“Want to come see how Olive’s day went? You know, since you’re here and all?”
“Oh, sure.” I shrug, even though he’s clearly on to me. “Might as well.”
It only takes another minute for children to come pouring out the front of the school, like milk from an upturned jug. They chat and laugh with each other as my eyes wildly scan the crowd for Olive.
Finally, I see her. Her hair is no longer in the waterfall braid and my heart drops. I immediately assume that I’ve done such a poor job that it somehow came out. Large kinks jut out from the top of her head, and chunks of her hair are no longer straight but zigzagged. The only word I can think of to describe it is odd. She is looking at the ground, shoulders slumped.
“Oh dear,” Liam murmurs. “Something’s happened.”
I say nothing, torn up by the sight of her. Her feet drag, and, as she walks in our direction, she gets bumped and jostled by the children in their hurry to get home and play video games. She takes no notice of them.
Liam and I wind our way through the crowd to her, and she stops when she sees his shoes in front of her. When she looks up, her face is stained with tears, her eyes are puffy behind her glasses. Liam puts his hands on her shoulders and crouches down to her. “What happened, my love?”
“None of the other girls wanted to look like me.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Mercedes Tanner told the other girls to wear headbands and big curls in their hair. She made them promise not to tell me.”
“Oh love, that’s awful. I’m sorry.” Liam pulls her in for a big hug, and I see her frail body shaking.
Tears fill my eyes. This is the trick of the mean girl. They exist everywhere, at every age and stage in life, although I have no idea what their purpose is.
“They all made fun of me and said they were never going to wear waterfall braids in the first place and that they’re for babies like me.” Her voice hitches and she tries to catch her breath, but it’s no use because she’s sobbing so hard. “Mercedes said that if I had a mom, I wouldn’t look so stupid all the time. I tried to take my hair out and wet it so my curls would come back, but it didn’t work, so my pictures are all wrecked now.”
“Oh, sweetheart, we can get retakes. It’ll be okay,” Liam says.
She shakes her head. “They don’t do a retake of the class picture. Everyone is going to have a copy of me looking like a crazy bag lady.” She sobs again, then says, “That’s what Seth said I look like.”
Anger is bubbling in my blood. How dare anyone make this perfect child feel any kind of pain? Not on my watch. I look around and spot a group of girls in headbands and curls. They are laughing together, surrounded by their mothers, who are very busy chatting about something most certainly useless, like their favorite brands of retinol when they should be teaching their awful girls to be kind.
I march over, not at all sure what I’m going to say, but I’m going to say it all right. I reach the group and stop. “Mercedes? Is one of you girls named Mercedes?”
The shortest one looks up at me sweetly and raises her hand. “I am.” The look on her face says she thinks she’s going to get a prize. I’ll give her a fucking prize, all right.
“On what planet is it okay to make fun of someone because she doesn’t have a mother? What if your mother died? Would that be your fault?”
A well-dressed, painfully thin woman gasps loudly. “Don’t you talk to my daughter that way!”
I spin on her. “Oh, so Mercedes is your little cherub, is she? Are you aware that she told Olive that all the girls were wearing waterfall braids, but then she told all the girls to wear headbands and to promise not to tell her?”
The woman shrugs. “Mercedes would never do that. I’m sure she just forgot to tell Olive.”
Another girl speaks up. “No, she made us promise not to tell her because she didn’t want her to look like one of us.”
I nod emphatically. The truth is out. “Thank you, Honest Girl. There is some hope for humanity after all.”
I turn to the thin mom and fold my arms across my chest as I wait for her to be horrified to discover her daughter is a mean girl.
She gives her daughter a tilted head cutesy serious look. “Mercedes, that wasn’t nice.”
“Sorry, Mommy.”
“Okay, then.” She gives me a single nod, as though that will put the matter to rest. But it won’t.
“Is that it? ‘Okay, then?’ You’re not even going to make her apologize to Olive?” I’m leaning in toward her in a way that is probably very threatening. At least I hope it is.
“Okay, who are you even?” she asks, looking disgusted.
