Mamasphere
I’m sitting at the dining-room table, kicking my bare feet. A fairy-tale feast I’m not allowed to touch is spread on the table in front of me. There are pyramids of pastel macarons. They’re made of plaster, but the Followers don’t know. There are peonies in a glass jar and tiered pink plates of doll-sized sandwiches. There’s a basket lined with checked cloth and heaped up with almond croissants, snow-dusted like the Rocky Mountains. There’s a bowl of fruits salad with the special sugar-syrup dressing Mama makes, but I will not eat a bite. I can see Mama put in mint leaves, which I hate. There is a platter full of the Devil’s eggs with their yellows swirled up like ice-cream and dotted with tiny green sprinkles of chive.
And at the center of the table, arranged on a white tray with golden handles, are the cookies I want. They are sugar cookies, big ones in the shape of hearts, coated in hard, shiny icing with white, pink and gold marble swirls. On the icing, there are silver letters that spell out things like “Happy Mother’s Day” and “#1 Mama”— or so I am told. I cannot read. I want a cookie to hold and to sniff and to eat, but Mama keeps telling me, “Not yet, Pansy.” She is always saying stuff like that: “Not yet” and “Hold still” and “Pretend you are laughing.” Before I can have a cookie, Mama must finish up her work making Content for the Followers.
Mama’s assistant, Jason, takes the pictures. He stands on a chair— something I am not allowed to do— and points the big camera down at the table. Then he gets off the chair and takes pictures of Mama walking into the room. She has her hands on her cheeks and is acting surprised while Jason’s camera goes snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. “Beautiful,” Jason says. “Sexy Mama.” Then he stops, and he and Mama talk. It is decided that I should be handing something, a gift, to Mama in the pictures for the Followers, so Jason goes down to the special room in the basement where I am not allowed and fills balloons.
As soon as he leaves, I run over to Mama and hug her. She smells sweet as frosting, and I nuzzle my face into the firm, round part of her belly she calls “Your Brother, Pansy.” I am trying to be so good she will have to give me a cookie, but Mama looks tired now that Jason has stopped shooting. She touches in front of her ear. She says, “Careful, Pansy. Don’t wrinkle my dress.”
Jason returns with three balloons: a pink one, a heart-shaped one made of gold foil, and a big clear one filled with pink and gold confetti that looks like it would be fun to pop. He hands the balloons to me, but I fuss. “Come on, Pansy. Do a good job, and we’ll be done soon.” But it is hard to do a good job when you can smell big heart-shaped cookies you can’t touch.
After Jason takes pictures of me handing the balloons to Mama and hugging Mama and kissing Mama’s cheek, he goes outside to take a phone call, and Mama disappears into Daddy’s office at the end of the hall. I go to the table and am about to grab a cookie when something else catches my eye: Mama’s phone.
I grab it and unlock the home screen— Mama doesn’t know I know her secret code, but I do. I am always watching Mama. I touch the button that means “Pictures.” Sometimes Mama asks my opinion about which pictures she should share with the Followers, and even though she hardly never takes my advice, I still like to look. I especially like to look at the pictures of me and Mama where I am scrunching my nose and she is snuggling me, and the pictures where we are dressed alike. But I don’t scroll too long before I see a picture of something that I’ve never seen before.
It is a picture of Jason not wearing a shirt. He’s looking at the camera, but his expression is not happy or surprised or excited or even mad. It is not any emotion I recognize. Next, there is a picture of Mama, and she’s not wearing a shirt, either. Then a picture of Mama and Jason together, without shirts. And a picture of Mama with Jason’s hands in the places where Mama’s shirt should be. I hear voices from the hallway. Mama and Daddy are coming, and Daddy’s saying, “This better be quick.” I turn Mama’s phone off and place it face down on the table, next to the Devil’s eggs, and pretend I’ve been playing with balloons.
“Don’t be so grouchy. It’s Mother’s Day,” Mama says. She is fixing the collar on Daddy’s shirt.
“Babe,” Daddy says. That’s what he calls Mama, even though the only baby is me. “Babe, it’s March. Mother’s Day isn’t for another two months.”
Mama rolls her eyes. “And I’m already behind on my Content.”
Then Jason comes back, and it’s time for Mama and Daddy and me to pose for pictures. “Let’s get ‘er done, P,” Daddy says to me. He rustles my hair, and Mama says, “Babe, no,” and smooths it out. Jason takes pictures of me and Daddy hugging Mama and of us giving her kisses. Pictures of me handing Mama balloons while Daddy smiles. Pictures of the three of us sitting at the table, pretending to eat the food. My favorite is when Mama and Daddy pick me up by the armpips, one of them on either side. They smoosh me between their bodies so I feel like the meat snuggled up in a taco. As they kiss me, I can feel Daddy’s stubbles scratching one of my cheeks, and on the other, Mama’s powdery frosting skin.
“There’s my happy family,” Jason says. Jason is not happy, though. I wonder if he is tired of waiting for a cookie, like me. Maybe he is unhappy to be wearing a shirt.
Finally, the work for the Followers is done. Mama wants me to eat a Devil’s egg, but the yellow is grayish from sitting out too long, and I say I’ll throw up if I do. Mama closes her eyes. “Fine, Pansy, fine,” she says in a way that hurts my feelings. But she lets me pick my cookie and pretends not to notice that I take two. I scooch my chair up close to hers. She and Jason are talking about Content and Follows and Likes while Daddy goes back to his office. The cookies are dry and less sweet than I expected. I take a few bites of each one, just to be sure, and then place them both back on the table. I lay my head down in Mama’s lap, and she strokes my hair. When I press my head against her belly, I can hear Your Brother, Pansy saying, “whoosh, whoosh.”
#
The next day is my birthday. It’s not my real birthday, but Mama says it is easier to prepare big batches of cookies and boiled eggs and shoot all the May Content at once. This morning, Mama adds yellow dye to the remaining yolk mixture before she pipes it into the slippery white boats, and I say yes when she asks me if it looks nice. This makes Mama happy. “Who’s the sweetest little in the world?” Mama says. And I know: it’s Pansy! Mama would like me to take a bite of egg, but I tell her she’ll need to dye the smell first— the Devil’s eggs are yellower today, but they still smell like his feet.
Jason gives me the tablet to play with while he and Mama make my birthday look nice for the Followers. The theme is Mermaids. I wanted Horses because we live near the mountains, and I don’t like to put my face in water, but according to Mama, Mermaids are “paying our bills.” I look at the shells and fishnets and bead necklaces Mama and Jason have strewn around the table. Mermaids, I realize, are rich. Today, the silver dessert tower holds cupcakes with mountains of frosting in lustrous purple and blue and green. Pearlettes are sprinkled on top, and a little Mermaid tail attached to a toothpick sticks out of each one.
I want a cupcake so badly, but there is no getting one off the table while Mama and Jason are arranging. Mama is putting white and blue paper straws into flutes of blue sparkling lemonade and laughing as Jason compliments her sweet cakes. Nobody notices when I set the tablet down and slip around to the other side of kitchen island, where I’m hidden. I find the three mixing bowls sitting near the edge of the counter, but I’m not tall enough to see inside. Quietly, I stick my finger into the first one. It tips, but I use my other hand to set it back down without a sound. Inside the bowl, I feel something thick and soft and crusty, and when I pull my finger out, it is smeared in purple frosting that leaves a stain after I lick it off. I stick my finger into the next bowl. The frosting is green and even better than the first. The last bowl’s frosting is blue, and that’s the one I really am wanting.
But something goes wrong when I try to pull the bowl down. It crashes to the floor, where it shatters all over the tiles. Mama is shouting, “Pansy, what did you do?” and “Pansy, don’t move!” while Jason says, “Watch out for the glass!” and grabs a broom. But I’m upset, and I want Mama, so I run, and as I run, I feel a crunch and a shock of pain as a piece of glass jams into my foot.
“Pansy, No!” Mama booms in her big, scary voice, and I start to cry. I cry and I cry and I cry and I cry, even as Mama picks me up in her arms. I am still crying as she carries me into the bathroom and sets me down on the counter. And then I see the frosting on her dress and in her hair and the blood all over skirt, and I sob even more. “Oh, Pansy, what am I going to do with you?”
Then Mama begins to laugh, which makes me feel a little bit better, but then she, too, starts crying, and that makes me feel much worse. She picks out the glass with a tweezer while I scream. I hear the vacuum going downstairs while Mama cleans and bandages my foot. Then we’re back in the great room, and she’s handing me to Jason so she can “go clear her head.” Jason asks Mama if she’s alright, even though I’m the one who had glass in her foot, then he hands me the tablet. I sit next to him on the couch. He turns on his phone, and we scroll side by side. When I start to whimper, he offers me a lollipop, which helps, but not as much as a cupcake would.
When Mama comes back, she is happy again, and she apologizes for yelling at me earlier. I tell her I forgive her. I am being so sweet. I think, now she will have to give me a cupcake. But instead, she whisks me upstairs and changes both of our clothings, and since the bandage keeps trying to slip off my foot, she makes me wear itchy tights to keep it in place, and ballet slippers over the tights, just in case. We go back downstairs and do our work for the Followers. Daddy comes out and says, “Happy Fake Birthday, P!” and “Babe, don’t you see this is weird?” I’m still a little sad and hurting from the glass, so Daddy flings me around in the air until I am laughing for real. Then he sets me down, and Jason lights the sparkler candles on the Mermaids’ cake. Mama and Daddy sing, and Jason’s camera sounds like it’s clapping along. Click, click, click, click, click.
There are presents for me to open, and even though I know they are more of the same toys from the Sponsors that I’ve posed with before, it is still fun to shred the paper and mess up something new. Then we are done. Daddy goes back to the office, and Mama and Jason talk. I pretend that today is my real birthday, and all the Followers are here as my guests. I am showing them around the house— my playroom and my tipi and the flower mural above my bed that I am told spells my name. Me and the Followers are freeze-dancing, then we’re playing tag. “Slow down, Pansy,” Mama says.
Then I remember the cupcakes. Mama and Jason are still talking, so I go up to Mama and put my hands on her arm. I’m being so good about Not Interrupting, but she keeps talking to Jason, so I go ahead and speak. “I want my cupcake now,” I say.
Mama looks down, and I see she is not as happy as I thought. “I don’t think so, Pansy. Not after the stunt you pulled earlier. But if you’re hungry, I’ll get you some real food.” Then she fills up a plate with Devil’s eggs and fruits salad touched all over by mint leaves and hands it to me.
“No!” I say. No! No! No! No! No! But Mama doesn’t budge. She apologizes to Jason, even though I’m the one she’s hurting, and to me, she says, “You’re certainly not getting a cupcake with that kind of behavior.” Then she picks me up and carries me off to my room.
I scream and thrash in my bed for a while. I don’t think this will work to get a cupcake, but I’m so mad now I don’t care. Through the crack of my door, I can see Mama sitting in the hallway, doing Grown-Up Things on her phone, and I want to make sure she knows just what a bad Mama she is being. This is what you’ve reduced your Poor Pansy to: a flopping, dripping, sobbing, snapping thing. Eventually, I wear myself out and start to drift off to sleep, but right before I’m out, when my thoughts are all dreamy and calm, I come up with my plan for revenge.
#
The next day, Mama and Jason are shooting a garden party with the theme May Flowers, and for most of the morning, Mama has her phone in the back pocket of her jeans, so I have to be patient. But after the shoot is over, and we go back inside the house, Mama turns on my tablet and sets out a plate of chickpea puffs and a cup of half-water half-juice and goes into the she-shed with Jason to work on her Content. The she-shed is in the back yard, connected by a short path of stepping stones to the big glass French doors in the great room, where I sit. As long as I’m on the couch and the she-shed curtains are open, Mama and I can see each other and wave. But the she-shed curtains are not open now. I know I have to be quick. I go to the kitchen island. This time, I have no problems as I grab down her phone.
I go to the App, as I have seen Mama do many times before. And I make a post, like I have seen Mama do many times before. And what I post is the picture of her and Jason without shirts. Then I put the phone on the same spot where I found it and go back to my cartoon.
#
I have barely gotten the next chickpea puff into my mouth when I hear Daddy roar.
“Babe, what the fuck is this?” He comes running out of the room and looks at me. His face is red and his eyebrows are low. At first, I think I am about to get in trouble, but he takes a deep breath and says, “Where’s your mother, P?”
I point. While I’m pointing, Mama’s phone begins to vibrate on the white marble counter, then it pings. Jason’s phone, beside it, pings, too. Mama’s phone pings again. Daddy’s phone pings. All the phones are going, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping.
Mama is already running barefoot out of the she-shed before Daddy makes it across the yard. Jason doesn’t come out of the she-shed, but through two sets of open French doors, I can see he is in there, putting on his shirt.
“I was hacked,” Mama is shouting. “I was violated.”
“Did they hack off your clothes, too?” Daddy is yelling at Mama, and Mama is yelling back, and Jason is running around the outside of the house without any shoes. I wonder if with all the yelling going on, I could get away with sneaking a cupcake (the Mermaids’ cupcakes have been thrown out, but there are May Flowers cupcakes now.) When I look towards the kitchen island, though, I see Jason is tiptoeing in through the foyer to get his phone. He picks it up and starts tapping.
“Delete, delete. Fucking delete, motherfucker,” Jason says. Then he sighs. He looks at me and shakes his head. I think it is because he knows it was me who did the posting, but then I notice he is actually looking past me, so I turn and look in that direction, too. In the garden, Mama is crying, big loud sobs like I’ve never heard her make before. I think, you should have let me have that cupcake! See? I also think, I’m scared! I want to go to Mama! But I also want to run away from Mama, because of the sobbing.
“Sorry, kid,” is what Jason says before he leaves.
#
For a long time, there are no parties. There are no shoots. Jason does not come back. I am worried about what will happen to the Followers. Are they sad? Are they worried? Are they running out of ideas for party decor? Do they miss us? But Mama says there are more important things than Followers now.
Daddy goes away for a while, then he comes back. Your Brother, Pansy continues to grow Mama’s belly bigger and bigger, and Mama spends a lot of time napping on the couch and a lot of time crying in her room. She doesn’t make cupcakes or cookies anymore. One night, I notice her using her phone to take pictures of Taco Chicken she made in the Slow Cooker, and I think that she looks very sad. She says, “It’s ok, Pansy” and “Grandma will be here next week” and “Very soon, you will meet Your Brother, Pansy” and “You don’t need to worry about Mama.” But it wasn’t Mama I was worried about.
Then one night, I am woken up by strange sounds and footsteps going back and forth in the hall. I am scared because it sounds like there is a cow inside the house and it is dying. I begin to cry. Daddy comes in and rubs my back and says, “Shh, Pansy” and “Go back to sleep” and “You’re going to have a brother in the morning.”
But in the morning, I do not have a brother, and I do not have Mama and Daddy, either. When I come downstairs, Jason is on the couch, doing Grown-Up Things on his phone. “Sorry, kid,” he says when he sees me. “Grandma is on her way, but until then, you’re stuck with me.” Breakfast is a cold waffle and juice, extra strong.
I spend most of the morning on the tablet and most of the afternoon in my tipi, pretending I’m having a shoot. The stuffed cat’s name is Daisy. Her Daddy is a tutu-wearing hippo, and her Mama is a long, sequined snake. It is Daisy’s Fake Birthday, and Daisy is being so good. The cat and the hippo and the snake are smiling and eating cupcakes together. They are hugging. I am taking their picture. The hippo and the snake are picking the cat up and squeezing her until she feels like taco meat.
“Bad news, kid.” It is Jason. His face fills the door of my tipi. “Looks like your brother decided to take his sweet time, so I’m going to be staying another night to take care of you.”
“What about Grandma?” I say.
Jason frowns. “Unfortunately, your Grandma had a Medical Event. She’s going to be ok, but she can’t get on a plane at the moment.”
I don’t say anything. Daisy hisses.
#
But the next day is not as bad. Jason decides we should Do Something for Mama, and I am going to help. We go down to the special room in the basement, and it is even better than I imagined. Jason lets me blow up balloons on the helium tank and doesn’t get angry when I sink my hand into a jar full of glitter. I find more birthday candles than I can count, and I break every one.
We listen to music and decorate the house. Jason bakes a batch of cupcakes and lets me lick all the baby blue frosting off of the whisk attachment, and even though it is almost dinner by the time the cupcakes are done, when I ask him for one, he says, “Why not?” and lets me eat just the frosting off of two.
It is late when Mama and Daddy get home, but I am still awake, watching cartoons on the tablet while Jason type type types on his laptop. We hear the car pull up and go wait near the door. Mama comes in first. She looks tired and soft, and when she sees all the beautiful things we have made for her— the balloon arch and the chalkboard welcome sign and the table full of special treats— she begins to cry. “It’s happy crying, Pansy,” Mama says. “You made Mama so happy.”
Daddy walks in behind her carrying the car seat containing my brother, who has a new name now: Oak. Daddy sets Oak, in his hard little shell, down on the kitchen island and looks at the balloon arch and the chalkboard sign and the table full of special treats. He is smiling, but it is not happy smiling. His face is angry, but he says, “Thanks for doing us a solid, Jason,” with his voice.
#
Mama spends all her time now with Oak. Feeding him. Napping him. Changing his diapers. A photographer who is not Jason comes to our house, and we all dress up, and Mama even puts a little checkered bow tie on Oak, who is wrinkly and smells like sour milk. The photographer’s name is Hannah, and she talks to me in a dumb, high-pitched voice and waves around a stuffed monkey and lollipops, but she doesn’t need to. I am happy to pose like we used to. Now, though, it is only Daddy who picks me up because Mama’s arms are full cradling Oak. Then Oak falls asleep, and Mama puts him in the Moses basket, and we all have to stand around it, looking at Oak like we love him while Hannah baby-talks and snap, snap, snaps. But I don’t love Oak. He is too small for me to play with, and he looks like a worm.
Grandma gets better and comes to stay with us, and I like that. She is always saying things like “For heavens’ sake, just order a pizza!” and “Big girls get to have ice cream” and “You’ll always be my first grandbaby, Pansy.” She teaches me to write my name, and Mama’s, and Daddy’s, and Oak’s. She takes me to the movie and the zoo and the library and the park, and sometimes in the middle of the night, I sneak down the hall like a ninja, and slip into the guest room and under the covers where I am invisible, and Grandma rubs my back.
The only thing that worries me is when she says, “You come with me, Pansy, your parents need to talk” and “Pansy, remember both your parents love you, no matter what.”
#
Then Daddy leaves for good. Mama and Oak are at the doctor’s when it happens, and Grandma is home with me. He packs suitcases and exercise equipment and boxes, enough to fill the bed of his enormous truck, but not enough to make it look like anything’s missing when he’s gone. “I’ll see you soon, P,” Daddy says before he drives off. “You can decorate your new room however you want.” To Grandma, he says, “Take care.”
Then things go back to normal, except of course, Daddy’s gone. He’s not in his office, about to come out and rustle my hair and fling me. Instead, there is Oak, who can’t do anything at all. Grandma goes home. Jason comes back. Mama starts making Content again. “Gotta pay the bills,” she says as she hands me a bowl of Sponsored Noodles. Jason snaps while I eat. Mama hands me the tablet, and she and Jason strategize about when to Reveal. Once again, there are parties, and cupcakes, and sparkling lemonade in unusual colors, and food made in muffin tins that isn’t muffins. There are lots and lots of shoots. Only now, the shoots end whenever Oak starts to cry or makes a big, stinky poop, and when that happens, nobody minds if I help myself to a cupcake or two.
#
On my first trip to Daddy’s house, I bring a suitcase Mama has packed for me, the hippo with the tutu, and my tablet, which Jason has done something to in order to make it work like a phone. I imagine that at Daddy’s house, there will be decorations and treats waiting for me, just like me and Jason made for him and Mommy and Oak, but when I get there, there is only Daddy, and an enormous TV, and a white-walled bedroom with no mural. There are two toys, a fake kitchen and a fake baby, and I am not interested in either one. I ask why there is a crib in my room, pushed against the wall farthest from my bed, and Daddy says it’s for Oak, when he’s older and doesn’t need to be near Mama all the time for his food.
We watch a movie and eat non-sponsored noodles. I snuggle into Daddy’s armpip, and Daddy rustles my hair. When the movie is over, I ask him to fling me in the air, and he does. He says, “I’ve missed you, P” and “Who’s my best girl?” which I like, and “You’ve gotten so big” and “Pretty soon you’ll be too heavy to toss,” which I don’t.
There is a clear plastic box of frosted cookies from the supermarket, and we take it outside with us to the balcony, where we sit and eat as we watch cars pull in and out of the Complex. The cookies are sweeter than Mama’s and softer. They are almost vanilla, but not quite. The frosting is pink and dotted with rainbow confetti sprinkles. I eat one, two, three cookies. They are not satisfying. No matter how much cookie you eat, it is somehow never cookie enough.
Then Daddy says, “Time for bed, P,” and I ask him to carry me like a baby, and he does. He forgot to buy a toothbrush for me, so I don’t have to brush. And even though he must see that the tablet is in my bedroom, he doesn’t care like Mama does. He bought me a night-light in the shape of a horse.
I’m all snuggled in with my hippo and my favorite blanket, which Mama packed, and I’ve put my socks on my hands, which is where I like my socks to be when I sleep. I flip and I flop and I watch until the light turns off under and around the door, the part that can never be uncracked.
Then I take off my socks, and I get my tablet, and I turn it on. I type Mama’s name in the bar, just like Grandma taught me, and I click. I see it: her Content. It is beautiful and glowing and warm. There is a picture of Baby Oak. A picture of Mama. A picture of me. Me and Oak. Mama and Jason (wearing shirts.) Me and Oak and Mama. Mama all alone. Grandma and Oak and Me. There are Mermaid cupcakes and May Flowers cupcakes and Fake Birthday cupcakes and Welcome, Baby cupcakes and Sponsored Noodles.
I have to scroll and scroll in order to find the picture I want to see: it’s the one of Mama and Daddy and me where they have me by the armpips and are kissing and squishing me. The three of us, kissing and smiling. I keep scrolling. I feel happy looking at the pictures. Not happy, but a feeling that is close to happy, but not quite. I’m not sure what it is called. I scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. It feels like eating the supermarket cookies. The pictures are so sweet, and I can never be full. I understand now why Mama needs to make so much Content: the cupcakes and the cookies and the Devil’s eggs and the tiny sandwiches and the good fruits salads. Us Followers are always hungry.
###
Joanna Petrone’s writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Vice, Romper, Slate, Longreads, and Popula, among other publications. She lives in Berkeley, CA with her family and is working on a novel about archeology.
