Odd Mom Out

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.”