by Jane Porter
Eva barely speaks to me on the way home, so I call my dad to remind him that he and Mom were invited for a Labor Day barbecue on Monday.
He says he hasn’t forgotten and that Mom is looking forward to seeing us in a few days.
Mom. My mom, who used to play bridge, and once belonged to a million women’s civic clubs, and successfully used the school’s bake sale as a chance to prove her worth. Her cakes were always the fanciest, her cookies the best.
When I think of my mom, I still have this one picture from when I was a child. Mom and Dad were going out to a party, and she’s wearing this gorgeous white silk hand-painted kimono-style gown. It was the late 1970s, and it suited her. Full hair, long sleek gown with hand-brushed strokes, flames of yellow and orange, like a starburst or a jeweled candy. I remember shouting her name from the top of the stairs, and she turned in the doorway downstairs and looked up at me, and she was like a movie star. Beautiful dark hair piled high on her head, with dangly jeweled earrings and a gold clutch in her hand. Her eyes shimmered and her lips curved, and she was the most regal queen of all.
My mother.
My mother, who is losing her mind because of Alzheimer’s. And how is that fair? She was the main reason I took the job in Seattle and moved us across the country.
I remember all the things I used to throw in her face as a teenager. I remember how and why I left home, angry, bitter, too damn cool for wealthy suburbia with its Junior League meetings.
It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that I realized I wanted my mom, but I wanted her the way I wanted her, not the way she was. I wanted my mother to care about the things I cared about, to validate my view of the world. Not hers.
And the crazy thing is that now that she can’t talk to me about anything, I realize she wasn’t just a dumb beauty. She wasn’t a shallow mom. She simply didn’t talk about the things she felt very strongly about. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel. She just didn’t believe it was polite to show it. Tell it. Reveal it.
I get it now, but that doesn’t take away all my anger, because the problem is—and, yes, it’s my problem—she’s slowly dying, and we never really talked, never really shared, never really came to an understanding about anything. She was the impeccable wife of the CEO, and I was the hothead rebel daughter who lived in New York and smoked pot and enjoyed sexual intercourse.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you guys, too, Dad.” My voice suddenly has a lump in it, and I swallow hard. “It’ll be a fun barbecue. Nothing fancy, so we can all relax.”
“Sounds good, Marta. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.”
“You too. Bye, Dad.”
Hanging up, I glance at Eva. She still has her nose jutted in the air. My righteous little Mensa child. So brilliant at home. So socially pathetic at school.
“Grandma and Grandpa are coming over Monday for a Labor Day barbecue.”
“How’s Grandma feeling?” Eva asks, her tone softening. She’s amazing with my mom. Far more patient than I am or ever was.
“Okay, I guess. Grandpa didn’t really say.”
She nods and looks out the window, her brow creased again. Something’s on her mind, but she doesn’t talk about it and I don’t push her. She’s a bright girl, sensitive, and let’s face it, she’s got me for a mother and no father. Considering the odds stacked against her, I think she’s doing pretty well.
At home, I make lunch while Eva begins to sharpen the first of thirty-six number two pencils.
She’s sharpened only six in the electric sharpener, but my nose already itches and burns while thoughts of lead poisoning dance through my head.
“Why don’t you sharpen just one twelve-pack?” I suggest, making Eva her favorite sandwich, two slices of bland turkey with a smear of mayo on extremely white bread.
She doesn’t even look up as she jabs in the next pencil.
“We have to have all pencils sharpened.”
“But you can’t use all of them on the first day.”
“The school supply sheet said they had to be sharpened.”
I rest the mayo knife on the cutting board. “And it would just kill you to break a rule, wouldn’t it?”
She glares at me and pushes another pencil into the sharpener, measures the progress with what’s quickly becoming a practiced eye. After drawing out the pencil, Eva studies the tip, then puts it back in for another whirr, whirr, whirr.
Now sharpened, the pencil is returned to the box and she reaches for another.
I go back to finishing her sandwich.
I didn’t want to return to the Pacific Northwest, and I definitely didn’t want to live in suburbia. I love big cities, and none suited me better than Manhattan with its river of taxicabs and racing engines. I like the sirens at night and the bright lights and how just two blocks off one noisy street can be another all narrow and quiet, lined with the leafiest green trees.
The heavy humidity in summer suited me, and I never felt alone or lonely, not with the thousands of impatient pedestrians, not with the battles for cabs or the ridiculous cost of housing. All the things that made it hard were positives for me. All the difficulties were challenges I enjoyed meeting.
“Your lunch is ready,” I say, cutting her sandwich and putting it on the plate.
“Can I have an apple?”
“Yes.” I reach into the fruit basket beneath the counter.
Eva watches me slice the apple. “Are you going to the meeting today or not?”
“You really want me to go.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you ask me to brush my teeth.”
I put down the knife. “What?”
“Some things we do because we have to do them. That’s what you’re always telling me. Brushing your teeth, seeing the dentist, getting shots.” Eva presses the next pencil into the sharpener for what seems like an endless moment. But when she removes it, the point is perfect. She blows the dust off the tip and places it in the box. “Going to meetings is the same thing. You don’t like it, but they make things better.”
“For whom?”
“Everybody.” Her shoulders lift, fall. “You. Me. The school.”
I can see even more clearly the reason why Eva’s struggling socially. She doesn’t talk or think like a typical nine-year-old. She talks and thinks like a little adult. Because we’re alone together so much, Eva talks to me about everything, feels comfortable challenging me about anything, but then she gets to school and can’t find the right nine-year-old tone and banter. Girls her age gossip and whisper. Eva discusses culture, education, and politics.
My fault, I’m afraid.
She was born in New York, and we had a great apartment in TriBeCa. From the time she was a toddler, Eva went to preschool and then elementary school with children whose parents were as diverse as the names in the phone book, parents whose work ranged from jobs with nonprofits, to the struggling musician and artist, to coveted positions with the United Nations.
Now my East Coast Eva tries to fit in with children who view adventure as a four-star resort with twenty-four-hour room service and an eighteen-hole golf course.
“I’ll go,” I say, still leaning against the counter. “We’ll go. Happy?”
She beams at me and immediately starts cleaning up her pencil mess. “So what are you going to wear?”
“No.”
“No what?” she asks innocently, stacking the remaining boxes of unsharpened pencils on the counter by the phone.
“I’ll go to the meeting, Eva. But I’m going as I am.”
“Don’t you think you want to dress up a little?”
I know in her eyes I’m the mom who doesn’t volunteer very much in the classroom. I’m the mom who doesn’t know all the kids’ names. I’m the mom who sits alone at the country club pool. “I’m not going to dress to impress.”
“Other moms do.” She’s gotten the Formula 409 and a paper towel from under the sink and is spraying and wipin
g away all pencil residue.
“And if that works for them, great. It doesn’t work for me.”
She almost slams the 409 on the table. “Why not?”
My hands go up. “I think it’s fake.”
“Why? Because you want to make a good impression?”
“It’s more than that, Eva. It’s changing who you are just to satisfy others. It’s worrying about what people think—”
“Which is important—”
“No! No, it’s not.”
She stares at me long and hard.
She’s such a pack animal, and I appreciate her need to be part of a group, but there are dangers in a group. If you’re part of a pack, you must think like the pack and follow the pack leader, and I won’t do it. I’m not a follower. I’m a lone wolf. Leader of my own pack.
“I will go to the meeting,” I say more quietly as I carry our sandwiches to the table. “But I won’t change who I am.”
Chapter Four
The Young home is something straight out of Traditional Home or Renovation Home or perhaps that iconoclast Architectural Digest.
Like other houses circling low on the lake, it’s a big shingled house that rambles on a full acre with a huge green swath of grass that seems to unroll right into the lake itself.
“Mom,” Eva breathes, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the bright midafternoon sun. It’s clear and hot today and almost too dazzling with the sun shimmering off the lake.
This, I know, is Eva’s idea of paradise. In her mind, the only thing that could make the setting more perfect would be the addition of an outdoor wedding reception. She’s shown me her idea for my wedding. A big party tent. Strings of pink Japanese lanterns. Tuxedoed waiters.
“It is pretty here,” I say. Movies are filmed in locations like this, movies and the illustrations for books and magazines. I grew up across the lake in a big, proper house surrounded by other big, elegant houses, but these new shingled confections on the Eastside of Lake Washington are almost otherworldly with their fairy-tale touches of arbors and trellises, towers and cupolas. For a split second I have total house envy, thinking that anyone in a house like this must have such a beautiful life, a life blessed.
It is Taylor who opens the door, and her smile is wide, welcoming. She recognizes Eva and greets her by name.
Taylor’s wearing a white sleeveless sheath with aqua stitching around the square neckline and strappy sandals that show off sleek legs and pedicured toes. “The girls are upstairs, Eva,” she says, “in the media room, and they’ll be so happy to see you. If they’re not there, check the game room. They might be playing on the computer.”
Eva smiles and dashes up the stairs, and I wish I had an ounce of her enthusiasm as I trail after Taylor into the living room, where everyone has gathered with notebooks and pens.
Taylor introduces me around the room. There must be about twelve women there, but their names and faces are just a blur during the introductions, and they all seem to be the same—perfect tawny-haired bronzed mommies.
The kind who wear Prada loafers and 7 for All Mankind jeans.
The kind who have three-plus-carat rocks on their fingers.
The kind who wear size two clothes and call themselves fat.
The kind who dress their children in miniature designer duds.
I find the only empty seat, the piano bench pulled away from the baby grand in the corner, and sit down, still smiling and nodding, first to the woman on my right, a woman whose long hair hangs well past her shoulders, falling in soft Grace Kelly waves, a tiny bobby pin holding back the first sleek wave in a new-old school preppy sort of way. She’s wearing a snug tangerine knit tank cropped at a flat waist, belted dark narrow-legged jeans, and dark stylish expensive loafers. The bling-bling on her wedding finger sparkles so brightly, I turn to my left.
The woman to my left wears her dark blond hair just above her shoulders, and she’s got one side tucked behind her ear, revealing a diamond stud the size of my left nostril. She’s dressed in a sleeveless silk turtleneck, pencil slacks, and leather loafers.
Glancing down at my nineteen-dollar flip-flops, I realize I’m way underdressed for this meeting.
“Would you like something to drink?” Taylor offers.
Actually, I could use something to drink. Like a shot of chilled vodka or a good dirty martini. “Just show me where to go. I can help myself.”
“Absolutely not!” Taylor cries in mock horror. “Sit. I’ll bring it to you. What would you like?”
What would I like? I’d like to go, that’s what I’d like, I think, glancing around the enormous living room with the antique beams and the huge arched window with the multitude of true-light divided panes. I feel like a total fraud. This whole place is too pretty for me. This whole world is everything I never wanted.
I am not like these women. I don’t belong here. I don’t fit. And it’s not my flip-flops or the camo pants. It’s not that I rode a skateboard in high school or used to work on my own muscle car.
It’s me. Me.
I feel too rough, too raw, too strong, too emotional, too intense, too passionate. I feel real, wild, bordering on out of control.
And these other women, these neat, fashionable, slim, tanned, toned women, aren’t out of control. They’re together. They’re organized. They’re orderly.
“What do you have?” I ask, feeling increasingly awkward.
“We’ve everything,” Taylor answers as one of her friends appears at her elbow and hands her a cocktail. “Nathan’s made sure we have lots of girls drinks—pitchers of watermelon cosmos, chilled white wine, iced tea—it’s green sun tea—and sodas. Regular and diet.”
“Iced tea,” I say, going for the safe over sorry choice. Even though part of me would kill for a drink, I’m not comfortable enough here to have one, not at four in the afternoon and not when I still have work to do later.
Taylor’s friend disappears to fetch the drink, and I try to sit on my piano bench and look confident and comfortable.
When Taylor’s friend returns with my iced tea, the tall glass ornamented with a thin lemon slice, I thank her, smiling as widely as I can, trying to be charming. I keep thinking charming thoughts, pretend I’m Maria from West Side Story rather than one of those tragic circus sideshow freaks in the novel Geek Love. That’s a sad book, very twisted, and not the thing to be thinking about as I sit here trying to look as if I belong.
Finally Taylor calls the meeting to order, and everyone applauds her. I’m not sure why they’re applauding, but I clap once or twice, too. Then Paige’s mom—Lani? Dana?—reads the letter sent to the school superintendent along with all the families who signed the bottom. There must be at least twenty signatures, and some of the names are familiar from the school bulletins and the notes from Eva’s room mother, but with the exception of Paige’s and Jemma’s moms, I don’t know who is who.
Must get better at this.
Must make a bigger effort.
It was fine to be a stranger when we first moved here. It was fine to be an outsider when Eva started third grade last year. But it’s been months. This is supposed to be home. This is where we live.
I want to be a good mom, I really do. I want Eva to make friends and be happy—popular—and I’m here resolved to get more involved. The discussion moves from the unfairness of the decision to bus little five-year-olds to another school, to the concern over mixing children from two different schools in one classroom, to the auction money raised last year, which is now under attack. Apparently, the parents representing the Lakes school feel entitled to a portion (one-sixth is the number mentioned) of the funds raised last spring since they are going to have to spend some of their money on “our” kids. My smile becomes increasingly stiff.
It’s not that I don’t want to care about their concerns, but there are so many real worries in the world, and I can’t help thinking this isn’t one.
I’ll walk/run to aid cancer research. ALS. Diabetes. And my new favorit
e, thanks to my mom, Alzheimer’s.
Better yet, I’ll donate for the poor in my own community, those who live on the other side of Bellevue, families confronted by crisis, poverty, and change. Women, children, and families in need of shelter, transitional housing, protection from domestic violence, literacy education, and health care.
In short, I think we in our cushy community have enough. Our own children have enough. When will we fight as hard for other women’s children?
When will we see we’re all in this together? What about everyone else?
Suddenly, I can’t stay another minute. I can’t watch ladies talk about fighting with their school district over a temporary situation when there are huge, urgent needs right at our door.
My mother and her friends were the same way. While I was in school, she organized endless bake sales, car washes, raffles, dinner dances . . . for what end? So she could make sure her child had more? A bigger piece of the pie?
My mom said I was ungrateful, but I don’t see how she could think I’d enjoy more pie when others were starving.
Taylor sees me shifting in my chair. “Marta? Were you wanting to say something?”
No.
Yes.
I uncross my legs, sit tall, try to manage my expression so I’m warm, supportive, nonthreatening. But the moment I open my mouth, the words come out too clear, too strong, too blunt. “What about all the other children? What about the kids in Crossroads? The kids without two parents or where both parents work? Why don’t we donate some of our money there? Why don’t we help them?”
My words are greeted by strained silence, and then Taylor smiles pleasantly and smoothes her short skirt over her long, tan legs. “We hold the school auctions to help pay for classroom aides. It’s one of the ways we keep our teacher-to-student ratio low and ensure that all children get more teacher attention.”
“All children in our school.”
Taylor’s brown eyes hold my own. She’s still smiling, but underneath I feel a tough, “don’t mess with me” tension. “It’s not as if they can’t do what we’re doing. They could have their own school auctions. They could do the wrapping paper sales and walk-a-thon, too. It’s not that hard.”
