Pretty in Ink

by Lindsey Palmer

  “Well, at least you can write it in your sleep, or while you’re playing with three babies.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Nice, Leah. I’ll talk to you later.”

  The train emerges from the underground tunnel and flies up into the fading daylight to cross the Manhattan Bridge. I know I should spend my commute working, but it’s my small rebellion that I instead peer out the window and lose myself in the surroundings: the sunset reflected against the river and the backdrop of gleaming buildings. Every ride, I’m amazed and humbled by the sight of the city I live in. The journeys across the river are distinct daily markers—leaving home for work, or leaving work to head back home—moving from one of my worlds to the other. My commute is the ultimate comfort.

  At home in the front hall, I step over Julia’s lab coat, dress, and sandals. This random tossing of garments drives me nuts, but it does mean she’s showering, so at least she won’t smell like a day’s worth of animal fur.

  “Hi, love,” I yell out. I can hear her singing Billy Joel over the spray of water.

  I dial Louisa and get her voice mail. “Congrats on the new gig—”

  A click indicates she’s picked up. “Hello?”

  “Oh, hi. I was midmessage.”

  “I know, I screened the call. I wanted to find out if you’d sound fake happy or genuinely happy for me.”

  “Louisa, you’re ridiculous.”

  “I’m paranoid, so sue me. But I’ll tell you the truth, I’m a tad bit excited.”

  “You should be.”

  “All the free clothes I want, and for the whole family, too. Very little stress, it sounds like. Regular hours, that’s the clincher. Can you imagine? Leaving your desk at five on the dot each day.”

  “I think it sounds perfect for you.”

  “Though my manager is twenty-eight. That kind of makes me want to shoot myself.”

  “Maybe she can babysit.”

  “True. I’m going to figure out how I can add some substance into the catalogs. I’ll describe a trench coat as just the right piece of outerwear to don at your feminist revival march. Warm and sturdy, a smart shape for the thinking woman.”

  “Pair it with the perfect ‘take back the night’ leather pumps.”

  “Try on a skirt so hot your man will insist on handling dinner and the dishes.”

  “Well …” I say.

  “You’re right, that one needs work. This whole business will probably bore me to death in about three days. But hey, you gotta keep on keeping on. So …”

  “You want to know how life is back at the ranch?”

  “Yes, I seem to remember I’ve planted you there as my personal spy.”

  “Ah, so you’re paying me, then?”

  “The check’s in the mail. Come on, any good gossip?”

  “Here’s something,” I say. “The intern fetches us Starbucks now.”

  “Not very titillating, but I’ll take it. Expensed to Hers, I presume?”

  “Yep. Oh, and Leah’s writing the TOC.”

  “Poor girl. Well, I’ve got some dirt for you. I was out to dinner last night and saw your new British tart of an entertainment director having drinks with one Helena Hope.”

  “First of all, how do you know about our new entertainment director?”

  “I read the Post just like everyone else.”

  “Oh, right.” I’m always amazed how quickly those reporters dig up all the industry gossip. “So Helena Hope, is she that terrible country-western singer?”

  “The one and only. Famous for those eight-minute ballads about heartbreak and blushing virgins. She’s got that one song they seem to have on repeat on every radio station these days. It’s sickening, really. And what’s worse is that I’ve actually had time to listen to the radio these days.”

  “What’s she doing north of the Mason-Dixon line?”

  “You tell me.” Three months ago, Louisa would have been a bundle of nerves to happen upon a coupling like that at a restaurant. Now she just sounds tickled.

  “Thanks for the tip, Liz Smith,” I say. I feel a wet body press against my own and get a whiff of Julia’s lavender shampoo. “Gotta go.”

  “OK, I’ll be in touch about teaming up on a joint story in Hers: Ten essentials for your closet, brought to you by Bloomie’s,” says Louisa.

  “Very funny. Congrats again. We’ll talk soon.” I drop the phone.

  “Hey, babe,” Julia says, spinning me around.

  I kiss her blue-tinged lips. Julia likes to air-dry postshower. It makes me shiver to even look at her.

  “Chicken’s roasting in the oven, wine’s chilling in the fridge, and I’ve printed out that stack of profiles for us to review over dinner,” she says.

  “You had me sold until the last part. Can’t we pick out a baby daddy another time?”

  “Don’t be such a wet blanket. One of the guys wins surfing championships. Can you imagine, our future baby a pro surfer?”

  “Where’s she gonna go surfing, the East River?”

  “Come on. I’ve done a complete vetting process to meet your every need. They’re all tall, liberal, nonsmoking readers of serious literature, and there’s not a native New Yorker in the bunch.” So then she’s been listening to me: my theory is that everyone who grows up in New York turns out kind of off-kilter. But it follows that I wouldn’t want a kid of mine growing up in New York. And Julia and I both have good careers and good lives here; we’re not going to just uproot ourselves.

  “All right,” I cave, already feeling my stomach churn. Our tendency to discuss this topic over food has left me with a serious case of indigestion this past month.

  “Wahoo!” Julia scurries off naked to fetch the stack.

  It’s her idea, of course, the child thing. Julia says she can’t believe I’ve spent a decade working at a magazine for moms and yet feel uneasy about becoming one myself. I point out that I’ve also spent ten years working at a magazine for women interested in men, and it hasn’t turned me straight. In fact, I’m the one who often thinks up the best Hers parenting coverage because I’m the most paranoid about the myriad ways that you could screw kids up and that they could screw you up: What if they’re allergic to everything? What if they throw tantrums in the middle of traffic? What if you just plain don’t like them? My anxious what-ifs make for better story fodder than the actual mothers’ dreamy “You just figure it out” dismissals. Like a mantra, I keep repeating to myself that the maternal instinct will kick in once an embryo starts growing in Julia’s stomach, or at least once the baby arrives in the delivery room, kicking and screaming and shitting and … oh, dear. I treasure the order of our lives.

  “Check him out.” Julia passes me a photo of a blond guy with a toothy smile. I’m about to comment that his sweater looks like a Christmas present from my dad when I catch Julia’s look: expectant. Oh boy, she’s already expecting. I love her dearly, so I inhale and decide to apply the same optimistic approach I’ve been using at work with all the new staff members: Johanna seems like a pain in my butt, but maybe her connections really will be a boon to the magazine; this guy may have terrible taste in tops, but get a load of those big blue eyes.

  “He’s handsome,” I say.

  “Fertilize-my-eggs-with-his-sperm handsome?” Julia asks.

  “I’m not sure.” Julia is clearly disappointed, but I can’t help thinking it’s creepy to try to imagine a grown man’s traits transposed upon a baby.

  I flip through the stack between bites of chicken, and it’s like a game: What nice thing can I find to say about each? Which good attribute can I highlight? Now I’m having fun, like I’m a first-grade teacher doling out progress reports to six-year-olds.

  I turn to the next packet, and Chardonnay sprays from the sides of my mouth. Pictured is an orange-skinned body builder posing in a G-string, muscles fully flexed, florescent teeth flashing.

  “He’s perfect, right?” Julia asks, fixing me with a mischievous smirk. “Tall, check. Nonsmoker, chec
k. Though we’ll have to investigate his steroid use.”

  “Also, his origins,” I say. “I believe he hails from Planet Self-Tanner.” I chuck the rest of the profiles at my wife.

  “Well, I spared you from an even worse one, so count yourself lucky.”

  “Who’s that, John Boehner? Does he want to plant his seed to create mini-Boehners all over this great country of ours?”

  “Eek, I hope not. No, it was that art guy you used to work with—Mark something?”

  “No! Mark is donating sperm? Are you sure?”

  “His profile talked about his love of black coffee, minimalist art, and cinema verité.”

  “That’s our Mark, all right. How much do you earn from this kind of thing?”

  “Who knows? Maybe a hundred bucks a pop.”

  “Oh, dear.” I push my food away, no longer hungry. I wonder how desperate Mark must be.

  That night I dream Helena Hope is perched on the edge of Julia’s hospital bed, serenading her as she goes into labor. When Helena strums the last note of a ballad about the circle of life in perfect synchrony with the baby’s arrival, and we fail to applaud enthusiastically enough, she slams down her guitar and flees, leaving us to try to calm our screaming newborn. His cries pierce my skull—truly a splitting headache. Suddenly I’m wailing, too, yelling out, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Julia looks at me as if I’m a freak, the worst person in the world, totally unfit to be a parent. I fear she’s going to leave me. Everything seems to be falling apart, like if I’d only kept quiet the screaming baby would disappear and Julia and I would be back to our old lives, just us two. Julia begins breastfeeding the newborn, and I watch as he sucks greedily at my partner’s tit. I feel starving, too, but I’m careful to keep this information to myself. I know how inappropriate it would be to sneak out for a sandwich at a time like this. A trickle of fear invades my stomach along with the pangs of hunger: I fear I’ll never be brave enough to speak up and say I need food, that I’ll never be allowed to eat again.

  I wake up with the sound of a baby’s wails still ringing in my ears—which, in retrospect, feels like a fitting prelude to the day.

  I’m midswallow, the day’s first sip of bitter coffee halfway down my throat, when Mimi, Johanna, and Lynn barge into my office. Mimi flings aside a pile of folders I’ve just organized, planting her butt directly on my desk. The oxygen in the office seems to reduce by half. “Janine’s publicist called,” she says. “The worst mom in the world is out for the November cover.”

  “What do you mean?” I begin to sweat. “The shoot is scheduled for tomorrow!”

  “It turns out they wrote a special deal with Regina into the contract,” Mimi says, “and now apparently Regina is filling in at Work It magazine, so they’ve secured Janine for their November cover. What a traitor.”

  “Well played, Regina, right?” Lynn says. We all gape at her.

  This kind of oversight would have never happened with Sylvia around, I think. “Were our readers all that excited about Janine, anyway?” I ask desperately. Those reality shows stress me out. I can’t fathom the appeal of watching the total chaos of other people’s lives.

  “Oh, everyone loves Janine,” says Lynn. “Every mom feels like she’s the worst in the world, but then you watch a TV show where some moms are, like, feeding their kids ice cream for breakfast, or carting them along to illicit rendezvous, actually propping them up on the next bed in the motel room as they go at it like dogs with some random dude. Seeing that, you can’t help but think, wow, at least I’m not that bad.”

  “You know what I’d like to watch on TV?” I say. “A show where someone sits all those moms down and teaches them about good parenting and proper nutrition. Then they could all go grocery shopping together for milk and eggs and vegetables, cook up a healthy meal, then sit down to eat it as a family.”

  “Something is seriously wrong with you,” says Mimi. “The best part about Worst Moms is the way they decorate their houses. It’s beyond.” Really? I think. Just yesterday Mimi mentioned that she wants to run a home makeover in the magazine with décor exclusively from Walmart.

  “OK, well, who are our alternatives for the cover?” I ask.

  “I’ve already found us someone who’s bloody brilliant,” says Johanna. My stomach flips, the memory of the baby’s cries from my dream still echoing in my head. “Helena Hope.”

  “She’ll be incredible,” says Mimi.

  “I have a slight concern about her reputation,” I say. I Googled the singer last night after talking to Louisa. “I’ve heard she travels with an entourage of twenty and that she recently sprayed mace at a reporter.”

  “Seriously?” says Mimi. “Ooh, scandalous!”

  “Well, the readers adore her,” says Johanna. “She’s got that hit song this summer, and she’s a huge star in all those states in the center of the country. What do you call it, the Midwest?”

  “It’s true,” says Lynn. “Flyover country gold mine.”

  “It’s already quite late in the game for November,” I say. “If anything were to go wrong—if she bailed on the shoot or didn’t cooperate with the writer—we’d be in a very tough spot.” I can feel my armpits dampen; it’s rare for me to go head-to-head with three other heads.

  “She’s a dear mate of mine, totally trustworthy,” says Johanna. “And get this: She’s in town and could be ready for a shoot tomorrow.”

  “We already had everything set up for Janine,” says Lynn. “Drew says she can just do some rejiggering to make it all work for Helena.”

  “Wow, that Drew is a real rock star,” I say.

  “I say, let’s do it!” says Mimi. “Ooh, maybe she’ll put on a show for us in the office. Ha! Abby, please look into that.”

  “Blech, have you heard her music?” Lynn says. “Remind me to call out sick.”

  “Well, I guess we have no other choice but to go ahead,” I say, sighing.

  The three of them file out, leaving me alone with a pit in my stomach. In the past, as a rule Hers did not engage with difficult celebrities. Louisa’s attitude was, there are plenty of famous people out there grateful for their star status and gracious to all the forces keeping them on top, so why not reward that behavior? The divas always cost more time and more money than they’re worth. I could not agree more. But Mimi hails from Starstruck, where I imagine the opposite sensibility rules. To Mimi, celebrity drama is fodder for a juicy story, something to be milked for exposure and profit. I know it’s a new chapter at Hers, so I’ll have to revise my thinking and get on board.

  I open my in-box and see a new e-mail from Leah, subject line: “Updated résumés! Which one’s your preference?” At first glance the two attachments seem identical: her Columbia bachelor’s, her list of editorial accomplishments, her fluency in French (huh, never knew!). A closer look reveals differences. One reads, “Top-edit monthly middle-of-book health, parenting, and relationships features”; the second, “Slave away at increasingly trashy stories about plastic surgery trauma, sex scandals, and reality show stars.” The first, “Commissioned partnership with prominent TV networks for co-branded surveys, stories, and events”; the second, “Sweet-talked my way to synergistic B.S. in efforts to promote ‘the brand,’ heroically triumphed over pangs of self-revulsion and worthlessness.” The first, “Salary requirements: $125K+”; the second, “Please pay me enough to support my three rapidly growing, constantly hungry, horrifically needy children (and my fourth overgrown, adult-sized child), or—gasp!—we’ll have to move in with my mother.”

  I type a reply: “The second one works better. I’ll blast it out to all my contacts, stat.” I press Send, thinking, I can’t remember the last time I updated my résumé.

  The twang of a banjo disrupts my concentration, and I peek out of my office. A group has gathered at Johanna’s cubicle; she’s popped open a bottle of champagne.

  “Fancy a glass, Abby?” she asks. “Helena has officially agreed to pose on our cover for November, and to fast-tra
ck the photo shoot. We’re having an impromptu party in honor of the occasion, listening to her brilliant new record.”

  “Sure,” I say, agreeing to the drink out of self-consolation rather than celebration. I approach Debbie, who’s scowling in the corner. “What’s up?”

  “Look,” our food guru says, pointing to a platter. “That British bimbo put out Ritz crackers and packaged cookies,”

  “Oh boy, culinary scandal. You can’t be surprised, right?”

  “I bet she’s never even turned on her oven. No wonder she thinks food is passé. Probably she plays this garbage music on loop as some kind of appetite suppressant.”

  I survey the scene: Zoe is spinning herself in circles in a wheelie chair. Laura and Victoria are dancing awkwardly to the music until Laura bangs her hip against a file cabinet, and then limps back to her desk to nurse her wound. Drew is in her cubicle, where I notice her supplementing the glass of bubbly with a nip of something from a drawer. Lynn has shut herself in her office, from which I can hear the competing noise of Pink Floyd. Jane is offering a drink to Ed, who’s nodding his head to the music’s beat. It’s a ragtag team we’ve got here, but it’s mine. I feel a funny kind of pride.

  “How about a packaged cookie?” I say, grabbing two of them and passing one to Debbie. She sighs and takes it. We munch away and the crumbs rain down onto our shirts. “Not bad.”

  “Not bad if you prefer a cardboardy aftertaste with your sweets,” she says. “You know, it’s a good thing Mimi’s keeping you around. What would we do without your steady stream of reasonableness?”

  “I imagine you’d be just fine,” I say. The question is, without this crowd, would I be fine? Hopefully I won’t ever have to find out.

  “I guess we’d all have to stop bitching and moaning so much,” says Debbie. “But I’d really prefer not to. Pass me another one of those cardboard cookies.” I take one for each of us.

  “Cheers to Chips Ahoy and bad country music,” I say. Debbie and I clink our plastic glasses and sip at lukewarm sparkling wine from New Jersey. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible, either. A light fuzziness begins to blur over my thoughts, and I swig back the rest of my glass. It tastes like relief.