The last two lines of the hook are something like a eulogy: “Girls become lovers, who turn into mothers. So mothers, be good to your daughters, too.” Why not “girls become lovers who turn into…” something other than mothers? First ladies, maybe. Whatever, I get that it’s hard to rhyme and be politically correct, but since when did the act of becoming a mother become the last rite of passage between a mother and a daughter? As if handing down the ability to procreate is somehow confirmation of a mother’s love, or perhaps a job well done.
Funny, Stella’s definition of womanhood is also tied to work. Having broken up with Eric for real this time, she says she’s good on “pushing a baby out of my body like a damn animal. I’m a professional.” Adrienne thinks because she’s a lawyer she has to have a baby “like two years ago,” but admits she’d go bat shit if she were ever to actually be with child.
Gina just wants cash. Her dad, Carl, gave all the women who qualified $50 for Mother’s Day last year. Much like her womb, Gina’s card was empty.
“When I complained that he was incentivizing pregnancy, he gave me sixteen cents out of his pocket,” she told me later. “I informed him that that was not on par and that I was going to get preggers just to rectify the situation. I mean, what the fuck?”
I wished I knew what Frances was thinking sometimes. Maybe then I’d know how to respond when she says something like, “Well you know you could always just adopt a baby from Africa like Madonna or that skinny girl, what’s her name?”
“Angelina Jolie, Mommy”—even when being downgraded from a daughter to a diaphragm, I still want to help.
“Yep, that’s the one.”
My theory, when I really think about it, is that my mother—being a lesbian and hippie, and having never been on the “right” side of society’s norms—probably just wants me settled, safe. She wants to make up for convincing me that Darin the lovable stalker wasn’t a complete whack job or for not being there when I was on a cold clinic table not having a baby at nineteen. When I was a kid, Frances always introduced me the same way—as her “first and last.” It made me proud. Made me feel important. Still does. So for right now, I like being a daughter—only.
And that size-12-months baby prom dress on her wall? The one she seriously said was for her “granddaughter,” after I finally got the guts to ask about it? It still creeps me the fuck out. But then again, it gives me something close to hope.
Acknowledgments
This is the hard part. Or should I say the “most likely to get me into deep shit with whomever I fail to mention” part. So despite lacking the luxury of an Oscar podium to hide behind, I’m still going to go off the cuff and pretend like I didn’t know this was about to happen.
First off, thanks to Gina, who in 1996 wrote in my yearbook, “You and you’re [sic] men, or boyz [sic] or whatever they are. You need to stop jockin’!” Words to live by. And thanks to the other two women I’m totally gay for—Adrienne and Raquel. One for screaming, “finish the effin’ book!” as a matter of routine, and the other for getting me drunk on a routine basis and therefore necessitating the demands of the former. Next item on my mental napkin is 1902 9th Street NW, the headquarters of my disillusioned adulthood. Thanks to the rats, the bums, and the heartbreakers thereabouts.
Without the Gail Ross Literary Agency—Howard, Gail, Anna—this book would still be in my head. Without my editor at HarperCollins, Jeanette Perez, some might wish it had stayed there. Also, I’d like to pour some out for the folks at Collins—Serena and Bruce—who after hearing my spiel said something along the lines of “you’re the most awesome person ever,” which despite being obvious helped a great deal. Big shout-out to Ryan Grim, who told me writing books was a “good side hustle.” Liar. And Sherly Chun for calling me a Korean taxi for that one meeting I had (I’m a woman of my word).
Lastly, there is no synonym of thanks that is great enough to be applied to my mother, Frances Vernell Andrews. We knew each other before there was an us to know. I am a writer because she saw the fake Chinese hieroglyphics Sharpie penned on the dry-erase board and instead of having me committed bought me a journal. I am grateful. You are the greatest.
About the Author
HELENA ANDREWS is a graduate of Columbia University and has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times and Marie Claire. She lives in Washington, D.C., and is currently working on the film adaptation of Bitch Is the New Black with the creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, Shonda Rhimes.
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Credits
Jacket design by Archie Ferguson
Copyright
Many of the names in this book have been changed in order to protect certain people‘s privacy and prevent Facebook stalking. Gina is Gina because all her suggestions were dumb. And Frances, my mother, is Frances, my mother, because who else could she be?
BITCH IS THE NEW BLACK. Copyright © 2010 by Helena Andrews. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199698-6
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