Back With Vengeance (Not A Vengeance)

I took yesterday off from writing (I needed a break), but now I am at 16,008 words. Four more than Jackie. This may not be true when you read this, though, as she is adding more words as I type. Fernando and Olivia are officially an item, and Olivia is concerned about their relationship because of what happened with Alejandro. I am preparing for a confrontation between Olivia and Darcy.

A woman wearing ill-fitting waist-high “4-Eva brand” mom jeans, a loose-fitting yellow polo and a floral vest that was stained with some mystery substance, addressed an audience that was far from captivated. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Some were captivated, and they were, for the most part, dressed exactly the same, with some variation in pattern and colour. Yes, it was the mommy uniform; the kinds of clothes that certain types of women wear once they have given birth, in order to signal to the world that they have no concern for their own appearance anymore, now that all of their concern must go to every minute detail of their children’s lives. She seemed to be one of the mother’s who had gone rogue and brought her children along to the retreat, which had explicitly been forbidden (they had learned from previous experiences with the “My Child Is My Life!” magazine writers). Her small boy (Olivia did not care to guess the age, as she did not care about things like that) that she had proudly told them was named Beaucoup, as she wanted him to have “everything” (and she did not seem to have a particularly strong grasp of the French language, since “beaucoup” means “a lot”) was seated beside the stage, colouring in a colouring book.

It took everything that almost every audience member had to not run from the room screaming.

This mother in particular, let’s call her “Mom Jeans 4 Eva,” was explaining to her un-captive audience her plans for a column on how to prepare everything in a non-toxic way. Her example was non-toxic Easter egg dye, although Olivia could only envision all of the ways in which her excessive and obsessive parenting could find fault in any number of everyday products, such as clothing fabrics, bathing and hair-washing agents, and especially food. Yes, this was the kind of mother that people like Olivia (and other people who numbered themselves amongst those with real lives) would cross streets to avoid. She wanted to shout several suggestions to the woman, including, “get a life,” “shut the fuck up,” and “you suck!”. She thought better of it, however, as her bosses were all in attendance. Perhaps she would take to the Mommy Blogs that they all must have been working on in their spare time, in order to tell them what she really thought, all under the cover of internet anonymity. You know, like a decent person.

When “Mom Jeans 4 Eva” was cut off for lunch, the entire room let out a sigh of relief. Except for the crew from the mommy magazine, who had been furiously taking notes during the entire talk. If there was a way to over-parent that they were not yet doing, they were eager to start doing it.

Todd Bigsley, who wasn’t even attempting to hide his feelings for Ellie anymore, quickly joined Olivia and Ellie at their table. Well, to be more specific, he was “not hiding his feelings” in an uptight British guy way, which to the rest of us would probably still come across as reserved. Olivia was concerned; not that Ellie didn’t match Bigsley’s feelings, of course, but that Ellie may not have been giving enough encouragement to Bigsley’s quickly developing affections. Ellie’s feelings were very plain to Olivia, but this was largely due to the fact that they had been friends for a very long time. Ellie was typically very reserved, and was not quick to show her emotions to others. She was not overly affectionate, either; despite the fact that her heart was probably three sizes larger than the average, and she cared deeply for the many people in her life, one would hardly know it unless they really knew her well. Olivia was worried that without sufficient encouragement, Bigsley would assume that Ellie was uninterested, and would move on. From the way that Ellie’s eyes brightened when Bigsley approached their table, Olivia knew that this would have devastated her.

Much to Olivia’s chagrin, Bigsley was not alone when he approached the table. Darcy, whose jeans perfectly cupped the curve of his bottom, followed soon behind Bigsley. Ellie, despite having heard of Darcy’s villainy, was too nice of a person to be overtly rude towards him. Olivia, on the other hand, was not. Part of it was in solidarity with Fernando; the other part, and the part that was more of a driving force than anything else, was the fact that she just didn’t like him.

“Who knew that dying eggs with your children is like handing them a loaded gun with the safety turned off?” asked Bigsley in a surprisingly good-natured way.

“I don’t know how I survived my own childhood,” Olivia offered. “My parents basically threw me in the tank from Austin Powers with the sharks with lasers attached to their heads, surrounded by televisions broadcasting R-rated movies, and hoped for the best.” The others laughed uncomfortably, knowing that she was probably telling the truth.
“I have not seen that movie that you are referring to,” Darcy interjected.

“Of course you haven’t,” Olivia responded, not even attempting to hide her annoyance. She rolled her eyes as well; subtlety had never been her strong suit.