by Janis Powers
I dialed Blankenfield’s extension so I could get him up to speed. I scanned more messages as his phone rang four or five times. Finally, Horace picked up. “Hi, Maxine,” he said cordially.
“Hey, Horace. Did you see the emails from Caine? We are going to be working together on Parfum Aix.”
“Yeah. Congratulations. I heard you got to present at the partner meeting. I guess that’s kind of a big deal.”
“Thanks,” I said. Word was out in the office about my awesomeness. “I know it’s Friday afternoon, but I want to debrief you before the end of the day so we can get a jump on things Monday morning. What are you working on right now?”
“Well, I’m just finishing this clerk presentation for Nancy. She wants it by the end of the day,” he said. I could tell from the laconic tone in his voice that he was bored with the scut work with which he had been assigned.
“Is that for the meeting next week?”
“Yeah. But you know Nancy. She likes to see everything in advance,” warned Horace.
I tossed my pen onto my desk. “Whatever,” I oozed. “This is billable client business. It takes priority over internal projects. Can you come to my office please? Thanks.”
I pulled together a few documents and emails for Horace while I waited. He showed up with his legal pad, ready to take notes. I began the discussion, outlining the Parfum Aix relationship and my expectations of Horace. I didn’t get very far before a tiny head topped with mousy brown hair popped by my office. The head belonged to Nancy Lallyberry, as did the rest of the 5’ 5”, 110-pound spindly body.
“Oh, hello, Maxine. I was just walking by and I thought I would congratulate you on presenting at the partner meeting today.” Although the comment was civil, I could almost hear her teeth grinding behind her smile. I reminded myself to be nice because, after all, I was her superior.
“Thanks, Nancy. So what can I do for you?”
“You’ve probably seen my emails. I’m working on the clerk program this year, so I am really busy with that. Horace is working with me on it.” Then she shot poor Horace a look that masterfully combined pity, anger and authority.
“Caine has requested that Horace assist me with Parfum Aix,” I said, coming to Horace’s rescue. “Prior to the weekend, I felt that it was important for us to debrief, so we can get rolling on Monday. I understand that he has some commitments to you and the clerk program. I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone else to help you.” In an act of consolation, I added, “I will be at the meeting on Wednesday to help, though.”
“O.K. then. Thanks.” She backed out of the office and marched off to deal with the next bit of pressing business.
Horace laughed uneasily. It appeared he didn’t want to take sides. “What am I supposed to do about the work I was doing for Nancy?”
“Well, finish what you were working on for today, but starting Monday, I’ll need you full time.” I thought that was a reasonable. Horace and I concluded, leaving me with my glorious inbox.
Within a few minutes, my office was filled with noise from the break-up of the partner meeting. I caught the eye of a few folks as they walked by my office. Some of the partners smiled in acknowledgment. I even got a few waves of congratulations, which was satisfying.
At the end of the pack came Deirdre Morgan, a named partner of the firm. She was slowly walking down the hall while checking her phone, the classic multi-tasker. Deirdre’s uncanny legal and political instincts had propelled her to the role of Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn by age 30. At that point, Deirdre was already married with two children. Soon afterwards, Deirdre left public service and started this company with two other distinguished professionals, Richard McCale, and Paul Black. I admired her immensely.
Deirdre stopped in front of my office door. She started speaking before she finished reading what was on her phone. “Maxine, I am the office partner responsible for the clerk program. I have asked Nancy Lallyberry to coordinate the effort on my behalf, and have given her access to the resources she requires. None of us has the time to sort through this sandstorm of emails from Nancy regarding your commandeering one of the resources.” She looked back at her phone and read another email while she waited for my response.
My eyes darted to my computer screen. From what I could tell, Nancy had sent a slew of emails to the partner group first, and then forwarded the sent emails to me. By doing so, she had ensured that any response to her messages from a partner would not be seen by me. It was a classic tactic to let me know that she was going over my head, without giving me the capability to defend myself . . . unless I were to stoop to her level and start emailing all the partners directly myself. What a preposterous waste of time.
“Well. . .” I started.
Deirdre, still engaged with her phone, opted to summarize the situation. “From what I have gathered, you were proceeding as instructed by Caine, and a simple staffing snafu has been elevated to me. So now I have to over-ride Caine and discipline you, all while making Nancy look like a winner.” Deirdre stepped into my office. She hunched down a bit, and raised her left eyebrow. “She hasn’t even copied you on any of these emails.”
“She forwarded them on to me after the fact,” I said. “I figured client work should take . . .”
Deirdre cut me off with the wave of her hand. “I know, Maxine. You did a nice job at the presentation, and we’re all very excited about the Parfum Aix account. But let me give you some advice. You can bring in the most business at this firm, but to be really successful, you have to control people’s opinions of you and not the other way around.” She took a few steps back, thereby ending the moment of mentorship. “Give Horace back to Nancy. Talk to Staffing and find somebody new.” Then Deirdre whisked out of my office, leaving me wondering how something so small could have made such a big mess.
5
I almost tripped on the cleats when I walked into the apartment. I regained my balance, and then stumbled on the lacrosse stick on the floor. Dale bounded out of the kitchen and caught me before I face-planted into his equipment bag. At 6' 3" and 200 pounds, Dale was hovering close to the fitness level he had attained as an All-American lacrosse player in college. Fortunately for me, that also included fine-tuned reflexes.
With one hand behind my back, he guided me away from his gear and into the living room. He ran his hand up the back of my neck and loosened the clip that held back my hair. He kissed me, while simultaneously unbuttoning my blouse.
I was overwhelmed by the sense of touch—and smell. I pulled away, trying not to grimace. “Mr. Pedersen,” I started in a mock judicial tone, “There is a clothing disparity between yourself and Mrs. Pedersen. You are attired in a mud-laced cotton jersey, while your counterpart is wearing a white silk shirt and power heels.” I started backing towards the bedroom before I was ambushed. “Can you explain this disparity to the court?”
Dale skipped over an ottoman before I could remove my suit jacket. “If it pleases her honor, I submit that the disparity could be alleviated if all clothing were removed.” And then he took off his shirt. Usually, one glimpse of Dale’s bare chest was an instant aphrodisiac. But the pungent aroma of his manliness was unbearable.
I dropped the judicial charade and asked a legitimate question. “Dale, why have you been playing lacrosse on a Friday afternoon? Does Bobbie Macaluso play lacrosse? Are you trying to get ‘trading tips from the master’ in between body checks?”
Dale threw his shirt on the floor and walked off towards the kitchen. “I told you this morning that Bobbie wants everyone at Worthington to do some community service. I got this afternoon off to run a lacrosse clinic in Harlem.” He flicked open a Coors with his thumb and took a swig. “Yes, I smell. But you need to get your head out of a perfume bottle and take a whiff of reality.”
It was a valid point, so I headed to the bedroom to clear the air. I put on my analog to Dale’s outfit—Hanro pajama bottoms and a Yale Tennis t-shirt. Then I went straight to the dining area to kick off
the weekend with a glass of vodka. Maybe Dale wouldn’t smell so bad after I consumed a shot of grain-based alcohol.
All of my choices were neatly arranged in the cabinet I had specially made for my 30th birthday. Any custom furniture is a luxury, but I had managed to triple the cost by insisting on the use of Russian larch wood. Sure, I could have trimmed the project budget by downgrading to larch wood from Canada. But that would have been like wearing Victoria’s Secret instead of La Perla. I had standards.
The cabinet itself was about five feet wide, with two sets of doors on each side. A six inch high banding was mounted to the bottom of each shelf to ensure that the bottles wouldn’t fall out should the cabinet doors be opened too brusquely. Dale declared that these retainers had “drunk-proofed” the cabinet. I disagreed, noting that the real problem was not inadvertently knocking over a bottle, but drinking a rare and expensive one. So I “drunk-proofed” the cabinet by installing a lock on the entire lower section.
I entered the requisite digits into the lock, and the cabinet doors gently sprung open. Front and center was the pride of my collection: over a dozen bottles, each one from a former United Soviet Socialist Republic country. Belarus. Georgia. And about eight countries ending with “-stan.” Novelty, not quality, was the driver in assembling that lot of spirits.
My favorite bottle was an unopened Communist-era bottle of Stoli. It had an image of Lenin on the back label and all the markings were in Russian. It was a tribute to a bygone era, and I wondered when I’d ever open it. Maybe when I made partner at McCale, Morgan & Black. Next to the Stoli was Blue Ice, an unorthodox potato-based vodka, from, of course, Idaho. Then there was Belvedere, with its dreamy palace etched on the frosted bottle . . . .
“What’s it gonna be?” Dale had snuck into the dining room and stood behind me, whispering in my ear. His cheek lingered against mine, and I could feel the damp residue from the shower that he must have taken. He was crafty, determined, and convincing. Inspired by his overtures, I grabbed a French vodka with the image of frolicking polar bears on the bottle.
“Balinoff?” I offered. I quickly poured out two glasses. Dale drained his, grabbing my waist before I could make a toast, or more importantly, take a sip of the drink. He kissed me, the taste of the spirit still on his tongue. I pulled back, surprised at the unpleasant residue in my mouth. I smelled the liquid in my glass.
Undeterred, Dale started kissing my neck while I drank the Balinoff. It was sour. I didn’t understand. Vodka was supposed to be smooth, subtle, crisp. I wriggled free, staring at the glass. “Does this taste weird to you?” I asked.
He backed off, his hands in a position of surrender. “Maxine, what is wrong with you? You’re acting all weird with the smells and everything. What are you, pregnant?”
We stared at each other, mouths agape. I did some quick mental math, trying to pinpoint key milestone activities, i.e. ovulation, intercourse and my last period. Thoughts of sperm motility and pH levels passed through my mind. As did the lack of birth control.
Dale eased the glass from my hand before I could drop it. “Do you think you’re pregnant?”
“Uh . . . well . . . I should have gotten my period by now, but with all the distractions from work, I had forgotten all about it.”
“Does that mean you’re pregnant?”
I took my drink back from Dale. “Probably,” I said, and then I downed the rest of the vodka.
He looked down at me cautiously. “Can we still have sex?”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now.” Dale adjusted his towel, which had almost fallen off. A drop of perspiration slid down from his neck and disappeared into the tuft of hair on his chest. If I really were pregnant and all the rumors were true, then the spontaneous glee of my sex life was about to transmogrify into a scheduled nuisance. I had to forestall the inevitable as long as possible.
I pulled off Dale’s towel. I could get a pregnancy test later.
I finished the second of a bottle of water we had purchased while Dale unlocked the door to our apartment. Inside, he dumped five different kinds of pregnancy tests onto the kitchen counter. I looked at them with nervous fascination. All I had to do was add a little bodily fluid and we’d learn if there was a little Pedersen on the way. I crunched up the empty bottle and said, “I’m never going to be able to pee enough to use all of those tests at once. Maybe I should have some more water.”
“I don’t think so,” said Dale. “If you keep drinking, you’re going to dilute the test results.”
I didn’t know if his point was valid. I did know that drinking more water was a stall tactic. I had always told myself that I wanted to be a mother, but now the reality of the responsibility was starting to sink in.
We both opened a box. I unraveled a wad of instructions and started to read them. Dale pulled out the contents of his box, a plastic stick with a little window on one end and a brushy plastic tip on the other. He elbowed me and said, “I think you just pee on this part.”
I looked at the rest of the contents of my box, which was basically the same thing. “I think I pee on this one too.” I took it, as well as Dale’s, to the bathroom.
“What about the other tests? Don’t you want those?”
I called out from behind the bathroom door. “Two has to be enough. And if I’m not pregnant, we can save those other tests for next month.” I went about my business in silence, but I could hear Dale deciphering the result indicators for the different tests.
“So listen. On one of those, if there’s a cross in the middle, then it means you’re pregnant. No cross means you’re not pregnant. The other one has a dot instead of a cross to show that you’re pregnant. Got it?”
I wasn’t really listening. I just wanted to get out of the bathroom as quickly as possible and see the results. “Hey, can you get a paper towel? I don’t want to put urine on the counter.”
Dale pulled a bunch of sheets from the roll, folded them up and placed the mound on the counter. I tried to place the two active sticks on the paper towels, but they kept sliding off. I grabbed one of the tests and pounded it down on the paper towels.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” he said, his voice rising. “Be careful of the test! You don’t want to mess it up!”
We both checked the stick to make sure it wasn’t broken. Apparently, it was fine, because a tiny red cross appeared in the plastic window. Dale picked up the other test and showed me the result, a tiny red dot on the plastic stick. My mouth opened. No words came out.
“Double confirmation!” he practically yelled. “We’re gonna have a baby!” And then he hugged me so hard, I almost lost my balance. My eyes welled up with tears as he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”
Dale, in his current state of wackadoodle joy, took me completely off guard. I reminded myself that he had been pressing for kids for quite some time. The beginning of his paternal pangs seemed to correspond to the start of his volunteer work running lacrosse clinics around the city. Dale Pedersen was Daddy Dale for one afternoon every month, and I think he found satisfaction in the role.
I fell into a stool by the counter. My most prominent emotion was womanly pride. Without much fanfare at all, I (with Dale’s help) had become pregnant. It seemed like a natural course of events. I was about to produce a child, thereby perpetuating the human race on planet earth.
Philosophically, I loved the idea. But from a tactical standpoint, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. It was hard to be joyous when facing the unknown. I assumed I would warm to the idea; in the meantime, Dale was more than over-compensating for my lack of enthusiasm.
“So, check it out,” said Dale. “I know things are going to get really complicated and I am committed to helping. I already ordered dinner!” And on cue, the doorbell rang. Dale sprang to answer it. Within seconds he deposited a white plastic bag on the counter marked Upper East Side Sushi, my favorite take-out. “I ordered it on the way to Duane Reade. I knew you were pregnant; the tests just confirmed it. Anyway, I wante
d to get something that you like to celebrate. What do you think?”
As he unloaded the order, the first waves of pregnancy paranoia rolled in. “I don’t think I’m supposed to eat sushi when I’m pregnant. I remember Paola telling me that she couldn’t have it.”
Dale ate a piece of pickled ginger. “Maybe she has an allergy.” Then he offered me a piece of spicy tuna roll, which I refused.
“Seriously, I think there’s something with the raw fish. I should look it up.”
I wanted to do just that, but Dale’s glare paralyzed me. “Why don’t you ask the inhabitants of the island nation of Japan what they do?” he stated sarcastically. “Sushi’s got to be bad for you because, you know, the Japanese are known for their poor health and lack of intelligence.”
I cracked a smile and then had a piece of toro. But I googled “sushi” and “pregnancy” anyway. I read from my phone. “O.K. You’re right about the sushi. I can eat it, as long as it doesn’t have high levels of mercury.” I put the phone down incredulously. “How am I supposed to know how much mercury is in the fish?” I didn’t get a response as Dale was typing into his phone. If he was communicating with the outside world, it had to be about his impending admittance to the club of dads at Worthington. “You’re not telling anyone yet, are you?!”
“What?!” he squeaked. Then he tossed his phone on the counter, as if the surrender of the device nullified what he had been doing two seconds prior.
“Dale, can we just wait a bit until we start blabbing to the world? We should go to the doctor and get everything checked out before we start telling people. It’s nobody’s business but ours right now.”
Dale cocked his head sideways. As he spoke, his voice went up an entire octave. “Just a few people? Please?”
