Meternity. Meghann Foye
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sure,” she says.
“I’m out, too, next week. Remember the press trip you wanted me to go on? What if I find American mothers living in France?”
“That won’t work.” Alix shakes her head no. “They need to be based here.”
“Sorry, Liz, you’re going to have to cancel the trip,” he says. “Alix has a family reunion in the Caribbean she can’t miss. You can go to Paris anytime. We need coverage here. I’ll let the PR firm running the trip know.”
I can’t quite think what to say with the two of them staring at me. Refuse them and I’ll be fired and probably blacklisted from the entire industry. I flash to my shameful $7,897 of credit card debt, courtesy of a stream of bridesmaid-related expenses over the past few years, my rent check, the upcoming $505 reoccurring student loans payment reminding me every month that I chose the priciest liberal arts education so I could make the very connections landing me here.
“Alix, please, is there another way?”
“I’m sorry, Liz. It’s not my job to clean up your mess. You could have handled it if you were more efficient with your time.”
“But I always have to take on the workload of other staffers out on maternity leave on top of my own. You know that.”
“You always seem to have excuses,” Alix says. “If you had children, I’d understand, but tell me why is it such a big deal to stay late a few nights a month when you have no real responsibilities otherwise?”
All of a sudden, my face feels hot. I had always figured hard work would be rewarded, but apparently the joke is on me. If I were a mother and in the right “box,” I’d have a legitimate excuse. But I haven’t been able to make that happen yet. And until I do, no matter how hard I work, I won’t count. Fuck it.
“No.”
“What?” Alix says.
“I can’t,” I respond, simply.
Alix’s eyes narrow. “Liz, your attitude has been holding us back for too long. I need to talk to Cynthia.” As she turns to leave, I inhale a whiff of her noxious, old-school perfume and I gag. Doubling over, I begin to dry heave.
“Liz, are you okay?” asks Jeffry. He and Alix rush to my side, as they tell me to breathe. Finally, I straighten up. “I’m sorry, I, uh, I don’t know what happened. I’ve been feeling a little off lately,” I stammer. Just then, an eerie giggle lets out from my old phone.
PUSH! :) Notification! Week 16: Congratulations! Your baby is now the size of a kumquat! Time to start some squats! Baby Smiles: 0!
I fumble to mute the sound and click the screen closed, but it’s too late. “Oh, God. Not you, too,” Jeffry whispers.
“Are those maternity jeans?” gasps Alix.
I go completely blank, and then I hear words coming out of my mouth I don’t recognize as my own. “Yes. Me, too.”
Jeffry’s attention is riveted on me now.
Did I really just say that?
For a few seconds, they are speechless. “Wait, Liz, are you pregnant?” Alix jumps in.
With my eyes fixed on the floor, my whole body freezes. I don’t say yes, but I don’t say no. A few seconds pass. There’s a spasm in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, then, that settles it. We can’t do anything now. Jesus,” says Jeffry.
“When are you due?” Alix says.
I look down at the app. “October 20.”
“Huh,” says Jeffry, confused. “I didn’t know you...had a boyfriend...a partner.”
“Because it’s none of anyone’s business,” I say. Where is this confident Liz coming from? “By the way, Jeffry,” I add, “Alix asked me to alter one of the tiger mom’s quotes to make it say that she beats her children, but it’s not true.”
Alix’s and Jeffry’s faces both display a look of shock.
And then I lean over and throw up the contents of Pippa’s baby shower into Alix’s wastebasket.
Guys, I did something stupid. Need help!!!! I text Addison and Brie with hands so shaky I can barely type. Loose papers are sent flying across my desk as I attempt to grab what I need. I have to get out of here—fast. Finally I spot what I’m looking for—my dog-eared copy of What to Expect. I stuff it into my bag, then race toward the elevators and out the lobby.
A text from Cynthia! She’s heard. Set up an appointment for first thing Monday morning. You are coming in, aren’t you?
Yes, of course. I will, thank you!!! I type with way too many exclamations. Shit.
Finally, just as I’m making my way toward the subway, Addison texts back. Can you come here? She’s at a client meeting at Soho House in the Meatpacking District.
On my way too, texts Brie, who’s coming from Core Fusion in the Flatiron.
Thank God. I decide to hop in a cab heading downtown from the Bird Cage, our nickname for our publisher Halpren-Davies’s beautiful turn-of-the-century Beaux Arts building right below Times Square, as waves of adrenaline flood my system. Did I really just let my bosses think that I’m pregnant? Am I having a psychotic break? This must be some sort of deranged, baby-fever-induced psychosis that Paddy Cakes will surely one day cover in its pages.
As the taxi cruises down Ninth Avenue, I start to panic. When Cynthia finds out the truth, I will be fired and never work in the magazine industry again. Jezebel and The Cut will have a field day mocking “the editor who cried pregnant.”
Oh, how I wish I had the guts to just quit on the spot like Addison did. After forgetting to do her boss’s expenses in favor of taking on more writing assignments, she’d been put on probation until she could “prove her value.”
“I don’t need a month,” she’d told them in typical Addison fashion. “I already know my value. Consider this my notice.”
That afternoon in 2008 she and I sat in Bryant Park sipping smoothies and in the span of an hour, she’d decided that instead of looking for a new job, she was going to launch her own fashion blog. It has now grown to a collection of more than one thousand fashion writers, bloggers and YouTube personalities. In the past eight years, she’s transformed herself into a Forbes 30 Under 30 “content-preneur” whose influencer machine called The Couture Collective has started to pay off, earning her a smooth 15 percent commission on each piece of content written exclusively for boutique fashion brands. These days she’s completely obsessed with building out her own proprietary platform so she can “scale”—and meeting hot angel investors to fund it.
I nervously check my texts. Nothing more from Cynthia. I find myself in a mad Googling frenzy. “Faking pregnancy” leads to “workplace pregnancy rights,” leads to “criminal time served for health insurance fraud,” leads to me almost throwing my phone out the window right then and there. I finally realize there is someone else I can call to reassure me. Someone who knows all the players and exactly what to do. Ford. My former work husband, ten years my senior and the one who showed me the ropes when I first arrived at Paddy Cakes, now managing editor at our men’s publication Basics. I text him, and get an immediate response back, I’m there.
When I arrive at Soho House and give the concierge Addison’s name, they send me up to the sixth floor parlor. The glamorous lounge is heating up, and I spot more than a few tables of successful-looking men with slim-cut suits chatting up decades-younger girls with stomach-revealing tops—LBG-ism is in full effect. I spot Addison at a center table clacking away at her laptop. Thankfully Brie arrives a few minutes later. Then Ford.
When I tell them what