The Boss

by Abigail Barnette

  "Because they're not funny," I said firmly as he hailed a cab for me. "I don't have to sleep around to be successful."

  "Fine, fine. I won't ask again." He held his hands up. A taxi coasted up to the curb, and I reached for the door as Jake continued, "Don't blow this, Sophie, that could be the biggest mistake of your life."

  "No pressure." I tried not to snap, but I bet I sounded snappish. "I really am going to have to think about this. It's a major decision."

  "And you have to check with Neil Elwood?" The corner of Jake's mouth lifted in a wry smile, like he had caught me doing something I shouldn't have.

  Okay, sleeping with my boss was something I shouldn't have done. Getting into a relationship with him, that was worse. But I didn't regret it for an instant, and no job was worth losing what I had with Neil or hurting him further. My mind was already made up, now I just wanted to get the hell away from these people. "Goodbye, Jake."

  I didn't look back at him as I got into the cab.

  * * * *

  Meeting Neil for dinner should have been refreshingly stress free. For the first time, I wasn't worried about running into someone from work. In a city of eight million people, it was strangely easy to get caught by someone you least wanted to see when you were doing the thing you least wanted to get caught doing. Tonight, we could honestly say that we didn't work together.

  I was at the restaurant, a cozy, intimate place with soft lighting and a quiet dining room, for about twenty minutes without any sign of Neil. Which was totally bizarre; barring that one time I beat him to his apartment after work, he was never late. I checked my phone. He hadn't called me.

  That struck me as odd. Surely he couldn't still be tied up at Porteras. Wouldn't he have let me know?

  I tried not to keep my eyes on the door, but I spotted him the moment he came into view. He looked apologetic and ashamed as he approached, but he looked tired, too. Definitely not himself.

  "I am so sorry." He slid into the seat across from me. "We had a hell of a day, and I completely forgot we were meeting for dinner."

  "Ouch," I said under my breath. "How quickly we go from 'I fucking love you,' to 'I forgot about you.'"

  His face scrunched up as he realized how what he'd said had sounded. "No. No, I'm sorry, that didn't..." He took a deep breath through his nose, as though mentally wiping the slate clean. "I'm sorry I didn't call. I’m not feeling right."

  "Another headache?" I realized I was leaning forward slightly, examining him, as though I could diagnose his illness.

  "I have to remember to schedule an appointment to see someone." He reached across the table and took my hand in his. His thumb brushed across my knuckles, and I drew a shaky breath.

  I was making the right choice, turning down Gabriella's offer, wasn't I? A part of me was disappointed that when the chips were down, when I had to make a really important decision about us, charming, panty-melting Neil hadn't shown up to dinner to make the choice easier. In his place, weird, stand-offish Neil-with-a-headache had turned up. Another part of me was glad it was playing out this way. Because the shine of a new relationship wasn't going to last forever, and I needed to be able to make my choice about this job - and Gabriella's ridiculous requirement - with that in mind. Would I turn down the offer if I knew Neil and I wouldn't be together in three months? Right now, where I was sitting, after waiting twenty minutes for a no-call, no-show boyfriend... the answer was still yes. I loved him, insane as it probably was to love someone I'd only been in a relationship with for a two months. But something about us just worked. I couldn't imagine not being with him in three months. I couldn't imagine not being with him in three years. It just seemed right that we were together, and I suspected he felt the same way.

  "Don't worry about it. You had a stressful day." I shrugged. "It's not like we're going to always be perfect."

  He squeezed my hand before releasing it to pick up his menu. "I had a stressful day? I wasn't the one interviewing for a job. How did it go?"

  "It went... not great." I wasn't sure how much I should tell him about the reason it hadn't gone great. Though Neil had agreed to let me make my own mistakes and not meddle, it would be a lot easier for him to say he was going to stop meddling than to actually do it. "She offered me a job, but I'm not going to take it."

  He set the menu aside, brow furrowed in concern. "Why not?"

  "I wouldn't want to work with them again. It was uncomfortable for me, sitting there with them, being aware of how important they found themselves. They're the center of their own little world, still, and I was expected to fawn over them and try to earn their approval. I guess when I worked for Gabriella before, I got so used to that expectation that I didn't see anything weird about it." I could have stopped there, but being honest from the very start was better than trying to hide anything from him. "And they are convinced I'm sleeping with you."

  "You are sleeping with me," he observed.

  I snorted. "But they have no reason to believe that. They had all this supposed evidence, like the fact that I took a sick day... it was just stupid, inconsequential stuff. But their little spies had come to this conclusion for them, so Gabriella offered me this job on the condition that I break things off with you. Even after I lied and said we weren't dating."

  The look I had been dreading crossed Neil's face, a darkening expression like a thunderhead of over-thinking rolling right in to spoil our dinner. "What job did she offer you, exactly?"

  I took a sip of water from the stemmed glass in front of me. "Assistant creative director of her new magazine."

  "Good lord." He shook his head. "Well, I suppose this calls for a congratulations?"

  "I'm not taking it," I stated firmly. "She's trying to control what I do in my private life. And Jake is just as bad. I thought we were friends, but I guess I didn't notice how obnoxious he was until I started working around normal people."

  "I don't think there are any normal people at Porteras," Neil opined. "Myself, included. I cannot wait until Valerie is able to take it off my hands."

  I wasn't sure what would happen when he quit working at Porteras. I didn't suppose he'd starve or anything, but what would he do? Would he go back to England? I didn't want to think about that now, even though I knew I should before I finalized my decision. But I trusted him to tell me if he didn’t plan to stay in the country, especially now that he knew I was turning down a job for him. "How did the meeting go?"

  "Not well," he confessed. "There is a lot of concern that perhaps the subscribers were supporting Gabriella and the culture around her, not the magazine. And Rudy and I spoke, he should be calling you this evening to officially let you go."

  "Rudy is going to do it?" I made a face at that. "I thought you already fired me. Why do we have to drag him into it? Now it's going to be all awkward the next time I see him."

  "But it's not awkward to fuck the man who fired you?" He chuckled, but his laugh quickly turned in a grimace of pain.

  "Oh my god. Neil, are you okay?" I pushed my chair back, intending to get up, but he motioned for me to sit.

  "No, it's just these horrible contacts." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not feeling well, Sophie. I hate to suggest we cancel our plans - "

  He looked pale, and slightly sweaty. This wasn't him faking sick to get out of talking about our situation. I was sure Neil would never do anything like that, anyway. He looked really, really ill.

  "If you need to go home, go home. Do you need me to come with you?" I asked.

  "No, no. I've kept you far too long this weekend." He managed a tired smile. "Let me drive you home?"

  I shook my head. "You look like you need to go eat about an entire bottle of ibuprofen. I can get home fine on my own. If you go to work tomorrow, I'll call you during your lunch. And if you're sick, I'll come over and bring you chicken soup. Which I will feed to you through a plastic bubble while wearing one of those Ebola suit things, because I can't afford to get sick again right now."

  He tried t
o smile. He still looked miserable. "I love you. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  "I love you, too."

  I walked with him to the door. He tossed a bill on the hostess's station and apologized for holding the table. Outside, I wondered if I should offer my shoulder to lean on, he looked so bad. For a second, I considered overruling him and getting into the car with him to go straight to the emergency room, but Neil was a big boy. He could be sick on his own, if he wanted to. I saw him safely into his car, and watched the Maybach pull away from the curb before heading toward the subway station on the next block.

  So, our date was a bust. And I was going to get officially fired. But at least I knew I was turning down the job with Gabriella's new magazine for the right reasons. I loved Neil even when he was sick and nearly standing me up. That had to count for something.

  When I got to the apartment, I found Holli and Deja snuggled on the couch, watching A Christmas Story.

  "Tell me it's not Christmas Eve," I said, with a note of panic, gesturing to the television. "Because if it is, I missed my flight home."

  "DVD," Deja said. "It's the fifteenth."

  "I thought you were hanging out with Neil tonight," Holli said, moving her feet so I could sit on the couch.

  "He wasn't feeling well. I hope he's not coming down with that thing I had." I waved her off. I wasn't planning to stay up, I just needed some time on my own, and I didn't need to horn in on their evening. I patted my stomach. "I'm still not entirely over it."

  Deja frowned, and traded a look with Holli. "Um."

  "Soph..." Holli began uncertainly. "We’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about that. You've had that twenty-four hour stomach thing for like a week now."

  "No, it's only been..." I counted backward in my head. How long had it been? With my job going down the tubes, I had lost time, like one of those alien abduction stories. "Oh my gosh, it has been a week. Do you think I should go to a doctor?"

  Would my health insurance still cover that, now that I was canned?

  “I think you should,” Deja said. Why were they talking to me like I was stupid? She went on. “This thing has been coming and going, right? And you’ve been really tired.”

  “It’s the stress, it has to be.” I shook my head. “Stress is what causes ulcers, right? I’ve had this awful heartburn - ”

  "Sophie... oh my god. How are you not getting this?" Holli's mouth dropped open.

  "I know. Oh my god, I know." I shook my head, one hand lifting my long bangs off my forehead. "I should have gone last week, before my benefits were up in the air. If they want to do tests or anything it’s going to cost a fortune, and I can’t afford private insurance - "

  And then I looked at Holli and Deja, and I saw genuine pity in their faces. Well, pity and, "are you fucking kidding me?"

  And then I got it.

  Oh god. I totally got it.

  I'm pregnant.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I'm pregnant.

  "No." I shook my head. "No, no, no, no."

  It wasn't an ulcer, it wasn't a stomach bug. I was pregnant.

  I couldn’t be.

  My mind flicked back through every time we'd had sex. It was impossible that I was pregnant. I was on birth control. We used protection. If my pills had a 98% effective rate, and condoms had a 98% effective rate, we should have been nearly 200% certain of this not happening, right?

  Deja sat up, scooting Holli forward so she could swing her legs off the couch. "Okay, okay, I've done this before, there is no reason to panic. I’m going to Duane Reade to get you a test. Holli, you keep her calm, and get a calendar. Try to figure out where things got fucked up."

  It was too late. Like hitting a run of pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, everything fit together really fast. I hadn't had a stomach bug. I'd had awful morning sickness that had just come and gone at all crazy hours. And I wasn't tired all the time from too much sex. Well, I was tired all the time from too much sex, but mostly from being overloaded with baby hormones.

  I felt like I was going to throw up, and not as a pregnancy symptom. I raced to my room and grabbed my laptop. I pulled up my schedule as Holli stood next to my bed, her arms crossed over her chest.

  "You guys weren't using protection?" she asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

  "I was on the pill, and we used condoms. We only went without one time. But it seemed fine, you know, we'd both had recent check-ups..." How could that sound so unbelievably stupid now, when it had seemed totally sensible back then? “I’m not crazy, right? I should have been safe.”

  "It only takes one unlucky time, Soph. And remember how you’re always saying that the green pills are a waste, you don't even take them, because you can always remember what day you need to start the pink ones?" Holli lowered her voice. "And you just thought it might seriously be Christmas Eve."

  Oh god. Had I started a pack late? Way late? I thought I might hyperventilate and pass out at the slow realization that I’d probably done exactly that. I’d been so busy with work, and the takeover… and the stupid, reckless fun of a new relationship. I’d probably been missing pills left and right. Sophie. You’re an idiot.

  “You know, this happens,” Holli tried in an attempt at moral support. “Not to careful people. You’re just… I hate to bust out the tough love, but I thought you were smarter than this, homie.”

  I looked up at her, and burst into tears. "I just lost my job!"

  She sat beside me and wrapped her arms around me. "Hey, it's going to be fine. If you are pregnant, you have some options. Neil isn't going to just abandon you, right? He's a good guy."

  He was a good guy. But how on earth was this conversation going to go? Hey, Neil, I'm really embarrassed, and please don't flip out, but we've replicated and now I need to borrow some money even though I've rejected every offer of help you've ever given me and also I kind of helped sabotage your company. Oh, and you divorced your ex over something similar. But we’re cool, right?

  Holli rubbed my back supportively as I looked at my online calendar. But I couldn't remember when my last period was. I had no fucking clue, because I didn't chart it, I used my pills to keep track.

  Jesus, I’d really thought it wouldn’t happen to me. And now it had and it was terrifying.

  "What am I going to do?" I looked up at Holli, fully aware that my mascara was probably running in rivers down my face from the tears I couldn't hold back. I held up my hands helplessly. "What am I going to do?"

  "You're going to do whatever's best for you," Holli stated firmly, resting her cheek on my shoulder as she put her arms around me. "You don't want kids though, right?"

  "No, oh god, never." I sat back and shook my head, feeling awful. Was I a bad mother?

  No, that was crazy talk. I wasn't a mother. I was an... accidental incubator. A horrible fear gripped me. "What if he's changed his mind? He said he didn't want anymore kids, but what if I tell him I'm pregnant and he wants to keep the..."

  I couldn't even say the word.

  "It's not up to him, Soph."

  That didn't make it any easier. That just meant I had to make this decision all on my own.

  No, you don't, I reminded myself. You're just freaking out. Neil is in love with you. He's going to be just as mortified by all this as you are. I had to tell him. Shit, before I even took the test, I had to tell him, if for no other reason than to demand he buy a condom company, because this was not happening again.

  Oh, who was I kidding? Holli probably had an entire drawer of condoms, in varying textures and shades. I could have looked in her room that night. Instead, I’d made the stupidest possible choice.

  "I'm going to call him," I told Holli. "I know he's not feeling well, but... fuck, does that make me a bad person?"

  "If you need to call him..." Holli shrugged. "I suppose the worst that could happen is that he wouldn't answer."

  I wiped the tears from my cheeks and climbed off my bed. "Okay. I'm going to go get my phone."

  It took me two
tries to make the damn call my hands were shaking so badly. When I finally managed to dial him, he didn't answer. Voicemail picked up after six rings, and I found myself in a very strange predicament. What, exactly, was the etiquette for telling someone you were eighty percent sure that you were pregnant? You couldn't do that via voicemail. Texting was out. Instead, I left a lame, "It's Sophie. Call me," and waited with Holli for Deja to return.

  Holli had made me some tea - "You'll need something to pee, when she gets back," - and tried to stay chipper. When she set the cup and saucer in front of me, she said, "So... I bet Neil drinks a lot of tea. Being British and all."

  "No, he drinks coffee, mostly." I shook my head. "He's probably going to drop dead of a heart attack from all the caffeine."

  "Well, this is caffeinated, but I don't think a little bit will hurt the... thing." Holli turned away from me quickly and dumped way too much sugar into her own cup. "What do you think Deja meant?"

  I sipped my tea. "Meant by what?"

  "She said 'I've done this before.' And then she ran out to get a pregnancy test." Holli tried for a casual shrug. She's never going to be a model-slash-actress, is all I'm going to say about her attempt to be nonchalant.

  "Maybe she had a pregnancy scare before." It was totally selfish and unfair of me to wish something so awful on another woman, but I was really glad to know someone personally who had gone through the same thing I was going through.

  "I know, it's just..." Holli shook her head. "No, I'm being a jerk. You're like, legitimately worried about the contents of your uterus and I'm acting weird about my girlfriend's past."

  "Girlfriend?" If anything could momentarily take my mind off the idea of a chubby-cheeked horror slowly siphoning away my life force, it would have to be good news about my friend's life. "So you guys are like, official now?"

  "Yeah, we're exclusive. I don't know, I thought she was going to drive me crazy, she's so bossy and kind of," Holli moved her hands all around her head, crossing and rolling her eyes. "You know. I thought we might be too similar."