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All of a sudden, my face feels hot. I had always figured hard work would be rewarded, but apparently the joke is on me. If I were a mother and in the right “box,” I’d have a legitimate excuse. But I haven’t been able to make that happen yet. And until I do, no matter how hard I work, I won’t count. Fuck it.
“No.”
“What?” Alix says.
“I can’t,” I respond, simply.
Alix’s eyes narrow. “Liz, your attitude has been holding us back for too long. I need to talk to Cynthia.” As she turns to leave, I inhale a whiff of her noxious, old-school perfume and I gag. Doubling over, I begin to dry heave.
“Liz, are you okay?” asks Jeffry. He and Alix rush to my side, as they tell me to breathe. Finally, I straighten up. “I’m sorry, I, uh, I don’t know what happened. I’ve been feeling a little off lately,” I stammer. Just then, an eerie giggle lets out from my old phone.
PUSH! :) Notification! Week 16: Congratulations! Your baby is now the size of a kumquat! Time to start some squats! Baby Smiles: 0!
I fumble to mute the sound and click the screen closed, but it’s too late. “Oh, God. Not you, too,” Jeffry whispers.
“Are those maternity jeans?” gasps Alix.
I go completely blank, and then I hear words coming out of my mouth I don’t recognize as my own. “Yes. Me, too.”
Jeffry’s attention is riveted on me now.
Did I really just say that?
For a few seconds, they are speechless. “Wait, Liz, are you pregnant?” Alix jumps in.
With my eyes fixed on the floor, my whole body freezes. I don’t say yes, but I don’t say no. A few seconds pass. There’s a spasm in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, then, that settles it. We can’t do anything now. Jesus,” says Jeffry.
“When are you due?” Alix says.
I look down at the app. “October 20.”
“Huh,” says Jeffry, confused. “I didn’t know you...had a boyfriend...a partner.”
“Because it’s none of anyone’s business,” I say. Where is this confident Liz coming from? “By the way, Jeffry,” I add, “Alix asked me to alter one of the tiger mom’s quotes to make it say that she beats her children, but it’s not true.”
Alix’s and Jeffry’s faces both display a look of shock.
And then I lean over and throw up the contents of Pippa’s baby shower into Alix’s wastebasket.
Two (#ulink_78c226f1-95d6-53a5-b550-619723e58e81)
Guys, I did something stupid. Need help!!!! I text Addison and Brie with hands so shaky I can barely type. Loose papers are sent flying across my desk as I attempt to grab what I need. I have to get out of here—fast. Finally I spot what I’m looking for—my dog-eared copy of What to Expect. I stuff it into my bag, then race toward the elevators and out the lobby.
A text from Cynthia! She’s heard. Set up an appointment for first thing Monday morning. You are coming in, aren’t you?
Yes, of course. I will, thank you!!! I type with way too many exclamations. Shit.
Finally, just as I’m making my way toward the subway, Addison texts back. Can you come here? She’s at a client meeting at Soho House in the Meatpacking District.
On my way too, texts Brie, who’s coming from Core Fusion in the Flatiron.
Thank God. I decide to hop in a cab heading downtown from the Bird Cage, our nickname for our publisher Halpren-Davies’s beautiful turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts building right below Times Square, as waves of adrenaline flood my system. Did I really just let my bosses think that I’m pregnant? Am I having a psychotic break? This must be some sort of deranged, baby-fever-induced psychosis that Paddy Cakes will surely one day cover in its pages.
As the taxi cruises down Ninth Avenue, I start to panic. When Cynthia finds out the truth, I will be fired and never work in the magazine industry again. Jezebel and The Cut will have a field day mocking “the editor who cried pregnant.”
Oh, how I wish I had the guts to just quit on the spot like Addison did. After forgetting to do her boss’s expenses in favor of taking on more writing assignments, she’d been put on probation until she could “prove her value.”
“I don’t need a month,” she’d told them in typical Addison fashion. “I already know my value. Consider this my notice.”
That afternoon in 2008 she and I sat in Bryant Park sipping smoothies and in the span of an hour, she’d decided that instead of looking for a new job, she was going to launch her own fashion blog. It has now grown to a collection of more than one thousand fashion writers, bloggers and YouTube personalities. In the past eight years, she’s transformed herself into a Forbes 30 Under 30 “content-preneur” whose influencer machine called The Couture Collective has started to pay off, earning her a smooth 15 percent commission on each piece of content written exclusively for boutique fashion brands. These days she’s completely obsessed with building out her own proprietary platform so she can “scale”—and meeting hot angel investors to fund it.
I nervously check my texts. Nothing more from Cynthia. I find myself in a mad Googling frenzy. “Faking pregnancy” leads to “workplace pregnancy rights,” leads to “criminal time served for health insurance fraud,” leads to me almost throwing my phone out the window right then and there. I finally realize there is someone else I can call to reassure me. Someone who knows all the players and exactly what to do. Ford. My former work husband, ten years my senior and the one who showed me the ropes when I first arrived at Paddy Cakes, now managing editor at our men’s publication Basics. I text him, and get an immediate response back, I’m there.
When I arrive at Soho House and give the concierge Addison’s name, they send me up to the sixth floor parlor. The glamorous lounge is heating up, and I spot more than a few tables of successful-looking men with slim-cut suits chatting up decades-younger girls with stomach-revealing tops—LBG-ism is in full effect. I spot Addison at a center table clacking away at her laptop. Thankfully Brie arrives a few minutes later. Then Ford.
When I tell them what happened and why I am not on my way to Paris, I expect them to be horrified. Instead they’re angry for me.
“Good for you!” says Addison, sweeping her bayalaged-blond locks into a ponytail. “I’ve had enough of these elite dinosaurs abusing women for their entire twenties with the false promise of a move up the masthead, only to leave them surviving on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails and living in cramped Queens Craigslist shares with roommates they can’t stand and cockroaches circling their bedroom door! It’s torture, plain and simple. They’ve traumatized you! I say, screw ’em!”
“Addison’s right, Lizzie,” says Brie, putting a hand on my arm. “You haven’t been yourself for a while. When you started out, you had a glow. But lately, you’ve lost your sparkle. You had to do something.”
Brie should know. A recent graduate of Life-Wise, a health and wellness digital entrepreneur program, she rebranded herself from marketing associate to “disruptive” innovation consultant. She’s now making six figures for regular project work on global health nonprofits, thanks to her sleek PowerPoints that feature emerging social media logos and have titles like, “What Is Change?” But her trendy, chocolate half bun and hot-red lipstick don’t fool me. My pint-size friend is still on the same quest to find her soul mate that she’s been on since she was twenty-one.
“This is even more entertaining than the male models at the Prabal Gurung event I was at last night,” says Ford, tugging at his black cashmere cardigan to try to cover up a tiny pudge by his waistline as he comes up upon our table. When we worked together we’d nicknamed him Ford—as in Tom Ford—because his square jaw and flinty blue eyes could get him just about any male model he pleased. He’d even had a hot and heavy summer fling with that EGOT winner/ sitcom star John Paul Harding that he’d let go to his head. In the past few years, though, a magazine-induced designer-foodie habit had caught up with him—probably to cover up the heartbreak he’d never let on about—and now he’s more ginger bear than Beckham.
While Addison grills me on the details, Brie nods reassuringly as Ford can’t stop himself from laughing, and I keep my fingers crossed no one from Paddy Cakes shows up.
“I’m sure it’s burnout. I’ve got this amazing homeopath I’ve been seeing. It might just be a question of unblocking your gallbladder merid—” Brie starts in as I explain everything that happened.
“I think she needs more than a homeopath...she needs a baby daddy,” jokes Ford.
“Well, before that, she needs to start having some sex,” replies Addison.
“Guys! Stay focused! What am I going to do? I’m going to be fired. And blacklisted and have to move home to my mom’s couch.”
“Liz, don’t catastrophize. I’m sure there’s a solution,” responds Addison.
The four of us are silent as we look around, thinking.
There, sitting to the right of us is a towheaded blonde, talking loudly to her laptop’s phone feature, seeming to be working on her motherhood lifestyle blog. From her flower-child Coachella style, I’m guessing she’s probably from LA. And all of about twenty-five.
“I mean...it’s fine,” she says, rolling out a succession of whiny calls. “Annie Leibovitz is cool, but you know, we could be doing five of these in a day in LA and getting, like, a major beauty brand to sponsor. Yeah, seriously. Yeah, you know what the trick is? Breast-feeding shots—the followers live for them. Virginal maiden thing. It’s totally faked, though... Oh, wait, sorry, it’s my manager—well, my mom, well, you know—same thing. Ha. Lols. Hi, Mom. Yeah, okay, a shoot in Aspen. Great. When?” Her face changes in a blink. “They aren’t flying out my nanny? Then I don’t wannaaaaa. That means we have to get up at the crack of dawn. Like, 9 a.m.!!!”
Addison looks lit up. “Wait a second... I think Ms. Coachella could be on to something. Why don’t we fake it? We’re always doing that at shoots. Maybe it could work? At least for a little while.”
“Hmm. That’s not bad,” says Brie, lighting up at the idea.
“Do you think she can handle it?” Ford asks, referring to me in third person as if I’m a mental patient.
“Not helping...” I butt in.
“Look, Lizzie, I think it’s your only option. You can fake for one month—until June 6—and use your time to line up enough freelance writing gigs to get a running start. And your first bump will be tiny. No one will have to know besides the key players.”
“Ooh, I’ve got the perfect solution. I’ll ask this guy I’ve been wanting to hook up with to see if he wants to help you create your so-called bump. He’s a stylist at the Naomi Marx Show. Plus, it’ll give me a reason to see him. He’s young, hot, kind of a douche. You know, just my type.” Ford grins.
“What if I get caught?”
“You can do it, Lizzie. You’ve been practically breathing babies since you were twenty-two. You know this stuff cold,” says Addison firmly.
“If I slip up, I’ll be fired.”
“You’ll be fine!” says Addison. “I’ll happily help you screw with that company. They’re my biggest competitor!”
“What if word gets back to Paddy Cakes that I’m looking for freelance?”
“It’s not like travel editors really know parenting ones—they’re like full-fat lattes and Alix—they don’t mix,” says Ford.
“Listen, Lizzie, you’ve got this,” says Addison confidently. “Quick, what are the first set of tests called and what’s their function?”
“Standard blood tests—make sure you’re healthy,” I rattle off.
“When will you know the sex?”
“Easy, as early as the first blood test. Ten weeks.”
“What are the first physical signs of pregnancy?”
“Morning sickness, indigestion, loosening of the pelvis and ligaments—and boobs! Bigger boobs!” I look down at my own size-Cs...the lucky inheritance from my mom’s French-Canadian side, along with absolutely no thigh gap.
The girls keep quizzing me and the answers leap out of me on their own, rapid-fire, like a baby-knowledge-spewing semi. It’s as if I’ve been waiting my whole life for this day.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” quizzes Brie, now having fun.
“Ha, trick question. Not enough.”
“Who’s the daddy?” riles Ford.
“Let’s just say immaculate conception for now...”
“Perfect, since as we know, motherhood is the ultimate way to deify yourself,” says Addison.
“One more. How many weeks are you right now?”
“I don’t know?” I freeze. I look down at the app. Since “weeks” start on Mondays, I’m at the tail end of sixteen weeks. Just a little over five months until October 20. My “due date,” I realize with strange solemnity. My eyes sweep around the room, feeling my brain abuzz with activity. The coffee grinder whirring combines with the sounds of clinking wineglasses as the lounge begins to heat up. Everywhere, the sights and sounds of possibility are brewing. Maybe more is out there than I’ve let myself realize. Maybe my friends are right.
I sit back in my chair and allow the idea of a “meternity leave”—time off for me to really figure out what I want to do with my life—to take hold... Could this be it?
A long-suppressed vision of myself begins to resurface. I picture trading my monochromatic office formulas for sunny tanks and sarongs and sipping strong Indonesian coffee while finishing up an article for Travel + Leisure from a beach in Bali. Maybe I’ll even be spotted by a handsome importer/exporter, who will knock me up for real...
A power surge unblocks something inside me that has been bound up for ages. Looking at my friends, I realize they’re right. I have to see this through—it really is my only option. I place my hands on the table firmly.
“So I’m keeping this baby, is what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” Addison looks me dead in the eye.
“Yes.” Brie wraps an arm around my shoulder.
“Yes,” says Ford, nodding up and down like a puppy dog.
“Okay, then.” I gulp. “I feel sick.”
“You’re supposed to,” giggles Brie.
Meternity, here I come.
Three (#ulink_072b4056-126f-5b65-a862-8fdc9d0798d6)
By 11:15 p.m. we’ve slugged back some vodka sodas, and somehow my friends have managed to convince me to join them at a packed karaoke bar on St. Mark’s Place. Addison begins to make inroads with a table in the back full of fashion bloggers, model bookers and extremely skinny models from Balkan countries while I try to keep Brie away from checking her phone every three minutes.
At this point, Brie knows not to expect anything besides a friends-with-benefits situation from her forty-four-year-old former ad exec colleague, Baxter. He’s made himself clear about not wanting a “romantic attachment,” as he icily put it one night at Babbo when she mistakenly assumed ample making out might mean he was interested in something romantic. But still she wonders if she’s putting out the wrong “vibe” to the universe if she allows their relationship to continue, since she’s not even sure she’d want him if he actually were into her, as like a potential husband. Ever more ironic is that all she’s been thinking about since turning thirty is finding a PH (potential husband), as she’s started calling every available man with a job.
After text number six, I give her the stink eye.
“I sweeaaaar to you, Lizzie. After tonight, it’s plan Secret-4-the-One.”
“WTF is that?” I respond as Addison goes up for her song.
“It’s new—something I devised at a recent mastermind session. A combination mix of The Secret, The 4-Hour Work Week and Outliers. Basically I’m going to set an intention for the perfect guy, then outsource my flirting on every available dating app to reach my goal of ten thousand hours. I’ll attain dating mastery while using up all available ‘Love RAM,’ so Baxter can’t even take up a kilobyte.”
To me it sounds about as exhausting as faking a pregnancy, but she seems enthused so I go with it, smiling and nodding as she takes her turn on the mic. Inside, though, I’m panic-stricken. This feeling must be what all our younger editors talk about, I think, fighting off waves of anxiety so intense it’s as if the room is swaying. All these years, I’d somehow managed to sidestep the Dark Side that so many editors fall into as a means of coping with the pressure: anorexic bouts, Adderall addictions, the occasional bump of coke. I’d never seen the point to all that—or maybe it was my Catholic good-girl upbringing—but now I think I feel what this new kind of terror is all about. I try to fight through it by gulping more of my gasoline-like vodka soda while panning the room we’ve been to countless times.
Addison grabs the songbook away from me and hands back a microphone. “You’re up, my friend. NO MORE wallowing. I can’t take it.”
“No, absolutely not. Not tonight.” I shake my head. Karaoke has never been my strong suit—ever since the “You Oughta Know” debacle of ’02, our freshman year of college when every single guy in the room shuffled out, giving me a first impression that sealed my star-crossed romantic fate all throughout college and a lasting new nickname: Ballbuster.
But then I hear the familiar dance party hit “Hotstepper.” Thankfully it saves me. The ’90s rap rhythm is followed by “Everybody Dance Now.” I turn on my heel, and a very cute, thirtiesish-looking guy makes his way to the stage from right behind us, looking strangely confident. He proceeds to take the mic, and launch into a perfectly punctuated rap, sending us into a round of laughs.
“He’s good,” says Brie.
“I know,” I say, impressed.
“I might have told him my friend was having the worst day of her life, and a little ’90s medley would cheer her up.”
“Oh, God, you didn’t, Addison.”
“Someone had to give you a push.” She smirks.
