Meternity Read online

  Why am I in such a fluster? I wonder as I’m waiting for the 3:47 Metro North. I mean, is it really so bad to be thirty-one and not chained down to some six-month-old who forces me not to eat, shower or go to the bathroom. Despite all my sad single life observations, I’m not really in the same mad dash to settle down that seems to plague all my still-single friends. The mythical biological clock doesn’t seem to be ticking yet for me.

  I see women pushing baby strollers and feel a twinge of guilt (maybe that’s not quite the right emotion—sadness, dread?) that I don’t want that. At least not yet. I know I want it in the future—in two or three years maybe (which is what I’ve been saying for the past five years, now that I’m thinking about it), but in any case, not right now. Not when I could be texting my best friends last minute to meet up for dinner, drinking one too many carafes of the house red and seeing where the night takes me. Impractical maybe since, as my mom reminds me constantly, my eggs are almost ready for their AARP subscription. But I can’t help the way I feel.

  The thing is, there’s something about it that just feels so prescribed. It’s not that I don’t want to be a mom. Of course I do. I just want to choose it for myself. Not just go through the motions, managed and marketed to me by a tsunami of Buy Buy Baby, Paperless Post and Pinterest so that after all the dust has settled, it’s just a series of Venmo transactions and I barely feel it.

  When I get back to my apartment, it’s almost five o’clock. Nothing from Ryan. I’m a little sad that I’ve apparently been cast aside by a PH yet again. I decide to do what single girls everywhere do in their most desperate states: get dressed up, call their friends and go out. With the hope that at least there could be a possibility of Ryan texting late at night. But after showering, squeezing myself into some nonmaternity jeans (thank you very much), and sending out what’s-going-on-tonight? texts, things are looking down.

  Ad and Brie aren’t free—Brie is still tired from last night, and Addison’s ex-boyfriend is in town. She would never admit it, but I bet Brady’s actions have left her reeling, too, so she’s probably decided to meet up for dinner and try to initiate some postdinner booty action. It looks like I am stuck hanging out by myself on a Saturday night.

  I decide to make the best of it over a scrumptious pint of vegan cashew mint chip and an episode of a British reality show about young twentysomethings in Essex, England, I find on Hulu. The half-hour show is a series of vignettes of flirting, coffee dates, gossiping among the girls, feats of buffoonery among the guys, all building to a themed night out where the catfights finally combust to catharsis. They seem to be having so much fun, I think to myself, not overthinking everything. I decide to use the night to make a life list all of my own of the things I will do once I go on meternity leave (I include a few that I have already done for positive reinforcement):

  Things to do before I’m 30 35

  Live in New York.

  Become an editor at a magazine.

  Learn to speak French.

  Have a French love affair.

  Eat pasta in Italy.

  Run a marathon.

  Haggle with a salesperson at the bazaar in Marrakech.

  Learn meditation from a yogi in India.

  Sail to at least seven of the islands in Greece.

  Walk the Great Wall of China.

  Go diving in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

  Spend a week doing nothing at all in Bali, Tahiti or other remote island destination.

  Have an Anthony Bourdain–style eating adventure with Southeast Asia’s street food vendors.

  Get this close to an elephant in Kenya.

  See the pyramids.

  Hike to Machu Picchu.

  Get paid to travel around the world for a living.

  Write a bestselling women’s travel memoir à la Elizabeth Gilbert.

  Fall in love with someone who shares my dreams.

  Have a kid or two.

  Looking at the list, I’m suddenly filled with hope and optimism about my situation. Why hadn’t I thought of faking pregnancy and quitting before? There is so much that I want to accomplish I need to start now, or else it will never happen. What if I did (metaphorically) take this pregnancy to full term? What if I did take my own meternity leave?

  Fantasies of a three-month break start to flood my brain. I will take a few days to recover, then go off on the adventure of a lifetime. I don’t know why, but it feels fated that I met Ryan. No expectations or anything, but by then I am sure I will have figured this whole thing out. He will have realized that I am not just a work colleague, have fallen madly in love with me, quit his job, too, and we will be on our way to leading an international life of magic and mystery (definition of what that actually means to be decided at a later date, but most likely akin to the lives lead by the Jolie-Pitts).

  I’m so full of pride I decide to start another blog post: “Top 10 Trips of a Lifetime.” For the image, I use a sunny one of me tanned in the Bahamas from three years ago, cropping out JR and Photoshopping my tummy and thigh areas ever so slightly. I check once more—no texts from Ryan. I have to decide where I will go first. As a French major in college, I’ve always dreamed of going to Morocco, and ever since I saw Casablanca, I’ve thought that there could be nothing sexier than the idea of getting lost among the bazaars, drinking Pernod, smoking a hookah on some café terrace and riding camels into the sunset, sharing my saddle with a charming man. That’s it. I will go to Casablanca first. I find the movie in my Amazon library, and begin falling asleep. Mmm, that Humphrey Bogart is so sexy. Why can’t there be any guys like that anymore...

  Sunday morning I awake to find that there’s a text waiting for me: Looking good, Buckley. I’d go with ya! PS Thanks for the booty-text:-) It’s Ryan.

  Eight

  On the following Wednesday, it’s time to get the October lineups back. There’s only one feeling running through my bones: pure all-consuming terror.

  “Edits are back, you sexy bitches,” trills Caitlyn to just me and Jules, making us LOL. I know my revised lineup is in the pile and that in a few minutes, my fate (at least at the magazine) will be sealed.

  Alix breezes toward our cube, cashmere duster trailing in the air behind her, rectangular tortoise-shell frames perched on her nose, reading through everything as she’s walking. The suspense is killing me. She finally reaches our cube bank.

  “Looks like she loved your October piece on antivaxxer measles hotbeds, Jules,” she says, handing back her copy.

  “And here’s your stuff back, Liz,” she says, handing me the pile of copy without a drop of emotion.

  I sort through the pile to my lineup. There’s only one word at the top: Fine. Odd.

  Cynthia’s large signature stares back at me in red ink at the top of the page, meaning it’s approved.

  I email Ford to see if he wants to do lunch, and luckily he’s up for it. I find him already in the café perched over a big salad. He pulls out his earbuds the second he sees me.

  “Hey, Lizzie, you okay. How’s it all going so far?” he greets me with a concerned look as he eyes my bump.

  I guess my state of self-torture is starting to show.

  “I’m fine. What’s up with you? Anything good on the giveaway table today?” I say, trying to keep things positive.

  “Just a few guides on Scotch, skull and crossbones cufflinks, patterned socks. The usual. What’s up? You seem sad.”

  At his prompting, I totally lose it.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just that my editor has deemed me an untouchable and is playing mind games with me. My crush is dangling crumbs of the start of something, and I’m subsisting on them as if I’m some witless lab rat. And I have no fucking clue where my life is headed, and I have no idea what to do about it. You know, the usual.”

/>   Ford just gives the pouty face and leans in for a big hug. “It’s okay, Lizzie, we all go through these growing pains from time to time. It’s how life works. The trick is to make a plan and take it step-by-step. That’s all we can do. And eat Honey Cups, lots and lots of Honey Cups. Hey, let’s go somewhere else for lunch today. This salad isn’t doing it for me.”

  More than thankful for his suggestion, we head out for a hit of pure sugar at the nearest Honey Cup bakery. Things are looking brighter as we head back to the office, and while I’m grabbing a cold brew at the place across the street, I’m even inspired to do exactly what everyone keeps telling me to do—form an action plan—albeit one born out of delerium. I take out a fresh notepad with the Paddy Cakes rainbow balloon illustration at the top. (I love using fresh notepads: it always makes me feel like I can start over and change things.) “Action Plan,” I write in medium black Sharpie as I begin another list.

  Go get the rest of Hudson’s creations.

  Hit up Macy’s for larger maternity Spawn-x.

  Try on outfits to make sure they look real.

  Wear form-fitting outfits so bump is in full view and realistic to staff.

  Tell the staff that you’ve had unprotected sex, resulting in an unplanned pregnancy, that you are going to keep the baby at the expense of US taxpayers and contribute to the current single mother statistics on the rise in our society.

  Discuss requisite 12-week maternity leave with Cynthia.

  Go through with it, making sure bump expands week by week.

  Plan “labor.”

  Leave for Morocco to start around-the-world travel adventure.

  Okay, I’m an idiot.

  * * *

  When I get back from lunch, I roll my chair out from under the desk and the pile of books stacked on it makes me feel instantly guilty: Beyond Expecting, La Leche League, Dr. Spock. All contain Post-its about the first and second trimesters. There’s even a stack of ultrasounds at twenty weeks, downloaded from the internet with a note from Jules on top, “Well, if you’re going to do it, you better do it right.” In a risky move, I tape the pictures to the left-hand corner of my cube. Thank God for Jules.

  As Alix is making the usual afternoon rounds with copy. She nears my cube, but instead of her usual sneer, she looks suspicious. “Looks like Cynthia bought your revised ideas about the C-section alternatives, after all. Move ahead with it, I guess.”

  “Okay, great,” I say. I don’t quite know what to make of it as I read her comments and start in on the edits to the story.

  I’m Googling for more on Chinese herbs when I see that I’ve already got a text. Could it be?

  Good blog post this weekend, Buckley.

  It’s from Ryan.

  Thanks!

  A response comes back fast. You’ve gotta learn how to market yourself, Buckley—that’s all part of the game... I could teach you a few pointers if you’d like. What are you doing Saturday?

  Ahh.

  I think I could make myself available.

  Good, come watch soccer with me at the 11th Street Bar. You know, soccer is a great metaphor for business dynamics.

  I thought it was about grown men basing their lives on a small inanimate object.

  Well, that’s only to help us win over the small, animate ones. :)

  You’ll have to bribe me with rusty nails, I text back without thinking.

  My face flushes red at the thought of hanging out with him. As much as I cared about JR, it never felt like this—jokey-flirty banter on top of so much chemical attraction.

  I remember JR had made all the “right” moves at the start of our relationship. We’d met at a press event for a Procter & Gamble product launch when I was twenty-six; he was a sales associate and twenty-nine at the time. When he took my number, something about him put me off a little—he had sort of an annoying habit of checking in at all the “hot” Meatpacking restaurants on Fridays and Saturdays, then spending the rest of the night on his phone seeing who’d liked his status updates. And constantly telling me to “just chill, babe,” even while my mom was finishing up the last of her treatments. And I suspected toward the end he was texting his cute media coordinator more than me. But early on, he’d surprised me with his sweetness and genuine interest, and after a fun summer fling, I found myself smack in the middle of my first real, grown-up relationship.

  We’d find the latest ’60s nouvelle vague film (my favorite) playing down in the Village or the latest action movies (his), then get cake balls at Milk Bar. He’d let me pick out tiny little places I’d read about in NY Mag for romantic dinners, but after one too many vodka martinis, we’d often scream about stupid little things to avoid dealing with the real issue—that maybe we weren’t right for one another.

  So when he broke up with me, though it was a shock, it wasn’t all bad. I was a little scared to launch into a whole other decade—the scary decade—with no prospects on the horizon. But at the same time, it felt like a relief. It’s not as if I were waking up terrified every day, but the signs were beginning. Those mornings, after a shared bottle of Pinot Noir with Addison and Brie, it was a little strange to see the fine creases along the ridges of my forehead. Then one depressing afternoon this past fall, the sunlight streamed through the bathroom windows at full strength and seemed to shine directly on a patch of gray hair on the top of my head. Was this just a harbinger of the thirties death spiral? Would I be just another embittered single woman sharing ’90s nostalgia on Facebook instead of pics of my kids at the pumpkin patch?

  But today, with this recent round of texting, things are looking up. In a spurt of total impulsiveness, I decide to share a meme of a very happy-looking French bulldog wearing a paper crown and his tongue hanging out on Instagram. Me, this weekend. In the span of a few hours, I notice I have a new follower. It’s Ryan. And he’s “liked” it.

  * * *

  On Friday, after a day of relative calm, I’m so preoccupied that when Alix comes over and asks how I’m coming with “the finishing touches on” (read: “another complete rewrite”) the best colleges piece for August because she has to catch an early flight to Bar Harbor to visit her in-laws this weekend, I say yes without thinking about it. Damn! I start to cringe, thinking that she’s probably leaving for a weekend getaway with Jeffry.

  A Facebook message appears from Ryan, almost as if in response. Around for the long weekend? Ready to come out and play with me tomorrow AM? ;) Here’s a link to the fan page so you can bone up. I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s Alix.

  “Ryan Murphy is messaging you on Facebook?” she says bemusedly.

  “Yes, we met up last week to go over our new lineup and see if there were any future partnership opportunities coming up. I told him I’d email him something.” I try to say it as though it’s purely professional, but we both know it could signify something more. Alix waits a second, as if she’s recalling some specific memory, then looks down at my bump.

  “Hmm. Okay.” She seems tentative. “You know we used to run around in the same social circles in my single days at Vogue when he was at HBO.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “If I remember correctly, he had a reputation for being a total player. One of those guys who’s out with the group, but that you always see texting for late-night plans kind of thing. I don’t think I ever saw him with a girlfriend the entire time our groups were mixing.”

  I scrunch my face trying to connect this with the totally nice, down-to-earth, seemingly sensitive version I experienced at McGann’s.

  “Yeah, he was pretty hard-core. I remember there was a period of time when it got really bad.” She rolls her eyes upward into the air, putting a finger to her nose, as if to mean he does a lot of coke.

  “Oh. Really?”

  “He’s just one of those guys who works hard and pl
ays harder. He’s a fun guy if you’re single, but I’d steer clear of someone like him for a person in your shoes.” Alix folds her arms after putting down a story.

  Ryan, a cokehead? This new piece of information makes me a little queasy, though it really doesn’t seem like his personality. I try to find some way to reconcile the prospect of dating him, even though, generally, this would be a huge deal breaker.

  I immerse myself in the copy and the day goes by rapidly. The next morning, though, Alix is at it again. “So, did you get me the postpartum depression research I asked for yet?” she says, interrupting my morning news catch-up.

  “No, sorry, I was working on the multiracial stuff, the C-section revise and my October stories. I was going to do it by Monday.”

  “Liz, you really have to get more organized with this stuff. I was planning on working on it this weekend. Tyler’s with Trevor and my mother-in-law.”

  “I thought you were going to Maine?”

  “I’ve decided to stay after all. You’ve left me too much to do. Trevor’s mother never gets to see her grandson, sooo...” Her tone seems tense, as if to cover up the fact she’s probably secretly happy about this, since it leaves her time to hook up with Jeffry.

  “Sorry to ruin your plans.”

  “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand the importance of planning and prioritization.” With this, she tightens the belt on her long black cardigan and walks off without letting me respond.

  Nine

  Little nervous tingles wash over me as I pay the cabbie with my credit card, which thankfully does not come back declined. Though it’s Saturday, I should be planning my exit strategy and rehearsing my conversation with Cynthia. Instead, I’m going to go hang out with a bunch of drunk men watching soccer in the East Village—and secretly, though I really shouldn’t be here, I couldn’t be happier.

  Walking toward the dive bar filled with neon signs for European beers, I think to myself, This must be a date, right? It has to be. I smooth out my sweater, a French-style black-and-white-striped boat-neck top, hoping the effect, paired with jeans and black ballet flats, reads cute, cool and casual. Praying to God that none of our office underlings are doing the walk of shame this morning in the Village, I head toward the door. I’m expecting a sparse crowd this early in the morning, but it’s the exact opposite. As soon as the heavy doors heave open, I feel the swell of heat and sweat mixed with the scent of spilled Heineken. A sea of men wearing red soccer jerseys are sloshing around, chanting drinking songs as they wait for the game to start.