... and Baby Makes Two (25 page)

“You bastard. I quit.”

And in a blink, she was an unemployed, single-mother-to-be. She rose to the top of her own list of candidates to drop out of the adoption process. But first, she had stepped out to Twenty-third Street at rush hour and cried.

After Teresa finished her story, and her third martini, Jane advised her to sue Victor for crimes against humanity. Karen, who
thought that all litigation led to bad karma, thought this might be the exception. Sue him.

“Ruin him. Take the business away from him. He owes you.”

Ray advised her to make no plans tonight, other than more martinis.

“Look, I don't know you very well, and I don't know Victor at all. But sure, he'll buy you out. He'll have to. And maybe you can start your own agency—”

Teresa crumbled under the exhaustion implicit in that suggestion. Ray continued.

“Or maybe you can work somewhere else. Or maybe you can take a year off and think about it all and play with a cooing little baby. Maybe you don't have to decide anything tonight. Wait.”

Waiting sounded just fine to Teresa and to everyone. Jane was justifiably proud of her hubstitute. Everyone settled in for an evening of Victor-bashing. Teresa was not holding back.

“For twelve years, he didn't want to have kids. Suddenly, he meets little miss fake-tan, and he decides he's going to be a daddy? He waited until I was gone? He waited until I was in menopause? The bastard. The unbelievable bastard!”

Jane echoed, “He's a bastard.”

“He's older than me. Did I tell you that?” Yes. “And he can still get that girl pregnant. He has all the time in the world. And he doesn't know what to do with it.”

Karen should have echoed her friend. Instead, she said, “Will China let you adopt if you're not employed anymore?”

This question should have waited. But once it was said, Teresa nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

“I don't know. I have to fix this. And soon. If the latest statistics stay true, we'll be getting our referrals in about a month, maybe two. I'll be damned if Victor is going to ruin this for me. The bastard.”

Teresa laid her head down on the table and echoed herself.

“The bastard.”

Her friends took her home.

…

Jane called Sheila but spoke only to the crackly answering machine. This was not a saga for an answering machine. She left an insistent “Call me and you'll be glad you did” message for her sister. She hung up and studied the phone. She wanted to ask her sister: Was Betty in heaven, protecting Jane from all the turmoil her friends were experiencing? She began to see herself as the Lucky One. She had no bad ex-boyfriend to induce her to quit a job where her paycheck actually covered her living expenses plus child care.

And Peter was almost free and almost hers. Everything was so close.

…

Ray settled in to watch Jane empty a neatly organized drawer.

“Peter needs room for some things. He keeps piling up T-shirts on the hamper. And look” She dangled a shiny new set of keys she had made for Peter. Ray didn't smile.

“He gave me keys to his place,” Jane said. “It's only fair.”

“Cozy. Have you told Howard yet?”

Jane hadn't told her father yet.

“I have to tell Sheila first, and I can't seem to find her lately”

“There are no accidents …”

“No. Telling Dad is a lose-lose situation. Either he'll say, ‘See? I was right about how you can't be single and adopt,' or he'll say, ‘Jezebel! Stealing another woman's husband!' ”

Ray nodded. “It's nice to know just how crazy a person is, huh?”

“Well. Isn't he right?”

“About which thing?” Ray was peeking in the boxes.

“The first. Second. Both. Is it a bad sign to start a relationship like this? With him leaving his wife like this?”

“You can't start a relationship if he doesn't. And isn't this what Bitty-Betty wanted?”

Jane was folding and putting away.

“Still.”

“I know.”

Ray made them tea. They settled in the kitchen, where Jane watched for Peter to come up the street.

“I wonder if I could have raised a baby all alone.”

“No.”

“Ouch. I thought you believed in me. I thought you supported this adoption.”

“You were never going to be alone, darling. You had me. In fact, Burton thinks that he and I should adopt. I think we should start with a plant and see if we can keep that alive.”

“In your place? You get no light. Get a plastic plant.”

“Excellent plan. And maybe Burton's right. I had sort of gotten used to the idea of being a pseudo-dad for you and your little one. Now that I'm out of the picture—”

“When did you fall out of the picture?”

“When you emptied that drawer.” Jane gave him a look of sympathy/sad/I love you, which forced him to look away. “And that's fine. I always kind of knew you'd leave me for another man. You're a hottie; you just don't dress like one. So now I'm the wacky uncle. Again. I play that part well.”

“You're not out of the picture. You're still coming with me to China, aren't you?”

Now it was Ray's turn to give a look of sympathy/sad/I love you. “The three of us? What would Chairman Mao say? No, no, no. This is not a trip for the wacky uncle. I'm out.”

Jane's doorbell rang, and she buzzed Peter in. She trolled around for words of comfort for Ray but she found none. She opened her front door, and there was Peter, carrying a crazy bouquet of blue daisies.

…

Peter was a morning person. Jane was not. He started the day with an indecent amount of energy, whereas Jane eased into the morning. More often than not, Jane and Peter commuted together. She collapsed

against his shoulder as they held hands. She knew they were looking so couply-cute when they bumped into Dick-Richard, who hurt Peter with his vigorous handshake. He was on a break from the new Martin Scorsese movie.

“I love working with Marty. He really feeds the extras well. And you? What are you up to these days?”

He was asking about someone other than himself. How was that for a sign of Divine Providence?

She replied, “I'm adopting a baby from China.”

Dick-Richard said nothing. He seemed to be concentrating on something in his teeth. When he finished with his dental hygiene, he said, “Did I tell you about the showcase I'm doing next month? It's a new play and I don't think it's very good. It's some kind of murder mystery, I think. But I have a really funny scene at the end. You should come.”

Jane smiled, and Peter took a flier from him. Maybe they would actually go see this play called
The Customer Is Always Dead.

You have
one
new message.

“Hi, Janie, it's me.” Sheila. At last. “Call me. Something happened and— I don't want to leave this on your machine, so just call me, okay? Right away”

Beep.

Jane dialed her sister's number. Sheila answered the phone in a perfect telephone-lady voice, calm and composed, but dissolved the moment she heard Jane's voice.

After Sheila caught her breath, she said, “I was pregnant, and don't be mad at me, but I didn't want to tell anyone too soon. I was afraid of bad luck. But then Raoul was telling everyone and I got mad at him and told him it was bad luck, but he doesn't believe in luck or signs or anything. I do. Especially now.”

Sheila was talking quickly, and Jane had to struggle to keep up. Sheila was crying, so her words were wet and mushy. Jane pieced the story together as if it were a quilt. Pregnant. Miscarried. Distraught. Sheila was grieving and needed all the family she could get.

“I know I said all that stuff about not being sure I wanted to get pregnant. Right now, I can't believe I
ever said anything so crazy. I was so happy, Janie. I was counting the days until I could tell you. Why did this happen to me? Why?”

Jane stayed on the phone with her sister for the rest of the evening. There were long stretches of crying and even longer stretches of silence. They hung up, both depleted, and that night Jane dreamed that Betty was knitting a small boat, urging her girls to get in and start rowing.

…

Jane and Peter were late for work. She had stayed up late with Sheila once again, and they both forgot about petty things like alarm clocks. Jane usually raced to work, hating to walk in late, hating to have everyone see her emerge from the elevator long after they had started working/surfing the Web/fake-working. But Peter's presence made even this anticipated stress more survivable.

Peter locked the apartment door as Jane began the race down the stairs. She had just a moment to notice the Open House sign posted near the mailboxes before they sped out the door. Jane tried to maintain her dignity as they did a speed-walk from the subway to the office building. They kissed good-bye as they approached their separate elevator banks. During the ride, she worked to catch her breath and make a serene entrance to workday. She entered her busy floor and stopped cold. No one was there. For a moment, she had to check that it was a workday. It was. It was a Tuesday. Jane finally found a living human being. It was Kendra, who was clutching a stack of personnel folders. She looked at her folders, then at Jane. The lines around her mouth were set and hard. Her shoulders were up high, and she looked tired.

“Jane. You're late.”

Tuesday. The perfect day to lay off all the staff. Not a Monday, since everybody hates Mondays. Early enough in the week that they can start to make some progress on a job search. Not so late in the
week that they end up brooding for the weekend, only to return to the office with an Uzi. Tuesday, bloody Tuesday.

“Jane? I've been waiting for you.”

Walking to Kendra's office felt like wading through ice water. She sat down carefully and silently begged for this to be merciful and brief. It wasn't. Kendra had been instructed to speak only Corporate Speak today. She had a party line to say to each and every person she fired. Jane had to sift through it all and translate it to plain English.

“After careful analysis, we realized that outsourcing is going to be the best way for us to leverage resources.”

This means, “We fired everyone.”

“I want to manage your expectations here, but, Jane, you've always added value, and we've retained headcount for you for the rest of the fiscal year.”

This means, “Don't get your hopes up, but we like you and you're not fired. Yet.”

“But we'll need you to reach out to different business silos and evaluate their needs. We need to be flexible and responsive. We're redesigning your position, but we need you to architect it too.”

This means, “You have to do a lot more work”

Kendra described Jane's new job—which would involve much longer hours, supervising global support in Europe and Asia. Of course, Jane would have no trouble keeping up with the time differences—just come in real early and leave real late. Oh, and be here for lots of weekend projects. Oh, and there'll be lots of travel.

Jane felt like melted wax. She chose this time to come out.

“I'm adopting a baby. I don't think I'll be able to reach out to different silos or travel all that much. Once the baby comes home, I'll need to be less flexible here at the office. I'll need to go home. On time.”

Kendra gasped. There was nothing in her Corporate Speak script to address adoptions. She shook her head and said, “I think we'll need to take this off-line.”

…

The office was depressingly quiet. Jane phoned Peter at work. After all, he worked on Wall Street too. He'd understand her situation and have good advice and insights. He was the right person to call. And okay, yes, she was longing to hear his voice again. After all, it had been minutes since they had spoken.

“I was hoping I'd get promoted before the baby came, but this isn't a promotion. It's just more work. I can't do
more
work. I can only do
less.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because I'm all alone here and it's creepy”

“Oh. Okay. Why don't I come over tonight? We can talk about it, and you can use your whole voice.”

…

Jane sent out an e-mail distress signal. Teresa offered the name of a good lawyer. One strongly worded letter from him and she'd be fine. Karen offered deep-breathing exercises, push the belly out and fill up with air. Ray recommended a fake pregnancy pillow and was sure he could get one from a costume designer he knew. After all, would they do this to a pregnant woman?

When Jane and Peter returned to her apartment building that evening, there it was again: Open House. Printed with a fancy color laser printer, no doubt. With a photo of the friendly Realtor.

“Let's take a look,” said Jane.

They started climbing the stairs. Peter was still not used to it.

“It's just downstairs from me,” said Jane. “Let's take a look”

She sailed into the open apartment, where the Realtor gave her best spider-to-fly welcome.

“This is a terrific building. Historic, but very well maintained.

And such an up-and-coming neighborhood. Sarah Jessica Parker had dinner down the street from here just a week ago.”

“Well, then,” said Peter. “We'll take it.”

“Really?” the Realtor was almost drooling.

“I'm kidding. Sorry. We're just having a look. Sorry” Ms. Realtor was not amused. Jane was off exploring the other room.

“Look!” she called out. “You think the apartment is done, and then there's this other room off the kitchen. I thought it was going to be a broom closet, but it's this whole big room. The layout of the space is so funky, but it's kind of cool.”

Peter looked restless and hungry. Jane kept exploring. Nice hardwood floors. Crappy old kitchen appliances. Interesting.

“Jane. You have a perfectly good apartment right upstairs from this one.”

Ms. Realtor had moved on to her next prospects, so Jane and Peter continued their conversation in her perfectly good apartment right upstairs.