Page 4 of The Surrogate Mother
Back when I first started working at Stewart, I thought the games were a real hoot. Somewhere between my third and tenth negative pregnancy test, they stopped being so much fun. Around the twentieth negative test, it became a form of torture. When I saw those big, swollen bellies, Iwanted to hide in a bathroom stall and sob, not celebrate by making little Franken-babies out of magazine clippings. Usually I stayed around five minutes before excusing myself due to my heavy workload—it was true that I had a ton of work, but it wasn’t the main reason I raced out of the room like it was on fire.
But today, I’m enjoying myself. Because after years of heartbreak, I am on the brink of motherhood. In about three weeks, I’m going to become the proud parent of a newborn boy, whose sixteen-year-old birth mother is currently living in Tucson, Arizona. I told Shelley I wasn’t sure if an adoption warranted a baby shower, but she was insistent I get the same treatment as all the ladies with the big bellies.
The door to the conference room swings open and in walks my assistant Monica, carrying a comically large diaper cake. It’s trimmed with blue ribbon, and has a blue teddy bear clinging to the side of it. Poor Monica’s arms are trembling with the effort of holding it, and I rush over to grab the other end before she drops the whole thing on the floor.
“A diaper cake from Cuddles,” she says breathlessly as we lower the monstrosity onto the banquet table. “It’s a bit… big.”
I smile to myself, imagining Jed Cofield telling his secretary to send over this giant cake. Is it terrible that I secretly hope the diapers in the diaper cake are any brandotherthan Cuddles?
I roll my eyes at Monica. “Next time, I’m going to request a diapercupcake.”
Monica covers her mouth with her hand as she giggles. She’s been my assistant for the last six months, since my old assistant Gertie fell and broke her hip, and was not-so-gently pressured by the powers-that-be into an early retirement. And it’s been amazing having Monica. Not that I didn’t like Gertie, who made really incredible chocolate chip cookies, but she was just soslowat everything. Like, even watching her walk across the room was painful. And she didn’t know how to send documents to the printer from her computer. Even faxes were a little tricky for her—I think the fax machine hadn’t been invented yet when she started at Stewart. I’m not sure if phones had been invented yet. But they probably had fire and the wheel.
So yes, Monica is absolutely a breath of fresh air. She’s in her early twenties, a recent college graduate with a degree in art and math, and sharp as a tack. She soaks in everything like a sponge. Having Monica as an assistant has increased my efficiency by at least… sixty-eight percent.
I knew immediately during our interview that she was going to be my new assistant. The way she looked reminded me so much of myself, from her jet black hair tied awkwardly in a bun behind her head to her ill-fitting suit to her overeager smile. And then instead of praising me for the Cuddles campaign like every other candidate I interviewed, Monica gushed in detail about a campaign I did years ago for a yogurt company—one that was less well-known but one I was particularly proud of. It showed the girl did her research.
And when I asked her what she wanted to get out of the position, she replied, “I want to learn everything you know.”
I hired her on the spot.
After Monica adjusts the diaper cake on the table, she frowns at a pile of baby-sized Yankee caps on the side. I laugh at the baffled look on her face. “Shelley wanted us to wear those, but she couldn’t get any takers. You’d make her day if you put one on.”
Monica smiles. “Oh, no. I grew up a Red Sox fan—I went to all their games when I was a kid. I could never put on a Yankees cap. They’d never let me come home!”
“Well, I’m a Yankees fan,” I say, “and yet I still don’t want to put on the cap.”
Shelley rushes over at that moment and thrusts a baby bottle into Monica’s hands. “Ten minutes till chug time,” Shelley warns.
“Oh.” Monica’s cheeks color and she glances at me. “I still need to type up the minutes from the meeting this morning and make copies for the—”
“No, you don’t.” I rest a hand on my assistant’s shoulder. “You’ve been working so hard, and Cuddles loved our pitch today. You’re allowed to take a break for a baby shower.”
“Well, at least let me clean up the—”
“No.” I give her a sharp look. “I want you to relax. Enjoy yourself for a bit. You deserve it as much as anyone.”
Shelley winks at Monica. “You’re lucky, Monica. Abby is too nice to her team. If you weremyassistant, I’d have you picking up plastic cups from the floor right now.”
I survey the room, and… wow, there are a lot of plastic cups on the floor. The employees at Stewart are a bunch of slobs. Denise was right to mention the garbage situation. But we have a cleaning staff here—Monica is my personalassistant.
“I guess I could…” Monica glances around the room with her dark brown eyes. Sometimes when I look into her eyes, I really do feel like I’m looking into a mirror. Her jet black hair is like mine, although hers is ramrod straight while mine falls in random waves around my face. In any case, Monica and I do look somewhat similar, although she’s more than a decade younger than I am. Sometimes I appreciate when people remark on our likeness to each other, but not so much when Jack in the Creative department calls her Abby Two Point Oh. “I’ll stay, but just for a few minutes. Then I really should get back to work!”
Honestly, if it doesn’t work out with this baby, I might just adopt Monica.
“It’s so nice of Cuddles to send all those diapers,” Monica says. “I’ve heard diapers are actually very expensive.”
“Oh, Abby doesn’t have to worry about that,” Shelley giggles. “Her family is really rich. Her grandfather got in on an investment in this really big company on the ground floor.”
I sigh. I really dislike it when she brings up my family’s money—it’s embarrassing and tacky. “Shelley…”
“Abby doesn’t want me to tell you which company,” she says. “But I’ll give you a hint. You may have a product from this company in your purse right now.”
“Shelley…”
“Here’s another hint. It’s not an orange…”
“Shelley!”
