“Have stuff in the car.”

I looked back toward the ‘car’, the van, and made eye contact with Mrs. Martin.

Steel rings at the back of Mrs. Martin’s head kept her dreads away from her face in a deliberately messy style, the metal of the rings a contrast to the hair and the skin that was closer to real black than brown. A series of steel bangles hung from her neck and one wrist, carrying on the aesthetic.

She wore an amazing bohemian-style top, predominantly red, the pattern detailed, the fabric as light and loose as it could be without floating off of her. The sleeves were cut so they technically stopped at the elbow, but the excess fabric at the bottom edge of the sleeve was such that it grazed the skin of her legs, beneath her shorts. Her sandals were stamped straps of red leather that went from her toes to encircle her ankle, red on black skin.

She was young enough she might well have been a teenager when she had Kenzie, clearly fashionable, she was slim, and she had more poise than some superheroes I knew.

Put all of those things aside, and she could have been any parent at a PTA meeting, with stress lines in her face that didn’t match her age, and a rather normal face beneath her very striking makeup.

“Mrs. Martin?” I asked.

“Irene,” she said.

“Hi Irene, I’m Victoria.” I smiled and put out my hand to shake hers. She didn’t shake mine so much as she put her fingers in my palm. A little bit at a loss of what to do, I shook it as best as I could. She took it in stride.

A bit of a diva.

“I love this,” she said. She brushed her fingers down the front of my breastplate, then plucked at the fabric of my sleeve.

“It’s new. Made it yesterday.”

“In one day?”

“Kind of. It was a group effort.”

“We added to my suit too,” Sveta said.

Kenzie’s mother gave Sveta a careful look. Sveta’s body had curls and sweeping lines extending up from the shoulder, out from the elbow, and out of the collar of her top, which was more of a costume top than her other clothes. All had been painted.

“It’s good work,” Kenzie’s mother said.

“My mom is kind of an artist,” Kenzie said, as she came back from the donut box, two donuts in hand. “She works with my dad right now. She does interior decorating. She makes houses look nice for sale, Dad sells them, and she helps the families find the kinds of things they want after they buy.”

“I’m an aesthete, not an artist,” Kenzie’s mom said. “I appreciate others work and do what I can to make others appreciate those works. I can’t create much of my own.”

“Aesthete,” Kenzie said. “Got it. Do you want a donut, Mom?”