I headed out to my Nissan Sentra without so much as giving myself a once-over before locking up. If I had corn flakes stuck to my front teeth, or toothpaste around the edges of my lips, or a few too many hairs out of place, I wouldn’t have known. With that possible pay raise coming my way in the very near future, I didn’t want to be any later than I already was for work. Besides, there was talk about a possible new project manager position opening up next spring for an up-and-coming chick lit author from the firm’s very own hometown of Seattle. I didn’t get the last PM position that I fiercely wanted; all the more reason I was revved up to nab this one.
I started to make a beeline for my office the moment I stepped through the front doors. “Hi, Bobby,” I said briskly with my eyes cast down at the floor, buzzing right on past him in the hall.
“Hey…” replied Bobby Holman, a fellow graphic designer, his voice trailing as I put swift distance between us.
“Morning,” I then said to my fellow officemate, Janet. As expected, and by the looks of her lipstick-stained coffee mug, Janet had arrived promptly, and then some. She had a hot, steaming, and full mug of black coffee. A full mug at nearly a quarter to ten meant she was already on her second helping. Which certainly meant she had been in the office awhile.
Dammit. Now she’s one up on me today. I’ll be furious if she gets that promotion instead of me…
Bobby’s voice broke my train of thought as I tucked my knock-off Dooney and Bourke bag into my bottom desk drawer.
“Huh, what?” I was as discombobulated as I had been since, well, yesterday.
“Everything all right?” he asked in a low voice. He approached my desk, not paying an ounce of attention to Janet, who was leaning back her swivel chair in an ever so obvious manner and tilting her head our way.
Eavesdropper.
“Huh?” Still out of it.
“Everything all right?” Bobby rested both palms on the edges of the front of my desk after setting down a piping mug of coffee for me. Coffee with a spoonful of cream and one cube of sugar—he knew precisely how I took my morning java. Charming? Or matter of habit after working together for nearly three years? No, couldn’t be. Charming, maybe? I stopped my pondering mind before it wandered down another path of random thought.
“Thanks,” I said. “I, uh…” I caught the scent of his cologne. I had been trying to figure out what brand it was for the longest time. Whenever I walked by the fragrance section of Nordstrom’s I’d sometimes think I smelled Bobby’s choice of cologne. But I could never quite peg it. Silly me. I guess I could have asked him. But wouldn’t that look a bit presumptuous? It’s not like I should have been interested in the brand of cologne he wore. It’s not like I needed a come-on with him or wanted to flirt. That’s a silly notion. I wasn’t into Bobby that way anyhow… Besides, he had a girlfriend, and it seemed serious. At least that’s what the picture of the two of them in Trafalgar Square, which had been sitting on his desk since he started working for Forster & Banks a few years ago, seemed to suggest. Take a girl to London, it must be serious. Must be real love.
“Robin?” Bobby said. “Is everything all right with you? Did you get into a fender bender or something?”
“Huh? Oh! I’m fine,” I said, finally gathering my bearings and making a mental note to stop all other mental notes. “Absolutely fine. No problems.”
“You’re certain? You look a bit pale.”
“Oh that…no. Do I?” I was tripping over my words. “No, I…uh…just had to deal with the doctor’s office this morning. That’s all. Running late because of…” I caught Janet’s stare, which she quickly cut short, going right back to whatever über productive thing she was working on. “…Because of…yeah, dealing with the doctor’s office.” I grabbed a click pen and starting clicking it for no particular reason, smiling up at Bobby. “That’s all.” I was about to flash him a toothy grin but decided against it. Corn flakes could have taken up residence. I reminded myself to run to the bathroom to check my appearance once Bobby left.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, giving two knocks on my desk before turning on his heels. “What Forster & Banks would do if Robin Sinclair weren’t working her magic I don’t know.” He gave me a playful wink before he left the office, leaving me alone with my horrible officemate.
“Good morning, Janet,” I said again, trying to sound as kosher as possible. I took a sip of my coffee. Bobby had prepared it perfectly.
“Morning,” she said, just as kosher.
Janet Horn and I never saw eye-to-eye. She came into the firm a few months after I had been hired on full-time following my stint as an intern my last semester at U Dub. She moved into my office space—the only available desk at the time—and came on board as if she had some royal prerogative. She had mentioned it to me on more than a few occasions that she was only at our small firm to get a shoo-in to the “bigger and better firms out there”—her words entirely.
Forster & Banks would just as soon be forgotten whenever Miss Janet got the call from some big shot over in New York, London, or where have you. Her brazen determination to climb the ranks and hold out for a golden offer elsewhere spilled into her everyday interactions with fellow “minions” like me and Bobby. Unless you were Forster & Banks’s Board of Directors, you got the cold and determined shoulder from Janet Horn. But Janet did do one thing that I could respect: She worked her butt off. I think getting the hell out of Dodge was what helped keep her so driven. I say, let her go to New York or some big shot city. I’d be quite content with landing the PM job with the firm that’s been my happy home for the past three-and-a-half years. I had no plans to move away from Seattle, and certainly no plans of seeking employment elsewhere. With a baby on the way such thoughts were absurd.
Baby. I’m going to have a baby.
I’d forgotten for the past few minutes that I was actually going to have a baby.
“Do you have those mock-ups ready?” Janet asked, breaking my train of thought. I really needed to get into the motion of the workday.
“Mock-ups? Yeah, they’re done.” At least one thing was going right so far that morning.
“Can I have them?” she asked bluntly.
I moved small stacks of papers around my desk, searching for the early sketches she wanted of a project we were working on together. Normally I didn’t team up with someone on a book cover design, but the request to have “two minds on this one!” came from the top. We had to collaborate together, and where the design went from there neither of us knew.
I bet Janet wishes she knew. I bet she wishes she was a corporate bigwig. Ah, who am I kidding? She wouldn’t want to stick around to become a bigwig of some tiny firm like this.
Janet cleared her throat only as an audible sign of annoyance with my disorganized habits.
“As soon as I find them I’ll give them to you,” I said, hoping my nervousness wasn’t obvious by the timid tone of my voice.
She rolled her eyes and resumed her work. “Just make sure I have them before lunch. I don’t want to look bad by turning them in late.”
Late. The one word that was quickly summing up my existence. Two months late. Pregnant. Nearly an hour late to work. Mock-ups late. Fired?
Suddenly my cell phone rang and I claimed it from my purse as quickly as I could, paranoid I would further tip Janet’s anger scale. I didn’t recognize the phone number, but then it dawned on me that I had left my number with various doctor’s offices that morning.
I answered the call, trying to keep my volume to a minimum. It was, as assumed, one of the obstetricians calling me back with appointment information.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said to the nurse who was asking how far along in my pregnancy I thought I was. The last thing I’d want to have happen was let Janet figure out that I was knocked up. I knew exactly how far along I was, though. I’m unlucky in love, so that one-night stand was without a shadow of a doubt the “lucky” date. Yet saying things like “ten weeks” or “two cycles
ago” would be a giant announcement that I was expecting. Especially when eavesdropping Janet already knew I had been calling the doctor that morning.
I lied, telling the nurse that I wasn’t sure, then she started estimating on her end and I gave her a sharp, “That’s probably it!” when she neared my number. A few more questions about a healthcare provider, whether I had been pregnant before, if I was seeing any “signs of a possible period,” and if I had taken a home pregnancy test (Hah! Try six!), and I started thinking, Is this ever going to end? Janet and the whole freaking office are bound to find out now.
It was finally settled, and with as much discretion as I could muster. The following Thursday I was to have my first checkup, which included an ultrasound.
Ultrasound? Like a baby picture? Baby’s first picture?
I kept thinking about this as the nurse confirmed my appointment and information. I couldn’t shake the thought from my mind as I began to set about my day’s workload.
I’m seriously having a baby. It’s official. A baby.
As lunchtime neared, and after I found my mock-ups and shared them with Janet, I scribbled Need Girl Night on a bright pink Post-It note, with a little star above the ‘i.’ The baby was official. The first doctor’s appointment was official. It was high time to break the news to my girlfriends. Oh, yeah, and Brandon. Minor annoying detail there.
“Another challenge; one step at a time,” I mumbled to myself, causing Janet to turn in my direction. She asked me what I was talking about and I didn’t dignify her with a response. It was none of her damned business. I was going to have a baby. I was going to be a mother. And I was also going to get that PM position. I just had to!
***
I looked up from my computer screen, tearing my eyes away from the practically blank digital canvas I was working on for a new mystery novel, and checked the time. It was near closing time for the day and I wasn’t anywhere near where I wanted to be on this darn cover. My creative juices weren’t flowing very well; it was difficult to think of an appropriate image for a book filled with neighborhood robberies and a high stakes kidnapping when I had my first ultrasound on the brain.
What would the baby look like? Would I already be able to see its little hands? Its little feet? What about its face? Could I tell if it was going to look like me? Or like Brandon… Would it be a little boy? Or a little girl?
Enough was enough. Another thirty minutes or even an hour at my current project wasn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference. I would come in early the next morning and get a jumpstart on it. Until then, I needed to round up my girlfriends and set up a get-together. And I deserved to go home. It had been a rough day, having already thrown up twice—once after a turkey sandwich for lunch and once after I mistakenly had a bite of an oatmeal raisin cookie from the break room. Cinnamon was still off-limits, at least until my second trimester rolled around, at which point my morning, afternoon, and all-times-of-the-day sickness would pass. That is if that baby book knew what it was talking about.
“Going home?” Janet asked, while I started to power down my computer. “Already?”
Oh she could get on my nerves. I calmly replied with, “Got done what I needed to for today.” She looked at me skeptically and went back to her business.
Before gathering my belongings I typed on my cell phone: Must do girls nite!! Dinner+drinks Thur at my place? I scrolled through my directory and selected “Claire,” “Jackie,” and “Lara,” then hit send. Hopefully all of the girls could make it. I had some big news to share. The thought of having to wait a couple of days until Thursday night was driving me bonkers.
“Have a nice night, Janet,” I said, toting my stuff out of the office as I began dialing Sophie’s cell number.
Janet made some response, but I was distracted by Sophie’s chipper answer.
“Hey, Sophie,” I said. “Guess what?”
“You got your raise?” Sophie’s voice was full of excitement.
“Yeah, I wish. That’s not until the next month or so. Still a ways off. But I did get myself a doctor’s appointment.” I tossed my purse and files into the back of my car, then quickly surveyed the parking lot beforehand to make sure no one could overhear my baby-bundle news. “And guess what? I’m getting my first ultrasound then!”
“Oh my God! Like, baby’s first picture?”
“Yup,” I said, smiling ear to ear. “I’m so excited.”
“I was going to ask how you’re feeling about all of this. This is some heavy stuff, girl. But it sounds like you’re really positive about it. Like you’re happy.”
“Well, ‘happy’ might be a little bit of an overstatement right now. I mean, I guess yeah, in a sense, I’m happy. This is a pretty crazy thing happening to my body. To my life. Getting to see this little guy’s picture—”
“It’s a boy?” Sophie shrieked.
“I don’t know yet. I was just saying—guy, girl—whatever.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Anyway,” I said, “It is exciting and crazy what’s happening, but I’m still really…scared. I guess it’s still surreal right now. Maybe it’ll become more real when I actually see the little guy. Or girl.”
I didn’t know if it was the pregnant woman hormones that made me feel elated one minute, and scared to death the next about the pregnancy, or if it was the simple fact that I was going to be a single mom. And I had big baby-daddy problems ahead of me. One moment I’d be happy over this big life change and the chance to really do something special, like raise my very own baby, and the next I’d think about the whole mess of a situation and how none of it was ideal. It was an emotional roller coaster, and I was ready to get off and leave the park. Too bad I had another seven months to go.
“The appointment is next week, on Thursday,” I told an eager Sophie. “You want to come?”
“I was going to ask if I could, but that day’s no good. I’ve got a huge order that night. There’s no way I could ask Katie to let me off the hook.”
Sophie worked for a bakery and catering company called Katie’s Kitchen over in Belltown, a bit of a ways from where I worked, across Lake Union. She had big dreams of some day owning her own bakery and café. And last I heard she was heavily pursuing them, trying to get a business license and all that stuff figured out. I hoped she did open her own shop up. She had the determination and ethics it would take to run a successful bakery in the competitive culinary capital of Seattle. And she made a mean pastry. And her cupcakes! I could be on my deathbed from eating too many sweets, and if she walked in with one of her vanilla-raspberry swirl cupcakes, I’d willingly die one happy woman.
“I wish I could go with you, Robin,” she said. “I can’t get out of it at all. I bet Lara will be free. You should definitely call her.”
Before Sophie could inevitably ask when I’d share the baby news with Lara, I said, “That’s another thing. I texted the girls that we need a girls’ night. Wanted to see if you were free this Thursday? After work? Dinner, drinks, whatever—my place? Figured I’d spring the news then.”
“Count me in, girl! And I’m sure Claire can make it without a problem, too,” she said. “I’m pretty certain she doesn’t have anything going on this whole weekend, in fact.” Sophie was still temporarily living with Claire and Claire’s long-term boyfriend, Conner, since Sophie had moved out of Brandon’s apartment when they broke up. I thought Claire and Sophie hung out together all the time before, but now that they were roommates it was rare to see them apart. If they did have to separate, they were at least woven into each other’s planner somehow each day.
“Oh and I’ll see you in a few, right?” I asked. “You’re still up for coming over tonight and helping me figure out the, uh, situation?”
“Thirty minutes sound good?” Sophie asked, ready to get back to our plans of telling Brandon the news.
“See you then!”
During my drive home, while getting three ebullient texts, all from the girls letting me know that th
ey were certainly game for a girls’ night, I started to reflect on how I would approach Brandon with the news that I was carrying his child. Sophie would be meeting me at my apartment any moment to help me figure out just that, but I had no idea where to start, and we hadn’t gotten very far in our plans the previous night.
What would I do? Pick up the phone, dial his number, and then once he answered just sit there, mouth agape, speechless? Or randomly show up on his doorstep and say, “Hey, guess what?” And what if he wasn’t home? What if he didn’t pick up the phone when, or if, I called? Would I gather enough courage to attempt a second time? A third? Would I ever be able to reach him? And how would he react if I did get the chance to tell him?
At that moment, I thought I felt a tickle in my tummy, as if the baby was giving me a little sign that he or she was really there. It was probably silly, since my baby book said I wouldn’t be able to feel any movement until my fourth month or so. And even then it might only be very light and unnoticeable.
“Probably just nervousness,” I said to myself, as I turned into my neighborhood. “Probably butterflies.”
***
Sophie poured me another glass of cold, refreshing water as I dug into my Caesar salad.
“Thanks for grabbing dinner on your way,” I mumbled through my mouthful of lettuce, parmesan cheese, and croutons. She told me not to worry about it, that I needed proper nutrition and strength since everything I did was for two now.
Sophie took another bite of her salad while fanning through the pages of the baby book, then suddenly said, “Oh! That reminds me.” She pulled some items from her oversized bag. “I picked up some stuff for you today while I was out at the market getting some ingredients for work. Here.” She produced a bag of tea leaves, some dried Chukar cherries, a bag of mixed nuts and dried fruits, and a small bag of organic, gluten-free cookies.
When Girlfriends Step Up Page 3
