Odd Mom Out (6 page)

She delivers the information with a note of triumph, and I stare at her blankly. Obviously I’m missing the point. “Forever?”

“No, for the
year,
until the school board can figure out what to do with all the kids. Despite the remodel a couple years ago, Points Elementary has already outgrown its space, and so all the incoming kindergartners are going to be bused to Lakes Elementary.” She pauses, stares at me. “Can you believe it?”

“Bused,” I repeat, wondering why children are being bused to a school that is less than half a mile away from their own.

“Exactly! Those little children bused and then mixed with kindergartners from the other school. They’re not even being kept separate. No, Lakes teachers will be teaching Points kids, and Points teachers will be teaching Lakes kids—awful, that’s all I can say.”

“But it’s just for one year, isn’t it? And don’t most of the kids play on the same sports programs anyway? I know Eva’s soccer team last year had children from Enatai, Points, and the Lakes—”

“But families, siblings,
separated.
And now the Lakes wants one-sixth of our auction money, too. As if we wanted our children to attend their school!”

Now is one of those times I think I should read the Points school bulletins more closely or maybe attend a PTA meeting or tiptoe into the back-to-school brunch so I can put faces to names and learn the school news firsthand.

“There’s going to be a parent meeting today, before tonight’s beach picnic,” Lana continues. “It’s at Taylor’s house. You do know Taylor Young?”

“Oh yes.” I nod and smile. “I do.”

Eva is hanging on every word as well, and she nods furiously. “I do, too.”

Lana shoots Eva a condescending smile. “You know where Jemma lives, sweetie, don’t you?”

Eva and Jemma ride the school bus together every day. They even share the same bus stop. Not that Jemma ever talks to Eva, but, hey, just standing on the same corner as Jemma rocks Eva’s boat.

“Join us at the meeting,” Lana urges. “You’ll hear from the committee about what’s been done and what we still need to do. There’s no time to waste.”

With a glance at her watch, Lana shakes her head. “Oh dear, look at the time. Tennis in less than an hour. Have to hustle.” She points at me, jabs her finger. “Four o’clock at Taylor’s. If your husband can’t watch your daughter, she’s of course welcome to come. There will be other kids there.”

Now Lana wiggles her fingers in a wave and moves on.

Eva is staring after Lana Parker, her forehead furrowed. “Why did she keep saying ‘your husband’? Doesn’t she know that you’re not married and I don’t have a dad?”

“I guess not, and I didn’t feel like correcting her.”

“Why not?” she asks, turning to look at me. “Does it bother you?”

“No.” At least it didn’t bother me in New York.

“So tell her. It’s weird listening to her say ‘your husband, your husband.’ ”

“I will. Next time.”

Eva’s still looking at me. “We are going to Mrs. Young’s today, aren’t we?”

Going to Taylor Young’s? Going to a ridiculous committee meeting to protest kindergartners spending a year at another local elementary school, a school that leads the state in WASL scores? Do those women have no life? And is my daughter completely out of her mind?

“Go?” I ask her, my voice calm, clear, although on the inside I’m fairly frothing at the mouth. “I don’t think so.”

Eva deposits the space maker in the cart and faces me. “Why not?”

I hear that cool, steely tone, and it amazes me how Eva can sound so much like my mother. It’s one thing to hear your mother’s disapproval come from her lips. It’s quite another to hear it from your nine-year-old daughter.

I take a deep breath. “Because for one, I don’t agree with them. These moms are making a mountain out of a molehill—”

“They just want what’s best for their children.”

I stare at Eva and try to see who AS1V677 really was, AS1V677 being her sperm donor father.

I ordered AS1V677 off the Internet, choosing AS1V677 over the other sperm donors because (a) AS1V677 had a great résumé. He was thirty-two, raised in a big Jewish-Irish-Catholic family, had gone to William & Mary, played sports throughout high school and college, and was now a practicing pediatrician in upstate New York. And (b) AS1V677 was taller than me.

At nearly five ten, I’ve felt huge next to most women and have tended to tower over many male colleagues, so I thought it only fair that I give my offspring height, too.

Height and résumé aside, it didn’t hurt that AS1V677 was also described as very attractive, with blue eyes and thick, wavy brown hair.

But facing Eva, I’m not seeing that attractive element, I’m seeing stubbornness as well as a frightening need to play follow the leader.

“Eva, I hate committee meetings.”

“But you’re a mom. You’re supposed to do mom things.”

“Committees are mom things?”

“
Yes.
”

“Says who?”

She throws her hands into the air. “Everybody knows. Ask anybody here. They’ll tell you. Moms meet and . . . do things.”

Anybody here
being the choice words.

“What about working moms?” I ask her, leaning on the cart, fascinated by her view of mothers’ responsibilities. “When are they supposed to have time to attend all these meetings?”

“I don’t know. They just . . . work them in. And you could. If you got up a little earlier or stayed up later. You could, I know you could. If you tried.”

If I tried. Wow.

“Well, thank you for that, Eva. I’m clearly missing pages in
The Perfect Parent Handbook.
”

She rolls her eyes. “Meetings can be fun, Mom. Just give them a try.”

“Like men and marriage?”

Eva grabs the shopping cart and begins pulling it to the front of the store, her green eyes snapping with temper. “Mom, I love you,” she says, pausing by the electronics, “I really do. But one day I hope you’ll realize there’s nothing wrong with being normal.”

I watch her huffily haul the cart all the way to the checkout line, and I know I’ve had this conversation before, but that time it was with my mom, not Eva.

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.