Odd Mom Out

by Jane Porter

  Chapter Two

  Eva’s shaking my shoulder and talking too fast. “Mom, Mom, Mom. The class lists! They should be up. Wake up.”

  I squeeze my eyes tighter and try to roll away from her. I roll right onto a crumpled magazine. I reach for her magazine and shove it off the bed. “Eva, why do you do this to me?”

  “You have to wake up sooner or later. Might as well wake up now. The class lists are up. We’ve got to go check it out.”

  “And this is why you’re waking me up?”

  She climbs over me, her knobby knee banging my hip, and puts her face in front of mine, her long hair falling on my cheek. “We’ve got to find out who my teacher is and get my class supplies. It’s already Saturday. School starts in three days, and I’ve got to get organized.”

  Another curious difference between us, I think, slowly opening one eye to peer at her. I hated school, and Eva loves it. She excels academically, reads and writes as if she’s fifteen instead of nine, and aces every test.

  “Mom. Get. Up.” Eva impatiently rips back the covers.

  The early morning air is way too chilly for that, and I yank the covers back. “What time is it?”

  “Almost seven.”

  Glancing past her, I see the clock next to my bed. Six twenty-three. Arrrgh. “You lie. It’s not even six-thirty.”

  “You might as well get up. With school starting soon, we’ve got to get on a routine again. Get back to normal.”

  Normal? Routine? Schedule? Whose kid is this?

  Growling, I bury my head under my pillow. “Give me another half hour. I need a half hour. Okay?”

  And Eva, my delicious little daughter, agrees and returns to wake me up at six forty-five on the dot.

  I see the red numbers on the alarm clock, and so does she, but Eva just grins, happy to rob me of fifteen minutes if it means she wins.

  As soon as Eva sees me up, she bounds out of the bedroom, long legs flying. I’m moving much more slowly, and I stumble toward the kitchen to start the coffee.

  Leaning on the counter, newspaper spread out in front of me, I scan the headlines as the coffee brews.

  “Are you going to go for a run?” Eva asks, taking the DVD of Father of the Bride off pause.

  She’s watched that movie a dozen times this summer, along with her other summer faves: Runaway Bride, The Princess Bride, My Best Friend’s Wedding, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Wedding Planner, and let’s not forget Four Weddings and a Funeral.

  As Steve Martin’s emotion-choked voice fills the room, I close my eyes. “I will run if you insist on watching this again.”

  Eva temporarily mutes the sound. “But there’s nowhere else to watch it, Mom, this is our only TV.”

  “Maybe you don’t need to watch it.”

  “Maybe you need to run.”

  Maybe I do.

  Grumpily, I head to my room and change into shorts, a T-shirt, and my running shoes before strapping my iPod on one arm and my cell phone on the other.

  I reappear to say good-bye to Eva. She beams at me, sinks deeper into the couch cushions. “Have a good run.”

  “I’ve got my phone. Call—”

  “I know. I know the number. I know the house will be locked. I know what to do.” She waves me toward the door. “Now go. The best part of the movie is coming up.”

  I glance at the screen. Steve’s about to cry. This is definitely my exit cue.

  Opening the door, I’m confronted by the morning fog. In summer, we often get a marine layer that blankets the city and lake with a soupy gray mist. I know it’ll burn off later, but it doesn’t make me think fun run.

  “It’s icky,” I call to Eva, who knows already because she was the one who brought in the newspaper earlier.

  “Then come back and watch the movie with me. It’s coming up to the best part.”

  Eva knows how to get me moving. “I’ll be back in twenty-five.”

  “Bye.”

  Outside, I start slowly until I wake up properly. I don’t run as often as I used to. I used to run a lot in Manhattan, meeting up with Shey in Central Park. Whenever Tiana was in town, we made her run with us, too. And running was good for us, made us feel powerful. Strong. The point of exercise isn’t to make you skinny, but to armor your mind. We are fierce, tough, warrior women. We are not fragile or helpless. We do not need to lean on anyone. In fact, the world leans on us.

  With my iPod on, I’m able to maintain a quick tempo, and as I run I take deep breaths to try to clear my head, help me relax.

  At the corner, I pause, glance in both directions, and start to cross when suddenly a black Hummer appears from nowhere, brakes hard, and lays on the horn.

  The horn jolts me, but what pisses me off is that the driver of the Hummer ran the stop sign. It didn’t even come to a full stop, just barely slowed before nearly mowing me over.

  As the Hummer passes, I see the driver, a skinny blonde, on a cell phone.

  I’m tempted to shout at her to be careful, but I know it won’t do any good. Skinny blondes in Hummers don’t have the best listening skills.

  Instead I quicken my speed, pushing myself to go a little faster than usual to burn off my anger.

  So many of the women around here seem so oblivious to real life, preoccupied as they are by perfect hair, teeth, and nails.

  Must be nice to have a rich husband who takes care of all your needs.

  Almost immediately, I picture Taylor in her cute tennis skirt. Taylor didn’t take the day off work to be at the pool. Being at the pool—and on the tennis court and in the gym—is Taylor’s job.

  Disgusted, I turn toward home, running along 84th Street, heading toward Points Drive, when I’m passed by a man who is running, too. He’s huge, head and shoulders taller than me, and I’m not short.

  As he moves in front of me, his head turns ever so slightly and his gaze briefly meets mine.

  Light eyes, an intense expression. Hard jaw. A face that’s more chiseled than beautiful.

  I shiver a little as he takes the lead. He’s wearing long baggy shorts and a navy long-sleeved T-shirt, yet he’s so big, so thickly muscled, I imagine he’s got to be a professional athlete. Maybe one of the Seattle Seahawks or perhaps a Mariner.

  Either way, he’s definitely amazing, and as he disappears into the fog in front of me, I slow, suddenly light-headed, almost dizzy.

  I slow even more and then stop running altogether. For a moment I just stand there, hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath. And my breathlessness has nothing to do with my physical conditioning.

  Eventually, I start jogging again and head for home. Back at the house, everything is just as I left it, and Eva’s still on the couch, watching the end of her movie.

  Our Yarrow Point house isn’t huge, but it’s got a modern floor plan with a soaring ceiling—no formal living room, just a great room with kitchen, family room, and dining room all combined—and I love it because I can see Eva no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

  I kick off my running shoes, leaving them by the front door, and after stripping off my socks head into the kitchen. Without looking away from the TV, Eva asks, “Good run?”

  “Yes.”

  “See anybody?”

  I think of the man who passed me, the man of mythic proportions. “No.” I reach into the glass-fronted cabinet for one of my thick, hand-painted pottery mugs I bought in Mexico aeons ago. “There was a lady who nearly ran me over, though.”

  “Was she putting on makeup?”

  “Talking on her cell.”

  “Typical,” Eva drawls, and then looks at me. “So. Are you almost ready to go?”

  “Go where? I just got back,” I answer, filling the mug with coffee.

  “To the school.”

  “It’s early. And I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

  “You can pour it in one of those travel mugs.”

  “I can drink it here.”

  “Mom—”

  “Eva.”

  �
�I’m just saying—”

  “And I’m just saying there’s eager and there’s absurd. You can be eager, but you can’t be absurd, okay?”

  She makes a humphy sound and twirls the tips of her long ponytail around her fingers. “So when will we go?”

  “Nine.”

  “Nine?” Her voice rises an octave. “And what will I do until then?”

  “You haven’t watched Monsoon Wedding lately.” I smile, grab my coffee, and head through the back door into the garden and to the office studio at the back. Once upon a time, I kept a laptop on the kitchen counter, but I ended up checking e-mail way too many times in the evenings and weekends, so now all e-mail happens in the office studio.

  The office studio is why I bought this house, although the studio was in shambles, with a leaking roof and small dark windows that didn’t get any light.

  I use the hidden key to unlock the studio door, then put the key back and flick on the lights. I’m just booting up my computer when Eva appears in the office doorway. “You said you were taking the weekend off!”

  “I am,” I say, typing in my password before dropping into my chair. “And working isn’t checking e-mail. Checking e-mail is checking e-mail.”

  “You spend hours doing e-mail.”

  “That’s business these days, baby.”

  “Mooooom.”

  I glance up, grimace. “I know, sweetheart, but this is what I do. This is part of my job, and I won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”

  “You always say that—”

  “Eva. This is how I pay the bills, and you said you liked me working from home instead of at an office downtown. You said you’d rather me work from here because then you wouldn’t have to go to day care.”

  “But it’s Saturday.”

  “Lots of people work Saturday.”

  Eva sighs dramatically and marches back to the house. I watch her go, trying not to feel guilty. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m a single mom. I have to work. But maybe I feel guilty because most of the time I like working.

  In New York, I was a vice president at the huge ad agency Keller & Klein, and when they approached me about opening a West Coast branch for them, I jumped at the opportunity. It was a huge honor as well as a risk, and I craved both.

  Unfortunately, Keller & Klein got bought by a big German media conglomerate shortly after we moved to Seattle. The German media giant shut down the Seattle office, and that’s how I ended up starting my own company, Z Design.

  I couldn’t yank Eva out of school once again, and not away from her grandparents. She’s still just getting to know them, and now she knows Mom is sick.

  It’s good, owning my own business. The hours are long, but I’m living my dream. I’ve a great staff, a thriving company, and financial stability. What more could I want?

  Outside, the fog is beginning to lift and a brave bee buzzes around the potted roses. I catch a whiff of the herbs—mint and lavender—planted outside the studio door, and after hitting send and receive, I wait for the e-mail to download.

  I love summer. I love sleeping in and the slow mornings where Eva can sprawl on the floor and watch her movies or cartoons while I have my coffee and do my thing. So many moms seem relieved when summer ends and their kids go back to school, but I dread the start of the school year. Sure, I accomplish more when Eva’s in school, but I resent how the school system superimposes its schedule on ours, limiting our trips, our adventures, Eva’s and my time together.

  I’ve thirty, forty e-mails, with nearly half being spam. I delete those and then skim through the rest of the e-mail. Nothing seems to require immediate attention, and I happily forward several to my staff members for them to handle. Eva thinks I love e-mail. She doesn’t realize it’s a necessary evil.

  But she is right about me not working today. I’ve promised to take the weekend off. It’s our last weekend before school starts on Tuesday, and Eva and I didn’t have enough time together this summer. I ended up working far more hours than I’d anticipated.

  Sipping my coffee, I breeze through the various e-zines and business bulletins that I skipped yesterday because of lack of time. I’m still reading one of the bulletins when the studio phone rings.

  “Marta, Frank here. How are you?”

  Frank is Frank Deavers, one of the former executive vice presidents of Harley-Davidson who’d left Harley a few years ago to do his own thing. I’d worked with Frank on some small jobs for Harley, but Keller & Klein wasn’t the right agency for Harley and they took their account elsewhere.

  In the meantime, Frank and I remained friends, catching up by phone or e-mail every couple of months. Frank knew I owned a Harley but dreamed of owning a restored Indian or Freedom bike one day.

  “Found that Freedom bike yet?” he asks.

  “Have you found your Indian?”

  “They are opening an Indian factory in North Carolina.”

  “Heard that.” I draw the blinds in the studio, brightening the office. Until the rest of the fog burns off, it’ll be rather gloomy outside.

  “Did you hear Freedom’s building a factory in your neck of the woods?”

  I sit at the edge of my desk. “Here in Seattle?”

  “Apparently they’ve found some land outside of Renton, and with the various Boeing layoffs they believe they’ve got the skilled workforce needed.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Completely.”

  Wow. I love, love, love the old bikes and have dreamed of putting together a vintage Freedom chopper, but that will be a labor of love, as well as some significant money.

  “I’ve signed on with Freedom to handle franchising and merchandising.”

  If you don’t love bikes, you won’t know what this means, but it’s huge. It’s wonderful. Bike lovers have dreamed about the day the legendary bikes like Indian, Victory, Triumph, and Freedom will be manufactured again. There’s nothing wrong with Harley or any of the Japanese motorcycles, but it’s like having only two car companies to choose from—Honda and Chevy.

  Car aficionados want choices. Consumers want choices. Bike lovers want choices.

  “But we’re talking years, right?” I ask, trying not to get ahead of myself too much with bike fantasies.

  “We’re unveiling our first bike in January, in a thirty-second TV spot during the Super Bowl.”

  I’m shocked, and thrilled, and impressed. This is great news, and I’m already thinking how I can get a piece of the action for us at Z Design. “That’s expensive.”

  “We’re going to do this right.”

  There are so many questions I want to ask, so many things I want to know. “You’ll have bikes in production by then?”

  “We’ll be taking orders. The first bikes will roll out late April, early May.”

  “Just in time for summer.” Damn. I really want to be involved. Working with Freedom Bikes wouldn’t be merely revenue, it would be a chance to work with a product I enjoy, an opportunity to support something I believe in.

  “So, Frank, did you call just to torment me, or are you going to tell me there’s a way I can be part of this? Because you’ve got to know I want to be part of this. How many years have I known you? Six? Seven? And we’ve shared how many bike stories?”

  “I know.” He pauses, hesitates. “So how’s business going?”

  I notice he didn’t answer my question, but that’s okay. Advertising’s always a cat-and-mouse game. Fortunately, I’m a very patient kitty. “Good. We’re handling some significant regional and national accounts.”

  “How significant?”

  “What’s that?”

  “How big are the big accounts? What are you dealing with nationally?”

  “You want my client list, Frank?”

  “I want to know if you’ve got the balls to handle the launch of Freedom Bikes.”

  My heart races. I’m practically salivating. If Frank weren’t twenty years older than me with a wonderful wife and three kids, I think I’d fall for
him. “What’s the bottom line? What do I need to do? Who do I need to win over?”

  He chuckles, his deep, rough voice growing rougher. “All of them.”

  “Who is my competition?”

  “Everyone.”

  Sounds like my idea of fun. “Frank, count me in.”

  “We’re in Seattle in a week or so to tour the job site and sign leases on our downtown office space. I want to introduce you to the executive committee then. It’s not the time to present anything conceptually, but I’d like you to come to dinner, meet folks, put faces with names.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “I’ll have my secretary e-mail you Tuesday with the details. Make sure you save the date.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  “Marta, I’d love it if it worked out, but this is a long shot. I don’t want you disappointed if it doesn’t happen.”

  I would be disappointed. Beyond disappointed. “Why is it such a long shot, Frank?”

  “Don’t make me state the obvious.”

  “Because I own a Harley?”

  He laughs, deep guffaws that make me smile. “Yeah, and it has nothing to do with you being a woman.”

  “Being a woman just makes me better.”

  “I know that. But we’re talking about the bike industry.”

  I know. Macho, male dominated, no room for women at the top. Just at the bottom. Underneath ’em. Right where men like to keep ’em. “Frank, you can’t scare me.”

  “So let’s just take it a step at a time and see what happens.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  I hang up the phone and smile at nothing in particular. Frank just made my day.

  Two hours later, Eva finally gets us to Points Elementary to check out the class list. She bounds out of the car, and I trail behind more slowly, still thinking about Frank’s call.

  I want to be part of the Freedom Bikes ad campaign. I want to be involved.

  Despite it being a Saturday morning, there’s an impressive crowd grouped in front of the school office window where the class lists have been posted. Eva’s pushed toward the front to get a look at the fourth-grade class sheet.

  I’m learning here in Bellevue that class assignments determine the kind of year it’s going to be, and it’s not only the teacher who influences the class but the kids in the class as well.