LITMIR.BIZ

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shook my head. “It’s never happened before. My cycle’s always been as reliable—”

      “As a clock,” Jasmine said. “I remember. Maybe your body’s taking a stand. All this on-again off-again pill-popping! So where’d you get the idea you can drink spritzers? What do you think? You’re ‘a little bit pregnant’?”

      “As a matter of fact, yes.” I tasted some bland fizz. “That’s exactly what I am. One tablespoon of white wine can’t possible harm a developing baby.”

      “No! But imagine the harm to the mother! Spritzers are so eighties.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather go cold turkey. Actually—” Another sip of martini, and she was almost mollified. “Any child exposed to spritzers in the womb HAS to be a moderate drinker. That’s a good thing!” She frowned. “So let’s say you’re more than a little bit pregnant.”

      “You mean pregnant.”

      “Right. Have you decided what you’ll do with your phone?”

      “My business isn’t for sale, if that’s what you’re asking.”

      My secret apartment is close enough to the East Side preschools—but not so close that I risk being spotted by the other mommies. I’ve got a plausible strategy for my child’s education, but I still have to figure out how to avoid answering my phone without losing all my customers. The mommy track’s starting to look like the mommy tightrope.

      “You’re not going to be like Trisha!” Jasmine said.

      “What exactly have you got against Trish?”

      “Nothing. But she married a bum! He’s constantly getting fired—well, that’s what she says. I sometimes wonder if he’s ever had a job. Your husband’s in a different league.”

      I don’t like the sound of Trisha’s husband either, yet feel an obligation to defend her. It’s tacky to trash someone who sends you business—and there’s more to it than that.

      “Nobody knows what goes on in another girl’s marriage,” I said. “You can’t judge from outside. I’ve never asked Trish what the deal is with her husband.”

      And she doesn’t ask what the deal is with mine. Every marriage is based on a secret code. Married hookers respect that; single girls like Jasmine just don’t get it. A call girl who’s never been married feels comfortable expounding on the most excruciating details. Things you instinctively shy away from when you’re married.

      “You don’t have to hustle the way Trish does.” Jasmine reached toward the bowl of nuts. “Soon Matt will be earning enough to hire a nanny for your nanny! Let’s face it, Trish stays with that guy because he IS the nanny.”

      “He’s the father of her child,” I said tersely. “What they do is none of our business.”

      “Whoa. You’re pregnant for all of THREE MINUTES, and already you’re closing ranks with the other mommies! Soon you’ll be shopping for baby clothes with your sister-in-law! Have you been stroller-shopping yet?”

      “I won’t be discussing my pregnancy with Elspeth. She’s very big on vaginal delivery.”

      Even though she had twins!

      “Vaginal WHAT?” Jasmine looked horrified. “Where do people GET these crazy ideas?”

      “Well, actually …” Vaginal was the default setting for most of human history, but I know what she means. “Childbirth isn’t our biggest area of disagreement. Schooling is. Elspeth’s planning on sending her kids to Dalton. When she found out I was looking into Loyola, she started talking to Matt behind my back!”

      “Isn’t Loyola … a Catholic high school? You’re talking about an embryo.”

      “It’s co-ed and Jesuit. We have to plan ahead,” I explained. “And I need Matt’s help. He has to find out if anyone at the office has a child at Saint David’s. Or Sacred Heart. I want to get started at a Catholic pre-school, but Elspeth’s telling Matt we should take advantage of her Dalton connections. Trying to brainwash him against my plans! I have no intention of running into Elspeth every morning and afternoon when I—”

      “Hang on a sec. You’ll send your kid to parochial school just to avoid your sister-in-law? You can’t let her intimidate you like this!”

      “Elspeth was a prosecutor,” I pointed out. “Have you forgotten she worked for the DA’s office before she had the twins? She’s always asking me to invite my single friends to her parties. And she’s trying to find a girlfriend for her favorite bachelor—that guy with the new sailboat? He’s a prosecutor too! And what about Elspeth’s husband? I’m trying to keep my distance from Jason,” I reminded her. “Elspeth wants to know why she’s never met you.”

      “You’re right,” Jasmine said abruptly. “We don’t need Elspeth OR Jason fixating on your single friends! The less contact you have the better.”

      “There’s no way Elspeth will even consider the pre-schools I’ve scoped out,” I assured her. “And if she continues to oppose my commitment to a Catholic education, I have every right to avoid her. I’m protecting my pregnancy from stress!”

      “Maybe you’re not even pregnant.” She signaled for the bill, and flipped her phone open to check the time. “But if you are? I bet you can’t have just one. Nobody has just one these days. Especially bankers.”

      Amazing. There is no aspect of mating that eludes Jasmine’s expertise. And the less she knows about it firsthand, the more opinions she has. How many years have I known her? In all this time, she’s had a grand total of one relationship. Jasmine has never even lived with a man.

      “Matt’s not just any banker,” I told her. “He’s my husband, and he cares about my well-being.”

      “I always said he was a catch! But when you start reproducing your DNA, you enter the primal rat race. You have to keep up.” She pulled a small mirror out of her tote bag. Using the bag as a shield to hide the mirror, she peeked quickly at her lipstick. “If you think you’ll have time to see your johns on the sly, you’re deluding yourself. In case you haven’t noticed, Wall Street’s experiencing a DNA boom. Bankers’ wives don’t do small families anymore. They’re thinking Bumper Crop. They’re as wedded to that reproductive plow as they are to their husbands. A lot of these mega-mommies have powerful ancestral memories. From when their great-great-grandfather was a potato farmer.”

      “Where did you hear all this?”

      “You’re too close to the situation to see it clearly. Strollers are the new handbags. And children—” she put the mirror away “—are the new potatoes. I follow all the markets, you know. Not just my own.”

      She might be right about handbags, but I hope she’s wrong about “new” potatoes. Is she implying that the young bankers are potato farmers?

      “And meanwhile, our business is getting more competitive every day.” Jasmine smoothed out her skirt as she stood up. “You’ll be keeping up appearances on two fronts. Trying to be a MILF and a MIFF.”

      Okay, I know what a MILF is. A “mom I’d like to fuck.” Fertile, fit, conceivably available, but—

      “MIFF?” I asked. “What the hell’s a MIFF?”

      As we left the bar, I realized that my phone was vibrating, but I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself by answering while the uniformed staff eyed our legs. Jasmine cocked her head to one side and whispered: “A mom I frequently fuck.” On the sidewalk, she adjusted her sunglasses and said, in that dark tone which precedes one of her flights of wisdom, “No woman can serve two masters.”

      A man in a very good gray suit wandered past the hotel, and she swept some hair behind her ears, with a little smirk. Losing her previous

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