Odd Mom Out

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.”