AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Talk to Andrew today,” Page urged. “Before it’s too late.”
At any other point in my career, I would have killed for that job, but these days I had other priorities. All my energy was channeled into trying to get pregnant. I didn’t have extra to give to the magazine. If Kyle and I could have afforded it, I would have quit before we’d begun the third cycle. Deep down I knew it would be the last. I was going to get pregnant this time. Regardless of our financial situation,I didn’t plan to work away from the house after the baby was born and needed to convince Andrew to let me work at home. If I were managing editor, he certainly wouldn’t allow that, but I wasn’t going through all this trouble to have a baby only to drop Will off at day care every morning.
“Why don’t you apply for the job?” I asked Page. The position paid a lot more than ours, and Page desperately needed the extra money. She was a single mom. Her deadbeat ex-husband lived on the other side of the country and didn’t bother to send child support for their only kid.
“Andrew doesn’t trust me. Besides, you’re the one Leo groomed.”
Leo hadn’t groomed me. He’d taken advantage of me. I was his go-to girl, the one he relied on to pull all-nighters or come in on weekends to meet deadlines. Once I asked him why he always chose me for the unpaid overtime gigs. He twirled the pencil perpetually tucked behind his ear. “Because you’re the only one without kids.” While that was blatant discrimination, no one was holding protests or marching for the childless.
“I don’t want the additional responsibility.”
Page raised one of her overly tweezed eyebrows and cocked her head. “You’ve been doing the job since Leo left. You just haven’t been getting paid for it.”
As she spoke, my email pinged, bringing the total number of unread messages in my inbox to 217. Most of them had come in last week while I was out. Before Leo left, I hadn’t gotten that many in a month, never mind a few days.
“At the very least, you deserve a big fat bonus,” Page said. Her cell phone rang with a ringtone she had set for Mia, a teenage girl repeating the wordMomin a whiny voice. “Everything okay?” she answered. As she listened, she headed toward the door. “Not again, Mia. All right, I’ll be there as fast as I can.” Before leaving, she looked back at me over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Do you want a kid? Because I have a teenage girl I’m willing to give away.”
My jaw tightened. Parents made that type of offhand remark all the time, and I always wanted to shout at them,You don’t know how lucky you are.
I tried to focus on reading my emails but kept thinking about what Page had said about the managing editor position. From a picture on a shelf next to my desk, Kyle stared down at me. The question he’d asked on the drive home from the city last week played on a loop in my mind.Where’s the money going to come from, Nikki?
Page was right. I was doing the job. I should get paid for it. We could pay off some of our debt with the extra money or, if the worst happened, pay for another round. The higher-paying job was the perfect insurance policy. When the time came, I would convince Andrew to let me work at home. I called Carol, his assistant, and told her I wanted to speak to him about the job. “It’s about time you expressed an interest,” she said. My interview was scheduled for later in the week.
Andrew’s office was dark. There was no sign of him or Carol in the area. I knew he was at work because I had seen him in the parking lot on my way into the building that morning. He had looked at me as if he were trying to remember who I was when I said hello. Fewer than twenty of us worked on the magazine, but Andrew knew only one person’s name, Carol’s.
I made myself comfortable in the chair outside his office and scrolled through my personal email on my phone as I waited. The only interesting message was a reminder that tomorrow was day eleven and I had to go to the clinic for my blood test. As if I would forget. I knew exactly how Dr.Evans delivered bad news: the removal of her glasses, the watery buildup in the corners of her eyes, the way she rolled her chair away from her desk as if trying to create distance between herself and Kyle and me. Now I tried to imagine how she would announce tomorrow’s good news. Her glasses would remain perched on her nose.She’d walk around to the side of the desk where Kyle and I sat and lean against it. She’d grin and not have to say a word. I’d stand, and we’d hug.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t notice Andrew until he looked down at me. He carried a pizza box, and his salt-and-pepper hair seemed shorter than when I’d seen him earlier. “Do you need something?” he asked.
I stood. “We have a meeting.” I was waiting to eat lunch until after the interview, and the smell of oregano was making me hungry. My stomach growled.
“About?” He unzipped his coat.
“The managing editor position. I’m interviewing for it.”
He looked at me blankly.
“Nikki Sebastian,” I reminded him.
“I know who you are, Nicole.” He gestured with his head for me to follow him into his office. “Carol’s out sick today, and I’m a little lost without her. Give me a second.”
He placed the pizza on the desk between us. “Help yourself.”
It was margarita, my favorite, but I didn’t want to eat while talking with him, so I declined. He slapped two slices on a paper plate and eyed them hungrily while he asked me his first question. “Why did it take you so long to express interest in the job?”
Not a good start.I didn’t have an answer I felt comfortable telling him. He bit into his pizza, but his eyes never left mine. I picked at my nails, thinking of something to say. “I’ve been doing the job for several months, and I’m good at it.”
Andrew nodded and waited to swallow before speaking. “You sound surprised by that.”
My shoulders tensed. “I’m not.”
He stared at me without blinking. I held eye contact for what felt like several minutes but was really only a few seconds.
“I really like the position. I wasn’t sure I would.” I smiled, pleased with my response.
“Leo recommended you before he left, but you never seemed interested.” He bit into his slice again.
“I’m very interested.” I hoped I didn’t sound disingenuous.
