‘The more the merrier,’ she whispered. She looked genuinely peaceful and entirely at rest. Motherhood truly was a miracle. ‘Hi, James.’
‘Hi.’ He raised a hand but she was asleep again, or at least pretending to be. It was understandable that he might be confused about what was going on. Before he made it into our private party, James had come through at least two rooms full of bankers, stockbrokers and women who hadn’t danced since their first facelift. The rest of the original guest list was nearly as into the revised agenda for Erin’s tree trimming as the rest of us. But perplexed as he might be, when we hugged again, I detected a distinct whiff of whiskey and cigarettes on his breath and so it didn’t take him long to get into the party spirit.
‘We should take Gracie home soon,’ Louisa hiccupped as we all pogoed to Cliff Richard. ‘I am so drunk, it’s disgusting.’
‘Alex is sober, he’ll look after us,’ I replied, pointing over to his DIY DJ booth, or rather where Jenny had fenced him in behind three dining chairs. ‘And he’s totally obsessed with your baby. Not in a Jimmy Savile way, though.’
‘I know, he loves her,’ Louisa shouted back. ‘He wants you to have a baby.’
‘I know,’ I panted. I could not stop bouncing or, I was quite sure, my feet would fall off. ‘Eurgh.’
‘Slow dance,’ Jenny screeched, leaning over one of the dining chairs and pawing at the iPod, shoving Alex out of the way. Too sober for his own good, Alex held his hands up and stepped away. ‘We need a slow dance.’
‘Fine,’ he said, clearly miffed. ‘But it totally doesn’t fit with the rest of the set.’
It was heartwarming to know he was even a super muso nerd when it came to DJing for a bunch of drunk girls in a living room dance party, no matter how fancy that living room might be. But there was no time to feel that sorry for him as the music started up.
‘Now, I’ve … had …’ Jenny took to the middle of the floor and pressed her hands to her heart, making sure we all knew just how much she was feeling the music. ‘… the time of my liiiiiife.’
‘Oh.’ Erin suddenly opened her eyes and perked up. ‘Dirty Dancing?’
It was only when she was upright that I realised she was wearing a Santa hat. I wondered whether or not I’d put that on her. In true end-of-sixth-form-disco style, the girls and their gay gathered in a group hug, ambling around the room, singing every word straight into each other’s faces. It was reassuring to know that some things translated. No matter where I might find myself, no one ever put baby in a corner.
‘Do the lift!’ Jenny shouted as James began to strut up and down the room, plucking the Santa hat from Erin’s head and giving it his best Johnny Castle. ‘Do the lift!’
‘Yeah!’ I was hopeless when it came to mob mentality. ‘Do the lift!’
‘No, Angie, you do the lift,’ Jenny explained with a sigh. ‘Jesus, woman.’
‘Oh no.’ I shook my head, padding my feet up and down, fighting off the burn that had returned now I’d stopped running around like a mad woman. ‘I can’t do the lift.’
‘Do the lift.’ Jenny, Erin, Louisa, Sadie, Douchnozzle and some random woman I’d never seen before in my life all stood behind James, chanting and clapping ‘Do the lift.’
‘Even Baby didn’t do the lift,’ I yelled as they made room. James bent down and prepared himself. ‘I’m not that bloody heavy,’ I muttered as he flexed his knees.
I looked around, waiting for Alex to rush in and stop me, to save me somehow. But instead, he was leaning against one of the dining chairs, clapping along with the others. This was definitely something I was saving for any future divorce papers.
‘But I don’t want to,’ I wailed, even as I tottered across the room to make enough space for my run. ‘Seriously.’
‘Do the goddamn lift!’ Jenny screamed.
Before I could second-guess myself, I focused my eyes on James and started to run across the plush carpeting of the West Village townhouse. Seconds later, I felt myself soaring up into the air, high over the handsome head of my six-foot-something buddy, arms aloft.
‘I’m flying, Jack!’ I shouted, ecstatically happy.
‘Wrong movie,’ Louisa replied. ‘You amazing, daft mare.’
‘Ready to come down?’ James asked as the room exploded into applause. ‘My arms are killing me.’
‘Yes, please,’ I nodded, slightly out of breath and gazing at the top of the Christmas tree. Eye to eye with the angel, I gave her a wink and silently apologised for judging her tree earlier in the evening. It was a beautiful tree, magnificent even. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t real, it was still awesome.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for Angela Clark.’ James placed me carefully on the floor as the song came to an end and held my arm aloft, victorious. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t drop you.’
‘I can’t believe I didn’t fall over,’ I said, rubbing his back. ‘Amazing.’
I wasn’t quite sure how but it seemed that someone had replaced my shoes with stilts while I was up in the air. As soon as James let go of my arm, I felt my ankles give way. Reaching forwards, I stumbled backwards, falling arse first into the Christmas tree. For a second, I thought it was all over, that my epic spill was karmic punishment enough for the lift going so well, but no, the universe wasn’t quite done with me yet. The branches of the tree gathered around me, obscuring the frozen faces of my friends as the tree wavered, swaying from side to side for a moment before settling upright again. And then promptly collapsing on top of me. For the first time that evening, I was actually happy that Erin had opted for a piece of plastic crap that might leave a bruise rather than send me to the hospital. There was nothing Christmassy about a coma.
‘Um, is anyone out there?’ I called, waving one useless leg at the assembled masses. ‘Alex? Help?’
‘Well, I guess you will need to come over and help decorate it now,’ Erin said as my tinsel blinkers were lifted and Jenny and Louisa dragged me out from underneath the tree. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I assured her, struggling to my knees and then my feet. Before promptly falling right back onto my arse.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ James sighed. I spun my entire body round to see him and Alex holding the tree in the air. ‘I say we just leave her under it until New Year’s.’
Lying back, I closed my eyes and waited for someone to hoist me upright. It wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever heard.
CHAPTER NINE
It was safe to say, the following morning was not my finest. It had been months since I’d had a genuine hangover in the office and now I was on my second inside a week. Unfortunately, this was not an area where experience made things easier. This hangover made the last one feel like I’d been for a spa treatment. We had left the party (to be entirely accurate, I had been carried out of the party over James’s shoulder, while Jenny propped Louisa up and Alex took care of the actual baby amongst us) and I had spent most of the evening throwing up tequila while Alex held back my hair and fed me Advil and dry toast. When my alarm went off at seven a.m., I seriously considered actually chopping off my own legs rather than getting up to go to work but instead I threw up once more, downed a strong, black coffee and called a cab.
‘Hey, boss!’
Standing outside my office door, Starbucks in hand and a smile on her face, still, was Cici.
‘I can’t,’ I croaked, my throat sore from all the attractive puking. ‘Not today. I just can’t.’
‘Oh, are you not feeling well?’ she asked, following me into the office like a very well-dressed lapdog. Today’s seasonally inappropriate outfit was made up of over-the-knee socks, a pair of leather shorts and a red silk pussy bow blouse. As someone who actually had got dressed in the dark, it was difficult to see her in that ensemble, in December, and not ask serious questions about her sanity. ‘Can I get you anything? Advil? Ginger ale? Coke?’
‘Actually, a Diet Coke would be really good,’ I said, collapsing in a sweaty mess in
my chair.
‘Oh, sure, a Diet Coke to drink, that’s what I meant,’ she said, glancing around the ceiling and frowning at the security camera. ‘I’ll be right back.’
‘Don’t rush,’ I whispered, switching on my computer.
It was Thursday. My original plan for Thursday was to visit the Christmas market in Union Square, buy some more shit that I didn’t need and then go to a boozy screening of Elf with Alex at the Nitehawk cinema but now I was sitting in my office, staring at a nodding dog toy and willing myself to keep my morning coffee down. I could not face the indignity of throwing up in my rubbish bin. Although, if I did, would Cici have to clean it out? Before my stomach could make a decision, my phone rang, snapping me out of my nauseous reverie and reminding me I was at work. Which was a win when you thought about it.
‘Angela, it’s Mary,’ my boss barked down the line. ‘I need to go over some of these cover lines for next week. Are you free now?’
‘Free,’ I replied, forcing every ounce of strength into my voice. My arm and my ankle throbbed from where the tree had collapsed on top of me, suggesting my painkillers were wearing off and I just wasn’t ready for that. ‘Cici’s just run out to get me a drink and then I’ll come in?’
‘Nice to see the two of you getting along,’ she replied without a trace of emotion in her voice. I had to assume she was taking the piss. ‘See you in five if the hangover abates.’
I replaced the handset and looked up at the camera Cici had eyeballed moments ago.
‘Paranoid,’ I whispered, rubbing my temples. But I still turned my chair around to face the window before popping more ibuprofen and dropping a Berocca into a bottle of VitaminWater.
‘And all of that makes sense?’ Mary asked for the third time in an hour.
‘It does,’ I lied, scribbling nonsensical notes in my notebook that I had to believe would suddenly become incredibly enlightening as soon as I got back to my desk. ‘All of that makes sense.’
‘Right, so that’s everything,’ she said. ‘You know everything I know. Well, obviously you don’t but you get my point.’
Hmm.
‘Any other things you want to discuss while you’ve still got me?’ Mary wiggled the cordless mouse next to her Mac, clearly hoping that I would in fact not have anything to discuss. Unfortunately for Mary, she was shit out of luck. I had hit a wall and I had to talk to someone.
‘Alex wants to have a baby,’ I replied.
Mary froze.
‘I did mean issues regarding the magazine but that seems like a valid issue.’ She spoke calmly and quietly. ‘I know this isn’t going to be a very forward-thinking, feminist thing to say, Angela, but getting pregnant now wouldn’t be the best thing for your career. Maybe you’re only interim editor for now but who knows what’s next? Have you two talked about it?’
‘He really wants to have a baby,’ I nodded. ‘And I might have trouble if we wait that much longer.’
Saying it out loud felt insane, like I was talking about someone else or something I’d seen on TV.
‘I would never tell a woman to choose between her career and her family,’ Mary replied, her face softening for just a moment. ‘But even in this day and age, in this industry, I’ve got to tell you, having it all is a myth.’
‘But you managed it,’ I said. ‘Lots of editors have kids.’
‘Lots of editors have very unhappy second and third marriages,’ she replied. ‘And I managed it so well, it’s taken me three decades to finally find a way to be with the man I love. I couldn’t be happier right now but it breaks my heart to think about all the things Bob and I will never have.’
I nodded to show I was listening but I was totally lost for words. Was Mary really telling me I couldn’t have my job and a baby? Not that I wanted a baby. Probably. At the moment. For a while.
‘I can’t say I would have made different decisions if I’d had a crystal ball when I was younger, but as you get older you do start to realise people are more important than you might like to think. Or at least more important than I wanted to believe.’
‘You chose your career over Bob?’ I asked. ‘Back, whenever it was?’
‘It wasn’t the Dark Ages, Angela,’ she said, straightening a stray strand of hair. ‘It’s not really that simple but, for the sake of a shorter story, I suppose I did. Bob was already a very rich and successful man when we met. I wanted to be successful in my own right. He wanted a wife.’
‘So what happened?’ I was curious to hear the ballad of Mary and Bob. As long as she left out the dirty bits.
‘He met his first wife, I met my ex-husband,’ she shrugged. ‘It’s not a long or dramatic story. My marriage didn’t work out because I put my job first.’
‘Because you were really in love with Bob?’
‘Because I loved my job more than I loved my husband,’ Mary admitted. ‘What was important to me mattered more than what was important to us. I love my kids but the family always played second fiddle to my work. That’s not something I’m proud of.’
It was weird to be having such a frank conversation with Mary. We’d spent hours, days, discussing stories, slaving over publishing plans and magazine roughs but we’d never really talked about her life, her family. And now I was starting to wish we hadn’t bothered. She was scaring the shit out of me.
‘Are you saying you wish you hadn’t had your kids?’ I gave my thumbnail a quick nibble and hoped Mary hadn’t noticed. She hated nail-biters.
‘I’m saying it isn’t easy,’ she replied with diplomacy. ‘If your heart is in one place, it’s hard to give something else everything it deserves. Everything it needs.’
‘But relationships are about compromise, aren’t they?’ I had definitely read that somewhere. Possibly in Gloss. Possibly in one of my articles. ‘Surely you can manage work and a family these days? We’ve got iPhones now, we can do anything.’
‘I don’t think Apple are really thinking that far ahead,’ she replied. ‘Actually, they probably are. But I digress … I’m lucky I’ve been given a second chance to get what I really want. Too many people choose pride and ambition over love. Not just men. It’s probably a lot more women these days when you think about it. Damn, we should write a feature about this …’
‘Then you don’t think you can have a family and a successful career?’ I asked.
My kingdom for a peppermint latte.
‘I think you can have whatever you put your heart and soul into.’ Mary rested her elbows on her glass desk and leaned towards me. ‘You’re taking on a job that is going to demand everything you have, at least for a while, until you find your rhythm. A baby needs all that and more. From you and Alex. And you’ll need each other.’
‘Alex and I are fine.’ I knew that was at least a fact. ‘Really, there’s no problem there.’
‘Babies don’t always mean to cause problems but sometimes they do,’ she said with a shrug. ‘What if you have a baby and end up losing the job while he goes on to have his enormously creatively fulfilling musical career? You won’t resent him at all?’
‘I can’t imagine resenting Alex for anything,’ I said softly. ‘But I can see how that might not be much fun.’
‘And what if you don’t have the baby then he goes on tour and he’s so mad at you, he gets drunk one night, the unimaginable happens and he accidentally gets someone else pregnant?’
‘Alex would never,’ I replied, quick and certain. ‘He wouldn’t.’
‘I’m not saying he would.’ Mary leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m just saying he could.’
‘Sometimes, life is a complete bastard, isn’t it?’ I said, nibbling on the end of my biro. ‘I mean, a complete shitter.’
‘You know, if this is bothering you that much, it must be bothering women,’ Mary said, wearing her ideas face. ‘You could always write a piece about it.’
‘Not a bad idea,’ I mused, scribbling down her suggestion. ‘Might help me make some sense out of it.’
‘Might make
matters worse,’ she said with a warning. ‘But it would make a great article.’
‘You know, it always looks so easy on the telly,’ I sighed. ‘You just pop it out, stick it in a papoose and the next thing you know it’s in college.’
‘The fact that you’re referring to your future child as an “it” does not fill me with hope,’ Mary said with a doubtful expression. ‘They’re usually one or the other.’
‘Usually,’ I repeated. ‘But not always?’
She shook her head, more in disgust than confirmation, and turned back to her computer screen.
‘Brilliant,’ I muttered, standing up to leave. ‘Now I’ve got something else to worry about.’
‘Hey, Angela.’ Jesse called me over as I was crossing the office, trying to decide between a trip to the bathroom or the canteen. I either needed something deep-fried or I needed to throw up again – it was wide open. ‘You still coming tonight?’
‘Tonight?’ I looked blankly at my work husband. Had I made plans and forgotten?
‘The gig?’ He waved a flyer high in the air. ‘At Music Hall?’
‘Oh, God, right,’ I nodded, the urgent need to line or empty my stomach abating. ‘Yeah, I’m meeting my friends for dinner but we’ll definitely try to make it.’
‘What’s this?’
Like all the best villains, Cici appeared from out of nowhere, plucking the flyer from Jesse’s outstretched hand and pursing her red lips. ‘Music Hall? Where’s that?’
‘Williamsburg,’ Jesse said, his face full of fear and the horn. I glanced over at Megan, the beauty editor who sat opposite Jesse, and she rolled her eyes in response. It must be hard being a man, knowing that something was so awful but desperately wanting to put your penis in it anyway. I imagined it was a little like my love-hate relationship with Ben & Jerry’s, only with added peen.