Chapter 5 Victoria #2
Bet you didn’t see that coming, Victoria wanted to tell her wainscoted walls as she stepped into the soon-to-be baby’s room.
They had never outfitted it to serve as a guest room, instead using it as a spillover storage space for extraneous odds and ends—spare suitcases, old memorabilia, and the like.
Victoria tried to imagine the bookshelves filled with fairy tales and children’s stories, the Farrow she was losing it. But she did have things to say.
“I didn’t think I wanted to be a mother,” Victoria told her unborn child.
“The whole idea that a woman has to reproduce in order to be fulfilled, in order to fulfill her purpose on this earth, that really stuck in my craw, you know?” She imagined her little boy nodding while he floated, suspended in amniotic fluid like an astronaut in space.
“But you know what? If more women were honest about being conflicted about motherhood, maybe the world would have less crappy parents and fewer messed-up kids. Obviously, I changed my mind,” Victoria continued telling her unborn child.
“And that’s the thing about life. One person can come into yours and change everything about it.
That’s what your dad did and now it’s your turn.
Because I want you. I want you very, very much. ”
A shadow passed across the floor and Victoria looked up to see Ace standing in the doorway. She wondered how much he had heard.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d talk to our unborn child like a lunatic,” she told him.
“My dear, if you’re a lunatic, I don’t know what to call half the women I dated in the great big bad before,” Ace said, sitting down next to her.
He put one of his hands on top of hers and Victoria admired it.
She had always been a sucker for large, strong hands that were more like paws.
“What have you two been talking about?” Ace asked.
“The basics,” Victoria said. “Integrity, equality, individualism…”
“Great.” Ace smiled. “All that’s left for me to do is teach him how to throw a football.”
“Meaning, you’re going to learn how to do that?” Victoria teased.
“YouTube,” Ace said. “I’m sure there’s a video for how to explain to everyone at the playground that you’re the dad, not the grandpa.”
“We’re really talking about how you’re old when it’s fundamentally impossible for a medical professional to reference my pregnancy without putting the word geriatric in front of it?”
Ace offered Victoria an unbothered shrug. “We’re young at heart.”
They walked hand in hand back to their bedroom as Ace enumerated the reasons they’d make better parents at their advanced ages than if they had embarked upon the journey when they were less experienced, an argument Victoria had heard before and couldn’t say she disagreed with.
Still, Victoria thought as she tried to fall asleep next to Ace for the second time, she really would have liked to have made managing director before she took on the mantle of motherhood.
Her last thought, before she finally drifted off to sleep, was that she was scared motherhood would make her less ambitious—and equally scared it wouldn’t.
Victoria chose her favorite power suit that stopped just short of fuck you shoulder pads.
The lack of sleep showed on her face, most particularly the sallow under-eye circles that Ace pretended not to be able to see.
Victoria said if that was the case, he needed to get his vision checked, then smeared on a thick concealer.
She wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice, so she took the time to shove a piece of sourdough toast in her mouth and offered Ace her cheek to kiss on her way out the door.
She made it to the office in fifteen minutes and girded herself to confront her coworkers’ reactions.
“Victoria!” Richard Delancey, one of the partners, exclaimed as soon as she stepped off the elevator into the lobby. “We didn’t have a chance to congratulate you yesterday.”
Victoria paused. Why would he want to congratulate her on what had been an unmitigated disaster? Her confusion must have been apparent because Richard clarified, “The baby!” Richard looked like he was threatening to hug her. He also seemed…genuine?
“Oh, yes. Well, I did run out of here like I shit the bed on signing a star client,” Victoria said. “That didn’t exactly leave ample time for a postmortem.”
Richard flashed her a sympathetic look. “You win some, you lose some.” He shrugged. “Cliché as it sounds, my kids are the best thing I’ve ever done. Including the unemployed dipshit who’s the reason there’s smoke coming from my Amex.”
“Note to self: Watch my credit score,” Victoria said.
“There you go,” Richard chuckled. “That’s all you need to know about parenting.”
Victoria laughed. Did she and Richard just bond?
“I’m happy for you,” Richard reiterated before heading to his office.
As she walked to hers, Victoria was met with similar sentiments by everyone she encountered.
Only Mark came across as anything less than authentic when he asked Victoria how she was feeling (probably hoping for hyperemesis to sideline her for the rest of the pregnancy) and offered his condolences for the conference-room debacle.
“Do you mind if I take a shot at Nash?” he asked, his shellacked hair immobile as he cocked his head. “It looks like I’m our only hope to get him at the firm, after all,” Mark added.
It took reserves of well-honed resolve for Victoria to maintain a poker face.
She couldn’t believe—well, she could—that Mark would have the audacity to swoop in so quickly.
With the events of the previous night—the hospital visit, the mere four hours of sleep she had managed before reporting to the office—Victoria hadn’t had a moment to craft a contrite apology to Nash.
However futile the endeavor might be, she was at least planning to try to salvage the relationship and see if there was any hope he might still sign with her.
But Mark was giving the impression that it was a fait accompli.
Victoria didn’t think Nash would take a liking to Mark.
He was proficient at his job but his personality carried the finesse of a Brillo pad.
Nevertheless, the idea of it still burned.
Victoria offered a thin-lipped smile to Mark and said, “Go for it.”
She walked away, fury building. Was this how it was going to be now? Victoria could play at being one of the men, but not when she was marked in a way that shouted her femininity.
She was so preoccupied she forgot to consider Harper. As Victoria rounded the corner towards her office, her assistant’s shriek made her jump.
“We’re having a baby!” Harper exclaimed. “I am SO! SO! SO! Excited!”
“Thanks, Harper.” Victoria smiled at her assistant, who held the distinction of being the first person to jump up and down in that hallway, and this included a client of Victoria’s who learned that he had quadrupled his net worth to a cool $400 million.
Harper lunged forward to hug Victoria. When Harper pulled back, her eyes beelined for Victoria’s stomach. Victoria prayed Harper wouldn’t toss out any horrible phrases like bumpwatch or baby-loading zone.
“Mark’s such a dick. Coming in like that and trying to poach your client?
Rude!” Harper rolled her eyes. “Screw him. You kill at work and you have a guy who worships you and you’re having a baby.
You win.” When Victoria heard it spelled out like that, it almost sounded like she could have it all, even though she knew the mere concept was a colossal fallacy propagated by the patriarchy.
“I’m still trying to figure out one thing I’m good at,” Harper continued.
“Besides being a genius with a Beautyblender.”
Victoria put her hand on Harper’s shoulder to usher her into the office with her. “I’m a little terrified to have this baby, to tell you the truth.”
“Why?” Harper asked. “You’re going to be such a good mom.”
Victoria nearly halted in her tracks. It had rolled off Harper’s tongue so easily. To try to corral her emotions, Victoria continued over to her desk, sat down, and powered on her monitors.
“Thanks, Harper. That means a lot. I hope so.”
“I know so!”
“I have managed to keep that orchid alive,” Victoria said, gesturing to the elegant bloom. “So maybe that bodes well.”
Harper looked at the orchid, then flushed a deep pink.
“What?” Victoria asked. “Harper…?”
“I tried plant CPR. I put an ice cube in it every week but…” Harper shook her head. Victoria looked at the thriving orchid with confusion.
“I got you a new one before you noticed it was dying…slash dead.”
“Oh,” Victoria said, the implication registering. “I can’t keep a plant alive.” A moment of uncertainty transpired between them, but then Victoria started laughing, which gave permission to Harper to join in, and soon the two of them were giggling like seventh graders on the school bus.
“I can’t believe you swapped out my dead flower,” Victoria said.
“My parents did it with my goldfish when I was six,” Harper explained, her face gleaming with amusement.
Victoria chuckled. She had been patting herself on the back when she could not, in fact, keep anything alive.
It was only later, when Victoria thought about how much weight she had placed on the orchid’s ability to thrive despite her inability to provide it the proper care, that she decided she would buy a horticulture manual, if that’s what it took, because she was going to keep Orchid II alive and flourishing from here on out.