Live, Laugh, Loathe

Bethany Macintyre clenched her steering wheel as she turned into the strip mall parking lot.

“Of course he can’t play without his cleats,” she snapped into her phone, which she had pinned between her ear and shoulder in the position familiar to all stay-at-home moms who haven’t found the time to figure out Bluetooth yet. “Did you look under his bed?”

Her husband’s response was garbled beyond recognition.

“I can’t hear you!” She resisted the urge to raise her middle finger at the station wagon that had cut in front of her to take the closest parking spot.

“Huh?” His voice came through for a moment, then faded into static once again.

“I said, the connection is—” Beth placed one hand on the glass casserole dish filled with Caesar salad on the passenger seat to make sure it didn’t fall when she pulled into a less desirable spot a few storefronts down from Zen Nirvana Yoga. “You know what? They’re your kids too, Matt! Figure it out.”

She hung up the phone and allowed herself a second-long scream of frustration before picking up her salad and climbing out of the minivan. Her blonde bob and TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED license plate holder both glinted in the mid-morning sun.

Toni, a short brunette whose collection of colorful leggings was rivaled only by her collection of condescending facial expressions, took a while to emerge from the offending station wagon and reached the door of Zen Nirvana at the same time as Beth.

“After you!” she chirped, holding the door open with a tight-lipped smile. The purple zigzags on her leggings matched the icing on the cookies she’d brought. “That salad looks fantastic.” She emphasized the t’s in fantastic as if she had a dialect coach.

Imagining the door slamming shut into Toni and sending her cookies flying, Beth smiled back with all her teeth. “Thank you so much!”

Toni followed her inside, Beth hiding her disappointment when she dodged the swinging door.

“How’s that sweet husband of yours?” Toni asked, as they headed past the empty front desk and down the hall. Gentle voices and flute music leaked out from the Saturday classes in the rooms they passed.

“Getting sweeter by the day,” Beth said, walking faster, but Toni closed the distance between them even on her short legs.

“Aw, I love the two of you together so much. And the kids?”

“The kids are great. Chris has a game today. I feel bad missing it.” Only the second sentence was true, but Toni jumped on the third.

“Don’t guilt yourself! You’re like a supermom. You only take an hour every Wednesday night and two Saturdays a year to come here and have one thing to yourself. This Saturday is for you!”

Beth really did smile at that. Today was her day, and Toni didn’t have a clue just how much she’d been looking forward to it.

They reached the room at the end of the hall, and Toni insisted on holding the door open once again. Most of their classmates were already talking and eating, looking up to wave and nod as Beth and Toni entered.

“Beth!” Josh called across the room, his voice echoing. “Glad you could make it!”

“You know I’d never miss a class potluck!” said Beth, holding up her salad before setting it on the long folding table against the wall and making her way over to him.

Josh looked like an AI image generated using the terms “attractive white male yoga instructor.” That is, the light in his eyes had long ago been extinguished, presumably by the struggles of suburban living, but Beth didn’t care. At least he’d survived the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 with his chiseled jawline and abs intact.

He pulled her in for a quick hug. “My car again?” he whispered against her ear.

“No, mine. I brought the minivan this time.” Beth navigated out of his embrace, eyeing the rest of the class nearby, but they were busy laughing as Janine recounted the latest disaster in her daughter’s toilet training with disturbing cheerfulness. “Do you need to stick around to clean up?”

Josh smiled, slight dimples tugging at his cheeks. “I was thinking of heading out early, actually. Maybe in—” he checked his phone “—forty-five minutes?”

“Good morning, Josh!” Toni swooped in and continued talking before Beth could react. “I’ve been doing that one stretch you taught us at the end of class last week and it’s been working wonders. My back pain’s nothing more than a bad memory now!”

Beth hoped that Toni would soon rediscover at least a twinge in her spine as she nodded goodbye to Josh, who gave a little wave and mouthed “Can’t wait” just before she turned away. She feigned a cough to hide her blush and moved towards Janine’s group, wishing that he would be just a bit subtler.

“I don’t think anyone who loves men and has a working pair of eyes hasn’t checked out Josh,” Steve was saying, filling his role as one half of the class’s token gay couple. Beth stopped in her tracks.

“Guilty as charged,” added his other half, Adam, twirling a forkful of spaghetti.

“I know, but the way she hangs off him?” Janine shook her head. No one looked in Beth’s direction as she edged closer. “They’re definitely doing the downward dog together, if you know what I mean. She doesn’t come to the potlucks for the conversation or the free food, that’s for sure—and that reminds me, everything she’s ever brought tastes like fertilizer. Remember that meatloaf? Poor Matt—”

Beth nudged her way into the circle between Adam and Sarah, and Janine nearly jumped. “Oh, sorry, am I interrupting? Go ahead.”

Janine gaped at her for a second before forcing a laugh that sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball. “Oh, never mind! It was silly.”

Beth continued to stare her down with a smile. Adam wolfed down spaghetti so quickly that Steve had to thump him on the back.

“Your salad looks delicious!” Sarah gushed to break the silence. Her plate was piled with samples of every food item on the table except for Beth’s salad.

“It sure does,” said Adam weakly.

“Thank you! Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” Beth took deep breaths and focused on the quiet ambient noises playing from the speaker in the corner, bird calls and trickling water, as she left the room. She knew they all must be watching her and talking about her again, but she kept her eyes straight ahead until she reached the empty women’s bathroom and locked herself in the handicap stall.

She had a sudden flashback to high school as she sat on the toilet lid and dug through her purse for eye drops. This trick had worked for her then, but she was after more than pity votes for prom court now. Pushing aside used lip balms and pens that had long run out of ink, she gave the half-empty bottle a good shake and squeezed two drops in each eye.

When her eyes were sufficiently watering, Beth forced herself to stare into the fluorescent lights overhead. The tears flowed freely, helped along by thoughts of her childhood dog. She had gotten five good years with Kibble before he’d bitten her brother and her parents had decided to give him away, but she’d never admired him more than in the moment when he’d locked his teeth around Danny’s bony arm. Danny had been just as whiny and scrawny at the age of one as he now was at twenty-one. She missed that dog every time she looked at him.

The bathroom door creaked open. She rushed to the mirror, dabbing at her mascara just as Toni entered.

Toni’s brow wrinkled at Beth’s red eyes and the black streaks of makeup down her face. “Hey, are you okay?” Beth couldn’t help but be impressed by Toni’s ability to look down on people even when she was really looking up at them.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” Beth looked away from her and into the mirror, assessing her eye bags. From the look of them, she almost believed her own lie.

“You don’t look fine. What’s wrong?”

Beth shook her head. “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“We’re friends.” Beth managed to pass off her burst of laughter at this as a fresh round of hysterical sobs, and Toni placed a perfectly manicured hand on her arm. “You can tell me.”

“It’s Janine,” Beth answered, wiping her eyes again. “I overheard her gossiping about me like a middle schooler.”

Toni sighed. “She can be…a lot.”

“And on top of that, everyone keeps telling me how great my salad looks, but no one will even taste it. I made the dressing from scratch with the kids screaming the whole time, and—and—" Beth trailed off and let the tears speak for themselves.

Toni wrapped her in a long hug, tucking her head under Beth’s chin. Beth let her, reminding herself that she would finally be free from Toni’s false sympathy once today’s potluck was over.

“Come with me,” Toni said when she let go, yanking a ball of tissues out of her purse and handing them to Beth. She marched Beth back to the door of their class.

“Ready? All cleaned up?” she asked. Beth nodded. Really, she was a mess, eyes puffy and cheeks wet, but that was how she needed them.

Toni opened the door. A few people looked up to watch Beth as she entered, including Josh and Janine. However, everyone stared when Toni strode right up to the table of food and loaded up a paper plate with Beth’s salad.

The room waited with bated breath as Toni grabbed a plastic fork. When she dug into the salad and took a huge bite, Janine let out a small yet horrified gasp.

Toni chewed and swallowed in silence, then immediately took another bite. “You all have to try this,” she said with her mouth full, pointing at the salad on her plate with her fork.

Josh looked around uneasily until his eyes locked on Beth. “Alright, but I might not save any for the rest of you.” He joined Toni at the table and speared a few leaves of lettuce on his fork, eating directly out of the casserole dish. He hummed with satisfaction. “Incredible!”

One by one, then all at once, Beth’s yoga class walked up to the table and served themselves huge helpings of her salad. No one spoke except to say a word or two of approval as they tasted Beth’s salad. All of them watched Beth out of the corners of their eyes, as if they were afraid she would grow fangs and attack or, worse, start crying again.

Soon, everyone was at least a few bites in except for Janine, who hovered a few feet away from the rest and scrolled through her phone. Beth watched as Toni walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. Janine didn’t look up.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Toni asked.

“No, thank you. I’m not hungry,” said Janine.

“Shut up and eat the goddamn salad,” Toni hissed through gritted teeth, then cringed when she realized Beth had heard. Janine cleared her throat loudly, pocketed her phone, and served herself a plateful of salad.

“Beth, this is amazing!” Sarah said.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed, already halfway through his serving. “What is this, parsnip?”

“I think it’s celery,” said Steve. “Either way, it’s perfect.”

“Hemlock,” Beth corrected.

“Hm. I thought that was poisonous,” said Janine, who had just dared to take her first bite and deemed it acceptable.

“Only in fantasy novels,” Beth promised. “It’s actually high in fiber and vitamin C. This is my grandmother’s—"

An awful sound like a broken air conditioner came from the corner. Everyone whirled around in search of the source just as Toni slumped against the wall, that rattling sound still rising up from deep in her throat.

Around the room, pale faces grew paler. Adam was the next to fall, and his husband didn’t even have a chance to cry out before he vomited on the wooden floor and collapsed as well, convulsing.

“What—” Josh gasped, but only a chorus of gurgling noises in the backs of his students’ throats answered him. His phone slipped out of his spasming hands several times, but he managed to type out 911 with shaky fingers.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I—” He choked, seizing and dropping the phone once again. Beth took the opportunity to end the call and kick it out of his reach.

“The reception around here is terrible, isn’t it?” she sighed. “They won’t be able to call back or trace your location. I’m sorry.”

“But—why?”

Beth bent down and whispered the answer to only him. “Because something had to give.”

Behind him, Janine inhaled sharply, but Beth turned up the speaker to full volume, drowning her pathetic attempt at a scream in the sound of wind chimes.

Beth watched until Janine had fully collapsed along with the rest, then picked up her casserole dish and headed to her car. It was both evidence and her favorite dish, after all. No one saw her leave, only the dying members of her yoga class and the polished desk up front.

Beth set down her casserole dish and purse on the minivan passenger seat once again, but spotted a flash of white and did a double take. Under the passenger seat was a small pair of soccer cleats.

Beth was still laughing when she pulled out of the parking lot.