Page 4

4 | Silly Socks SASHA

Sometimes it feels like I’m being Punk’d . Then I remember that the show went off the air like two decades ago and Ashton Kutcher is someone’s dad and, also, why would anyone want to punk me ?

I should be so lucky as to garner that much attention. Lately, work is so slow, it feels like my email is broken.

And maybe it is. Because somehow, I have been left off the school email reminder about Silly Sock Day again, though I have tried to correct this issue four times already. And that is how I wind up at drop-off at 8:27 a.m. with a weeping five-year-old in my arms. A five-year-old wearing boring gray socks instead of the baseball-themed ones he’d been saving for this very occasion.

“Is Bart okay?” asks a school administrator standing at the entrance. The same one who is always standing there.

Bart is clearly not okay. All around us, parents play chicken on the crowded sidewalk, hurrying kids in oversize State backpacks toward the schoolyard before the bell. The deed done, they exhale and walk a little taller toward their cups of coffee, the morning’s chaos resolved. Helmeted grown-ups unchain bikes, some with enormous trailers attached for lugging kids, and cycle to work. Others matriculate toward the Prospect Park loop for a run, a prerequisite hobby in this green neighborhood. A few—one crew in particular each morning—stand around in clusters and chat, lingering long after kids disappear inside, the last guests at the procrastination party.

The stragglers eye me and Bart with equal parts amusement and pity. Most notably, we are being surveyed impatiently by my eight- year-old daughter, Annette, who stands at a far enough distance to separate herself from the scene.

“Can I go in now?” she says, widening her eyes. This is so uncool.

“A little help?”

She shrugs behind Bart’s back. “How? I don’t carry an extra pair of weird socks in my pocket!” She’s not wearing silly socks either, but she doesn’t care. She’s not particularly interested in anything silly lately. She is tweening two years too early.

In her defense, she is usually very helpful. More helpful than an eight-year-old should be. And she has spent the whole walk to school trying to convince her little brother that, in her vast experience, Silly Sock Day is just a blip on the radar. That after the first five minutes of circle time, no one even remembers what day it is. Usually, Bart hangs on her every word, an unwavering disciple of the cult of Nettie. Today, he’s not having it. And so neither is she.

Triggered by the word socks , Bart begins weeping anew. Surrendering, I wave my daughter inside so she’s not late.

“I love you, Nettie!” I call. “Have a good day!”

She sprints away from my embarrassing sentiments and inside the black metal gates.

I am so tired.

“Bart,” I try, turning back to face him with practiced patience. “How about I give you my socks?” See? I am the Giving Tree.

He looks down at my feet, socks peeking out the top of my Nike high-tops. “They’re just black,” he hiccups.

“But they’ll be really big on you. That’s silly! Right? Giant socks?”

“Mom!” he groans like I know he will at fifteen too.

“What’s wrong?” the administrator presses, hovering over us now. Her requisite statement necklace sways as she moves.

Bart looks up at her, despondent. His tiny chin quivers. Then he looks back down at his feet. Can she not see his gray socks? Can she not understand the atrocity she’s witnessing? He dissolves into tears again.

“There was a mix-up this morning,” I say, as much to him as to her. “No silly socks.”

“Ah. Did we miss the reminder?” she asks.

By we, she means me . She looks at me with the same condemnation as she did on Pajama Day and Sports Day. I resist the urge to hiss at her.

“I didn’t receive the reminder!” I insist, while my son wipes snot on my shoulder. It’s bad enough to be the “divorced mom.” I don’t want to be the “bad mom” too.

She nods like she doesn’t believe me. “Oh, well, that’s no problem,” she says.

Bart and I look up at her in her sweater set. Really? It sure seems like a problem. The mucus on my jacket is confirmation of my colossal transgression.

“We’ve got some supercool fabric stickers inside for decorating socks to make them silly. That’s even more fun than wearing the store-bought kind! Do you want to come check out the stickers, Bart? Make your own silly socks?”

He considers this, his grip on my sweatshirt loosening. “Do you have sports ones?”

“Maybe? We definitely have unicorns… and dinosaurs.”

Bart considers this. He has no use for unicorns, but a T. rex might do the trick. Before he can overthink it, she takes his little marshmallowy hand and leads him just inside the door to where his teacher is waiting.

I watch them go, then rise to standing with a creak. I feel more like lying on the sidewalk in fetal position. A minute later, the administrator returns.

“Thank you for your help,” I say. “This morning was a doozy.”

“That’s fine. This time. You can sign up for reminders and the weekly newsletter on the school’s website.”

“I have. I swear. Multiple times.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, Mom. Have a good day!”

At school, I don’t have a name. I am Bart’s Mom. Nettie’s Mom. Sometimes, I’m just “Mom” when the teachers and administrators are feeling cute and can’t place me among the myriad other women in their shearling jackets and jogger pants.

I have been dismissed.

By now, the street has grown quiet, returned to its almost suburban calm. This is New York City. Two blocks away, the subway rumbles underground, a convenient yet apocalyptic hellhole drizzled with urine. Ten blocks in one direction, the bodegas get dustier, the streets become less Sesame. But here, in this tiny enclave, robust trees, manicured sidewalks and the sweet school building, with its colorful flags and murals, betray its domestication. This is no concrete jungle. It’s more like a well-tended zoo, its edges babyproofed and softened.

Normally, I go straight home to work after drop-off or take a run, like all the other parents. But, today, I am on a mission. It’s Spirit Day on Monday and I will not fuck it up like Silly Sock Day. I’m already patting myself on the back for all my good mommying.

The school swag table, set up outside only on Friday mornings, waits ahead of me like a winning ticket. No line!

Just as I’m about to approach though, I am intercepted by a creature who will not be put off. Mom Who Never Stops Talking.

“Sasha, hi! It’s been forever .”

She’s nice enough. I’m pretty sure her name is Lisa, but sometimes I think it’s Lorraine. Or maybe Laur en . Either way, it’s too late for me to ask. We’ve chatted on the street and at school events on and off for years since Nettie started kindergarten. She’s one of the few moms I know at this school, where circumstance and maybe marital status have rendered me largely antisocial. Still, I’m clued in enough to know she’s a patrol cop on the school’s information highway. And, for all the reasons, you don’t want to get on the bad side of a gossip.

“Hi… you!” I say. “It has been so long! How’s Olivia doing this year?” Of course I know her daughter’s name. Because, like me, this mom doesn’t have her own name. She is Olivia’s Mom .

Asking a question. Rookie mistake. Because, my Lord, once you get this woman going, there’s no end to her rambling. Don’t even think about trying to interrupt.

“Oh, I’m glad you asked, actually, ’cause I’m kind of freaking out!” She leans in and begins stage-whispering about her daughter’s struggle with waking up for school. Sometimes Olivia wakes up on time. Sometimes Olivia is cranky. Sometimes Olivia melts down on their way out the door if she can’t find her snowflake pom-pom hat.

Oh, Olivia.

Olivia’s Mom is wearing an electric-pink helmet—like maybe she borrowed it from one of her offspring? And she’s leaning on a bike, but she doesn’t seem motivated to leave. There’s a fall chill in the air, but somehow she is perfectly at ease in a tie-dye T-shirt and spandex bike shorts that I’m guessing might be maternity (no judgment!), her shoulder-length black hair pulled back in a low ponytail.

“Like somedays, I come upstairs and she’s already awake,” she says, her pale cheeks flushing pink as she gets worked up. “But then on other days, it’s like after seven a.m. and I have to wake her up and, just this morning, she was lying on the ground—I mean, you know how kids are—just kicking and screaming because we didn’t have any Frosted Mini-Wheats left, and I mean…”

I am eyeing that table of school-branded T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats with mounting anxiety. The stacks are dwindling, and it looks like the VIMs manning it are beginning to pack up.

(VIMs or “very involved moms” is shorthand my friend Celeste and I created one night while drunk on orange wine to refer to the mothers who are somehow able to juggle constant volunteering and their lives. Moms of whom I am in awe because—when do they watch TV? Celeste’s own mother was a VIM, and she still falls short. Every time I feel guilty, I play that single-mother card in my head—and I am magically off the hook.)

“Do you know what I mean?” Olivia’s Mom is saying. She’s kind of a VIM herself. “Of course, you don’t. Nettie is basically perfect. And so are you. Even your yoga pants are cool. Where did you get those? I grabbed some at Target the other day, but have you noticed lately that—”

I open my mouth once, twice, three times to interject. I raise a hand to interrupt Lisa/Lorraine/Lauren’s athleisure monologue midstream and excuse myself, but there is no oxygen. I can’t make it past a single syllable. Tha—! Ma—! To—!

The other VIMs—a white brunette in a PS421 baseball cap and a red down vest and a Black brunette with sunglasses on her head and the same vest in green—are opening the cardboard boxes at their side and beginning to transfer mugs from the display table back inside. I get a jolt of panic, a vision of Bart’s tear-streaked face playing in my head like a horror show.

So I behave like any trapped animal would and begin backing slowly toward the school paraphernalia. For every step I take backward, Mom Who Never Stops Talking takes one forward, rolling her bike closer to me. I have stopped listening to her verbal diarrhea. She is not deterred.

As I speed up, she speeds up—step back, step forward, step back, step forward—and then suddenly I am smashing into something hard. I lose my balance and fall on my ass on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is also hard.

“What the hell?!” I hear someone say. And I’m pretty sure it’s not me.

Once I get my bearings, I swivel to see what I’ve slammed into. Only it’s not a what. It’s a who. He is tall with that combination of tan skin and sandy hair that no one actually has. Perfect bedhead, perfect five-o’clock shadow. Simple, cool, well-cut clothes. Throwback Jordans on his feet. Basically, he’s too good-looking not to be an asshole. And he is looking down at me with confusion and, yes , disdain.

Oh, this day!

“What the hell?” he repeats.

And they say chivalry is dead.

“It was an accident, Ethan!” says Lisa/Lorraine/Lauren, with a forced chuckle. “She was walking backward and didn’t see where she was going.”

“Walking backward? Why would you do that?” he says to me.

“Why?” I repeat.

I am incredulous, and it has to register on my face.

We hold each other’s gaze for a beat. His eyes would be nice if they weren’t glaring at me.

“I am literally on the ground,” I say finally.

The VIMs, and even L/L/L, are unsure of what to do next. It is awkward. They watch us, mouths slightly agape.

“Right. Sorry.” My douchebag in shining armor—Ethan, apparently—offers a hand to help me up. It’s a nice, strong hand. But I don’t give a fuck. I look at it with my own disdain, like it might be coated in excrement and I might be the late queen of England. Then, I brush the granite pebbles off my palms and push myself to standing.

Once up, I hold my posture ramrod straight to show him how haughty I can be. It’s hard to look superior when you’ve just fallen on your ass, but one does what one can.

“Um. Well, look at the time!” says L/L/L, who has not looked at the time. “I better get going!”

I guess now I know how to get rid of her. She leaves without anyone saying goodbye.

This Ethan person has retracted his hand and is now using it to sort through forest-green T-shirts on the folding table in front of us.

“You should watch where you’re going,” he mumbles. “You could get hurt.”

“I’m fine,” I grunt. “Thanks for asking.”

Simultaneously, we both plaster smiles on our faces and look up at the women manning the booth.

“Can I help… one of you?” says Red Vest. “I’m not sure who’s next?”

“I think it’s me—”

“I am—”

We say on top of each other.

“If you don’t mind…,” I begin.

“I’m running late…,” he finishes.

It’s amazing how busy men can be.

Red Vest looks at Green Vest in a panic. And it is because I feel for her (a.k.a. don’t want other moms to hate me) that I say, “Fine. He can go ahead.”

I am obviously the bigger person.

“Okay,” says Red Vest. “What can I get you?”

“I’d like a hoodie,” he says. “For a third grader. What size would you recommend?”

“Oh, great! A youth medium, for sure.” She sorts through the pile for the right size. “Oh, look! You got the very last one!” Green Vest pulls out a tablet to run Ethan’s credit card.

“Thanks for your patience,” says Red Vest, turning to me. “Now, what would you like?”

“A T-shirt in 5T for a kindergartner,” I say, gritting my teeth. “And a hoodie. For a third grader. In a size youth medium .”

“Oh no ,” peeps Red Vest, her eyes going wide.

Oh no indeed.

This Ethan person sneaks a nervous peek at me as he slides his credit card across the table like a job offer. He doesn’t dare meet my eyes.

I’m reminded of the time Nettie bit a kid on the playground who stole her toy—and I’m thinking I get it.

This guy is exactly the kind of handsome Brooklyn man who gets everything he wants. And I suddenly want to murder him. Not only because he has taken the last hoodie in Nettie’s size. But because men like him always get the last hoodie.

If I’ve seen him around before, I haven’t noticed. This is a big school. He’s probably one of those dads who rarely makes an appearance. And I keep to myself, anyway.

I don’t know this man. But, in that instant I realize, the VIMs do.

“Thanks,” the hoodie hoarder says, as they hand him back his card along with the folded sweatshirt.

“You’re welcome, Ethan!” Red Vest simpers.

I never stood a chance.

He turns to face me, opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, then thinks the better of it. “Bye,” he says to the sidewalk. I watch him retreat.