Jack doesn’t appear to be on Twitter, but he is on Instagram, where his handle is @Daddy2Penny. His bio is a single quote:“What makes you a man is not the ability to make a child. It’s the courage to raise one.”—Barack Obama.
A kid lives in that flawless house? The gays really are doingGod’s work. The account is set to private but I can at least enlarge the profile photo…
Little Penny is Asian. They have an adopted Asian daughter.
She’s adorable.
It’s hard to tell for sure, because she and Jack are wearing matching sunglasses, faces smushed together cheek to cheek, but I’d guess she’s about six years old. I’m assuming she’s Chinese, not Japanese like me, but I doubt that will matter much to two white guys. Even I have to admit I see something of myself in her—and I hate it when people lump all of us together in one big, generic Asian pile.
I want to keep digging, but the time in the corner of the screen prods me into shutting my laptop. Already five o’clock. Ian will be home from work any minute and I haven’t even showered. We’re meeting Erika and Heath for cocktails in an hour. Erika’s idea—The four of us are way overdue to catch up!she texted—but I suspect she and Heath just want a guaranteed table at Jane Jane, since they’re a client of my PR firm, Buzz Inc.
I’m in my robe in the bathroom, patting concealer under my eyes, trying to decide whether it truly disguises the dark circles or only amplifies the fine lines, when Ian walks in. I texted him the house update earlier, so he approaches like I’m a plugged-in hairdryer, teetering over the tub.
“Hey, babe. You feeling okay?”
“Hanging in there,” I say, with a good-natured smile.
“I’m so glad. Come here.” He pulls me in for a hug. “We have to stop putting all this pressure on ourselves. It’ll work out eventually.”
I am so goddamn sick of everyone telling me that. But we don’t have time for a fight right now, so I just nod.
Jane Jane is packed, as expected on a Friday on Fourteenth Street, the clatter of cocktail shakers instantly conjuring all the hours I logged ferrying drinks in college to bankroll rent and tuition. The managersteers us through the crop tops and high-waisted jeans, through the shirts with one too many buttons undone, to a booth with a brass “Reserved” placard on the table. As soon as we sit, a server appears with a round of some spicy mezcal concoction that they’re testing out before adding to the menu.
Erika claps her hands together. “VIP treatment! How fun! Margo, you have the coolest job.”
I know she doesn’t mean that. We started at thePosttogether ages ago, and she’s since climbed the ranks to senior business reporter.Erika Ortizis now a highly respected byline, whileMargo Miyakeis a name on a pitch email that most journalists delete. She looks smoking hot, as usual, in a fitted leather jacket and fuchsia lipstick, choppy chocolate bob laced with golden highlights. I think I may have worn this same striped Madewell blouse the last time I saw her. If she hadn’t been such an ally at thePost—if she wasn’t the closest thing I had to a best friend—I’d probably hate her.
Ian and I introduced her to Heath, back when he was still cute with a full head of white-blond hair. He worked at the EPA, too, until Hillary lost and he joined Sidley Austin (or “sold out,” as Ian would tell you). He made partner there three years ago.
“So what’s new, guys?” Heath asks, his ample frame stuffed into the other side of the booth. “How’s the ol’ house hunt coming along?”
Ian laughs, but I catch his jawline tense. “Easy, bro, I think we may need a couple more of these before we get into that.” He rattles the ice in his glass.
“Oh no, that bad?” Erika asks, turning down the corners of her neon pout.
“It’s fine,” I say, eager to move on. “Just the same bullshit. No inventory, lots of competition. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, we sure do,” Heath says. “I still can’t believe how lucky we got.”
Ian scoffs. Before he can say something stupid, I pivot to Erika.
“Your place is so beautiful. How’s the decorating coming?”
“Well, we’re finally making some progress. We just hired Zoe Estelle. Do you follow her on Insta? She’s in such high demand, so she can’t do the entire house, but she’s at least designing the main level. The upstairs is mostly the kid zone anyway.”
I grind my nails into my palms. Erika and Heath started trying around the same time as us, but she got pregnant right away. I faked a migraine at the last minute to get out of going to the baby shower, an event made even more intolerable by its venue: the backyard of the $2.5 million Tudor that she and Heath had just moved into in Wesley Heights.
It was the first place they bid on.
Ian and I could never afford that neighborhood—the rare pocket of DC with detached houses and nice lots, and all the other perks of the burbs without leaving the city. Of course, if Ian wasn’t so self-righteous about his work, he would’ve been a partner at Covington long before Heath’s résumé ever made it in the door at Sidley.
He got the offer from the EPA on a Friday, only two weeks after we got engaged. When I came home from work, he had a bottle of good champagne waiting on ice. I was confused because the setup had been almost exactly the same when he’d proposed. “Pretty sure we just did this,” I joked.
While he explained what was happening, I stared at the dazzling one and a quarter carats on my ring finger and marveled at how heavy they suddenly felt. The offer was for barely half what he made at the law firm. “It’ll still be plenty,” he said. A reaction that could only come from someone who’d never been broke.
I knew, obviously, that he’d been through the interviews, that he’d been talking an annoying amount about the global warming action group he belonged to in college. I just didn’t think he’d follow through with it. He finally seemed happier at the firm—one of the partners had recently brought him on to a fracking case foran important client. And it was Obama’s first term, for chrissake,everybodythought they wanted to work for the administration. It had all just seemed like a phase.
Heath turns to Ian now, my cocktail sloshing over the edge of its glass as his gut bumps against our table. “How’s the agency treating you, dude?” he asks. “Life a little better these days?”
