Page 33 of Mean Moms
Hildy cocked her head, thinking of an answer. “Remember last year, when we went to Aspen with the Charys and the Trevors?”
Belle nodded. The families had a tradition of skiing together in different locations each season—Aspen, Telluride, Big Sky, Alta—the kids dumped in ski school while the grown-ups enjoyed alone time. Belle didn’t ski (though she loved expensive ski outfits), and so she spent her days napping, reading novels, getting spa treatments, and grabbing cocktails with the girls.
“When we got there, I decided that I’d dedicate the entire time to the downhill obstacle course. They had one for the ski school kids. I wanted to get really good, so I spent hours practicing that thing, going over the little jumps, around the cones. And by the last day, I was doing pretty well,” said Hildy. Had Belle known that was happening? She recalled that she’d worn a brand-new Fendi ski suit during the trip, multicolored in pinks and purples and yellows. But she couldn’t remember what her daughter had been up to.
“Then on the final run, I couldfeelI was going to break my record. And I was so proud of how fast I was going.” Hildy paused.
“What happened?” said Belle.
“Gertrude messed me up,” Hildy said.
“Gertrude?” Belle couldn’t imagine what Hildy meant.
“Yeah, I think she actually, like, broke my ski on purpose,” said Hildy. “I saw her near my equipment when I was walking back from the bathroom, and then during the race I crashed into a cone and slid the entire rest of the way down.”
“I’m sorry, honey. That does sound disappointing. But how can you be sure Gertrude did that? Why would she?” said Belle.
“Uh, Mom, have you ever met Gertrude?” said Hildy. She’d turned serious, and Belle didn’t know what she was getting at. Gertrude and Hildy had never been friends, as much as Belle and Morgan had pressured them to be. They just didn’t click; Hildy was spicy and chatty, and Gertrude was, frankly, sad and kind of quiet. Morgan complained often that Gertrude was getting teased about her weight and that Atherton wasn’t dealing with it properly.
“Of course I know Gertrude Chary,” said Belle. “I’ve known her since she was five years old.”
“Well, then you know she’s an evil bitch,” said Hildy.
“Hildy!” said Belle, surprised.
“Mom, it’s true. She does bizarre things—steals stuff from desks, she copies people’s work when no one’s looking. But then she pretends to be innocent in front of the teachers,” said Hildy.
“But maybe that’s because she’s being teased herself about being chubby—Morgan told me about ‘Girthy Gertrude.’ So maybe she’s acting out in retaliation.”
Hildy looked at Belle like she was crazy.
“What are you even talking about? Girthy Gertrude? Firstly, no one teases each other about weight at Atherton. What do you think this is, the year 2000? It’s called the body positivity movement, Mom. Duh. And secondly, what seventh grader would come up with the name ‘Girthy Gertrude’? Girthy? What does that even mean?” Hildy rolled her eyes so hard Belle was worried they might get stuck up in her brain.
The buzzer rang, interrupting them. Belle wasn’t expecting anyone today. She’d been planning on holing up alone and continuing to monitor the internet for negative mentions of her event. Her best guess was that somehow the fabric had come in contact with an allergen during the shipping process, but how that could have happened, well, that’s what Belle wanted to get to the bottom of.
“Maybe it was one of the moms from my lice email, trying to get back at me,” Belle had posited to Jeff yesterday, both of them having coffee in the kitchen, Jeff slurping his unattractively. Did everyone get less and less attracted to their husbands as time went on? Or was that just Belle? Sometimes she’d look at him doing something normal, like bending over to tie his shoe, or flossing, or toweling off after a shower, and think to herself:Ew. And then a wave of guilt would come over her for feeling that way. It wasn’t Jeff’s fault that he was aging. She was, too, as much as she didn’t like to think about it. And he still loved her just the same as he always had.
“I never should have had everyone wear something from the line.”
“Babe, that was a good idea,” Jeff had said.
He’d walked over and given her a long hug, and, in his familiar embrace, Belle’s duplicity had hit her in the stomach like one of Miles’s soccer balls. She’d let Dr. Broker kiss her. Sort of. Jeff could never, ever know.
“It was Sofia’s idea, actually,” Belle had said.
“Well, whatever, it was Sofia’s good idea. All we know is that this definitely wasn’t a random event,” said Jeff. “We have to take it in context. Your leaked email plus this. There’s a pattern here. I’m going to contact that private detective that Tim hired to look into Frost’s accident—maybe he can do some digging for us, too. My thought is that both of you have been targeted.”
“Targeted? That sounds sinister,” said Belle.
Jeff had looked at her a little patronizingly, which had annoyed Belle. “When you’re rich, people want things from you,” he’d said. “We have money. People want money. It’s as simple as that.”
Now, getting up to see who was at the entrance, she thought about their conversation. She remembered Morgan’s phrase—“negative event clusters.” She wasn’t generally a superstitious, karma-is-real kind of person, but it had occurred to her that by reveling in Thyme & Time’s robbery she’d perhaps brought this on herself. Does the universe punish you for being a bad friend?
She saw Frost downstairs at the door, her red hair poking out of a white bucket hat, holding two shopping bags. Frost waved at the camera and Belle buzzed her in.
“It’s freezing outside,” Frost said as she stepped out of the elevator, which opened right into the apartment’s bright blue foyer. “I tried calling you to tell you I was on my way, but you didn’t pickup. I figured you were negging me because you wanted to feel sorry for yourself all alone.” Frost took off her hat and shook out her hair. “But I wasn’t about to let that happen.”
Belle was happy to see Frost, as always. It had been that way since the first day they’d met, the kind of friend who you both love and are a little in love with.
