Being back at work is like living in a dream, the one where you think you recognize your whereabouts, but key details and people are changed; the office seems both normal and not. We still use colored cover sheets to route our ideas and our first drafts and our revises, but all the colors have changed: pinks where we used to use yellows, blues for the old greens, a sort of magenta that looks like our former red but is for art notes not revises, as if to deliberately confuse members of the old staff. “Hey, Laura,” I say, approaching her cubicle. “I know I asked you this before, but would you please remind me which color corresponds with first drafts?”
She sighs. “I’m superswamped right now. I’ll review it with you later.” I thought she was an assistant, but surely she wouldn’t be talking to me this way if she were. I’m suddenly doubting everything I know.
Right as I’m about to raise a point in a meeting, my breasts begin to leak. I feel the milk drippy-cold against my skin, and it makes me shiver. “Excuse me,” I say, as if I spoke up to ask for the bathroom pass instead of to contribute a thought. I escape to the supply closet with my pump, where I set about squeezing my breasts into ugly, unnatural shapes. A sob escapes my chest. Then I’m breaking down into tears, thinking, I’m milking myself like a cow. I am a cow. A cow in a supply closet.
When I relate this incident to Jake that night, he laughs. I’m outraged. “It’s not funny. You have no idea what it’s like!”
“You’re right, I don’t,” he says. “But it is funny.” The gulping tears return, as if they just retreated temporarily in my throat. “Oh, cutie. If it’s that bad, why don’t you quit? Or try to get laid off? We could make things work on my salary alone, that is, assuming you could ease up on your spa sprees.”
“What do you mean exactly, ‘try to get laid off’?” I ignore his dig at my penchant for pricey facials.
“This new boss is on a firing rampage, right? So just help her along. Make her decision a little easier.”
“Like, sexually harass someone?” I say, still whimpering. “Or say something racist?”
Jake laughs. “No, my naïve dear, you don’t want her to be able to fire you with cause, which means no severance or unemployment pay. Just, you know, do kind of a bad job. Give it your fifty percent.”
“Huh.” I’ve never before thought of this option, but it’s not such a bad one. I’ve been at Hers five years, so I’d get as many months’ worth of severance; and these days, unemployment benefits last nearly a year. And Jake is right—his litigator salary is more than enough to support our family. Still, I’m not sure the overachiever in me could pull off such a stunt.
The next day, Victoria calls me into her office. “Let’s talk smooth skin,” she says. “Mimi wants to do a six-page package on cellulite for the relaunch, so please drum up some ideas and we’ll meet to talk about it at seven.”
“Seven?” I ask. “As in p.m.?” Victoria nods, her face blank. That means I’ll miss putting Matilda down. Also, it’s July third, and Mark and I hoped to kick off our Independence Day celebration with some grilling and frozen drinks; back in Louisa’s day, we had half days on the eve of a holiday.
“Oh, and please print out fifteen copies of the eco-friendly makeup story,” she says. “Everyone in ad sales wants a copy so they can review the brands and ensure they’re targeting the right advertisers.”
“The story’s posted on the shared server,” I say, thinking I’m being helpful. “We could maybe save some trees by having them look at the eco-products on-screen. You know, practice what we preach?”
“Please pass me the fifteen printouts by end-of-day. In color, please.”
“Will do.” Leaving Victoria’s office, I make my decision and set my goal: within two weeks I will get myself fired.
As I’m halfheartedly brainstorming ideas about cellulite, Jonathan enters the beauty closet with the week’s worth of event invites. “I took the liberty of grabbing these from Ed in the mailroom,” he says. “I’m sure you’re still adjusting to the back-to-work thing, so just pick the ones you want to attend, and I’ll handle the rest. Oh, and I got you this.” Jonathan hands me a Starbucks iced coffee, a blatant suck-up move, but one that works. He seems to get how totally wiped I feel.
“Thanks.” I page through the invites, trying to drum up some enthusiasm for the promises of a mascara to revolutionize my lashes’ lushness, a skin-care system that will shave a decade from my face, and a pheromone-infused nail polish with the power to attract sexy suitors. These products used to make me gleam with glee; now I just wonder if the gift bags will include a cupcake.
Remembering Jake’s suggestion, I channel a slacker: “Honestly, I’m not up for any of these. Why don’t you just go to them all and bring back notes?”
“Uh, OK,” says Jonathan, sounding concerned. “Would you like me to send your regrets or give an excuse of some kind?” I shrug, turn back to my computer, and log on to Facebook. Over the course of the day I call Matilda’s nanny four times and ask her to put the phone up to my daughter’s ear, and then I speak in baby talk until I’m bored of it. I don’t bother closing the beauty closet’s door.
“Hey, Liz-O.” It’s Zoe. Others complain about her busybody ways, but she’s always left me alone, maybe sensing I wouldn’t indulge her brand of baloney. But now her radar for fellow slackers must be buzzing and she’s gravitated to me from across the office. “You know, you might want to rein in that gibberish mumbo jumbo,” she says. “I can see Victoria giving you the stink eye. Rumor is, she’s so desperate for a baby she’d steal someone else’s. So FYI, between you and me, I’d think twice about bringing yours to the office.”
“Thanks for the tip, Zoe.”
“And since you put on a few pounds, which is of course totes understandable, you might take the opportunity to bond with our—how shall I say it?—somewhat zaftig new leader. She’s big into dieting. Could be something for you two to do together, trade recipes and all that.”
“That’s excellent advice. I appreciate it.” My instinct is to shoo her away and say I have work to do, but I force myself to make small talk for as long as I can take it—I’m supposed to be playing the deadbeat. Eventually I excuse myself to go pump. I hide in the supply closet and read back issues of Starstruck. So this is the junk Mimi produced before coming to Hers. The writing is appalling, and the articles contain outright lies; the singer they claim had an affair last year with her hunk of a drummer recently came out as a lesbian.
My real test comes with the November issue memo. I pride myself on organization and efficiency; never once in my career have I missed a deadline. Ideas are due by noon, and I’m brimming with them. To urge myself to stay strong, I look to my screensaver, a beautiful image of Matilda sleeping in my arms, and I believe I can feel my heart physically aching. I’m doing this for you, kid, I think. Then I set about watering down my ideas, and littering my write-ups with clichés and misplaced modifiers and the occasional “you’re”–“your” mix-up. I sit on my memo all afternoon, feeling sick to my stomach. It’s nearing the end of the day when I finally drop it in Mimi’s box. Then I flee the office, half an hour early.
The morning after the holiday, Leah strides into the beauty closet. “I’m onto you, missy,” she says. “I called you at your desk at five thirty-five on Tuesday and you were already gone. Then I overheard Jonathan saying you passed on the Sephora Summer Blowout, which I happen to know is your favorite event of the season. I realize you’re new to juggling the whole working-mom deal, but this is not like you. What’s going on here?”
I shrug. “Maybe my mind’s a little muddled, you know, baby brain and all.”
“Oh, come off it, Liz. You’re a terrible liar. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I happened to see your memo with Mimi’s heinous red markups, and it’s not good. Not good at all. This is serious. You need to get with the program—fast!—or you’re going to be out on the street, lickety-split.” I nod and wrinkle my forehead, trying to look very concerned.
&
nbsp; “Wait a minute,” Leah says, perching herself on my desk and positioning her face inches from mine. “Oh, my God, that’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it?” I do my best impression of looking shocked. All this acting is exhausting. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’re trying to get let go. Oh, Liz, don’t do it! From one mom to another, I am begging you! You have no idea what it’s like to be cooped up all day with a baby, having zero adult interaction, your mind going to mush along with the bananas and sweet potatoes in the food processor. It’s bad enough that I have to work from home two days a week! I have stay-at-home mom friends who seem like they’ve had a full lobotomy. Three months of maternity leave is nothing. You knew all along it was finite, a precious little stint with a concrete end date. But when the days unfold in that shapeless, interminable way, you will come apart from the misery and despair. You will completely unravel. Believe me, after two weeks you’ll be praying you had a job to dress up for and escape to each day. Liz, I’m begging you, as your colleague and your friend, please don’t make this terrible mistake.”
My stomach is fluttering like mad. “I think you’re wrong,” I whisper, trying to shore up my conviction. “It’s different for Matilda and me. Now, shoo, and don’t blow my cover.”
Leah looks distraught. She sighs. “If this is what you want, I guess I can’t stop you.” She exits the beauty closet and I queue up Funny or Die, intent on laughing away the surge of ambivalence that’s creeping into my thoughts. To succeed in my mission, I know I can’t waver from my resolve.
“We have terminated your position” is how they word it. It’s on Friday the thirteenth when I’m summoned to the thirtieth floor, which somehow seems significant. Mimi is there, along with Suzanne, the H.R. representative who brought me on half a decade ago. Suzanne still wears her hair in two French braids, as if in five years she’s never once glanced at the beauty content of any of the magazines she hires for. “Your skill set no longer matches the needs of the Hers office,” she says. “We’ll be doing some restructuring.”
“But it’s only been ten workdays since I’ve been back from maternity leave and working for Mimi,” I reply, reciting the lines I rehearsed with Jake. “How can she have a real sense of what my skill set actually is?”
“We believe it no longer matches the needs of the office,” Suzanne repeats, shooting a sidelong glance at Mimi; I wonder, did no one tell her I just returned from maternity leave?
“Right, you already said that. But I’ve turned in just one assignment since coming back, and if you look in my file you’ll see I’ve always received glowing reviews from my managers. So I’m curious, why exactly am I being fired?”
I direct the question at Mimi, but she defers to Suzanne. “We’re letting you go because the publication is moving in a new direction,” she says, words without meaning.
“Is that right?” I ask, sounding calmer than I feel. “Well, listen, I happen to know you can’t replace someone while she’s out on maternity leave. In my absence, Mimi created a new beauty associate position—and for a man, by the way—and now, suddenly, although I’ve been given very little opportunity to prove myself, I’m getting the boot. This is all striking me as very sketchy. Very sketchy indeed. My husband is a lawyer, and—”
“Elizabeth,” says Suzanne, the chipper gloss gone from her voice. “We’re willing to be reasonable with you.”
“If you don’t want me to sue—and I think that’s what you’re getting at?” They seem careful not to nod, but it’s clear they’re listening closely. “OK. Rather than the twenty weeks of severance for my many years of service to this company, I believe I’m owed a full year.”
“Liz—” says Mimi, but I cut her off.
“I’d also like two months’ full pay for my nanny, whom I’ve taken the time to hire and get the baby accustomed to. You know, I thought I’d be working full-time for more than a fortnight.”
“Let’s be serious. This is not an investment bank,” says Mimi, getting riled up. “We are not made of money!”
Suzanne places her hand over Mimi’s. “OK, we’ll grant you one year’s severance, and then we’ll all sign a waiver releasing all parties of future rights to litigation.” Joy surges through my veins. I suspect my breasts are leaking, but I don’t even care. Jake speculated I’d get nine months’ pay at most, never the full year. “And while we regret that you’ve gone through the trouble of finding a nanny, unfortunately we cannot offer you compensation for that.”
“Deal.” I practically shout it. Suzanne nods soberly, and Mimi eyes me as if she suspects me of stealing. “I’ll be out of your hair immediately.”
All the holdovers from the old team offer me heartfelt hugs, which make me cry—although everything does these days. “I promise to visit,” I say. Half the staff offers their babysitting services. “Send me a postcard,” says Ed, handing over my last batch of mail.
Only Leah doesn’t get sentimental. “You sly fox,” she says. “Now I can no longer be your friend. We’re on opposite sides of the mommy wars, and each of us is required to believe we’re superior to the other.”
“Leah, you know I would never dare compete with you.”
“God, can’t you just be a bitch for once so it’s easier to see you go?” She helps me carry out my boxes, and waits with me for Jake. When he pulls up to the curb, Leah leans in to the car window. “I hear you’re responsible for this turn of events, you prick,” she says. She’s told me she’d sleep with Jake if ever I dared divorce him. “Take care of her for me, will you?” Leah lifts me off the ground into a bear hug, then sets me down and taps me on the butt. “See you around, Mama! Off you go.”
From the passenger seat, I stare up to the ninth floor of the Schmidt & Delancey building, where I’ve spent the majority of my waking hours for half a decade. I can still recall the mix of pride and excitement I felt when Louisa first shook my hand, and said, “Welcome to Hers.” Well, good-bye to all that, I think wistfully. Then I remember with a thrill that we’re on our way home to sweet Matilda.
“Wait a second, love,” I say to Jake. I hop out of the car, gather the six or seven magazines shoved into every crevice of my handbag, and toss the lot into the garbage can. I can’t believe how light I feel. Tomorrow I’ll stop at Barnes & Noble and buy an actual book. I’ll read it slowly, savoring it like a prize. I love the idea: me, a reader of literature! (Halfway to Brooklyn, I’m already wishing I hadn’t thrown out the newest issue of Pretty; it’s the perfect thing to page through while nursing Matilda.)
Jake drops me off at home, then turns around to head back to midtown. I dismiss the nanny early and scoop up Matilda from her crib. She’s gurgling softly and smells of sweet talcum, her eyes at half-mast. I spin the colorful mobile above our heads, and as it trills a twinkling melody, I invent a lullaby: “Hers, Mimi, move away. Mama and Tilly will share the day. Good-bye newsstand, good-bye desk. Mama loves Matilda, sweet God bless.”
9
Leah Brenner, Executive Editor
When Laura schedules a remote meeting for Mimi and me, she usually cites a reason. So when she calls my home office and asks if I’m free to Skype at three, vaguely adding, “Mimi wants to chat,” I assume this will be my finale. We’ve just shipped the final pages of the September issue, and Mimi is likely thinking she’s kept me around long enough to glean all of my Hers wisdom.
As always, it feels like an invasion when Mimi’s wide, white face appears on the screen of my home computer. “Hi there,” she says, not quite looking at me, although it’s admittedly difficult to make eye contact through a Web cam. “I’m doing some reshuffling, so let’s talk change.” I brace myself. Although I’ve imagined this moment many times, I still don’t have a clue if I’ll respond with the poise of a princess or the dumb hysterics of certain toddlers I know. Mimi continues: “I’ll need you to take over all of the top-editing for October.”
“The entire issue?” I ask, shocked. Victoria and I have been splitting this task half and half, and it’s a ma
ssive one: It means constructing and deconstructing and reconstructing every story all the way from its initial big, messy concept to its final perfectly placed punctuation; it means acting as liaison between dueling personalities in edit and art as the text and photos come together on-page; it means being the first and the last pair of eyes on a piece, and sticking around until the wee hours of the night during shipping to usher each layout, error-free, out the door to the printer. Even in Louisa’s time, this was never a one-woman job.
“Yessiree, the whole enchilada,” says Mimi. A feeling of flattery is worming its way into my brain—could Mimi possibly have decided I’m a smart, competent editor, after all?—but a part of me knows to remain skeptical. There is, in fact, a catch: “Victoria is moving on to focus on the November relaunch,” Mimi says, “and since you have such a fan-friggin-tastic handle on the old content, I thought it would serve us all best to pass the baton over to you for the last month of it.” Wow. She does get points for bluntness.
The screen flickers to black—it must be the Web connection; even Mimi wouldn’t end a conversation quite so harshly. As I wait for her smug mug to reappear, I hum in order to avoid any thoughts of my overwhelming new responsibilities. I peer up at my wall calendar, a reproduction of Seurat’s Grande Jatte, and soon lose myself in the picture. Oh, to break free of my windowless office and become one of the fashionable women in the painting, promenading along the shore on a balmy summer day. I settle into the fantasy, imagining the delicate lace pattern of my parasol, the thin breeze against my face, the gorgeous French accent I’ve acquired by magic or divine intervention. It doesn’t take long for the nearby squall of one of my babies to snap me out of my reverie and remind me how absurd it is to pine away for an alternate life while also feeling utterly terrified of losing the one I have. I narrow my eyes, and the calendar image turns into what it is: a bunch of dots.
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