Книга - Meternity

Meternity
Meghann Foye


Not quite knocked up… Like everyone in New York media, editor Liz Buckley runs on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails. But at thirty-one, she's plateaued at glossy baby magazine Paddy Cakes.Liz has spent years working a gazillion hours a week picking up the slack for colleagues with children, and she's tired of it. So one day when her stress-related nausea is mistaken for morning sickness by her bosses—boom! Liz is promoted to the mummy track. She decides to run with it and plans to use her paid time off to figure out her life: work, love and otherwise. It'll be her ‘meternity’ leave.By day, Liz rocks a foam-rubber belly under fab maternity outfits. By night, she dumps the bump for karaoke and boozy dinners out. But how long can she keep up her charade…and hide it from the guy who might just be The One?As her ‘due date’ approaches, Liz is exhausted—and exhilarated—by the ruse, the guilt and the feelings brought on by a totally fictional belly-tenant…about happiness, success, family and the nature of love.







Not quite knocked up...

Like everyone in New York media, editor Liz Buckley runs on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails. But at thirty-one, she’s plateaued at Paddy Cakes, a glossy baby magazine that flogs thousand-dollar strollers to entitled, hypercompetitive spawn-havers.

Liz has spent years working a gazillion hours a week picking up the slack for coworkers with kids, and she‘s tired of it. So one day when her stress-related nausea is mistaken for morning sickness by her bosses—boom! Liz is promoted to the mommy track. She decides to run with it and plans to use her paid time off to figure out her life: work, love and otherwise. It’ll be her “meternity” leave.

By day, Liz rocks a foam-rubber belly under fab maternity outfits. By night, she dumps the bump for karaoke nights and boozy dinners out. But how long can she keep up her charade...and hide it from the guy who might just be The One?

As her “due date” approaches, Liz is exhausted—and exhilarated—by the ruse, the guilt and the feelings brought on by a totally fictional belly-tenant...about happiness, success, family and the nature of love.


PRAISE FOR MEGHANN FOYE’S METERNITY! (#ulink_b52a10eb-95bb-5fa6-a2e6-5f71e410e8d8)

“A fresh, contemporary take on love and work, marriage and motherhood, Meternity is guaranteed to surprise and delight!”

—Emily Giffin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Something Borrowed and First Comes Love

“Funny, real and painfully true at times, Meternity tackles the bumpy road from singledom to modern motherhood with clever crafting and plenty of heart.”

—Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author of Summer Secrets and The Beach House

“A character so lovable, a predicament so fantastic, I could not wait to find out what happens next!”

—Nicola Kraus, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of The Nanny Diaries

“A witty and wonderful look at the challenges of being a woman today. Foye’s mixture of humor mixed with honesty and satire will have you laughing out loud one minute and seriously pondering the state of the modern world the next.”

—Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza, authors of The Knockoff

“If Bridget Jones had a modern-day BFF who worked at a New York magazine, was faking a pregnancy, and was struggling with post-30 singledom, this laugh-out-loud debut would be her book!”

—Kristin Harmel, international bestselling author of The Life Intended and The Sweetness of Forgetting




Meternity

Meghann Foye







www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


To my mother


Contents

Cover (#u6d45ddc6-9c29-5960-8f79-5004ee3686a9)

Back Cover Text (#u32314c57-ba29-53f2-98ed-5c6d57ee558e)

Praise (#uc9dffb3a-7c8e-5d77-a508-638f5c17d729)

Title Page (#u195e253c-d47c-528a-9e44-959bba2f7b2e)

Dedication (#ua8ceb718-7678-53c5-9603-572e15a12a44)

Conception (#u5926908d-7119-503c-aed6-12b7fd7b44ea)

May (#ucb02f41a-9605-5d5c-8aa5-137dfe5c5b42)

One (#uffbc250c-d3d9-5a09-bb1d-612fac600dbd)

Two (#u4757013e-a04e-5865-8c1c-2d7070ac5830)

Three (#u7e3ccfcf-0fae-5f76-b80c-d1dbb0abac15)

Four (#ude8a974b-aa5f-59e1-a610-6be5091147ca)

Five (#u1261eb2f-c350-54e6-b592-3d4faf24bb68)

Six (#u60d974a2-4eeb-54a8-941a-9a32e8e280fe)

Seven (#ubb04eca5-c38c-5ab9-a6fc-30fea7d9ba6c)

Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

June (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

July (#litres_trial_promo)

Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

August (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

September (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

October (#litres_trial_promo)

Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Labor (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

A New Life (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Reader Guide (#litres_trial_promo)

Q&A with Meghann Foye (#litres_trial_promo)

Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Conception (#ulink_eec09a9e-e767-5350-bb71-3da883057149)

Nothing compares with the miracle and magic of pregnancy. It’s your chance to be involved with life’s creative process.

—Your Pregnancy Week by Week


May (#ulink_115f4ffa-f78e-5f2d-b381-1f25af26a0fb)


One (#ulink_8bd3be3e-acac-53a4-9505-e5f4388c7366)

Spoken like a woman without kids.

I turn the article I’m working on over and tuck it under the latest issue of the magazine—I don’t want anyone in the office to see the ocean of red marks my top editor has left all over it—especially this one. Not that anyone is likely to walk by, since we’re all headed to the conference room for Pippa’s shower—one of many baby showers we’ve already had since January. Smoothing my gypsy top over my jeans, I attempt to take a deep cleansing breath in the five-second walk. In my twenties, this kind of copy note was understandable—funny even, since I could roll my eyes and say, “Yep, no kids and thank God.” But now, not so much. Now after ten years, it’s begun to sting. Still, I paste on a smile.

“Everyone! Quick, quick! Come in!” shrieks Caitlyn, our shared editorial assistant slash Instagram editor slash “sassy millennial,” or so proclaim all her social media profiles. She waves the Paddy Cakes staff in for our little Friday afternoon party and urges us to load up on Honey Cup cupcakes while taking it upon herself to raise our collectively dragging energy to #babyshowervibes.

I fight my way through the tangle of white and gold helium balloon ribbons toward the blond-wood table, hoarding a Honey Cup as if it wasn’t an ever-present fixture, and damn it, manage to somehow get some sparkles from the bunting on me yet again. I’m so not in the mood for this—I’ve got way too much to do. But I still take a moment to appreciate the calm as I tuck in. Quiet. A little space to think. Summoning up sincere joy for Pippa. But from the other side of the party, there she is. The bearer of the red-lined comments. Alix.

My nemesis walks toward me in careful, measured steps in her black patent Tod’s with a high-ply camel cashmere cardigan hanging from her pilates-sculpted shoulders. It’s a fashion affectation adopted long before it came back into vogue, her expensively highlighted, long blond hair pulled into a perfect low ponytail. Alix consciously careens past the plate of cupcakes, pressing her bowed lips together in silent protest. A holdover from coming up around heroin chic, eating in plain sight is for other people—as is doing any sort of work deemed at an assistant level, such as expense accounts, making edits on-screen and more worryingly for me these days, any of her actual work. You know, old-school.

As everyone huddles in, the moms on staff transition over to the usual mommy banter. Talia, our fashion director, is complaining about her twins’ inability to detach from various screens. Chloe, our usually impeccable beauty editor, is wearing haphazardly applied fake lashes, the only apparent sign of new-mom sleep deprivation.

Though I try casually to pull the balloons into a showery shield in front of me, the strings form no barrier from Alix’s sharp presence edging toward me.

“Liz,” she says, finding me in the corner. “Where are we with bottle-shaming? I really need to see it by three. I’m leaving early and I need to read it before I go.”

“It’s coming...just waiting for Sandy’s publicist to confirm ‘she’d sooner chew off her own daughter’s earlobe than use formula’ as you suggested on the edit,” I reply.

“And what about ‘5 Ways to Avoid Narcissistic Kids’?” she demands, now reapplying ballet-pink gloss to her lips in the reflection of the glass wall of the conference room.

“On its way.”

“Okaaaay.” She draws her eyes up finally. “And what about August’s ‘Alternative Chinese Dialects for Kindergartners’ story... I really need to see that one. It might be getting bumped up.”

“I was going to get to that one once I’m back from my trip,” I tell Alix. She’s asked for a particularly tricky replacement quote, and I was holding off calling Tracey, our tiger mom in La Jolla.

“Well,” she reprimands, “you should have told me if you couldn’t get to it. I expect you to prioritize yourself.”

I would have if you hadn’t dropped it on my desk at 5 p.m. as you were leaving to take Tyler to the Baby Whisperer, I think. My eye begins to twitch. I rub my temples and down my cold brew iced coffee as if it were the last squeeze of the canteen on a lifeboat. What was I just reading in the tiger mom story? Hard work equals excellence equals reward? The virtuous circle. Yes, okay. Only after ten years at Paddy Cakes, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way for me. Not after Alix was hired along with the changeover and claimed the deputy title that was promised to me, a long overdue bump up from articles editor.

Still, at least I’ve got Paris. Five full days strolling the Seine and the Musée Picasso, five days of café crème, five days of croissants. And five days free of the relentless swarm of Alix’s emails asking for more research on the latest baby controversy du jour, treating me like I’m her secretary, and trapping me at the office well past midnight most nights.

Nope. What I’ve learned the hard way, postrecession “mediapocalypse,” as assistant ranks have been traded for tech solutions, is this: having a child is really the only excuse a woman can use to work regular work hours or leave early. Single women don’t have the same luxury, and therefore must take on the extra work, little cleanup projects and finishing up when the moms on staff have a hard stop. No baby—no excuse not to stay late.

“Everyone, everyone, shh! I’m going to make the call,” says Caitlyn above the growing din. She picks up the phone and fights to hold back a giggle. “Pippa, Cynthia needs to see you in the conference room—NOW.”

We’ve played this trick countless times at Paddy Cakes, or The Baby Magazine for Moms and All Their Little Neuroses as Jules, my work BFF and the only other mid-leveler on staff, and I call it. As we wait, I fiddle with my old cracked iPhone 4—the one corporate refuses to upgrade—and try to switch off the alerts for the FitBaby app our web editor is having me test out for a story. It’s the one that supposedly monitors vital signs for your pregnancy, tracking miles walked, nutrition, sleep and the pièce de résistance: an ominous meter that calculates the totals into “Baby Smiles” using a patented and secret—albeit slightly random—algorithm. For “millennial moms who are dissatisfied with the typical pregnancy conversation and are looking for a more fun—and fit—experience,” read the press release, which I’ve already thrown in the trash. It won’t stop alerting me with “Push :) Notifications” that I need to “push it harder” to bring up my Baby Smiles score for the story.

“To do list?” pokes Jules, sensing my Mach-10 distractibility.

“It’s getting there,” I flat out lie.

Jules winces. “Then I hate to tell you, but I heard Alix talking to Tamara. The Marigold Matthews cover has dropped out—due to ‘exhaustion.’”

“Diet pills and a botched mummy tuck, you mean.”

Jules rolls her eyes, yes.

“Great...” I tug my blousy top down over my dirty little secret—my pair of size eight maternity jeans pilfered from the office giveaway table. Thanks to my midnight feedings as of late: cereal, some hummus scooped from the container with my finger because I forgot to buy carrots again, followed by a new brand of vegan cashew-milk ice cream/numbing agent. Jules is too quick not to notice, eyeing me.

“Do not even try to maternity-jean shame me,” I tell her.

“Liz.” My overly practical office BFF from age twenty-two has only to say my name to trigger me.

“They’re just so...comfortable,” I say.

Arghhh! I wince as I see the time on my phone. It’s 2:27 p.m. I’ve got exactly three hours and thirty-three minutes to finish my work before rushing home to pick up my suitcase, then head to the airport for my 10 p.m. flight. But now with the threat of the cover dropping out, I start to sweat. More coffee needed sends a signal from my temple. And sugar. My ever-present fantasy arises again: quitting to freelance travel write, my secret back-of-the-mind dream for what feels like months now. Maybe I won’t get on the return flight.

I quickly check my account. I have $405 to make it through until next pay period. Phew. That should be enough while I’m in Paris on the press trip, and virtually all meals and activities will be covered. Then another alert. My credit card balance needs exactly $425 for the next payment due tomorrow. My throat begins to dry up...

“Shh! Everyone, shh! She’s coming!” Caitlyn hushes us all again giddily even though the walls of the conference rooms are all glass.

Everyone giggles as Pippa spots the balloons. She softens into a huge smile and rubs her large belly as her eyes light up at the sight of the $1,789 Bugaboo Madaleen stroller we all had to chip in for, raised up on the conference table like a biblical golden calf.

“Liz!” says Chloe, touching her eye where her false lash is askew. “So how are you and JR doing? Heading off to Paris, I hear!”

I look down. I guess Jules hasn’t said anything to our coworkers. “No, it’s a press trip for Bourjois-Jolie, actually. JR and I broke up.”

“Oh, Liz,” she says, offering me a sympathetic look. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“We just weren’t getting along,” I say, embarrassed.

“It’s okay, Liz. What are you, thirty? You’ve still got time.”

“Thirty-one. But it’s fine.”

Talia joins in. In her early forties and married with twin two-year-old girls, I can tell she can’t help herself. “You broke up with JR? After four years? Wasn’t he about to pop the question?”

“Um, sort of. But that’s okay,” I respond, another attempt at brightness.

“Well, don’t waste too much time. You don’t want to miss your window.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“It’s just so haarrrd out there right now to be single, isn’t it?” says Chloe, her own skating-rink-sized rock gleaming like a searchlight from her left hand.

“No, it’s fine.” What I really want to say is, “If by hard, you mean searching for the unicorn of Tinder while spending weekends under a duvet, ordering Seamless and watching endless rom-coms on Netflix, starting with The Back-up Plan and ending with Under the Tuscan Sun as a sort of ‘final option,’ than yes, maybe, a little.”

Chloe then turns to Talia. “So, how are the girls?”

“Oh, you know how it is, new motherhood...”

“I know, we’re sleep training now. Weissbluth.” She cocks a brow conspiratorially.

“We did Weissbluth, Sears and Ferber, and finally the girls are mostly getting through the night. But you know who ends up being the one to put them back to sleep when they wake up at 3 a.m.?” says Talia pointing at herself. “Moi!”

“Exactly,” responds Chloe.

The whole room joins in now, as they debate the merits of the latest types of sleep training as if their value as women depended on it. Ground zero for competitive parenting, we’ve battled our way through Mommy Wars, Tiger Parenting, French Parenting, Elephant Parenting, Amish Parenting, Leaning In, Opting Out, Attachment and Co-sleeping, Anti-Vaxx, Free Range, ’70s-style, Gluten-Free Gooping, Paleo Parenting, KonMari Parenting (only do things that spark joy!)...not to mention “She who shall not be named” (shh... Jenny McCarthy). The rise of the “mommy” culture has turned modern motherhood into a marketing concept—a business to run—and our magazine has led the charge. Your child is no longer merely your offspring, a conception born out of love and fate, but your product to be programmed and perfected.

With the consensus that the baby should be further along, Chloe adds nervously, “We’re thinking of trying the sleep consultant we featured in the January issue.”

“Before you do that, you might want to think about that baby nutritionist—removing dairy and gluten can make a huge difference. Really helped my girls,” tosses back Talia.

“But Poppy’s six months old—she’s just on breast milk,” says Chloe.

“Oh, right. Well, maybe try seeing if she can clean up your own diet? Elimination diets are really the only thing that work,” says Talia, looking self-satisfied.

Chloe dims.

What happened to just being happy? I wonder.

“I was just reading the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s new study,” I muster, attempting to help Chloe out. “It’s a fifteen-year longitudinal study involving sets of brothers that shows babies do equally well sleep-trained or not. It has more to do with the constellation of love and support they receive from their fam—”

“Spoken like a woman without a child.” The familiar refrain sears into me again from the other side of the room. As if I haven’t worked at a baby magazine for the past ten years. As if I don’t know this stuff cold.

“Everyone knows full cry-it-out is best. A disciplined approach is the only thing that gets results. If you can’t hack it, then get a night nanny,” Alix says, purposefully folding her arms and looking at me directly. Message received: until you have a baby and become a mom, your opinions don’t count. Or, more accurately, you don’t count.

“How are things with you, Jules?” says Chloe, chirpily breaking through the awkward silence, which sets everyone off again into chitchat.

“Oh, we’re good. Working on business school applications for Henry. Which is a big pain in my ass because I have to do them all, of course.”

“Ha-ha,” giggles Chloe. “Good luck with that. I should go check in with Pam about the ‘Get Your Pre-Baby Face Back’ story. Talk to you guys later!”

My shoulders slump.

Jules gives me a stern look. “Liz, listen, I know it’s been hard dealing with what happened with JR this past winter, but you’ve got to get over it.”

“I’m trying,” I sigh. After years of canceling plans with JR because of work crises, I’d agreed without thinking to attend the Paddy Cakes Best of Babies Gala instead of JR’s annual sales recognition dinner for P&G’s East Coast reps. Ironically, I’d hoped that going to the gala would clinch my promotion to deputy editor, which would make all these years of hard work at the magazine all worth it, get me some assistant help and free me up to devote more time to my relationship. But when I told JR my plan, he walked out.

Jules sniffs. “Lizzie, he treated you like a fifties housewife, expecting you to act like some kind of WAG, not a woman with a job that keeps you at the office late most nights. Plus he secretly watched Fox News. He was not the guy for you. You were just settling and you know it.”

“I know,” I concede. “But he was ready. It’s a certified fact that no man under forty who is sane, has a job and is fairly attractive wants to settle down in New York City.”

Jules gives me a firm look. “Henry did.”

“You met him straight out of college. That’s not fair!”

Jules and Henry’s story is straight out of a romance novel—in reverse. Fresh-faced and right on the heels of our first jobs at the magazine, Jules had been on her way home one night and recognized the cute boy walking toward her. Henry had been a senior when she was a freshman at Emory. Now both were living in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, and they literally bumped into one another—or so Henry claims. Jules told me she spotted him fifty feet away and planned the whole thing. After their “fateful run-in,” he wooed her with his slow-cooked Carolina pulled-pork dinners and “power-cuddling,” as Jules joked. They moved in together after only six months, then spent the rest of their twenties having fun, going to hear live music and traveling all over the world before getting married last year—one of the lucky ones, but to her credit, she never rubs it in.

“It’s just, Talia’s right—there’s no time to waste. Just get back out there.”

“Like with this guy, you mean?” I hold up my latest attempt at turning a Tinder convo into a date. Want 2B scummy with me 2nite? reads the opening line from a sweet-looking Williamsburg man with a scruffy beard.

“Oh, jeez,” says Jules. “Just block him!”

“But he’s wearing a suit! That means he has a job at least!” I pretend to sniff, looking down. “Or was invited to a wedding...”

The next man that comes up has long, brown stringy hair, a mustache and is holding a poodle in his lap. I like it doggy-style, reads his profile. Shuddering, I click the app closed.

“Just keep pounding the rock,” nudges Jules. “One day it will crack.”

“I know,” I sigh, thinking, or I will.

I lean back onto the outer wall thwacking the cold glass with a loud bang as the sad realization hits me: unlike the twentysomething “little blonde girls” or LBGs I see husband-hunting around the East and West Villages, secretly quoting that Princeton Mom, I’ve been toting dog-eared Eat Pray Love and Lean In and actually believing the two rules my old editor in chief Patricia told me the first day I arrived as an intern at Paddy Cakes: do one thing a day toward your goal and don’t give up and eventually success will be yours. But now it seems like that Princeton Mom was right all along. I’ve been a total fool. Beyond a certain age (i.e. thirty), women still have no legitimacy unless they’re married, have kids and are running a household. We are still living in Austen-era England. I should have been spending my twentysomething nights sweating my ass off at PowerCycle, not powering through stories on attachment parenting styles.

PUSH! :) Notification! Pregnancy is one of life’s prime examples of letting go of control and allowing nature to take its course. You’ll find that your body has a wisdom all its own. Relax and listen to its messages.

That’s dark, I think, trying to figure out how to shut the app off.

Then, before I notice it, our new editor in chief Cynthia walks in and announces, “Sorry to cut this joyous affair short, but I need you, Alix.” Then Cynthia turns her steely gaze on me. “And you, too, Liz. Now.”

Me? Without a word, I leap up, ignoring the stares as I trail after Cynthia and Alix. They burn a path down the hallway to Alix’s office.

The second we’re inside, Cynthia immediately turns to Alix.

“Did you find those Asian couple options yet? We are going to rework the ‘Alternative Chinese Dialects’ story and go with the harder-hitting-themed issue you suggested—‘Tiger Moms Vs French Moms: The Battle Royale Heats Up.’ We’ll use that family with the Caucasian mom and Chinese-American dad on the cover along with their mixed-race baby. The press will eat it up!”

Alix looks over at me. “The revise is almost done...”

“When am I to see it?”

“Immediately after this. Right, Liz?” Alix’s eyes shoot daggers through me.

“Yes.”

Satisfied, Cynthia turns and walks out. Alix motions for me to stay. The pit in my stomach tells me what’s coming next.

“We have just about everything we need, correct? Did you incorporate all my notes? The revised draft was still a bit sloppy. Did you address my question about finding a more inflammatory quote from that one mom from California?”

“Yes, I went back to Tracey a few times but I don’t know if we’ll be able to get more examples of punishment. She’s okay with representing herself as a disciplinarian, but not in the more extreme way we, uh, would like her to.”

I preempt Alix’s next question. “I did ask her if she ever resorted to physical punishment. She said a few light spankings, but that’s all.”

Her brow creases. “What word did she use exactly?”

I know where she’s going with this. Yet again, I’ll have to get a source to sign off on a quote by assuring her that by tweaking the wording, we are doing them a service. I hear my inner voice say, This is wrong.

“She said ‘spanking.’ That’s it.”

I tried. But we’re not going to use the word Alix wants: beating.

“I’m sure we can substitute a word here or there,” Alix says quickly. “Since it’s broader than spanking, and it means virtually the same thing. Just run it by her.”

I swallow hard, and then I hear myself say, “No.”

“No, what?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t beat her children, Alix.”

“Liz, I know we can get her to agree to that line,” Alix says. “Otherwise the story won’t work for a cover line, and we have no time for a replacement.”

Stomach clenching, I realize it will be a race to the finish line to make it to JFK on time tonight, and most likely I’ll be working on the plane and through the rest of my trip.

“Always finding problems, never the solutions,” Alix says out of the corner of her mouth.

I catch it, dropping my shoulders. “I’ll call her and see what I can get her to say.”

“Good,” says Alix just as Jeffry Clark, our new executive managing editor hired by Cynthia out of a digital media agency, strolls in. MacBook Air in one hand, his other is in his jeans’ pocket, male entitlement emanating off of him with every unhurried step. His Bushwick beard and inked sleeves read carefully studied hipster, but in the past few months his consulting-driven management style has meant he’s anything but relaxed, constantly on us to find new “efficiencies,” just like his annoyingly foreshortened name.

“Alix, Liz. Have you figured out who’s writing this story yet?”

“Liz will do the first draft and I’ll top-edit the Monday after next when it’s done,” says Alix before I’m even able to respond. “Liz, you speak French, right? You can track down the French moms living in the States.”

“We’re going to need to make sure the subjects are available to shoot next week. Who’s prepping?” asks Jeffry.

“I’m out next week,” says Alix. “Turks and Caicos, remember?”

“Well, someone’s got to be here to manage the shoot. The assistants can’t handle it.”

No... NO, I think simply as images of my Parisian trip come tumbling down. Alix points her gaze directly at me. “Liz can handle it, I’m sure,” she says.

“I’m out, too, next week. Remember the press trip you wanted me to go on? What if I find American mothers living in France?”

“That won’t work.” Alix shakes her head no. “They need to be based here.”

“Sorry, Liz, you’re going to have to cancel the trip,” he says. “Alix has a family reunion in the Caribbean she can’t miss. You can go to Paris anytime. We need coverage here. I’ll let the PR firm running the trip know.”

I can’t quite think what to say with the two of them staring at me. Refuse them and I’ll be fired and probably blacklisted from the entire industry. I flash to my shameful $7,897 of credit card debt, courtesy of a stream of bridesmaid-related expenses over the past few years, my rent check, the upcoming $505 reoccurring student loans payment reminding me every month that I chose the priciest liberal arts education so I could make the very connections landing me here.

“Alix, please, is there another way?”

“I’m sorry, Liz. It’s not my job to clean up your mess. You could have handled it if you were more efficient with your time.”

“But I always have to take on the workload of other staffers out on maternity leave on top of my own. You know that.”

“You always seem to have excuses,” Alix says. “If you had children, I’d understand, but tell me why is it such a big deal to stay late a few nights a month when you have no real responsibilities otherwise?”

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.

Next it’s “I’m Too Sexy,” then “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.” From the get-go, he’s totally got it, nailing every single low-voiced guy part. Halfway through “Crazy,” he pushes a hand through his light brown wavy hair as he uses the other to do some sort of complex Steven Tyler move. He’s got on those light-wash Gap jeans all the soccer players used to wear in college. He’s so into it and so making fun of himself at the same time, I can’t stop laughing. By the time Chumbawamba’s “I Get Knocked Down” comes on, the entire crowd is cheering him on as he attempts the grand finale—the running man to “Poison.”

“He’s got balls.” Addison nods approvingly.

“He’s cute,” says Brie.

“I think I know him,” I say. “How do I know him?”

Brie surfaces a sticky sweet lemon drop shot. I down it, thinking to myself, Why not? Clearing my throat, I turn toward the teleprompter, cursing as I see my name. Addison and Brie, those little cheeks, can’t hide their giggles when the traumatically familiar chorus begins to play. As always, every last face in the bar is cringing as I screech out the first few verses. Pretty soon, I’m belting it out, battling my way through the lyrics as if my life depended on it. It feels good. I’m a woman without a box, and I don’t care anymore, damn it.

“You...you...you oughtta know,” I sing out at full volume, just as the song stops sooner than I expect. My voice fills the void with a shriek, followed by silence. Finally I look up. Addison and Brie fight to contain their giggles. A slow, perfunctory applause emerges from the crowd. I notice Gap Jeans Guy is clapping jokily, too. God. Head down in shame, I beeline off the stage. Needing another drink, I walk over to the bar, red-faced.

“One vodka soda, splash of cran,” I say to the bartender.

“That will be sixteen dollars,” he responds. Ouch.

“I’ll get you a drink,” a weird guy with fluttery eyes says as he reaches for his man purse. “Malibu?”

“Uh, no thanks,” I say, trying to be polite, searching around in my oversize bag for my wallet. I balance my huge hobo carryall on the edge of the counter to get a better look. Then something heavy inside shifts the center of balance, and all of the contents spill out on the floor.

“Um, can I help you with that?” It’s Gap Jeans Guy. He’s coming over to the bar. I feel myself growing flustered as we both reach down toward the floor and he hands over my copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

“That’s not, er, mine, well it is, but I’m not...you know... I work at a baby magazine.” He looks as if he’s biting his lip, trying not to laugh.

“Wait, are you Liz Buckley? Deputy editor at Paddy Cakes? I thought you looked familiar up there. It’s Ryan—from the Discovery Channel.”

That’s right, I remember now. He recently turned thirty-seven, which I’d noted when he’d friended me on Facebook. I’d helped handle some details on a Paddy Cakes story they’d brought to air on mega multiples.

Before I can correct him on my title, the music comes on. “Oh shoot, my next song’s up.” And with that, he gets up on stage, as Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” starts up. I can’t believe how good Ryan is. Well, not exactly perfect, but strong, confident. As I stare at him, I notice his ability to let go. It’s sweet. So different from the zombified Patrick Batemen psychos I’m used to dealing with on Tinder. He’s actually got a beating heart. Once he’s through, he comes back to the bar to join me.

“My buddies made me get up there on a losing bet. My team, Liverpool, lost today.”

“Seems like you’ve been practicing,” I tease. It’s his turn to grow red.

“Hey, I’m thinking of hitting the ramen spot for some takeout on my way home now. Wanna join me? You look like a girl who could use some soup.”

“Why not,” I say as I laugh to myself. Brie is in the middle of an overemotive power ballad, making me feel like the night will soon be over anyway, and this is only a preamble to a Baxter hookup.

I signal to Addison that I’m leaving and she waves me off, indicating that she’s got Brie-watch covered. I notice her venture capitalist du jour Brady has also shown up.

Ryan and I work our way through the crowded street to a spot down the block called Soju Ramen. There’s a line out the door. In front of us, five twentysomething guys in flannels debate the merits of a few ramen shops in Flushing. I secretly love this talk, I think, feeling better. We finally arrive at the head of the line and the server asks us what we want.

“I’ll take the pork belly, please.”

“Nice. Make that two, please,” pipes up Ryan. “Five sriracha in mine.”

“Woah, you like it hot, huh?”

“You know it.” Ryan readjusts his worn-in baseball cap. “So deputy editor Liz Buckley... Are you going to watch the mega-multiples special next week?”

“Yes, but I’m not deputy. Alix is.”

“Aren’t you the one doing all the work on the tie-in?”

It took tons of my time—but Alix got the credit as always. “Yes, well, you know how it is...”.

The woman at the counter eyes us, making us realize others are trying to order. Ryan guides me toward the side, gently touching my arm. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh, no, Upper West Side.”

“Oh, cool. Uptown, fancy. Only the best for Deputy Editor Liz,” he teases.

“Ha. Not quite.” I think of the same small, rent-stabilized studio apartment I’ve been living in for the past four years handed down to me from my former editor at Paddy Cakes.

“Me neither. I’m on First and A.”

“Party central,” I tease back. It comes easily, like I don’t even have to try.

“No—I live with my brother—he got a great deal a few years back and it’s close to the bar where I watch the Premier League games.” He looks down at his feet. “Let’s figure out a plan to meet up and discuss some new ideas soon.”

“Sure,” I say, trying to play it cool. “That would be great.”

“I, uh, should get your number, just in case,” he says, strangely serious all of a sudden.

I’m not expecting this at all. I give him the same 917 number I’ve had since college.

“To stay or to go?” calls out the woman at the counter. Ryan looks at me, expectantly. I would like to stay and hear more about his job, his love of British soccer and the exact origins of his Gap jeans, but the weight of today’s events added to the lemon drop and the vodka-cran have sent me crashing and I don’t feel confident about what might come out of my mouth next.

“Ugh, to go, I guess,” I tell the woman.

“Make mine to go, too,” Ryan says.

“That will be twenty-four dollars,” says the woman.

“Oh, they must have combined our orders—” I start fumbling for cash.

“That’s okay, I’ve got this,” says Ryan, waving away my attempt.

“No, I don’t mean to make you feel sorry for me.”

“I’ve got it,” he pushes. “Anyway, I don’t feel sorry for you, Liz. I know you’re going places. Soup’s on you next time.”

He grins and takes off down the street.

I notice my stomach has grown warm feeling and it’s not just the soup.


Four (#ulink_33cb97fa-a3fa-5853-9500-e29710446bf1)

PUSH! :) Notification! Week 17: Think of every pound gained as a sign of a healthy, happy baby. Of course you don’t want to gain too much. So stop and give us 40. Lolz. J.K. Baby Smiles: 15!

“Aren’t you in desperate need of a makeover?” says Hudson, Ford’s just-a-touch-judgmental friend, as he’s sizing me up through his Mr. Rogers black-rimmed glasses in an empty makeup room at the Naomi Marx Show. At 9 a.m. on Monday morning the dressing room is quiet. None of the other production assistants are in yet, but all around me are racks of jewel-toned dresses, five-inch stilettos, scary-looking hair pieces, and big blown-up posters of Naomi staring back at me, with her signature Cleopatra-like closed-mouth smile.

“I haven’t had time,” I say in a daze. I need coffee.

“I was thinking we could do one size for each month, since your clothes will cover it. I already have months four through six from the time when Naomi was doing that series on ‘Teen-Mom Boot Camp.’ I’ll have to take your measurements now and then get you the rest of the months later,” he says, wrapping the tape around my waist, hips and bust.

I’m thinking I’ll just need the one, but then again no harm being measured.

“Now, if you’re really going to do this right, you have to wear the bump, cover it with Spanx, then a thin slip. Leave no lines. Think you can do that?” says Hudson, snapping the measuring tape off my waist.

“Yes, of course.” I sneer and grab the largest of the bumps out of his hands, walk behind a changing screen and slip it over my head. After wriggling it down so it sits right over my pooch, I fit my empire-waist dress over it and come back out to look in the mirror.

“Looks real,” says Ford with an eye raise. “Totally real.”

“I know,” says Hudson. “I’m really good at this.”

“Weird,” I say, almost in a trance. Staring back at me in the mirror is a six-months pregnant Liz. The bump makes my roundish cheeks look thinner than usual (or is the bump creating an optical illusion?) and my ice-blue eyes have a watery gleam to them. Even in my old peacock-blue jersey dress, my five-foot-five frame looks, well, not bad. My thinnish medium-length “brond” hair seems to fall differently—fuller and wavier.

“At least you’re well-proportioned—nice legs, square shoulders—so as long as you don’t mess up the application, the bumps should sit perfectly.”

I feel the taut orb. It seems to be made of a foam rubber that is slightly firmer than usual, not unlike a half a Nerf football, sitting perfectly over my lower abdomen.

Hudson eyes me. “Memory foam.”

“Tempur-Pedic?” I respond.

“Yep—but slightly different—not as squishy. I have a supplier in Sweden.”

“Wow,” I say, grateful for this little bit of luck on a Monday morning. I thank Hudson, pack up the first little eighteen-week belly and make plans to get the rest later—if I should even need them. Despite the extreme terror I feel as I walk out of the midtown sound studio, I’m buoyed. Could this actually work? But my reverie fades as soon as I walk into the office around ten fifteen.

“Liz, come here,” says Jeffry, signaling me over to the spot outside his own corner office. “Alix says she’s been emailing you questions all morning about the cover story research and you haven’t gotten back to her. You know we’re on a tight schedule.” He proceeds to tap away at his computer calendar, looking down at my stomach conspicuously. I reach to wrap my arms around myself instinctively.

“I emailed Alix that I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”

“Well, you can’t take time off just because of your situation,” he says, which makes me feel both mad and seriously guilty. “By the way I’ve forwarded you our Family and Medical Leave Act paperwork. Make sure to have it back to me by end of the week. Otherwise, you might jeapordize your maternity leave benefits. And you also need to figure out how you plan to use vacation in addition to the six weeks paid.”

Jules and I had taken issue in theory with the fact that the medical leave act FMLA essentially likened pregnancy to a disability, but now I was finding it downright disturbing. Just six weeks paid leave? Maybe the moms in the office don’t have it as easy as I thought they did.

Just then, the UPS guy brings over an enormous package. It’s from Giggle, the high-end baby store we’re forever mentioning in our pages. “Alix emailed us the great news! Congrats, mama-to-be!” says the card inside from Carly, the PR contact I’ve worked with for years. Shit! Hoping no one sees the display, I paw through the box, instantly feeling a wave of complex emotions—guilt, and glee—that Carly now thinks I’m pregnant.

Inside the tissue, there’s everything I could ever want or need—maternity sports bras, softer-than-soft pajama tops. There’s even a pillow to put between my knees while I’m sleeping. Beneath it are gift certificates for the Nuna swing, the Keekaroo changing pad and even the Silver Cross pram, the mythical stroller of the gods that all the royals use—it’s like three thousand dollars. I stuff the package under my desk into a corner to get to work lining up French moms, almost thankful I can take my mind off things.

By midday, group emails about the tiger/French moms story sits stalled on the screen while I make up my profile on BabyCenter.com. As a joke, I send the link to Jules. I’ve been terrified to tell her what I decided, but I figure now is about as good a time as any.

“Are you on crack?” She practically leaps over the desk partition.

“No, why?” I say innocently.

“I said keep pounding the rock, not jump off the ledge!” Her whispers have a hard edge as she eyes around the office floor. Jules motions for us to go into the only semiprivate conference room. “Aren’t you worried about how you’re going to pull this whole thing off? I mean, you’re not hooking up with anyone right now. Don’t you think everyone’s going to wonder who the father is?” she asks.

“I have some time to figure it out.”

Jules still looks at me like I’ve got two heads. “But what about your paycheck, future career prospects, your dignity? You can’t pretend to be pregnant for five months. People are going to know you’re lying. You work in an office full of people who are fully aware of every nuance of pregnancy.”

“True,” I say, trying to hold my ground. “But so do I.”

“You mean to tell me the first time someone starts quizzing you about the tests, the names, the schools, the doctors, whatever, you’re not going to ‘pull a Liz’ and go completely blank. The jig will be up before you can even start to show.”

“I’ll work it out somehow.” I’m not sure why I feel such a great urge to push back at her on this. Then I see Alix wending her way over to my cube, armed with a bunch of file folders. Wait—what is she doing here! The least she could do was TAKE HER VACATION!

Without saying a word, she drops something on my desk, allowing the contents to scatter over my already-disheveled pile system. Jules and I head back, and I sit down. Rather than the tiger moms/French moms revise, she’s given me the “Stages of Newborn Spit-up” story I’d helped her with over two weeks ago. It must be back from Cynthia with edits.

“Thanks for that,” she says, nodding at the story covered in Cynthia’s red pen. “Tyler developed a fever and Marisol couldn’t get him to sleep, so I had to cancel my trip, after all. I’ll need you to be on call just in case he gets worse and I have to go to the doctor with him.”

“Sure,” I say flatly, thinking how easy it is for mothers to employ the verb have, like I have to leave work early to pick up Tyler’s nut allergy results; I have to go get Tyler’s organic baby puree before Whole Foods closes. I wonder what would ever happen if I said, “I have to meet Brie at happy hour or she’s going to hook up with her ex-boyfriend who’s just using her for sex.”

“Better get that revise to me ASAP. You should be boning up on the latest in prenatal digestion anyway. The mother’s microbiome has a significant effect.” She eyes my stomach with a hint of suspicion.

“You know what all our moms say—I can eat whatever I want for the next five months.”

“Watch out. I’ve seen people gain weight that never seems to come off with that attitude. It’s just plain lazy.”

Kicking away the piles of baby toys I’ve gathered over the years under my own desk, I start in on one of my August stories. This time it’s on the benefits of unbleached cotton swaddling blankets costing upward of two hundred dollars, ethically sourced and “designed” in the USA by a cute couple in St. Louis who used to work in digital marketing in the city—perfectly punny adjectives about the benefits of organic cotton are coming easily (“Walk like an Egyptian”). Before I know it, it’s 10 p.m. and the day, and night, are gone.

Wearily, I make my way to Alix’s office to hand off the files for her top edit. An artful arrangement of lilies crowds the corner of her desk, an ever-present feature thanks to all the glowing coverage of advertisers. As I place the files on her desk, a few slide into her mouse and knock the screen alive. On it there’s an email from Jeffry.

Locanda Verde. 8 p.m. reads the subject. Don’t worry, it’s all going to be okay. Wait a second. That’s odd. Why would they be going there? It seems awfully intimate if it were for business purposes. Wait. Could they be having an affair? And she’s using her “sick kid” as an excuse to cover for the fact that she didn’t want to go on her own family vacation because her marriage is on the rocks? I snort to myself, that would be the kicker, now, wouldn’t it.

Somehow I manage to make it to Friday—a few pints of vegan cashew may have helped—and just as I’ve shored myself up to face the day with the help of pure, delicious caffeine, I see Alix has made her way to my desk. She hands back a bunch of copy so covered in red it looks like someone’s been wiping up a crime scene with it.

“Cynthia emailed me to tell you that the piece on new secondary C-section alternatives went in the completely wrong direction,” Alix says. “You’re going to have to research it more. The trends you found were lame,” says Alix, dropping the story on my desk.

“But I also noted in the original proposal that there was nothing new out there. I did the research. That’s what happens when the top editors come up with the headlines before the stories are actually written.” It’s another trait, along with all the made-up quotes, Alix seems to have brought with her from her old magazine.

“Well, do you want me to tell Cynthia that?” Alix looks peeved.

“Just tell her the truth—there aren’t any real ways to make a C-section scar any smaller or minimize the pain. I found those acupuncture treatments in Chinatown and I thought they sounded promising.”

“You know the issue.” Alix’s not conceding an inch. “Not mainstream enough. What soccer mom in Darien or Evanston is going to creep into some sketchy alterna-practice for strange herbs and needles? Back to the drawing board.”

“But they do for fertility treatments. What’s the difference?” I’m mad now so I don’t care that Alix is giving me the death stare. “You know that’s a different story.”

Alix sniffs. “You do seem to find all the problems and never the solutions.”

“Okay, I’ll keep researching,” I mutter, and take the copy out of her hands. Jules is nowhere to be seen for a postmortem bitch session. Now I’m going to be spending the weekend making up fake C-section alternatives, instead of meeting up with Addison and Brie tonight as I’d hoped.

My phone chimes loudly on the desk. I see that it’s my mom. I have to answer this time.

“Just checking in to make sure you’re still alive. I got your email last weekend about Paris. I’m sorry, Lizzie. I know how much that trip meant to you.”

“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.

“You remember the most important rule here at Paddy Cakes?” asks Cynthia, ratcheting me back to the present.

“Sell more copies?” I reply.

“Exactly,” says Cynthia. “So you can imagine my surprise when I was reading your story ideas for October and saw that you’d pitched exactly the same kind of slush-driven muck that made this magazine tank 20 percent on the newsstand before I got here. I’m going to be blunt, Elizabeth. Your lineup was complete crap.”

“I, uh...” I stammer, not knowing what to say, Okay, yes, I mean I had kind of called it in but still, I didn’t think it was terrible.

“For example,” Cynthia continues. “‘This Sucks: Getting Your Baby to Learn to Latch’—this could go in any magazine. Kiddos even,” naming our more accessible mass-market competitor.

“Right, but I downloaded the notes from this year’s American College of Pediatricians conference. It was about a groundbreaking study with new techniques. It’s a good chance to report on the news...” I say my case.

“Sod reporting the news,” says Cynthia in total disgust, “I want to make news.”

“I totally see what you’re saying.” I gulp in air. “I’ll submit a new lineup by tomorrow.” There is no way I’m going to win this one.

“Make it good,” she says, turning away from me toward her computer. “I’m doing a bit of a rethink in terms of staffing over the next few months. Things may be changing. And while someone in your circumstances may have a little more...leeway...it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Yes,” I say, quivering. “No problem.” I get up and walk quickly back to my cube. Jules is there, tapping away on her keyboard, but when she sees the look on my face, she immediately turns to talk me down off the ledge.

I pick up my iced “decaf” and start sucking it furiously. “Cynthia finally brought it up.”

“Seriously! What happened?” says Jules, turning her chair completely toward me as a sign of sympathy.

“Yep. On top of that, she just told me my October lineup was crap, and hinted she may fire me anyway.”

“Eek,” says Jules.

“It’s so unfair. She comes in here, rips up all our stories, leaves us scrambling to write new ones in the time we’re supposed to use for researching new stories, then expects the lineups we pull together in a few minutes to be perfect.”

“It sucks, Liz. I’m sorry. I know she’s come down way harder on features than health.”

“No, not true. Your stories fly through with her. It’s like everyone here seems to get it but me. Write stupid listicles about how you’re lactating wrong and be done with it.”

Jules puts her hand on my arm consolingly. “What are you going to do? Our paychecks have to come from somewhere.”

“I guess I take it personally. I mean, moms out there don’t want to read about the stuff they can’t afford, right? They want real news about baby trends and advice to use in their own lives. That’s what would sell our magazine, right?”

“Maybe, but people seem to like reading the stuff we’ve been doing lately. Like how celebs take off baby weight in two weeks or speed through African adoption agencies. It’s not all bad.”

Jules has a point, but Cynthia’s comments have struck a nerve.

“And she barely mentioned me being pregnant. It’s like she doesn’t even care at this point. Maybe she’s planning on firing me anyway and is just trying to work it out through HR!” I feel tears welling up out of pure frustration.

“Well, you can either get a new job and quit, or, learn to stop taking it personally, just get it done and go home, which is what I do.”

“Hrumph,” I spout, still wanting to sulk. “Okay, fine, if she wants stories like organic peanut butters that will get your kid into Princeton I will give it to her—founded or not,” I say. I type the idea into a fresh text file I have open on my screen, pounding the keys for dramatic effect.

If my work doesn’t improve and Cynthia has a vendetta against me, my fake pregnancy might be the only thing keeping me from getting fired. My chest starts to tighten and a lump forms in my throat. Getting fired would leave me with no options whatsoever.

Finally, the cover story comes back and thankfully, it has me so busy, I can barely register what happened, addressing emails with last-minute questions about the cover story and my other pages that are about to ship to the printer. Another email tings my inbox. From Mom, reads the subject line—she has never realized that people can see where it’s from without writing it in the message heading as if it were a telegraph.

Hi, sweetie. Was thinking, you don’t have to come home for my birthday if you don’t want to. I know you’re always busy with work and your friends. I’d just like some flowers. And a Lancôme lotion—if you can find it with a free gift with purchase. Love you, Mom xoxo.

Of course I’m coming home, Mom. Can’t wait to see you, I email back. I have a five days to get the gifts. I log on to 1-800-Flowers.com, pick out a nice tulips arrangement and use a 20-percent-off code from an email promotion I received. Now I’ll just have to get the Lancôme stuff and a few other things later. I am a good daughter, I tell myself, wringing my hands as I do. I remember the radiation days, when I had to pick and choose being there with her in the hospital over waiting around for copy to come back late on Fridays. Pressing Click, I add more to my credit card balance. She deserves it.

Then, another call sounds from my phone. I know the caller ID number. It’s Ryan. I pick up and try to clear all the lingering hostility from my throat.

“Hey, Deputy Editor Liz, sorry about being MIA—was crazy busy prepping for 100-pound-tumor man shoot. I wanted to tell you about it. Are we still on for our meeting tomorrow?”

Shoot, that’s right. Tomorrow’s Friday. “Hey, Ryan, I’m so sorry, but something’s come up and I can’t make the office meeting tomorrow.” I’m secretly bummed, thinking how it would be nice to see him again. He takes it in with a pause.

“Okay, how about next week?”

I sigh, worried. There’s no way he can come to the office now. If he did, he’d see me in full expectant-mother glory. “Ryan, I’m so sorry, but things have unexpectedly gotten much, uh, busier here during the day.”

“Oh.” He pauses. “Ditching me for karaoke lessons,” he deadpans. “I understand.”

I can hear the laugh in his voice.

“Okay, I have an idea. How about drinks?”

“Really?” I’m taken aback.

“Yeah, sure. What about McGann’s on Eighth?” I know McGann’s well. Ford and I used to sneak there for postwork bitch sessions.

“Okay, that could work.”

“How about tonight? Seven thirty?” Ryan jets back.

“I’d love to,” I say without thinking.

He says “great” and we click off. I notice that, for once in a long time, I am actually excited. The sensation, though foreign, reminds me almost of how it was in high school or college, when liking a guy was all about the feeling it gave you—not some inherent marriage potential—the “PH.” I decide not to check his Facebook profile or status all day so I won’t have his life fresh in my memory bank as he’s telling it to me—not that I haven’t already memorized his date of birth (February 15) and favorite movies (Shawshank Redemption and Rudy). I power through the rest of the day, and for some reason, the C-section rewrite pours out effortlessly.


Six (#ulink_03862c8d-da47-55ce-af7d-88019f39d979)

McGann’s, a prototypical Irish pub in Hell’s Kitchen, sits just far enough away from both Ryan’s office in Times Square and mine. It’s an easy choice and I love that Ryan picked a casual Irish pub over a fancy lounge-type place, which can often set a too-formal tone. I hope he’s there before I am so I won’t have to sit at the pub’s bar alone, baby bump in my purse.

All my worries go away when I see him, already perched on a bar stool, with a worn paperback and a shot of Jameson in front of him. The glowing fire in the middle of the room relieves the chill in my bones from the rain outside. Paintings, European football memorabilia and old-fashioned Guinness ads line the cream walls. Tiffany lamp sconces give the whole bar a glow. I’ve forgotten how much I like this place.

“Buckley!” he says enthusiastically as he gets up.

“Hey there, Mr. Murphy,” I say, trying to cover up my nerves with as much confidence as I can muster. He leans in to kiss my cheek while I reach out to shake his hand. We laugh at the mix-up and I try to babble on through it. “Starting strong, I see,” I tell him, nodding at the Jameson. His warm smile makes me a little less anxious.

“Oh, that’s not for me. That’s for you,” he says drily, dropping the amber drink in front of me on the bar. “I figured I’d try to get you all liquored up so I can steal Paddy Cakes’ fall lineup,” he says, taking my coat and finding a spot for it under the bar.

He pulls out the bar stool from beneath the rough-hewn counter, and I try to hop onto it with as much ladylike grace as one can have in big rubber boots and a dress. I take a sip of the whiskey, while I face toward the bar and start to fiddle with the bar menu, trying not to let on that I’m worrying if someone I know will stop by and catch me here, drinking.

“So, I don’t know if you caught our ‘Mega-Multiples’ show the other night, but people have been saying it’s Emmy worthy,” says Ryan, dusting his shoulders off for effect.

“Yeah,” I respond. “Not too bad. Pretty good for a novice. You, you know, didn’t catch all the nuances of our article. How long have you been at the network again?”

“You’re right,” he says finally, returning the joke. “It didn’t do Paddy Cakes’ Pulitzer-winning prose justice.”

I roll my eyes—we both know that’s not the case.

“So, I bet you’re going to be taking over Alix’s job in a year’s time,” he says, mocking my seriousness a bit.

“Probably,” I say with false smugness. “And what about you—this Emmy should seal your career trajectory, too. Have you picked out your corner office yet?”

Ryan takes a big sip of his whiskey. “Already got one,” he says, flashing a grin.

“Corner office?”

“Emmy.” He looks down offering only a bashful, yet sly look. Out of the corner of my eye, Seamus, barman with white hair and a bit of a belly beneath his black vest, is wiping down the bar and gives a nod.

Holding back how impressed I am, I reply, “Good. Because I only associate with smart, successful people.”

“Bet you do,” he teases.

“So I bet you must love all the parenting stuff you’re doing,” I say sarcastically, filled with weariness from the past week. “If someone says the words baby, bun, bump or bundle, I think I’m going to shoot myself.”

Ryan seems to get my meaning, yet he clears his throat. “Well, it’s not all bad—some of the moms are smokin’ hot,” he says with a cheeky smile. “Anyway, I’m done with the parenting stuff for the next month or so. I’m probably going to be going on the 100-pound-tumor man shoot in the Amazon pretty soon.”

“Ah, more Emmy-caliber stuff,” I chide.

“You’re just jealous,” he says, flashing a hot grin.

“I am,” I tell him solemnly, and from the electric flash of his eyes, he seems to understand.

We chitchat more about the “Mega-Multiple” show, and he asks if I liked the way it turned out; I let him know that in all honesty, I did. I tell him more about my job at Paddy Cakes, revealing a bit about Cynthia and Alix. It’s nice to be able to talk shop to someone fresh about all this media stuff. From the slight bags under his blue eyes, and shaggy brown hair two weeks overdue for a cut, I can tell he seems to understand where I’m coming from. After we’ve made our way through our first drinks, our guards start to drop a bit. Should I see if we want another drink? “Seamus, another drink, please?” he says, drumming the bar with his fingers.

Seamus comes over to us. “Yer usual, mate?”

“You got it. It’s a perfect night for it.”

“What?” I ask.

“Rusty nail. Seamus makes some of the best in the city. Or are you a lavender martini type of girl?” He looks at the back of the bar, and for a second his focus seems elsewhere.

“Um, no, I will have you know that I’ve had my fair share of rusty nails over the years.” When I speak the words, he turns back to me with a smirk.

“Well, I’m glad, or I’d have to kick you out of the bar,” he says, signaling the bartender to make it two. “And you know,” he says, “I only associate with total boozehounds.”

“Ha. But it’s been a while. Can you remind me what’s in them again?”

“Equal parts whiskey and Drambuie with an orange twist.”

“Interesting. How’d you get into them?”

He pauses. “It was my dad’s drink and I guess I picked it up from him.”

Seamus hands us two yellowish-brown cocktails. The taste burns a bit, but it’s sweet. “Mmm,” I say. “I could get used to this.” I look down.

“That’s the plan,” says Ryan, catching my eye.

As we’re rounding out drink number two, we fall into a flirtatious rhythm, but his jokes are all tinged with trepidation, like he’s being careful not to cross the professional line. The topics fall into the safe categories: sports teams (he’s Phillies, I’m Mets) and my affinity for the geeky History Channel shows about Nostradamus, his for geeky man shows like Top Gear, though he does keep high-fiving me when we share a common viewpoint. I notice how easy it is to talk with Ryan.

“Sure you can handle it, Buckley?” he says, placing a hand on my back jokingly as Seamus puts the third rusty nail down on the counter for us.

“Oh, I can handle it,” I reply, gaining a little more confidence.

“All right, I’ll give you the third one, but only if you’ll tell me a secret,” he says, pretending to hold the tumbler from me.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, because all of a sudden, I feel myself getting a little brazen. I lower my head flirtatiously and look him directly in the eye, giving him the too-long stare, a move I’d perfected in my early twenties. “Like what?”

“Well, it doesn’t exactly seem like Paddy Cakes is your end-all-be-all career choice. Say the magazine folded tomorrow, and you could do anything you wanted—a secret dream—what would it be?”

I immediately blush thinking, if you only knew.

“Waiting, Buckley.”

I take another second. Up until this point, with everything meternity-related, I hadn’t actually taken much time to ponder what I really want, only what would keep me from getting fired. But to my surprise, the answer comes to me quickly. “Easy. Quit my job. Travel the world and write about it.” My shoulders drop in relief.

He immediately smiles and softens his eyes. “So underneath that gorgeous magazine editor exterior, you’re really just a frustrated travel writer. I knew it.” His compliment makes my cheeks warm, and I look away. When I return, I notice he’s looking at me, staring.

“It would be amazing if one day my blog MoveableFeast would somehow get picked up and turned into a book like one of Bill Bryson’s travelogues or Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.” I’m not sure what makes me reveal this, but for some reason I feel like it will intrigue him. “But, I haven’t really been keeping it up. I’ve been so busy. And it’s not really that good.”

“You really know how to sell yourself, Buckley.”

“Huh,” I say, only now recognizing he’s right.

“I can tell you’ve got a book in you. You know, a secret adventurous side.” He winks, and his compliment makes me blush outwardly and gulp inwardly. This time I smile, feeling a little more courage.

“Okay, I’ll send you my next travel story tomorrow and you can tell me what you think,” I tell him.

“I’d love to read anything you’ve written,” he says, returning a more earnest expression, then smiling, as if he’s thinking about something.

“Okay, so what’s yours, Mr. Rising Star? Take over the network by bringing all of Paddy Cakes’ best stories to life?”

He scrunches his nose, as if to say “not even close.” He looks down for a few seconds. “Okay, don’t make fun of me, Buckley, but I’ve got a secret plan, too. After a few things fall into place, I’m going to quit Discovery,” he says, clearing his throat, “then once I raise funding, I’m going to produce and direct my own environmental documentary.” He pauses, interested in my reaction.

I can’t help but smile widely and there’s a look in his eye—one of hopefulness.

Then he gets suddenly quiet. “Did you know that there are actually about thirty-one forms of electromagnetic energy that are self-reproducing and completely sustainable? Companies are doing this right now, and if we were to switch over from petroleum and natural gas, we could power the world’s energy three times over.”

This sudden revelation of a geeky side makes my heart warm. “I thought it was just wind power and solar power.”

“Yes, there’s that, but there’s also this type of magnetic force field called a toroidal field. There’s a company out in Palo Alto working on it. I saw them give a TED talk last year and have been in touch with them since.”

“Really?”

“I pitched it to Discovery, but they turned me down. The huge oil companies are some of our biggest advertisers,” he says with a letdown look in his eye. “But don’t worry, I’ll get it out there—one of my buddies is a lawyer and is looking into coproducing with me, and our friend in finance is already helping us set up meetings with angel investors.” His passion incites something in me. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. Maybe not since my first big feature came out.

He seems to notice my pensiveness. “I’m not worried about you, either, Deputy Buckley. You’re just resting up before your training day comes,” he says with a soft wink, which gives me little tingles.

Then, he holds a finger up. “Sorry, gotta check this.” He takes his phone from out of his pocket and scrolls through email, punching a short reply into the pad with his fingers. A wince forms across his features. “Sorry, I, ugh, have to go.”

“Work?” I say, looking at him as he’s fumbling in his pockets for cash to pay the bill. I offer to pay, but he gives me a look that says “no way.”

“Yeah, ugh, okay, sure,” he says, taking a second to consider something. Then he gives me a strange exaggerated eye roll.

I sigh and try to cover up my disappointment with a huge smile. I plop my drink down, and we both get up and put our coats on.

“Well, uh, thank you for the drinks,” I say nervously, fidgeting with my coat as we wait for the bartender to come back.

“Yeah, we’ll do it again soon. Don’t forget to send me the blog link tomorrow!” says Ryan with a confident, eager grin, although behind it he seems a little worried. He flags the bartender down to pay. We walk out of the pub onto the rush of Eighth Avenue, and in two seconds he’s hailed me a cab. Once I get in, I look out and see he’s hailing one for himself. That’s weird; his work is only five blocks away. Great, maybe the work drama was just a cover. Maybe he has a girlfriend. This was just work drinks.

But still, for five quick seconds, I allow myself a daydream. One that has me by Ryan’s side on a film set and jetting around the world with him to interview people who are trying to make a difference. How sexy it all seems. It doesn’t feel like it has the weight of finding a PH. It feels like pure fun. I fish into my purse to check my phone, and there it sits. My second trimester. Shut the fantasy down, Buckley. Shut it down.

* * *

The next day at work, with thoughts of Ryan pushed far out of my brain, the realization of my impending doomed career, love life and incomprehensibly terrible baby scheme leave me with only one option: enter a state of total denial. Instead of using the rest of the afternoon to perfect my October lineup, then research new jobs, I spend the time reading a self-help galley that came to my inbox this morning: The New Super Mom: How to Effectively Balance Work Life and Home Life. Then, with about half an hour left before the end of the day, I brainstorm all new Shocking! Exciting! Glossy! stories, including an inspired “22 Ways to ‘Fake’ a Work-Home Balance,” then turn in my revised lineup with my fingers crossed.

I knew if I were Jules, I would have taken Cynthia’s feedback differently, making an Action Plan and plowing through it with complete aplomb. But I can’t motivate myself to do anything no matter how hard I try. My brain feels like a murky swamp. My nerves jangle left and right as reality starts to set it in. I know what to do. Putting aside the pileup for once, I head out the office door toward home, texting A and B.


Seven (#ulink_4f171547-260b-5b90-b9ba-5a9d1ca90c77)

Friday night, 7:30 p.m. A perfect mix of crowded, but not too crowded, sixty–forty ratio men to women fill out the space at our go-to gastropub, Sparrow and Crow. Cellar-like and glowing, it’s full of wooden farmhouse tables and candlesticks with wax dripping down the sides onto black wrought iron casters. Unfortunately the favorable conditions do nothing to help me push my current situation out of my mind.

As I enter the crowded bar, I see that Addison and Brie have already arrived and are already claiming their space in the spot we’ve deemed the “vortex,” thanks to its ability to bring in men from three different angles—the back table, the side closest to the door, and the way to the bathrooms. As we sidle up to the bar, the barman notices us and takes our drink orders.

Never one to miss an opportunity to show off her toned arms, Addison has shown up in her usual tight-black-cropped tank, skinny jeans, heels combo. Brie favors low-cut, feminine, belted dresses that reveal her killer cleavage and tiny waist. Tonight’s no different. We’ve all developed a formula for what works postthirty. Me, a loose, bohemian-style “with child” ready ensemble in case anyone I know should arrive.

Drinks in hand, Addison and Brie eye the room for possible prospects, goal-oriented and ready. So different from our midtwenties when these nights were just about having fun. I see Addison eyeing a cute group of youngish guys. Brie clicks into flirt mode, flicking her head back and running a few fingers through her hair, that is, when she’s not checking her phone.

Lately, I’ve noticed that most of our conversations center around assuring one another that we’re smart, beautiful and are going to be “okay.” It goes on and on until we’ve reached a fever pitch of feeling hot, smiling around the bar widely. Not a soul seems to notice.

“So, what happened with Brady?” I ask Addison. She’s eyeing the twentyish group of guys who seem to be playing fantasy football on their phones from their sporadic cheers and table slapping.

“Ooh, yes, the venture capitalist who met us out at karaoke?” asks Brie, intermittently checking her phone.

“How old is he again?” I ask, the only one fully attentive.

“Thirty. But it ended last night when I told him I needed more attention and he told me he needed a twenty-two-year-old,” she says. “I told him he’d never find one as good as me in bed, but he was welcome to try.”

“Aww, no. I’m sorry, that sucks,” I tell her.

“It’s okay. It’s his loss. I’ve decided I’m just going to have as much fun as possible this summer. What else can you do?”

“Well, plan Secret-4-the-One isn’t going as well as I’d hoped, either,” says Brie, shoulders scrunched.

“What happened?” I ask, worried.

“So as soon as I launched into online dating full throttle, I met this guy at a bookstore—can you believe it? It was like straight out of a ’90s rom-com. He’s been traveling around the world for years after getting laid off on Wall Street. Totally my type.”

“So? How did it go?”

“Okay,” she says, smoothing her hair behind her ears. “Until I decided to go back home with him, and discovered that he had a hoof hanging above his bed.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah. A hoof. Not even a dream catcher—I would have given him a pass on that one, but yeah, a hoof. He said it was considered a good luck charm to increase male virility. He said a town elder gave it to him in Burma.” She turns up her nose.

“So no date number two?”

“Uh, yeah, ya think?” she says, smiling. “It’s okay. The right one is out there, I know. I just have to clear a few more blockages in my love corner.”

I consider keeping my crush on Ryan under wraps. Once it’s out there, I know my friends will pick apart every detail, or “pinball” it. Brie and I’ve coined the term denoting the way in which your well-meaning friends can inadvertently send a nascent relationship straight into the gutter by commenting on each individual interaction and text too soon, before the blastocyst has fully implanted. One psychologically projected comment from Add or Brie, and I know I’ll be swayed to start thinking the worst about the whole Ryan situation.

“So remember the guy I worked with on the mega-multiples story? Ryan Murphy? I went out with him last night. Well, it wasn’t a date really. More of a work thing.” My face warms as I say it out loud, even though I’d just decided not to.

“The cute Gap Jeans Guy from karaoke?” My two friends stop staring around the room. I’ve now got their full attention. “Wait, you didn’t even text me?” says Brie.

“Yeah, way to bury the lede,” shoots Addison.

“It kinda happened last minute. I couldn’t have him come to the office, so he asked me to go to drinks instead.”

“And?” pushes Addison.

“It was fun. I don’t know if it was a date per se. Well, maybe it was—I think he was flirting with me.” I timidly tell them about the back-and-forth banter. “He wants to produce an environmental documentary and I think he’s pretty legit about it.” I look down for some reason, shy to reveal these details. “It’s actually kind of awesome.” I feel nervous all of a sudden. “Do you guys want another round?”

“I’m technically on a cleanse,” says Brie, “I probably shouldn’t. Well, okay.”

“So did he make a move?” demands Addison.

“No. Right at the end he got a text, and he said he had to go suddenly.” Both girls take a second to think about it.

“He probably just had a work thing. I’m sure it’s no big deal,” says Brie. “This is exciting.”

I look over at Addison, whom I can typically count on to be more of a realist. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s fine,” she says with a look of reassurance. “Anyway, even if it is another girl, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t be totally into you, hot stuff.”

I cringe a little at the compliment, which feels slightly untrue. “Well, even though it was super fun, I’m sure he’s still in Peter Pan phase. I mean, he’s thirty-seven, hot, works at a television network and lives in the East Village—that’s basically like twenty-one in Manhattan guy years,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.

“Liz, you can’t think like that,” says Addison. Brie waits carefully.

“Like what?” I’m a little peeved.

“Defeated.”

“What? I’m just realistic. There are no real men in this city—only man-children who want mother-wives to be by their side and cook dinner for them. All I’m saying is that the chances are slim someone who is such a catch would be into me.” I take a large sip of my drink.

“Enough!” says Addison. “I am not buying in to this internalized powerlessness. We’re quality catches. Any guy would be thrilled to have us.”

“It’s not us. It’s them.” I wave over to the “brahs” who are now flinging chicken wing bones at one another, three-point-field-goal-style. “Things have changed so much in the past four years. Texting and Tinder culture has made life too easy for them. They think they can just Amazon.com a model girlfriend.”

“Seriously,” Brie says. “The only one with the power is the owner of those three evil black dots!”

“Liz, it’s all about taking back the power and portraying confidence,” says Addison. “Watch me.”

Addison squares her shoulders, runs a hand through her curls, then walks right over to the boys in the corner, who, to her credit, light up as she starts talking to them. The next thing we know she’s brought them over.

“I just asked these nice gentlemen if they could settle an argument we were having about what guys are really looking for in a woman.” The guys look at Addison stupidly with their hands in their pockets like she’s a cut of prime rib.

“When you’re looking at girls online, what’s the most important thing? Hotness or confidence?” The guys look at one another as if there’s a right answer and a real answer. Still, Addison pushes.

“Confidence—she has to look like she doesn’t give a shit,” ventures one.

Addison beams. “See!” she says. “These guys get it.”

“Like she’s too good for you,” adds the other.

“Exactly,” confirms Addison. “A girl who knows her value.”

“Like she knows how to take care of herself,” interjects the first. “Hot.”

“You guys get it,” says Addison, resolute. “A girl who puts herself first.”

“And tits out to here,” interjects a third, now more relaxed. Addison crooks her brow.

“Like Kate Upton,” says the second, slapping the first guy five.

“Yeah, and Jennifer Lawrence.”

“Mixed with Mila Kunis.”

“Exactly—total MILF, but young!” They look like wolves, salivating at the thought of prime MILF flesh.

“Thank you, boys, that will be enough.”

They turn on their heels just as they start launching into another brotastic tirade. Not wanting to continue the conversation any further, I turn to the bar to gather a new round of drinks. “Two vodka sodas, splash of cran, and um, one rusty nail,” I tell the barman, not sure what makes me do it.

As I wait for the drink order to come up, I think about my friends’ theories. I know the real reason why we each haven’t found our own PH—one who is smart, successful, kind and ready for a commitment. It’s not because we live in a city where there are too many smart, single, professional women to men. Or don’t practice enough “self-love.”

It’s that as we’ve followed our hearts, our passions and career prospects, guys have shrunk back, intimidated, and the power balance has shifted. Ever since the economic recession hit in 2008, all my friends have gotten really serious about their careers. When I look around at all my married friends, the wives have all become the breadwinners. The husbands, many of whom were handed pink slips, are the new lost boys.

Maybe it also has something to do with social media, I think, as Brie and Addison now stare into their phones like the great white light is calling them home. It’s like the new fertile crescent—where all powerful ideas are exchanged—the Mediterranean of the Crusade times. Every woman I know is on it every single day, exchanging information—every single moment really.

“This is how you use apple cider vinegar nine ways.”

“This is how you make Chia pudding in a mason jar.”

“This is why the mommy wars are still raging.”

“This is why we can’t put up with fat shaming any longer.”

“This is what’s happening to young sex slaves in Mumbai.”

“This is the real reason you can’t lose those last ten pounds.”

Thanks to our Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram passwords, women now hold the keys to all the information, while men play “Grand Theft Auto.” It’s changed everything, I think, and relationships haven’t caught up. No wonder Brady wanted a twenty-two-year-old—she’s probably his intellectual equal. All of a sudden thirty-six-year-old Amal Alamuddin going for fifty-two-year-old George Clooney adds up.

“Liz, you know what the problem is. It’s you,” Brie says. “You’ve always been holding out until something perfect arrives. Waiting for a unicorn—they don’t exist.”

“That’s not true. JR was no unicorn, trust me. But why should we be putting up with these douche bags with hoofs above their beds, or telling us to our faces that we’re not twenty-two-year-olds, or leaving without reason after a perfectly nice night out? Why do we have to settle for that?

“You can make affirmations or target your prey all you want, but I’m facing facts. There are no more smart, successful, interesting men in this city. Only narcissist-psychopath finance guys who mentally give us their ‘valuation’ based on the sum of our body parts. Or developmentally arrested geeky tech guys who play video games all day, who lunge at you mad-eyed for a kiss on your awkward, conversationally challenged second date. Or, second-wave hipsters with dirty beards and ‘I am a chef and a musician’ tattoos who are looking for twenties twee bar-maidens. That’s it. I’m not looking for a unicorn. There are no unicorns. We need to face it. We’ve missed the boat by being stuck in the wrong long-term relationships in our twenties. All the relatively stable types with short, nonimpulsive alleles have already married off with basic-bitch-type college girlfriends and live in Westport and are on to leading their gapster lives, sipping craft beer and pumpkin spiced lattes while they take pictures of their babies at the apple-picking orchard.

“All that’s left are an emotionally stunted crop of underemployed, scruffy, pasty boy-men who are following the Don Draper path of transactional fucking, or are angrily divorced, or might have plans to commit to their bourbon collections—but not us—ever. The most we can expect is some last-minute, late-night outside-of-the-spoon cuddling. Definitely no PHs.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll meet transient drunken Australians who still have some masculine qualities left. That’s our only hope...” I trail off, hit hard by the rusty nail that has snuck up on me. My friends look around, shell-shocked and hoping no one’s heard.

“Hmm. Thaaaat’s interesting.”

All of a sudden, I twirl around to find this supremely hot, sandy-haired man—who has an Aussie accent. “Hello, I’m Gavin, from Melbourne. And you, my lady with the extremely acid tongue are...”

“Liz. Liz Buckley.”

“Good to meet you, Liz. Love those theories. You’re completely wrong about them, though. I can help you with that. Here’s my number. Give me a call up sometime.” With that, he knocks back what’s left of his red wine, drops it on the bar and takes off toward the door as he gives me a wink.

I stand, red-faced, eating my words, holding his card, which says, “Gavin Bettencourt, executive importer/exporter. Barossa Distribution Co.”

“It’s the vortex. Works every time,” says Addison.

“Every time.” Brie nods.

At that, we’re done for the night. I tell the girls I’ll meet them for brunch that weekend, making sure they get in a cab. I hail one of my own, riding up Eighth Avenue toward midtown, noticing offhandedly all the restaurants lining the blocks, the same ones I’ve seen the past ten years.

I pull out my phone and casually scroll through the addresses, whiskey coursing through my veins in a way that doesn’t make me feel drunk—more like high. I pop Gavin’s number into my contacts—you never know—and then Ryan Murphy pops up at R.

Good 2 c u last night. I had fun. Let’s do it again soon! I type out. For two seconds I question the second part, but part of me thinks we’ve gotten to that place in our friendship; the other part—the sober part—tells me it would be safer not to send this. But what the hell, Addison is right—why am I being so low-self-esteemy these days? I’m not. The old Liz wouldn’t have cared. My finger hovers over the send key. Click.

The next morning at 11:14 a.m., with a dull ache in my left temple, I realize I’m late to my friend’s baby shower in Westchester after the auto-reminder appears on my phone. I can’t tell what I’m most queasy about—last night’s pub outing or texting Ryan at 2:03 a.m. on a Friday night. Total rookie move.

Sitting on the train from Grand Central Station and looking out at the beautiful presummer blossoming of the trees along the Hudson River, my thinking softens toward what the girls were telling me last night. Even if Ryan is in his prime Peter Pan years, still, he’s turning older and could change his agenda if the right girl came along.

When I get to my friend Katie’s house, I have to admit, it’s adorable. My old friend from high school must have gotten some help from her parents on the down payment. The three-bedroom Tudor-style home is on a quiet street in the same town the Clintons live, and orange marigolds are peeking their heads out from the ground in front of perfectly landscaped shrubbery. Taken altogether it feels, unlike me, very grown-up. Then again, my wants are more simple. I’d be really happy if I could find my soul mate and a life that didn’t involve a long daily commute to the Bird Cage. I don’t need West Elm, a grown-up couch or a Vitamix.

As I walk in, all of Katie’s suburban friends are doing the “sit around a circle opening gifts, oohing and ahhing.” I wonder if they know that to a trained baby-specialist like me, they look as though they are just going through the motions, or whether they are actually getting some joy out of staring at the same Baby Boppy they’ve seen at every other baby shower they’ve been to. Even the clothes from Baby Gap are starting to all look the same.

I amble in, and in one quick motion, Katie’s sisters take my gift and hand me a mimosa. Everyone’s staring at the mom-to-be as one of Katie’s blonde sorority friends whispers a comment to her cohort decked out in Lilly Pulitzer. They look just about my age, but seem older, or at least more mature than I, and they size me up and down. My black stretchy material dress, whose empire waist gives me room for my post-night-out bloat, is probably not so baby-shower appropriate, but still very comfy.

As I look for an empty seat, I say a silent prayer that the women in the room with babies will not ask me to hold them. When I pick up one of my friend’s babies my first thought is never, Isn’t she adorable? It’s usually, How long do I have to hold her and smile before I pass her on to the next friend? Not because I don’t love babies—I do. It’s because I find myself going into a thought sequence of the worst possible scenario—not holding her head correctly so her neck falls back, turning her into a paraplegic for life.

Thankfully there are no longing-to-be-held babies in sight, so I take a seat in the back to watch the gift opening. I realize the women are gossiping about my lateness when one says, “She probably got her the baby bib—women without kids always get clothes.”

Ha! Wrong! I turn and stare at them with a self-satisfied grin. They don’t realize I work at Paddy Cakes and may have been, oh, an hour late, but have stealthily arrived with the best gift ever: the Breast-a-nator 2000, the ultimate antimicrobial milking machine that’s like a lactating spa in a box, and makes breastfeeding easy and comfortable.

Katie’s just about opened every gift piled sky-high in her family room—which I am envying, especially the cool velveteen sectional from Crate and Barrel, when I see her sisters handing her mine. I start to smile with pride.

“Oh, my God! This is, like, two hundred dollars! Thank you so, so much, Liz. I didn’t even register for it because I heard they were back-ordered in the States!” Katie exclaims, as she rips off the fancy embossed wrapping paper from my office’s crafts closet.

“I had my press contact call in the newest model from Denmark,” I say, beaming.

“How’d she know about that?” asks the blonde.

“I don’t know,” responds Lilly, “I didn’t even hear about it until last summer, when one of my nipples was about to come off.”

I decide to let everyone in the room in on my secret: “It won Paddy Cakes’ Top 10 Best of Babies last year. It stimulates milk while simultaneously applying a blend of aloe vera, vitamin E and shea butter to the affected area. The suction is centrifugal, mimicking conditions in space, so the areola gets darker and more supple,” I intone.

All Katie’s friends are in shock and don’t say another word. Her sisters just shoot over a good-for-you look.

“So, are you married?” says the blonde, turning to me while Katie and her sisters are putting away gifts. Darn, I think, I almost got out of here scot-free.





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