Meternity Read online

  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!

  “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

  To my mother

  Contents

  Conception

  May

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  June

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  July

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  August

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  September

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  October

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Labor

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A New Life

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Reader Guide

  Q&A with Meghann Foye

  Questions for Discussion

  Conception

  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

  One

  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 ‘Alter
native 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 conse
nsus 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.”