Remy
REMY
FUTURE MILFS GROUP CHAT
Me
Nova, how many times do we have to tell you to stop changing the group chat name
Lin
And profile picture
Me
Are those YOUR boobs?
Melissa
Yes, they’re definitely hers
Lin
You can tell???
Melissa
You can’t?
Nova
What’s the prob? I usually charge for this kinda content
Me
Are we still on for tonight?
Lin
Duh! Every second Friday of the month
Lin
You put it in all our calendars
Me
Just so we wouldn’t have a repeat of Friday 12th
Nova
I said I was sorry! I’m not sayin it again
NOVA HAS CHANGED THE PROFILE PICTURE
Lin
LOL fuck’s sake
Me
Nova, that had better be yours!
Melissa
I can’t tell from the angle
Nova
Hahahahaha
“Ahem! Ahhheeemmmmm!”
The three of us look up at Nova, standing in the corner of our booth in tonight’s restaurant of choice: Dishoom. Wearing a silver halter-neck minidress, body glitter, and with jumbo plaits down to the back of her knees, she already has everyone’s attention.
But while we’re here… meet Nova, or November Aura Knight.
Recently single and loving it, she’s twenty-nine years old but still tells everyone she’s twenty-five because she refuses to grow “too old for Leonardo DiCaprio to date.” “Not saying I would,” she’d said, “but he’s so rich, I’d at least like to have the option.
” She’s an Aries, if you’re into that kind of personality categorization thing, and Nova very much is.
A hairdresser with her own studio in Wood Green, she attends to one client at a time in four-hour slots—which she can afford to do, because a full set of goddess braids on medium-length hair will cost you ￡250.
Unless you have the friends discount—unlikely, as only three people do.
“We’re gathered here today,” Nova says, almost knocking into one of the hanging wicker lanterns, “for many reasons. To congratulate Lin on her promotion, Remy on hitting the bestseller list with the paperback of These Four Friends , and Mel for putting in an offer for her dream flat, even though she hasn’t shown it to us yet! ”
“Bad luck!” Melissa interjects.
Nova rolls her eyes. “And last but not least! We’re here to congratulate me , for finally breaking up with that two-timing no-good piece-of-shit David.” She unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth with a loud pop. “Cheers!” she says. “To the best year we’ve ever had.”
“Cheers!”
We each raise our glasses, clink and toast until—
“Okay,” Lin says, removing her blazer. “Can we eat now?”
We descend into our sharing plates of keema pau, steaming rice, encrusted lamb chops, garlic-buttered naans, black dal, masala prawns, and fragrant samosas.
“Oh!” Melissa puts her spoon down. “Did you all hear? Kelly’s pregnant!”
“Who’s Kelly?” Nova asks.
“Kelly Grant. From school!”
“Okay, but is that even big news?” Lin asks. “Half the girls from our class have announced their impending children on at least one social already.”
“Kelly Grant?” I repeat, accessing the recesses of my mind and coming up with a blond, watery-eyed girl with freckles on her cheeks and a serious expression on her face. “Wasn’t she the one who kept saying she was never going to have kids to whoever would listen?”
“Exactly!” says Melissa, lemonade in hand. “That’s why it’s big news; no one saw that coming.”
“What a way to validate everyone who said she’d change her mind,” Lin says, dragging a jagged piece of naan through the dal. She holds the stuffed flatbread high. “To yet another fallen comrade.”
Introducing Linisha Dhillon (but we call her Lin), thirty years old and born to Indian parents.
A Gemini who is not into astrology because, and I quote, “I’m too narcissistic to believe that I and billions of people around the world, dead and alive, are as predictable as one another just because we’re born in the same month.
” A lawyer specializing in criminal law, Lin wants to one day hold the record for the most overturned cases.
She’s rarely seen out of a pantsuit or matching trousers and top (apparently something Steve Jobs taught her?), or without the curtain bangs of her treacle hair dyed a bright color. This month is hot pink.
“Remember how progressive we thought Kelly was, though?” Lin reminisces. “She was saying that stuff at fifteen! In 2009 that was kind of a radical thing for girls to say.”
Nova jerks her head back. “Progressive? We thought she was kinda weird. Obviously I don’t think that now but, come on, at the time?
When she heard anyone complaining about period cramps, she’d stretch her long neck over and say some shit like, ‘Well, think about what not having your period might mean.’” Nova grimaces. “Bit much.”
“Bit much?” I repeat. “You thought she was more than a ‘bit much.’ You repeatedly told her to fuck off.”
“Because I was on my period!” Nova is waving an arm around, and filling falls out of her samosa as if to punctuate her sentence.
“When my uterus is betraying the cause and falling to pieces, I don’t need silver linings.
I need hard drugs and a hot-water bottle.
But…” She drapes herself around Lin, gently pinching her cheek.
“We all know you loved her, cos of how you feel about babies.”
“One day,” Lin says, “everyone will realize that those of us choosing not to have kids sometimes have more respect for children than those who do. Children are hard work, and if you want to do a ‘good’ job, it’s going to be a full-time job; one you can never clock out of, costs a lot of money, and you don’t get paid for.
I take that responsibility seriously by choosing not to undertake it.
So again , I’ve got nothing against kids,” Lin reiterates with a shrug, “they’re just not for me.
If we’re really looking for our class’s next baby mama…
” We all turn to Melissa, who has her brown doe-eyes on us.
“Mel is made for that shit,” Lin says. “She’s all our second mums already. ”
“That makes me sound old,” Melissa says, and would you believe it’s at that moment she chooses to wrap her knitted, geometric-patterned, “I-wouldn’t-even-bury-my-worst-enemy-in-that”-Nova-once-said cardigan tightly across her chest.
Presenting Melissa Ortega, née Abraham, known as Mel to her nearest and dearest. Twenty-nine years old but only months away from knocking on thirty’s door.
A Taurus, but due to her religious beliefs, “I can only put my faith into one supernatural concept at a time, Nova. And you can put those tarot cards away!” An interior designer by day and the poster girl for the modern-day Christian by night, she is the eldest daughter of three.
She remained celibate while dating, then proceeded to marry a good man—a surgeon no less (yes, the life-saving kind).
Yet, this is no surprise to anyone who knows her.
Melissa has always had her life together, literally from the day we all met in primary school.
And now she’s only “homeowner” away from completing her Thirty Before Thirty list.
“You’re not old,” Lin promises Melissa. “You’re responsible; every group needs a responsible one to make sure the functioning alcoholic doesn’t one day throw herself off a roof—that’s me; and the party girl—that’s you, Nov—doesn’t turn into a ruined socialite.
” Nova raises her glass in approval. “Then of course,” Lin continues, “every parent with a large brood has the one child they’re proud of, the quiet, studious one. ”
They all look at me. “Oh, thanks! Just say it, you think I’m boring?”
“You’re not boring, you’re just…” Lin thinks. “What were you voted at school? Do you remember? Nov got most likely to end up on reality TV; I got future attorney to high-class criminals; Mel got entrepreneur and you got…”
They all try not to laugh.
“Librarian!” I throw my hands up. “I got most likely to be a librarian.”
Then there’s me. Remington (but please call me Remy) Baidoo.
Thirty years old. I’m a Sagittarius, depending on how accurate I believe a reading to be whenever Nova springs one on us; I’m prone to sentimentality, short depressive episodes, and being harmlessly obsessed with food.
I’m also an author trying (and currently failing) to write her second book.
No boyfriend, girlfriend, or inherent desire to find either, with an extraordinary ability to pass a Bechdel test with flying colors.
My friends are part of my family, and I love my very small family.
“A librarian!” Nova cackles.
“Yes.” I nod proudly. “A keeper of books—a noble pursuit.”
“Thinking about it, the voters got it pretty close,” Lin says. “You became an author instead, so still a keeper of books. You’re also technically an entrepreneur—just like Mummy Mel.”
“Well.” Melissa reaches over to fuss with the curls intertwined with my braids. “Of course, a mother has no favorites,” she says.
“Bullshit!” says Nova. “Not having favorites is a lie parents made up so that their lesser children feel better about themselves. You know, like when you come in second place in some competition and people are like, here’s a silver medal!
When really, a silver medal is just a prize for losing first. However, all childhood competition is avoided”—she flutters her eyelashes—“when you have no competition.”
“Promise me something, Mel,” says Lin.
Melissa, smiling indulgently at Nova, turns to Lin. “What’s that?”
“When you do start having children, have more than one.” She throws an arm around Nova. “Clearly, someone hasn’t known the joys of character-building via being bullied by siblings.”
“I don’t have any siblings either.”
“That’s true,” Lin says, turning to me, “but your mum is more like a cool, aloof aunt. Maybe that’s the difference between reality TV star and librarian.”
“Which wasn’t the worst prediction for someone always in trouble for daydreaming in class.”