Middle Rage

Part 8 -- Oma (The Night Before)

When I get home from the grocery with milk and bakery sweets, I am my best self. I sweep in, kiss Scott.

"What's that?" He points to the hoodie draped over my arm, hiding my damaged hand.

"I thought one of the boys might like it. Hale, actually. Since he got his hair buzzed, his head looks so cold in the morning." I kiss Scott again. Just a quick, soft lipped thing, but I'm already thinking more.

"What's gotten into you?" Scott laughs.

I slide the milk into the fridge and head to our room. "Come find out." I slink up the stairs. In the dark, he doesn't see the parts of me that would give me away. And when we're done, he's content. That's when he doesn't see me at all.

#

At the park the next morning, we get a walking lecture from Maria. The sky is brilliant, and the world smells brand new. I wish I could take notes, take her out to coffee, listen to her for hours. I know now not to do a google search on these things from my home computer, and she is giving us free, police adjacent, insider knowledge. I want to know how to not get caught.

As we complete our circle around the lake, Maria concludes we should all stay separate for a while. Easier to let the dust settle if we don't keep stirring it up with more contact. But I don't want this to end. Since Trump's election, I've been tormented by a current of low level despair, stress that makes me clench my teeth even when I'm doing something as numb as watching television. The churn of childhood memories I believed successfully buried, now coming up like graveyard mushrooms. Jeffery Epstein. Weinstein and Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer. They all remind me of my uncle, and then my mother. Because everyone knew, forever. Some part of me that is not who I am now, but also not quite that kid wearing My Little Pony panties, gives me this strangely coded message: They were all telling us one think, and fucking the other.

Keying that car? Maria preparing us to evade police questioning? Those are the only times I've come close to feeling OK again. And I can't lie; that moment Dan farted, unconscious and they had to call the ambulance? That was better than sex.

I send a psychic vibe out toward Aimee, hoping for another moment like that one when she grabbed my hand. Together, we could tell Maria that we have to stick together. We are smarter and tougher than Dan. I want to tell them about my revelation this morning, as I anxiously combed the local paper for news of a certain Truck Keying Bandit. How I'd found only the latest Trump scandal on every news outlet, even our local television news station: We can probably do anything. No one can look away from the circus.

But Aimee is only scowling at Maria. "Hey, is everything OK with you?" I ask.

"Look, this is stupid. I didn't put anything in Dan's drink, so don't try and scare me with some... barf bag your husband keeps in your garage. Test it. I don't care. Because there's nothing incriminating. So... bye." She hurries toward the parking lot.

I am gutted. And suddenly very glad I didn't tell them about keying 1DICK1's car. "Aimee, wait!" I call after her.

"It's OK. Let her go," Maria says, soft, next to me. This is what she wants. For us to go our separate ways. "Oh shoot. I got to get to work anyway."

#

I end up in an accidental caravan behind Maria's car on the drive home to our shared neighborhood. As we roll past Jenn's house, Dan is outside, mowing the lawn. Weird... for a weekday. Aimee's the only true SAHM, in between jobs until the baby's born. Most of the women in our neighborhood have flexible work hours. We are the ones who find a way to stay home with sick kids, or go to school recitals. Our middle school does shitty things dressed up as nice things, like Lunch With Your Kid Day, where, twice a school year, parents are invited to show up with hamburgers and pizza and take away subs to eat with their kid. Everyone can see whose parents can afford to take time off work, and whose kids eat alone.