I Know What You Did

I swear I’m going to slap her.

I am two months shy of forty years old and have never been so close to losing it in my entire life.

There she stands with my daughter’s second grade teacher laughing and chatting as if she didn’t just blatantly steal what was rightfully mine. How someone can look you right in the face and nod with so much understanding then pull a fast one like that, I’ll never understand.

“You okay?” Braxton’s mom eyes me with concern.

She must see the literal steam coming out of my ears as I glare across the room at Delia Sampson, my so-called friend and real life Judas.

I shake my head and fake a smile even as I ball up my hands into tight fists.

“I’m fine.”

Lies.

Emmy is my youngest child. Until now, I’ve always had to work with limited time to be a part of her school life. This is the last time in her life that she’ll want me to come to class parties and hold my hand in public. Everyone knows that as soon as they turn 8 they start to lose that little kid sweetness.

The only person I shared this with is palling around with Mr. Crenshaw like she wasn’t just nodding with understanding and giving me what I now know was a fake upside down smile.

Delia Sampson. She stood right there as I wrote my name down under “homeroom mother” with the provided yellow pencil attached to the clipboard.

“I’ve never had the chance to be room mom for any of my kids,” I gushed to the unknown traitor, “Emmy’s my last one.”

Then I walked away. I had no idea that as soon as I left, Delia would produce a black sharpie in her purse, erase my name and put hers in to assure her place for the school year.

Thinking of how I approached Mr. Crenshaw enthusiastically only to look at me in confusion and show me the altered sign up sheet makes my blood boil.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Gallagher, but Delia clearly wrote her name in ink.”

I started stammering my side of the story but he only breezed past me to my now sworn enemy. No doubt they’re talking about classroom parties and teacher appreciation day.

I realize that Braxton’s mom (I still can’t remember her first name even though her son’s been in Emmy’s class since kindergarten) is looking at me like she doesn’t believe me and isn’t sure how to call me out on it.

Truth is, I’m not going to slap Delia Sampson (as much as I want to). No, I’m too much of a coward and a realist. Smacking her isn’t going to get me the homeroom mom position I was really looking forward to. She’d probably press charges and then no one would want to do playdates with my daughter anymore.

Instead I feel tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

I can’t break down here. I am practically forty years old for crying out loud, I can’t break down because some mean girl Karen (ugh, I hate that term) decided that she couldn’t give up control for one year and had the nerve to screw over another mom from her child’s second grade class. Did she think I wouldn’t notice?

Should I confront her? No, it’ll just make me look crazy.

I can’t believe she is going to get away with this.

If only I could get some kind of revenge.

Some kind of petty revenge.

My eyes soften and the threatened tears recede back into my eyes.

I look back at Braxton’s mom and the smile becomes a little more genuine, “Sorry, I was just really surprised that Delia wanted to be homeroom mom so badly. What with her personal life being so chaotic right now.”

Braxton’s mom shrinks back, her large brown eyes growing wider. Then she leans in, “What’s going on in her personal life?”

“I really can’t say,” I really can’t because I have no idea what kind of rumor I can safely get away with, “but let’s just say, I wouldn’t want her alone with my child.”

Braxton’s mom gasps, “Oh my word.”

“Are you talking about Delia?” Kathy Fields steps up to us. Kathy has an older daughter near my son’s age who always giggles when she sees him.

Braxton’s mom nods, “I’m not sure I feel comfortable with her around my Braxton.”

“Why?”

“Apparently she’s been having some issues in her personal life.”

With that the speculation takes off. Kathy brings up the time she saw Delia yelling at her husband in the school parking lot. Hearing the gossip another mom joins the conversation revealing that she found Delia to be a complete nightmare to work with during the community theater production of Seussical last summer.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit pleased by how easy it was to get everyone riled up about someone who had figuratively stabbed me in the back. But I’m also a little worried about it coming back to me. As angry as I am at Delia, I’m not sure how well I’d do at an actual confrontation.

So I head to my car trying to decide whether I still want to volunteer much in Emmy’s second grade class if I’m going to have to answer to someone as ruthless Delia Sampson. I am so bitterly disappointed that once I’m alone, I let the tears fall freely. I’m glad my kids are at home so they don’t have to see me all a mess.

I drive around a bit to clear my head and regain my composure. It won’t do any good for me to come home with my makeup smudged and my eyes red. Maybe I’ll drive through a McDonalds and treat myself with an apple pie or something to cheer me up. I just need to calm down.

Twenty minutes pass before I pull into the driveway of my modest ranch style home. My cell phone rings and without thinking about it, I answer before getting out of the car.

“Mrs. Gallagher?” The voice on the other end is unmistakable male and I recognize it as Emmy’s new second grade teacher, Mr. Crenshaw.

“This is her.” I say.

“This is Gavin Crenshaw. Are you still interested in being the homeroom mother this year?”

My heart leaps in my chest. I can’t believe this is real.

“Of course!” My face breaks into a wide smile. I can’t believe it.

“Great,” he replies even though he doesn’t sound very convinced, “I guess we’ve had some push back from the other moms about some things going on with Mrs. Sampson and I know you expressed some interest.”

I accused her of erasing my name and writing hers in… which she did. Oh blessed karma!

“Yeah! I’m so excited! This is the only time I’ve ever gotten to do something like this for one of my kids--”

“Yeah well, I’m pretty busy with school starting tomorrow so I’ll just shoot you an email with some dates and things and we can schedule a time to meet later.”

He sounds very put out by this turn of events like he would’ve rather worked with Delia than me. I don’t care.

I hop out of the car and punch my fist in the air ready to do a little happy dance when my phone pings with a text message.

I look down and read a message from Delia.

“I know what you did.”

Feeling smug, I text back, “Ditto.”