Totlandia: The Onesies, Book 1 (Fall) (5 page)

The baby cooed and gurgled, as if on cue.

Before plucking the baby out of her arms, 103’s hubby leaned over and gave his wife a swift kiss on the lips.

“Awwww.” Sally sighed. “So adorable!”

Bettina rolled her eyes. By now she’d come to expect Sally’s happy-pappy comments: the precursor to a thumbs-up for each and every applicant.

On the other hand, if Mallory didn’t know them personally—and had therefore already divulged their flaws loudly and proudly—she could be counted on to take issue with some portion of their submission materials.

Like now. Mallory jumped up and pointed to the screen. “Oh. My. God! She is so
 
totally
 
disqualified!”

Kimberley and Joanna’s desperate groans were loud enough to make Sally’s two-year-old son, Linus, whimper in his sleep.

Sally frowned as she picked him up and rocked him gently. “Why, pray tell?”

“Rewind! Go ahead… Stop! Look…there, in the mirror, behind them.
 
You can see the person filming them
. He’s using a semi-shoulder mount camcorder.” Mallory jabbed a mauve-lacquered finger at the screen. “And if you’re wondering why 103’s family has such a beautiful glow around them, it’s because there’s another guy, off camera, holding up a lighting umbrella.”

She was right. He, too, could be seen in the mirror.

“They’ve had this ‘home video’ professionally filmed. And that is against PHM&T rules, which clearly state, and I quote, ‘photos or videos attached herewith must be representative of the applicant’s true home life,’ unquote.”

Mallory’s smile said it all:
 
gotcha
.

“Well, at least she’s not fat,” Sally muttered.

Bettina shot her a dirty look. No one dared to say it, but the proof was in the photos of more than half of the rejected applicants. If you were out-and-out fat, forget about it. Even the just-a-few-pounds-overweight weren’t allowed in the club. In fact, the club’s very few size eights raised eyebrows.

Especially if they dared to show up at the park in a racerback tank and Lululemon crops, toting a frozen latte.

It was enough to provoke Bettina to mutter under her breath, “She must own stock in Starbucks. Why else would she feel the need to increase its profits?”

As for Number 103, there was no getting around the fact that yes, she’d broken club rules. Bettina sighed loudly. “Well thank God she’s the last applicant under review! Kimberley, how many finalists do we have to vote on?”

Kimberley took the now very slim “Preferred” folder and counted the applications still in there. “Of the
ten
Onesies slots,
six
are already taken by legacy siblings. That leaves six applicants for the final four.”

Bettina spread each qualified application face up on the table. “Just to refresh everyone’s memories as to the finalists, the first one is Jade Pierce. She has a son, Oliver. The husband’s name is Brady—”

“Oh my God! Brady Pierce?” Joanna murmured. “How hot is that?”

Mallory looked up with a smirk. “Who the hell is he? Not another rocker dad, I hope. Haven’t we filled our quota on those?”

She was right. Seeing how this was San Francisco, there would always be a glut of musicians’ families to choose from. Well, at least you could count on a rocker’s baby mama to be svelte. Heroin chic and cocaine ass were much more desirable looks than thunder thighs and new mommy muffin top.

Kimberley’s right brow shot up. “You’ve heard of
AStealAtThisPrice
.com, right? You know, the deal-of-the-day website that just sold for like, a bazillion dollars? He’s
the founder
!”

In response to Linus’ hungry murmur, Sally released her right breast from her blouse. “That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, he’s got to have some wonderful connections. Hey, maybe club members will be eligible for special discounts.”

Mallory sighed. “Duh, silly. The products are already discounted. That’s the whole point of the website.”

Sally winced, more likely from Mallory’s jibe than Linus’ teething. “Who else is there?”

Bettina picked up the next application. “Ally Thornton cofounded Foot Fetish, the online shoe retailer, before selling it—for a tidy profit, I might add—and stepping out to have a baby. She’s married to an attorney—Barry Simon—who works at Sillwick & Brest. Their daughter’s name is Zoe.” She held up the picture that came with the application.

Mallory frowned. “I don’t know. It says here that she still sits on the company’s board.”

Joanna grabbed it scanned it. “You didn’t finish the sentence: ‘…in an advisory capacity.’” She shrugged. “What’s the big deal? We all sit on boards.”

Mallory shook her head. “Charities are different. Besides, those former career types can be such bossy know-it-alls!”

The others exchanged glances. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Kimberl
e
y muttered.

“Well, she got one thing going for her: she states her favorite charity is the San Francisco Ballet. I remember seeing her name in the program.” Joanna tapped her cell. “Yep, it lists her in the Chairman’s Circle, in fact.”

The others took note of Bettina’s appreciative nod. Her mother had been a ballerina, and it was one of the Connaughts’ favorite charities as well.

In other words, case closed.

“Let’s move on to the next candidate, Jillian Frederick,” Bettina said. “Her husband is a partner in the international division of Colby and Trask Financial Managers—and he is a graduate of both University High and Stanford. He did his graduate work at Columbia. They have twin girls, Amelia and Addison.”

“But if we say yes, we give up two slots.” Kimberley’s reminder sounded ominous.

Bettina was quick to counter with a smile. “Not to worry. Seems that what we’ve got left leaves us top-heavy with boys.”

The sighs all around were genuine. No one wanted to break out that doorstop of a rejection file yet again.

“But accepting twins…won’t that set a precedent?” Like a dog with a bone, Mallory couldn’t let go of any apparent problem.

“It hasn’t in the past,” Joanna reminded her. “We’ve got the Bentley twins in the Foursies.”

Mallory frowned. “But they were one of each, a boy and a girl.”

Bettina’s hand on Mallory’s forearm was gentle but firm. “Things always have a way of working out.”

In other words:
 
It’s a foregone conclusion, so shut the fuck up.

Mallory started to speak, but then thought better of it.

“Fine,” Bettina continued. “That brings us to Lorna Connaught. Her husband is Matthew, and her son is Dante. She’s on the San Francisco Foundation board and volunteers at Glide Memorial—”

“She’s also your brother’s wife, isn’t that right?” Mallory’s words sliced the air like a saber.

The other women hid their smiles as best they could.
 
Touché.

Bettina waited a full sixty seconds before acknowledging the accusation. By the time she did, her lips were once again pursed into a stony smile. “Everyone here knows me well enough to presume I’d never play favorites. Lorna’s good name and deeds stand on their own merits. In fact, I’ll recuse myself from voting on her. If you pass on Dante, their little family will certainly be disappointed, but they’ll weather it in stride. That is the Connaught way. Our tribe are hearty folk.”

The other committee members exchanged anxious glances. Apparently none of them could cipher her true feelings about Lorna Connaught. Was Bettina’s recusal some form of admission that she couldn’t stand her sister-in-law? But wasn’t that bit about “good name and deeds” her way of indicating they’d be fools to vote against Lorna, who also carried the Connaught name?

Not to mention that she had called the Connaughts a tribe. Did that mean they had Native American blood flowing through their veins? If so, and the committee voted them down, would they be branded as racists?

It was all terribly disconcerting.

Fuck the aspirin. Bring on the martini shaker. No glass needed.

Having successfully heightened their fear factor, Bettina’s lips curled into a smile. “There is also Chakra Crutch. Stone, her husband, is a professor at Berkeley. Their son’s name is Quest. Chakra has even offered to head up the club’s organic vegetable garden.”

Sally gave a loud sigh of relief. “Thank God! I’ve been saddled with that committee since my little Lucy was a Onesie! Well then, the woman certainly has
 
my
 
vote—”

Bettina’s frown shut her up her instantly. “Sally! You know the rules. Our votes are anonymous, remember?”

Sally nodded so vigorously that Linus lost his hold on her nipple. The two-year-old’s frantic wails had her shifting him to her other breast.

“And last but not least, there is also Kelly Bryant Overton, and her little boy, Wills,” Bettina announced. “The Bryant name is ‘old San Francisco,’ if you get my drift.”

Drift?
 
The committee was practically gagging on the inference. “Old San Francisco” meant that Bettina—whose own lineage went back to the Gold Rush on this side of the country and to New Amsterdam on the other—had probably grown up with this Kelly person. If that were the case, did Bettina expect two of the six votes to go to her personal connections?

Or was there only one vote they’d have to give up? Was her relationship with Lorna Connaught in name only?

She’d said it herself: already they had more boys to choose from than they needed. There was one knock against the Connaught tot, as well as the Overton kid. In any regard, the other moms and tots—that Jade person and her son, Oliver and all their dot-com connections; the cute twin girls with the well-connected father; Ally, the ballet patroness-slash-lawyer’s wife and her sweet little girl, Zoe; the eco-friendly professor’s wife—

It was all so damn confusing!

For the first time in the club’s history, every member of the committee came to the same conclusion, at the same time:

They would vote for whomever they wanted, Bettina be damned
.

Everyone sat silently until Bettina, obviously still annoyed, muttered, “It’s time to take a vote.”

Since its inception six years ago, the club enjoyed the enviable dilemma of too many candidates for so few spaces. Always one to let power go to her head, Bettina, who relished her founder status, took it upon herself to establish an intricate voting system that would resolve any annoying ties.

Not that there should be any. As far as she was concerned, Bettina had clearly expressed her own desires.

She led everyone out into the hallway where she handed each of them four safety pins. “We’ll walk back in, one by one, and drop a safety pin in the piggy bank of the candidates we feel are worthy of an open slot. Kimberley, you’ll go first.”

Solemnly, the women nodded. Kimberley got up and walked back into the room, voted, and returned.

Mallory did the same. Then Sally. Then Joanna.

Bettina went last. When she was done, she called them back in. “Time to count!”

It only took a minute.

Each piggy bank contained the same number of safety pins: four.

Stalemate.

Bettina shook her head in amazement. “Ah. Well. Seems like we’re going to have to go again. This time, we’ll reverse the order. So let’s all rethink any weak links.”

A second vote would break any stalemate.

In theory, yes. In practice, not so much.

Those who live in the picturesque and well-heeled neighborhood of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights have, on occasion, enjoyed an excursion or two to France’s renowned capital city. Having done so would have exposed them to the torrid history of that country’s revolution, which culminated with the severing of the head from the body of its regal, albeit tyrannical, king. Perhaps it was that spirit the members of the Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club application committee channeled when, once again, they voted their consciences.

And again.

And yet again.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
 
Democracy is a stubborn trait.

Even Sally couldn’t be cowed. In fact, she had the audacity to mouth the unspeakable: “So, why not just let them all in?”

Bettina shook her head emphatically. “No way! PHM&T playgroups have always been equally populated. This is why when someone drops out, we do an open call and vet the candidates the same way. And besides, it would make this year’s Onesies larger than any other playgroup, which sets a very bad precedent. It tells people we can’t make up our minds.”

What she wasn’t saying—but they all knew—was that the key to the club’s success was its exclusivity. Ten toddlers per preschool year only. No excuses. No ifs, ands, or buts.

“I’d like to make a suggestion,” The way Mallory’s eyes glowed left the others to wonder if chants and curses were involved. “Why not have the six applicants compete for the four slots? They’ll prove they deserve it by earning it.”