“Are you sure? Because I can stay later today if you need.”
“No, really, I’m almost okay. I’ll put her down for her a nap now, and then it’ll be dinnertime before you know it. Thanks for everything.”
Clementine slept for an hour and a half, awaking at three thirty with her delicious red cheeks and enormous, toothless grin. It was such a relief to see her healthy again; every time the poor child had vomited or cried, Andy could feel her own insides twisting in pain. She was about to call Agatha to order a messenger, but looking outside at the splendidly sunny October day, Andy decided a stroll to Emily’s would make for a nice outing.
“Do you want to come with Mommy on her first trip out of the apartment in thirty-six hours? Of course you do.”
Andy changed into jeans and a sweater and zipped her daughter into the stroller’s lightweight baby burqa. The air felt brisk and refreshing, almost revitalizing, and Andy enjoyed making Clem giggle with silly faces as they walked. She stared at her daughter’s smile and knew, more surely than she had known in the many months since they’d first received the offer, that she could not, under any circumstances, spend another year working for Miranda Priestly. It was horrid enough when she was young and single, but there was no way she could tolerate the ever-ringing phone, the relentless demands, the round-the-clock requests that would inevitably take her away from home, from Max, and especially from Clementine. She and Max were just starting to get a handle on life with a baby, and things between them were good—not perfect, but what marriage was? She was happy. They were excellent co-parents and true partners, and he was as attentive and loving a dad as she ever could have hoped for to her daughter. Even career-wise things were going smoothly: nowhere else could she imagine being lucky enough to keep such a flexible schedule, working more when they were slammed or closing an issue and scaling back when the production schedule slowed down. She was her own boss, and her best friend was her partner. And Emily was still her best friend, despite everything. They’d worked too hard and too long to pack it in and head right back to Elias-Clark—not when she was certain they’d be able to sell the magazine to another, saner publisher. It was going to be painful, but Andy knew what she had to say to Emily. It was time. As soon as they sat down to their lunch the following day, she would come right out and say it: the deal was off.
The five steps up from the sidewalk to Emily’s front door made stroller-wrangling difficult. How had she never before noticed those steps? It was crazy how long it had been since Andy had been there—two months? Three? There had been a time, before Clementine and even Max, when Andy practically camped out on Emily’s sofa, chowing down on spicy tuna rolls and pounds of edamame, hashing and rehashing their lives in the most specific detail.
Even though Emily was still in Chicago, or perhaps on her way home, and Miles was in L.A. filming his new reality TV show, Andy couldn’t bring herself to use her key without knocking. She rapped on the bright red door, which entered almost directly into the living room, and was just about to unlock the dead bolt when she heard something from inside. Laughter? Talking? She couldn’t tell who or why, but there were definitely people inside. She knocked again. No response.
where are you? Andy texted Emily.
The response was immediate: abt to take off from o’hare. Still love the pics?
where is miles?
la until tomorrow. why? everything ok?
Yes, all fine.
Was it the television? Their cleaning lady camped out while they were away? Friends staying over in their absence? Andy pressed her ear to the door. She couldn’t clearly make anything out, and yet she knew—just knew—that something wasn’t right. And if she had to wager, she’d bet that Miles had lied to Emily about being in L.A. and was shacking up with some girl. Neither Max nor Emily ever directly confirmed Miles was a cheater, but everyone knew it was true.
Without thinking through the ramifications of her decision—most important, without considering what she’d tell Emily when her suspicions were confirmed—Andy inserted her key into the lock and shoved the door open. As soon as she pulled the car seat from the stroller, Clem let out a delighted shriek and began to kick her feet. Andy followed her daughter’s gaze to the living room and was not surprised to see Miles draped across the sofa, looking rumpled and possibly hungover in a plaid shirt and ratty cords. It wasn’t until Andy stepped farther into the entryway that she saw who sat across from him: Max.
They all spoke at once.
“I’m sorry! I just let myself in, but I was knocking and no one—”
“Hey, Andy. It’s been forever. Bring Clem over here to say hello to her uncle—”
“Andy? What are you doing here? Is everything okay with Clem? You know that—”
Then they all stopped at once. Andy spoke first.
“I guess you didn’t hear me knocking. I just came over to drop these photos off for Emily. She needs them for a breakfast meeting tomorrow.”
She scooped Clementine from the stroller and walked into the living room. Max scrambled to his feet to kiss them both. Andy surveyed his suit, his briefcase, and the anxious expression on his face and had to force herself not to ask in front of Miles why he’d left the office so early. It had been a particularly rough time at work for him, she knew, and he hadn’t been home before eight or nine in weeks. It killed him to miss Clem’s bedtime, and yet here he was, stretched out in Miles’s living room in the late afternoon, taking small, quick sips from a Snapple and looking as though he’d just been caught with his pants around his ankles.
Clem squealed again as Max reached for her, but something made Andy hug her daughter tighter. She turned to Miles. “So, what’s up?” she asked, trying to sound casual. No one was offering explanations as to why Max wasn’t at work and why Miles wasn’t in L.A. Why the undeniably guilty expressions?
“Not much,” Miles said, although his tone suggested it was just the opposite. “Here, let me take those. I’ll give them to Em as soon as—”
“Give me what?” Emily’s voice rang out a split second before she appeared, holding an armful of file folders and legal pads and a bottle of water. She was wearing sweats and fuzzy socks and glasses, her greasy hair piled unglamorously on her head and not a stitch of makeup on her face. She looked like absolute hell.
So surprised was Andy by Emily’s appearance that she almost forgot that her friend had claimed, mere minutes earlier, that she was sitting on the tarmac at O’Hare. Then she saw her own presence register on Emily’s face, first as shock and then as panic.
“Andy! What are you doing here?” Emily asked, looking as dumbstruck as Andy felt.
“What am I doing here? I’m dropping off photos. What are you doing here?”
Silence met her all around. She watched in horror as the three of them exchanged looks.
“What’s going on? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” She turned to Max. “Are you sick? Did something happen at work?”
Again silence.
Finally Max said, “No, Andy, it’s uh, it’s nothing like that.”
“Well, you’re sure not planning a surprise party for my birthday. So why all the secrecy?”
More looks.
“Someone better start talking, because this is getting downright weird.”
“Well then, I guess congratulations are in order,” Miles said, running a hand through his hair. “It seems you and Emily are officially successful entrepreneurs. Not to mention you made a pretty penny—”
“Miles!” Emily said sharply, shooting her husband a death look.
“Pardon me?” Andy said. She patted Clem’s back as she surveyed the room.
Max began looking around for his coat. “Andy, why don’t we get Clem home—it must be her dinnertime by now—and I’ll explain everything then, okay?”
Andy shook her head. “She’s fine. Tell me what’s going on. Emily? What does he mean by ‘officially successful entrepreneurs’?”
No one said anything.
&
nbsp; “Emily?” Andy said, her voice growing more hysterical. “What does he mean?”
Emily motioned for Andy to sit and took a seat herself. “We signed the contract.”
“You what? Who’s ‘we’? What contract?” And then it hit her. “Elias-Clark? You sold us?”
Again, Max was at her side, first trying to hold Clem and, when Andy refused to let her go, nudging Andy toward the door. “Come on, honey, I’ll explain everything on the walk home. Let’s get the baby—”
She turned to Max, her eyes blazing. “Stop trying to shut me up and tell me what the hell is going on. You knew about this? You knew she was just going to sign my name and you let her?”
Emily smiled sweetly, patronizingly, in such a way that suggested without a word that she thought Andy was overreacting in a major way. “Andy, love, you can’t be mad at me for making you a small fortune. It’s just what we talked about—you’ll have the time and the freedom again to write what you want, when you want, and see Clementine more—”
“That is not what we talked about,” Andy said, her disbelief growing. “That’s what you said and what I disagreed with. More time? What planet are you on? I’ll be a hostage! We both will!”
Emily hit the back of the couch with her hand. “Andy, you’re being so small-minded about this whole situation. So shortsighted.” There was that word again. “Everyone agreed it was clearly the right choice, and I made it. I won’t apologize for looking out for our best interests.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was impossible. Nothing was registering or making any sense. Andy could feel angry tears constricting her throat. “I won’t do it, Em. You’re going to have to call them up right now and tell them you forged my signature and the agreement is off. Right this very second.”
Andy watched as Emily shot Max a look that seemed to say, Are you going to tell her or am I?
Clementine began to cry. Andy tried hard not to join her.
Emily rolled her eyes. “I didn’t forge your signature, Andy. Max signed.”
Andy swung her head around to Max, who appeared panicky, just as Clementine wailed, her tiny hands balled into fists, mouth hinged wide open, tongue curled.
“Andy, give me the baby,” Max said in his most soothing voice.
“Get your goddamn hands off her,” Andy hissed, moving away from him. She dug in her jeans pocket and was relieved to find a paci, a bit fuzzy but clean enough. Clem’s mouth closed hungrily around it and she quieted.
“Andy,” Max crooned pleadingly. “Let me explain.”
The revulsion hit her like an electric shock. The words, the pleading tone, the look of contrition—it was all too much.
“How can you possibly explain forging my signature on a contract you know I didn’t support?”
“Andy, sweetheart, let’s not get carried away here. I didn’t forge your signature. I would never do that.”
Emily nodded. “Of course not.”
“Then what, exactly, did you do? Because I’m quite certain I didn’t sign anything.”
“It’s nothing so terrible, Andy. My initial investment entitled me to an eighteen percent stake in The Plunge, as I’m sure you remember. So really—”
“Oh my god, you didn’t,” Andy said, suddenly understanding. The term sheet when they’d incorporated and accepted their investors’ seed money had been crystal clear: Andy got a third, Emily a third, and their investors, together as a group, received a third. Of the third the investors received, Max owned eighteen percent of it. Neither Emily nor Andy had been concerned about it at the time, as they had kept complete control of the company—together, their shares could outvote anyone—but Andy had never, ever considered that Max would side with Emily. Agree with her, yes. Try to influence Andy, yes. But actually cut her out of the decision entirely and sign without her knowledge? Not in a million years. Andy did a quick calculation and sure enough, Emily and Max’s percentages combined gave them just over 51 percent.
“I did it for you,” Max said with a straight face. “This is an incredible opportunity for you two, and you’ve both worked so hard. Chances like this don’t come around every day. I didn’t want you to regret it.” Again, he tried to touch her arm, and again Andy pulled away.
“You tricked me,” she said, the realization hitting her like an avalanche. “You knew my express wishes about all this and you ignored them. You sided against me! You went behind my back.”
Max had the audacity to look offended. “Tricked you?” he said, sounding appalled. “I was only looking out for your best interest.”
“My best interest?” Andy realized she was shrieking, but she was unable to lower her voice or make it sound any less hysterical. The rage she felt frightened her; more than the shock or the sadness, the tidal wave of anger threatened to overtake her. “You didn’t think for a single second about my best interest, or you never would have done this—any of it. You were thinking of yourself and your father’s company and your family’s name. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Max looked down at his feet and then met her gaze. “Our family’s company,” he said quietly. “And our family’s name. I did this for all of us. I did it for Clementine, too.”
If Andy hadn’t been holding her daughter, she may have actually struck Max. As it was, she clutched her daughter close to her and said, “You’re so sick to even think that.”
Emily sighed, as though all of this were just too exhausting. “Andy, you’re overreacting. Nothing’s going to change for the next year, maybe even longer. You’re still the editor, I’m still the publisher, and I’m sure our entire staff will be happy to come with us. We’ll still call all the shots. And we’ll probably never even see Miranda. We’ll only be one of a dozen magazines in her stable.”
Andy turned to Emily—in her rage for Max, she’d almost forgotten Emily was there. “You were there, Emily. You saw how she acted. What do you think it’s really going to be like? That she’ll come to our offices for yoga over her lunch hour, or late-afternoon pedis? We’ll drink mimosas and giggle about boys?”
Emily surely understood the sarcasm, but she smiled anyway. “It’s going to be even better than that. I promise.”
“I don’t care what you’re promising, because I’m out. I was going to tell you tomorrow at our lunch, but apparently you couldn’t wait.”
“Andy—” Max started, but Andy cut him off.
“Don’t you say another word,” Andy said in a low, angry voice, her eyes narrowing to slits. “This is my magazine, my career, and you prance in here under some bullshit supposedly selfless reason of saving me from myself . . . duping me so you can try to repair the company your family drove into the ground. Well, guess what? It’s not going to be on my watch. You can go to hell.”
Emily coughed. For the first time in the whole conversation, she looked worried.
Andy turned to Emily. “You can tell them I’m out or I will. Apparently I can’t undo this deal, but I can sure as hell hand in my resignation, effective immediately.”
Emily met Andy’s gaze and the energy in the room seemed to change. Their anger was palpable, but Emily seemed on the verge of saying something truly hideous. Andy watched as Emily opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. Forgetting the stroller and her phone and everything but the baby bundled in her arms, Andy turned and stalked out the front door.
chapter 22
details, details
Out of breath from running nearly the entire way home and on the verge of a total nervous breakdown, Andy barely made it through Clementine’s nighttime routine: she performed a perfunctory kitchen-sink bath, dressed her daughter in an overnight diaper and footie pajamas, and gave her a bottle, all without crying. It wasn’t until Clem was safely in her crib with the lights out and the baby monitor on that Andy let herself lose it. Although she’d only been home an hour, it already felt like a decade, and she wondered how she’d face the long night ahead. Not willing to let Max see her cry, she locked the bathroom doo
r and stood under the shower for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, the tears mingling with the hot water as her body shook with sobs.
Max still wasn’t home when Andy finally stepped out of the shower and dressed herself in head-to-toe flannel. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that her face was a horror of crimson streaks, swollen cheeks, and bloodshot eyes. Her nose ran uncontrollably. The word she hadn’t allowed herself to consciously think a single time in the year they’d been married kept forcing itself to the forefront of her mind: divorce. This time, there was no way around it. She would refuse to walk one more step.
Remembering that she’d left her cell phone at Emily’s, Andy picked up the landline and dialed Jill at home.
“Andy? Can I call you back tomorrow? We’re midbaths here. Jared just pooped in the tub, Jake has a fever, Jonah thinks it’s hysterically funny to see if he can splash poop water from the bath into the toilet, and Kyle is out tonight at a work dinner.”
Andy forced herself to sound normal. “Of course, why don’t I call you—”
“Great, thanks. Love you!” The line went dead.
She dialed her mother next, but when it rang and rang, Andy remembered that her mother had her book club on Tuesday nights and wouldn’t be home until much, much later, tipsy from all the wine, laughing over the fact that another three-hour meeting had elapsed without a single minute of actual book discussion.
Next up was Lily. She hadn’t wanted to obligate her friend to what would surely be a long and tearful conversation when Lily undoubtedly had her hands full with Bear and Skye, but Andy had no choice. When Lily picked up on the first ring and said, “Hey there!” in her usual upbeat way, Andy once again began to cry.
“Andy? Are you okay? Sweetheart? Talk to me!”
“I should never have walked down that aisle!” Andy wailed, vaguely aware she wasn’t making any sense but unable to stop herself. Stanley jumped onto the bed and began licking away her tears.
“What aisle? Andy, what’s happening?”