Meternity Read online

  “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

  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 horrifi
ed. 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.