How to Party With an Infant Read Online Free

know,” Georgia said. “I go to Supercuts.”
    The waxer took another pull from the top. Tears welled in my eyes. I was writing my will in my head and wondering why I ever agreed to let this stranger touch and hurt me so. Bobby was engaged. It was over. The last time he had seen my vagina a head was coming out of it and I had pooed on the table. I’m sure these images could not be superseded. I began to really tear up then, but of course my “stylist” thought this was in reaction to her yanking out my pubic hair.
    “You’re doing real good,” she said, even though I wasn’t doing anything, just lying there, my legs in second position. She told me about her last two clients. One yelled “motherfucker” after each tug. One prayed. I could just hear it: “Please, Lord, give me the strength to withstand the pain of hair being pulled off of my privates so that I can go forth into this day with a clean, porno va-jj. Amen. Oh yes, and bless those in Darfur.”
    Finally, she was done. I took a quick peek and was horrified. It looked like that hairless cat, Mr. Bigglesworth. It looked cold and lonely. I hated it! I hated my privates! I hated Bobby. I didn’t have a witness—no one to commiserate with, no one to love my daughter with. Not having a dad around was such an unfair strike against her. I didn’t want to raise a hitter, a biter, or a child so scarred by abandonment she’d shake on the sidelines while other kids laughed and lobbed balls at one another. And then she’d get older and sleep with everyone and experiment with tons of drugs, like me. On the waxer’s table I thought, How could he bear to be without her? She has a fantastic sense of humor. She can be dramatically sour and fiery, then moments later gooey warm and sweet. She’s like Thai food. She’s my little Eggplant Pad Ma Coeur.
    I came home and cooked that very dish, feeling good, like a mother, a single, determined, capable mother with a sexy pelvis and a beautiful daughter, and I thought: These feelings equal Eggplant Pad Ma Coeur. And this dish came from a story about vaginal waxing.
    What else? What are some more of life’s little word problems? Because this—the eggplant was yielding and vibrant—this I could do. This I could solve. This was making a shitty thing into something damn right delicious.
    I’ve decided to come up with recipes inspired by my friends in my playgroup. My angle: What kinds of culinary creations do they inspire? Barrett, Annie, Georgia, and Henry. I’ll take moments from their everyday lives—moments that define their issues somehow, and come up with the food equivalents. I will make a difficult moment in their lives a little more palatable.
What are your contributions to SFMC and our motherhood community? What have you “brought to the table”?
    I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .
    *  *  *
    Mele looks up to find her daughter. Ellie’s still on the slide, climbing to the top. Another mother is telling her boy, “Excuse me, Branson, we go down the slide, we don’t climb up,” but Mele couldn’t give a fuck if Ellie goes up. Who cares? The more rules you have, the more you have to enforce them, and Mele likes the option of sitting on her ass sometimes.
    The answers felt good to write, and read. She’s surprised by the emotions the process produced: anger, jealousy, but also, a moving appreciation for the life she has. Sometimes you have to trudge through the muck to experience one of the best things in the world: gratitude. She knows this feeling could pass so she holds on to it like it’s a coin,something small and hard and pocketable. She is a single mom. She’s not dead. This is good. Ellie is healthy and happy and almost worn out, and in a few hours Mele will bathe her and feed her and read to her and tell her about the sand crab and tell her she loves her more, and then she’ll sit on the couch and watch The Real Housewives of Wherever . Soon her friends will be here and