Page 55 of Mean Moms
A person grabbed Sofia from behind, and she swiveled to see Dr. Broker, his handsome face turned gray, his eyes bulging in terror. “Dios mio,” said Sofia. Was that foam coming out of his mouth? He staggered away and Sofia lost him in the mix.
Sofia felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Her hands started shaking uncontrollably, and she suddenly felt very cold. She started to curl up behind the kitchen island. Maybe she could shut herself into a kitchen cabinet and disappear.
Then the DJ put on “Believe” by Cher. It was the song Michael played at the beginning of their training sessions, to pump Sofia up before their workouts. “More, Sofia, more! Go, go, go,” he’d chant as she lunged and lifted and fantasized about all she’d do to him after it was finished. Just hearing it now created that same surge of endorphins, a kind of instant perk, reminding Sofia that she was a fighter. If she could do twenty lunges, if she could survive on her own in New York, if she could lift herself out of poverty into the highest echelons of society, she could figure this out. She felt a hand slip into hers. Michael was here with her now. He gave her a loving, supportive smile. He was so beautiful. He was hers.
Sofia stood up straight. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It was her apartment, but it wasn’t her fault. Sofia would beat Morgan. She had to.
Chapter 15Drama!
A Note to the Atherton Community
Dear parents,
By now, we’re sure you’ve all heard the tragic news about Dr. Broker. Most of you were there. We know that members of our community are struggling under the weight of the event. Our children also struggle, each in their own ways. We have mobilized our crisis support teams, who’ve been assisting and supporting those at Atherton throughout this past week.
Tomorrow morning, June 2, a team led by our school psychologist, Sue Grossman, will be available to Atherton students beginning at 8:00 a.m. You and your loved ones are also encouraged to come speak with a mental health professional. Please see a list of resources below on how to communicate with your child about managing grief.
Our goal is to maintain as much normalcy as possible while alsobeing respectful of students’ needs and emotions. We will keep you apprised of any changes to Dr. Broker’s condition.
All our best,
The Atherton staff and board
Gabby Mahler had only been in the hospital that night for a bit—a couple of hours, maybe, as the nurses had taken vitals and then whatever it was had cleared out of her system. She hadn’t even had to drink that disgusting stuff that makes you throw up, like some of the others, as thankfully she’d only eaten a few bites of the pudding instead of the, like, twenty servings that Bud Cunningham had inhaled. But she’d gone down like everyone else. She remembered falling to the floor and thinking to herself: How embarrassing. No life flashing before her eyes. No thoughts of her children or her parents or her horrible, soon-to-be ex-wife, Margo. Just humiliation at being so vulnerable, at being human, something she didn’t like to acknowledge but that had been pushing up against her these past few months.
For example, the fact that Margo was leaving her. Hadlefther. For Dr. Fucking Cuddles of West Chelsea Veterinary. Margo had moved out of their family’s seven-bedroom on Park and Eighty-Fifth and into his place in Gramercy, and now the kids were spending time between the two homes and there seemed to be nothing that Gabby, with all her wealth and power, could do about it. On top of everything, she missed her Westies, Gus and Van Sant, desperately. They were Margo’s dogs, really, so it wasn’t like Gabby could have made the case to keep them herself. But they’d grown on her, those little yappy troublemakers, and now she couldn’t believe how empty the house was without them.
Gabby was just arriving at pickup, enjoying the perfect Juneweather, the bright blue sky, the early summer breeze. It was the first day back at school after, well, everything, and it was her turn to have the kids for the night. Three boys with two moms. Now one mom and one mom, apart.
Margo had always been up-front with Gabby about her bisexuality. Before they’d met, Margo had lived with a man, nearly getting engaged to him before breaking it off in pursuit of a more open lifestyle. Gabby, unfairly, had been playing up this “surprise” bisexual thing for the sympathy angle with the other Atherton moms. Whatever. It made Gabby feel better to hear others aghast, the supportive offense on her behalf, the “She left you for aman?!” disbelief. And anyway, she’d met this Dr. Cuddles, and he looked more like a middle-aged lesbian than Gabby did, with his Ellen DeGeneres hair and his weirdly full lips. Fucker.
Gabby saw Ava by the door, chatting with Clara Cain and Dre Finlay. There was so much gossip swirling around the incident, and Gabby was happy for the distraction from her pathetic personal life.
“I heard they finally pinpointed what made everyone sick,” Clara was saying with an authority that she certainly didn’t have. She was in her lawyer workwear—a Hillary Clinton blue pantsuit, her hair like a helmet. “Apparently, it was a very trace amount of potassium hydroxide, the nasty stuff that’s found in drain cleaner. That’s why Dr. Broker’s still in the hospital. He must have been eating a lot of pudding, though no one seems to have seen him doing it. And everyone else recovered just fine.”
“Wait, so there were actual chemicals in Sofia’s dessert? Who did you hear that from?” said Ava. She was in a black dress and donning large black sunglasses. She looked like a chic spy. “Morgan told me. She told everyone. And she also told me about Sofia’s divorce, that she cheated, that she’s… poor,” said Dre, wrinkling her nose indisgust. “I heard she was the one who cut off Belle’s hair! Iknewthere was something off about Sofia.” Everyone at Atherton was saying they’d always suspected that Sofia was rotten, that she’d been lying to get close to them all, that she was a fraud, a Miami wolf in Tribeca clothing. Gabby held her tongue. She understood what it felt like to not fit in.
Growing up, Gabby had been a loner, knowing she was different from the other girls but not figuring out how until she was deep into high school. It was a different time then—not like today, when everyone under twenty seemed to be queer in one way or another. They, them, X, whatever, though no one wanted to be a boring old lesbian, which made Gabby laugh. She’d been in the closet until after college, dating girls secretly without letting her family in on her lifestyle. How could they have not known? Gabby sometimes wondered, now that she had her own children and was so attuned to their personalities and needs. But it didn’t cause a permanent rift, thankfully. Once she was out, her parents embraced her. Gabby now worked for her dad, helping to oversee some of his buildings’ management teams. A few weeks ago, he’d said something strange.
“I heard that Jorge Perez’s grandchildren are at Atherton. You know that I do business with him in Florida,” her dad had said.
“Oh, is that Sofia’s ex-father-in-law?” said Gabby. They were sitting at her parents’ dining table, a rare, eighteenth-century Louis Seize designed by Claude Messier.
Her father had nodded. “He’s a nasty piece of work. I know the grandchildren will be set, but I’m sure he’s torturing that woman, Sofia, or whatever her name is. He’s a vindictive piece of shit.” Gabby had nodded but hadn’t added anything. She wondered what Sofia had really been dealing with this year. She didn’t strike Gabby as a murderer, that was for sure.
“I’m not sure about any of it,” said Gabby now. “At the hospital, they told me it was possibly Ambien combined with the alcohol. Which is why we basically just had to sober up and then go home. I think the people they forced to vomit were just super drunk, anyway. Everyone was so messed up that night.”
“Has anyone seen Sofia since?” said Ava. Clara shook her head.
“I heard she’s gone back to Florida. The kids are getting looked after by their nanny,” said Clara.
Gabby wasn’t surprised. Imagine trying to survive in a group of moms who thought you might be homicidal?
“But why would Sofia want to hurt people?” said Gabby. “She wants to plan all our luxury vacations! Plus, she’s too hot to be a criminal.” Taken as a whole, this was the craziest thing to ever happen at Atherton, and every parent in Manhattan had heard about it, the rumors of a “psycho-mom” pinging back and forth between the poshest neighborhoods. The new mom who’d infiltrated the A-list turned out to be a nutcase. It was glorious. And it was shaping up to be a private school scandal even bigger than the one at Braeburn, when it turned out their headmaster was a total fraud.
The children began to stream out of the doors, down the big stone steps, all elbows and knees in their spring outfits. Sully and Howie emerged with the rest of the lower school, looking around for Gabby. She waved, and they came bounding over, nearly knocking her down with their embraces. Gabby still couldn’t believe that her marriage was over and that these little guys would be the children of divorce. It made her sick. You could have all the money in the world, but this could still fuck a kid up.
“Mom, where are we sleeping tonight?” asked Howie, his little five-year-old face slightly sunburned from their Sunday in the Hamptons. Gabby took a deep breath.
