by Meghann Foye
Even Ford notices. “Well, hello, Kate Middleton.”
I tousle my hair over one eye and pout my lips into the biggest duck face I can muster. “With a little Kim K. thrown in for good measure?” I joke.
“Yes, exactly, with all the ‘cosmetic enhancements’ you’re wearing these days.”
“Evil,” I say, playfully punching his arm. We do one more lap around the event, and by 4 p.m. we’re both wiped. I say my goodbyes to Ford and then tell him I’ll text him before getting in the cab. Back at home, I take out another pad, this time Moleskine I’ve been saving for a special occasion, thinking that’s it. I’m going to be a “divine creator” as Brie’s intensive suggested.
Things I’ve Been Putting Off for “The Future”
- Owning a car
- Going to Target to buy household items at cheaper costs instead of purchasing things like toilet paper at the last possible second (i.e. after take-out napkins have run out)
- Buying “adult” furniture from places like One Kings Lane and Joss & Main
- Hosting dinner parties
- Going on a vacation I’ve planned for months rather than going on a last-minute closeout deal on Travelzoo that’s cheap and not really where I want to go (like Fort Lauderdale)
- Having friends “around” and “just to drop in”
- Following a real exercise plan
- Cooking healthy dinners instead of eating out of cartons (see: hummus and vegan cashew ice cream)
- Crafting (i.e. printing out photos from the internet and framing them)
- Having a “kitchen” with a “dishwasher” and “laundry room” with “washer and dryer” (not likely anytime soon)
- Getting married
- Having a baby
All of a sudden, looking at this list, I realize at thirty-one I’ve been living life like a college student. Even though it’s 11:59 p.m. I text Ford.
Why have we been putting off real lives? Living half lives on an “Island of Lost Children” that keeps us in perennial college state?
I get a quick reply back. Too many manhattans. :) Literally, I think. Manhattan has fogged up our brains. Cupcakes and caffeine and cocktails to keep us from moving on with our lives.
Seriously, though. Why do we do it? I text back.
Seriously? I think it’s given us a creative outlet. We’re building up material like an arrow drawing back in a bow. All this struggle will make for a great book one day.
Or movie, I think, if I could ever write it.
Should we leave and move to Portland? I write.
Maine or Oregon?
Either?
But would they be as exciting?
Probably not, but would we care if we had real lives? If we were actually happy?
Yeah. Dunno. Probably.
:).
Can I bring Hudson? :)
I pull the covers around me. I’m proud of my newfound maturity and my newfound eyebrows, I think, as I doze off to the opening monologue of Saturday Night Live, wearing my bump to bed because, despite all evidence to the contrary, it’s what feels good.
Sunday’s a different story, though. It’s a beautiful July Fourth weekend, the kind that taunts you for not having a boyfriend to hang out with in Central Park, picnicking and throwing the Frisbee around. Twilight sets in during my run in the park, and dark thoughts that have begun to haunt me on Sunday evenings return. I’ve basically been doing the same routine now for eight years—longer than I have at any other point in my life—but it’s all of a sudden starting to feel very, very old. Every Sunday I finish up an overdue story for work while watching bad TV and call it a night, usually by myself. Even when I was with JR, as I would lie there waiting to fall asleep, I still felt alone.
These past few Sundays, though, have felt especially tinged with sadness. I think back to Ryan. I am pretty positive now that I missed my chance with him by baring my soul too early, and well, probably opening up physically too soon, too. Nice, well-educated, funny guys with jobs tend to hold out until the last possible minute, capitalizing on this city’s endless supply of hot women, then end up with emotionally stable, little-blonde-girl wives—like his coworker Kendall.
Still, what burns me is that I thought Ryan was one of the good ones—the ones that don’t really know how great they are. I find myself replaying every detail of our first date, searching for clues or signs that he might have secretly really liked me. It’s a pathetic time-waster, I know, because deep down, if he really did, he’d be here. The rejection doesn’t feel as bad as it used to in a hard-edged dramatic sense—just low-level sad. After years of dating, I’ve come to realize that not everyone’s right for each other, even if each has the perfect résumé so to speak. But with Ryan, I felt a genuine connection. Something real. And I am starting to worry that in my thirties, it will just become more and more rare as guys see me as only an equation—my age, plus my hotness, minus my apparent craziness and urge to race down the aisle. Is this really going to be my reality from this point forward—a romantic algorithm? Will my dating life consist of me trying to cover up my secret insecurity about my age and biological clock, things I have absolutely no control over? Is this really my only choice? I run hard, trying to outrace the tears spilling down my cheeks.
Back in my apartment, I take a long, hot, shower, then check my phone, hoping for some sort of miracle—some text from Ryan saying he wants to really talk. Instead I see a Facebook alert. I grow cold. Unbeknownst to me, Alix has tagged me, even though I thought I’d made sure to block the whole Paddy Cakes staff—damn you, cracked iPhone 4! There, plain as day, for my entire list of three hundred contacts to see, including my mother, father, cousins and even my granny Buckley, is a picture of the entire staff, taken at the most recent meeting—my bump in full glory, captioned, You looked so pretty this week—thought you might like to share, lovely mother-to-be! x-Alix.
* * *
Within the span of thirty seconds, my wall is flooded with countless messages. Congrats!
I didn’t even know!
Woo-hoo! Who’s the lucky dad? say my college friends, old work colleagues and my cousins in Trenton.
I’m waiting for the one I know will be coming very shortly. My mom. I decide to preempt it. I have to come clean.
“Mom,” I say meekly, when she picks up on the first ring.
“Lizzie, what in God’s good grace is going on? You’re not pregnant, are you? I saw you on Face-Space.”
Confused, I take a good hard swallow, a big deep breath, but before I can explain, my mom jumps in.
“Is it JR’s?”
“God, no, NO!” I say, not knowing where I’m even going with this. “It was an accident—something happened at work. I was going to tell you—”
“Oh. Oh—” she interjects. The phone drops down to the floor. Finally I hear my mom again. And she’s cheering.
“I get to be a GRANDMOTHER!” She yells it over and over. It’s as if she’s doing her own senior-ladies-Zumba-inspired version of the happy dance on the other end of the phone. I can feel a glee in my mom that I haven’t seen since before the divorce, before she got sick. It feels so nice. I almost can’t say anything back. I don’t want to take this away from her yet. “Lizzie, I didn’t want to tell you, but I’ve been stocking up, secretly, on little baby clothes, hoping this day would come!”
“Wait. So you’re not...disappointed?”
“Well, you’re thirty-one. And this is the new millennium. It’s okay these days to have children out of wedlock—I mean, on your own. Look at that Angelina Jolie...I love her for standing up to cancer, but she was a home-wrecker and a single mom and it all seemed to work out for her!”
“Really?” I say, shocked.
“You’ve made me the happiest woman on the planet today. Th
ank you.”
“Of course, Mom,” I find myself saying. We go over almost every detail. The sex, how far along I am, ideas for names—she tears up at the middle name Rose, after my grandmother—birth plan ideas (“You’re not doing any of those crazy natural birthing tubs, are you?”) and child care plans. She says she can come into the city three days a week, “Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays—Zumba is on Fridays.” When I hang up, I realize it’s as if I’ve finally done something truly right in her eyes for once. Then guilt floods in and is enormous. I can’t imagine taking this away from her right now. Plus, I realize, if I have a shower, I’m going to need her to think I’m pregnant. She has to be there. And she has to believe it. There’s no way I can tell her. At least not right now.
Then I see a text from Addison. ???!!!
That was unplanned! I text back.
You like it unplanned, don’t you :), she shoots back.
Brie texts, too. Well, at least you can stop worrying about how you were going to make it Facebook official! It’s the first I’ve heard from her since our fight in the bathroom. Is she making up? I’m feeling too guilty right now to find out.
I spend the rest of the night letting calls from friends and family go straight to voice mail. I take a harder look at my other friends’ Facebook pages, filled with pics of babies in cute Fourth of July outfits. Babies at the beach, babies at the park, babies playing golf with their dads. It’s as if this has become the summer of babies for all my old college and high-school friends, everyone, it seems besides Addison, Brie and me. Well, not me. Wait a second. Why don’t more people care about my baby! Lucie Rose is just as important as Elyse’s baby, Callie! Just because we don’t live in fancy Westport leading pumpkin-patch-visiting, artisanal-ale-sipping gapster lives! I find myself thinking strangely. All of a sudden, I’ve become my dad.
And then I see it, a call registers his number. Dad, reads the Jersey area code. Not ready to face this, I find myself sending the call straight to voice mail. Later on, I listen, dulled by a pint of Ciao Bella hazelnut gelato—not even vegan cashew.
“Lizziebee,” he calls me, his nickname for me since I was four, “it’s Dad. I just heard from your uncle Louie that you’re, you’re pregnant? He said he saw it online. Is it true? Call me please, if you have a chance. It’s been a while. Yep, yep. Dad.”
His tone feels far away, unsure. I click the phone off, feeling a torrent of pain sweep through my side. I can’t call him. Not yet. Not right now. If I did, I know everything would start to unravel.
Nineteen
PUSH! :) Notification! Week 26: Can someone say ‘turnt-alert?!’ Your baby can feel just about everything up in this piz (i.e. your womb). Time to turn on the Tay-Swift for an all-out baby dance party of two! Baby Smiles: 20!
After a few weeks of planning, it’s finally here—my baby shower. In the end, Ford, Addison, Brie and Jules went in together to help plan my party at Alice’s Tea Cup, a cute, Alice in Wonderland–themed teahouse on the Upper East Side.
Getting ready this morning, I pull on my outfit over my month-seven bump, a neon floral print Lilly Pulitzer–style maternity sheath with a pink cardigan that might seem a little over-the-top, but I know full well everyone will be eyeing my stomach today. I really have to figure this out. This was not the plan, I think, scanning myself anxiously in the mirror for any sign of seam.
In the taxi on the way through the park, I hit Delete on the latest message from my mom, feeling incredibly guilty that she’s called eight times since the Facebook post went up.
After Jules had sent the Paperless Post invitation out, I’d squeezed my eyes shut for a second. As RSVPs trickled in, I was surprised to find that everyone was strangely blasé about it, not even really mentioning it to me. Maybe in this day and age getting pregnant semi–on purpose, without a mate, is not all that crazy.
Getting out of the cab at Alice’s, I find myself tearing up a little as I walk in. The room—a small space on the second floor of the whimsically painted town house—is decorated with hot pink and navy blue place settings. No storks, balloons or pastel colors are anywhere to be seen. If a baby shower could feel trendy and cool, this is it. Totally my style.
Glancing around the stunning display, I see that pretty much all of my coworkers are here, even the moms with kids, digging into triple-stacked towers of yummy-looking tea sandwiches. There’s even a perfectly styled pile of beautifully wrapped gifts. I feel bad for fooling everyone but also strangely happy. And then, as I turn the corner into the room, I snap to another sensation: ultimate, stomach-clenching guilt. My mom. I steel myself to start pretending to be “pregnant,” in front of the one woman who, at the core of her DNA, has been watching my weight fluctuations since birth.
I consider turning around and hightailing it out of there. I could send Jules a text saying I’m sick. They’d have to believe me, right? Then, as I walk two more steps into the room, the whole crowd notices me, starts to clap and cheer, and my mom spots me. I know there’s no going back.
I smile warmly and immediately beeline it to her, pulling her into a close hug while she stares at me in total shock. Tearing up, she looks at me and my bump under, in her eyes, the perfect, Reagan-era maternity shift dress. It’s as if the image she’s guarded closely in the base of her heart has finally come true. “You look beautiful, sweetie,” she whispers. Then her face turns from one of pride to concern in the flash of a second.
“Lizzie, didn’t you get my voice mails? I know how busy you are at work, but there’s a lot we still have to discuss. Have you been going to the doctor? Is everything all right? Healthy? I’m your mother—I worry,” she whispers into my ear. As we pull away, I see a large white box resting in her hands, and as she hands it to Jules, I see she’s wearing her favorite pastel pink suit, complete with peony corsage.
How am I going to pull this off? Thankfully Ford swaggers over, already a little tipsy from one too many “preglinis.” Which funnily enough, contain the exact same contents as Brie’s healthtinis. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Buckley. Isn’t she just glowing,” he says. I eye him hard.
“I’ll keep her away from the Paddy Cakes staff,” he whispers to me as a bit of syrupy cocktail splashes out from his glass onto my bump.
“Thanks!” I whisper back.
“Time to open the gifts,” Jules announces. I can see in her eyes that she’s worried for me.
Let’s make this quick, I think. I try to act like all the other expectant mothers I’ve seen recently. What do they do again? Rub their stomachs and look like they’re in some hormonal foggy daze? I attempt my best fog.
“Thank you all so much for coming. I never thought I’d see this day,” I remark.
“Neither did I,” I overhear Alix snickering to Tamara.
“Well, I think it’s great,” says Charlie, our web director, and the only other single person nearing thirty on staff, as if to say “finally, us matrimonially challenged girls finally get some attention, too.”
“But now that it’s here, and even though my circumstances are a little unusual for Paddy Cakes, I appreciate all of your support in these past months. I hope that I can come to you for all your secrets and advice. I know I will need it.”
“What she needs is a baby daddy,” Ford drunkenly jokes. No one looks amused.
“Okay, this first gift is from...hmm...” I read the card, “Nellie.” I tear off the paper from a huge box. It’s a Stokke 6500 high chair. “Thank you so much! How thoughtful.”
“I called it in,” she says, meaning as a product editor she didn’t have to pay for it.
Jules hands me the next one, a smaller box wrapped in unbleached brown paper with a pastel plaid bow, signed by my former editor in chief. “This one’s from Patricia.”
“She couldn’t be here,” says Jules, with what only I can detect is a slight eye roll, “but she wanted me to
tell you she’s so happy for you.” I untie the wrapping to reveal the contents, as well as the attached card.
“A Pat the Bunny book,” I say. “Some things never go out of style,” it reads.
A collective aww comes from everyone around the room.
“This one’s from Alix,” I say, managing to avoid direct eye contact. “Ooh, it’s a cashmere nursing blanket from Teddy Bar!” Teddy Bar is the pricey organic baby boutique and lactation lounge. Again, oohs and ahs around the room, as Alix gives a tight-lipped grin. “And this one’s from...” I say, looking at the card “... Mom!” I look over at my mom. I carefully open the thick, embossed white wrapping paper. On top is a baby book including a few photos from when I was little and underneath is a blanket made of various patchwork quilts.
I immediately start tearing up. I look at my mother, whose eyes are welling up, too, with tissues in hand, proud, but a little embarrassed by all the attention.
“I’ve been working on it for years, waiting until this day to give it to you. It has pieces of quilts from when you were a baby, my baby quilt, my mother’s and her mother’s. I hope you’ll love it just as much as I did when I wrapped you up tight, my little bundle of joy.” Sighs at the gift’s thoughtfulness echo around the room.
“Of course, Mom, thank you. It means so much.” I suck. My mom has clearly put so much time and effort into this quilt, and it was meant for my baby. A real baby.
“Well, thank you so much, everyone,” I say with an undercurrent of anxiety, hoping to wrap up things quickly. There’s a warmth around the room that all feels familiar—the general sense of approbation and anticipation that groups of women seem to extend collectively when their friends are nearing the end of pregnancy. After a delicious cake with lemon curd in the center is cut and passed around, I start to signal the end. I can’t stand looking at people in the eye anymore and lying to them.
Everyone chitchats for a while as we finish the cake. “Yes, thank you. You can go now!” says Ford hastily to the crowd. “Now, who’s ready for happy hour across the street!” He’s had way too many at this point. I give my thank-yous to all of my coworkers as they shuffle out of the restaurant, resting my hand on my bump lovingly for full effect.