Chapter 7 Victoria
Shortly after Victoria’s disaster-riven pitch, Mark was named managing director of the firm.
Across the conference room table, Victoria watched as Mark accepted the role with forced humility, pledging to maintain the firm’s track record while continuing to elevate it to great heights.
That Victoria was able to maintain eye contact with her nemesis turned superior without vomiting again in the exact same place where she had done so during the biggest pitch of her career seemed like an accomplishment worthy of applause, if not a Finovate Award, a.k.a.
the Oscar of the financial and tech worlds.
“No hard feelings?” Mark asked Victoria, popping a mini blueberry muffin into his mouth. The company-wide meeting had concluded and everyone had begun filing out of the room.
“Of course not,” Victoria responded, even going so far as to extend her hand. Mark hesitated a moment, as if a Trojan horse could be tucked into the curve of her palm, then shook it.
As Victoria walked away, she reminded herself that even though Mark had gotten the position over her, and even though Nash Winton had replied to Victoria’s message with a terse, perfunctory response that didn’t invite further communication, Nash also hadn’t jumped at the opportunity to get into business with Mark.
Though it was a blow to the firm that neither Victoria nor Mark had signed him, it did provide Victoria some comfort.
Victoria didn’t have much time to dwell on Mark’s new title or worry about how his oversight would affect the corporate environment, however, because when she got back to her office, she found Deborah, Annalise, and Ellen planted in front of her desk.
A janitor showing up in scuba gear and a bird mask would have been less odd, so Victoria took a quick look around to make sure she was in the correct place.
Her computer monitors blinked hello, her Birkin rested on the coffee table, and Orchid II sat cheerfully in the corner, its pearly blooms still at full mast.
“Victoria, hi,” Deborah began, her tone hard to place.
Victoria offered a tentative smile rather than responding, What fresh hell is this?
“We have great news!” Ellen said, throwing her arms up in the air like a cheerleader about to execute a lift.
“We’re so happy for you!” Annalise said, gesturing in the general direction of Victoria’s midsection, which was beginning to protrude ever so slightly, as if it were emulating a waxing moon. “And we want to help you celebrate this happy time.”
“We got you an appointment at Mother’s Haven—today!” Deborah said, her voice straining to be heard over her cohorts.
“So you can do your registry for the baby shower!” Annalise explained.
“Which we’re throwing you,” Victoria thought she heard Ellen say, but no, it couldn’t be.
Victoria looked between their pleased faces. “You’re throwing me…?”
“A baby shower!” they all said within seconds of one another. The words reverberated like an echo. This was on-brand, given that Victoria felt like she had fallen down an elevator shaft and entered a different dimension.
“We called over to see if you had registered but they didn’t have a record of you,” Annalise said.
“Mother’s Haven is the place,” Ellen said. “Your appointment is at eleven.”
“Today?” Victoria said, trying to process all of this and also buy time to figure out how she was going to wiggle out of having a baby shower thrown for her by three women whose only real connection to her was that they enjoyed talking about her behind her back.
“That’s—I appreciate it,” Victoria said, treading carefully, “but my day is—packed.”
“Not anymore!” Harper announced, popping into Victoria’s office as if she had been hovering outside, waiting for her cue. “I switched some things around in your calendar.”
“Great,” Victoria said weakly. She didn’t think Harper knew how to access her calendar.
The words were forming on Victoria’s lips when she noticed the expansive look on her assistant’s face.
Victoria’s gaze panned over to Ellen, Deborah, and Annalise, who wore similar expressions.
Could it be? They were simply trying to do something nice for her?
“The day my daughter was born was the best day of my life,” Ellen said.
Deborah nodded solemnly. “Having children is the greatest gift.”
“There is no harder or better job than being a mother,” Annalise offered.
Victoria looked at them, at their indelible sincerity.
Deborah, Ellen, and Annalise didn’t understand her and had even delighted in picking her apart, but maybe gossip was just their sport, and it was harmless?
More to the point, here they were, crossing her threshold with an olive branch because they were thrilled for her, plain and simple.
When Victoria thought of it like that, how could she rebuff such a gesture?
“Well…I guess if my calendar is clear, I’m out of excuses,” Victoria said.
“Yay!” Harper cheered.
“This is going to be great!” Deborah said. “You’re going to love Mother’s Haven!”
“Have so much fun!” Ellen commanded before the women abandoned their anchorage in front of Victoria’s desk.
“I will,” Victoria promised, knowing she would do nothing of the sort.
When she arrived at Mother’s Haven, located in a freestanding two-story bungalow on a quiet but prime street off Melrose, Victoria sized up the storefront and immediately took umbrage with not only the smiling stork—a stork, really?
—that accompanied the bubbly script lettering across the window, but also the childlike font itself.
She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the stork’s grin and pushed open the door.
Victoria told herself that the sooner she started, the faster it would be over and she could be back at her desk researching the new treasury bond she wanted to check out.
Inside the boutique, an explosion of paraphernalia was organized to suggest a sort of merry chaos, the fun chaos of parenthood, where painting might become cooking might become scooting might become—who knows?
! The possibilities were endless, as were the offerings of the store.
Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff, Victoria paused to let her eyes pass over the many aisles filled to the brim.
Despite feeling intimidated, Victoria was also wary.
Cave women hadn’t had access to this cornucopia of gear.
How had they managed to keep their offspring alive?
As Victoria walked over to the register, she vowed not to be sucked into an industry predicated on flooding expectant mothers with fear by telling them that they needed an army of gadgets to be up to the task.
Otherwise—cheerful grin!—your child will feel unloved in his or her formative years and possibly fail at everything in life—smiley face!
Victoria waited patiently behind four women, three of whom had paired diamonds with athleisure.
The fourth possessed a height her bad posture couldn’t disguise and looked like she was in the early stages of pregnancy.
Her sweatshirt was stained on the shoulder, something she perhaps had just realized; Victoria watched her try to arrange her light brown hair to cover the spot.
Meanwhile, the nonpregnant friends were all squealing over a tiny stuffed mouse in a tutu, which rested inside a delicately painted cardboard matchbox.
“This is the cutest thing ever! You have to get this. Mike is threatening to divorce me if we throw the dice again. He said four kids is crazy, but I really want a girl,” one of the friends said emphatically, her auburn ponytail swishing with each statement.
“You have to get it, Liz,” the next friend, a blonde with a chic bob, agreed.
“I don’t even know if I’m having a girl,” the pregnant one reminded her friends.
“And four kids is crazy,” the blonde told the boy-mom. “The mess alone!”
“I know, I know, but I need some ballet in my life,” the boy-mom said. “If I have to go to one more eight-hour soccer tournament in Chatsworth?” She shuddered.
Victoria watched the Liz woman covertly check the price tag on the mouse.
“It’s Maileg,” the raven-haired third friend explained. “It’s a European brand. Lark has all their mice and accessories.”
“I’m buying it for you!” the blonde announced.
“Well, thanks,” Liz said as her friend planted the dancing European rodent on the counter and pulled out her wallet, for which at least five reptiles had to perish. “I’ve always wanted a dancing mouse, but only if it was overpriced and European. Budget American mice? No way.”
The blonde tensed. “Liz, this is your child you’re talking about. You can’t buy anything budget or American, ever! Especially not car seats. Promise me.”
As Victoria was trying not to mutter “What the fuck?” to herself, Liz turned. She and Victoria looked at each other and their wide-eyed, scleral show said it all: What the actual fuck?
The blonde was staring at Liz expectantly, so she eventually swiveled her head back. “Repeat after me. American car seat: no. European mouse: yes.”
Victoria’s voice cut through the air. “Actually, American manufacturing is superior in many industries.”
Everyone shifted to look at Victoria. Liz’s friends regarded her with a whiff of annoyance, but Liz held Victoria’s gaze once again. It was one of those looks between strangers that conveyed entire conversations, a silent dialogue unfurling like a CVS receipt.
They were interrupted when the boy-mom gave Victoria an uninterested “Good to know,” then slung a ropy, toned arm around Liz’s shoulder.
Victoria thought she had the distinct look of someone who prayed at the altar of Tracy Anderson four times a week.
“I’m going to hate you so much if you get a girl,” she told Liz.
Victoria flashed her pregnant compatriot an exaggerated worried look and Liz shot her back a faux-frightened expression.