Maternity Leave

by Trish Felice Cohen

  “I know, but I needed shampoo too.”

  “I probably could have swung that.”

  “Then I’d be making you a list and I didn’t want that to be my favor for today. There’s a dead roach in my house I need you to pick up.”

  “Already done. Were you just going to live with that until I came over?”

  “You or one of my brothers,” I said.

  “You’re a terrible feminist,” Danny pointed out.

  “I can’t find any bagels. Do Latinos eat bagels?” I asked.

  “Not sure,” Danny said. “Jewbans do. Just drive home and I’ll get you bagels.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll get Cuban bread instead. How many loaves of Cuban bread are equal to sixty bagels?”

  “Thirty.”

  “Shut up, I’m not buying thirty loaves of Cuban bread. I’ll get two and cut them up. That will get me through the week and you can get me bagels on a day when you’re not picking up a roach.”

  I moved to the shampoo section. “So many choices. Do I want my hair silky and smooth, full of volume, or do I want the color enhanced?”

  “All good hair qualities, you should mix them.”

  “Sure, just get me an Erlenmeyer flask,” I said.

  “I don’t mean create your own silky volume shampoo. I mean get silky and smooth shampoo and extra volume conditioner and alternate days. Then your hair will have both qualities.”

  “I don’t have room in the corner of my shower. Plus, I don’t need conditioner yet. For some reason, my shampoo always runs out before my conditioner. The bottles are the same size, I start them at the same time, and use the same amount of each, but the shampoo always disappears more quickly. It’s a mystery.”

  “Good luck getting to the bottom of that one. Go smooth and silky, your color and volume are fine.”

  “Are you saying my hair isn’t silky and smooth?”

  “Not when it’s humid outside. Then you look like Sideshow Bob.”

  “Thanks.” I said, “It’s humid in Florida nine months of the year.”

  “You look like him in a good way. What else are you getting?”

  “Tampons. Do you have any opinions about this product?” I asked.

  “Not really. I think I’ll sign off now. See you in a few minutes. I’ll be in the backyard playing with Sonny.”

  “Okay, see you in a little bit.”

  “Holy shit, your dog has a dildo,” Danny said, obviously alarmed.

  “Long story,” I replied. “I’ll explain when I get home. Bye.”

  A Danny-massage is not a relaxing affair. My leg muscles become horribly knotted from riding and Danny digs into them with the pressure of a torturer. As a result, I have created a safe word. If I say, “Ouch,” Danny ignores me. If I scream “Mother Fucker!” he backs off.

  “So,” Danny said, “getting nervous about the pregnancy?”

  “Not really. The prospect of losing my job and going to jail is somewhat nerve-racking, but preferable to childbirth.”

  “What exactly is your plan?”

  “I’m just not going to show up for work someday. I’ll send an email that I gave birth to an eleven-pound boy.”

  “Eleven pounds? Isn’t that big?”

  “Yes, but I want to have the biggest baby.”

  “You’re not even having a baby, let alone the biggest baby. Maybe you shouldn’t get competitive about this.”

  “I’d make him bigger, but I don’t want to have the Guinness Book of World Records checking up on the veracity of my story.”

  “What is the biggest baby?”

  “Not sure, but I read an article that said endurance athletes have big babies. My track coach in high school had a ten-pound baby. I want to edge her out.”

  “How about ten pounds, one ounce.”

  “I’ll go ten pounds, six ounces. Sounds more believable. Mother Fucker!”

  “Sorry,” Danny said. “You have a knot. It hurts me more than it hurts you when I have to do this to you.”

  “You are so full of shit. Baby steps on getting that knot out, you’re killing me.”

  “Once again, your dog has a nine-inch cock in his mouth,” Danny said, more nonchalantly this time.

  I pulled my head out of the massage table, then remembered I’d promised to explain the dildo. “Yeah, it’s Julie’s. I meant to throw that out while Sonny was sleeping, but I haven’t seen it for two weeks and forgot about it.”

  “I wish I could forget it.”

  “Don’t be so repressed.”

  Chapter Seven

  The race this weekend was in Webster, Florida, so I was guaranteed not to see anyone with teeth, let alone anyone from my office. The race is called Webster-Roubaix, and is intended to be modeled after Paris-Roubaix, which travels from Paris to Roubaix, in Northern France, during the middle of April each year. The bitch of Paris-Roubaix is that it is two-hundred and sixty kilometers long and fifty of those kilometers are on roads constructed with large cobblestones called pavé. The pavé, which is sprinkled along the course in approximately thirty different sections, is extremely difficult to ride on in dry weather, because it zaps all of the energy from your legs. When it’s wet, which is hardly unusual, the pavé becomes as slippery as an ice rink and riders crash on nearly every section. Each year, crowds line the entire course in spite of the fact that it is generally freezing cold and rainy for this Spring Classic.

  Florida’s Webster-Roubaix bears very little resemblance to Paris-Roubaix, though they are run on the same day. Unlike Northern France, which is practically in Belgium, the weather in Florida is gorgeous, dry and hot in April. Likewise, spectators and cobblestones are nowhere to be found. Instead, the Webster-Roubaix course covers patches of sugar sand, which skinny road tires sink into, making balance difficult and crashes frequent. Essentially, Webster-Roubaix is similar to Paris-Roubaix in that they are both dangerous and deviate from asphalt. My plan for the race was to avoid crashing and work on my technical skills. While the sprint would be more dangerous than usual, I’d at least land on a soft surface. If I avoided crashing on this crazy course, maybe I’d finally conquer my phobia.

  The night before the race I went to bed early and fell asleep immediately. I’m a very sound sleeper and generally fall asleep within fifteen seconds of putting my head on the pillow. I’m not sure how long I was sleeping before I heard a loud noise. I was out cold and didn’t know what I heard, but the noise was coming from my guest bedroom. Sonny started howling. I looked at the clock; it was three a.m. Almost immediately, I heard another loud noise, like a window breaking and then a thud. Holy shit! Someone was in my house. Sonny kept howling. I became spontaneously religious and prayed that Sonny’s howling would scare the burglar away, then grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911.

  A lady answered, “911, what’s your emergency?”

  I whispered very quietly, “Someone’s in my house, please come. I’m alone, I’m going to die.”

  “Ma’am, calm down, where are you?”

  “Please trace it. I don’t want to talk. I’m a woman and I’m all alone.”

  “Your phone is registered to an office building.”

  Shit. Who knew a free cell phone through my father’s office would backfire. Sonny stopped howling and came back to bed.

  “It’s quiet now, is he gone?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s quiet because my dog calmed down. Maybe the guy got away. Can you please come anyway, I’m really scared.”

  “Ma’am, where do you live?”

  I whispered my address as Sonny curled into a ball and fell back to sleep. Some guard dog.

  “Stay on the phone ma’am. Officers are on the way.”

  “Okay. Thank you so much. Really, I’m so scared.”

  All of a sudden, I saw a light in my window. I cupped the phone and began whispering to the dispatcher again. “They’re back and they’re shining a light in my window. Please come. Please, please, please. Please hurry.”

&nbs
p; “Ma’am, relax. That’s the cop flashing his light into your house, he’s walking around your house checking all the doors and windows.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” I said, attempting to regain some composure.

  The dispatcher said, “It’s okay to hang up the phone and open your door now.”

  I got up and stood on wobbly legs, very pleased that I didn’t piss myself, and opened the door.

  Two young cops walked in, a man and a woman. Sonny started howling again.

  “These are the good guys, Sonny. Chill out.”

  The female officer said, “All of the windows and doors in your house are secure. Did an alarm go off?”

  “No, I just heard two loud noises.”

  “In which room?”

  “This one.” I led the cops to my spare bedroom and turned on the lights. The bed frame was broken and the metal shoe rack that hung on the back of my door was on the ground, with about forty pairs of shoes littered around the room. My new theory, now that I was sure I wasn’t burglarized, was that the first sound was my bed breaking and the second, my shoe rack collapsing; possibly because the room shook from the bed breaking.

  I could feel my face turning red. “I’m so sorry. I really thought it was an intruder.”

  “That’s okay ma’am,” the male officer said. “For some women, shoes are an emergency.”

  I looked at all the shoes on the floor. Except for my cycling shoes, my mom had purchased all of them and I rarely wore any of them because they were so uncomfortable. I smiled at the cops because I realized I must look like quite the priss, calling the police for an attack on my pristine shoe collection. “Thank you so much for coming. I’m such a dumbass. Sorry.”

  The lady cop was looking at me like I was a fucking idiot and for a moment, I thought she was going to agree with me. Fortunately, the male cop said, “Don’t worry about it ma’am, you did the right thing.”

  “Thanks again. Good night.”

  I went right back to sleep and didn’t move until my alarm went off the next morning.

  * * *

  I almost missed the race. First, I was a bit behind schedule because it was hard for me to find a matching pair of shoes in the sea of shoes on the floor of my guest bedroom. Second, my navigation system never heard of Webster, Florida, so I had to find it by stopping at six gas stations and asking for directions.

  I arrived approximately forty-five seconds before the race started and was only allowed to start because the announcer knew me and told the people at registration to give me a number and let me pay later. I only had two pins holding my race number to my jersey when the gun went off. The number was flapping around like a sail. I took off hard so that I could avoid being near any people in the first sand section. I gapped the group immediately and by the time I exited the sand, I led by thirty yards. I stood up and accelerated again to put more space between myself and the pack. I periodically looked down beneath my armpit or over my shoulder as I rode and could see that I was continuing to distance myself from the pack. After a minute, my lead had extended to over one hundred yards, so I sat down in my saddle and settled in to a hard, fast pace.

  The women in the peloton behind me failed to organize a chase. A group of decent cyclists should always be able to overtake an individual cyclist, even if that individual cyclist is stronger, because the group can set a high pace, and rotate so that each rider spends minimal time in the wind while the cyclist they’re chasing has no reprieve. For instance, the chasing cyclists can each spend thirty seconds in the wind, then move into the draft to be shielded from the wind as the next cyclist in the group takes a thirty second pull into the wind. To increase the speed of the chase, riders may also create a clockwise or counterclockwise pace line whereby each rider spends only a few seconds in the wind. Both of these chasing techniques are cooperative efforts that are foolproof, provided the chasing riders cooperate. However, the chase often fails when a chaser or two, acting in their self-interest, disrupts this harmony. Once the chasing group starts reeling in the chase, one or two cyclists may try to jump across the shrinking gap to join the breakaway riders, rather than waiting for the entire pack to catch up in one big group. When this happens, the rest of the riders stop sharing the workload and instead accelerate to get within the draft of the person traveling across the gap. At this point, the rider or riders trying to bridge across to the breakaway no longer have any incentive to keep working since they know that, even if they catch the break, they’ll do it with the entire peloton in their draft. Therefore, the chasing rider “sits-up” and stops working. The result is that the peloton, which is now drafting off of the renegade rider, slows down as well. Each time this happens, the chasing group not only slows down, but becomes less likely to resume their harmonious chase because the riders don’t trust each other. Consequently, the breakaway rider, in this case me, is able to put more distance between herself and the group of chasers.

  The combination of me feeling great and the chase behind me becoming disorganized every time it entered a section of sand allowed me to build my lead. It was clear by the third lap that only a flat tire could prevent me from winning. My luck held and I won the not-so-prestigious Roubaix seventy mile road race solo off the front. I guess I’d have to learn technique and sprinting another day.

  I never tell anyone outside of cycling when I win a race because I have the impression my friends and family assume I win every race I enter. I’ve never told anyone that I win every race. However, I do tell them that I’m a top-level Florida cyclist. That, plus the fact that over the past year I have poured all of my money and time into cycling means I really can’t blame everyone for their false assumption. Since no one actually follows cycling, I have never felt obliged to correct this assumption. I do very well, but cycling is not like running, where the strongest person always wins. Cycling has teams, strategy, drafting and scary field sprints, which make it difficult to go undefeated. People know I win prize money, I just neglect to tell them it’s not always for first place and that it’s very rarely in the three digits. I’d have preferred to have a passion for something profitable, or at a minimum, not a total money pit, but it hasn’t worked out that way. At least I’m not into sailing or airplanes.

  When I got home from Webster, I took a four hour nap. I’d have slept longer but my mother called to tell me I was late for dinner.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “You sound like you’re sleeping.”

  “I’m at a red light, resting,” I said unconvincingly.

  “Have you left your house yet?”

  “Almost,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

  I wish I could support my cycling habit by napping instead of practicing law, because I’m really good at it. Who knows how long I could have slept if she hadn’t wakened me. A weekly schedule of fifty hours of work and 350 miles of riding leaves me with the desire to treat every lull in life as an occasion for some shuteye. I often wish I could challenge the most afflicted narcoleptic to a napping duel, as I’m quite sure I’d prevail.

  I was wearing the Empathy Belly when I pulled into my parents’ driveway just in case David drove by. Once the coast was clear I ditched the Empathy Belly and ran into the house with Sonny.

  I wasn’t fully in the door before my mom said, “Jenna, I have a guy for you to meet.”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “You don’t have to marry him, just go out with him.”

  “I’m good,” I repeated.

  “He’s really cute. He’s an elementary school counselor and music teacher.”

  “That’s an odd combination.”

  “He was a music teacher. Then he became a guidance counselor. With cutbacks, they decided to use him for both. He only teaches music a few times a week.”

  “You’re a middle school guidance counselor,” I said to her. “How did you meet an elementary school guidance counselor?”

  “The elementary school guidance counselors always bring the fifth graders to my
school so they can see the middle school they’ll be attending the following year. Anyway, he saw your picture in my office and asked for your number. I gave it to him.”

  “That’s creepy. Are you crazy?”

  “I’m just helping out,” my mom said. “You’re not meeting anyone on your own.”

  “I am too, just not ‘the one.’”

  “Well maybe Andy is the one. You never know.”

  “I sincerely doubt Andy the elementary school music teacher and guidance counselor is my soul mate. I am not exactly a music connoisseur or sensitive to the problems of others.”

  My mom added a few more items to that list and then said, “And he doesn’t ride bikes. Opposites attract.”

  “That’s not opposite, that’s unrelated. Where does he live?”

  “Not sure, but he works in the Pinellas County School system, so probably somewhere in Clearwater or St. Petersburg.”

  “Strike two. That’s an hour away, completely out of my dating jurisdiction. I wouldn’t date George Clooney in Pinellas County let alone Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

  “I’m sure Andy will drive.”

  “Not interested,” I said emphatically.

  “Jenna,” my dad said, “just go for it, what else do you have to do?”

  “Work, ride my bike, sleep, hang out with my friends. I do stuff.”

  “Just go out with him. He’s got balls, it takes balls to ask a girl out.”

  “He asked my mother out,” I pointed out.

  “He asked you out via Mom,” Dad responded.

  “Mom, what picture do you have up in your office? Last time I was there you had my high school picture up. He might be a pedophile. He’s got the perfect job for it.”

  “He’s not a pedophile, and I update your pictures quarterly. I have the picture of you at John and Julie’s wedding up and you look beautiful.”

  * * *

  Andy called me on Tuesday, but I didn’t answer the phone. I had become adept at ignoring the phone since my date with Quinton, who still called me every three days to see if I’d changed my mind. Andy left a voice mail.