“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.
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