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“Thanks, Mom. Yeah, it was pretty disappointing.” Ever since her cancer’s gone into remission, even though it all turned out fine, an odd thing has happened. I’ve been avoiding her calls. I think it’s because I can’t bear to feel it. That I could have lost her. And that I let her down. Which makes it even worse.
“I know you’ll get there someday. You just have to be patient,” she says, transferring over my pain, as always. “Well, I wanted to check in with you about Margaret’s son’s best friend. Did you see my email about that?”
My mom never interfered in my dating life before, but now grandchild envy has hit. All my friends from home have been moving back to the suburbs to be closer to their parents, and my mom is feeling left out. “Mom. I’m super busy with an article now.”
“Too busy to make a two-minute phone call?”
“Sorry,” I say, biting my lip, immediately feeling guilty—and mad—that my job doesn’t often let me break focus for even a few minutes during the day to check in.
“So, what should I tell Margaret? Can you just give me a yes or no?”
“Thanks, Mom, but I’m not feeling the setup dates at the moment.”
“You don’t have to go to dinner. Just coffee,” she urges.
“Mom, seriously, coffee’s worse,” I say, thinking that at least with dinner you can drink alcohol. I’ve attempted a few of these setups. They usually turn out to be the kind of guys who speak Klingon for fun.
“Okay, bye, sweetie. I’ll just tell Margaret ‘possible yes’—love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” I say, throwing my phone onto my desk in frustration.
At thirty-one, so far not one PH has come along. Since JR broke up with me five months ago I’ve gone on exactly two actual dates: Amir, the thirty-nine-year-old douchey divorced hedge-funder, who called me “too Catholic” because I wouldn’t give him a blow job on the first date; and Taylor, the “internet entrepreneur” (really an unemployed web programmer)—the twenty-seven-year-old emotionally unstable crazy pants who told me he liked me because he “was into curvy girls who could pay for their own drinks.” I’d deleted his contact from my phone immediately and canceled my subscription to OkCupid.
As I’m contemplating how cynical I’ve turned these days, Ryan’s Facebook profile somehow magically opens on my desktop.
“Hey, looking for Europa League Finals tickets. Message me if you’ve got a hookup.”
* * *
Yep, still cute, still “single,” and no new lame flirty girl posts to his wall since I’d last checked (this morning). Then an email pops into my inbox reminding me Cynthia will be back on Monday. The tiger moms/French moms story must be in Final by Monday, which means another late night finishing up Alix’s edits after she skips out at five unless I want to spend even more time working this weekend.
I elbow my iced coffee, spilling it all over. Shit. I grab for a twenty-dollar organic paper diaper we’ve been lauding when my phone starts buzzing itself off the desk.
Ryan reads the screen. My cheeks warm. I clear my throat and pick up the vibrating phone.
“Hey there, Ryan,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“Deputy Editor Liz,” chimes Ryan.
I chuckle. “I told you that’s not my title.”
“I don’t know, there’s just a ring to it,” he chides. “Anyway, I thought I’d call to check in about our upcoming calendar and see if there were any more synergies. Sales was pleased with ‘Mega-Multiples’—it brought in a boatload of new ad dollars.”
“That’s because I know what I’m doing,” I say in a flirtatious tone.
“You sure do,” says Ryan, not wasting a second.
Just then, I see an email from Jeffry:
RE: FMLA: Need back now!
I open the email and the contents make me cough.
Liz, if you don’t return FMLA paperwork asap, you’re at risk of termination once you go on maternity leave. You must sign by 3 p.m. I sit up in my chair.
“Liz? You still there?” asks Ryan.
“Yes, I’m here. Sorry. I just got an urgent email. I should probably go.”
“Okay, no worries, but one more thing. I was wondering if we could set up a meeting at the Paddy Cakes office in the next couple of weeks. I’ll bring our fall lineup, and you, Alix and I can go over the magazine plans to see if there are any more partnership opportunities. What do you say?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jeffry walking down our floor right toward my cubicle with paperwork in his hands.
“Sounds good.” My eyes dart back toward Jeffry. “Hmm, I’m a little busy next week—we’re crashing a last-minute story. How about next Friday?”
Jeffry is coming toward my desk. I make a motion that I’m on the phone.
“Okay, Buckley, pencil me in,” says Ryan.
I have to start sporting a bump next week, but I can’t think of what to say. I’m thrown off guard reading the lines from FMLA paperwork: “...perjury will result in immediate termination and possible prosecution.”
“Okay, we’ll figure it out. Thanks for calling. I have to go now. Bye.”
“Buh—” Ryan starts before I hang up.
“Bye!” I click down the receiver just as Jeffry reaches my desk.
“Liz, I need this paperwork signed. Now.”
I look around toward Jules, who just gives me a scolding look. She knows I’m committing serious career suicide. But if I don’t sign, I’ll be fired. Besides, I’m not the only one who’s not telling the truth around here, I think, as I imagine Alix sidling up with Jeffry in a dimly lit Locanda Verde corner booth. I take the pen and paperwork out of Jeffry’s hands and sign Elizabeth Joy Buckley. In one sharp move the act is done. And, possibly, so am I.
Five (#ulink_432e4c26-6a26-54f5-8b2d-cbba3cbd3087)
PUSH! :) Notification! Week 18: You’ve got backaches and swelling? You’re growing a baby! Suck it up! Lol, j.k. But yeah, there’s this really annoying thing called edema, or water retention, that can create some serious cankle action. Seriously, it’s gross. Baby Smiles: 17!
When you find yourself on the verge of a major life transition, like walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope, the only way to get through it is to stay focused on one small detail. For me, today, the middle of my second official trimester when I’m about to “show,” the detail at hand happens to be sliding a pair of too-small “Spawn-x” around my now-artificially-fattened frame.
This baby is finally going to get some use, I think, as I try with all my might to coax on the offending article of shapewear I’d bought for my friend Katie’s wedding in the Hamptons two years ago. I was a bridesmaid and needed all the help I could get for her sky-blue Vera Wang silk shantung shift. Little could I predict it would be used for an entirely different purpose a few years down the road.
First, I pull out Hudson’s bump with straps that go around my back. I slip it over my head. Then, I struggle to slide up the waist-reducing undergarments over it. Thank God my air-conditioning works, I think, remembering the record extreme summer heat Al Roker has predicted for this summer. Finally I put on the Lycra slip Hudson gave me to smooth the whole thing out. I take a deep breath and let it all out as the tiny bulge settles in place on my abdomen.
Taken all in, I barely recognize myself in the mirror.
Do I really have to do this today? I think, staring at my reflection.
Yes, I tell myself firmly. I have to start showing or else the timing of my plan—the October date I’d given Cynthia and Jeffry—won’t work. And I figure if I don’t go through with it, I never will. Just a few more weeks. A month, tops. Enough time to get some freelance assignments. Little pangs of terror shoot through my spine as I look in the mirror at myself almost five months pregnant.
Not bad, I think at first. I turn to each side, gazing at my profile to make sure no seams are showing. The cute minibump looks like a cross between those side view “before” shots of women in the diet pill ads intentionally sticking out their stomachs and the underweight pregnant models at five months we tend to use in Paddy Cakes—prenatal perfection.
At first I feel good, great even. But then I turn around and face the mirror head-on. A mental deadline barrels to the front of my brain. “Have a baby by thirty.” I feel a small wave of sadness. How many chances have I let slip away because of the decision to prioritize work—or more accurately, allow work fear to overwhelm my life?
I get my bearings as I climb down the stairs of my apartment to the street. Not too different, I decide, as I walk down Columbus Avenue toward the subway. I decide to test the waters by heading into my local café on the corner. Waiting in line behind five others, people brush against me to get to yogurt parfaits in the refrigerator case. Hey, watch it, I’m a pregnant woman! I think as I nervously giggle to myself. My favorite barista takes my order, as I try to make a show of my bump beneath the Pea in the Pod green dress Addison sent me from her shoot and hope he’ll notice. Although I practically rest my wallet on the top of my bump as I rifle through my change purse, he doesn’t seem to notice anything different about me. I pay, give him a friendly smile and grab my cold brew.
A little deflated, I head out, sticking in my earbuds, and continue down the avenue toward the subway. For the first time I am one of the many pregnant women I see on the Upper West Side. It really is New York’s maternity row. A funny feeling stirs inside me. Jealousy. Not for the babies in their bassinets, exactly, but for their accessories. First it’s the strollers—I find myself wanting the blue one with the orange racing stripe—and then the clothes. I see a woman with a draped bohemian caftan over her bump, then another with a chic blue-and-white-striped Parisian-style top and leggings. They look so cute as they’re rushing their children off to school. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see my friend Elyse from college waiting for a cab. I cross over to the other side of the street like a madwoman, almost getting myself hit by traffic. At the other side, I look back. A cab has pulled over, but her eyes catch mine and she calls, “Liz!” I motion that I’ll call her later.
Ugh. How am I going to avoid running into people?
Finally, I arrive at work. As I type in the code to open the glass doors to our office, an electric charge zaps me, like a reminder of the cruel reality I’ve created for myself.
Now or never.
I spot Alix over in the corner, hands full of proofs.
It’s go time.
Life seems to pass in slow motion as I unfurl my gypsy scarf from my neck until my belly is fully revealed. I smooth down my jersey dress over it.
She’s seen me.
Noticing, she walks over calmly, holding the folders that have come back from Cynthia.
“Hey, Alix, how’s it going?” I ask with as big a smile as I can muster as she reaches my cube. “Ooh, my back hurts.” I am rubbing my back and my belly simultaneously for full effect. Oh wait, shoot! That’s in the third trimester.
“Uh, how are you feeling, Liz?” I can tell Alix has no idea what to say.
“Great!” My tone is overeager. I try to cover my nerves and am surprised at my extreme guilt. Am I really doing this?
“Good.” She hands me a folder without making eye contact. “Can you do more research on this story about alternative baby bassinets? I can’t find anything on Japanese wall-hanging cuddle caves. Have you seen the fall line yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ll check with the PR contact.” As I meet her eyes, I feel the heavy weight of the lie for the first time. I push my anxiety away. I have no choice.
“And can you pull some more quotes from celebs who’ve struggled with postpartum depression from LexisNexis, too? The ones we have aren’t working.” She continues to look me up and down until she seems satisfied with something.
“Not a problem, Alix.” I’m glad for the distraction.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask...” She shifts her weight. “Is, there...a...father in the picture?” I begin to sweat, feeling the panic rising.
“I’m not really ready to discuss that right now.”
“As for your birth plan, you’re not thinking of doing any type of crazy natural home birth, are you?”
“Uh, I’m really not sure yet,” I sputter.
“Have you arranged a plan for child care going forward?”
I take a second, then realize, for once, I don’t always have to jump for this woman. “Yes, I’ll be happy to fill you and Jeffry in later on,” I say coolly.
“Well, we’re going to have to discuss it at some point soon since there will be two other women out when you’re gone, and once you’re back we’ll need to plan for coverage.” Oh. She only cares about whether I’ll still be able to clock late hours. Well, let her have fun sorting it out. It feels good to take charge of my own destiny for once. “Also, Cynthia was pretty underwhelmed with your October ‘First Steps’ lineup...it needs to be redone.”
When she leaves the cube, I remember back to when Alix first started working here. Her role was to bring in more upmarket fashion designers to the feature articles in order to draw in more high-end advertisers like Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
She did what they asked. But the air in the office shifted. Beyond making us change quotes, she was always yelling at assistants, making people do her work for her, and finding ways to assert her cool presence in all the meetings with our executive editor and Cynthia.
Her life seems so easy with her Upper East Side town house and cottage on the bay in South Hampton, perfect banker husband and toddler Tyler, who’s been dressed in couture since birth. I get the sense that it wasn’t her talent or skill that got her to this position at Paddy Cakes, but her family connections. I hate to feel like I have a chip on my shoulder—my father’s daughter in that regard. But I see Alix throw her monogrammed Goyard tote over her shoulder and ease her way toward the doors to go down to the café, as she texts on her phone—probably giving the nanny instructions—I can’t help thinking some people are just born lucky.
* * *
By Thursday, I’ve pulled it off. Four full days of bumpage—no sign of being caught. Blousy tops thanks to a shipment of maternity gear from Addison’s shoots help hide my faux belly from the rest of the staff, who sadly, must think I’ve just put on the pounds.
Before I even start working on a story, another email lands in my inbox.
See me. It’s from Cynthia.
Ugh...here it is. The big reveal.
I’ll make an appointment for this afternoon, I respond.
No, now, comes back instantly.
I summon my courage and try to remember my spiel about my “pregnancy.”
This is it. I walk over to her glass office and tap meekly on her door. She motions to come in. Before I even have a chance to sit down, she begins the inquisition.
“Elizabeth, when I replaced Patricia last year, I knew it would be a rough transition for the staff as I raised the tone and direction of the magazine to higher standards.”
I have no idea where this is going. I thought we were going to discuss my pregnancy, but maybe not.
Cynthia stares me straight in the eye. “Some of the staff seemed to get it instantly, like Alix. Others have had a bit of a rocky start.”
I just nod, trying to stay two steps ahead with a response to what she might say.
“As you know, our newsstand sales have been on the decline for a few years now. It’s been my job to bring the numbers back up.”
It was true. When Paddy Cakes, geared toward Brooklyn’s Park Slope–style mommies in 2000, launched at the beginning of the millennium, we’d had early success. With the dot-com boom, “bourgeois-bohemian” maternity items were the perfect place for people to spend their extra income.
But when mommy websites launched, like The Bump and Babble, we saw the first slump in sales. Then about three years ago, we saw a huge drop, as more advertising dollars were leaving our pages to go to independent parenting websites like Angry Mommy and creative lifestyle bloggers with kids.
Since I wasn’t responsible for that part of the business, I never really thought too much about it. But our editor, Patricia Holden, always did. She’d been asked to launch Paddy Cakes after making her mark as editor in chief at Women’s Health. Earlier in her career, she’d won awards for her investigative features at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. I really liked her a lot and felt as though she had an unusual realness and warmth. I learned a lot from her careful edits, which helped me to add more layers of emotion in my narratives. Even though the promotions weren’t huge ones, she was the one who decided to move me up from assistant editor to associate and then to articles editor. While the paychecks never really caught up, I held out hope something bigger and better would come.
Then she got fired. It was a Monday, and we were having our typical production meeting, but instead of Patricia coming in, our publisher entered the room. He quickly informed us that the magazine would now be heading in a slightly different direction, and that Patricia had chosen to move on to pursue other opportunities.
We learned that Cynthia Blackwell, who’d headed up British Glitter, would be replacing her. We all knew exactly who Blackwell was; the fifty-five-year-old ice queen had taken Glitter successfully from a regular to a rack-size magazine to a smaller handheld “subway-size” and subsequently doubled newsstand sales. She’d be making some changes at Paddy Cakes, he’d said. We all gasped at the thought, worrying about our job security, then lamenting that Patricia had been ousted because of factors in the marketplace out of her control.
We’d all heard tales of Cynthia’s hard-line, take-no-prisoners approach to magazine editing. But we had no idea what to expect or whether or not our jobs would be saved. Initially, only a handful of changes had taken place.
The magazine has gotten a lot more glossy and celebrity-driven. Cynthia became obsessed with finding younger, hotter, cooler celeb moms and airbrushing the crap out of them on the cover. She was always harping on us to get more sensational stories to generate more buzz instead of doing the advice-driven stories we had been known for. But aside from the constant fear that a story would be cut at the last minute, which left one having to research and write a replacement until all hours to make the shipping deadline, nothing much changed.
When she’d hired Jeffry, his hard-nosed ways instilled more fear. But I just went along with the changes, too swamped with work to question things. Now, though, I was beginning to realize a focus on higher-end advertisers was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
