Mommy Tracked

by Whitney Gaskell

  “Oh, that,” Margo said, waving her hand dismissively. “He wasn’t drunk. Just a tiny bit…tipply.”

  “That’s not even a word, Mom.”

  Anna knew Margo would never have purposely exposed her to jerks. And, to give her mother credit, she had reamed out both men for their bad behavior, then refused to see either one again (two of the few times she didn’t give her dates second, third, and fourth chances). Yet her mother had never exactly had a surplus of common sense, especially when it came to men.

  “Then there was the guy who used to pee with the door open,” Anna continued.

  “Well, yes, that was odd. But he was ex-military.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Oh, you know. When soldiers are living in the barracks, they lose a lot of their inhibitions,” Margo said vaguely.

  Anna rolled her eyes. The man—his name was Ed Armstrong, Anna remembered—had been discharged from the army some twenty years before he even met her mom. He was just a weirdo. Who goes into someone else’s home as a guest and fails to close the door while peeing? It was appallingly gross. Even worse, her mother had continued to date him even after the first time he’d left the bathroom door open.

  “Oh! And do you remember that one guy who told me all about how he didn’t believe in wearing deodorant, that he preferred his own natural fragrance?” Anna asked, grinning at this memory.

  Margo shuddered. “Yes, I remember him. But give me some credit—I went out with him only once, and it was a blind date. I couldn’t possibly have known that he was going to show up smelling like a pair of dirty sweat socks.”

  Anna laughed and bent her knees up in front of her, propping the heels of her feet on the edge of the sofa cushion. This reminded her of being little, when her mom had been the one to go out and she’d lie in bed, pretending to be asleep while she waited for Margo to come home. As soon as the babysitter left, Anna would scamper out of bed to see her mother, and the two would curl up on the couch together, talking and giggling late into the night.

  “Mom, why don’t you ever go out anymore?”

  “I do go out.”

  “You know what I mean: go out with men, out on dates.”

  “Oh, I’m too old for that.”

  “You’re only sixty.”

  Margo shrugged and sighed. “Well, I guess it used to make me feel young to date. Now it makes me feel old. Besides, the only available men my age are all widowers, and they’re just looking for someone to take care of them.”

  “That’s men of any age,” Anna said.

  “You sound so bitter.” Margo’s forehead crinkled into a concerned frown.

  “I know. But I’ve earned my right to be bitter.”

  “I just hope you’re not punishing Noah for Brad’s crimes,” Margo said reprovingly.

  Anna didn’t reply, because she didn’t know what to say. She liked Noah, and she was certainly attracted to him. But she didn’t trust him. It wasn’t personal—although the four fiancées didn’t exactly help his case. It was just that she doubted she’d trust any man automatically at this point, at least not before she got to know him. And even then? She had no idea.

  “Didn’t it make you bitter when Daddy left?” Anna asked.

  Her parents had divorced before Anna’s fourth birthday. Her father relocated to Miami, remarried within a year, and had three more children. For a while, Margo had driven Anna down to her father’s house every few months to visit, but as she got older—and as his new family expanded—the visits had grown infrequent and then stopped altogether. Anna still saw him on occasion—her father had a passing, sentimental interest in Charlie—but it had been a long time since he’d had any sort of presence in her life.

  “No, honey, it didn’t make me bitter. Angry as hell for a while, but I got over it.” Margo leaned back, and tucked her feet up under her. “But I do wish I’d been able to find someone else, the way your father did. Someone to settle down with. I would have liked to have had another baby,” she said wistfully.

  “Really? I never knew that.”

  “Well, it’s not worth dwelling on. Those days are far behind me,” Margo said, waving a dismissive hand. Then she grinned suddenly. “Do you remember that one man I went out with a few times, the one you always called the Hummer?”

  “Oh, how could I forget the Hummer?” Anna said, chortling. He hummed constantly, wherever he went. He even hummed while he was eating. On the one occasion when her mother had invited him for dinner, Anna spent the entire meal smothering her laughter, while Margo glared at her across the table. “Do you think he ever realized that he was doing it?”

  “No, I don’t, the poor dear. You know, he asked me to marry him.”

  “You never told me that!”

  “Well, I said no, obviously. The humming was too large an obstacle to overcome. But don’t think I didn’t consider it for a while.”

  “Why? Were you in love with him?”

  “God, no. But he was a plastic surgeon, and quite a successful one at that. Just think of it—free face-lifts for life,” Margo said dreamily.

  And at this, the two women dissolved into another fit of giggles.

  eleven

  Juliet

  Richard Healy stuck his balding head into Juliet’s office.

  “Come on. We’re having a team meeting,” he said.

  “Now?” Juliet asked, looking up from the discovery motion she’d been drafting.

  “Yup. Alex wants to meet down in the conference room,” Richard said.

  Crap. Juliet threw her pen down on the desk. She didn’t have time for a meeting, not today. She had to leave work early to go to the photo shoot for Mothering magazine, and she absolutely had to finish this motion before she could go. She had told Alex last week about the photo shoot and sent him a follow-up e-mail this morning to remind him. But that was the thing about Alex: He was a good attorney—no, he was a great attorney—but work always came first, before family, or vacations, or free time. And he expected the same commitment from his associates, as Juliet knew all too well.

  She picked up the phone to call Patrick and warn him she might be running late but then thought better of it. She didn’t want to hear Patrick’s irritated sighs and the inevitable lecture about how she was yet again putting work first. So instead, she texted him from her BlackBerry:

  IN MTG, MAY B LT.

  And then she picked up her yellow legal pad and dutifully trooped down the hall to the conference room.

  “Richard, what’s the status on your motion for summary judgment?” Alex asked.

  Alex was sitting at the head of the big mahogany conference table as he met with his associates. Juliet sat to his left, Richard to his right, and the third associate, Neil Upson, sat next to Richard.

  “The MSJ is done and ready for your John Hancock, Alex,” Richard said. A smug smile stretched across his doughy face.

  Juliet had long suspected that Richard was a graduate of one of those make-friends-and-influence-people courses. He always made a point of making eye contact and using your name when he spoke to you. This didn’t make him more likable. If anything, it was creepy to be stared down while having your name repeated over and over. In fact, whenever Juliet ended up in a conversation with Richard—something she tried to avoid—she always felt like he was trying to convert her. To what, she didn’t know. Maybe he belonged to some sort of bizarre ass-kissing cult.

  “What are you working on now?” Alex asked Richard.

  “I’ve been working hard on the Patterson case, Alex. I stayed up late last night reviewing the file, so I could start drafting the complaint this morning,” Richard boomed.

  That was another thing about Richard: He always talked far too loudly.

  A flicker of irritation passed over Alex’s face. Juliet had to suppress a smile. For all of Richard’s ass-kissing, she knew how much he annoyed their boss. Alex liked his associates to do their work quickly and competently and did not want to listen to th
em brag about how late they’d stayed at the office. Richard had yet to figure this out.

  “You haven’t finished drafting that complaint yet? I gave that to you weeks ago,” Alex said, his voice flinty.

  Richard’s face fell. He looked down at the papers he’d brought into the meeting with him and began shuffling through them, as though the answer was somewhere within. “Yes…Alex…umm…it’s just…” Then he got himself together. “Well, Alex, I’ve been taking depositions in the Steele Insurance case. You told me to make those depos a priority.” A petulant tone had crept into his voice; Alex noticed it.

  “It’s all a priority,” Alex said sharply. He turned to Neil Upson.

  Neil was thin in a gawky, awkward way—all bones and sharp angles. His thinning hair was red, and the eyelashes that framed his watery blue eyes were so pale, they appeared nonexistent. Juliet had long suspected that Neil was a depressive—there was always a drawn, sad air about him—but he was a hard worker. In fact, Neil was a machine. He was single, didn’t have kids, and spent all of his time at the office. He consistently outbilled everyone else in the firm, which made Juliet uneasy. Neil had started at Little & Frost right after her, and they were more or less on the same rung of the partnership ladder. Juliet knew that she was the favorite to make partner next—she’d won a couple of modest cases recently—but compared to Neil’s extraordinary billables…

  Please let it be me, Juliet thought. The Winston Academy had sent home a note last week announcing, in a vaguely regretful tone, that there would be a tuition hike next year. She could barely afford the double tuition at the current rate and the girls were only going part-time now. Next year, they started kindergarten. And moving them to the poorly rated public school nearby was out of the question. Their education was too important—in fact, the most important thing. Knots of anxiety tightened in Juliet’s shoulders.

  What if Neil gets the partnership instead of me? Is it possible that they’ll make both of us partners? No, not likely. The firm’s too conservative to do that. Well, it will just have to be me. If I have to work late every night and weekend until they make the decision, that’s just what I’ll do—

  “Juliet?”

  Juliet flinched involuntarily. She hadn’t been paying attention, and apparently Alex was satisfied with Neil’s update and ready to move on to her.

  Juliet cleared her throat. “This morning I wrote a status memo for the Hamilton file—it’s in your in-box, Alex—and I was just drafting a discovery motion for the dead-baby case,” she said smoothly.

  “How about the Motor King hearing? Are we ready for that?” Alex asked.

  Juliet nodded. “I wrote up a memo on the issue regarding past judgments that you asked me to research. That’s in your in-box as well.”

  “Excellent,” Alex said, making a note on his pad.

  Juliet smiled to herself. She’d known that would impress him. Across the table, Richard was sulking, and Neil was staring down sadly at the papers in front of him. Juliet looked back at Alex. He was still writing, his gold pen dancing impatiently across the pad, and she took the opportunity to watch him, unseen. She loved the way his eyes tilted down at the outer edges and how they were fanned with laugh lines.

  Alex suddenly looked up, before Juliet could avert her stare. As their eyes met, excitement twisted in Juliet’s stomach. Her mouth went suddenly dry, and her pulse quickened, and she had a vivid image of what it would be like to kiss Alex, wondering what those firm, thin lips would feel like against hers…or trailing down her neck…or…

  The corners of Alex’s mouth quirked upward, and Juliet was suddenly aware that she was holding her breath. She let it out in a whoosh and then quickly looked back down at her notes, pretending to review them, all the while thinking, I cannot have a crush on my boss. It (a) is ridiculous, and (b) could seriously damage my career. I must stop fantasizing about him.

  “All right. We have a new case that just came in this morning. It’s an investor-fraud case,” Alex began.

  As Alex detailed the background of the new case, Juliet’s heart rate gradually slowed back down. She tried to clear her thoughts and focus on what her boss was saying.

  But Alex shifted in his chair and straightened his legs, brushing against hers under the table. Another jolt of excitement shot through her—a thrill that was heightened when Alex didn’t immediately move his leg away. Instead, his calf was pressing against hers, warm even through the wool of his pants.

  Juliet dared herself to look up at Alex and saw that he was looking right at her. Then, unmistakably, his eyebrows crooked up.

  Was it a question? Juliet wondered, her heart skittering. A challenge?

  A moment later his leg moved away, and Alex turned to answer a question Neil had posed about one of the parties to the new lawsuit…and Juliet was left wondering what had just happened. Or if anything had just happened. Had she imagined the whole thing?

  But as she could feel the rhythmic thrum of her heightened pulse, she knew she hadn’t imagined it. Not at all.

  By the time Juliet got out of her meeting, put the final touches on the discovery motion, had a quick conference with her secretary, Janine, and got out of the office, she was already late for the photo session. It was being held at a local photography studio Mothering had rented out for the afternoon. Patrick and the twins were already there, waiting for Juliet. The girls were wearing matching slightly rumpled pink dresses, and their ponytails were starting to droop. They raced around the waiting room, playing a loud, giggling game of tag. When they saw Juliet pushing open the glass front door, the game came to an abrupt stop.

  “Hi, Mommy!” Emma called. She ran over and threw herself at Juliet, wrapping her arms around her mother’s legs.

  Isabel, who had always been more loyal to Patrick, held on to his hand and frowned up at her mother. Juliet touched her daughter’s head in greeting.

  “Hi, Izz,” she said.

  “You’re late,” Izzy said. She fixed Juliet with a disapproving stare.

  “Where have you been?” Patrick asked her irritably. His hair was standing up on end, the way it always did when he was anxious and compulsively running his fingers through it. “The girls are reaching their limit. I tried calling your cell, and I couldn’t get through.”

  “It ran out of power,” Juliet lied glibly. She’d actually turned her cell phone off. She knew that Patrick would be calling her to find out why she was late, and she hadn’t wanted to hear the recriminations. It wasn’t like his nagging would get her there any faster.

  “Juliet Cole? Thank God, you’re finally here.” An officious man in his mid-twenties sporting a goatee and long sideburns appeared. “She’s here,” he called back over his shoulder, before looking Juliet over critically. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  “Who are you?” Juliet asked.

  “Simon Walker. I’m in charge,” he said importantly. “The blue suit isn’t doing it for me. Here, try taking off your jacket and undoing a few buttons on your shirt.”

  Simon reached out to unbutton Juliet’s shirt for her, but she held up a hand, blocking him.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “I’m not unbuttoning my shirt.”

  “Fine. But it’s not going to look right,” Simon said huffily. “Come on to the back, we’re running late.”

  Juliet and Patrick, each taking a daughter by the hand, followed Simon into the larger of two studios, which was filled with camera equipment, a few people—the photographer, his assistant, and a random woman with a bored expression who was yammering into her cell phone—and, oddly enough, an empty shopping cart set up in front of a blue screen.

  “What’s the shopping cart for?” Izzy asked.

  “That’s where we’re going to take your picture,” Simon said, affecting the slow, condescending tone of voice childless people often used with young children. He mimed pointing and shooting a camera.

  Izzy rolled her eyes. “I know what taking a picture means,” she said scat
hingly.

  That’s my girl, Juliet thought proudly.

  “We’re going to pretend that we’re all at the grocery store. Won’t that be fun? You and your sister are going to sit in the cart, and your mommy is going to push it,” Simon continued.

  “But we’re not allowed to sit in the back of the cart,” Emma protested. “It’s not safe.”

  “And Mommy never goes to the grocery store with us,” Izzy added.

  “That’s not true,” Juliet said. “I go to the store. On occasion.”

  “But not with us,” Izzy corrected her. “Only Daddy takes us. You’re always too busy working.”

  Simon looked at Juliet. She could see the judgment on his face.

  “Have you ever tried grocery shopping with two young children?” she asked him, crossing her arms defensively.

  “Hey, Juliet.”

  Juliet turned and saw Chloe standing there, baby William strapped to her chest in a sling. Chloe’s face was so pasty and pale that the dark circles under her eyes stood out like bruises, and a pimple was erupting on her chin. She was still just as puffy and bloated as she’d been pregnant, and although her stomach had deflated a bit, it still protruded out, Buddha-like.

  “Jesus, what happened to you? You look awful,” Juliet said.

  Chloe flinched as though she’d been struck. She blinked a few times and looked stunned—but then suddenly she shook her head and let out a short, startled laugh.

  “I had a baby, remember?” Chloe said, pointing to William. “And you’re the first person who’s told me the truth. Everyone keeps lying and telling me how much motherhood agrees with me and how I’m just glowing. Please. I know I look awful. I feel awful. And I’m not glowing—my skin’s just oily.”

  “It’s hard in the beginning,” Juliet agreed.

  Chloe looked at her doubtfully.

  “What?” Juliet asked. “I had two kids. Speaking of whom, these are my daughters, Emma and Izzy. And this is my husband, Patrick. Patrick, this is Chloe.”

  “Hi, Chloe,” Patrick said. “I remember you from Grace and Louis’s party.”