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Jules sniffs. “Lizzie, he treated you like a fifties housewife, expecting you to act like some kind of WAG, not a woman with a job that keeps you at the office late most nights. Plus he secretly watched Fox News. He was not the guy for you. You were just settling and you know it.”
“I know,” I concede. “But he was ready. It’s a certified fact that no man under forty who is sane, has a job and is fairly attractive wants to settle down in New York City.”
Jules gives me a firm look. “Henry did.”
“You met him straight out of college. That’s not fair!”
Jules and Henry’s story is straight out of a romance novel—in reverse. Fresh-faced and right on the heels of our first jobs at the magazine, Jules had been on her way home one night and recognized the cute boy walking toward her. Henry had been a senior when she was a freshman at Emory. Now both were living in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, and they literally bumped into one another—or so Henry claims. Jules told me she spotted him fifty feet away and planned the whole thing. After their “fateful run-in,” he wooed her with his slow-cooked Carolina pulled-pork dinners and “power-cuddling,” as Jules joked. They moved in together after only six months, then spent the rest of their twenties having fun, going to hear live music and traveling all over the world before getting married last year—one of the lucky ones, but to her credit, she never rubs it in.
“It’s just, Talia’s right—there’s no time to waste. Just get back out there.”
“Like with this guy, you mean?” I hold up my latest attempt at turning a Tinder convo into a date. Want 2B scummy with me 2nite? reads the opening line from a sweet-looking Williamsburg man with a scruffy beard.
“Oh, jeez,” says Jules. “Just block him!”
“But he’s wearing a suit! That means he has a job at least!” I pretend to sniff, looking down. “Or was invited to a wedding...”
The next man that comes up has long, brown stringy hair, a mustache and is holding a poodle in his lap. I like it doggy-style, reads his profile. Shuddering, I click the app closed.
“Just keep pounding the rock,” nudges Jules. “One day it will crack.”
“I know,” I sigh, thinking, or I will.
I lean back onto the outer wall thwacking the cold glass with a loud bang as the sad realization hits me: unlike the twentysomething “little blonde girls” or LBGs I see husband-hunting around the East and West Villages, secretly quoting that Princeton Mom, I’ve been toting dog-eared Eat Pray Love and Lean In and actually believing the two rules my old editor in chief Patricia told me the first day I arrived as an intern at Paddy Cakes: do one thing a day toward your goal and don’t give up and eventually success will be yours. But now it seems like that Princeton Mom was right all along. I’ve been a total fool. Beyond a certain age (i.e. thirty), women still have no legitimacy unless they’re married, have kids and are running a household. We are still living in Austen-era England. I should have been spending my twentysomething nights sweating my ass off at PowerCycle, not powering through stories on attachment parenting styles.
PUSH! :) Notification! Pregnancy is one of life’s prime examples of letting go of control and allowing nature to take its course. You’ll find that your body has a wisdom all its own. Relax and listen to its messages.
That’s dark, I think, trying to figure out how to shut the app off.
Then, before I notice it, our new editor in chief Cynthia walks in and announces, “Sorry to cut this joyous affair short, but I need you, Alix.” Then Cynthia turns her steely gaze on me. “And you, too, Liz. Now.”
Me? Without a word, I leap up, ignoring the stares as I trail after Cynthia and Alix. They burn a path down the hallway to Alix’s office.
The second we’re inside, Cynthia immediately turns to Alix.
“Did you find those Asian couple options yet? We are going to rework the ‘Alternative Chinese Dialects’ story and go with the harder-hitting-themed issue you suggested—‘Tiger Moms Vs French Moms: The Battle Royale Heats Up.’ We’ll use that family with the Caucasian mom and Chinese-American dad on the cover along with their mixed-race baby. The press will eat it up!”
Alix looks over at me. “The revise is almost done...”
“When am I to see it?”
“Immediately after this. Right, Liz?” Alix’s eyes shoot daggers through me.
“Yes.”
Satisfied, Cynthia turns and walks out. Alix motions for me to stay. The pit in my stomach tells me what’s coming next.
“We have just about everything we need, correct? Did you incorporate all my notes? The revised draft was still a bit sloppy. Did you address my question about finding a more inflammatory quote from that one mom from California?”
“Yes, I went back to Tracey a few times but I don’t know if we’ll be able to get more examples of punishment. She’s okay with representing herself as a disciplinarian, but not in the more extreme way we, uh, would like her to.”
I preempt Alix’s next question. “I did ask her if she ever resorted to physical punishment. She said a few light spankings, but that’s all.”
Her brow creases. “What word did she use exactly?”
I know where she’s going with this. Yet again, I’ll have to get a source to sign off on a quote by assuring her that by tweaking the wording, we are doing them a service. I hear my inner voice say, This is wrong.
“She said ‘spanking.’ That’s it.”
I tried. But we’re not going to use the word Alix wants: beating.
“I’m sure we can substitute a word here or there,” Alix says quickly. “Since it’s broader than spanking, and it means virtually the same thing. Just run it by her.”
I swallow hard, and then I hear myself say, “No.”
“No, what?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t beat her children, Alix.”
“Liz, I know we can get her to agree to that line,” Alix says. “Otherwise the story won’t work for a cover line, and we have no time for a replacement.”
Stomach clenching, I realize it will be a race to the finish line to make it to JFK on time tonight, and most likely I’ll be working on the plane and through the rest of my trip.
“Always finding problems, never the solutions,” Alix says out of the corner of her mouth.
I catch it, dropping my shoulders. “I’ll call her and see what I can get her to say.”
“Good,” says Alix just as Jeffry Clark, our new executive managing editor hired by Cynthia out of a digital media agency, strolls in. MacBook Air in one hand, his other is in his jeans’ pocket, male entitlement emanating off of him with every unhurried step. His Bushwick beard and inked sleeves read carefully studied hipster, but in the past few months his consulting-driven management style has meant he’s anything but relaxed, constantly on us to find new “efficiencies,” just like his annoyingly foreshortened name.
“Alix, Liz. Have you figured out who’s writing this story yet?”
“Liz will do the first draft and I’ll top-edit the Monday after next when it’s done,” says Alix before I’m even able to respond. “Liz, you speak French, right? You can track down the French moms living in the States.”
“We’re going to need to make sure the subjects are available to shoot next week. Who’s prepping?” asks Jeffry.
“I’m out next week,” says Alix. “Turks and Caicos, remember?”
“Well,