Don't Call Me Baby

by Heasley, Gwendolyn

  “You too,” I say on my way out. I feel badly that Ms. Herring has gotten wrapped up in the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters. But I still feel better having put my thoughts out there. No one’s teased me about my mom’s blog since the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters went viral.

  Sage and I wait near the tennis courts for my mom to pick us up. Last night my mom announced that we’d be having a powwow with Sage and her mom about our blogs. “To discuss whatever is going on in your heads.” My mom’s words, not mine.

  At my dad’s and grandmother’s requests, our blogging powwow is being held at the beach.

  Grandma Hope specifically said, “We’re not getting involved. Please don’t bring these internet fights into the home. We have to have some separation between the real world and the Bermuda Blog Triangle.”

  “You know that I don’t like it when you call it that. It’s called the internet. You should try it someday. It’s pretty mind-blowing,” my mom said. “I know it’s not golf, but a lot of people are rather jazzed about it, since it changed the world and all.”

  “Yes, please have the meeting outside of the house,” my dad said, and Grandma nodded in support. Even though my grandma Hope is my dad’s mother-in-law, they get along famously. My grandma actually met my dad first when he caddied for her. “He had the best eye of them all,” she says about my dad’s caddying skills. “I wanted my daughter to be with someone who knew golf that well. Golf is about more than just playing the game, you know.”

  I spot my mom’s station wagon pulling into the school’s parking lot; the decal is hard to miss. Sage and I get into the backseat, and we silently drive the few blocks to the beach.

  The best part of living in a seasonal community is that there are a few months when the beach is finally just for locals. Late September is hurricane season, and it’s also before the Snowbirds land. (Snowbirds are people, mostly very old people, who live in Florida for about six months of the year to escape northern winters.) Today’s one of those rare and precious times that the beach is empty and free of little kids and Snowbirds, who hog every inch of the sand during the busy season. While it’s great that it’s beautiful and peaceful, it might be nice to have a few witnesses on this deserted beach in case things get out of hand.

  Ms. Carter is already sitting on a rainbow-colored beach towel when we enter the beach from the sandy public access path. She’s wearing a blue tie-dye maxi skirt and a spaghetti-strapped white tank top. My mom calls Ms. Carter’s look “boho chic,” but Sage and I call it “Hippie: Version Twenty-First Century.”

  As we approach, Ms. Carter’s giving Sage the same look my mom’s been giving me all week. It’s the “Do I know you? Where’d my daughter go?” look.

  My mom unfolds a checkered beach blanket and spreads it out on the sand. From a cooler bag, Ms. Carter pulls out three small Tupperware containers, one with carrot sticks, one with celery stalks, and one with cherry tomatoes. I wish that my mom was in charge of snacks, especially when I realize there’s no dip or peanut butter. Just straight-up vegetables. No wonder Sage is ready for the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters. Isn’t part of being a teenager getting to eat junk food while your metabolism is still working?

  We all sit down. With my mom and Ms. Carter on her towel, and Sage and I on the beach blanket across from them; The battle lines have been drawn.

  “Imogene, Sage,” my mom says. “We need to set some boundaries here. We’ve both been very hurt by your blog posts. To be honest, we feel antagonized. You’re making us look like villains. What would our followers think? I know that the Mommylicionados would be pretty disappointed by this if they stumbled upon your blog. This isn’t the Babylicious they know and love.”

  Maybe it isn’t Babylicious, but it’s Imogene. And I don’t even know how my mom uses the word Mommylicianados without cracking up.

  “I agree,” Ms. Carter says. “I’m trying to start a food revolution, but meanwhile, my own daughter is writing about how she’s singlehandedly keeping our mall’s food court in business. It sends very mixed messages.”

  Neither Sage nor I speak. I bury my feet in the sand and look out to the horizon while Sage plays the piano on the Tupperware.

  “Are these boundaries going to apply to both moms and daughters?” Sage finally asks. “Like, if you say no photos, then do we all stop with the photos—or just us? Because if it’s just us, that’s not fair.”

  Ms. Carter guides Sage’s fingers off the Tupperware. “Sage! Our blogs are our businesses. They put food on the table. It’s a little different than some silly school project.”

  I underhand toss a carrot to a seagull. I breathe in deeply. “Do you guys really think that this is about a silly school project?” Like, do we need to bring in a psychiatrist to tell you what this is about? I add in my head, but not out loud. My blog has opened my floodgates, but only so far.

  Neither of our moms responds.

  “All we’re doing is what you guys have been always doing: We’re writing about our lives and the people in our lives,” Sage argues. She takes my lead and throws a celery stick at the same seagull. Her mom gives her a look: “What, Mom? I’m just trying to give the bird some healthy food. All the tourists probably poisoned it this summer with potato chips.”

  Ms. Carter glares at Sage.

  “Here’s the deal, girls. We might all be bloggers now, but we’re still the mothers. We’re still in charge,” my mom’s voice booms. She’s totally using her “conference voice,” which is this super-confident “Mommy-power ra-ra-ra” voice that she puts on anytime she’s asked to speak to bloggers or blog readers. It’s part of her persona. It’s her voice-ilicous.

  “Do we need to remind you girls that you’re only fifteen years old? We have decades more of life than you two. Trust us that we know what’s best.”

  “Meg’s right,” Ms. Carter agrees. “We already discussed all of this earlier. We’re not having a conversation about guidelines. We’re informing you two of the guidelines. From now on, we’ll need to approve every post. The posts will not be negative in subject or tone. If we didn’t approve a post and we find it online, you’ll delete it and be grounded for a month. We don’t want this school project to jeopardize you girls’ future.”

  Sage stands up and points at her mom. “You mean your future, Mom. I imagine that this discussion is over since all it turned out to be was a lecture about more elements of my life that you want control.”

  I stand up with my friend. “I suppose that the pool party isn’t happening?” I think about how this has probably ruined my one chance to see Dylan and his house.

  My mom smiles and her scowl softens. “No, you both can still go. After much thought and some helpful feedback from readers, we’ve decided not to ground you after all. See, we’re not total momsters.”

  Then my mom reaches for her purse and pulls out her iPhone. Tap, tap, tap go her fingers on the screen.

  She’s either Tweeting or composing a note on what she’ll blog about this later. After anything important—or even unimportant—happens, my mom’s always on her phone immediately after, updating her following.

  Click, click, click goes the camera.

  I rarely even notice anymore, but today it all boils my blood. I notice that Ms. Carter is also searching for her phone.

  “Mom, I’ll check out your post later to see how you felt this went,” I say calmly even though my insides are roasting. “Or you could Tweet me,” I add even though I do not have—and will never get— a Twitter account. Believe me, when you have a mom who tweets, that’s more than enough chirping for one household.

  My mom doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even look up from her iPhone.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Chapter Eight

  THE NEW BLOGS ON THE BLOCK

  SAGE AND I AGREE TO MEET ON GORDON ROAD, ONE OF THE roads that run parallel to the Gulf of Me
xico. We’re going to walk together over to Dylan’s house for the pool party. After today’s smackdown with the mommy bloggers, I’m not feeling nearly as thrilled about the party as I was only four hours ago.

  If we blog about what we want to, we’re grounded. If we don’t blog about what we want to, we’ve given up on our mission, and everything goes back to how it was.

  It’s been less than two weeks, and I feel like I’ve failed already.

  Sage is sitting under the shade of a palm tree when I walk up to her. Although she doesn’t listen to her mom about much, she is super-vigilant about the sun, even at five o’clock in the evening. “We’re originally from Minnesota,” she explains. “I’m a descendent of the Vikings—and the Chinese—but mostly the Vikings. My skin is not used to eighty-seven degrees when it’s almost October.”

  Sage’s wearing a black cover-up and purple flip-flops, and I can see through her sheer cover-up that she went with her one-piece swimsuit. At the last minute, I ditched my red halter one-piece for a two-piece tropical-print string bikini from Tommy Bahama. I pull down on my yellow sundress.

  “Going for the bikini!” Sage catcalls. “Hot. You’re working hard on Pirate’s Booty Ball already. Stop blushing. You look great. Dylan’s going to die.”

  “Shhh. Someone might overhear you,” I squeal.

  Sage motions around to the empty street and laughs. She pretends to play the piano and belts out “Your Song” by Elton John. That’s how good Sage is at music. She’s only fifteen and she can do Elton.

  “Dylan thinks of me as Babylicious, just like everyone else,” I say. “I’m that girl on the blog.”

  “And I’m the girl whose mom brought her tofu cakes in every year for her birthday. In an eight-year-old’s world, that’s similar to treason. If I lived in pirate time, I definitely would’ve walked the plank. Do you know that people still tease me about that? But, Imogene, you know that we’re more than the sum of our mom’s blogs. Isn’t that what we working to show with the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters?”

  I nod. Sage’s right. Just like everyone else, we’re more than who our moms portray us to be. We’re growing up, and they don’t own us.

  That’s what the Mommy Bloggers’ Daughters is about, I remind myself. I start to feel renewed about our mission, despite the grounding threat that looms over us. Besides, all change has a cost, and maybe I’m finally willing to pay the price for my freedom. Or at least, I think I am. I’ve never actually been grounded, so I’m guessing here.

  We follow the pedestrian lane down a banyan-tree-lined street. To the west, we can see the ocean, where the sky’s turned a mix of pink and periwinkle, and the sun is slowly making its way to bed. That’s how my dad always describes it, and I love the expression.

  “This is the maddest I’ve ever been at my mom,” Sage says.

  We move out of the way of a biker coming down the pedestrian path.

  “The maddest ever?” I ask. For me, that was definitely when my mom posted about my first period or about how I felt horrible about failing an algebra test. A forty-two out of one hundred. (I’m okay with numbers, but once letters get into the math mix, I’m gone-zo.)

  I spot across the street one of the first houses my dad designed. It’s a Tuscan-style mini-mansion, and every detail is beautiful, from the arched doorways to its terracotta roof. Some of my favorite memories with my dad are driving around Naples and seeing the homes he designed. We should do that again soon, because it’s been a really long time. Maybe that’d cheer him up and make him feel good about his work again.

  Sage stops suddenly. “I’m furious,” she says. “They aren’t letting us write about our lives, even though they’ve been writing about us since forever. My mom decides my life down to every morsel of food that I eat, and then she blogs about it on top of that. How come I can’t do the same? What happened to freedom of speech?”

  Sage pauses. “Does it only apply to her? She might as well just burn my computer like the Nazis did with books they didn’t like. I actually thought my blog would be a wake-up call to her, but it hasn’t been at all. It’s just something else she wants to control for me. Aren’t you mad?”

  We cross the street and enter into Dylan’s posh Port Royal neighborhood. I point in the direction of Dylan’s house. “Of course I’m angry, Sage. But let’s not think about it right now,” I say. I squeeze Sage’s hand. “For the party, let’s just be normal.”

  “You’re right,” she agrees, and pulls me up Dylan’s brick driveway. “I’ll forget it for the night. Or I’ll try to. Let’s work on getting some Pirate’s Booty Ball dates.”

  Dylan’s mom answers the door. She’s one of those “I can’t believe she’s a mom” moms. She’s wearing a Tory Burch tunic that’s borderline dress, borderline shirt, and three-inch straw platforms. Dylan definitely inherited his good looks from her.

  “Hello, girls,” she says,putting in a starfish earring. “I’m just heading out to an event. But just so you know, Luz, our housekeeper, is supervising, and I hired a lifeguard. You can never be too careful.”

  She points at a caterer, who’s balancing a tray of lemonades in champagne glasses. “Take one. They’re mocktails. Our caterer, You’ve Got It Coming, thinks of just about everything.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Mulberry,” I say.

  “You’re welcome Imogene,” she says. I don’t think we’ve ever officially met, but I can guess how she knows my name. At least she didn’t call me Babylicious.

  While Sage and I chime our glasses and take small sips, Mrs. Mulberry slips out through the front door.

  I knew that Dylan lived in a fancy neighborhood, but I had no idea that his house was a mansion. Or that they had a staff. He comes across as so down-to-earth.

  How amazing would it be to not have your mom bothering you all the time? His mom knows that he’s having a party, and she doesn’t even stay. She actually treats him like a grown-up. If I ever had a party, my mom would hover like a helicopter and snap photographs as if Kate Middleton were the guest of honor. One reason I stopped having birthday parties after I turned ten.

  Through the glass living room doors, I can see some of our classmates already cannonballing into the infinity pool. Others are gathered around an outdoor TV in the lanai—that’s the Florida word for an outside living room. Football is playing on the TV, and the boys are hollering at the Gators. Most of the girls are relaxing on chaise lounges around the pool.

  As soon as Sage and I step out onto the patio, Mackenzie Miller, Anne Roberts, and Sara Cho are on their feet and moving toward us.

  “Omigosh!” Mackenzie screeches. “We didn’t think you’d show. Someone told us that y’all got grounded for all of October because your moms are so furious. Your guys’ posts were, like, so honest. It was scary crazy. Y’all are taking on the establishment and putting the fight online.”

  They usher us to a corner of the pool with thronelike outdoor furniture with blue padding. “Please sit down and tell us everything,” Anne says.

  Sage and I look at each other, puzzled, but we both plop down as the other girls continue to hover around us. I try to spot Dylan in the sea of guys near the TV, but I don’t see him.

  “I heard that your mom is suing the school over Ms. Herring’s assignment,” Sara says, looking at me. “Fiction or fact?”

  “We’re not grounded . . . yet, and Imogene’s mom is not suing the school,” Sage says. “But, yes, our moms are mad, that part is totally correct.”

  “My mom says that it’s only fair after all the details your moms put online about you two,” Mackenzie says. “No offense or anything. That’s just her opinion.”

  “None taken,” I say as I try to adjust to this scene. Sage and I have never been the center of anything other than teasing about our mom’s blogs. All of a sudden, it seems as if we’re almost popular.

  “Can one of you do me a favor?” Sara asks. “Can you get my mom to stop posting about me on Facebook? Maybe you could write a blog entry about how annoyi
ng that is? Can you believe that she actually tried to friend Dylan Mulberry? The woman has no boundaries. I’m not even friends with him. It’s also just plain creepy for an adult woman to friend a teen boy on Facebook. She’s going to accidently end up on To Catch a Predator if she’s not more careful.”

  For a second, I wish I were still on Facebook so I could be friends with Dylan. But my mom wouldn’t let me be on it unless I was her friend, and I couldn’t stand her constant Mommylicious—and Babylicious—updates. I’m totally with Sara. You aren’t actually “friends” with your kids’ friends, so you shouldn’t friend them on Facebook.

  “That’s not a bad idea about the blog post,” Sage says to Anne. “Maybe I’ll do my next post on parents and Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has created a monster. I want to start a new social network, where no parents or adults are allowed.”

  Sage is dreaming up a new teenager-only social media site when I see Dylan walking around near the other side of the pool.

  “Thanks for having us, Dylan,” I call out, trying not to sound too eager.

  He gives a brief wave before going the few steps to watch TV in the lanai. I only wish Dylan found me as interesting as Mackenzie, Sara, and Anne do right now.

  “Well, we’re going to get more mocktails,” Anne announces. “I’ve had two already and have a total sugar buzz going on. But, just so you know, I think it’s awesome what you guys are doing.” She flips her long blond hair, and it cascades over her tangerine sundress. “You guys are somehow making homework cool and going up against your parents. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  From near the diving board, I spot Ardsley and her shadow, Tara Bennett, watching Sage and me in the middle of the group. Apparently, Anne’s right. Everyone, including Ardsley, is paying attention to us. It feels nice to finally be noticed for something other than being Babylicious.