Max stopped kneading and peered at her. “You are not flying halfway around the world away from your doctor. Putting your body under all the stress of jet lag and travel? No way. We’ll have time for Fiji later.”
“You’re not upset to miss it?”
Max shook his head. “We’re going to give our baby everything, Andy, you’ll see. You’re going to create the perfect nursery, and fill it with stuffed animals and adorable little clothes and lots of books, and I’m going to learn everything there is to learn about babies so I know exactly what I’m doing from day one. I’m going to change diapers and give bottles and take her for walks in a stroller. We’re going to read to her every day and tell her stories about how we met and take her on vacations to the ocean where she’ll feel the sand in her feet and learn to swim. And she’s going to be so loved. By both our families.”
“Her, huh?” Her whole body had relaxed, and for the first time in weeks, her stomach quieted.
“Of course her. She’s going to be a gorgeous little blond girl. It’s meant to be.”
When she opened her eyes again, the clock read six forty-five A.M. She was under the duvet, still wearing her robe, Max snoring softly beside her. The lights were dimmed but not off; they must have both fallen asleep midconversation.
After they both showered and dressed, Max hailed a cab and directed it to Sarabeth’s on the Upper East Side, a charming little breakfast nook near her gynecologist’s office and convenient to exactly nothing else. Andy could only manage toast with homemade jam and a cup of chamomile, but she enjoyed watching Max devour his cheese omelet, home fries, extra-crispy bacon, two glasses of orange juice and large latte. He talked animatedly as he ate, excited for the appointment ahead, chattering about possible due dates and questions for the doctor and ideas for making the announcement to their families.
They paid the bill and walked the six blocks up Madison Avenue. The waiting room was busy; Andy could count at least three obviously pregnant women, two with husbands, and a handful of women most likely too young or too old to be expecting. How had she never noticed before? How strange to be there with Max, holding his hand, giving both their names at the front desk. Andy was shocked when the receptionist barely looked up. She had just announced she was there for an ultrasound. Her first! Wasn’t this news to everyone?
Fifteen minutes later a nurse called her name and handed her a plastic sample cup.
“Restroom is down the hall, on your right. Please bring your sample into exam room five. Your husband can wait for you there.”
Max smiled at Andy, shot her a good luck look, and followed the nurse toward the exam rooms. When Andy met him there three minutes later, he was pacing the cubicle-sized room.
“How’d it go?” he asked, raking his hand through his hair.
“I peed on my hand. Like always.”
“Is it really that hard?” Max laughed, looking relieved at the distraction.
“You have no idea.”
Another nurse arrived, a heavyset women with a kind smile and silvery hair. After dipping a stick in Andy’s urine and declaring it perfect, she measured her blood pressure (also perfect) and asked when she’d had her last menstrual period (Andy could only ballpark it).
“Okay, love. Dr. Kramer will be in shortly. Weigh yourself—be sure to deduct a pound for clothing—strip from the waist down, and cover yourself with this.” She handed Andy a paper sheet and gestured toward the exam table. Both Max and Andy watched in fascination and revulsion as she covered a probe attached to the ultrasound machine with something that looked exactly like a condom and then squirted it with a glob of K-Y Jelly. She wished them a good morning and closed the door behind her.
“So that’s how this is going down,” Max joked, staring at the now-more-than-ever-phallic probe.
“I have to say, I thought this was going to be an over-the-belly thing. That’s always how it is on TV . . .”
The door opened, and Dr. Kramer must have overheard because she smiled and said, “I’m afraid we’re a bit too early for the abdominal ultrasound. Because your fetus is still so small, only the transvaginal can pick it up.”
Dr. Kramer introduced herself to Max and began prepping the machine. She was a petite, pretty woman in her late thirties, and her movements were quick and sure. “How are you feeling?” she asked over her shoulder. “Any nausea or vomiting?”
“Both.”
“Totally normal. Most women find it abates by twelve or fourteen weeks. You can keep down clear beverages, crackers, that type of thing?”
“Most of the time,” Andy said.
“Don’t worry too much about what you’re eating right now. The baby is getting everything it needs from your body. Just try to eat small, frequent meals and get plenty of rest, okay?”
Andy nodded. Dr. Kramer eased the paper sheet up a bit and instructed Andy to scoot down on the table and place her feet in the socked stirrups. Andy felt the slightest bit of pressure and a quick feeling of coldness between her legs, and then nothing. It was far less invasive than even a pelvic exam, she thought with relief.
“There we go,” Dr. Kramer said, moving the probe ever so slightly. The screen filled with the familiar sight of black and white blobs, like they’d seen in the movies so many times. The doctor pointed to a particular blob in the very middle of what appeared to be a black vacuum. “There. You see? That flickering right there? That’s your baby’s heart beating.”
Max was out of his chair and gripping Andy’s hand. “Where? That right there?”
“Yep, that’s it.” She paused, examined the screen, and said, “And it looks like a strong, healthy heartbeat. Wait, one sec . . . there.” She moved the probe a bit and turned up the volume knob. The heartbeat sounded like a rhythmic, underwater pulse and was as fast as a horse galloping. It filled the room.
Andy was lying flat on her back, only able to lift her neck a few inches from the table, but she could see the screen and the blob and its flickering little heart perfectly: her baby. It was real and it was alive and it was growing inside her. Her tears were silent and her body stayed still, but she couldn’t stop herself from crying. When she looked over at Max, who was still death-gripping her hand and staring at the screen, she saw that his eyes were filled as well.
“You’re measuring at ten weeks, five days, and everything looks absolutely perfect.” The doctor picked up a plastic cardboard wheel and began sliding its two discs around one another. “We’ll continue to date the pregnancy with ultrasounds since you’re not positive of your timing, but according to what we see today, your due date is June first. Congratulations!”
“June first,” Max breathed reverently, as though it were the best day in the entire world. “A spring baby. It’s perfect.”
They didn’t just vanish, all the doubts and fears and anger over the letter—Andy wasn’t sure they ever would—but seeing that little living bean inside her, knowing that she and Max had made it together, and would meet it soon, and would, god willing, be its parents forever, made all that fade into the background. And when the doctor told them to meet in her office and left them alone, and Max nearly jumped on the table with her in joy and happiness, and he shouted, “I love you!” so loudly Andy laughed out loud, it faded even a little bit more. She would make it work with Max. She would forgive him and move past any doubts. It was the only way forward. She would do it for their baby.
chapter 11
more or less famous than beyoncé?
The building that housed The Plunge’s offices were, thankfully, different in every way from Elias-Clark’s, or even the West Village walk-up Happily Ever After called home. Originally a lumberyard in the 1890s, the building had gone through a few incarnations—meatpacking plant, food-processing mill, fabric warehouse, and furniture workshop—before becoming, predictably, a converted loft space with floor-to-ceiling windows, exposed brick walls, salvaged wooden floors, and much-hyped Hudson River views (a.k.a. views of Jersey City). Andy could still remember E
mily’s excitement three years earlier when the broker who’d been showing them office spaces brought them to Twenty-Fourth and Eleventh. The fortresslike building was impressive, but Andy had wondered: didn’t the neighborhood feel a little too . . . raw? Emily scoffed as she gingerly stepped over a man passed out near the entrance. “Raw? It’s got character, and character is exactly what we need!” she’d said. Character rather than good heat, air-conditioning, and reasonable assurances that they wouldn’t be murdered still bothered Andy, but she couldn’t deny that the office interiors were a thousand times nicer than anything they’d seen, and they were cheaper, too.
She yanked the metal cage door of the elevator open, stepped inside, and closed it behind her, a move she had perfected even with an armful of hot coffees. Every day Andy swore she’d use the stairs; every day she stepped in the elevator and thought, Tomorrow. On the fourth floor she smiled at The Plunge’s current receptionist, inevitably an overqualified recent college graduate who only stayed long enough to ensure she or Emily was forever interviewing new candidates.
It was nice getting in late every once in a while.
“Morning, Andrea,” Agatha said. She was wearing a navy dress with cream-colored tights and chunky red patent heels, and Andy was left to wonder, as she always did, how her assistant kept, constantly, on fashion’s cutting edge. It must have been exhausting.
“Good morning!” Andrea sang loudly.
Agatha stood waiting like a guard dog as Andy walked past her into her office, a larger, glass-enclosed version of the cubicles near it, and said, “Follow me.” Immediately thinking that sounded too harsh and commanding, she added with forced laugh, “If you have a minute.”
“So listen, Emily’s been calling for you, like, every three seconds. I promised her I’d send you right over there.”
“I told her I’d be late this morning. It’s the first morning in six months she gets in before me and she’s hysterical, huh?” Andy said, thinking it had to be the Elias-Clark call that had Emily in a snit. “Okay, I’m headed there now. Will you please forward any calls from the Harper wedding people to her office?”
Agatha nodded. She looked supremely bored.
What The Plunge did have in common with Runway: long-legged, stiletto-favoring, designer-donning girls. Per their working agreement, Emily had been responsible for the office hiring, with the single exception of Carmella Tindale, Andy’s part–features editor, part–managing director, whom she had poached from Happily Ever After and strongly felt she couldn’t live without. Noticeably, Carmella was slightly overweight with unruly brown hair and inch-thick gray roots. She favored shapeless pantsuits paired with Merrell clogs in the winter and FitFlops in the summer, and her lone stab at style was a genuine (according to Emily) Prada backpack that she had bedazzled herself with an interesting array of puffy paint, rhinestones, and colored thread. Carmella was an undeniable fashion disaster of epic proportions, and Andy loved her dearly. The rest of them, though, were close cousins of the Runway Clackers, each leggier and skinnier and prettier than the next. It was downright depressing.
“Good morning, Andy,” said Tal, a willowy Israeli with pale skin, jet-black hair, and a figure that could have stopped a tank. She was wearing a pair of skinny cargo pants paired with a cropped blazer and high-heeled suede booties.
“Morning, Tal. Did you ever get in touch with OPI’s people? We need a definite yes or no by the end of the week.”
Tal nodded.
Andy’s cell phone rang. “Great. Let me know as soon as you hear.” She turned her attention to her phone. “Max? You there?”
“Hi, love. How are you feeling?”
Until he’d said anything, she’d been feeling fine, but the moment she thought of how she felt, a wave of nausea rolled over her.
“I’m okay. Just about to head into Emily’s office for a meeting. What’s going on?”
“I was thinking. What if we invite my parents and sister, and your mom, and Jill and Kyle, and your dad and Noreen, over to our place for dinner? We can tell them it’s to go over the wedding proofs and help us choose pictures for our album. And then we’ll break the news.”
She’d wanted to tell her mother and Jill so badly when she last saw them, but now that Lily and Max knew—and Emily, too; she was planning to tell her right then—it somehow felt like enough.
“Oh, I don’t know . . .”
“It’ll be great. We have that first-trimester screening, what’d she call it?”
“The nuchal translucency.”
“Right. So we have that the beginning of next week and make sure everything’s a go, which of course it will be, and then we make our families the happiest people on earth. I can have the company’s party planner find a caterer. They’ll bring everything, cook, clean up . . . you won’t have to lift a finger. What do you say?”
Andy smiled at an art department Clacker who cruised by her wearing thigh-high boots and what must have been ten pounds of expertly knotted and twisted gold chains around her neck.
“Andy?”
“Sorry. Um . . . okay? That sounds good.”
“It’ll be great! Next Saturday night?”
“No, Jill and Kyle and the boys head back to Texas that morning. Maybe Friday?”
“Sure. I’ll talk to everyone and figure out the details. Andy?”
“Hmm?”
“It’s going to be great. They’re going to be so happy for us . . .”
Andy couldn’t help but wonder what Barbara would think. The dreaded daughter-in-law giving her a much-hoped-for grandchild. What a dilemma! Her hyper-Botoxed face would probably reveal nothing. But maybe the news of a baby would change everything for the better . . .
“I love it,” she said. “It’s a perfect way to tell them.”
“I love you, Andy.”
She paused for just a moment, a fraction of a second really, and then said, “I love you too.”
“Andy? Get in here!” Emily commanded from within her glass cubicle. It was a phrase that sounded eerily familiar.
“I can hear you’re being summoned. I’ll talk to you later,” Max said and hung up. Andy could practically hear him smiling.
Andy entered Emily’s office, took a seat in one of the leather sling chairs, and kicked off her moccasins to bury her feet in the fluffy sheepskin rug. Flouting the magazine’s frugal decorating budget, Emily had spent a fortune of her own money to make her office look like something out of Elle Decor. The red lacquer desk, white leather chairs and sheepskin rug were just the beginning. A sleek, low-profile cabinet housed Emily’s magazine and book collection, filmy white curtains adorned the dramatic windows, and canvas-stretched photos of all The Plunge’s covers since the magazine’s inception filled the single exposed-brick wall. On the two glass partitions that separated the office from the rest of the loft, Emily had hung a collection of stained glass figurines and ornaments that caught the light and threw beams of color in every direction. A modern, life-size sculpture of two Dalmatians frolicked in the corner and a miniature Sub-Zero fridge built into the side of a horizontal bookcase kept Emily’s supply of Evian, rosé champagne, and Honest Teas well chilled. A dozen elegantly framed personal pictures perched on every surface. Andy was reminded that Emily had aspired to be Miranda’s assistant from age twelve. Or perhaps she’d aspired to be Miranda?
“Thank god, you’re finally here!” Emily said, glancing up from her computer. “I’m just going to finish this e-mail, give me two seconds . . .”
Andy noticed a pile of proofs from her own wedding off to the side. She plucked the top one and studied it. She’d loved it when she saw it online, and she loved it even more in hard copy. It was perhaps one of the only pictures taken of the whole wedding where she felt her smile was entirely genuine. Just as the music began playing for their first dance, Max had come up from behind and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her on the side of her neck, which tickled, and she threw her head back onto his shoulder, laughing with surprise and de
light. The photo was completely natural, totally unposed. It was a nontraditional cover choice, but both Andy and Emily were batting around the idea of doing something different.
“Can you even believe we’re getting ready to close the March issue?” Andy asked, staring at the photo of herself and Max.
“Mmm,” Emily murmured, her eyes glued to her screen.
“Do you really think we can use a candid for the cover? Is it too . . . flighty?”
Emily sighed. “It’s still a St. Germain. It’s hardly something one of your cousins forwarded us from Shutterfly.”
“True. I do like it . . .”
Emily opened the top drawer of her desk, extracted a pack of Marlboros and a lighter, took one for herself, and offered the pack to Andy.
“This is our office, Emily,” Andy said, hating that she sounded like someone’s mother.
Emily touched the cigarette tip to the lighter’s flame, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a long, neat smoke stream. “We’re celebrating.”
“It’s been six years,” Andy said, looking at the cigarette longingly. “Why does that still look so freaking good?”
Emily held out the pack again but Andy merely shook her head. She knew she should probably leave the office until Emily finished—she had the baby to think about now—but Emily would have killed her.
“What are we celebrating?” Andy asked, transfixed by Emily’s long, sensual exhalations.
“You’re never going to guess who I got a call from this morning,” Emily said, doing a strange little jig in her chair.
“Beyoncé?”
“No. Why her?”
“More or less famous?”
“Who’s more famous than Beyoncé?”
“Emily, just tell me.”
“Guess. You have to guess. You’re never going to guess, but just try.”
“That sounds fun. Let’s see . . . Jay-Z?”
Emily groaned. “You’re so uninspired. Who would be maybe the last person in the known universe to call our office and request a meeting?”