Worth the Weight

by Eileen Palma

  “Looks like the internal bleeding is under control. David woke up, but he was so groggy from surgery he thought he was still in Afghanistan.” Harper started talking right away as if they were already in the middle of a conversation.

  “When will they know more about his vision?”

  “It’s hard to tell, especially since he’s doped up on meds and hasn’t been awake for more than a few minutes here and there.” Harper’s voice had the ragged edge of someone desperate for sleep.

  “He’s a fighter. He’s going to pull through this.” Jack poured a mug of lukewarm coffee, grateful that Kate hadn’t dumped the rest of the pot out.

  “Oh, I know. The army heals the soldiers quickly so they can send them back in the field to get hurt all over again. The doctor had the nerve to say to me, don’t worry Mrs. Feldman, we’ll get your husband back in fighting shape in no time.”

  “That bastard. Remember when Mom was about to start chemo and the oncologist said, ‘Good thing you’re a makeup artist. At least you can stay pretty’? You think they would offer a sensitivity course in med school.”

  “Don’t remind me about that tool. I was so sure I would get busted and end up in juvey for egging his car.”

  “What do you want me to tell Lauren?” Jack grabbed a plate of pancakes from the fridge and nuked them for thirty seconds. Then he doused them with good old Mrs. Butterworth’s.

  “Stick with the story. I need to know more about David’s condition before I tell her what’s going on.”

  “I can’t keep lying to her. She’s not going to trust me when she finds out.” Jack pushed his fork through the thick stack of pancakes. He almost groaned out loud, the pancakes were so good. Kate cooked like she had sex. She paid attention to every little detail.

  “Are you talking about Lauren or Kate?” asked Harper. “I heard all about your little sleepover. Lauren texted me as soon as she got up.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry she spent the night with Lauren here. It just happened.”

  “I’m not worried about Lauren. It sounds like Kate did a good job keeping her mind off me leaving. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

  “Don’t you have enough on your plate without worrying about my shit?” Jack poured a heaping spoonful of sugar in his coffee.

  “I’m going out of my mind. Your screwed up love life is as good a distraction as anything else,” said Harper through a thick yawn.

  “In that case—what the fuck should I do?” Jack scarfed down another huge bite of pancake.

  “Please tell me you didn’t actually sleep with her while she still thinks you’re Jack Horvath?”

  “It’s Horowitz and yes, I did.”

  “Shit.” Harper whistled through her teeth.

  “Twice.”

  “Obviously you really like her or you wouldn’t be so worried. How does she feel about you?”

  “Judging by this morning, it looks like she’s really into me too.”

  “Spare me the details,” Harper cut him off.

  “The problem is she likes Jack Horowitz, freelance dot-com startup specialist.”

  “You told her you work for dot-coms? What is it, like 1997?”

  “I know. It just slipped out and now I’m stuck with it.”

  “Well you can’t tell her who you really are, yet. Give her a chance to get more attached to you first.”

  “Yeah, but she’s just going to become attached to Bizarro Jack.”

  “That’s bullshit. You’re so much more than what you do for a living. Show her who you are separate from Considerable Carriages.”

  “She’s going to hate me when she finds out I lied to her.”

  “She’ll hate you even more if she finds out right after you first slept with her. If you tell her now you’ll have no shot.”

  “You think I have more of a chance with her if I wait longer to tell her who I am?”

  “The more involved she gets with you the more likely she’ll give you a chance and actually listen when you explain everything.”

  Jack nodded as if his sister could see him over the phone line.

  “And for God sakes, don’t tell Matt what’s going on yet or he’ll fuck the whole thing up.”

  “Shit. I didn’t even think about Matt.”

  “I have to get back to David. Tell Lauren I’ll call her later,” said Harper, through another yawn.

  Jack tried to work on the stroller designs, but it was pointless. All he could think about was Kate and the feel of her skin against his. He eventually gave up and left the townhouse to clear his mind.

  Jack headed over to Chelsea Piers. Instead of going to the gym, he walked down the path to the Hudson River Skate Park. Nestled across from the Chelsea Piers Fieldhouse with views of the river, the skate park was always packed with young kids, teenagers and middle aged men who had been skating since the fad first hit in the ‘80s. Jack and Matt would have lived at this park if it had existed back when they were obsessed with Tony Hawk. But when Jack’s mom died, he was so busy taking care of Harper that his skateboard had ended up under his bed with the dust bunnies and lost socks. Meanwhile, Matt still spent most Sundays with his skater friends doing ollies and flip-kicks on the cement hills and valleys of the skate park. Jack was pretty certain that this was one of the reasons Matt’s wife Anne had left him last year.

  Jack headed to the back of the park where the half pipe was. He knew that’s where Matt and his friends would be since the younger skaters thought the half pipe was too old school and left it for the dinosaurs to dominate.

  Jack made it to the U-shaped cement ramp just as Matt rolled himself down and launched back up again effortlessly, pausing at the top in mid-air with both hands gripping his board before coming back. From a distance, Matt still looked like a gangly teenager with his skinny black jeans and Vans sneakers. It wasn’t till you got close and saw the gray sprouting through his goatee and the deep-set laugh lines that you could tell the guy was pushing forty.

  Jack sat on the edge of the cement and leaned against the safety fence. He watched for a few minutes while Matt took a few more turns. He felt like a douche not telling Matt about Kate, but Harper was right. Matt hated Kate enough to fuck the whole thing up.

  As soon as Matt spotted Jack, he grabbed his board in one hand and walked over to him. “Sorry about David.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “I talked to your sister this morning. She sounded wrecked.”

  “It sucks that I can’t be there with her.”

  “Harper’s tough. She’ll be all right.” Matt had known Harper since she was a toddler and had appointed himself as her honorary brother, taking that role quite seriously when it came to scaring jerks off when she aged into the dating pool. Matt was, in fact, the only friend of Jack’s over the years who hadn’t at some point made a move on his sister.

  “How’s Lauren taking it?”

  “She thinks Harper’s in LA filming a commercial. Harper wants to wait till she knows more about what shape David’s in before we tell Lauren.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Matt’s two friends grabbed their boards and left the edge of the pipe to greet Jack.

  “Hey, man. When you coming skating with us?” asked P-Dog, a heavily tatted up guy in his early forties who left his neck, hands and wrists ink-free for his gig at one of the biggest law firms in Manhattan.

  “The last time I tried to keep up with you guys, I ended up with my wrist in a cast.” Jack returned P-Dog’s aggressive hand smack, followed by a thump on the shoulders.

  “Jack’s hands are money right now. I don’t need him breaking his wrist trying to keep up with you assholes,” said Matt.

  “Long time, no see, Doc,” said Jack when Matt’s other skating partner rolled up. Doc could keep up with all the teenagers on the ramps and skateboarded every day to the Upper West Side high-end animal hospital where he worked as a radiologist.

  “Give me a holler
next time you bring Diesel in for a check up so I can come out and say hi,” said Doc.

  “Can you get me an employee discount?” asked Jack.

  “No, man. Those bastards in billing don’t even give the employees an employee discount.” Doc took off his black-framed Brooklyn style glasses and rubbed the lenses on his sweaty tee shirt.

  “We gotta take off,” said Matt. “This cocksucker’s been avoiding me all week.”

  They left Doc and P-Dog to carry on their skating session and headed out of the skate park toward the West Side Highway.

  “Did you see all the tweets we got after my rebuttal on Straight Talk?” Matt had dressed to the nines and charmed Lucy Barrows, telling her all about the outdated measurements of current strollers and car seats and how the company was created to keep kids safe.

  “Hell yeah. We were smart to pick you as the company spokesperson back in the day. I would’ve frozen the minute that woman started talking.”

  “You suck at recon missions too. I can’t believe you didn’t find one thing out about the fem-bot I could use.”

  “Did you really think Kate Richards was going to open up and tell me her all her darkest secrets over a bucket of mussels at The Frying Pan?”

  “Maybe not. We’ll just have to find another way to take that bitch down.”

  “We’ve got enough shit going on with the new line. We don’t have time to waste on revenge with Kate Richards.”

  “The design’s almost done?” asked Matt, while they both stepped off the path to avoid getting mowed down by a teenage girl who was texting and skateboarding at the same time.

  “That was close,” said Jack, as he jumped back on the concrete trail. “I gotta tell you, I’m still on the fence.”

  “You overthink everything. That’s your problem.”

  “The bad press from this could be the end of us.”

  “That’s what we pay the PR chick the big bucks for.”

  Jack walked next to Matt while he neatly wove patterns next to him on the path with his skateboard. They headed towards the dog park, which made him think of Kate.

  “Did you know that eighty percent of the kids in LA are overweight?” Matt pulled a half-empty VitaminWater from his knapsack and chugged it, leaving drops of the bright pink liquid to bead up on his tee shirt.

  “Do you really want our company to contribute to a stat like that?”

  “There’s a difference between causing a problem and being smart enough to make money from it.” Matt tossed the drained drink container in the recycling bin on the corner.

  “We went from making car seats for overweight kids to creating little couch potatoes who are going to be drinking super-size desserts and eating food off their snack trays while their parents cart them around.” Jack felt that muscle tighten up in his neck again.

  “These kids are going to be drinking Frappuccinos, whether we make the damn cup holders or not.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The media’s still going to tar and feather us.”

  “I have more at stake here than you do, Jack. I lost fifty percent of all my earnings in the divorce. And Anne still has ownership of anything we created while I was still married to her. By adding the cup holders and snack trays, we can completely revamp the CC-XL, rename it and she has no claim over any of the profits from it.”

  There was no arguing with Matt on that one. Jack couldn’t imagine how he would feel if he had an ex-wife wipe out half of everything he had worked so hard to earn. To top it off, she had hired the biggest legal eagle in the Northeast and socked Matt with her legal fees as well as those for the shark he had to hire for himself.

  “All right. Let me work them into the designs and I can think this through some more while I go.”

  “While you’re at it I was thinking we could add a pouch for handheld video games like the DS, and maybe some speakers that sync up to an iPod.”

  “Is your child having trouble squeezing into their stroller? That doesn’t mean you should walk into Babies “R” Us and say super-size me. Instead, trade in that stroller for a different set of wheels—a tricycle!”

  Kate Richards, The Daily Chatter

  Chapter Twelve

  When Kate returned to her apartment building, she found Dana occupying the creamy white leather armchair in the lobby. Even on a Sunday afternoon, Dana managed to look fresh and sleek. She took advantage of the approaching fall weather by resurrecting her black knee high boots and pairing them with the skinniest of dark rinse jeans and a crisp white button-down. Her cinnamon dreads were pulled off her high forehead in a sunglasses adorned ponytail.

  “Holy shit! You’re doing the walk of shame!” As soon as Dana jumped out of the armchair, Kate remembered she had texted Dana a picture of her date night outfit.

  “Shh.” She headed towards the elevator bank with Sarah Jessica Barker following behind a little slower than usual, finally worn out from her extended play date with Diesel.

  “Did you really bring the damn dog on another date?” Dana pushed the elevator button and stared at Sarah Jessica Barker without making a move to pet her.

  “It was Jack’s idea. We were supposed to eat dinner outside and go for a walk on the Highline.” Kate stepped aside as the sleek silver elevator doors opened and a female cyclist wearing fluorescent cycling attire came out of the elevator wheeling a racing bike.

  “How did you get from dinner with the dogs to getting it on at his apartment?” Dana got loud again as soon as the elevator doors shut them.

  “We never actually made it to the restaurant.” Kate kept her eyes on the elevator buttons as she pressed the one for her floor.

  “Holy shit! It’s always the quiet ones.” Dana smacked Kate on the arm.

  “It wasn’t like that. It’s a long story.”

  The elevator doors opened and Sarah Jessica Barker led them down the hall to Kate’s apartment. As soon as Kate turned the key, the dog jumped on the couch and settled against the pillow ready for a long nap.

  “Good thing you didn’t bring him back here.” Dana gestured to the piles of clothes strewn around the room and then moved her arms back to the kitchen counter covered with dirty dishes. “You would’ve scared him away for sure.”

  “I really need to get myself a housekeeper.” Kate grabbed a few of the dishes and half-heartedly ran some water over them.

  “What happened to that Swedish girl?” Dana wrinkled her nose and threw out the carton of soymilk sitting on the counter.

  “She was too high maintenance. She actually expected me to straighten up before she came over.”

  “All housekeepers want you to pick up before they come.” Dana stacked up the bowls and plates from the counter and started loading them right in the dishwasher.

  “Well if I had time to clean, I wouldn’t need to hire someone.”

  “I’ll try to help you find a new one. But you better get them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Otherwise, we’ll end up seeing pictures of all this on Gossip Matters.” Dana filled up the top rack of the dishwasher with all the coffee cups and water glasses. “I never would’ve taken you for a second date kind of girl.” Dana gave Kate a look of newfound appreciation.

  “Well, the first time it just sort of happened.”

  “How many times did you guys hook up?”

  “Only twice. Once last night and once this morning. It probably would’ve happened again if someone hadn’t rushed me back home.” Kate raised her eyebrows at Dana.

  “Trust me, you’ll thank me for it. I have huge news!” Dana’s honey-glossed lips broke into a wide smile.

  “What?”

  “They want it!”

  “Who wants what?” Dana had so many deals in the works Kate had absolutely no idea which one she was so excited about.

  “New York Today! The editor loves the op-ed piece you pitched. Your Straight Talk appearance stirred up the whole stroller debate so she wants to run the piece while peop
le are still up in arms about it. Especially since Matt Reynolds, the CEO, went on and did a rebuttal interview.”

  “I queried them months ago. Are you serious?”

  “The editor’s going to email you some suggestions. They want you to submit it within the week, so it can run two Sundays from now.”

  “I’ll get it done. I’ll just pull an all nighter.”

  “Don’t stay up too late. Those dark circles are going to be hard to cover.”

  “Relax; Paula can work her magic in the makeup chair tomorrow. Can you get Lara to wait another week for the cookbook manuscript?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be psyched about the buzz the piece will create for the new book. Oh, and the New York Today editor wants you to add some stuff about Considerable Carriages.”

  “I’ll just need to research the company a little bit more. I was caught off guard on Straight Talk, to be honest.”

  Dana pulled a stack of papers from her oversized black crocodile bag. “I printed up some info for you. Matt Reynolds was all over Twitter last week after he appeared on Straight Talk with his rebuttal statement.”

  “Was there anything about the add-ons to the new design? I heard they were doing super-sized cup holders.”

  “And snack trays and get this—handheld video game pouches and speakers that sync up to iPods. These strollers are going to be souped up better than my grandma’s RV.”

  “The Sunday edition of New York Today! I’m shaking. Look!” Kate held out her hand, which had a slight tremor from thumb to pinky.

  “Channel all those nerves into your writing. And don’t forget about the cookbook revisions!”

  Kate was ready to delve into her article as soon as Dana left. She settled on the couch in between a pile of laundry that was waiting to be folded and Sarah Jessica Barker. She pushed aside her stack of magazines and unread mail and put her feet up on the coffee table.

  But every time Kate started to read the research Dana gave her, all she could think about was Jack. Her lips felt swollen from all the kissing and it made her feel like his mouth was still connected to hers. She was just starting to doze off over her laptop when her cell rang.