“Remember, chorus, you need to keep waving your protest signs,” I tell the kids as the rehearsal thunders along. My accompanist on piano is looking like she’s had enough of our shenanigans, with her glasses on askew while she chugs a second diet Red Bull. I can’t blame her, since we’ve been here for two hours and the sun’s already beginning to dip below the horizon. But we need to have this extra scene I’ve had to add to Oliver, and we need to have it perfect. The school board wanted more of a message of the evils of the chinchilla fur trade. As a result, Oliver and the Artful Dodger need to take some time off from starving in the streets to sing a song about Dodger’s very first friend, a street chinchilla named Adrian who was brutally exploited by luxury fur dealers.

If that sounds batshit to you, I can’t even explain how it felt writing it. And trying to rhyme chinchilla with anything past vanilla.

At least Amelia’s having a good time. She’s pulling double duty as a protestor in this scene, and made the cutest sign of all: a girl and a chinchilla holding hands, smiling with a rainbow stretching over them.

I check my phone and find that it’s time for the kids to be getting out of rehearsal. Which means that all the parents will be pulling up to collect their little angels, which means I might run into Will. I plan on being entirely easygoing, not at all undressing him with my eyes in front of his daughter. It’s two days after our pie/sex/sushi excursion, and there’s been some friendly texting. Maybe even a little risqué, in terms of emoticons.

Still, Will and I haven’t discussed firm plans for the gala, which is right around the corner. I’m hoping we can figure out how we’re going to go about this. Right now, my personal fantasy has us arriving in separate cars, not making eye contact over the crab puffs, having passionate sex in the teachers’ lounge, then returning like nothing has happened. I also lose my panties somewhere in the fantasy, and then we have to stage a late night break in to retrieve them. My love of espionage clouds my otherwise better judgment.

Anyway, the rehearsal’s done and the kids leap off the stage to deposit their prop signs and stuffed chinchillas. We walk out together as the accompanist heads off with a grumble and I lock the doors behind. A gaggle of freshly tanned and showered mothers with admirably flat stomachs are waiting for the kids. I take a peek and…nope. Zero Will. Maybe he’ll show up in a second, having stopped for a quick afternoon hike. Maybe his shirt will still be damp with sweat, clinging to his pectorals and abs, drawing the eye along his chiseled physique like—

“Mom!” Amelia stops short beside me, shifting foot to foot in an adorable, kind of awkward dance. My attention snaps to an Amazon blonde with perfectly toned arms and skin so healthy it practically glows.

So. That’s Will’s ex wife, then. Now I know that any sane, healthy adult understands that marriages break down for all types of reasons. Having said that, I’m not particularly sane or healthy, and this woman is the kind of goddess that men go to war for. So if you’re asking me, hey Chelle, how do you feel right now being all short and grubby in sweatpants? My answer would be not great, Bob. Not great.

I’m calling the ether Bob because I have to call it something.

“Amelia, we need to get home at once. It might rain,” the woman says, looking skyward. Suzonne, I remember now, that’s her name. Amelia heaves a slight sigh, odd for such an enthusiastic kid, and runs to her mother.

“We have to waterproof the yurt,” Amelia calls over her shoulder to me.

I blink, because when I hear yurt all I get as an image are those kind of roomy tents that the Mongols used to live in. The woman in front of me is wearing baby pink cashmere yoga pants that are probably five hundred bucks, easy. I’m thinking even she can’t be that granola, if you will.

“But not before we cover up the Zen garden,” Suzonne reminds her daughter in the same no nonsense tones you might expect from asking the kid to take out the trash.

I was wrong. It’s granola with extra dried cranberries and probably some kind of hard to find Tibetan seed.

“Hi. I’m Amelia’s teacher,” I say, grinning as I walk down to the woman. She’s busy typing something into her iPhone, but I figure it can’t hurt to be approachable. I mean, we’ve both slept with her ex-husband. United by a common penis, that’s us. At any rate, it helps to be on good terms with all the kids’ parents.

“Chilly,” Suzonne says idly, frowning at her screen.

“Oh. Yeah, it gets cold around here at night,” I say, trying not to fumble this weird conversational ball.

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Suzonne finally looks up, running her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose to get a better look at me. Those Warby Parker babies probably cost a week’s salary for me.

“Er, close. Chelle.” I put out my hand to shake and she gives a slightly shocked look. I know, touching people who make under 50k a year is a shock to the system around here. Flustered, I retract it.

“Sorry, it’s just that shaking hands is a patriarchal construct. I’m teaching Amelia to blend her aura with other people’s. That’s a better way of saying hello, isn’t it?” Suzonne smiles at her daughter, and I’ll admit there seems to be genuine warmth there.

Amelia hugs her mom around the waist. Aw. Well, we all have weird quirks or customs. I soften toward Suzonne.

“Sure, I get it! I just wanted to tell you how amazing Amelia is.” I wink at the kid, who gives a radiant smile. I mean, everything about Amelia is pretty much radiant. It surprises me when Suzonne frowns.

“I appreciate that she’s trying. We just want her to try things that she’s extra special at, right?” Suzonne hugs Amelia close, and the light goes out of the kid’s eyes a bit. Okay, I know the traditional game here is placate wealthy parents, especially when you’re sexually inveigled with their exes, but some things can’t be dismissed.

“I think Amelia’s got real raw potential. She’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen.” There. Enjoy that with your soy matriarchal smoothie, or whatever you drink.

Suzonne blinks. I don’t think she knows how to respond. Shit, I overplayed myself.

“Let me guess.” Suzonne tilts her head with a sympathetic expression. “You eat red meat, don’t you?”

Guilty as deliciously charged. “There’s an In N Out two blocks from my apartment. It’d be a cardinal sin not to.”

The woman sighs, rummages through an enormous purse that seems to be woven out of many different varieties of regional grasses, and pulls out a glass bottle filled with some brownish-greenish mulch. She hands it over to me, while I watch the contents bubble and clump together. It looks kind of like seaweed, actually.

“It’s a turmeric, with seawood, green algae, ginger root, pineapple, and Indonesian mushrooms.” Suzonne looks pretty proud of this. “It’s my own special blend,” she says, like it’s a secret at a Tupperware party.

“Fancy that. You’re in business?”

She waves that away. “No, I think that markets are such a joke. I believe in giving without expecting anything in return.”

That’d be a nice thought if we weren’t standing in the parking lot of her daughter’s insanely expensive school, paid for by her husband’s hard-earned alimony. Still, I take it to be polite.

Amelia wrinkles her nose at the bottle and mouths, “Gross!” to me. I feel you, kid.

Suzonne runs a hand through her daughter’s hair, a loving gesture that makes me smile.

Then she says, “You might consider a turmeric cleanse for two weeks. It would do wonders for your skin, and help distend your stomach. I can tell you bloat.”

My emotions are like a yoyo, and this woman is like the psychotic schoolyard bully who keeps walking the dog too many times. That made sense in my own head. Pursing my lips, I say, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m not working twelve hour days, six days a week.”

“Of course. Work makes women really harried. It disrupts the goddess mechanism.” She says it all while looking at her phone.

I have to stop myself from getting an obscenely large Looney Tunes style mallet and whacking her one. And yes, I have one in the trunk of my car. I have many things in there, many dark secrets.

“See you later, Amelia. Great work today.” I grin at the kid as she strolls away with her mother, throwing me a last, mournful look. My hands are shaking as I get out my phone and quickly write a text to Will. Not to worry, it’s restrained and dignified.

YOUR EX WIFE IS A MONSTER

Okay, let’s try that again without caps.

Your ex wife is a monster

Hmm, maybe still too antagonistic. I try making a joke out of it.

Met your ex. I’d say she’s like Cruella de Vil, but I think she’s anti fur.

Flushing, I delete the whole thing. After all, what right do I have to get Will involved in this? It’s not his fault he was married to a narcissistic vegan with homemade turmeric. Maybe just have a conversation about it. That’s a good idea, Chelle.

Met your ex. She’s a little abrupt. Does she know about us?

The second I type that, my whole body freezes a little. I’m getting Darren flashbacks hardcore now, remembering how he kept telling me he and his ex were over. Totally over. Not at all sleeping together over. Then, out of the blue, he did the naked tango and popped out another kid, and I just…I don’t know if I can do this again.

Babies

That’s the next thing I type, without thinking. I try deleting the whole damn thing, but then, to my horror, my stupid thumb hits the stupid send button. With a whoosh sound, the text is sent. And it looks something like this:

Met your babies. about us?

Fuuuuuck. Half a second later, I get a text back.

…are you trying to tell me something?

Not pregnant or anything, I type while imagining lying down in the street and letting a Prius run over me. Met your ex. She picked up Amelia. She’s a handful.

Okay, now I feel like I want to roll off the canyon and save us all the trouble of dealing with me. When I get another text, I’m half afraid to even look at it. Maybe I can accidentally destroy my phone with my comically large mallet. Maybe.

She is. A minute passes, then, That’s a conversation for in person, not texting. We can talk tomorrow when I pick you up.

The gala. Right. Nothing like rocking my best off the rack ensemble while guzzling champagne cocktails and hearing about my casual fling’s hippie ex. It’s like Pretty Woman, except in no way is it like Pretty Woman.

I text back that it’s fine and leave to walk to my car, my gut churning hard. I have to keep telling myself that Will isn’t Darren. He’s not going to run back to Suzonne. They’re divorced, after all. Signed, sealed, delivered, and all that jazz.

I just wish I could feel more confident about this.