Maternity Leave

by Trish Felice Cohen

  We sat in a window seat and David kept staring at the table on the other side of the window, just outside. It was awkward; Kimberly and I pretended not to notice. Eventually, I said, “You know David, that’s not a one-way mirror, she can see you staring at her.” David responded, “She? I was trying to figure out if that was a girl or a boy from the second we sat down.”

  I looked over. She was thin, had short hair, a sleeve of tattoos on both arms and was wearing a wife-beater tank top, cargo pants and boots. Thankfully, she was texting on her phone and not paying attention to us.

  I said, “It’s a girl David, please don’t ask her to confirm.” This was a real concern of mine.

  David replied, “I won’t.”

  He said this as though blatantly staring at her for the past ten minutes and talking loudly enough so that she could possibly hear him through the glass wasn’t just as rude as inquiring directly about her gender. Fortunately she was looking at the water and not at us.

  David couldn’t let it go. He said, “Do you think she’s, you know, well, you know, bi?”

  “Bisexual?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” David said.

  “You mean if I had to speculate as to her sexual orientation just by looking at her and assigning a stereotype?” I asked.

  “Yes,” David replied without hesitation or an inkling that he had veered far from political correctness. He was staring at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Then I’d guess lesbian.”

  “That’s what I meant,” David said. “I just, you know, wanted to be politically correct.”

  I smiled at the irony and his ignorance. “I don’t think bisexual is P.C. for lesbian, David.”

  “Sure it is,” he replied, like I was an idiot for not knowing the proper nomenclature initiated by my own generation. Jesus. I was excited about racing my bike for three months, but getting away from David for three months would be almost as exhilarating.

  Kimberly was in the same situation, sans the impending three month vacation. She was noticeably more somber with this the awkward conversation. Next, we talked about David’s children, subrogation and my pregnancy. On any other day, these topics would result in a Jenna-shaped hole through the wall, but today, I contributed. I complimented David on his ability to produce such a great artist and dancer, engaged in a discussion about subrogation waivers and held in my lunch as David explained the many positions to have sex with a pregnant woman. The hour seemed to fly by as if it were only two, instead of the usual four-to-one-hour ratio I experienced in David’s presence. I wasn’t even upset when David failed to pick up the check despite earning nine times my salary, inviting me to lunch, selecting the restaurant, picking the seats and dictating the conversation.

  After lunch, we headed back to the parking garage. Jackson’s was attached to a hotel and there was a big circular driveway in front of the hotel you have to walk past to get to the garage. We walked under the awning parallel to the valet stand in order to stay out of the sun. As I calculated that I only had to drive back downtown with David, about four minutes, before taking off for three months, I heard, “Watch out!” I turned and saw an SUV traveling in the wrong direction, headed directly for me.

  The crash happened instantaneously, but in slow motion. The car was braking, but not fast enough. I had no time to turn to get out of the way. To protect my cycling legs I pointed my stomach toward the SUV, so the Empathy Belly would take the brunt of the impact. I was knocked flat, three feet behind where I was standing. My back hurt from the fall, but otherwise I was unharmed.

  Kimberly and David ran over with a look of sympathy mixed with disgust. I was confused by their reaction until I remembered that I had just thrust my fetus into an oncoming vehicle. I looked down at my stomach. It was leaking. Two lead balls, added to tack fourteen pounds onto the already ridiculously heavy belly, were rolling slowly next to me.

  “Call an ambulance!” David screamed.

  “I’m okay,” I said and stood up, trying to figure out how to flee the scene.

  “Your water broke,” said David

  My “water” was all over my stomach rather than flowing from my nether region. Kimberly, who instantly deduced that I was not with child, hovered over me and began stammering to try and cover for me.

  I stood up, turned away from David and said, “David, I’d really be more comfortable with Kimberly and the doctors.”

  “I’ll turn away,” David replied, “but I don’t feel comfortable leaving until the ambulance arrives.” As he said this, he checked his watch. David never took more than one hour for lunch and he didn’t want my near-death experience to interfere with his billable hours.

  The innards of the Empathy Bbelly continued to ooze out as we waited. David was turned the other way tapping on his BlackBerry. As the ambulance approached, sirens blaring, a crowd began congregating. I practically sprinted into the ambulance to get away from them.

  For a minute, I was afraid that David might insist on accompanying me to the hospital, but he was already walking off towards his car. I don’t know why I was even worried, as there was no way David was going to go to the hospital with me instead of billing clients.

  On the way to the hospital, which was a mile away on Davis Island, an EMT looked at me for the first time and said, “You’re not pregnant.”

  Obviously he graduated at the top of his class. “Yeah,” I said. “This is a big misunderstanding. If I could just hop out.”

  The EMT ignored me and started inspecting my head. By the time he determined there’d been no head trauma, we were at Tampa General and I was being unloaded. The EMT called for a psych consult and I knew I had to get out of there before I was admitted. If I were admitted, my carefully executed plan would be in shambles, I’d have exorbitant medical bills and be wearing a straightjacket. I was already dreading the bills and paperwork related to my one-mile ambulance drive.

  I decided to fake a seizure. I have a friend named Roy who is an epileptic and I’d seen him seize a number of times. I started shaking, then fell off the stretcher onto the floor. As the orderly pushing the stretcher took off to get help, I ran in the other direction.

  I exited Tampa General and ran towards the bathroom at the nearby tennis courts. I often stopped there when I had to pee while riding on Davis Island. In the bathroom, I called Danny on my cell phone and asked him to pick me up. The phone had some Empathy Belly water on it, but it still worked.

  As I sat there, Sarah called and said, “I just heard what happened.”

  My pulse sky rocketed and I said, “Are you going to tell David? I don’t think he noticed that I wasn’t pregnant.”

  Sarah said, “No, I’m not going to tell him. Jenna, I don’t know why you faked a pregnancy, but everyone thinks you just went into labor. Use this time off as a maternity leave and get the mental help you need. Who knows, in a few months when you’re sane and Tony is out of jail, maybe we’ll hear wedding bells. Then you can have a real baby and you won’t have to pretend.”

  She was so far off the mark I had to suppress a big laugh. “Thanks, Sarah. Give my best to Tony and I’ll let you know when I’ve worked through my issues.” We hung up, and I felt relief wash over me.

  Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the ladies room door, “Jenna, are you in there?”

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “Danny.”

  “What’s the safe word?”

  “Mother fucker,” Danny replied.

  I opened the door, ran out and got into Danny’s car and told him the story as we drove to my house. He said, “So let me get this straight. You were hit by a car, David thinks you killed your kid, Sarah thinks you’re going to a mental institution before marrying Quinton, your parents think you’re on a work trip and you think you’re just going to go race your bike for three months and get away with it?”

  “Don’t forget that I just skipped out on what is probably going to be a fourteen-hundred dollar ambulance and morphine bill.”

>   “Oh, yeah. You’re golden. I’m thinking of letting you out right here to walk. I think this is called aiding and abetting.”

  “Just take me home. I won’t involve you,” I said.

  “Please. Like I’d leave you on the side of the road.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m Ferris Bueller.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you okay to drive? Did you just say you’re on morphine?” Danny asked.

  “No, the guy tried to give me morphine but couldn’t find a vein. I think he was new. It took him a while to figure out I wasn’t pregnant, too. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if he billed me for it. He took it out of the case and tried to inject it.”

  “So why the hell are you claiming to be Ferris Bueller?”

  “I’m invincible like Ferris Bueller. No matter how fucked up this situation gets, it keeps working out for me. I’m embarking on a pro cycling career, subsidized by my office. My parents are watching Sonny, Quinton is in jail, and Sarah is my biggest advocate. I’m starting to think the world actually does revolve around me.”

  As we neared my home, Danny said, “I never thought of you as a ‘the glass is half full’ kind of girl, but your assessment of this situation is overly optimistic. This is the calm before the storm. Enjoy it, Ferris.”

  “Thanks for everything, Danny.”

  I got in my car and headed north to Pennsylvania.

  Chapter Twelve

  My car was filled to the brim with two bikes, helmets, shoes, pump, spare wheels, tent, sleeping bag, books, a laptop and a laundry basket full of clothes, both cycling and regular, for any type of weather. With one of the rear seats removed from my Honda Element, there was plenty of room for everything without having to pack strategically. As I do for every race, I placed my bikes in the car then dumped my cycling clothing in between so the bikes wouldn’t chip the paint off one another during transit.

  The first race destination was the Pennsylvania mountains near Altoona. The plan until the August thirtieth start date of the Tour de West was to become stronger, faster and braver on the bike. To pump myself, I decided to travel all the way to Pennsylvania listening to nothing but the theme songs to Chariots of Fire, Rocky, Rudy, and Hoosiers. If I could accomplish that, I could accomplish anything.

  I planned to attend six professional stage races and eight professional one-day races prior to the Tour de West. During these races, I had to be “discovered” to secure a spot in the Tour de West. In addition to riding strong, I had to learn to race confidently. No team would want a rider that raced squirrelly, which is to say, all over the road and unpredictably. Granted, my Bike Tourette Syndrome had improved since my crash, but I was still far from easy going yet. During the first leg of my journey north, I visualized sprinting and descending like a daredevil. By the time I rested at a camp ground near Atlanta, I was confident in my ability to race under any conditions.

  The next morning, I drove two hours north to test my newfound ability in the mountains of Dahlonega, Georgia. Riding on a new road is always exciting. I’m told golfers have the same sensation whenever they tee off on a new course. That it was seventy degrees and sunny in the mountains at the base of the Appalachian Trail was a bonus. I rode eighty miles over four mountains and felt great. I flew up and down each mountain. Then again, there was no one around to freak me out on the downhill. While the pack generally thins out during a climb, particularly a steep or long one, there is still a group of five to twenty riders at each summit depending on how fast the pace is pushed on the way up. These lead riders descend in one long line, following the wheel of the person in front of them. Essentially, you’re trusting that the person ahead of you is taking a good line, and keeping an eye out for traffic and other road hazards. During my inspirational pep talk to myself on yesterday’s seven hour drive, I became more and more comfortable with the idea of trusting someone else. After all, I’d only been racing seriously for a year and a half, so it made sense to put my faith in seasoned professionals rather than myself. I was convinced of this wisdom as I rounded a corner at forty-five miles per hour and passed a bicycle hanging from a tree; no sign of the rider. Best not to think about that.

  After the ride, I showered at a campground: fifty cents for three minutes. The three spiders in the shower didn’t chip in. I hit the road and was soon in South Carolina. After leaving the long state of Florida, the states ticked by relatively quickly. A few miles into South Carolina, I saw the first South of the Border billboard since I was a kid.

  When John and I were young and Jason was a baby, we took many vacations by car to visit family up north. Our parents made up a game for us. The first one to spot one of the South of the Border billboards and yell “Beaver!” got a point. The first person to see the giant sombrero that dominated the South of the Border amusement park got ten points for saying, “Big Beaver!” The beaver game, as we called it, was tough because Howard Johnson’s billboards looked remarkably similar to a South of the Border billboard from afar. If you called beaver for a Howard Johnson billboard, you lost a point. I always won the beaver game. I thought it was my superior intellect, but in hindsight it was most likely because John didn’t give a shit and wasn’t playing.

  Danny called to shoot the shit as I passed the second South of the Border billboard. I said, “Beaver!” and explained the rules to Danny. He started laughing hysterically.

  “What?”

  “You seriously don’t get it?” he asked.

  “It’s a stupid game my parents made up, there’s nothing to get.”

  “Beaver. South of the border. You don’t think there’s perhaps a double entendre here?”

  “Holy shit! What kind of parents do I have? Who plays the beaver game with their young kids?”

  “Sounds like a good way to pass the time with annoying kids in the car. They must have really loved that you actually kept score.”

  “Now that you mention it, I think they did get a kick out of it. Beaver! It’s a fun game. I’m winning.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Hey, I’m going to concentrate on the beaver game. Can I call you in North Carolina, Virginia or Maryland when there’s nothing to do?”

  “Sure. I’d rather play beaver than talk to me too,” Danny said.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  I called it a night at Shenandoah National Park. It was slightly out of my way, but had a good campground, and more importantly, would provide me with a beautiful but challenging bike ride the following morning.

  The next day I rode decently through Shenandoah National Park though my legs were a little dead from sitting in a car for two days. My descending seemed to improve, literally overnight. I passed a few cars on the way down each of the mountains. This feat should be an automatic since road bikes travel between forty-five and sixty-five miles per hour down a mountain and cars drive a more conservative thirty-five to fifty-five miles per hour. But, this was the first time I managed to overtake a car. After four hours of riding, I showered with one spider and a dead roach for a dollar-fifty before commencing the final leg of my journey.

  Just after dark, I pulled into a campground near Altoona. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and pulled the curtain back to check out the insect population and the cost per minute of water. New highs on both fronts: four spiders and a shitload of mosquitoes at a rate of one dollar for every two minutes. These accommodations were particularly frustrating because I have family in Altoona whose lavatory is both free, and bug free, with whom I could stay. Unfortunately, as far as my family was concerned, I was working in Charlotte, North Carolina, not riding my bike near Aunt Lauren.

  At that moment, my cell phone rang and I saw it was my Mom’s number.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi Jenna, it’s Mom and Dad. We’re on our walk and wanted to see how your first day of work went up there.”

  Mom and Dad walked together for an hour every night and called me during walk-time to catch up. They put the phone on speaker which was f
ine for Mom, but Dad, who has been hard of hearing since his stint in the artillery unit of the army, needs constant translations. “It was okay,” I said.

  “What’s the office like?”

  I’d never really been a liar, especially to my parents. Granted, the fake pregnancy was quite a whopper, but as far as small details, I had always been pretty truthful. Inventing a day of work would involve some details, but I tried to stay vague. “It was good.”

  “What did she say?” I heard Dad ask in the background.

  “She said ‘it was good.’ How are the people?”

  “Good.”

  “What did she say, Geri?”

  “‘Good,” she repeated. “Is your office nice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh?” Dad said.

  “She said ‘yes’ Michael. Jenna, what’s wrong with you? Usually we can’t get a word in edgewise.”

  “Sorry. I pretty much just met with the new partners today. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Is David there?”

  “No, he’s there with you in Tampa,” I said, praying my parents didn’t run into David over the next few months where they’d be sure to talk about my pregnancy, the trip to the hospital or my business assignment in North Carolina. “Basically I just met everyone and set up my office.”

  “What exactly are you doing there?”

  “Good question,” I said, then paused to let the bullshit accumulate for a moment. “Basically, we have a lot of cases throughout the southeast. So when we opened our Alabama office, we moved all of our Alabama cases there and someone went there to help with the transition. I’m doing that for the Charlotte office. That way, we have lawyers licensed in North Carolina to handle these cases.”

  “What?” asked Dad.

  “She’s helping to transition the Florida cases to North Carolina.”

  “That makes sense.”