by Lauren Sams
I felt myself slump against the chair.
‘How was dinner?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘It was . . . fine,’ I said, sighing. Like a good little Meredith acolyte, I’d waited for her outside the hotel bar until I realised she was inside and had already polished off half a bottle of Veuve while banging out emails on her iPad.
‘Where have you been?’ she said, pouring me a glass.
‘Oh, I was waiting outside.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, George,’ she’d said, lightly admonishing me the way she might a three-year-old who wanted to eat Play-Doh for dinner.
The dinner was a blur of bursting boobs (mine), drunken antics (Meredith’s) and a hand that lingered on my back a little too long for my liking (one of the ad execs, Jimmy’s). Between courses, I rushed to the disabled toilet to relieve my engorged boobs, sure Meredith would interrogate me when I reappeared. Luckily, she was about seven sheets to the wind and could barely locate me at the table, let alone ask where I kept disappearing to.
When we were finally done with dinner, I stuck my arm out for a taxi as the others rolled out of the restaurant ready to head to the next party destination. ‘Come onnnnnnn, George!’ Meredith squealed as a taxi neared. ‘We’re all going to Peachy. Let’s go! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ The five ad guys tumbled along after her as she walked towards the bar. I saw my chance and hopped straight in the waiting cab, calling out the window, ‘Bye! See you tomorrow!’
In another life, I would have relished dinners like this. I would have been leading the charge, ordering the wine, suggesting dishes and frog-marching everyone to the bar afterwards. Now, it just exhausted me. I didn’t want to make small talk with these ad guys, whose job seemed to consist entirely of going out to lunch and dinner and checking their phone the whole time. I didn’t want to ‘push’ or ‘live’ the brand. Couldn’t I just do my work?
‘You don’t seem to be having a great time there,’ Ellie ventured.
I sighed. ‘Yeah, it’s . . . all a bit much sometimes,’ I said. ‘I like the work. I want to work. But Meredith can be kind of . . . full-on. Like, Mad Max full-on. No. Like, Furiosa full-on. You know?’
Ellie nodded slowly.
‘Did you talk to her about being more flexible? Letting you work from home? Giving you some time with Pip during the week?’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, I did. And she thought it was pretty funny.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, for Meredith, “flexible working arrangements” are a laugh. A joke. No self-respecting employee would actually invoke them, not if she wants to keep her job. Not if she wants to get ahead.’
‘Mmm.’ Ellie paused. ‘But do you? Do you want to get ahead?’
‘Of course.’
Ellie studied me. ‘I guess I just don’t understand why you’d want to work for this woman if she doesn’t understand that Pip is your priority.’
I sighed. ‘Ellie, this is my dream job. Meredith’s not perfect – but nobody is. Remember Meg?’ Meg, my old boss, was one of those managers who did believe in leaving on time and the occasional day from home – but she’d also practically fired me. So she wasn’t exactly Employer of the Year in my books either. ‘Anyway, like I told you before, I’m getting my own column. In the biggest newspaper in the country. It’s a pretty big deal. Meredith gunned for me, she’s looking out for me.’
Ellie opened her mouth, but then shut it again, swallowing and looking down.
‘OK.’ She changed the subject. ‘And what about Nina? She told me she’s moving her stuff out this weekend.’
I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I thought it would be a good time for her to pack up. You know, while Pip and I aren’t there.’
I didn’t want to be there while Nina packed up her things.
‘She was pretty upset when I spoke to her.’
I said nothing, just sat back in the plush hotel armchair.
‘She’s not moving in with Jed, you know.’
This got my attention.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. She’s getting her own place. Jed lives with three other guys. Nina says the house permanently smells like two-minute noodles and used boxer shorts.’
‘Where’s she moving to?’
‘Potts Point.’
It was the Single Person Capital of Sydney. Nina would be happy there. There were approximately three Bikram yoga centres per capita.
‘Cool. Well, that’s great.’ It wasn’t great, not really. I pictured Nina setting up house on her own, sitting down at night on her own, going to bed on her own, and felt a pummel to the stomach. But then, I reminded myself, that’s what I’d been doing these past few months. Now Nina would understand how lonely I was.
Ellie shot me a doleful smile. ‘Time for bed. Big day for you tomorrow.’
I nodded.
Chapter 13
I double-checked the time. Eight. Eight? How could it be eight o’clock? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up at 8 am.
Pip. She’d never slept past 6.30. Something must be wrong.
But – miraculously – it wasn’t. Pip was sitting up in her travel cot, fingering the mesh sides and gurgling away happily. She smiled up at me, oblivious to my puzzled expression.
I picked her up and she went, as was her custom, straight to the boob. I grabbed the room-service menu and the phone.
A few minutes later, eggs Benedict and coffee on the way, I checked my phone. Sixteen new messages. I sighed. One was from Ellie, telling me that she and Lucas had gone to find a cafe for breakfast at 7 am (secretly, I fist-bumped myself that my baby had slept longer than Lucas, before remembering that Ellie had been the one to successfully put Pip to bed last night). The rest were from Meredith: drunken early-morning missives about how I was missing out on THE BEST NIGHT EVERRRRRR, a few blurry pics, and finally a text from half an hour ago asking me to meet her in the lobby ASAP PLEASE GEORGE WE HAVE A LOT TO DISCUSS BEFORE THE UPFRONT SESSION THIS AFTERNOON.
I picked up the phone and cancelled my eggs.
*
When Pip and I got downstairs, Meredith was sipping on green tea, dressed in head-to-toe white, like she was in a laundry commercial. She did not look like someone who’d been sending bathroom selfies at 4 am. How did she do it?
‘Morning, Meredith,’ I said, sitting down. She looked up from her laptop but didn’t smile.
‘Hello,’ she said crisply.
‘So, how was last night? Looked like you were having fun.’ Strapped in the Ergo, Pip flung her arms around like the worst sign-language translator ever.
‘Yes, it was great. Lovely group they are,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, it looked fun. Gosh, I can’t believe how well you’ve pulled up today. You look amazing.’
She smiled tightly. ‘Well, I know my limits.’ The sentence was pointed like a knife. Was she talking about me? Was I pushing my limits by bringing Pip downstairs to plan for the planning meeting? Was she serious?
I swallowed and turned to a hovering waiter. ‘Can I have a flat white please? Strong?’ Screw the decaf. I turned to Meredith. ‘So, uh . . . what do we need to plan?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You asked me to come down and plan for the upfront meeting?’
Meredith looked up, recognition dawning in her expression. ‘Oh. Yes, of course. Listen, I think you need some guidance with the presentation.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mmm. I want to go over it before we present this afternoon.’
‘But . . . I’ve done the presentation before. You’ve heard it.’
‘Yes. But these are very important clients, George. You can’t fuck this up.’
I winced. ‘Have I been fucking it up?’
She looked – momentarily – remorseful. ‘Oh. Well, not exactly fucking it up. It’s just that you need to be . . . funnier. You’re so funny, George, but you don’t let the advertisers see it. And they love that stuff. So be funny.’
The waiter placed the
coffee in front of me. I inhaled it.
‘Right, funny. OK.’ I breathed out, digesting the feedback. I could be funny. Couldn’t I? I tried to remember a time I’d ever been intentionally funny in front of Meredith; most of the time she just laughed at me when I said things that didn’t compute in her privileged existence. Like when I told her that I took the bus to work or brought my lunch from home.
‘And don’t do that thing where you pause between sentences.’
‘Hmm?’
‘Keep going.’ She made a fist and punched the air. ‘People like it when you just get on with things. It doesn’t have to be so dramatic, you know?’
‘OK,’ I said, trying to digest this ‘guidance’. ‘So, funnier and with less pauses?’
‘Exactly! But not too funny. Just funny enough. I mean, it’s business. We do need to be serious.’
Now I was confused. ‘So . . . funny but also serious?’
She smiled. ‘Yes.’ She looked down at her laptop again, as if she’d explained everything perfectly. ‘And don’t forget: no pauses.’
‘Right.’
‘And use your hands more, OK? To illustrate the point.’
‘What point?’
‘Any point,’ she said, her tone getting more dismissive. ‘All the points.’
‘Uh . . . OK. So . . . use my hands more, no pauses, funny but serious. Right. Uh, look, could you give me some examples?’
Meredith sighed deeply. ‘Of what?’
‘Of being funny but serious.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh my god, George. If I’d known you wouldn’t be able to handle this, I would have invited someone else.’
I raised an eyebrow. Invited? I seemed to remember being forced to come.
‘Um, OK. So . . . right. Funny but serious. Funny but serious.’
Meredith raised a glance at me, her head still bent over her laptop. ‘Like Obama.’
‘Huh?’
She huffed dramatically and gave me her full attention.
‘Like. Obama.’
‘Barack Obama?’ She wanted me to speak like the leader of the free world. The most impressive living orator known to man. ‘You want me to present the strategy . . . like Barack Obama?’
She nodded slowly, as if she’d told me to clap my hands and I couldn’t quite work out how to do it. ‘Yes. Can you handle that?’
‘Um. I don’t know. I mean . . . that’s a pretty big ask.’
Pip started cooing at me and reflexively, I stood to bounce her. Maybe she’d go to sleep and I could go upstairs to my room to google ‘how to speak like Obama’. Because at that moment, I had no idea what Meredith really wanted.
I bounced away, trying to figure it out. Maybe Obama had a good aura? Pip continued to coo, getting louder and louder. I remembered my promise to be more assertive.
‘Meredith?’ I ventured. ‘I think I’m just going to do the speech the way I’ve been doing it. It’s working. The other firms loved it; they all bought ads. I think it might confuse me to try and think about how someone else would do it, you know? So I’ll do it my way.’
‘No,’ she said, her voice clipped. ‘Just do it my way.’
I breathed out slowly, still bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.
What was the best way to say, ‘But your way sounds weird and confusing and I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do, and honestly it just sounds like you want to have one over me’ without losing my job I wondered?
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak Meredith spat out, ‘For god’s sake, stop bouncing.’ She slammed her laptop shut.
I stopped bouncing. I felt my heartbeat somewhere around my soft palate.
‘Meredith, the thing is . . . the upfronts are in three hours. We have to do the massage thing beforehand. I just feel like it’s going to make me really nervous to try to do something I’m not comfortable with, which is totally counter-intuitive, right? I just don’t know how to do it, Meredith, other than by being myself.’
She let out a little sniff, then said, for what must have been the thousandth time, ‘You’ll figure it out.’
*
It’s an odd thing to listen to a sermon on foreign policy and the mistakes of the Iraq War as you’re being pummelled into relaxed submission by an excellent Swedish masseur. But there I was, listening to the audiobook of The Audacity of Hope during my massage, trying to somehow glean Obama’s oratorical magic by . . . what? Osmosis?
Even stranger still, Meredith was on the massage table next to mine. Somehow we’d ended up in a couple’s massage room, and when the receptionist asked if it would still be OK, once she’d established we were not, in fact, a couple, Meredith had breezily insisted it’d be fine.
So there I was, naked but for a flimsy paper g-string, headphones in, listening to the smoothest voice in the Western world make a case for universal health care as Meredith lay next to me, similarly near-naked and emitting the occasional, disturbing ‘mmm’ loud enough to momentarily drown out Barack. It was about as relaxing as a bath with an alligator.
‘Well!’ she exclaimed, visibly excited as we got back to the change-room. ‘Wasn’t that amazing? Gosh, I just feel so calm. Wasn’t it great?’ She immediately plunged her hand into her bag and reached for her phone, tapping away at it before she’d so much as put her undies back on.
‘Mmm, yeah it was . . . good.’ It wasn’t good. Childbirth aside, it had been the single weirdest experience I’d had without my clothes on.
‘Right! On to the meeting! I’m so excited! Aren’t you? You’re really going to kill it, Gigi. You’ll smash it out of the park.’
Gigi? That was new. I squinted at her as I hooked my bra. Was she on something? Half the time, Meredith loved me, couldn’t get enough. The other half, she could barely stand to look at me. What was going on? And how the hell could I get her to stop calling me bloody Gigi?
‘Uh, thanks. I listened to one of Obama’s books while we were in there, so I hope I’ll, uh, sound a bit more like him. We’ll see.’
She dropped her towel and, now completely naked, put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye earnestly. ‘You’ll be amazing, Gigi. Don’t worry at all.’
Maintain eye contact, maintain eye contact, maintain eye contact. Do not look down.
‘Um, OK. Thank you.’ I turned around, ostensibly to put the rest of my clothes back on, but really to avoid being confronted by Meredith’s naked, entirely hairless body (OK, I looked down a tiny bit). ‘Because before . . . you seemed to . . . well, you didn’t seem to have a lot of faith in me.’
She gasped. I turned around. ‘No! Don’t be silly. Of course I do. That’s why I got you on board. You’re a great editor. I’ve told you that before, Gigi. Come on – I don’t have to keep coddling you, do I?’
‘No, it’s not –’
‘Good,’ she said, grinning. ‘I knew you were a tough one. And I know you’ll knock their socks off.’
‘Oh. OK.’
‘Just be yourself.’
So . . . don’t be Obama?
‘Meredith –’ I shoved my paper undies in the waste basket.
‘Yes?’
‘I guess . . . Can I ask you something?’
She furrowed her brow. ‘Of course,’ she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. ‘What?’
‘Well . . . when it’s just you and I, you’re fine. You’re great, actually!’ I tried to compliment-sandwich it. ‘But when there’s someone else with us – anyone: even, like, my baby – you get a bit, er, funny. You’re a bit –’ of a bitch? ‘– short-tempered.’
She stared at me. ‘Oh. Well.’ Meredith’s face fell so fast, it practically left skidmarks.
I backtracked, fast. ‘It’s just hard to know where I stand, I suppose.’ Although right now I knew exactly where I stood: three feet away from my boss. Who was in her birthday suit.
‘And, uh, I want to do a good job. You know?’
Meredith nodded. ‘Mmm. You know, George, I feel the same way about y
ou sometimes. Sometimes I feel like we’re really beginning to understand each other, and that you’re finally listening to me when I tell you what the magazine needs. And then you have a sick day. Or you sneak out of the office early.’ Noting the alarm on my face, Meredith nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed. I also notice when you ignore my emails, and when your eyes glaze over during stand-up. And I make some allowances for you. But I’m not your mother. I’m not here to tell you what a good girl you are, or to give you a cuddle when you’re not feeling well. I hired you to do a job. I believe you can do that job. Do you?’
I pulled my towel a little tighter around me and cleared my throat.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Good,’ she said, brightening. ‘Now let’s go get a drink.’
*
Here’s what it’s like to have a hangover when you have a baby: it’s shit. It’s totally shit.
Mainly it’s shit because you remember what it was like to have a hangover as a normal person, in your old, pre-baby life. You remember sleeping in until 11 am and only really waking up because your stomach was telling you it was time to seek out fried foods and possibly hair of the dog. You remember eating a bag of potato chips on the couch because you were too lazy to go get McDonald’s, your heart’s true desire. You remember scrolling through your phone, crossing your fingers in the hope that you didn’t text your ex or post a weird pic of half of your gurning face to Instagram. You remember the relief at finding you hadn’t . . . or the desperate shame of finding you had. Mostly you remember doing nothing at all but riding it out, waiting for your next junk food fix or nap, whichever came first.
When you’re hungover and you have a baby – well, you’re not really hungover at all. Hungover is too understated a word. You’re totally and completely and utterly fucked, that’s what you are.
And if you have to take that baby to an outdoor concert while you’re hungover? The kind of outdoor concert that is for children and where alcohol is not served, when all you want is a cold Corona to wipe the previous night away? Oh dear. You, madame, are royally fucked.
‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ I said, to nobody in particular. Ellie shot me a look.