Odd Mom Out (9 page)

“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 to 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.

Happily, there’s no traffic on the 520 bridge, and we arrive at the seaplane terminal at Lake Union with time to spare.

One of the best parts of living in Seattle is Puget Sound, with its endless islands, islets, and waterways. Usually we take one of the ferries to the islands, so flying on the seaplane is extra exciting.

There’s nothing quite like taking off from the water and then flying low enough so you can see virtually everything. The world from the seaplane isn’t like the world from a Boeing jet. Life below still seems so close, yet the colors just pop—stunning sapphire blue, rich emerald green, scattered fields of brown, tan, and gold.

Eva’s glued to her window, and I’m sinking into my seat, taking some deep, calming breaths, thinking that Shey’s call was divine intervention.

God knew I needed some help.

“I heard what they said,” Eva suddenly says in a soft voice.

My body tenses immediately. I long to reach out and touch Eva, but at the moment I don’t think she’d welcome it. She’s in such a strange place now. Maybe all fourth graders go through this—angry, wistful, confused.

Finally she turns to look at me, and her expression is shuttered. “I heard what Jemma’s mom said. About me annoying Jemma by being her shadow. Following her everywhere.”

That explains Eva’s strange color when she left the Young house. I thought she looked shocked. Bruised. “Mrs. Young didn’t mean anything by it. She was just talking, just being silly.”

“But I heard what they said about you, too. I heard how they thought we didn’t have any money and that maybe it’s too expensive for us here.”

I start to protest, thinking she’s misunderstood them, but stop myself. Maybe she hasn’t misunderstood. Maybe she’s understood them better than me.

She looks at me with wide, pain-darkened eyes. “But we’re not poor, are we?”

“No.”

“And we have an old truck instead of a nice new car because . . . ?”

“It’s a classic. It’s a beautiful truck and a piece of history.” I reach out and lightly smooth back the hair from her brow. “And driving it is fun. I have fun in it. I feel . . . pretty. Sexy.”

“
Sexy?
”

I shrug and make a face. “Pretty is different for every woman. Mrs. Young likes designer clothes, Gucci, Prada, Ralph Lauren. I like vintage stuff. I like things that don’t match, that have a masculine edge, things that contradict standardized ideas of beauty.”

“But you’re so pretty, Mom, and you could be so beautiful.”

“And I feel beautiful when I’m me.”

“In guys’ jackets and army boots?”

“Especially then.”

Eva’s quiet a moment, then looks up at me. “I don’t like it when the other moms talk about you. It made me really upset. I was so mad.”

“I don’t mean to embarrass you, Eva. And I’m sorry that I didn’t change before the meeting. I was underdressed, and you’re right—this isn’t New York. I can’t do the things here I could do there.”

“People like things nice here, don’t they?”

I nod. Thank God we’re going to see Shey. Thank God we’re getting out of Bellevue, even if it’s just for the night. “Eva, I promise I’ll try harder to be more like the other moms, if you try not to listen to everything people say. And that includes Jemma Young.”

“But what did I ever do to Jemma?”

“Nothing.”

“So what am I doing wrong?”

Just being yourself, I think.

Outside, the sun gleams like liquid gold on the water of the sound. Tall pine trees jostle between rocky island coves.

“I’ve always been nice to her,” Eva adds softly. “I’ve always tried hard.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Trying too hard is sometimes worse than not trying at all.”

“Why?” she demands even as the plane’s hum changes. We’ve begun our descent.

Do I tell her people can be animals? Do I tell her this is why I don’t trust women more? That I keep most women, except for my closest friends, at arm’s reach?

I glance out the window and watch us sail low, lower, down toward the sapphire water. Ten to twelve thousand years ago, Orcas Island and the surrounding Puget Trough lay beneath a glacier said to be a mile thick. The glacier eventually receded and new life formed, with humans appearing six thousand years ago. Six thousand years later, the affluent humans in the Pacific Northwest liked these islands very much.

“Why, Mom?” Eva repeats.

I look back at my daughter, who is still waiting for a response, who still thinks I have all the answers. Bless her. How wrong she is.

“I think trying too hard makes people uncomfortable, it changes the dynamics,” I say as we touch down, the seaplane’s rails bumping and then sliding across the water’s surface, “giving others too much power.”

Eva just looks at me. She doesn’t understand. I don’t blame her. I didn’t get it until I was an adult.

Shey’s at the small terminal to pick us up. She has a rental car, a small Toyota four-by-four, and I spot her as soon as we emerge into the light.

But it’d be hard not to see Shey. She’s a Texas girl and gorgeous, the kind Rod Stewart would have wanted for himself had he met her. Nearly six feet, very slim, and strawberry blond, Shey stands out in a crowd, but when she smiles, she stops traffic dead. Her smile is huge, wide, as generous as her Texas drawl and big old Texas heart.

Shey is the sister I’ve always needed.

Grinning, I hug her and pull back, check to see if she’s aged—she hasn’t—and then hug her again. How she juggles motherhood, work, and being a wife to a sexy photographer is beyond me, but she does it, and she never complains. She’s just freaking positive. And maybe that is how she does it.

With faith, good humor, and a dose of Norman Vincent Peale.

Shey’s now scooped Eva into a bear hug, and she’s showering my daughter with ridiculous kisses. Eva’s squealing and giggling, and her skinny arms are clinging as tightly to Shey as they do to me.

If I had a sister, it’d be Shey.

If Eva had another mother, it’d be Shey.

People look at Shey and see the external beauty and assume the worst, that she’s vain or narrow or shallow. But Shey’s secret weapon is that she’s far more lovely on the inside than she is on the outside, and I think that’s why God made her so beautiful. Because He knew she’d never take advantage of her gifts. He knew she’d use her beauty and love for others.

We toss our bags into the backseat, climb into the car, and buckle up. Shey’s rented a cabin for the weekend, and we head there now, a slow ten-minute drive to the other side of the island.

Eva immediately wants to go down to the beach, and Shey tells me to go with her while she carries our bag into the cabin.

Wandering toward the lake edge, I hear the screen door bang shut behind Shey, and I tip my head back to see the towering evergreens sheltering the half dozen scattered cabins.

It was beautiful in Bellevue, but it’s even more lovely here with the rustic charm of fifty-year-old cabins and ancient islands and lakes carved out of the Puget Sound.

Because in summer, the sun doesn’t set until sometime between nine and ten; at eight p.m., the lake’s beach is still warm and drenched in sun.

Eva’s standing at the edge of the water, wearing her favorite sundress—it’s simple and cream colored, with just a scattering of green ferns and leaves.

There’s nothing fancy about the dress, but as she stands at the water’s edge, the wind blows the hem, and her dark hair trails down her back, and she’s laughing at the breaking surf, which is particularly big at the moment thanks to the wave riders and water-skiers out on the bay.

Eva’s been watching some kids jump waves, and she’s caught off guard when the water suddenly rises and crashes on her legs, drenching the hem of her dress. Laughing, she turns to look at me, and I just smile, shake my head.

She laughs again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard her laugh like this. A long time since she seemed like a little girl. And for the first time in weeks, I feel some of the tension inside me ease. Eva’s going to be okay. Eva will find her way through the intricacies of girl friendships and girl power struggles.

She will. I did. Shey and Tiana did. It’s part of life, one of those rituals called growing up.

“I’m so glad you called,” I say to Shey as she heads down to the water’s edge with a couple of bottles of chilled water. “How did you know I needed you now?”

Shey tosses a bottle my way. “Because I knew I needed you. I miss you. The city’s not the same.”

We sit on the patch of grass before it gives way to pebbles and stone. I unscrew the cap of my water. “How’s work?”

“Amazing. Incredible. We’re so busy. The agency just keeps growing. We can’t keep up sometimes with the demand.”

“For pregnant models.”

“For models that are moms.”

I look at her, unable to hide my admiration. “I’m so proud of you, so glad you’re doing what you do.” With her agency she’s changing the way the world looks at women and helping celebrate the beauty of the pregnant woman. “To think it all started when you were pregnant with Harry.”

“I didn’t want to stop working,” Shey answers with a slight shrug.

And she shouldn’t have had to, but the agency she worked for sent her home, told her not to come back until she’d had the baby and dropped the baby weight, and oh yeah, don’t get stretch marks or ruin your looks or you’ll not have work when you return.

Fortunately, her friend Liza had a better thought, and Shey went to work with her.

It’s been ten years and some serious blood, sweat, and tears, but Shey’s now a mom of three and vice president of ExpectingModels, one of New York’s premier model and talent agencies.

“How are you?” Shey asks. “How’s Eva? You sounded pretty upset earlier.”

I sigh as I watch Eva dance along the water’s edge. “She wants to be popular. She wants to be part of the in crowd, and it’s not a very nice little clique.”

“It never is.”

“And right now, nothing I know, nothing I suggest, seems to help. Right now, being me seems to make everything worse.”

Shey grimaces. “The life of a mother.”