“Everything’s good,” you say. “But I wouldn’t mind if you got something with fries… just saying.”
You order a bowl of chili and I go for a club sandwich with fries and you smile at me but then something catches your eye. You sit up straight and wave. “Melanda! Over here!”
It’s supposed to be you, me, and fries but your friend Melanda clomps up to our booth. Body by Costco—bulk-order boobs—and she moves like a linebacker charging for an end zone, as if life is war. She’s sweaty—wash that shit off before you enter a restaurant, Melanda—and she needs a tutorial on Instagram filters because the dissonance shouldn’t be this jarring. You air-kiss her and tell her she looks great—I don’t agree—and why is she here? Are you hazing me? The host brings Melanda a menu and her nostrils flare and she’s a so person, sucking up the oxygen with a non sequitur. “So I just had the worst row at school with that math teacher Barry who thinks that being ‘a father of daughters’ entitles him to help me with the Future.”
She’s not British and she shouldn’t say row and you look at me. “Melanda’s starting a nonprofit for local girls…” Melanda bites her lip in protest and you elbow her in response. “A nonprofit for young women…” She winces and you throw up your hands as in I give up and she puts her eyes on me.
“So, what MK means is that I’m building an incubator for young women. It’s called The Future Is Female. You’ve probably seen posters in the library…”
“I sure did,” I say, recalling the mixed messages inviting girls to establish boundaries online and commanding them to use her hashtag in all of their posts. #MelandaMatriarchySmashesThePatriarchy… and the young women who forget to promote her brand!
Melanda laughs. “And?”
“And obviously I’m all for it.”
You’re different around her, cautious, but that’s the story of humans. We shrink to fit. I know Melanda’s type. She doesn’t want questions. She wants praise, so I tell her it’s a genius idea. I don’t say that there’s a way to do these things without being a fucking asshole. But there is. “Well,” she says. “I’m past the idea phase. We launch early next year.” She picks up your water glass. “Which reminds me, MK, did you review my latest mission statement?”
You didn’t review it yet and you pull a packet of Splenda from your purse and she grimaces like you pulled out a crack pipe or a Bill Cosby biography. “Sweetie, no,” she coos. “You have to stop trying to kill yourself.”
That language was telling. On some level, she wants you to die, and you don’t know it and she doesn’t even fully know it and it’s all a little sad.
“I know,” you say. “I’m terrible. I have to stop it with the Splenda.”
It’s not my place to butt in—are you ever gonna introduce us?—and she sips your water and sighs. “So they fired my trainer, finally. I wasn’t the only one who complained about him.”
You say you’ve never joined a gym and I want to hear more but Melanda cuts you off to bitch about her toxic trainer and I wish she’d follow the rules spelled out on her T-shirt—LET HER SPEAK—and you wink at me and… wait. Is this a fucking setup?
“Melanda,” you say. “Before we get off track, this is Joe. I told you how he’s volunteering at the library, he just moved here a few months ago.”
I extend my hand. “Good to meet you, Melanda.”
She doesn’t shake my hand. She sort of pats it and this isn’t a setup. My first instinct was right. You are hazing me and Melanda’s like a wannabe tough frat guy in a Lifetime movie who doesn’t want anyone else in the frat. “How nice,” she simpers. “Another white man telling us what to read.” She slaps her clammy hand over mine. “Honey, please. You know I’m kidding, just having a day.”
You make eyes at me the way you did on Day One in the library—Please be patient—and Melanda says that her toxic trainer asked Greg, the barista at Pegasus, to stop selling her cookies and you nod, like a therapist. “Well, I’m glad that Greg told you about it. He’s a good guy in that way.”
Her nostrils flare. “Well let’s not pat Greg on the back, Mary Kay. He was laughing, which means he probably laughed about it with my trainer too. Ex-trainer.”
You nod, Dr. Mary Kay DiMarco. “Okay, but remember. Greg’s in there all day and when you deal with the public all day, you hear crazy things. Greg does strike me as one of the good ones. And imagine if he didn’t tell you about the trainer.”
You tamed her without dismissing her—brilliant—and she makes a self-deprecating joke about being Bitchy McBitcherson and now you cut her off. “Stop it, Melanda. You’re allowed to have a reaction.”
I want to tear off your tights but for now I just nod affirmatively. “You said it, Mary Kay.”
I was beaming when I said that, beaming at you, and Melanda felt it and we are a party of three and she scans the diner and you nudge her, girlfriend to girlfriend. “On a happier note, you’re seeing that Peter guy this week, right? The one from Plenty of Fish?”
She grunts. No eye contact with you or me. “Plenty of Fish? More like plenty of pigs. He sent me a dirty joke about Cinderella and a Pumpkin Eater and, needless to say, I reported him.”
“Well,” you say. “You know how I feel about those apps…”
Melanda fixes her eyes on me now. “And what about you, Joe? Are you on the apps?”
She’s not stupid. She saw me beam at you. But I don’t want to be that asshole pooh-poohing her way of life. “No,” I say. “But maybe I’ll join just to give Peter a piece of my mind.”
It was a joke and you laugh but she doesn’t. “Aw,” she says. “That’s sweet but I don’t recall asking you to fight my battles. All good here.”
I let it slide. Imagine all the dick pics she gets, all the rejection. You take the reins and change the subject. “So, Melanda. How’s my daughter? For real.”
“Good,” she says.
You look at me and tell me that Melanda knows more about Nomi than you do and Melanda is proud—she’s one of those bestie aunts—and she says that Nomi is cooling off on Dylan Klebold and you sigh. “Thank God. I was hoping it was just a phase.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” I say, because I have a voice too. “Kids go through phases.”
Melanda grunts. “Well, I wouldn’t diminish a young woman’s feelings as a phase…”
It was okay when you said it was a phase and the three of us aren’t gonna be at Eleven Winery any time soon. I get it. You take care of Melanda because she’s alone. She’s telling you about Nomi’s ideas for her imaginary incubator and she’s not Auntie Melanda. She’s Auntie Interloper and you almost jump out of your seat.
“Seamus!” you shout. “Over here!”
So it really is a hazing ambush and this is Seamus in real life, working the room like a politician, glad-handing the other diners with his masturbation paws. Did that dryer work out okay for you, Dan? Hey, Mrs. P, I’ll swing by and check out your furnace. He wears a long-sleeve Cooley Hardware T-shirt and a baseball cap with the same logo—we get it, dipshit—and he’s too short for you. Too smarmy for you. But he grins at you like he could have you if he wanted.