“We have to stick together against the forces of Flip,” I said. “Have you met her new assistant?”
“Yeah, she’s great,” he said. “I wonder whatever possessed her to take a job like this?”
“NIEBNITZ may also be an acronym,” Alicia said from the doorway. “In which case—”
I took my leave and went back up to my lab.
Flip was there, typing something on my computer. “How would you describe me?” she asked.
I looked around the lab. It was spotless. Shirl had cleaned off the lab tables and put all my clippings in folders. In alphabetical order.
Inescapable, I thought. Impacted. “Inextricable,” I said.
“That sounds good,” she said. “Does it have two ks or one?”
Dr. Spock [1945–65]
Child care fad, inspired by the pediatrician’s book, Baby and Child Care, growing interest in psychology, and the fragmentation of the extended family. Spock advocated a more permissive approach than previous child care books and advised flexibility in feeding schedules and attention to child development, advice which far too many parents misinterpreted as letting the child do whatever it wanted. Died out when the first generation of Dr. Spock-raised children became teenagers, grew their hair down to their shoulders, and began blowing up administration buildings.
Wednesday I went to the birthday party. I’d arranged to leave early and was putting on my coat when Flip slouched in, wearing a laced bodice and duct-tape-decorated jeans, and handed me a piece of paper.
“I don’t have time for any petitions,” I said.
“It’s not a petition,” she said, tossing her hair. “It’s a memo about the funding forms.”
The memo said the funding forms were due on the twenty-third, which I already knew.
“You’re supposed to turn the form in to me.”
I nodded and handed it back to her. “Take this down to Dr. O’Reilly’s lab,” I said, pulling on my gloves.
She sighed. “He’s never there. He’s always in Dr. Turnbull’s lab.”
“Then take it to Dr. Turnbull’s lab.”
“They’re always together. He’s completely raved about her, you know.”
No, I thought, I didn’t know that.
“They’re always sitting at the computer together. I don’t know what she sees in him. He’s completely swarb,” Flip said, picking at the duct tape on the back of her hand. “Maybe she can make him not so fashion-impaired.”
And if she does, I thought irritatedly, there goes his nonfadness, and I’ll never figure out why he was immune to them.
“What does sophisticated mean?” Flip asked.
“Cosmopolitan,” I said, “but you’re not,” and left for the party. The weather had turned colder. We usually get one big snowstorm in October, and it looked like the weather was gearing up for it.
Gina was nearly hysterical by the time I got there. “You won’t believe what Brittany decided she wanted after I said she couldn’t have Barney,” she said, pointing to the decorations, which were a pink that bore no relation to postmodern.
“Barbie!” Brittany shouted. She was wearing a Little Mermaid dress and bright pink hair wraps. “Did you bring me a present?”
The other little girls were all wearing Pocahontas pinafores except for a sweet little blonde named Peyton, who was wearing a Lion King jumper and light-up sneakers.
“Are you married?” Peyton’s mother said to me.
“No,” I said.
She shook her head. “So many guys have intimacy issues these days. Peyton, we’re not opening presents yet.”
“Are you dating anyone?” Lindsay’s mother said.
“We’re going to open presents later, Brittany,” Gina said. “First we’re all going to play a game. Bethany, it’s Brittany’s birthday.”
She attempted a game involving balloons with pink Barbies on them and then gave up and let Brittany open her presents.
“Open Sandy’s first,” Gina said, handing her the book. “No, Caitlin, these are Brittany’s presents.”
Brittany ripped the paper off Toads and Diamonds and looked at it blankly.
“That was my favorite fairy tale when I was little,” I said. “It’s about a girl who meets a good fairy, only she doesn’t know it because the fairy’s in disguise—” but Brittany had already tossed it aside and was ripping open a Barbie doll in a glittery dress.
“Totally Hair Barbie!” she shrieked.
“Mine,” Peyton said, and made a grab that left Brittany holding nothing but Barbie’s arm.
“She broke Totally Hair Barbie!” Brittany wailed.
Peyton’s mother stood up and said calmly, “Peyton, I think you need a time-out.”
I thought Peyton needed a good swat, or at least to have Totally Hair Barbie taken away from her and given back to Brittany, but instead her mother led her to the door of Gina’s bedroom. “You can come out when you’re in control of your feelings,” she said to Peyton, who looked like she was in control to me.
“I can’t believe you’re still using time-outs,” Chelsea’s mother said. “Everybody’s using holding now.”
“Holding?” I asked.
“You hold the child immobile on your lap until the negative behavior stops. It produces a feeling of interceptive safety.”
“Really,” I said, looking toward the bedroom door. I would have hated trying to hold Peyton against her will.
“Holding’s been totally abandoned,” Lindsay’s mother said. “We use EE.”
“EE?” I said.
“Esteem Enhancement,” Lindsay’s mother said. “EE addresses the positive peripheral behavior no matter how negative the primary behavior is.”
“Positive peripheral behavior?” Gina said dubiously.
“When Peyton took the Barbie away from Brittany just now,” Lindsay’s mother said, obviously delighted to explain, “you would have said, ‘My, Peyton, what an assertive grip you have.’ ”
Brittany opened Swim ’n’ Dive Barbie, Stick ’n’ Peel Barbie, Barbie’s City Nights cycle, and an elaborately coiffed and veiled Barbie in a wedding dress. “Romantic Bride Barbie,” Brittany said, transported.
“Can we have cake now?” Lindsay said, and Peyton must have had her little ear to the door because she opened it, looking not particularly contrite, said, “I feel better about myself now,” and climbed up to the table.
“No cake,” Gina said. “Too much cholesterol. Frozen yogurt and Snapple,” and all the little girls came running as if they’d heard the Pied Piper’s flute.
The mothers and I picked up wrapping paper and ribbon, checking carefully for stray Barbie high heels and microscopic accessories. Danielle’s mother smoothed down Romantic Bride Barbie’s net overskirt. “I wonder if Lisa’d like a dress like this,” she said. “She’s trying to talk Eric into getting married sometime this summer.”
“Are you going to be her matron of honor?” Chelsea’s mother asked. “What colors is she going to have?”
“She hasn’t decided. Black and white is really in, but she already did that the last time she got married.”
“Postmodern pink,” I said. “It’s the new color for spring.”
“I look washed out in pink,” Danielle’s mother said. “And she’s still got to talk him into it. He says, why can’t they just live together?”
Lindsay’s mother picked up Romantic Bride Barbie and began fluffing up her bouffant sleeves. “I always said I’d never get married again, after that jerk Matt,” she said. “But I don’t know, lately I’ve been feeling sort of… I don’t know…”