Odd Mom Out

She ignores my feeble joke. “I want to be like the others, I want to go to neat places—”

“Maui is not that neat.”

“Maybe not to you, but it is to me. And it is to the people that go every Christmas with their families.”

“And what does one do in Maui, Eva, that’s so cool? Sit on a beach? Go swimming? Get a tan?”

“Yes. Sit on a beach, swim, play in the pool, get a tan, wear cute clothes. That sounds really fun to me.”

“I think it sounds dumb,” I mutter.

“Well, I think you’re dumb,” Eva flashes furiously.

“That’s enough.”

“It is enough. I’ve had enough.” Eva grabs the handle and flings open the car door. “You don’t look like a mom. Not like a real mom. Not like the moms here. And you don’t even try to act like a real mom—”

“Eva, you’re my daughter. That makes me a real mom.”

She jumps out of the truck and slams the door shut, but with the windows open I can hear her quite clearly when she yells at me. “Real moms don’t have motorcycles!”

“Real moms do,” I retort, leaning out the window, “and I don’t ride it around town anymore. I stopped riding it because you asked me to.”

Her cheeks burn red. “I asked you to sell it, not stop riding it.”

“Eva—”

“You just love to be different. You wear your hair too long, and you don’t even wear normal clothes, just jeans and boots and guys’ army jackets.” Her voice cracks. Tears fill her eyes. “I know you’re an artist, but this is Bellevue, Mom, not New York.”

I know. Oh, do I know. I barely survived growing up here, took off first chance I got, and if my mom hadn’t gotten sick, I wouldn’t have come back.

“That was unkind and unnecessary,” I say huskily, more deeply hurt than she knows. “You owe me an apology.”

She just shakes her head and knocks away tears with the back of her hand. “Do you know what I ask God every night? I ask about my father, and then I pray that God will make you more like everybody else.” And then without another word she stomps back to our house, which is less than a block away.

I would cry if I knew how to.

I haven’t cried in so many years that I think my tear ducts have forgotten how.

But Eva has hurt me in a way I didn’t know I could be hurt. I love her and fear for her. I lie awake at night worrying about her. My nearly every thought revolves around Eva and helping Eva, yet apparently it’s not enough.

I’m not enough. Not good enough. Not right.

I press two fingers against my eyes, try to block the picture of her storming out of my truck, turning on her heel, and marching away.

I try to stop her angry, hurtful words that are echoing in my head.

The problem when you’re a small family, when you’re a family of two, is that there is no one else to give space, distance, perspective. There is no one else to go to, to lean on, to reach for.

As a single mom, one becomes strangely adept at the concept of self-comforting.

I’m still sitting in my truck on the side of the road attempting to self-comfort when my cell phone rings.

I reach for the phone on my dash, and it’s Shey.

I haven’t talked to Shey in weeks, and her call couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Hey,” I greet her, my voice pitched low. “So you finally return my call.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks immediately, knowing me so well.

Shey’s one of my two best friends, and she’s still in New York. I’ve missed her more than I imagined. Even though we didn’t see each other in New York more than every week or two, I always knew she was nearby and knew I could grab her for lunch if I really needed her. Now I wait for a phone call, but even a really good long chatty call isn’t the same thing as a good long chat in person.

“Kind of having a bad day,” I say.

“Work?”

“Eva.”

“So what are you doing right now? Feel like taking a trip?” she asks.

Suddenly I have a ridiculous lump in my throat. It’s so good to hear Shey’s voice and hear her throaty laugh. I felt like such a freak in Taylor Young’s living room and then so hurt when Eva attacked me here. “I wish we could come to New York, but Eva starts school Tuesday.”

“I’m not in New York, baby. I’m on Orcas Island, just across the Puget Sound.”

“You’re where?”

She’s amused, and I can picture her smiling like the fat Cheshire cat. “Orcas Island. Hop on the six-forty seaplane and come see me.”

“Get out.”

Shey laughs, and she sounds exactly the way I remember her—beautiful, laid-back, very much in control. “I’m here for a shoot, and the shoot wrapped up early. I was supposed to fly home tomorrow, but John called and he’s decided to take the boys fly-fishing, and I thought maybe, just maybe, you might want to come and hang out with me.”

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“Do you need to ask Eva?” Shey says. “She might not be so eager.”

“Eva might not adore me,” I said, the husky note back in my voice, “but she loves her Aunt Shey.”

“I’ll see you soon, then.”

Chapter Five

I drive up to the house and park without pulling into the garage. As I head in, Eva comes tumbling out.

“Sorry,” she chokes, tears on her cheeks. “That was so mean, and I’m really sorry.”

I hug her. I don’t know what else to do but hug her. She’s just a person, and so am I. “I love you, Eva.”

“I know, Mom. And you can’t help being different. You were just born that way.”

I’d laugh, but I’m afraid this time I would cry. “Your Aunt Shey called,” I say, dropping a kiss on her forehead before letting her go. “She’s on Orcas Island for the weekend and wants us to join her. Feel like going?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll miss the beach picnic and bonfire.”

“I don’t care. I didn’t really feel like going to the picnic after all.”

“I could change, Eva, put on a cute dress and curl my hair—”

“No.” Eva giggles. “Going to see Aunt Shey on Orcas Island sounds much better.”

“All right. Then let’s get packing.”

I’ve two best friends, Shey Darcy, a New York model who started an agency, ExpectingModels, with another top model when both of them became pregnant, and Tiana Tomlinson (“Tits” for short), a popular face and name in the entertainment industry, buried deep in the Hollywood Hills with a Mensa mind, dazzling teeth, and . . . well, a great pair of tits.

Shey, Tiana, and I met during our senior year of high school when we’d all been packed up and sent off to the St. Pius Academy by the Sea in Monterey, California, where we were t

o finish our education in a more rigorous academic and moral environment. It was definitely more rigorous than my high school in Seattle and thankfully only slightly more moral.

From the time I met her, Tiana wanted to be an actress or entertainment reporter, a career entailing cameras, lighting, and makeup artists, and it did take her a while to get from behind the cameras to in front of them, but she’s succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Now her social life is news of the day. Want to know what she’s wearing, where she’s shopping, or whom she’s hooking up with? Open Us Weekly or Star and it’s all there.

I tell Tiana the mags are better for our friendship than the BlackBerry, and she just laughs. I think she likes it that I tell her to f—— off and respect her bizarre rocket ship to fame about as much as I respect the mommies at Points Country Club comparing manicures and waxed brows.

Shey, on the other hand, didn’t know what she wanted and bummed around Europe after college before running out of money outside Budapest. Her parents wouldn’t wire her any cash (they were furious she’d spent a year screwing around Europe instead of going to law school after graduating from Stanford), so she took a job for minimum wage making beds at a Budapest luxury hotel and ended up being spotted by a European modeling agent, who convinced her she could find work on the catwalks in Milan. It wasn’t long before she appeared in Italian Vogue, and then she was back in the United States commanding an impressive fee.

These are my friends, these are the people I admire—courageous, creative, risk-taking women. Shey’s married with kids, Tits was married briefly and there weren’t kids, which is a good thing since her journalist husband died covering the war in the Middle East just months after their honeymoon. Both my friends adore Eva and supported me in my decision to become a single mom. Shey even drove me to the fertility clinic for the artificial insemination. As thanks for her help and support, I made Shey, a mother of three, Eva’s godmother.

I’m hoping Shey will know what I should do about Eva now.

It doesn’t take Eva and me more than five minutes to throw our swimsuits, tennis shoes, and change of clothes into an overnight bag. Orcas Island, like the rest of the San Juan Islands, is casual, sporty, and not very developed, meaning there’s not much to do on the islands but play on the beach or go for a bike ride, but people don’t go to the islands for the activity. They go for the lack of it.