Authors: Rebecca Chance
It was all over, the weight gain. Her face looked rounder, her
jawline softer. The changes might be tiny, imperceptible to
anyone who lived a normal life, but in Victoria’s high-pressure
world, where appearances were literally everything, nothing
went unnoticed. She had spotted Mireille glancing knowingly
at her chin, which had the faintest pouch of flesh forming
underneath it, something Victoria couldn’t hide. She was
managing to conceal her stomach with an extra-tight pair of
Spanx, but no one made Spanx for the chin, damnit.
They bloody well should, Victoria thought savagely, tapping
her fingers under her jaw like women did who were worried
about a double chin in 1930s movies.
Maybe I should strap it
up at night with elastic bandages
. Pulling out her BlackBerry,
she messaged Alyssa to go to the pharmacy and buy her stretch
fabric bandages in every size they carried. Victoria was undergoing a series of light-pulse treatments, plus lymphatic draining
massages for water retention, but nothing was slimming down
her face to where it had been a mere three months ago. Before
she’d got pregnant.
It was loathsome. She sighed deeply. Why couldn’t Jeremy
have this baby for her? He’d love that! God, if he touched her
stomach one more time and said he could feel it getting bigger,
she was going to slap him!
She’d heard the latest celebrity baby gossip from Clemence
a few days ago: a famous actress was secretly having her baby
by a surrogate so she didn’t put on the weight herself. That
happened all the time nowadays, but in this particular case,
people were gossiping madly because the actress wasn’t doing
a good job at gradually increasing the padding under her
clothes. She had even been caught, on video, sitting down for
a TV interview with a very noticeable crease right in the
middle of her stomach, where no truly pregnant woman’s
baby bump could ever possibly fold in half.
With the extra spotlight on her, the actress had started to
panic: she was planning to sell the baby photos for a lot of
money, and then pose in a bikini on the cover of
People
in two
months’ time with the headline:
How She Lost the Baby Weight
– and How You Can Too!
for an even bigger payout. If people
didn’t believe she was really pregnant, she could kiss goodbye
to millions. The rest of her – which wasn’t padded – was looking too thin to be convincing, and not only did she want to
avoid putting on a pound, you never knew when you put on
weight exactly where it would go.
Her doctor, however, had come up with a miracle solution.
Apparently, he had started giving the actress large doses of
corticosteroids, whose main side effect was gaining weight,
especially in the face and neck and abdomen. She had had to
take them years before, and had hated what they did to her
face: now, however, they were ideal. Her face and neck were
already swelling up, and the rumours about her pregnancy
being fake were receding fast. Clemence had heard all the
juice because she was best friends with the actress’s stylist,
who of course was in on the entire conspiracy.
Looking down gloomily at the tiny roll of fat distending her
Spanx,Victoria took some comfort in the insanity of Hollywood
actresses and world-famous singers. At least I haven’t actually
lost my mind, she thought. At least I’m having my own baby.
Though by the standards of the world I live in, it’s actually
terribly old-fashioned.
The thought amused her so much that she was smiling as
Jeremy slid into the limo beside her. She had shot out of the
appointment to work on her BlackBerry in the limo while he
waited to pick up the photo of the scan they had just had done
–
well, so much for that
, she thought, cross with herself at having
neglected to check her messages or do anything beyond
instructing Alyssa to buy her bandages to strap up her chin.
Jeremy was clutching a large envelope with great excitement;
the driver had barely closed the door behind him before he
was pulling the ultrasound photo out and waving it under
Victoria’s nose.
The grey, smudged fan shape was familiar to Victoria; she’d
seen it often before, in films and on television. It had been hard
for her to connect with the reality, that it was showing the
burgeoning baby inside her. At about eight weeks along, it
wasn’t possible to hear the baby’s heart, which had been a
great disappointment to Jeremy; they had watched the ultrasound pulse with the regular thump of the heartbeat, but the
lack of audio had meant that Victoria still didn’t feel fully
connected to what was happening to her body.
‘Look – there’s the head!’ Jeremy tapped excitedly in the
black oval area highlighted in the scan, a pale greyish peanutlike shape floating inside it. His finger indicated the little blob
at the smaller end of the peanut, then moved onto the larger
end. ‘And the body . . .’ He traced along. ‘And the yolk sac, that
circle there.’
‘Ugh – yolk sac! It makes me feel like a chicken.’ Victoria
shuddered.
‘It goes away when the placenta’s formed,’ Jeremy said
earnestly. ‘The gynaecologist said it’s just a temporary thing.’
‘Still –
yolk . . .
’
Victoria realised that she had both hands over her stomach,
feeling the faint swell of it, pushing against the Spanx. They
had been very hard to pull back on after the scan; she’d thought
that was the gel they’d put on her for the ultrasound, but
maybe it was time to start wearing two pairs of them, one over
the other. Gwyneth Paltrow had admitted to wearing two pairs
after she gave birth – why shouldn’t Victoria try it before?
Victoria had already, of course, set up secret meetings with
her favourite designers, who had all agreed to work on maternity outfits for her: Miuccia Prada, Alexander Wang, Alber
Elbaz from Lanvin, Jil Sander. It was an extraordinary privilege, but Victoria’s position in the world of fashion was equally
extraordinary, her power and influence unique, and it meant
that designers who would normally never have dreamed of
accommodating the very un-model-like proportions of a pregnant woman had jumped at the opportunity of doing the
editor of
US Style
a favour.
But maternity clothes, even by Prada and Lanvin, were still
maternity clothes, Victoria thought gloomily. Made to fit big
tummies, big bosoms . . .
‘You don’t look terribly excited,’ Jeremy said, leaning
forward to look at his wife, who was staring straight ahead at
the glass partition that separated them from the driver.
‘Darling, what’s wrong?’
Victoria heaved a long sigh. ‘I don’t want my boobs to get
saggy,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Apparently big ones actually
recover better after breastfeeding – small ones can get all
deflated, like fried eggs. And mine are tiny.’
She felt something pricking at the inner corners of her eyes,
an irritating itch. Was she allergic to something in the cab, a
cleaning product? Air freshener? But she couldn’t smell
anything unpleasant, and the itch was getting worse. Raising
one hand to rub her eyes, carefully, to avoid smudging her
make-up, she realised, in absolute astonishment, that her
fingertips were damp.
What on earth is going on?
Oh my God! Those are tears! I can’t believe it
! Victoria simply
could not remember the last time she’d cried. No wonder the
sensation was so unfamiliar to her.
‘Darling! You’re crying! Please don’t worry – you’ll always
be beautiful to me.’ Behind the lenses of his glasses, Jeremy’s
blue eyes blinked sincerely. Taking Victoria’s hand, he pressed
it devoutly, saying, ‘How could I ever criticise the changes in
your body, when they’ve happened because you’re carrying
our baby? What kind of man would do that?’
Victoria’s aristocratic features creased in frustration as she
pulled her hand away from her husband’s, searching in her bag
for a tissue that she could use to carefully blot the moisture in
her eyes.
God damnit, I’m crying because I like my boobs just the way
they are, Jeremy – can’t you understand that!
‘
I’d
criticise the changes in my body,’ she snapped. ‘I’d got it
exactly as I wanted it, and I don’t want tiny little fried eggs for
a chest!’
‘You are going to breastfeed, aren’t you?’ Jeremy said,
concerned. ‘It’s so much better for the baby.’
Victoria pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to,’ she admitted
honestly. ‘But I know it’ll help me lose the weight after the
birth.’
‘You can express the milk,’ Jeremy suggested. ‘The nanny
and I can do the actual feeding, if you don’t want to.’
‘And, talking about losing weight after the birth, I’m scheduling a caesarian with a tummy tuck,’ Victoria said quickly,
knowing that he wouldn’t like this news.‘For a couple of weeks
before the due date. It’s all terribly standard nowadays, everyone does it.’
It took Jeremy a while to take in this piece of information,
exactly as Victoria had been hoping. Their appointment had
been at Columbia Presbyterian, and the limo was supposed to
drop Jeremy off first, at the realtor’s office on the Upper West
Side, where he had an appointment to view a shortlist of townhouses. He’d been refining his and Victoria’s requirements
over the last couple of weeks, and was hoping to put in an offer
on a property soon. It wasn’t a long ride to the realtor’s – down
Riverside Drive, past the Palisades and the New Jersey shoreline on the right – a hundred blocks or so, but powering fast
down the west side of Manhattan with an expert driver, it
would only take a few minutes.
Just enough time to tell Jeremy what I’ve planned, Victoria
thought, then drop him off and drive away to the airport
before he can get his breath back to complain . . .
‘A couple of weeks before the due date?’ Jeremy repeated
blankly.‘But why? That doesn’t make sense.’
‘That way, I don’t put on the last few pounds,’ Victoria
said. ‘Apparently they’re the worst ones to get rid of. And it
stops my stomach muscles completely losing their elasticity
as the baby settles low in the pelvis. Really, it’s all very
straightforward.’
‘But what about the
baby
?’ Jeremy protested, twisting his
whole body round on the leather seat, reaching for her hands,
trying to turn his reluctant wife round to face him. ‘Surely the
baby’s supposed to be born on the due date. That can’t be
good for him – or her.’
‘They do all sorts of checks to make sure it’s safe,’ she
said firmly. ‘I mean, obviously they wouldn’t do that sort of
operation if it was dangerous for the baby. You wouldn’t
believe how common it is. How do you think all the film
stars and pop singers get their figures back so quickly after
giving birth? Believe me, it isn’t just because they start
Pilates again two weeks afterwards. A tummy tuck’s absolutely standard nowadays.’
She rattled off a list of four A-list celebrities who’d had the
combined operation and pretended that their rapid weight
loss, post-birth, was entirely down to diet and exercise.
‘And,’ she threw in to distract him, ‘if my boobs do collapse
after breastfeeding – or expressing – I’ll definitely get them
perked up again to where they were before. I mean, everyone
does that.’
‘But what about the second one?’ Jeremy almost wailed. ‘If
you get a boob job, that might mean you couldn’t breastfeed
the second one.’
‘The
second
one?’ Victoria flinched. ‘Jeremy, give me a
chance to have this one first!’
‘We always said we’d have two.’ Jeremy looked like a
distressed little boy, his wild curls bobbing as he pulled back
from Victoria, pushing his glasses up his nose.
‘No,’ Victoria said unfairly. ‘
You
said that. I never actually
did.’
She knew that wasn’t completely true; she knew that she
probably had agreed to have two children, if they could – had
certainly gone along with Jeremy when he repeatedly talked
about ‘kids’ in the plural. Going back on that now was cruel
of her, throwing him into complete upset and disarray, especially as the limo was now pulling to a halt in front of the
condo building on Amsterdam Avenue which housed the
realtor’s office.
‘Victoria!’ Jeremy frowned indignantly at his wife. He was
by no means a pushover, though he was happy to let her
demanding career rule where they lived, accept her long hours
at work and her very specific rules for how their sex life was
conducted. Those were all concessions that he had accepted,
going into the marriage, had been prepared to give. Letting her
go back on her word was something else entirely.
The driver had double-parked the limo and was coming
round to open the door for Jeremy. There was no time to
continue the conversation, and Jeremy knew it; he glared at his
wife, letting her know that he was perfectly aware she had set
him up.
‘I’m very angry with you,’ he said, as the door swung open.
‘Very angry indeed. This is not how we have a serious
discussion about our future, our children. Don’t think you can
just shoot off to St Louis and think that it’s all been decided,
because it hasn’t. Not at all!’
His blue eyes were flashing, his arms gesticulating wildly.
Victoria had never seen her husband this passionate about
anything, and she was taken aback; she hadn’t known Jeremy
was capable of such strong feeling. Quickly she glanced to the
open door of the limousine. The driver, who was discreetly
averting his gaze, was still holding the door, which placed him
well within earshot.
‘Jeremy,’ she hissed, her eyes flicking to the driver and back
to her husband.‘
Pas devant les domestiques!
’
‘I don’t give a damn about whether the staff can hear us!’
Jeremy yelled. ‘This is much more important!’
Victoria recoiled in shock. Her quiet, discreet, geek of a
husband, usually so British-reserve-and-stiff-upper-lip, yelling
like a stevedore on the docks in front of a driver hired by
Dupleix, who would almost certainly gossip about what he’d
overheard . . .
‘Jeremy,’ she hissed again. ‘
Please!
’
‘I don’t want you to go to St Louis,’ Jeremy shouted. ‘Ring
the office and cancel the trip. Your bloody work can wait for
once!’
Victoria panicked. It was such an unfamiliar sensation for
her that she was paralysed by it for a moment, cold fear freezing her to the leather of the car seat. Jeremy took her silence
for consent, and reached out to grab the handle of the door,
about to close it again. That finally snapped Victoria into a
thaw; she came to life again, exclaiming, ‘No, don’t!’ Her heart
was racing, her breath short. ‘I really have to go to St Louis,
Jeremy. I’ll miss my flight—’
‘Why is it so bloody important?’ her husband bawled,
swinging round to look at her again, so furiously that the
movement dislodged his glasses from his nose. He forced them
back on, glaring at her through them.
‘It’s a cover shoot.’ Victoria heard her voice, thin and weak.
‘This is a really important issue – I have to get the cover just
right.’
‘You’re not even styling it – Mireille is,’ Jeremy argued. ‘This
is all just an excuse to avoid talking to me.’
Victoria, to her horror, realised that her voice had risen, was
almost imploring in tone. She was positively pleading with
him now.
‘I don’t trust Mireille,’ she wailed. Which was true, if not the
reason she was so desperate to get on the plane. ‘You
know
I
don’t trust her. Please, Jeremy, get out of the car, go to your
appointment. I’ll be back by lunchtime tomorrow. I just can’t
miss this shoot.’
Jeremy drew a long breath. Victoria was practically wringing her hands now. Like an Irish widow in a Synge play, she
thought hopelessly. I’m being absolutely pathetic.
‘When that plane lands tomorrow, I’ll be in the limo to
meet you,’ Jeremy said with martial resolve. ‘We’ll go round
the houses I’ve seen today and make a final decision on one.
You’re not to go to work tomorrow until we’ve agreed on a
house and thrashed out the whole children thing.
Children
thing!’ he repeated for emphasis, waggling his finger at her.
‘All right, all right – anything. I promise.’ Victoria glanced at
her watch, its diamond-studded face set into one of her huge
tortoiseshell signature bangles. ‘I really have to rush if I’m
going to make the plane. Jeremy, please, I promise!’
Her bangles clattered as she made frantic, flapping gestures
at him to get out of the car; sighing, Jeremy obeyed.
‘Don’t think you can get out of this,’ he told her.
‘No!’ she practically screamed. ‘I don’t. I won’t.’ She waved
at the driver. ‘Get in – drive! I have to be at LaGuardia in thirty
minutes.’
Jeremy folded his arms, frowning deeply, watching the car
as it pulled away. His wife slumped back into the car seat
with relief, not even caring that collapsing might mess up her
hair – extraordinary behaviour for her. Victoria got up at five
a.m., worked out with her trainer in the private gym at the
Columbus Circle condo, showered, dressed and sat down in
her boudoir for her waiting hairdresser to put up her blonde
locks into her sleek chignon. After that, she never rested her
head on anything for the entire day, sitting up as straight as if
she had an iron bar glued to her spine, ending the evening
with her hair as smooth and perfect as it had been when she
left for the office.
But now, as the limo sped across Manhattan, leaving a trail
of blaring horns in its wake, scything round jaywalking pedestrians, Victoria’s chignon was smushed into the leather
headrest, her eyes closed. She couldn’t bear to look out of the
window, to see what progress they were making.
What if we
don’t get to LaGuardia in time? What if I don’t make my flight?
Of course there would be other flights to St Louis that day.
Of course the Dupleix credit card would buy her a first-class
seat on any one of them. But she had waited weeks for this
trip, couldn’t bear to wait even an hour or so longer . . .
She positively threw herself out of the limousine as it pulled
up outside the American Airlines entrance, slinging her oversized Bottega Veneta bag over her shoulder, running so fast
into the terminal and to the security line in her four-inchheeled Alaia ankle boots that she could have won a race against
a drag queen. Her overnight luggage was already in St Louis,
had been packed and taken there by the fashion assistants on
Mireille’s shoot two days before, so that Victoria wouldn’t
have to suffer the stress of travelling with it herself.
She was so frantic to make the flight that she barely even
flinched in disgust at having to put her exquisite bag in a dirty
grey plastic security tray, at unzipping her delicate suede studded boots and putting them in another, equally dirty tray, at
stripping off her precious bangles and hurrying on tiptoes in
stockinged feet through the metal detector, averting her gaze
from the enormous female security guard whose bright blue
plastic-gloved hands looked menacingly ready for a full-body
cavity search.
Every head in the terminal swung round to watch Victoria
Glossop, exquisitely and expensively dressed, her pale blonde
hair pulled back to display her elegant features, lips a bright
slash of crimson, dashing along the cheap grey carpet tiles, her
three-thousand dollar purse swinging from her arm like a
grocery bag, heading for the finish line, the gate from which
the American Airlines flight to St Louis was due to take off in
fifteen minutes. She made it just as they were closing the doors,
but the combination of her aristocratic demeanour, English
accent and first-class ticket allowed her through them and
onto the jetway. Very fit from her daily exercise sessions,
Victoria was scarcely out of breath as she sank into the pale
blue seat, tucked her bag in behind her – she certainly wasn’t
putting it on the floor, which was probably filthy too – and
fastened the seatbelt.
Thank God, she thought, her head spinning.
Thank God
.
She was so elated to have made the flight that she barely even
noticed the ancient plane, the fading, scratched leather of the
seats, the fact that the cringingly apologetic stewardess didn’t
have champagne to offer her, only warmish white wine in a
stumpy-stemmed glass. It was a bumpy flight, but Victoria
was not even aware of the choppy air rocking the plane, just
sipped a sour-tasting Pinot Grigio and stared blindly out of
the window. The view of the Upper Bay of New York
Harbour and the Statue of Liberty, the shoreline beyond,
sunshine flooding over grey water, the little green islands
and inlets of wetlands dotted along the coast, so charming
that it had the other business travellers murmuring in
appreciation, was invisible to Victoria; she might as well
have had the blinds drawn.
She was in a state of suspended animation. American
Airlines, which had filed for bankruptcy last year, was so cashstrapped that there weren’t screens in the seatbacks, even in
first-class; other travellers pulled out laptops and magazines
and PDAs and absorbed themselves in work or leisure, but
Victoria simply sat there, her gaze on the window, wordlessly
holding out her wineglass in one pale, heavily-bangled hand
any time that the stewardess bent over her, offering a top-up,
sipping continually for the two-hour flight. By the time they
bounced down onto the runway at Lambert-St Louis airport,
her nerves were calmed, but excitement danced and sparkled
along her skin like sunlight on the water of the Upper Bay.