peculiar in pink

abbott elementary is about janine teagues. it’s about her superpower of seeing the best in everyone and striving for the things others say are out of reach. it’s about the connections she makes, and the way she sees the world, and her journey to becoming the person she believes she can be.

melissa is a part of that journey. she is not the only part.

at least yours is probably a whole picture. mine’s a pathetic little thing, ripped right down the middle… what are you rummaging in your trunk for now?

this. it’s the picture of my mom. and it’s ripped too.

right down the middle?

_________

Janine has an appointment after school and has asked if Barbara could pick her son up and watch them for an hour or two. Barbara had agreed with ease having missed Caleb since seeing him a month ago. As soon as bus duty was over, the woman kissed Melissa a quick goodbye and reminded her to keep her updated on the parent teacher conference. Barbara knew exactly what daycare Janine put Caleb in, aside from having picked him up before she was the one who suggested it in the first place. The trip was a little more than 10 minutes due to afterschool traffic and while she hated driving into school traffic, it was worth it to see Caleb. Making sure to grab her ID after arriving, she made her way in the front door. In the front office sits a few kids, maybe two years old. A gentleman sets one of them down on a playing mat after seeing her, “Afternoon, who are you here for?”

Barbara smiles at him, “Caleb Teagues, please.” He nods and repeats the name into a walkie, “Send Caleb Teagues to the front for pick up.” Waiting for a reply before he turns back to her, “Don’t forget to sign him out when he arrives.” He then goes back to the play mat to clean up. Barbara steps away from the door and waits leaning her back on the wall. She can hear him coming by the running feet approaching and the “Auntie! Auntie!” His mother clearly told him who was picking him up today. When he makes it to the doorway he stops and just yells, “Auntie!” again. 

“Hey, baby.” She calls back and he is back in motion again. Only barely not slamming into her knees, still she grabs the wall to keep herself up. He doesn’t let go immediately and her heart swells a little because of it. She gets to see Caleb more often than her grandkids and being with her makes her miss them every so often. He finally lets go and she leans down to squeeze his shoulder, “Let’s get to the car first, then you can tell Auntie everything okay?” He nods showing his missing teeth with joy. Quickly as she can, she signs him out and checks her phone. The parents for the conference tonight arrived just after she left, Melissa would be done with her meeting much quicker than either expected. 

Finally ready to leave the building she extends her hand for the little Teagues to take and pushes open the door. As she walks, she can feel his little skips in his stride. “Your Auntie Melissa bought you ice cream last night.” Barbara waits for the incoming squeal before she continues. “We have to go pick her up first.” He nods and kicks into a full skip as they round the car. “Why she didn’t come with you?” She unlocks the car and helps him out of his backpack, correcting his sentence before she answers, “Why didn’t she come with me?” Caleb just nods, stepping into the car and plopping into his seat. She misses when he was small enough for her to pick up. It wasn’t that long ago, the precious boy being small like his mother. 

Barbara buckles the boy into his car seat while answering, “She is with someone’s parents. That’s why we have to pick her up.” Swinging his feet and nodding his head, “Okay, yay!” She chuckles and shuts the door back at him. Once she gets in the front seat, he begins to talk about his day. At his speed, she understands some things, like they had applesauce with lunch and colorful spotted cookies for a snack which she tells him were M&M cookies. By the time they have arrived at Abbott he has started talking about his blankets and toys with great detail. 

She parks up front in the half empty lot in front of the school. Picking up her phone she sees the text from Melissa that the meeting is over and just to text her when they arrived. Unbuckling, she turns in her seat, “Caleb, smile for Auntie.” With pride he cheeses at her phone and blinks at the flash as she takes the picture. Although his eyes are closed the picture is too cute not to send. Texting Melissa afterwards, ‘Waiting for you out front.’ From the back seat, playing with his lanyard Caleb asks, “What kind of ice cream?” Thinking for a moment, she can’t seem to remember what ice cream Melissa bought, seeing the bag, or the receipt. Rather than admitting she doesn’t know, she lays the responsibility on Melissa, “You’ll have to ask Mel when she gets in.” 

The two sit there talking mostly about Caleb and his toys or classmates until Caleb spots the red head coming their way. He bounces in his car seat, points, and laughs happily. Melissa is walking their way, hair over one shoulder and her large black bag over the other. Barbara points behind her as Melissa gets closer, directing her attention to the beaming child behind her. Opening the front door, only to set her back down and open the back down and lean in to tickle Caleb. “Hey, big boy!” He giggles and tries to tickle her back, although his hands are on her shoulders rather than her stomach. Chuckling at him, she pulls away, “Let me see that smile.” 

Grinning wide for Melissa, he still tries to talk, “see my ‘issing eeth?” Melissa nods and starts counting, “Missing three! Your big boy teeth will be coming in soon.” Dropping his smile and looking at her questioningly, “But I am a big boy already.” Barbara has to laugh from the front seat, “Yes, but you will get much big, baby.” Seeming to be the answer he needs, he simply says, “Okay.” Lightly squeezing his cheek, Melissa steps back and shuts the door before getting in the car. Behind her, Caleb is feeling for his missing teeth, “Finger out of your mouth, hun.” 

Sitting down comfortably, Melissa leans over the console and kisses Barbara who briefly asks about the meeting again. “It was good. Mostly a progress check from the last meeting.” Barbara nods and kisses her one last time before Melissa can move back to her seat. While buckling, Caleb’s voice fills the car again, “What ice cream ‘d you get me, Auntie Messa?” Turning to her wife with a raised eyebrow, Melissa mouths, “I’m gonna get you.” seeing as her ice cream is being offered up to her favorite nephew she’s not actually all that mad. Looking in the mirror to talk to him, “We have vanilla bean and cookies ‘n cream.” Avoiding listing the one she’s most protective of. 

Barbara is pulling out as more questions come from their back seat, “What color is vanilla bean?”

“White, I guess, hun.”

“But it’s a bean. Beans are gween.”

“Not that type of bean, sweet boy.”

“So it’s sweet?”

“Yes. Very.”

“What kinda cookies are in the ice cream?”

“Oreo cookies.”

“The black crackers?”

“Yes, with the white cream in the middle.”

Similar questions follow them all the way home, even all the way inside until the ice creams are set in front of him. The vanilla bean is in a black container while the cookies n cream is in a yellow one, so he chooses the brighter one. Grabbing three spoons as Melissa scoops out one bowl of cookies n cream and two vanilla bean, Caleb stands politely waiting to help her. Putting one spoon in each bowl and hand one to him, “Hold it with both hands.” Caleb nods and walks with both hands on the bowl, putting it on the table first and then climbing into his favorite chair at the dining table. Barbara joins them not too long after. As they eat their ice cream, Caleb tells Melissa many of the same things Barbara has heard in the car. This time he adds details, like how he has a TRex stuff and a plastic velociraptor which takes them three times to understand, his blue cubby at school and his new light up shoes. 

Melissa and Barbara sit side by side, holding hands and listening intently, catching up on months worth of events. They only cut him off once he has finished his ice cream. “Let’s clean this up.” Barbara stands taking their bowls and walking to the drain with them. Caleb hops off of his seat and walks over to the dishwasher pulling it open. He waits beside her to help her load them. Though Barbara doesn’t often use the dishwasher, she won’t deny that him offering to help makes her proud. “Such good manners.” 

Barbara rinses the bowls and spoons and passes them to him who sets them a little sloppily in the bottom rack. While she dries her hand, she gives him instructions on the correct way to place them in the rack. When he is done, she still bends down to adjust a few things. Melissa stands against the door nodding her head, “Nice job. Very good, honey. Want to play a game?” Running to her legs the same as he had Barbara’s at the daycare, “What game?” Arms locked around her knees, she clutches the wall and looks up at Barbara for help. “Think you can be Auntie Mel at Connect 4 now?” Leaning back now, using her legs as a pivot, “I think so!” Melissa groans a little in pain and leans down the same time as Barbara to pull him free, nearly butting heads. “You’ve got to let go so I can get the game. Then we’ll see if you can beat me.”

For the next hour, Melissa sits on the floor with Caleb reteaching him how to play Connect 4 and enjoying watching how excited he got even when he lost. Barbara sits on the couch behind Caleb trying her best to help him and throws Melissa a pillow to hopefully help relieve what will most certainly be a painful back later. Once Barbara receives the message that Janine is headed their way, she announces it as their last game. Both on the floor pouting, “Last game, then you can clean up and come cuddle with me before your mom gets here.” Melissa’s pout disappears and she leans over their game to whisper, “Last game, loser has to tickle Barbara.” Caleb giggles and reaches out to Melissa, “I win, I tickle you.” The red head laughs and shakes her head, not finding it in her to correct him. He loses again, proudly. They clean up with Melissa poking at him and him giggling and returning to the poke. Barbara takes the box from them once it is done to put it up. Melissa does her best to get off the floor and on the couch.

AUSHSHS, OKAY. One of my favorite things to think about how is how the Abbott characters are super aware of the cameras and how they have different relationships to the fact that they’re being filmed all the time. Here are some thoughts/headcanons for women esp.

Janine: Janine is the most honest with the cameras, treating them like friends, and thus shares a lot of her life with them: her triumphs, her plans, her sadnesses, her insecurities. Hell, I think it’d be fair to say that she even overshares, allowing the cameras unfettered access into her home and car and life beyond the workday. I especially thought this during “Sick Day.” This poor girl was literally, like, letting herself be filmed running to her bathroom!!! Like, girl, set some boundaries. You have a right to some privacy!!!!! But, of course, this is the crux of Janine’s central character arc. So lonely, once a clearly neglected child, our protagonist has a hard time with boundaries in general, and that extends to how she interacts with the cameras. They have become her closest companions and her dearest diary, her safe place for unapologetically being herself. We’re always getting Janine unfiltered, and it’s an incredibly humbling experience for an attentive viewer. She’s fully let us into our lives, and we feel for her deeply. My God, we just want her to be happy.

Barbara: Of the cast, Barbara is one of the most vigilant of the fact that she is being constantly surveilled and has to perpetually maintain her perfect facade because of this crucial fact. It’s her almost doll-like smile into the camera when she says that she doesn’t have a weird thing about her. It’s how she’s always emphasizing how proper and moral and Christian she is in her talking heads. One of my favorite recent examples is from the tattoo episode when she initially says her favorite “b” word is Barbara, but then her first correction is to the more upstanding and characteristic answer of “Bible.” But, as some of my favorite Work Wives gifsets have shown, Barbara occasionally forgets that the cameras are there—usually when she’s drawn into the intimacies of a moment, allowing herself to feel her own emotions without disciplining or regulating them. And it has to be with someone she emphatically trusts, such as Melissa. But any slippages, which are few and far-between, are quickly and efficiently amended. She studiously remembers herself. She slips the mask back on and smiles directly at the cameras and dares them to question what they saw in the place. She is Barbara Howard, married woman of God. She’s always perfect, don’t you know?

Ava: OKAY, OKAY, so I genuinely think that out of everyone, Ava is the most aware of the cameras being on her at all times. TikTok queen and social media extraordinaire, how can she not be? Like Barbara, and honestly even more proficiently than our favorite repressed lesbian lady, she touts an expert facade to the cameras, hyping up her natural charisma and her extrovertism and coolness—sometimes to the point of excess. She’s always catering to a targeted audience. She knows her way around an algorithm, a trend, a hashtag, perpetually attuned to what the people like and want to consume. Of course, she, too, has her rare moments of vulnerability, but the cameras have to be super quick and sneaky to find them. Avanine enjoyers, I think one of my favorite shots is when the cameras initially locate Ava and Janine talking about Ava’s grandmother during the step episode. The framing is faraway at first because the cameras are at the distance—clearly intruding and zooming on this quiet moment—and that’s pretty much the only way they ever catch our Ava Coleman slipping. I am sooooo invested in the fact that we can probably count the times that we’ve seen Ava unmasked on one hand!!!!!!