Odd Mom Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

answer my question, but that’s okay. Advertising’s always a cat-and-mouse game. Fortunately, I’m a very patient kitty. “Good. We’re handling some significant regional and national accounts.”
    “How significant?”
    “What’s that?”
    “How big are the big accounts? What are you dealing with nationally?”
    “You want my client list, Frank?”
    “I want to know if you’ve got the balls to handle the launch of Freedom Bikes.”
    My heart races. I’m practically salivating. If Frank weren’t twenty years older than me with a wonderful wife and three kids, I think I’d fall for him. “What’s the bottom line? What do I need to do? Who do I need to win over?”
    He chuckles, his deep, rough voice growing rougher. “All of them.”
    “Who is my competition?”
    “Everyone.”
    Sounds like my idea of fun. “Frank, count me in.”
    “We’re in Seattle in a week or so to tour the job site and sign leases on our downtown office space. I want to introduce you to the executive committee then. It’s not the time to present anything conceptually, but I’d like you to come to dinner, meet folks, put faces with names.”
    “In a heartbeat.”
    “I’ll have my secretary e-mail you Tuesday with the details. Make sure you save the date.”
    “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
    “Marta, I’d love it if it worked out, but this is a long shot. I don’t want you disappointed if it doesn’t happen.”
    I would be disappointed. Beyond disappointed. “Why is it such a long shot, Frank?”
    “Don’t make me state the obvious.”
    “Because I own a Harley?”
    He laughs, deep guffaws that make me smile. “Yeah, and it has nothing to do with you being a woman.”
    “Being a woman just makes me better.”
    “I know that. But we’re talking about the bike industry.”
    I know. Macho, male dominated, no room for women at the top. Just at the bottom. Underneath ’em. Right where men like to keep ’em. “Frank, you can’t scare me.”
    “So let’s just take it a step at a time and see what happens.”
    “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
    I hang up the phone and smile at nothing in particular. Frank just made my day.

    Two hours later, Eva finally gets us to Points Elementary to check out the class list. She bounds out of the car, and I trail behind more slowly, still thinking about Frank’s call.
    I want to be part of the Freedom Bikes ad campaign. I want to be involved.
    Despite it being a Saturday morning, there’s an impressive crowd grouped in front of the school office window where the class lists have been posted. Eva’s pushed toward the front to get a look at the fourth-grade class sheet.
    I’m learning here in Bellevue that class assignments determine the kind of year it’s going to be, and it’s not only the teacher who influences the class but the kids in the class as well.
    Parents want their children to have a good class, too, but I’m beginning to sense that to some here, good doesn’t mean behaved. Good means connected. Good means rich.
    I’ve heard the names bandied about, too, and the most desirable kids to have in your class are those sired by Microsoft millionaires and billionaires, the founders of Amazon, or one of the McCaw brothers, those fathers of wireless technology.
    If you don’t get a technology heir, you could always hope for a Nordstrom or an offspring of the professional athletes filling the Seahawk, Sonic, or Mariner roster.
    Good kids from good money.
    Long live the Eastside communities of Medina, Hunts Point, Yarrow Point, and Clyde Hill.
    “Mom!” Eva’s reaching through the crowd and grabbing my elbow. “Did you see who I’ve got? Mrs. Shipley, the one I was telling you about last year, the one who does the school’s literary magazine.”
    “Oh, not Mrs. Shipley,” groans a mother in the group. “She’s impossible, the hardest teacher by far at Points. It’s common knowledge that she gives twice the homework any other fourth-grade teacher