Odd Mom Out (20 page)

I gave up on love and romance a decade ago, and it’s not on my task list of things to do. I have important things on my task list. Things like career and kids and accomplishing my goals.

Suddenly it’s bedlam as the children swarm the moms, each one panting and holding up his or her lap card to be marked.

As the kids take off again, I find myself glancing once more in Luke’s direction, and he’s looking straight at me. He stares long and hard, as if I intrigue him or amuse him somehow.

I look away first. I always do. I’m so attracted to him that it scares me a little.

Eva breaks free from the crowd of running kids to get her last lap counted.

“Five laps, Mom,” she pants, showing me her marked card.

“That’s great.”

“Only forty-five more to go.”

My God. That’s going to be hours from now. “Then, baby, get going.”

Just go talk to him,
I tell myself as Eva rushes off.

Go say hello.

But I don’t know what I’d say. I know what I’d like to ask: Where were you raised, what do you do, how did you get to be so tall?

Maybe it’s not what other women would want to know, but I’m fascinated by his size and shape. I’d love to know if he played sports in college and, for that matter, where he studied and why he decided to become a Big Brother.

In short, I want to know everything. I want to ask everything. I’m curious as hell and turned on, too.

But I don’t go to him because curiosity kills cats, and I don’t have nine lives. I’m all Eva has, and I can’t afford to take risks.

Then there’s the whole insecurity thing. While there isn’t just one kind of mom here at Points Elementary, the competition is still pretty fierce.

For example, to my left is the classic
Playboy
Bunny mom with the cropped top, snug pants barely covering her hipbones, and rabbit-fur leggings (maybe she’s from Russia with love?).

To my right is the dazzling young trophy wife mom with the huge breasts squeezed beneath a very tight knit top, an überflat tummy, flawless complexion completed by a four- or five-carat diamond ring, which is blinding everyone the moment it catches the sun.

Talking to the trophy wife mom is the “I’ve a better body than anyone” mom with her little top that looks like a lace sport bra and her white pants that belt three inches below the belly button. She’s got Marilyn Monroe breasts and the tanned, hard abs of a Dallas cheerleader, and she’s got to know every man is staring and every woman hates her.

In a cluster stand three more moms representative of very different women: the grown-up Surf Barbie mom with the long blond hair that reaches her waist; the richer-than-shit mom who drives car pool in the Rolls (or is it a Bentley?); and the sophisticated yet subtly sexy mom, a slim, youthful brunette in designer wear without any garish bling.

I could go on, but I won’t. The point is, this isn’t what mothers looked like when I was growing up, and while I’m comfortable with myself and like myself, I’m not your Barbie mommy. And for some reason unknown to me, many, many men in Bellevue crave Barbie & friends.

Chapter Eleven

I’m still standing on the school field watching the kids’ walk-a-thon when Eva comes racing toward me.

“Mom, I just got a yum,” she says, “and I heard they’re short volunteer moms, so go over there and volunteer at cotton candy.”

“I don’t know how to make cotton candy.”

“You don’t have to
make
cotton candy. It’s already made and in mini plastic bags. You just stand there and pass the bags out.” She points to the cluster of tables and chairs. “See? It’s easy. Even you can do it.”

I appreciate her vote of confidence, and yes, she’s right. Even I can successfully pass out plastic bags. “I’ll go.”

“Great!” Eva shouts good-bye, jabs her pointer finger in the direction of the food booths, and takes off, disappearing into the crowd of children circling the makeshift track.

The mother at cotton candy smiles warily as I approach. “I’m Marta Zinsser,” I introduce myself. “My daughter Eva’s in fourth grade, and she said you needed some help.”

“Sure,” the mom answers, tearing open a big cardboard box with practiced ease. The box is packed with individual bags of pink and blue cotton candy. “One of us can check off the yum space on the lap card, and the other one can pass out the candy. Which would you prefer?”

“I don’t care.”

“Fine. I’ll mark cards. You do treats.”

Moments later, flushed, panting kids flock around us, all holding out their lap cards to show they’ve earned their yum.

The mom starts marking the yum space, and I pass out candy as fast as I can. Just as fast as the crowd formed, it thins out, and I open yet another cardboard box.

“I’m Kathleen Jones,” the mom says as we finish our second frantic round of cotton candy distribution. “My son Michael’s in second grade.”

Another volunteer mom stops at the booth and gives us bottles of chilled water.

“Have you done this before?” I ask Kathleen.

“I was a lap counter last year.”

“You’ve moved up in the world.”

Kathleen makes a face. “Or down, depending on your idea of success.”

A little girl suddenly runs back to the table and asks if she can please exchange the bag of blue cotton candy for pink since blue is for boys.

“It’s just candy,” I tell her.

“I know, but I don’t like blue.”

I lean over the table and whisper, “It doesn’t taste blue. It tastes pink.”

The little girl with the dark brown bob stares at me for a long time before slowly extending her arm to hand me the candy. “Pink. Please.”

I give her the pink and watch her run off. The next little girl who approaches smiles at me. “I want a pink one, too, please.”

“Why pink?”

“I like pink.”

“But pink and blue cotton candy tastes the same.”

“But I don’t like blue.”

“Why?”

Her shoulders lift, fall. She’s missing teeth as she makes a face. “It’s not pink?”

I give her the pink cotton candy and reach into the box for another handful of plastic bags when I see taut denim-clad thighs step into the line in front of me.

Slowly I look up, button-fly jeans, empty belt loops, a lean waist, and one hell of an impressive chest.

Luke stares down at me, light blue eyes narrowed quizzically. “Fighting for blue rights?”

I feel my face burn hot and my eyes meet his, and there’s something so intent there, so fierce and curious, that I step back and drag the cardboard box closer. “Did you earn a yum?”

“I hope so.”

“Let me see your lap card, then,” I say, trying to sound serious.

There’s the faintest hint of a smile in his eyes, as though to challenge me. “I don’t have one.”

Fortunately, I’m not a sucker. “Then you don’t get a yum.”

“You’re pretty tough on the little guys.”

“I hope you’re not classifying yourself as one of the little guys.”

His smile deepens, and I get a glimpse of a rather astonishing dimple.

I don’t know if it’s his smile or the dimple, but my insides do a funny flip. This man is dangerous. And he’s got to know it.

Amused, he asks, “What can I have if I don’t have a lap card?”

Half a dozen thoughts flash through my mind, and none of them are appropriate for a public school function, and the fact that none of them are appropriate throws me. I can’t want his mouth, body, warmth, skin. I can’t be thinking sex. I can’t even be thinking kissing.

And I can’t indulge in a purely physical attraction.

Beyond the I’m-a-mom factor is the this-is-my-home factor and this-is-a-small-town factor, along with the everyone-here-gossips factor.

My libido has to settle down.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” I ask, looking away and pretending to scan the crowd circling the field.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he answers, reaching across the table and into the open box to distribute cotton candy to the kids lining up behind him.

He’s so tall, the children look like Lilliputians next to him. “What about the woman at P. F. Chang’s?”

He looks at me from beneath dark lashes tipped with gold. “An ex-girlfriend.”

“She didn’t look like an ex.”

“We’re still friendly.”

“Do you have lots of those?”

His jaw shifts, and his smile is slow and sexy. “Are you always this cagey?”

Heat surges through me, a heat that starts in my belly and makes me think very lusty thoughts. “Cagey?” I mock, grabbing handfuls of the cotton candy bags, which I pass out rapid-fire. “This is me being friendly.”

His deep laugh rings out, and I look up at him, see again that hard contour of cheekbone and jaw, the slash of eyebrow about light blue eyes. I like his look. I really like his look, and I know we women aren’t supposed to be visual creatures like men, but I feel like all eyes and desire right now.

“Do you give all men this much trouble?” he asks, arms folding across his immense chest.

Kathleen pushes another cardboard box toward me. “You mean, is that why I’m single?” I ask as I rip open the box.

“That’s not what I’m asking at all.”

“No?”

Kathleen’s briskly stamping the lap cards while Luke and I pass out bags of cotton candy to the next rush of kids.

As the last little boy tears off, I step around the table to face Luke squarely. “What can I do for you?”

He stares down at me, his expression so intense that it’s almost intimidating. “I’m asking you out.”

“Out?”

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“I feel like I’m doing the Texas two-step right now,” he answers.

I laugh. I can’t help it. “I can’t do dinner.”

“Why not?”

“It’s . . .” I look at him, make a face. “Too much like a date.”

“It
is
a date.”

“Exactly.” I tuck long hair behind my ear, slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “I can do coffee, though. Starbucks. Tully’s. Jet City.”

“You’ve only mentioned the chains.”

“That’s because they’re the ones that come to me for business.”

“So you are a hard woman.”

“Fair but tough,” I reply, suppressing a shiver as my gaze locks with his. There’s something in his eyes, something strong—male and unnervingly primal—that makes my pulse race. “What’s wrong with coffee? There are coffeehouses on every corner, and it’s cheap. You could treat, and I wouldn’t feel guilty.”

A corner of his mouth curls. “And you’d feel guilty if I paid for your dinner?”

“Yes.”

His gaze holds mine. “Chicken,” he says softly, so softly that tiny shivers race up and down my back.

In a dim part of my brain, I think I’ve met my match. Someone who might just possibly know my game, and it’s thrilling and yet also terrifying. I’ve gotten to where I am today—a single, successful thirty-six-year-old mother—by insisting I don’t need anyone or anything when actually the opposite just might be true.

“Why are you so stubborn?” I ask uncomfortably.

“Because you’re intriguing.” He pauses. “And cagey as an alley cat.”

“And that’s flattering how? . . .”

His smile heats his eyes, all blue fire. “I think, Ms. Zinsser, you enjoy being challenged.”

“You get all that from what?”

He just laughs quietly and shakes his head. “Dinner. Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”

My head’s spinning. The guy is way too confident. “You’re way too aggressive.”

“Assertive, not aggressive, and I wouldn’t have to be so assertive if you wouldn’t be such a chicken.”

My mouth nearly falls open. He’s so not what I thought he was, so not what I imagined. “I don’t think I like you.”

Luke’s expression says otherwise. “So six-thirty. And dress casual. Just in case we have to eat at Starbucks.”

Now he is walking away, walking from the building’s shadow and into the late autumn sunshine.

“Don’t you need my address?” I call after him.

He stops, faces me. “No. I already know it.”

“How?”

He’s walking again, and looking back at me over his shoulder, he mouths, “The parent directory.”

The parent directory?

I’d always wondered what that was for.

I make arrangements for Eva to stay at my parents’ tomorrow night, as I’m not comfortable with her knowing I’m going out. She’d be fine with me having a date, though. In fact, she’d be thrilled.

I’m the one with the problem. I’m the one who swore off men. Not that that was the most rational decision.

The plan was for me to drop Eva at my parents’ late in the afternoon, but I’d totally forgotten that the Huskies were playing at home, so traffic was nightmarish.