Chapter 5
Dear Anna,
Thank you so much for reaching out! I’m always happy to connect about issues regarding the PTO!
I have to be honest. You are the only parent who has reached out expressing any concerns about the upcoming dance.
Yes it’s true that some parents were not able to register in time for the dance this year (we are so sorry about that but there just isn’t enough space for everyone!
!!), but I think most parents understand that there are plenty of other opportunities available for getting our kids together within the community!
!! I haven’t seen you at any of the PTO meetings, but I’d be really happy to connect with you in person to talk to you about how you can personally better serve our kids here in Hamilton!
We have so many upcoming events that are great for all of our kids, so I hope you consider becoming a member or attending some of our meetings. Happy to send along a calendar!!
Let me know if you’d like to meet up for coffee sometime!!!
—Mimi
Mimi had taken two days to respond to Anna’s email, two whole days to compose this strange and oddly conciliatory note—if you could get past the part where she slyly accused Anna of being the only person in the entire town of Hamilton with any objection to what the PTO was up to.
In the meantime, Anna had sifted through her emails, in search of .
. . what, exactly? Evidence of some wrong-doing, she supposed.
She had come across that newsletter, the one she had only casually read.
An advertisement for the Ziti with Your Sweetie Dance, which was how she had found out about it in the first place.
Early-release tickets, the newsletter had promised, and there had been a certain vagueness about the whole thing.
Sign up now and make sure to get a spot!
Make sure you make this year’s Event of the Season!
! No mention of a membership, but definitely a veiled threat about available space.
That, in and of itself, Anna thought, was interesting.
Who plans a dance for little kids without making sure that everyone could go?
Whoever had penned this newsletter wanted to make one thing clear: Not everyone was invited to the party. First come, first served.
And then there was, of course, Mimi’s email, itself a study in grammar and tone.
In college, Anna had taken an introductory writing course called Logic and Rhetoric, whose purpose had been to arm freshman students with basic writing skills, and Anna could only think about how this email was the perfect specimen for any young professor or TA, with its exclamation overkill, with its perfunctory niceties.
But she had to write back. Of course she had to write back.
To leave the email hanging in space was to allow Mimi some kind of upper hand.
She could hear Denny in her ear now. Just send a nice note back.
Accept the invitation to coffee. Anna, with every fiber of her being, did not want to be caught dead having coffee with Mimi Mar, but she knew this might be the best opportunity to get the point across: sit across a table from Mimi, mugs in hand, two adults in a public setting. Lay down the law.
“Fine, fine, fine,” she breathed aloud, to no one, because it was early morning, just after the kids had left for school, and she was alone in a cold office, with Denny out in his shed, making God knows what for God knows whom.
Hi Mimi,
Thanks so much for getting back to me. I really appreciate it. Happy to get together to talk some of this through in person. If you’re free today, I can meet at Honeycomb for coffee/lunch. Let me know.
A.
The A. in the signature, she thought, made it sound more personal, less intimidating. She was sitting there staring, wondering whether or not she had made the wrong choice, when a response came in from Mimi: four words, indisputable.
Perfect. See you there.
It seemed kind enough, Anna thought, but she knew better. They were each preparing for battle, on not quite neutral ground, Honeycomb being firmly in Camp Mimi. By agreeing to meet, Anna had certainly agreed to something, though she wasn’t sure quite yet what it was.
Honeycomb was the kind of bakery that was built to look like a farmhouse.
A bluestone paver walkway led up to a door that was painted robin’s-egg blue.
Anna had actually only ever been to the bakery once before.
It was always so crowded, the parking lot overflowing with Hamilton moms and UPPAbabies and glossy Mercedes GLS 450s, one of the many luxury SUVs of choice (All-wheel drive!
For the snow!). Inside, a line snaked around a weathered wood table, where pricey home goods were for sale: tea towels and whisks with colored handles; slate cheese boards and little name tags for guests when they came over for dinner parties, although Anna never threw dinner parties.
A basket on the floor beneath the table boasted batons of fresh bread, and Anna did fall for that.
The breads looked perfect, deep brown and crusty, like the ones you found at boulangeries in Paris.
She bought herself an iced coffee—New Englanders never change, this she knew about herself—and one of the stunning, fist-sized pains au chocolat, and looked out for Mimi.
Anna hadn’t been sure about what to wear but had settled on a fluffy blue and white sweater with a cowl neck and a drippy-looking pattern from Lululemon; black leggings and shearling-lined boots; plus a shiny black coat from , the coat that had become unpredictably trendy even though it cost under two hundred dollars.
Scanning the room, she discovered Mimi in a corner, near a window, the sunlight enhancing a very expensive blond highlight.
Mimi was not looking around. She was instead engaged in what looked to be a very serious conversation with a man in a pinstriped suit and a tiny gold button on the lapel; he was bent over her table, intent on hearing everything she said.
She wore large Gucci glasses atop her head, and Anna could tell—even from a relative distance—that she was a woman who invested in eyelash extensions.
Mimi hadn’t bothered to take off her expensive-looking quilted black coat with fur around the collar.
Anna walked over, coffee in one hand, pastry in the other. The man backed away, an instant ghost. Mimi only looked up when Anna’s shadow blocked the ray of sun running across her flawless face.
“Oh, Anna, I didn’t see you,” she said. Big smile. Big teeth. Maybe veneers. She drew a hand out, expressing to Anna to sit, so she did. “That was . . . well, I’m sure you already know. Thanks for meeting me.”
Anna didn’t know. She must have worn a face that betrayed her naivete. A question mark.
“Representative Murphy?” Mimi said, her voice clipped.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Anna said. The congressional representative for the third district, their district, Essex County, Thomas Murphy. And here, at Honeycomb, in the middle of the day. How about that, Anna thought.
“Just catching up,” Mimi said.
“I didn’t realize you knew each other,” Anna said.
She opened her bag with the croissant in it and flakes flew everywhere.
Was it her imagination, or did Mimi give her a sideways glance?
Maybe members of the PTO did not eat. Maybe meetings over coffee were meant to include only coffee and nothing else.
“Sorry about that,” Anna said, hastily wiping the crumbs from the table.
“Yes. Well, some people say I know everyone,” she said. “But that’s just a silly rumor.” She brushed crumbs from her side of the table. “What’s a little croissant among friends?”
Were they friends? Anna wouldn’t go that far. “Well, anyway,” she said, clearing her throat. “I just wanted to say, I don’t want to get into a big argument.”
Mimi raised her eyebrows. “Argument? Certainly not!” She laughed. “In any case, I don’t really argue.”
“You don’t?” Anna was taken aback. What kind of person never had an argument.
“Not really!”
“Oh.”
“I just say what I need to say and then I move on!”
Her tone, Anna noticed, was chipper, but there was something beneath it.
A message that she was meant to receive.
Mimi Mar was the boss—not just of the PTO, but of everything in her life.
You agreed with her, or you found another place to hold court.
It wouldn’t have surprised Anna one bit to know that Mimi had been, for instance, homecoming queen, or class president.
“I just wanted to talk about the whole thing where parents can pay more money? To be premium members of the PTO?” Anna said. She could hear her own voice, always so completely sure of itself, breaking down. It was annoying, this sense of powerlessness.
“It’s called the Incentive Program,” Mimi said. She placed her hands on the table. Her nails were long and rounded and painted a pale pink, and the diamonds on her left hand—a solitaire in what looked like a platinum setting, as well as a diamond band—were very large.
“I’m sorry, the Incentive Program,” Anna said, laughing, and then realizing she was in the wrong company. Mimi did not look similarly amused. “I mean, did you ever think that maybe incentivizing parents to pay money was . . . unfair?”
“Unfair how?” Mimi lifted those perfect hands of hers and folded them and leaned in close on her elbows. She seemed genuinely interested. “This is the fairest way, Anna. We’re giving parents the opportunity to secure a spot. What is more fair?”
“Fair for the parents who can afford it,” Anna said. “What about the ones who can’t.”
Now Mimi leaned back in her chair. She was quiet for a minute. “Anna,” she said, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, like it was commiseration between friends. “This is Hamilton. Everyone can afford it.”