Spit up and the Suburbs

The next step in her still formulating plan was definitely to get Stephanie Bush on her side. There was no other way the plan would work. How exactly she would do this, well, that part was less clear. Of course, she already knew quite a bit about Stephanie’s daily habits to get a window into her neighbor’s world.

Stephanie left her well-maintained, two-story home on 122 Bonita Lane every afternoon at the exact same time. The Keadons’ home sat directly across the street from the Bushes’, so Alyssa saw the silver-blue minivan pull out of the driveway at 1:45 p.m. on the dot each day. It was how she knew it was almost time to pick the kiddos up.

School didn’t let out until 2:30, but that pick up line over at Almería Elementary wasn’t for the faint of heart. Cars started lining up an hour early, and Alyssa couldn’t help but wonder how they found the time! But parents like Stephanie had to grab Stuart and Belle right at the bell, or else how would the kids ever make their rigorous roster of after-school activities? 

Monday was gymnastics for Belle and karate for Stuart, Tuesday Belle and Stuart both had soccer, Wednesday was violin, Thursday was…well, Alyssa wasn’t sure what Stephanie had scheduled for her 10-year-old twins after that dance class didn’t pan out for Belle (was Steph influenced by that nasty thread on Facebook?). Meanwhile, Stuart had recently decided that basketball wasn’t his thing. And Friday? Well, that was the kids’ day off, but Stephanie typically picked them up anyway and headed out to run errands, followed by a family dinner. 

If the schedule seems confusing, just look at Facebook, where Stephanie chronicles the whole exhaustive thing, including what restaurant she picks at the end of the busy week, and what each family member orders. Spoiler alert: Stuart and Belle manage to find chicken fingers and French fries no matter where the Bushes eat, but yes, there’s still a photo, in case you were interested in creating a chart comparing the staple meal at a vast array of eateries in the area. 

To be very clear, Steph was not nearly as obnoxious as the other Almería moms. Not even close. She somehow managed to strike just the right tone with her posts, coming off as a proud mom who simply couldn’t help herself, and not a braggy, desperate troll looking for attention, even at the cost of exploiting her offspring on the internet, and incidentally robbing them of an innocent, caption-free, unfiltered childhood. 

In any case, from her vantage point of the kitchen window, and with the help of context clues on Facebook, she knew a lot about the comings and goings of Stephanie Bush. Still, Alyssa decided she’d need to get a closer look at her neighbor’s daily life, and her interaction with the more prominent members of the PMS Club. That way, she could put together just the right strategy to recruit her for the plan.

So, soon after her idea came into focus, Alyssa announced she’d be picking her kids up from school for the next few days. Penny and Bryn typically walked home since the Keadons’ house was just a short stroll, bike, or scooter ride from AES, and Alyssa wasn’t as regimented about scheduling activities for the younger kids. There were tons of playmates in the neighborhood to do chalk, or ride bikes, to kick around a ball, or play tag. And whatever happened to kids just being kids? Alyssa shrugged off her mental referendum on the epidemic of overscheduling the elementary school set, and informed her fifth and third graders that the mom taxi was in service this week. 

“But why are you picking us up?” Bryn asked suspiciously from between her missing front teeth.

“We always walk,” a pigtail-clad Penny then informed her mom in a deadly-serious tone. 

“I just thought it’d be fun to pick you up,” Alyssa answered breezily, sipping her coffee heartily, like only a mom of five could. She knew the less attention she called to the situation, the fewer questions the kiddos would fire her way. 

Monday morning, she moved through her morning routine of filling water bottles, braiding hair, finding the blue truck and “NOT THE RED ONE!” for 2-year-old Jude, all the while furiously sipping her beloved coffee before it got cold, and then sent the kids off to school. A short-lived naptime and a few hours spent on her freelance editing gig (in a past life, Alyssa worked at the New York Post), and it was already “go” time. Operation School Pick up Line Recon was in full effect.

As expected, the Bushes’ silver-blue minivan pulled out of their driveway at 1:45 p.m. precisely. About five seconds later, Alyssa’s black Cadillac SUV pulled out behind Stephanie, with the neighbors offering one another an obligatory friendly wave. 

Alyssa actually really liked Stephanie, despite her tendency to laminate her kids’ names on too many things—water bottles, sports equipment, every square inch of her garage—and that she had a habit of offhandedly asking her kids how to say things in Spanish (“Yes, Monday is Lunes! Correct!” to make sure they were learning at every moment!—as she was one of the few moms in Almería who didn’t seem to play the parenting politics game. She was universally nice to everyone, regardless of their standing within the mom hierarchy. Steph was always willing to lend a neighbor a bag of chocolate chips for those last-minute cookies you had to bake for the bake sale, or pick up your kids if you were running late. Need some inside info about a teacher a grade up at the school? You go to Stephanie. Want to get the 411 on that new family that moved in down the block? Stephanie would know—but she never disparaged anyone. Her gossip meter was decidedly non-existent. If Steph had a mean bone in her body, Alyssa was yet to discover it seven years into being her neighbor.

It was basically impossible to dislike Steph, even if she existed on the fringe of the PMS Club. Somehow, her streetmate towed the line with success, managing to win with both the queen bee and her hive, as well as the “outcasts” of Almería like Alyssa. Perhaps her recipe for appeasing Trish and the Lululemon brigade at large had to do with the fact that Steph worked full-time, so she had an easy excuse for not being a super-involved member of the PTO, or having to skip the occasional MNO. Instead, she kept up her social clout by volunteering in another way: as admin of the Almería mom’s group on Facebook. 

In this role, Steph, who was also slightly older than most of the other Almería moms and therefore possessed some natural authority over them, cut off members who were breaking the rules, such as posting about their home business more than once per month, bullying other members, or calling out any minors by name or with a supporting photo documenting their supposed transgression. 

Case in point: An attempted takedown of young people speeding around the neighborhood in golf carts with their friends could devolve into parent shaming, or even some unhinged members employing threatening language toward one another. Steph would end that shit so fast, it could make a Botox-infused mom’s head spin right off into her dairy-free overnight oats. 

Steph also admitted new members to the group. It was Steph who’d approved Alyssa’s request to join the group when their family moved into Almería seven years ago, and was inundated by suggestions that everything she’d need to know about life in the ‘hood, as many moms called Almería, could be found on this page.

Today, Alyssa would be following her neighbor to Almería Elementary School on an information gathering mission. Although she’d already identified more than enough yoga pants-clad narcissists to target via her brief Facebook probe, there was nowhere better to observe her potential victims in their natural habitat (and incidentally how they interacted with Steph) than in and around the school pick up line. 

But first, Alyssa couldn’t help but sigh with contentment as she drove past the huge preserve that separated the houses in the community from the entrance to the school. The expansive green space was populated with lush, tall trees and thick clumps of wild palms, as well as a few perfectly-placed retention ponds complete with ducks for children to feed, a playground, soccer and baseball fields, basketball and pickleball courts, and a covered picnic area. This family-friendly space was one of the reasons the Keadons fell in love with the community. The giant, mature tree shaded flex space at the front of the community set Almería apart from so many other pop-up subdivisions in the area that looked like scorched earth by comparison. 

Indeed, beyond Almería, stores and offices, condos and cookie cutter communities were being built at a dizzying rate—and at the expense of so many of the gorgeous natural oaks, magnolias, and palms that had drawn Alyssa and Will to this area in the first place. The beauty of Almería, a community intent on preserving the plants and wildlife native to the area, was undeniable. If only the people who lived here weren’t so intent on acting ugly…

With that meditation on the contradiction of Alyssa soon pulled her car into the pick up line right behind Steph’s van. Then, she waited.