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 d
idn’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.”