by Wendy Chen
Chapter 26
Kate took extra special care with applying her uniform the next morning, applying an extra layer of concealer under her eyes to disguise any evidence of another sleepless night. She added a few more brushes of mascara to appear alert and sharp and picked her newest suit, which was an obvious investment in her career. She had to negotiate and secure this promotion before announcing her pregnancy and had gotten a meeting with the boss at 8 a.m. She couldn’t give him any sign that she had an agenda beyond her own ambition, lest he use it against her. It was hard for Kate herself to believe she had to play these games in this day and age when a CEO of a major tech company could announce her promotion and her pregnancy all in the same press conference. But the realities of mid-level managers were far different, as Rachel could well attest to.
As she sat outside his office, waiting the requisite five minutes he always made people wait, Kate sat up straighter and sucked in her midsection, wondering if she should have added a layer of Spanx for reassurance. She darted a glance at the boss’s administrative assistant. It was always the women who noticed other women were pregnant first, wasn’t it? She let out a slow breath and willed herself to rest her arms at her sides calmly, as she rehearsed her pitch and went through her mental bullet list of all the money she’d made the firm, all the clients she’d secured. She had to be careful not to ramble, to not allow herself to say anything extraneous, or even worse—emotional. As much of a ballbuster as she could be, she’d never had to advocate for herself like this before, having always been readily rewarded for her hard work in the past. This time was different, she reminded herself. It wasn’t just her anymore; she had more on the line than just her own interests. She had to get this promotion.
His back was to her as she entered his office, as he typed rapidly on his computer. “So what did you want to talk to me about?” he said, not stopping.
Kate paused and her eyes narrowed. She had played this game before and refused to advocate for herself to his back. “I’ll wait until you’re done,” she said lightly.
His eyes darted to her then and he gave a slight nod as he finished whatever he was typing a moment later. He swiveled to face her and clasped his hands under his chin. “I have another meeting in ten minutes, but until then, you have my full attention.”
“This won’t take long,” Kate smiled confidently before launching into her pitch. She went through each bullet point in her head. How long she’d been at the firm, the amount of money she had pulled in, memorized by dollar amount. She didn’t rush her words, allowing each phrase to sink in. “And that’s why I deserve to be promoted to a senior VP position,” she concluded. She folded her hands calmly in her lap and didn’t break eye contact. She didn’t smile, keeping her expression neutral and inscrutable. She raised one eyebrow ever so slightly as she awaited a response.
Her boss narrowed his eyes slightly and pursed his lips.
Kate refused to look away. She had mastered the pregnant pause, she mused.
A beat later he cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. “You’ve caught me off guard here, you know.” This had to be another one of his mind games. It was no secret among anyone at the firm that Kate was gunning for a promotion. Kate said nothing. Would it help or hurt that she was eager for a new title? Maybe if he thought she was looking to jump firms, he might promote her to keep her. “Usually people—women—in your shoes aren’t thinking about work that much.”
“Excuse me?” It was Kate’s turn to be surprised, stunning her out of her silence. How could he possibly know her condition?
“Normally a bride-to-be is on the phone during the day, booking bands or caterers or this or that. Ducking out to see photographers or the like. Not you, though, Kate. I have to admit you’ve maintained your focus more than I thought you would under the circumstances.” The boss sucked on his teeth. “Still, though, a promotion, new responsibilities … that’s a lot to take on while planning a wedding, isn’t it?”
“I have never allowed my personal life to interfere with my work.” Kate willed herself to remain calm. Was there even such a thing as getting wedding tracked? “Since you point out my upcoming nuptials, I want to point out that I signed two clients just in the time since I got engaged.”
“Your fiancé certainly can be an asset—” He gazed up at the ceiling and then back to her.
Did he think Adam helped land her new clients? It was all she could to do avoid an outburst, tempted as she was to tell him off and walk out of here for good. But then what? She was stuck here. So she just let him talk.
“I’ll think about it some more, Kate. You’re a valued employee at this firm. Give me a few days to see what I can do for you.”
“Great,” Kate said with mock cheerfulness, as if she had all the time in the world to wait for his decision.
She spent the rest of the day ultrafocused on her work, eating her lunch at her desk, only checking for anything from Adam, ignoring her friends’ texts and emails. Until her boss gave his decision, she wouldn’t give him any reason, any excuse to doubt her work ethic. Just as she suspected he would, he walked by her office at 7:05 p.m., on his way out for the evening. As nauseated as she already was, the curt nod and wink he gave her on his way out made her even more so.
Kate arrived in her lobby exhausted. “It gets better,” the man at the bodega had said sympathetically to her when she’d paid for her plain crackers and ginger ale. This only heightened her self-consciousness and anxiety. How long could she keep this secret?
Maybe she would call one of the girls to keep her company, to watch TV, take her mind off the worry. She opened the door to her apartment, surprised to find the lights on and sounds coming from the kitchen. She almost felt as if she were in a dream, to see Adam crossing the room to greet her at her doorway. She couldn’t move her feet as she took in the sight of him. His hair was adorably mussed, though he’d gotten it cut quite a bit shorter than it had been. He wore his usual white T-shirt and worn-in jeans, but what made her nearly cry with relief was his smile, warm and reassuring.
Before she could say anything, he was kissing her, softly and sweetly, but with every bit of the same longing as she wouldn’t admit to feeling until now. She dropped her bags to touch his face as he kissed her, to feel the two-day stubble that she’d missed, to trace her fingers along the curve of his nape, down to the shoulders that she’d leaned on for years.
He held her close, even after they’d stopped kissing, and she let herself lean into him, to bear the weight she’d been carrying. She closed her eyes and sighed. If only they could stay just like this, could shut out the rest of the world for a time.
“Happy to see me?” Adam finally said softly against her forehead. Kate could only nod, too afraid her voice would crack with emotion. Adam scooped her legs up tenderly and sat her on his lap on the couch. He removed her shoes and smiled at her. “You’re not going to be able to wear these things much longer.”
“No,” she whispered, still too stunned by his presence to find her voice.
“And I probably won’t be able to carry you around like that either.” He made a gesture of a giant belly, making them both laugh as she swatted him playfully.
She stared into his eyes, just wanting to enjoy him, but she knew they needed to talk. “So you’re not mad?”
He leaned into her, taking her face in his hands gently. “Mad, Kate? In the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I want in my life. I lost my company, a friend I considered one of my best along with it, and possibly a good portion of my professional reputation. But what I’ve wanted the most all these years is a family.” He looked into her eyes with an intensity that she’d never seen in him before. “You’ve been my family for so long, Kate, what could make me happier than another person to love?”
She couldn’t help it then, she let the tears fall. And not elegant, controlled tears, but outright streams and sobs of relief. And when she started to apo
logize, he only chuckled and handed her a tissue. He kissed her again and said softly, seriously, “I’m sorry, Kate, that you thought you’d be alone.” His words made her sob even harder with all the pent-up stress and emotion she hadn’t realized she’d been feeling.
They sat together in silence a few moments longer as Kate nestled in his arms, letting herself bask in his warmth. For the first time all day, she wasn’t nauseous, and her mind wasn’t racing at all the potential disasters that awaited her career and her baby. Their baby.
“Come on,” Adam said finally, moving her legs off of him gently. “We need to get you something to eat.
“It smells really good, whatever it is,” Kate responded, suddenly hungry.
“Poached organic chicken breast and brown rice. I almost bought salmon and then thought you might not be eating that anymore.”
“What’s wrong with salmon?”
“Something about pollutants and being one of the types of fish pregnant women should avoid. Like swordfish, large tuna—”
“Am I supposed to know all these things?”
“When are you going to your doctor?”
Kate felt sheepish. When was she going to make time for a doctor’s appointment? “Soon. He’s impossible to get an appointment with.” She sank down in a chair at her dining table.
“I’m sure they’ll find a spot for a pregnant woman.”
“I’ll have to go during lunch or something. I need all the face time at work that I can get right now.” She tried to ignore Adam’s clear scowl of disapproval. “I still need that job, you know. I asked him outright about my promotion today.”
Adam raised an eyebrow in what seemed like approval. “Good for you. Did he act surprised?”
“How did you know?”
Adam shrugged and nonchalantly continued to plate their food and serve her a glass of ginger ale. “Part of the mind games he’s playing. He pretends he needs time to mull it over, just to show he’s got the power over you.” He sat down at the table across from her and took her hand. “You’ll get it, you know. And I’m glad you confronted him about it instead of playing his games.”
Kate smiled. It felt good to have someone have her back. “I had to. No way in hell he’ll promote me once I start showing. And do you have any idea how much it costs to have a nanny in New York?”
Adam’s smile faltered then, and he pulled back from her a little. Kate realized she had relaxed too much with him. It was too soon to talk about what they would do once the baby arrived. “So how were you able to get back here? I figured you would be in California for a while longer, dealing with … everything.”
A shadow crossed Adam’s face again, so quickly that Kate would have missed it if she hadn’t been scrutinizing his every expression. He looked her in the eye. “I decided to step down as chairman of the board.” He must have seen the look of shock in her face because he rushed to continue. “It’s fine. I decided days before you told me about … before I got your email. It’s best for the company, to have new leadership, to create some distance from this scandal.”
“You worked so hard to get to where you are. To have to leave it all for someone else to run—”
“It’s just a company. I’ll miss the people—some of them, anyway,” he chuckled darkly. “But I have other businesses to keep me busy. After you told me about the baby, it sealed the timing of the decision. I’m making the announcement public tomorrow, about how it’s a good time to focus on my personal life and impending marriage.” His smile almost reached his eyes then. “Turns out this engagement comes in handy for both of us.”
“Though, when it gets called off, it’s all a bit more public for you. You can spin it however you like, makes little difference to me.”
Adam gave her an odd look then, which she couldn’t decipher. Oh, he didn’t think he really had to marry her now, did he? Before she could say more, Adam had gotten up to get her a second helping. Apparently she was hungrier than she thought.
They made small talk after that, until Kate could no longer stifle her yawns. “Why don’t you go to bed?”
“It’s only 9:30,” Kate protested, even as she sighed at the thought of changing into her comfiest pj’s and crawling under her blanket.
“If you’re tired, go to sleep,” Adam commanded gently. “I’ll clean up.”
She had to start listening to her body sooner or later, she supposed. And maybe if she went to bed now, there would be some hope of getting up in the morning for a run—a short, healthy run.
As he cleared up the kitchen, Adam whistled some pop song from when they were in high school, and Kate found herself humming along while she changed her clothes and took off her makeup. After she got ready for bed, she stood in the doorway of her bedroom for a moment, just watching him move around with such ease in her apartment. She exhaled another sigh of relief that he was going to welcome this baby as she planned to, that he was still her rock after all this time.
She must have fallen into a deep sleep rather quickly once her head hit her pillow. She woke up to her alarm at 5 a.m., refreshed and only slightly nauseated, to find Adam next to her. She hadn’t even known that he was in her bed the entire night, she’d been in such a deep sleep. It was an odd feeling, to wake up next to someone and not want him to leave right away. Adam groaned at the sound of her alarm, and she quickly turned it off. He was probably still on West Coast time. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered in his ear as she got up. “You don’t have to impress me anymore.” She laughed as he put the covers over his head in response.
Kate jogged three miles and almost, almost felt like herself. When she got back home, Adam was still in bed, his head still buried under the blanket and a pillow, blocking out any sun that dared enter the room. She tried to be quiet as she got ready for work, when she heard a mumble from the mound that was Adam.
“What?” she said. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”
He shook off the covers then, and Kate couldn’t suppress her smile at his adorable bedhead. And the fact that he was shirtless nearly took her breath away, tempting her to crawl back into bed with him. “I said, you need to eat breakfast,” he muttered. “I put a granola bar in your bag.” He lay back down in her bed then, and Kate chuckled at the dismissal.
She was the first to get in to work, just as she had planned, and had turned on all the lights in the main areas. It was too depressing to be surrounded by darkness while she scrolled through pointless email messages that her boss had sent late last night. He’d been testing her, she was sure, to see how quickly she would respond to ones sent at 9:57 p.m., 10:35 p.m., then at 11:02 p.m. She mentally kicked herself. She should have known he would do this. His messages requested her thoughts on a recent report put out in a trade publication, asked the status of a client who had been thinking about signing on with the firm, asked her opinion about the performance of a junior employee. There was nothing that could not have waited until business hours, but still she could envision him preaching about the importance of responsiveness.
Linda had always told her that it was twice as hard for women to prove themselves in business, that men would be praised for taking time off for family needs while women would always be reprimanded for the same. Kate crafted a response to the boss, answering his questions in one thoughtful message, to make it easy for him to remember what he’d asked her in the first place. She closed with an offer to follow up in person should he wish to meet at any time and hoped that the thoroughness of her answer would make up for the lack of one-liner responses he probably anticipated during the night.
She wondered if Linda had ever had a boss like hers at some point in her career. Her mother often came home in less than happy moods, but she remembered one time in particular, when a colleague had received tenure over her mother, how Linda had vented to her father about how ridiculous it was to think that women could not be the primary breadwinner in 1988. She remembered how her father had tried to make Lind
a laugh off her anger, how he’d told her about all the writing he’d been able to get done that day, including a satire about academic life. Linda had lowered her voice then, unaware that Kate could still hear her from another room. “Kate has such potential,” she had told her father. “She won’t be held back like I’ve been.”
Kate felt a rush of empathy for her mother, as she wondered what Linda would do in her position. Knowing that a promotion was imminent yet illogically precarious, she would have been checking her work messages well into the night. Kate swallowed guiltily.
She decided to call Linda’s office then, knowing her mother would more likely be at the university than at home, knowing that the call wouldn’t last for more than five minutes, as both women needed to get on with their workdays. Kate was actually surprised at how pleased her mother was to hear from her.
“I was just thinking of you, actually,” Linda said, against the sound of shuffling papers in the background. Kate could just imagine her trying to organize her desk while she held the phone receiver against her shoulder. “I wondered if you’d thought about the prenup yet.”
“I don’t think I’ll need one, actually.” Kate paused and found herself surprisingly at ease with what she was about to say. “It’s Adam, mother. I’m marrying Adam.”
Linda laughed. “Well, why didn’t you say so from the beginning? I’m surprised he isn’t pushing you for a prenup.”
“You know he’s … successful?”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on that boy since the two of you were in high school. A shame about the scandal right now, but I’m sure it will blow over soon enough.” Linda paused, and Kate felt her full attention shift to the conversation. “I’m sure he’s turned out to be a wonderful man, Kate. You two always got along so well.”
Kate felt tears threaten. It would be hard to tell Linda if they decided not to get married. When they decided not get married. “Yes,” was all she could manage to choke out.