Chapter 12 Liz #2
“Hi,” Liz said, attempting a breathy, sexy voice while crossing the room from her closet. She probably sounded like an asthmatic who needed an inhaler. Preston was already in bed, wearing boxer shorts and his faded Dartmouth T-shirt, fumbling with the remote.
“Hey,” he said automatically. “Want to watch Bill Maher?”
“I was thinking we could do something else first,” Liz said, arranging herself on top of the duvet cover in what she hoped was an attractive, come-hither pose.
“What?” Preston asked. He looked genuinely curious, like Liz might be suggesting a game of thumb war or a walk around the neighborhood.
“You know…” Liz said.
Preston looked over. He noticed the silk nightgown. And the candles. Synapses fired and then he said, “Aww, babe.”
But not in the good way of saying it. Preston said it in the rejection-couched-in-niceties kind of way. Liz frowned. She felt silly and embarrassed and, obviously, repellant.
“It’s not because I’m not attracted to you—I swear!”
“Then why don’t you want to…do it?” Liz internally shook her head at herself. It?
“I told you, I’m freaked out about the baby seeing my dick,” Preston said.
“But it doesn’t go into the uterus. That’s not how it works.”
“Do we really know that, though?”
Liz looked at him, incredulous. Did the father of her child really just ask her that? Did he think the world was flat too?
“I know I’m being nuts,” Preston said, “but I can’t get the idea out of my head. You’re doing your thing, and then all of a sudden, your dad’s dick is coming at you like a torpedo?”
Liz just looked at him, then made a sound to signal that she had heard him, which was about all she could offer.
“Hey,” Preston said, grabbing Liz’s arm, then traveling down it to knead her hand, like massaging her extremities was a suitable consolation prize. “I promise, it doesn’t have anything to do with you. As soon as the baby’s born, we’ll be back at it.”
Liz smiled and went off to the closet, where she silent-screamed into a pile of jeans that no longer fit her. She couldn’t take another failed attempt. A secretly sexless pregnancy this would be.
Work that week was excruciating. On Monday, when the whole staff gathered for a morning meeting to watch dailies, Liz watched Cam eye-fuck a new assistant while baby-talking with his girlfriend on the phone.
On Tuesday, they received a report that the paramedics were called overnight because Kylie had an acute case of alcohol poisoning.
No one was too concerned, however, because while one contestant was getting her stomach pumped, two others had given up on the male prospects and hooked up with each other. Everyone was delirious with excitement.
“Ratings gold!” crowed an entry-level producer who played pickleball with Cam.
“Threesome! Throuple!” Cam shouted, amped up like he was at a MrBeast fan event and pronouncing it incorrectly: threw-ple. “That would crush!”
Liz needed out. And fast.
She finished going through more B-roll of late-night antics, then emailed the cut to Cam and left the office an hour early, allowing more than enough time to get across town to the third new-mom class.
When she arrived and ascended the stairs, Dawn’s perky, signature brunette bob coming into view, Liz realized how much had changed since the first class.
It was no longer a question of who she would sit next to, but whether she or Victoria would arrive first and stake their spots together on the kaleidoscopic carpet.
During the second class, Liz and Victoria had whispered in each other’s ears the whole time.
Their alliance and attachment, ad hoc at the first class, was now well established.
Liz rested her purse beside her to save a spot for Victoria.
Finally, her friend glided in at a brisk, eager clip.
“You look weird. What’s going on?”
Liz contemplated various versions of the truth. I’m fantasizing about murdering my boss. I might have tried to get pregnant on purpose. I’m not a good person and I don’t deserve you as a friend.
“Nothing!” Liz said. “What’s going on with you?”
“I’m pregnant. Have you gotten any bites on LinkedIn yet?”
“No. I’m starting to lose hope,” Liz admitted. “Maybe indies are as impossible as Preston said.” Dawn was closing the door to the room to begin class, but Victoria swiveled her head like an owl to look at Liz.
“You’re not giving up, are you?”
“No,” Liz said, lowering her voice to a whisper as Dawn announced the topic of class: sleep schedules.
The women clapped and cheered. Hurrah! Answers to the questions that were plaguing them most—how would they go about getting their infants to sleep through the night?
How soon after birth could they anticipate getting some rest again?
“I’m all in my head, though,” Liz continued. “Maybe I should try to pivot to something more realistic, like scripted or another reality show.”
“Is that the goal? A less heinous version of what you’re doing now?”
In the background, Dawn plunged into her lecture. Liz listened for a second to Dawn, who was advising them about wake windows for newborns. “We can talk about it later. I don’t want you to miss the sleep talk.”
But Victoria waved this off. “I hired a live-in baby nurse.”
“So you’re auditing this class for fun?”
“You know what’s going to keep me up at night?
” Victoria said. “Thinking about you wasting your talents, working for someone who should come with his own warning label. You don’t have to wait for the perfect opportunity to materialize to quit.
You can temp or wait tables to pay the bills in the meantime—whatever it takes. ”
Dawn kept advising about nap schedules, but Liz was too preoccupied to listen.
The more she thought about the indignity of her job and the outrageousness of Cam’s behavior, and the more she played back Victoria’s words in her mind—This is your life.
What do you want to do with it?—the more fired up Liz got.
She knew that if Victoria were in this position, questioning what to do, the answer would be obvious.
Quit your job. Take them down—all the men who treat women like things and all the women who sit there and watch them do it.
With a sudden ferocity of decisiveness that she rarely felt, much less exhibited, Liz plucked up her phone.
The words came naturally. The email wrote itself.
Liz was sure it would be likened to a feminist Jerry Maguire manifesto of sorts.
Fine. Good. Let them, she thought. If her coworkers needed to wrap their heads around her missive by drawing an association to an iconic Tom Cruise film, so be it.
Jump on a couch. It wouldn’t detract from the headline—I’M QUITTING—or dilute the essence of Liz’s words—THIS WHOLE PLACE IS SEXIST AND RAPEY AND YOU’RE A SAD BUNCH OF MORALLY REPUGNANT HACKS WHO CAN’T EVEN PRONOUNCE THE WORD THROUPLE CORRECTLY.
AND PRO TIP: YOU DON’T HAVE TO WEAR THE ENTIRE BOTTLE OF COLOGNE!
YOU SMELL LIKE A DUTY-FREE STORE, YOU LECHEROUS DESK-CREEPER!
Liz didn’t forget to touch upon the show itself: THERE’S A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR EVERYONE WHO HAD A HAND IN THIS OFFENSIVE, CRAPTASTIC TRAVESTY.
THAT’S THE REAL CATCH! AT SOME POINT, EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO ANSWER FOR WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO FEMINISM AND DECENCY—COMMON DECENCY! !!—SO LOOK FORWARD TO THAT!
Liz felt fire in her veins along with a certainty that she was doing the right thing. Her thumb hovered over the screen, but only for a second. Liz pressed Send and the manifesto hurtled off into cyberspace, heading to Cam, all the producers, and the HR department.
She put the phone back in her purse and didn’t look at it for the rest of class, pretending to pay keen attention to Dawn’s directives even though her mind was whirring like a car’s air-conditioning system set to max.
When class was over, Liz gathered her purse on autopilot and prepared to stand, but found herself incapable of completing the task.
Had she really written that? Had she really done that?
In the middle of a new-mom class? Yes. Yes, she had.
She had completely lost her shit. Over email.
Along with a sense of disbelief, Liz was also proud.
Maybe all the instances when she had failed to stand up for herself had led to this one stunning, transcendent moment of assertion.
“Wanna go for ice cream?” Victoria asked, handing Liz her purse. Liz still hadn’t budged from her spot on the floor. Liz looked up. She felt like she was operating in slow motion.
“Ice cream. Yes. Sure. Let’s do it.” Liz was grateful to be handed a direction.
She would give Victoria the update when they weren’t surrounded by pregnant women.
Liz followed Victoria out amidst a chorus of their classmates thanking Dawn for her wisdom and complimenting her comprehensive explanation of sleep-training methods.
“Ten weeks or ten pounds!” one mom cheered.
“Let the sleep training begin!” another said enthusiastically.
Victoria tossed a look at Liz while slipping on her shoes, another elegant pair of heels. “How much are they going to hate me when they find out I’m getting a night nurse?”
“I’m sure you’re not the only one,” Liz said.
“A night nurse maybe,” Victoria said. “But a twenty-four-hour live-in?”
“How long do you have her for?” Liz asked as they exited down the stairs.
“Six months,” Victoria said. “And before you ask—it’s a fortune.
But I’m going back to work as soon as I can and Ace is old—he’s not going to be up at two in the morning with our newborn.
Or maybe he is—he’s so excited it wouldn’t surprise me.
If he wants to take a shift instead of Magda—great, we’ll have options. ”
Would Preston wake up with the baby at night?
Liz realized this was another thing barreling towards them that they hadn’t talked about.
Then she realized she no longer had maternity leave.
Because she no longer had a job. Because she had sent an accusatory, expletive-filled email of resignation.
A beam of late-afternoon sunlight, diffused but still strong, hit Liz’s face through the cirrus-smudged sky and she suddenly felt lightheaded.
She put a hand up to her forehead to steady herself.
“Are you all right?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“That’s weird.” Victoria had taken out her phone and now was looking warily at a text message. “Sorry,” she said, snapping her focus back to Liz. “You look a little pale. Do you feel okay? We’re going to talk more about your job situation and figure out a plan.”
“I was a little dizzy, but it passed,” Liz assured her. “What’s going on?”
Liz watched Victoria fight the urge to check whatever was happening on her phone.
“I didn’t read the text yet,” Victoria said. “It’s just odd. My friend Jen, who I told you about, texted me and it’s not either of our birthdays…”
“Check it.”
Victoria looked at her phone, her face creasing with confusion. “ ‘So sorry about your dad,’ ” she read.
“Sorry about what?” Liz asked.
“No idea.” Victoria typed and then there was a chime as she received an immediate response. She cocked her head. “Oh. That makes sense. He’s dead.”
“What?!” Liz exclaimed.
Victoria looked up with a bewildered expression.
“My dad died. Apparently.”
“Oh my God. Victoria, I’m so sorry.”
For the first time since Liz had met her, Victoria looked like she didn’t know what to do.
It occurred to Liz that she had quit her job, and rather hysterically at that, due to the influence of someone who had been accidentally informed of her dad’s death over text.
It probably should’ve alarmed Liz, but she actually found it fitting. Or maybe she was still hysterical.