Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [18]
“Ah, Laura,” she said one day, “do you like my new jeans?”
“What?”
“Do you like my new jeans?”
“What?”
“My …jeans …they …are …new.”
“Oh. You do know they’re way too small, right? And why do they have a big metallic cat on the ass?”
“No, Laura, these jeans are so loose,” Nicole said, pointing to her backside. “I should have gotten a smaller size.”
“Nicole, look how stressed the seams are in the thighs—they’re going to burst.”
“That’s just because one of my thighs is swollen. It’s temporary.”
“Your thighs are exactly the same.” I get out my measuring tape to prove it to her. “It’s those tight jeans, cutting off your circulation.”
If Alicia is the captain of our family, then Nicole is the enforcer. At six o’clock, she lines up all the boys and makes them eat. At seven o’clock, she lines them up and makes them bathe. At eight o’clock, brush teeth; nine o’clock, bedtime. While Alicia will always give you a snack—sometimes one she’s already eating—Nicole will glower and point you in the direction of the kitchen, where she has prepared six different dishes, some of which resemble cat food and all of which are so inedible that the kids cry, begging for cereal. We always hope that Alicia has found some time during the day to cook.
The enforcer is very protective.
“When I was leaving school today, one of the mothers asked me who picks the boys’ clothes,” Nicole recounted. It is true that besides Pierson, my other boys always look like they just stepped out of a Salvation Army dollar bin.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I just kept walking so I wouldn’t have to answer with my fist.”
While Nicole rules the kids with an iron fist and a gold grille, her personal life is a circus. Her phone rings constantly with calls from family members in crisis. There are always lawsuits and court dates, shootings and evictions, deaths and financial crises. Her entire family went to visit her brother in prison and she came back with a group photo to show the kids.
“This is my brother,” she said, pointing to a large man in the center.
“Why is he wearing an orange jumpsuit?” Larson asks, never one to miss a costume.
“That’s what they make you wear in prison.” She continued: “This is my mother and my sister. And this is my brother’s son, Jayden.”
“Your whole family is in jail? Even the kids?”
THANKS TO MY GIRLS, MY HUSBAND, AND MY OWN CONSIDERABLE contributions, our schedule runs like a many-geared, well-oiled machine. During the week, Peter gets the boys up and fixes them breakfast while I get them dressed. Then he takes the three oldest off to school and either heads to work or comes back home. Larson and Finn hang with me until Alicia arrives. She fixes Larson’s lunch and takes him to school, and I watch Finn while I get dressed. When she gets back, I get to work, whatever that may entail for the day. Alicia will place grocery orders and unpack the boxes, and (we hope) cook, to spare us from Nicole’s cooking. If the weather is nice, she will take Finn to the park. When school ends, everyone begins to pinball around the city. Nicole starts work at three o’clock. She goes straight to school and picks up Truman and Pierson on Mondays and drops off Truman at his reading tutor while she and Pierson shop. These shopping excursions may include a stop at the man on Fourteenth Street who fits you for a grille: Pierson is waiting for his second front tooth to come in to get his. On Wednesdays and Fridays, Nicole picks up Pierson early to take him to his reading tutor and I pick up Truman. I usually forget and arrive late at school to find Truman in the lobby, greeting me with some comment like “What the fuck just happened here?” Zoila comes to clean for a few hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. Meanwhile, Alicia takes Finn to pick up Larson, and either brings him home for an in-house speech session with Craig or takes him to his other speech therapist, Amy. Peik usually has to be tracked down on Mondays and Wednesdays to get him home on time for Sabina, his homework helper. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Nicole brings