Page 49 of Mean Moms
“Could you please say hi to my friends?” said Frost, smiling at them.
“Hi, Belle, hi, Morgan,” said Alfred sweetly. He looked just like Frost, with a shock of red hair and sparkly brown eyes.
“No Fortnite. Sorry, guys. You know the rules. Now go down to the basement and play chess or practice piano. You have football uptown at three.” The twins stuck out their tongues in protest butobediently left the room, lightly pushing each other and laughing on their way. Frost and Tim had told them that Tim was going on an extended set visit and would be back in a couple of weeks. The boys didn’t know that their parents’ marriage was in trouble, and Frost wanted to keep it that way.
“What if Sofiadruggedyou?” said Belle to Morgan. “And that’s why you fainted after the accident?”
Morgan took a deep, thoughtful breath before answering.
“Oh my god. That’s horrifying,” she said. “But it could be.”
Belle and Morgan went back and forth this way, riling each other up, more and more convinced that Sofia, their kind new friend, was a villain.
Frost wasn’t having it, but she played along. She was too tired to fight, and some of what they were saying was convincing. Why was Sofia’s driver following them around? Had he somehow found Art’s picture of Frost? Leaked photos of Frost to thePost? None of it added up.
“We have to get her back,” said Morgan, with a finality that Frost and Belle recognized, the same voice she used when she declared any goal—“We have to raise one hundred thousand dollars for the new auditorium”; “I have to run the marathon in under four hours.”
“We want her gone, right?” continued Morgan. Belle nodded, though she looked a little unsure.
“But how would we do that?” said Belle.
“We’re going to ruin her party,” said Morgan. “Give her a taste of her own medicine. She’ll be humiliated enough to slink back to Miami.” Frost was suddenly scared for all of them. “I think,” said Morgan, a gleam in her eye, “she might be crazy.”
They disbanded with a plan, a plan that Frost thought was silly and juvenile and horrible all at the same time.
“If you guys want to do this, I won’t stop you,” said Frost as she held open her door for them to leave. “But I’m not going to actively participate.”
“Oh, come on, Frost. It’ll be fun,” said Belle. Was Belle totally confident that Sofia had bad intentions? No. But Belle was also sick of being the butt of the joke at Atherton. She’d had enough of this year, enough of being thought of in the same breath as Clara Cain, a loser, an asshole; lice-y, bitchy Belle Redness. She hated her new hair. It was someone else’s turn to go down.
“Remember, just avoid Sofia. It’ll be easy—everyone’s leaving for Memorial Day weekend, and she’s probably going back to Miami,” said Morgan. The elevator opened for them to leave, and Tim walked out of it. He looked a wreck, tired and weepy, and mumbled hello to Belle and Morgan, the doors closing on their embarrassed faces.
Frost glanced at her husband, whose mouth was twisted in pain.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m such a jerk.”
“You are the worst,” he said. He returned her hug, and she knew it was going to be fine. For now.
“Bad, bad people. I’m telling you,” said Tim as he dug his thumbs into her tender neck. “Your friends arebad. I think they’re rubbing off on you. Sofia is a good egg.” Frost sank into the embrace of her husband. She didn’t know who to trust.
Chapter 14A Surrealist Ball!
Morgan Chary always accomplished what she set out to do. At the start of each year, she’d write down her goals in her green leather Smythson Happiness journal. And so last January, after a satisfying meditation session (“I’m a monster on the hill; I’m a monster on the hill”), Morgan had taken one of her favorite pens, a ballpoint Montblanc, and handwritten the following list in her perfect cursive. She’d been sitting on her bed alone. Art had been out at a work thing. Or so he’d said.
Improve marathon time from 3:55 to under 3:45.
Find the best blueberry muffin recipe.
Take Gertrude on a mother-daughter trip, anywhere in the world she wants to go.
Finally learn how to play mah-jongg.
Carve out time for monthly date nights.
Ruin Frost Trevor’s life.
Ruin Belle Redness’s life.
Aim to read a book a week.
