Odd Mom Out

by Jane Porter

  Something wakes me up, some pain in my stomach, and I sit up in bed.

  I lunge to my bathroom and take a crouching position before the toilet. Beads of perspiration form on my upper lip. My head is hot and then cool. I’ve got a fever and—oh no, I’m going to be sick soon. The gross feeling is getting worse.

  I see Eva’s shadow just as I start to retch. My eyes burn and tear with the acid bitterness. My nose burns, and my throat’s raw and on fire.

  And just when I think it’s all over, it starts again.

  I’m nearly crying when Eva pushes a cool, damp washcloth into my hand. “Here, Mom, wipe your face. It helps.”

  I look up at her, grimace at the acid burning in my nose and mouth. Yet with her standing there, smiling bravely at me, I think she’s right. A cool washcloth always helps.

  “Thanks, baby,” I croak even as my stomach starts churning again.

  “Can I do anything?” she asks.

  I don’t want her here to watch me barf. It’s bad enough going through it myself. “No, baby, just go back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She kisses the top of my head and leaves, and not a moment too soon. As she closes my door, I clutch the toilet, gag, and am sick all over again.

  Tiana wakes me up the next morning with a phone call. I drag myself out of bed to grab the phone from the bedside table. “Hey,” I croak into the receiver. “How are you?”

  “Better than you. You sound like hell, Marta. You okay?”

  “I’ve got the flu. Was up most of the night.” I shudder just remembering.

  “Yuck, poor thing. A bug’s been going around the studio here, but I’ve missed it, thank God.” She pauses. “I won’t keep you long, then, but thought I’d check. I have a chance to interview Laura Bush. She’s stumping with the president, and they’re going to be making a last minute campaign sweep through the West Coast, ending in Seattle. Hoped I’d have a chance to see you if I came up.”

  “When is it?”

  “End of next week. Will you be around?”

  “Definitely. I’m not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.”

  “Okay. I’ll call back and set something up with you once the trip details are finalized.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. Now take care of yourself and get rid of that bug. Hear me?”

  “Hear you loud and clear, Tits.” She laughs, and I even manage a shaky grin as we say good-bye and hang up.

  But once I hang up, my eyes feel scratchy and I feel horribly emotional. I feel like crap. I can’t drag myself from bed. But I can’t stay here feeling bad, either. I’ve got Eva, and even if I feel like death warmed over, I still have to take care of her.

  Monday morning, Eva’s planning on going to school, and I’ve snuck out for a very slow run. I still don’t feel a hundred percent, and it could be the stress I’m feeling regarding work and cutting short the Freedom Bike Group meeting.

  I know it’s impossible to have everything. I know professional moms have to juggle their responsibilities at home and work. But even after nine years, it doesn’t get easier.

  When Eva’s sick, I miss work. When Eva has a school holiday, I miss work. When Eva needs extra homework help, I miss work.

  But what else can I do? Hire a nanny again? Someone to step in and be a surrogate me?

  Today I run, albeit slowly, to quiet the tumultuous voices inside me, the ones that make me frightened instead of fearless. I’m running to remind myself that I won’t be afraid. I won’t be timid. I won’t be intimidated by life.

  As I run, I repeat a silly mantra, but it helps. It works. The mantra goes like this: I like challenges. I welcome the unknown. I welcome change. I can handle anything. I can do anything. I’m wonderful at what I do.

  It sounds funny when you say it aloud, but as I run, with the music playing in my earphones and my feet hitting the pavement, one step after another, it makes a difference. It reminds me to take the risks I need to take to do what I want to do.

  I’ve traveled down Points Drive to 84th, 84th to 8th Street, and then 8th to 92nd, and I’m on my way home, approaching the stop sign at 24th Street, when I see a beaten-up stone-colored Land Rover coming toward me.

  My heart does a funny free fall, and I go cold all over. I know that Land Rover, and I recognize the massive arm resting on the door.

  I try to speed up, to pass the Land Rover more quickly, but a squirrel dashes across the road and then stops abruptly in the middle, forgetting why it’s running in the first place.

  Luke brakes before he reaches the squirrel, braking nearly next to me.

  I try not to look at the Land Rover, and I definitely don’t want to make eye contact with Luke, but it’s way too awkward not to.

  In the early morning light, the interior of his vehicle is dark, but as I pass him, Luke turns his head and I see him.

  His gaze fixes on me, and it’s the same direct gaze it’s always been. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt, and there’s dark color high in his cheekbones and his hair is damp, as though he’s just been working out.

  He looks at me with that steady, long, unsmiling gaze of his, yet his pale blue eyes always make me think of heat. Fire.

  “Hey,” I say, nodding and trying to smile even as I push a long dark strand of hair back from my face. My hand is suddenly shaking, and I realize the lower half of me is, too. I’m nervous, and I don’t even know why.

  “How are you?” he asks, leaning slightly out the window.

  “Good,” I answer briskly. I will myself to start running again, but my legs don’t move.

  “How’s work?”

  “Great,” I say even more brightly, yet I don’t feel good right now, I feel bad. I feel . . . hurt. He never called. He never e-mailed. He just pursued me and then, after taking me out for dinner, kind of dropped me. “And you? How are things in your world?”

  “Uh, good. Busy. I just got back from three weeks in China.”

  Three weeks in China? Has he been there ever since our dinner? “When did you get back?”

  “Last night.” A car appears behind Luke’s Land Rover, and with a glance into his rearview mirror, he pulls over onto the side of the road.

  I slowly approach his driver’s-side door. “I didn’t know you were heading to China.”

  He grimaces, runs a hand through his short, reddish gold hair, spiking it on end. “I didn’t either. A problem popped up the night we were out to dinner. I was on the first plane out in the morning.”

  I nod, but I’m still upset, which is silly. My ego can’t be this fragile. “So that’s why you didn’t call?”

  I don’t know if it’s the flinty note in my voice or my question, but Luke arches one eyebrow. “Was I supposed to?”

  I’ve given myself away, revealed that I do care and that my feelings were hurt. How mortifying. I usually play my cards closer to my chest.

  “You could have called me,” he adds. “Or e-mailed.”

  “I don’t have your e-mail address,” I say flatly. “And I don’t call men.”

  “That’s old-fashioned.”

  I glance at my watch, checking the time I’ve been gone. It’s nearly half an hour since I left for my run. “Eva’s home alone. I better get back.”

  But Luke doesn’t let me off the hook so easily. “You wanted to go out again?”

  I turn and look at him. His expression is hard, almost fierce, and my heart gallops off like a high-strung horse.

  “I enjoyed your company,” I say simply. “But at the same time, I don’t want to lead you on.”

  The edge of his mouth quirks, and his blue gaze hardens. “Do you always put the cart before the horse, Marta?”

  My face flames. I deserved that. I struggle to find the right note. “I just don’t like wasting time—yours or anybody else’s.”

  “Spending time with friends is never a waste.”

  A lump fills my throat. “I’m a friend?”

  He
gives me a penetrating look. “What do you think?”

  I have to go now. I’m feeling disgustingly emotional. “Maybe coffee this week?”

  Luke releases the clutch. “You call me.”

  “But—”

  He shakes his head, cutting me short. “You want to see me, you call me.” He takes off.

  I watch his Land Rover disappear and then force myself to move again. My legs feel impossibly heavy, though, and the run home is hard.

  I tell myself it’s the morning mist that makes the run feel extra long. I mentally add that I’m still recovering from the flu. But the truth is, it’s Luke and the conversation we’ve just had.

  I do want to see him. I’d love nothing more than to meet him for a cup of coffee. But call him? I haven’t called a man, pursued a man, in so many years that I don’t think I can anymore.

  Outside my house, I lean against the wall and stretch my hamstrings. My muscles feel tight, and my mind keeps replaying the conversation with Luke.

  Should I be offended or encouraged that he wants me to call him?

  Does it make sense to call him?

  God, I don’t know, and frankly, I hate the way I obsess about him. I dwell on him way too much. And it’s not my cavewoman wiring telling me to mate. It’s not. It can’t be.

  I’m not a cavewoman, and he’s not a caveman. We’re both modern people, and I happen to be one very independent, self-sufficient person.

  If I call him, it’s because I want to call him, not because my brain is flooded with testosterone, dopamine, and oxytocin.

  As I enter the house, I kick off my running shoes and then leave them inside the door before padding in socks to the kitchen, where I spot Eva curled up on the couch, dressed for school and watching TV. “I’ve already had breakfast, Mom.”

  “Good girl.” I reach up for a coffee mug. “I’ll make your lunch now. Just give me a sec.”

  “I already made that, too,” she answers primly, yet I detect a smile at her mouth and eyes. She’s pleased with herself. She should be. She’s a remarkable girl.

  And just like that, it hits me: She should have more.

  She deserves a dad, someone else to love her, dote on her. She’d be an amazing big sister, too.

  I fight guilt as well as some serious confusion as I doctor my coffee. After nine years of supposed contentment, I’m not so sure our two-person family is the way it’s supposed to be.

  I’m not so sure—big breath here—that I’m as happy being a single mom as I let on.

  Lately I feel almost empty, physically empty, my arms and legs heavy, my body weighted.

  Lately I miss, deeply miss, being held.

  Lately I want someone for me—an adult, an equal, a partner.

  I don’t know if it’s the affluent suburb I live in or if it’s meeting Luke, but I’m questioning everything these days, including all those decisions I made years ago.

  But what about Eva?

  I watch her watching TV, and I feel a wave of total love followed by total fear.

  I’m scared because if this relationship with Luke continues . . . and should it work out—a long shot, I know, but that’s how I look at life—it won’t be just Eva and me any longer, it won’t be “the two of us,” but the three of us, and just possibly one day the four and five of us.

  If I keep seeing Luke, if things get more serious, it will change everything, including Eva. Including me.

  Right now, Eva says she wants our lives changed, she says she wants a “real family,” meaning a mom and a dad, brothers and sisters, but what if she gets the traditional family and discovers she hates it?

  What if she hates me for falling in love with someone else?

  Last week Chris gave me a very brief update about how the rest of the presentation to the Freedom Group went, but today, with my head clear, I want a more in-depth report. Chris and I spend an hour talking and I can tell he’s still angry with me, but I refuse to buy into his guilt trip. Instead I focus on the positives and turn my attention to the rest of day.

  I end up getting through the day on adrenaline and caffeine, trying hard to get three tasks done at once, if only to keep myself from thinking about Luke.

  I am not going to call him. I am not going to reach out to him.

  But it’s just coffee, the sadistic devil on my shoulder tempts me.

  You know you want more than coffee, the devil on my other shoulder reminds me.

  I do want more than coffee. I want sex.

  I finish the workday, make dinner, and then later, while Eva draws, I paint.

  Painting often calms me, but tonight it does nothing for my equilibrium. I feel as though I’m wound so tight that I could snap any minute.

  My dreams that night are just as perverse.

  That evening as I sleep, I dream darkly colored dreams of Luke. In the dream I see him clearly, elbow, shoulder, jaw, face.

  In the dream I feel the intensity of his gaze, that way he looks at me, as though he can see something I can’t see.

  It’s long ago, what must be the Middle Ages, and I’m locked in a high tower, awaiting execution. I don’t know why I’m to be executed. I don’t know what I did, and no one tells me anything.

  In my dream they come for me, the executioner in his big black robe. I grab at the bars of my tower cell, but the executioner is stronger and he drags me away.

  I wake just as the blade comes down toward my neck. I wake and discover I’m damp with sweat and nearly frozen from fear and panic.

  It’s just a dream, I tell myself, just a dream.

  But it takes me a long time to fall back asleep, nearly an hour of staring numbly at my clock.

  Was my dream telling me I couldn’t do it alone, or was my dream telling me I could but I didn’t want to?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Luke calls the next morning. “Am I interrupting?” he asks, his voice even deeper and sexier than I remembered.

  “No.” I sit down quickly at my desk. Robert and Chris left the studio a half hour ago for a meeting with a client, and Allie’s at Kinko’s getting artwork enlarged, so I’m actually alone for once. “How are you?”

  “Jet-lagged, but I’ll survive. And while it’s fresh on my mind, I thought I’d call and give you my cell number. I realized I’d never given it to you, and perhaps that’s why you find it difficult to call me.”

  I smile as he talks. He’s so stunningly alpha and so sure of himself. With such smooth moves, he must have been amazing on the basketball court. “You’ve got to be in sales,” I say.

  “Aren’t we all?” he retorts.

  “Okay, I’ve got a pen. Why don’t you give me your number.”

  He relays the number to me, nice and slow. Still smiling at his skillful handling of all things related to me, I ask as casually as possible if he’s got time for coffee this week.

  “You really love coffee,” he answers deadpan.

  I smile wider. My cheeks actually hurt. “I’ve got to be careful and take things slow.”

  “You’re a tease.”

  “I’m not. I’m serious. You strike me as quite dangerous.”

  “And coffee’s slow?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “Lots of people consider coffee an aphrodisiac.”

  “Medieval Turks,” I say.

  “I should have known. You’re an expert at trivia.”

  I roll my eyes. “I have a coffee client. I make it my business to know everything I can about my client’s products.”

  “That’d be a lot of research.”

  “One of my favorite things about my job.”

  “So let’s get a coffee today. Noon—”

  “That’s lunch.”

  “You don’t have to eat. You can just sip your caffeine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Or we could go to one of my favorite Indian restaurants and you can eat a proper lunch.”

  “I do like Indian food.”

  “Great. Moghul Palace. Noon. See you there
.” And he rings off.

  I sit and stare at the phone in my hand, a bit dazed but also impressed. Nice work, Luke Flynn. We’re having our second date.

  I’m at Moghul Palace five minutes before noon, and there’s a line all the way out the door. The restaurant is very popular, and the downtown business crowd loves this place for lunch.

  Luke, however, is already inside and has secured us a table on the upper level among the booths lining the wall.

  We sit facing each other, and I slide the menu closer to me even as his long legs bump against mine beneath the table.

  “Sorry,” he apologizes, yet his smile is faintly wicked and I know he’s not sorry at all. He picks up his menu, opens it, and then shuts it almost as fast. “What do you like? Samosas, paneer masala, tandoori shrimp, naan?”

  I don’t even bother to open my menu. “All of the above.”

  “That makes it easy.”

  Luke knows the owner well and orders vegetable samosas, tikka kebabs, tandoori shrimp, masala, and the restaurant’s nutty naan. It’s more food than the two of us could possibly eat, but Luke doesn’t seem to mind. I don’t, either. I’m starving, and as on our first date, I have no problem eating with him sitting across from me.

  “So good,” I say, munching on one of the juicy shrimp. “I don’t know why I don’t come here more. It’s great food.”

  “Does your daughter like Indian food?”

  I think for a minute. “Yes, she does. And Thai food. Greek. Korean. Vietnamese. She grew up on takeout. We don’t eat out here as much. I hate having to drive every time we want to go out. In New York we just walked.”

  “How long did you live in New York?”

  “Fourteen years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “It was home.”

  “So what brought you to this area?”

  “Work. And family.” I catch his expression. He’s curious, and taking a breath, I attempt to explain. “I was raised in Seattle but hated it. Laurelhurst was a bit posh for me, so after high school I headed to the Big Apple and stayed there until Keller and Klein, the ad agency I worked for, asked me to open a West Coast branch for them. I said yes, thinking the move would be good for my mother—and my daughter—so here I am.”