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