"I should've never volunteered for this shit!"
Mike slams yet another bowl of cracked eggs onto the counter to whisk. There are mountains of dirty bowls and spatulas all over the kitchen along with three dozen misshapen chocolate chip cookies cooling in a rack on the table and a pie in the oven, and it's pissing him off because it's nine o'clock and he still has two dozen cupcakes to bake as well as an entire fucking cake. And then he's got to frost them!
In a flash, El's by his side. "What's wrong, bug?"
He glares at the wall in front of him before answering, aggressively whisking the eggs. "Brenda is what's wrong! God, why did I get myself into this? I'm not even that good at baking!"
El has the audacity to laugh. "None of this would've ever happened if you hadn't joined the PTA."
A few months before, Henry had started seventh grade at the nearest middle school and his father had thought it would be a great idea to join the PTA. It couldn't hurt to do something with the free time he had, so why not use it to be more involved with his son's schooling? God knows his own father had never made the effort. He'd assumed it'd be a fun experience until he'd met Brenda Carlisle. After that, Mike immediately regretted not joining the elementary school's PTA instead.
Brenda is the type of woman who seems to despise the fact that it's Mister Wheeler in the association and not his wife. On more than one occasion, she has made snide remarks about working mothers, claiming that they are selfish to put themselves ahead of their children. Mike thinks it's stupid because a lot of mothers work themselves to the bone just to provide basic necessities for their kids, and for fucking Brenda (with her stupid haircut and hoity-toity attitude and millionaire husband) to insinuate otherwise is just too much. Mike doesn't even know why her kids are in public school if her husband makes as much money as she claims he does. She also apparently thinks that Mike is some kind of failure upon learning he's a writer, of course not knowing that he's the author of the immensely popular sci-fi series she's always going on about her kids reading.
He's talked back to her more than once as well, which probably doesn't help his case, but he wasn't going to stand for her slandering his wife and billions of other women as well as gay people. That stuff mostly happens in the group text all the parents are in anyway, which makes it easier to respond, but Mike won't have an issue answering to her face if he has to. And if she wants to use her rich husband as some sort of threat, well. Syfy has just obtained rights to turn the Stranger Things series by EVH Ives into a TV show. Take that, Brenda.
Mike's current frustration stems from an argument (or not an argument, but a rather heated conversation) that took place two weeks ago. "You know she's a bitch, El, I'm not going to let her win."
El huffs a laugh and turns to grab frosting ingredients. "You're so cute when you're mad."
There's a school dance coming up so the PTA has decided to do some fundraising activities, one of which is a bake sale. Most of the moms had said they'd participate, but not Brenda. That is, until Mike had said he'd participate too. Then she was all about it. It seemed she had some kind of point to prove, but Mike didn't know what it was. All he was sure of was that he couldn't let her win. And that's how he finds himself in his kitchen at nine at night, baking more than he ever has in his entire life. El's a better baker than he is, though, he usually just does most of the cooking, so he's glad to have her help now.
"Oh, sure," he grunts. "Guess I should spend more time with Brenda so I can be mad twenty-four-seven."
It ends up being a good night, with El in the kitchen things go much faster. The pie looks good and the cupcakes and the cake come out looking much better than the cookies do, and since El is able to frost more than one thing at once (yay for telekinesis!) the couple is finished by eleven. There's leftover frosting in the bowl so when El's not looking her husband swipes some onto his fingers. As soon as she turns he wipes it onto her face with a laugh.
"What the- Mike!" She reaches up to her messy cheek, playfully glaring at him. "You sneak!"
He steps closer to her and leans down to kiss it all off, his heart bursting with affection for the woman standing in front of him. It's crazy how, after all the years spent together, she still makes him feel the way he does. "I love you."
El rolls her eyes. "I love you too," she says, reaching for Mike's shoulders to pull him down and kiss him.
"Hey, Dad, did you see the- oh my god!" They whip around to see their son standing in the kitchen doorway gaping at them. He makes a grossed-out face. "Can you guys not do that in front of me ever again? You're disgustingly mushy."
"Go to bed!"
The next afternoon, Mike arrives at the middle school fifteen minutes before the end of day bell, after which the bake sale will start. Everyone's set up in the gym, so he lugs his table in and puts it next to Astrid Linberg's. She's one of his friends in the PTA and she'd promised to leave a space for him next to her. She doesn't like Brenda either, mostly because she's homophobic, which of course Astrid and her wife can't support.
"How's Zuri?" He asks.
Astrid smiles at him as she arranges her baked goods. "She's great. A little tired now, going back to work after the baby, but everything's good."
Mike smiles back. "Glad you guys are doing well. You ever need anything, just call me, yeah?"
A few minutes later, he's gone out to the car to get his stuff and come back. He's just finished arranging and rearranging his table when Astrid elbows him in the side and Mike looks up to see none other than the living, breathing, trash can that goes by the name of Brenda walking right past them. He thinks that she thinks he didn't see the sidelong glance she gave his and Astrid's tables, her nose wrinkling that little bit that it does every time she sees him. When Brenda settles at her table, which is laden with cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and even croissants (certainly more than Mike's got), Mike turns to Astrid with a grimace.
"I hope she doesn't bother us too much today, I'm not in the mood."
Astrid pats his arm. "I know."
For almost half an hour, as he waits for Henry to pick up his sister and come to the gym to wait out the bake sale, Mike keeps glancing at Brenda out of the corner of his eye. He's trying to be the bigger person and not look at her because he knows that's what she wants, but it's very hard not to look at someone you really don't like when they're purposely being annoying. He can hear her donkey laugh from across the room and it's grating on his nerves (okay, maybe it doesn't really sound like a donkey, but while Mike is generally a kind person, he can be very mean when provoked). He just wants to sell his stuff and take his kids home as quickly as possible.
Soon, his son and daughter arrive, the little girl reluctantly being tugged behind her brother to the table. She has marker on her face and her hair is falling out of the ponytail her dad gave her. Mike lights up when he sees them, stepping out to hug them both.
"How are my little gremlins?" He greets enthusiastically, garnering a grin from Vienna and an eye-roll from Henry.
"Sorry we're late, she wanted to play on the playground," says Henry.
Vienna's grin falls into a pout. "I wanted to play more but he didn't let me!"
Her father ruffles her hair affectionately. "Well, it's almost home time, anyway, I just have to finish selling the last of these and then we can go, okay?"
Mike steps back behind the table again and Henry sits on a bench by the wall while Vienna decides to go around the gym with the two dollars her mom gave her in the morning.
He should've known it wasn't going to end well. Vienna's been visiting all the tables very inquisitively for the last ten minutes, trying to decide what to spend her money on. Mike has sold the last of his cupcakes, taken the money he earned to the cash box at the main table, packed up the rest of his unattractive cookies and is getting ready to call it a day and head home when the gym suddenly goes silent like all the air has been sucked out of it. He looks up to see his daughter sprawled on the ground right by She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's table. A second later, when the girl herself looks up and sees her painstakingly chosen treat smashed on the floor in front of her, she starts to cry.
Mike instinctively rushes over to pick her up and comfort her, not having seen what happened but suspecting that that horrible woman had something to do with it by the way she's smirking victoriously. She's not even trying to hide it!
Vienna buries her face in her dad's shoulder to hide her tears. She doesn't like crying in front of people, and Mike is so concerned by the fact that she is that he doesn't notice Henry standing there until he speaks.
"You tripped her!" He cries indignantly. "What kind of person do you have to be? Your kids are a lot nicer than you."
Suddenly, Mike's not really seeing anything except Brenda's stupid face, so he puts Vienna down and asks Henry to take her and the empty sweet containers to wait by the car. When he sees that they've gone out the door, he turns back to the woman in front of him.
"You are despicable," he spits.
Brenda meets his gaze coolly. "People trip when they run. Especially little kids."
Mike throws his hands up. "Do you seriously hate me so much that you have to take it out on my daughter? If you don't like me, you take that up with me, not my kids. She didn't do anything to you."
Brenda continues to look at him as though she's done absolutely nothing wrong. "She shouldn't have been running. This is a school building, not a playground."
"Oh, please, you sadistic-" He has to stop there and take a deep breath before he says something he regrets. The whole room full of mothers is listening in. "You disgust me. An adult woman who trips a seven-year-old and takes some kind of pleasure in it. You have issues, Brenda, and not small ones."
With that, Mike storms off back to his table and folds it closed, hefting it up with one hand and grabbing the last container, the one with the leftover cookies, in his other one. He's so done he almost forgets to say bye to Astrid. No one gets to mess with his family like that, especially not that garbage excuse of a human being.
Outside, Henry and Vienna are waiting by the car, Vienna with a wet, pink face. Her brother looks like he's standing guard at the gates of Buckingham Palace or something. Mike stops abruptly when he reaches the trunk, setting down the table and handing the cookie container off to his son. He drops down to Vienna's height and grasps her little hand.
"Hey, Vi, are you okay?" He asks softly.
She shakes her head. "I really wanted that ice cream cone cupcake, Daddy," she says quietly. "The lady gave me the last one she had."
"Okay, well, you know what?" Mike swallows and pauses, thinking over his next words. El might feel like murdering him for volunteering her to bake after a long day of work, but he's sure that once he explains what happened she'll be more than willing. "When Mommy comes home, we can all bake some ice cream cone cupcakes together, what do you say?"
Vienna sniffles. "Okay."
By the time they get home, she's not so upset anymore. And when her mother gets home, she tackles her and hugs her around the waist, yelling about how excited she is to bake some ice cream cone cupcakes. El looks over Vienna's head at Mike in surprise and he makes a what can you do? gesture in response.
El shoos Vienna into the living room for a few minutes while she takes off her coat and rolls up her sleeves to get ready for kitchen adventures. "So we're baking again today, huh?"
"Fucking Brenda," grouses Mike. "Ruined the whole thing. Vi got a dessert with the two bucks you gave her and then she was walking by that woman and she tripped her! A child."
El only raises her brows, but after having spent the last twenty-eight-odd years with her, Mike knows that means she's letting something that's going to make her angry sink in. She pauses after she turns off the tap, then turns her head just enough that it's slightly menacing.
"That woman tripped my child?"
"I told you she hates me! She has something against me but that does not mean she gets to take it out on my kid. I told her off in front of everybody else," Mike says angrily. "And now I'm mad again."
"Well," breathes El. "Someone is going to have to have words with her."
Later on, while El and Vi are pouring cupcake batter into the ice cream cones and Henry is upstairs doing whatever it is that twelve-year-olds do, Mike is washing dishes when his phone beeps on the counter. He dries his hands and picks it up to see a WhatsApp notification from the PTA group. It's Brenda, but she appears as her phone number because Mike refuses to save her to his phone.
+1 317-555-0121 - Very successful bake sale today, ladies!
No one says anything else for about fifteen minutes, until Melissa Taborsky messages the group.
Melissa T - Is your daughter okay? Mike Wheeler
Lindsay C - Yes! I meant to ask earlier, but YDS was feeling sick. How is she?
Astrid - She'd better be good or I'm coming over!
Mike has to smile at that one. At least Astrid can be counted on.
-Yes, she's ok. She's baking with DW.
Melissa T - Aww!
Brenda doesn't text the group again and no one addresses her message, which Mike thinks is both hilarious and well-deserved. The family enjoys some delicious ice cream cone cupcakes after dinner, which Mike sends a picture of to the group just to rub it in Brenda's face.
El goes to the school the next day, and if Brenda's off the PTA the next week, it's nobody's business. It's for the betterment of society. The group admin kicks her out of the chat and Mike Wheeler has never been so glad to see a number disappear in his life.