A Bump in the Road (12 page)

7:00
P.M.

Ooooohhh. I think my stomach is going to explode. I hate the Four Seasons. Why do the sundaes have to be so tasty? And the nachos? Oohhhhhh.

Besides destroying my gastrointestinal functions, I think I’ve officially made the transition to Scary Pregnant Wife in Jake’s eyes—as
if the whole
Sixteen Candles
episode wasn’t enough. I think it was the sight of his formerly sexy, hot wife lying in bed pigging out, not even caring when nacho cheese dripped on her chin. I’m pretty sure I looked like one of those fatsos on talk shows, who’ve lain in bed for the past three years because they’re too fat to fit through their bedroom door anymore. So Maury or Jenny or Sally Jessy has to hire a crane to rip off a side of their house and airlift the blob to the nearest hospital because Oh. My. God.

It’s true, I saw it once.

12:00
A.M.

Despite everything, Jake still managed to have sex with me. Men. They’re so predictable, but I guess it’s how ugly girls get laid.

We hadn’t done it since the whole “oh, by the way, I’m pregnant” discussion. (No, the In-Law Camping Trip didn’t count, because he was so wasted he would’ve humped a tree log.) It was good, but Jake continually stopped and asked if I was OK, really meaning if the baby was OK. Afterward, I explained to him the baby is still about the size of a grain of rice or something and
please
. Your penis is lovely but it isn’t gonna puncture whatever organs are holding the rice in place and injure it.

Well, at least I hope not. It would be terrible if the child is born with a dented head and we have to come up with some half-assed story about it being hit with a baseball as a newborn.

Sadly, we checked out of the Four Seasons this morning, but I was cheered, and mildly surprised, when Reese called me and invited me to lunch.

I arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes late but it wasn’t my fault. It was Banana Republic’s fault for having such an amazing sale. I tore through the restaurant and found her already sipping a glass of Merlot.

“Sorry! Sorry! Have you been here long?” I set my shopping bags down on the bar stool next to her.

“Half an hour, no big deal.”

“Shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be early.”

“It’s OK, I wanted to get out of the house before Grace woke up from her nap. I haven’t had an afternoon to myself in what feels like years.” She smiled and took another swig of her wine.

We got settled at a table and ordered some food.

“So how’s everything at home?” she asked me.

“Nothing exciting. Just the usual—work, in-laws, family, going out.”

“Well, enjoy your free time now because once you guys have kids, things get crazy,” she said quietly.

I bit my lip and the back of my neck got prickly. I desperately wanted to tell her, but I knew I couldn’t say anything yet. I wished I could say, “Reese, I’m pregnant. You have to help me. I don’t know what to do or how to be a mother or anything. As a mom, please, please, please tell me it’s going to be OK.”

“Happy to be out of the house?” I said instead.

“Yep! So, how’s Jake?” Quick change of subject. I ignored her question.

“Is everything OK, Reese?”

“Couldn’t be better! Let’s order!” She gave me a bright smile and I didn’t press any further. I knew from experience it would take an oyster shucker to get information out of Reese before she was ready so I sighed and opened my menu.

By the time we finished lunch, Reese had downed her second glass of wine and was hovering on the line between drunk and tipsy. After telling me all about Grace’s latest cute faces and sharing a thousand new pictures of her, she finally started to open up a little.

“What are you doing after lunch?”

“Probably shopping, I don’t know. Jake and I are going out to dinner tonight.”

“Matt and I used to have so much time for each other. Now all we
do is talk about things like babysitters and diapers. I can’t even remember the last time we went on a date.”

“Things will be easier. You guys are still just figuring everything out.” I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but it seemed to help a little.

“Of course we are. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just being silly. My whole life I’ve wanted to be a mother and a wife. I have a gorgeous husband and daughter and my life is just perfect.”

It was a typical Reese rationalization. I squeezed her hand. “It’s just a rough patch. Besides, you are totally a MILF.”

“Oh, right!” She laughed and her gloominess seemed to break. She downed the last of her wine and I could tell she was officially drunk.

I suggested we do something totally frivolous like shop for bras or something but she said she had to go home to take care of Grace since Matt wanted to go golfing with some friends. So, we waited until she sobered up and then parted ways, me to go find some new bras and her to go find a hangover cure.

It was great to see her but I can’t stop thinking about what really must be going on between her and Matt. She deserves every ounce of happiness; I’ll kill him if he’s being an asshole.

This morning, as I walked into the office, I got a frantic phone call from Betsy Fallon’s assistant, Lois.

“Clare! You
have
to help me! Ohpleasehelpme!” She ran every word together as her voice rose five octaves.

“What’s going on?” I unbuttoned my jacket and examined a hangnail, not alarmed in the slightest, since Lois recently went off her meds or something and lately I’d been operating as her stand-in psychiatrist for problems like the one she had yesterday—a fax machine running out of paper.

“This time, it’s really, really bad. You have to help me.”

“Yes?”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Most likely. Do tell.”

“Well, you know the cocktail party Betsy is throwing at her house in two weeks for the committee?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you know the invitations for the party? The ones that Carolyn picked out herself and gave to Betsy? And you know how all I was supposed to do was print the envelopes, stuff, and mail them?”

“Yeah?”

“I printed the envelopes upside down by accident and now we can’t mail them.”

“What?”

“We can’t use them. We need to get more of these exact envelopes or Carolyn will know. I’d go and pick them up at the stationery store but I have to pick up Betsy’s dog at the groomer’s in an hour. Please help me.” She sounded like a bleating lamb.

“Fine. Give me the directions.”

An hour and a half later, I was on the expressway, cursing the construction workers who had the nerve to close down two of the three lanes. They seemed really busy, too, with all of them gathering around to smoke cigarettes and stare at the one guy operating the crane.

My cell phone rang and I snapped it open with one hand while simultaneously turning down the radio. “Hello?”

“Oh, good, Clare, I got you.” It was Lois again. When the hell did I give this woman my cell phone number? “I wanted to make sure you knew to buy the envelopes with the Chinese symbols in the upper right-hand corner. Not the one with the Chinese dragon across it. They’re both from the same manufacturer.”

“Yeah, I got it. Number four-seven-eight. Gold leaf and navy blue.”

Unfortunately, my role in assisting on this event has turned me
into a virtual safety net for everyone involved. “Clare, can you get me reservations at NoMi?” “Clare, can you secure Trotters to Go for our committee planning meeting?” and “Clare, do you know where I could find a twelve-year-old prostitute who makes house calls?”

After I found the envelopes it was nearly five, so I had the extreme pleasure of sitting in rush-hour traffic on the way over to Betsy’s house. I wordlessly shoved the envelopes into Lois’s fat fingers and downed several Tylenol on my way home. My cell phone rang again and I hurled it into the backseat, fatally cracking the battery. Which sucks since now I have to shell out several hundred dollars for a new one. The upside? New pretty pink phone.

Despite ruining my cell phone and cursing everyone from construction workers to the politicians who authorize road work, today wasn’t anything I haven’t dealt with before. Being in the event-planning industry means handling odd requests, last-minute changes, and, inevitably, incompetent people with sky-high expectations. And I do all of that. Usually really well.

Sometimes it feels like I’m really good at my job but really bad at my life. I can pull off a black-tie event regardless of the curveballs thrown my way, but when life throws me one of my own, I’m all, “Oh, shit! What are we going to do? How are we going to handle this? We’re so screwed!” I think it relates to being really good behind the scenes, horribly bad at being the star of the show. Although some refer to me as an Internet Rockstar, the blog is so indirect and passive, I usually don’t feel too exposed and in the forefront so that doesn’t count. But being pregnant? Kinda hard to be behind the scenes. And labor and delivery? Well, that’s just a Julia-Roberts-winning-the-Oscar kind of moment. Everyone’s staring at you, waiting for something to happen. And only you can give them what they want.

Oh, man.

I’ve made it through this morning without any more phone calls from Lois, so I consider today a success so far. Which is a good thing, after my realization yesterday about labor and delivery being kind of a one-woman show that I will soon be starring in. I stared at the carpet in my office and wondered if I could get an epidural preventatively, as in, before labor starts. Like, if they could just insert it into my back when I hit nine months. But then I realized you can’t move your legs with an epidural, so I’d have to wheel my ass around in a wheelchair for a month until I had the baby.

Thus, I was grateful for the distraction when I heard this conversation wafting down the hallway outside my office:

“Do you or do you not understand the importance of this event?”

“Um, yeah, sure.”

“Well, then do you or do you not understand why it is so important that my daughter’s entrance is upon a pure white horse?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good. We are in agreement. I will trust that this detail will be closely attended to and taken care of.”

I was so engrossed in listening to Isabel Castle’s mother berate Mule Face that it took me several seconds to find my phone, which was buried under a mock-up of the Gala invitation design.

“Clare Finnegan.”

“Clare! I’m so glad I caught you. I thought for sure you’d be at lunch!”

It was Marianne.

“Well, I haven’t really had time to take lunch these days. So busy.”

“Oh, you working girls! Always on the go!”

I wish she would try to remember that next time she makes a joke about how much I sleep in.

“So, what’s going on?”

“Nothing really.”

“OK, did you need something?”

“Oh, yes! Actually, I wanted to start talking about the big party coming up that we have to start planning.”

I thought:
Party? What party? Plan something?

“What do you mean?”