YouTube. That’s why I think the video went ‘viral.’ Everyone relates to you. If you saw that on a sitcom, you’d laugh along with the television, yes?”
And it was in that moment she realized that maybe she couldn’t bury it. But maybe she could change the story.
MONDAY MORNING, SHE marched into Little Wonders at the normal time. Sure, some parents whispered, but most were dealing with the hassles of dropping off kids who clung like capuchin monkeys to their legs.
Not Hamilton though. They had one of their patented Perfect goodbyes, with a big hug and kiss (and a hand-off to Ms. Rosie of a new batch of pants and underwear)—then she hit smooth traffic and strolled into the office a full Parcel ahead of her normal schedule.
“Sutton—conference,” she said, not even pausing as she passed her colleague Sutton’s desk.
But instead of scurrying after her, as was usual, Sutton held up a finger, talking into her phone.
“Yes of course, Mrs. Chaffee,” she was saying. “I’ll have those prints brought over for you to look at right away.”
Quinn came up short. Once Sutton extracted herself from the phone, Quinn pounced.
“Mrs. Chaffee?” Mrs. Chaffee was the grand dame owner of the Beacon Hill house. Off Sutton’s surprised nod, Quinn continued, “What prints is she approving?” Quinn was adamant on involving the clients in every step of the design process, but at this point, with mere weeks until it was formally ready, she usually asked them to step back, and let themselves be wowed with the final product.
“Just a couple of family photos we are having blown up and arranged in the children’s bathroom,” Sutton said, rushing to reassure her. “Jeremy approved it all last week, and Mrs. Chaffee wanted to make sure she liked the photos we chose, so . . . I thought it would be okay.”
She took a few days off and her entire project had shifted, she silently harrumphed to herself. But she didn’t have time to be squeamish about alterations to her protocol. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said quickly. “But come with me. We need to conference.”
Sutton stood to follow, but just then, Jeremy stepped out of his office.
“Sutton. Oh, and, Quinn, good, you’re here, too. Step in, please.”
What on earth was Jeremy Crabbe doing at his namesake offices so early? Usually he had barely made it to the pastry counter at Dean & DeLuca by now. But Quinn steadied herself. She was ready. She had a game plan.
But she was not prepared to walk into Jeremy’s office replete with all the Crabbe & Co. project managers, seated around his refurbished Edwardian coffee table.
“What’s this?” she asked, suddenly.
“Quinn,” Jeremy began, rather formally. “We wanted you to know, that we . . . as Sutton here would put it, have your back.”
“We understand that this is an incredibly trying time,” Sutton said. “And you’ve been such a mentor to me.”
“We’re all family here,” Jeremy said, putting an arm around her. The other project managers nodded in agreement. “Everything is going to be fine. We’ll get through it.”
Quinn could not help but feel touched. She leaned into Jeremy’s sideways embrace. He’d been there for every major moment of her career; the fact that he was willing to back her now was . . . well, actually, she expected nothing less, considering everything she’d done for Crabbe & Co., but still, it was very nice to hear.
“I’m so glad to hear that. Because I have decided that the best way to approach the current situation is to ‘lean into it’—and to have your support means worlds to me.”
Jeremy’s arm lifted gently off her shoulders. “Erm, what do you mean, lean into it?”
“Just that,” she replied, forcing a confident smile onto her face. “I am the mom in that video, there’s no denying it. So, I have to own it. Go on the morning shows, on Ellen, laugh it off as a moment every modern parent knows well.”
“Morning shows?” Jeremy asked, weakly.
“Yes— and I know what you’re thinking. That scheduling these appearances and flying out to New York and LA will get in the way of my work—but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I am going to go full throttle into all of my projects. The Wellesley Shingle house, the Nantucket retrofit, the Cuban-Thai restaurant, the Greater New England Children’s Hospital Charity Ball, and of course, the Beacon Hill house. Every single project is going to exceed expectations. Perfect Quinn Barrett productions, from start to finish.”
She turned her glowing smile to the room. Open mouths hung like heavy drapes on the faces of every single person. She turned to Sutton, who stared at her, in shock.
Obviously in shock at her brilliance, Quinn thought with bravado. Although even she knew it was a lie.
“Sutton?” Jeremy said over Quinn’s head to her protégé. “Can you . . .”
Quinn turned to Sutton. Surely, if anyone would be able to articulate her plan to Jeremy best, it would be her young, media-savvy colleague.
“I . . . I’m sorry, Quinn,” Sutton began, her eyes shooting from Jeremy to Quinn. “But . . . um, I don’t think ‘leaning in’ will work.
“Why not?” Quinn asked, shocked.
“Well, first of all . . . a week has gone by,” Sutton replied. “The video is old news now. And going on these shows . . . it would just bring it back up. Is that something you’d want? For Stuart? For your family?”
Old news? The video was old news? Quinn had to hold in a hysterical giggle. Not to her it wasn’t. Not to the people in the grocery store who whispered as she walked past. Not to the nail technician who snickered with her coworker in Vietnamese while salt-scrubbing Quinn’s feet.
And definitely not to the other parents in the halls of Little Wonders who completely avoided her eyes since that horror show of a Parent Association meeting.
Although . . . yes, the number of views had slowed. Still racking up a few hundred thousand views a day, so obviously it hadn’t died out, but it was not the top-trending video anymore, thank goodness.
And Sutton had mentioned the one thing that gave her some hesitation about her plan. Her family. Hamilton was still only three. How was he going to feel about this video, where his mother was so mean to him that he pissed himself, when he was thirteen? What about when he discovered a clip of his mother trying to laugh it off with Ellen DeGeneres?
And Stuart . . . Stuart very much wanted her to “fix” this. Somehow, she got the impression that bringing it back to national attention might not do that.
Sutton clocked her hesitation because she took a step forward and lowered her voice—why, Quinn had no idea, because everyone could still hear.
“And . . . I’m pretty sure that the shows you’d want to go on . . . they only like to highlight, um, positive videos. You know, grandmas who can rap really well, and little kids who ate a bunch of sprinkles. Not . . .”
Not yelling at your kid and then destroying his Halloween costume in front of his school and the whole world.
“Ah,” she said. Disappointment hit her like a wave, rocking her back slightly on her heels. “I understand.” She wasn’t going to get to change the story. She wasn’t going to get to own the narrative and overcome it and be the freaking parenting Oprah.
She had to live with how it was.
“Even better,” she said with a smile. Regrouping. “Now nothing will get in the way of my giving two hundred percent to all of my projects. Making our clients happy will be my sole focus.”
The room was still. Someone coughed.
“Actually,” Jeremy said, and the dread settled over her. “We think it would be better if you took a backseat on the firm’s projects. Just until the whole hullaballoo dies down.”
Not her projects. The firm’s projects.
“But Sutton just said the video is old news now,” she countered. Jesus, she practically had whiplash from this meeting. “Apparently there is no hullaballoo.”
“It might well have died down on the internet,” Jeremy said, glancing uncomfortably around the room. “But it’s still present enough in people’s minds that . . . well, if you were to be recognized from it with a client, or a vendor . . . it’s not the impression Crabbe & Co. wants to make.”
“I see.” She narrowed her eyes, noticed that most of the project managers refused to meet hers. “I thought you said you had my back.”
“We do! Entirely. So, we all sat down, did some reorganizing this past week. Divide and conquer, as it were,” he said. He motioned to those sitting around the table. “Frankie’s got the most commercial experience, so he’s going to take over the restaurant design. Maryann and Josh are taking on the Nantucket retrofit, and Nina’s handling the Wellesley Shingle. Her first solo project!”
“I’m so excited for this opportunity, thanks, Quinn,” Nina said.
“No problem,” Quinn said weakly. “So happy my personal humiliation could give you a leg up in your career.”
Nina’s smile faded.
“What about the Beacon Hill house?” she asked, sharp. The magazine. The Martha freaking Stewart magazine was coming in two weeks to photograph it. She’d already done the preliminary interviews about the process, her design choices.
If this didn’t happen . . . it would be like Quinn had personally let Martha down.
“The Beacon Hill house is yours,” Jeremy said. “You’ve worked so hard on it, it couldn’t be anyone else’s.”
“A Perfect Quinn Barrett production,” Sutton said softly, giving her an encouraging smile.
“Besides, it’s so close to finished. Sutton can handle most of the final details, and I’ll take on Mrs. Chaffee, when needed.”
Quinn’s eyes shot to Sutton, who, for her part, looked alarmed. “We’re just talking about invoices and stuff at this point anyway, right?”
Right. And Sutton did that kind of stuff all the time. But it was still galling. It still felt like Brutus stabbing Caesar. Or at least, she assumed it did—she’d never run an empire that spanned Europe. Or been stabbed.
“So what am I supposed to do in my backseat?” she asked.
“The charity ball, naturally!” Jeremy said. “Arguably the most important project on our books right now!”
And one that Jeremy didn’t dare take away from Quinn—because she was the one who had brought it in.
Via Stuart, of course. A few New Year’s Eves ago they had attended the Greater New England Children’s Hospital Charity Ball, and she had been absolutely appalled at the décor. Basic hotel ballroom lighting, basic hotel ballroom chairs, basic hotel everything. She understood the trust’s desire to be frugal—the money raised was for sick children, after all—but she also ascribed to the philosophy that a dollar spent here would yield ten there, and in this case tens of thousands.
She’d approached the trust, and offered Crabbe & Co.’s services, at cost. Their way of donating to the poor, sick children. Jeremy had been against it, saying they didn’t do event planning. But Quinn had convinced him that it would be a showcase for their design capabilities, to exactly the kind of clientele they wished to reach.
And it had worked.
They’d done the Greater New England Children’s Hospital Charity Ball every year for the last five.
“After the ball . . . after the new year . . . I’m sure everything will have died down enough for you to take on clients again,” Jeremy was saying. “And you’ll be back on track.”
Back on track. Partner track, he meant, no doubt. Because goodness knows he needed someone in the office who could handle everything while he took another six-month shopping trip across Asia.
But not yet. No, she had to earn her way back. Earn her client list back.
And she would, Quinn decided.
She could forgive Jeremy, in time, she thought. No doubt he’d gotten calls from some clients the past week that set him back on his heels. So, she had to eat a little crow. But she would earn back his trust. Show him that the kind of ruthless tenacity, the pursuit of perfection, that the video had showcased . . . well, that was exactly what made her an exceptional designer.
She would show them all what she was made of.
This year’s charity ball was going to be nothing short of stunning. Amazing. Incredible.
Perfect.
“Don’t worry, Jeremy. Everyone,” she said, pulling herself up straight and giving the room her most determined smile. “You can count on me.”