Odd Mom Out

by Jane Porter

  I watch Eva, my stomach in knots. We should have stayed in New York.

  “Eva!” I lean forward and call to her. She turns to look at me, her long dark hair streaming water. “Want to go?”

  She scrubs a hand across her wet cheeks, her gypsy eyes too wise for her years, eyelashes long, dense, and black. In the last year, I’ve begun to see the hint of the cheekbones that will one day come. She has my face. I wasn’t pretty as a child, either; my looks came much later, when I was older, sometime late during college.

  “Not yet, Mom.” Her attention’s caught by the cluster of little girls climbing from the pool and race-walking to the diving board.

  The little girls are pretty in that golden shimmer of late summer—tan, long limbed, sun-streaked hair. They have cute little noses that turn up, wide wet-lashed eyes, and gap-toothed smiles where baby teeth come and go. Children of privilege. Children who grow up belonging to country clubs and private tennis clubs and, if you’re very lucky and live on the water, one of the exclusive yacht clubs, too.

  Hugging the pool wall tighter, Eva watches the giggling girls take turns jumping and diving off the board, trying to outdo one another with big splashes and new cool maneuvers.

  And behind the diving board are the little girls’ nannies and moms. You can tell which girl belongs to which mom. Children and parents come in matching sets here, neat, tidy, incredibly groomed. Most of the moms wouldn’t dream of actually getting in the pool with their children, despite being in outstanding shape (thanks to private fitness trainers and visits to a local, exceptional plastic surgeon who never names names).

  I’m not pointing fingers, though. I wouldn’t get in the pool here, either (although I have, when Eva’s been especially lonely and desperate for companionship), not when every woman on the side will stare, sizing you up and down as you peel off your clothes, drop your towel, and climb in the pool.

  They’ll give you the same once-over as you climb out, too.

  Each time. Every time.

  And I guarantee nearly every woman is silently measuring. Comparing. Do I look that fat? Is her figure better than mine? Does she have flab? Dimples? Do my thighs jiggle like that, too?

  These thoughts remind me of why I loved New York. New York was cool and sharp, beautiful in a hard, glistening way Bellevue isn’t.

  Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, is soft, squishy, with exceptional public schools, big shingle houses fronted by emerald green lawns, sprawling upscale malls, and a Starbucks on every other corner. In this place of affluence and comfort, I feel alien.

  Like Eva. But not. Because I don’t want to fit in. I don’t want to be like these women who have too much time on their diamond-ringed hands and who drive immaculate Lexus and Mercedes SUVs.

  The girls swim close to Eva, and suddenly Eva is pushing off the wall and swimming toward them. I’m torn between exasperation and admiration. She tries every day. She doesn’t give up. How can I not respect her tenacity? I never liked no for an answer. I should be glad she doesn’t, either.

  “I can dive,” Eva says to them, smiling too big, trying too hard, setting my teeth on edge. “Want to see?”

  One of the girls, I think it’s Jemma Young, makes a face. “No.”

  But Eva, now that she’s finally made the first move, persists. “I’m hoping we’re going to be in the same class again this year.”

  Jemma rolls her eyes at the other girls. “Yippee. That’d be fun.”

  I press my nails harder into my palms at Jemma’s smart answer. Why didn’t Jemma’s mom teach her any manners?

  “So fun,” another little girl chimes in sarcastically, playing Jemma’s game.

  The little girls are all giggling and looking back and forth from Jemma to Eva.

  I feel wild on the inside, like a mama bear needing to protect her cub. But I don’t get up. I don’t do anything. This is Eva’s battle. She must learn to fend for herself. Even when it breaks my heart.

  Jemma and girls flick their wet hair and swim toward the side of the pool. As Jemma hauls herself out of the pool using the ladder, she glances at the others, lined up little duck style right behind her.

  “Let’s go get ice cream,” she announces imperiously.

  The little duck friends follow.

  Eva tries to follow.

  She starts to climb the ladder, and she’s smiling, keeping that too wide, too hopeful smile fixed on her face just in case Jemma turns around and asks her to join them. But of course they don’t ask her. They walk away, heading toward the snack bar.

  And Eva’s smile starts to fall. Her face is so open, so revealing. The anger in me rises again. I want to take Eva by the shoulders. Shake her. They’re not going to ask you to play. They’re not going to include you. Stop hoping. Stop making them so powerful. Stop allowing them to hurt you.

  Eva doesn’t know yet what I know about the world and being female. She doesn’t understand that you have to establish yourself, establish your identity and boundaries, young. Girls can be vicious, far more cruel than boys, because their world is made up of language, stories, and secrets. Too often, little girls and women start a conversation with, “Don’t tell anyone . . .” Three words I’ve learned that too often lead to pain.

  In the boy world, any boy can join in provided he can spit farther, ran faster, hit harder. The boy world isn’t an inner circle, but a totem pole hierarchy based on strength, guts, courage. Bravado.

  It’s the world I’d give Eva if I could. Instead, Eva’s world makes me sweat. Bleed.

  Goddamn town. Goddamn country club. Goddamn girls who won’t let Eva in.

  I gather Eva’s magazines, placing the copy of Elegant Bride and Modern Bride in my tote bag before rising from my chair and holding up her striped towel. “Eva,” I call to her, “want to go to Cold Stone?”

  She’s still watching the girls drip their way around the pool, past the mothers clustered at tables and lounge chairs, toward the snack bar nestled against the country club’s shingled wall.

  “I could just get a Popsicle here,” she says, her wistful gaze never leaving Jemma and gang.

  I spot Jemma’s mom, Taylor Young, across the pool. Taylor blows Jemma a kiss as her daughter passes. Taylor Young, the original Bellevue Babe in her fitted light blue Polo shirt and short white tennis skirt.

  Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. Wife of VP of Business Development Nathan Young, room mom, school auction chair, president of the PTA. Why? Because nobody must do it better.

  Blech. I’d rather shoot myself between the eyes than spend every afternoon at Points Elementary.

  But that’s not nice of me. Taylor can’t possibly spend every afternoon at school. She obviously does other things. Like highlight her hair. Visit Mystic Tan. Botox her brow.

  Am I bitter? Hell, no. I’d hate Taylor’s life. I love working, love my career and my colleagues, the intensity and challenge of it all. My life is one of taking risks. That’s what brought me back to the Pacific Northwest, after all.

  “Can I ask Jemma for a sleepover?” Eva asks timidly.

  I’m jolted by Eva’s question. Jemma Young for a sleep-over? Oh, Eva. Jemma Young doesn’t even treat you nicely. Why do you want her as your friend?

  But I don’t say it. I hold my breath instead, count to three, and then exhale. As I exhale, I draw Eva toward me, wrap her towel around her shoulders. “She might already have other plans.”

  Eva shrugs. “She might not.” Her shoulders are so thin. She’s tall, bony, delicate.

  “That’s true.”

  “And I haven’t had a sleepover all summer.”

  When I was growing up, playdates and sleepovers weren’t the thing they are now. Maybe now and then you had a friend over, but it wasn’t this almost daily round robin of going to friends’ houses that dominates the Points Elementary School scene. “That’s true, too.”

  Eva smiles at me. “So it’s okay?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I’m biting my tongue, biting it hard, knowing that Jemma’s just going to r
eject her, wanting to protect her from the rejection, but not knowing how to. For the first time in my life, I wish I were someone else, wish I’d been crafted from different material. If I were like other women, if I were more domestic, more maternal, I’d know how to handle this, wouldn’t I? I’d know what to say, what to do, to make my daughter more secure, more popular. More like the people she wants to be.

  “Will you go with me?” she asks, pressing her towel to her mouth and chewing on the thick yellow terry cloth.

  Will I go with her?

  I don’t even have to look at my Eva to see her. She’s imprinted so deeply on my heart that I just know her, feel her, love her with the love of a mother lion or tiger. The love of a protector. I would do anything for her. “Yes. Let’s go ask.”

  We—Eva—asks. Jemma says no. It takes all of five seconds to ask and be refused. As Eva heads into the girls locker room to get her clothes, I see Taylor Young rise from her chair and walk around the pool. She’s stopping now to say hello to some women who’ve just arrived. Her smile is big. She’s so shiny and pretty. So perfectly assembled.

  My dislike doubles, grows. I want to punch her in the face. Not nice, but I’ve never claimed to be nice. I’m honest, and that’s something altogether different.

  Jamming my hands deeper in my slouchy cargo pants, I’m acutely aware of how different I dress from the other women here. Even though it’s a country club pool, I’m wearing an old faded black T-shirt, old cargo pants that ride low on my hips and are frayed at the hem, and gray paint-splattered rubber flip-flops.

  My hair, a dark brown that people like to call black, is loose and reaches almost to my waist and doesn’t have a style. It’s just long, but it’s how I’ve worn my hair since college, and I like it. I don’t try to be soft or pretty. I just want to be me.

  Eva emerges from the locker room as Taylor Young walks our way. Eva, still in her swimsuit and with her clothes balled in her arms, stands at full attention as Taylor approaches. She’s looking anxiously at Taylor, smiling too big, waiting to be noticed.

  When Taylor is about to pass without making eye contact or acknowledging her, Eva shouts out, “Hi, Mrs. Young. How are you?”

  My hand clenches. I wish Eva hadn’t done that, but now Taylor pauses, turns in her short tennis skirt, and looks at Eva, and then me, and back to Eva. Her lips curve smugly. “Hello, Marta. Eva. How are you?”

  I nod my head. “Hello, Taylor.”

  “I’m good, Mrs. Young, thank you,” Eva answers breathlessly, smiling hard. “Are you having a nice summer?”

  “Very nice. I hope you are, too.” And with a smile at Eva and a brief incline of her head in my direction, she moves on toward the locker room.

  Eva’s wide, tight smile fades as Taylor disappears into the locker room. Her shoulders seem to curve in. “She’s the nicest mom. Everybody says so.”

  I say nothing. What can I say?

  We head to my truck, and I toss the wet towels in the back of the pickup. “You okay?” I ask her as we climb in.

  She nods once but doesn’t say anything.

  As I drive, I play my favorite Wyclef Jean CD. Eva just sits next to me, staring silently out the window. Her eyes are watery, but no tears fall. I tell myself it’s the chlorine from the pool, but I know the truth.

  For a moment, I think I could hate Taylor and Jemma and all of them at the pool, but hate is such a useless emotion, and I don’t want to hate anyone.

  Besides, Jemma’s just a little girl, and Jemma’s entitled to like who she wants to, even if Eva’s not one of them.

  “Want to go see a movie? Go out for dinner?” I ask, glancing Eva’s way again, thinking of fun diversions.

  She shakes her head, her long black hair hanging in inky tangles down her pale back. “No.”

  “Is there anything that sounds good? It’s only Friday night, we could go home, pack up, head to Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin at Lake Chelan—”

  “I just really wanted to have someone stay the night at our house. Play at our house.” She’s pressing her towel back to her mouth, chewing relentlessly on the corner. “I just think it’d be fun.”

  For the first time in a while, I see the world as a nine-year-old, not a thirty-six-year-old, and she’s right. A sleep-over would be fun.

  That night, Eva sleeps with me in my bed. We’re calling it a “slumber party,” and I’m trying hard to make it different from the other nights Eva’s crept into bed with me because she’s lonely or had bad dreams.

  For the first few years of Eva’s life, she slept with me or in a crib next to my bed. From the very beginning, it was just the two of us, and I couldn’t bear to put her in a separate room. It was hard enough leaving her every day to go to work. I hated having her so far away at night. But then my insomnia returned, and I couldn’t sleep—would lie awake all night, fidgeting in the dark, trying not to wake Eva—and eventually I decided she was better off in her own room.

  But she’s back tonight, along with a stack of her ever-present bridal magazines, and we’re watching a Hilary Duff movie on cable and eating popcorn and hot-fudge sundaes; and even as Eva snuggles close, using my lap as a pillow, I know I’m a poor substitute for a best friend.

  Remembering my own best friends, I stroke her long hair; the black tangled strands that hang down her back are still chlorine rough. I should have made her wash her hair and condition it when we returned. But that’s so not my style. Instead I ordered out for barbecue chicken pizza. Trying to distract her. Trying to distract myself.

  Growing up, I had best friends, great friends, friends my parents hated.

  The corner of my mouth curls as I picture Sam and Chloe, friends who wanted to be as different as I did. Sam dressed punk and Chloe Goth, but both rode skateboards as I did before we got our driver’s licenses and went for funky muscle cars and barely running sports cars. We weren’t soft, pretty girls. We were too angry. Which is probably why I got shipped off to boarding school my senior year.

  Sending me to boarding school had been Dad’s idea. Dad was old school. A retired major from the Deep South. All his life, he wanted sons. In the end, all he got was me.

  Slowly, I untangle the tangles in Eva’s hair, hearing the movie dialogue but not listening. I understand what Eva wants, more than she knows.

  I never did get my dad’s approval, and I adored him for much of my life. But nothing I did was good enough, nothing was right. He wanted sweetness, goodness, charm, docility. And I wanted fire.

  Glancing down at Eva, I see the crescent of black lashes, the slight curve of future cheekbones, the full upper lip, and the firm, rounded chin.

  This, I think, is the child my father wanted. My fingertips trace Eva’s cool brow. This is the daughter he would have cherished, adored. A delicate girl. A brilliant yet eager-to-please child, one who could be molded into a southern belle, his idea of the ultimate beauty queen.

  The movie ends, and Eva scoots down beneath the sheet. It’s a hot night, and we’ve no air-conditioning, and even with a fan pointed at the bed, the air is still, hot, thick, heavy.

  “Mom?” Eva’s cheek nestles in the pillow, her feet reach out and wrap around my legs.

  With the window open and moonlight spilling, I can see her face. Her profile is pale, goddesslike in the dark. She was born with an old soul, and even though she’s nine, she’s mastered the pensive look perfectly, a troubled line etched between her brows. “What, baby?”

  “Do you think Jemma’s mom is pretty?”

  I feel like a cat with a hairball. I want to retch. Instead I touch that furrow between Eva’s eyebrows, willing it to go away. “Mmmm.”

  “I love her clothes, and her hair. I think she’s so stylish and pretty.”

  I can’t even come up with an appropriate answer, but fortunately, Eva doesn’t seem to need one.

  “You’d look beautiful in dresses and outfits like that, Mom. Don’t you think? You could be so beautiful if you tried.” Eva smiles up at me, and her smile brief
ly dazzles me with its innocence and hopefulness. Eva can be so serious, and then when she smiles it’s like the full moon at midnight. So big and wide, glowing with light.

  I lean toward her, kiss her. “I love you.”

  She’s quiet for a long time, and I think maybe she’s fallen asleep. But then a moment later she whispers, “So white would be okay? Because I saw the most beautiful dress for you, Mom. It looks like a ball gown—”

  “Don’t make me send you back to your room, Eva.”

  “Mom.”

  “You know weddings aren’t my thing. The whole idea of dressing up like a Madame Alexander doll and marching down an aisle while everyone watches curdles my stomach.”

  “That’s rude,” she protests, cold feet rubbing against my calves.

  “But it’s true, and Eva, you don’t have to get married to be happy.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s no reason to make fun of people who want to get married.”

  “I’m not making fun of them. I’m just saying, don’t try to be part of the pack. Be the wolf. It’s so much more fun.”

  Eva giggles. “You’re weird.”

  “I know, and I like it. Now go to sleep.”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  “Good night, my Eva.”

  Eva scoots closer and tucks her hand into mine. “You know what I want, Mom?” Her voice is pitched low, and it sounds strangely mature in the dark room.

  My fingers curl around hers. Her hand is warm and small in mine. “Please don’t mention weddings or marriage.”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then tell me. What do you want?”

  “I want Jemma to like me.”

  The pressure is back, a weight on my chest. I clear my throat. “I’m sure she does—”

  “No, she doesn’t.” She sighs softly, sounding far too old for her years, but maybe that’s what being an only child does to you. “I can tell she doesn’t like me. But maybe she’ll change her mind. You know. When she gets to know me.”

  I squeeze Eva’s hand tighter. “Let’s hope so.”