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  “Anyway,” he resumed. “As bad as that was, telling my parents will be worse. They're old-school Catholics. Very old-school. Fish on Fridays and all that.”

  “My mom opted for microwave pizza on Fridays. No pepperoni, though.”

  Peter didn't seem to hear her.

  “I'm dreading telling them. It'll be even worse than telling Bianca.”

  He was studying her ceilings and floors. The silence was very hard to take.

  “Peter. You don't have to do anything for my sake. It's not like I'm pregnant. You don't have to make an honest woman of me. I made my own choices. You make yours.”

  “What? Jane. This is something I have to do.”

  “No, you don't have to do anything.”

  “Yes, I do. I love you.”

  Thank God.

  …

  Teresa and Karen officially invited Ray to the Melting Pot dinners. Karen stood up and declared, “Welcome to the henhouse!” when he walked over to the table. They ordered, they gossiped, they complained about the wait.

  “When are we going to get our referrals? I thought we were supposed to know by now! And where's Teresa? Why is everything about waiting?”

  Ray consoled them and compared the wait to enduring the four-hour Virginia Cycle he had just reviewed/eviscerated for the Times. It was a musical about the Civil War that consisted of the same story told from seven points of view, including that of an earthworm.

  “I made Burton go with me, and I swear I thought he was going to divorce me.”

  “Speaking of divorce,” said Jane. “I have news.”

  Ray very nearly pounced on her.

  “It's about Peter, isn't it? Don't think I haven't noticed your oh-so-discreet silence on this topic. You haven't talked about him in forever. What have you been doing?”

  She told them every detail, every eyelash of Peter's return, Peter's impending divorce, Peter's selfless sacrifices for Jane. She was discreetly vague about the fact that she was sleeping with Peter. She left out Barbara's “find out” and “maybe” comments.

  Ray didn't try to comment. He didn't even blink. Jane knew that look. It was his analytic mode. He was going to seize some particular adjective and use it as proof positive that Jane was hopelessly neurotic, or that Peter was, or that life was pointless.

  Karen was a highly satisfying audience member. She smiled, winced, and occasionally let her mouth fall open—especially when the story revealed to this single-mother-to-be that Jane was no longer a single-mother-to-be.

  “So, Jane. This whole thing—it makes you sort of different from me, and from Teresa.”

  Jane froze. No, it didn't, she thought. Peter's presence changed nothing. Karen responded to Jane's freeze.

  “It's okay. We'll be the single moms, and you'll be the married mom. We don't have to be the same. But we all need to eat. What's keeping Teresa, anyway? You know you'll have to repeat this whole sordid tale to her. But don't stop now. When is he moving in?”

  Ray was still quiet. He scooted his chair over when Teresa slipped in quietly, looking rather pale. She ordered a martini.

  “Jane has been telling us about her love life,” Ray said quietly. “And we, who have no lives, salute her.”

  Jane stopped her story. She saw that Teresa's hands were shaking. Her makeup was smudged near her eyes. Something was wrong.

  Teresa started telling her story to Jane, but soon everyone at the table was listening.

  “For months now, I've been waiting to see who was going to drop out of this adoption. Karen, you have financial issues, but I think you've worked them out. Jane, you're so tangled up with Peter, and you think we don't know it, but my money has been on you all this time. You'll marry him and make babies the way couples do. Or you'll dump him. Or he'll dump you. Or something. Anyway, I thought you were a goner.”

  Jane's pale face was flushed. Was Teresa trying to start a fight? Before Jane could ask her, Teresa continued.

  “But now, I put the odds on me.”

  At earlier dinners, she had told the story of how she let word of the adoption circulate at the office. And Victor, her ex, had given his famous speech about Chinese babies as the ultimate (returnable) accessory. Eventually, he offered a chilly “Congratulations,” but they never spoke of it again. But then, their conversations were never personal anymore. He had said enough.

  Everyone knew that Victor was dating someone young, someone not perimenopausal. If Teresa was bothered by this, she didn't let on. Jane thought that this had to be the acid test for mental health. After the first time Teresa saw them together, she gave a detailed description of the girl: pretty in an ornamental way, rail thin, blond, and bearing a passing resemblance to a young Teresa. This aspect was flattering, but Teresa made it clear to all the Chinamoms that she had moved on with her life. Her apartment renovation had commanded her full attention. Jane noticed that Teresa said more about her plumber than about Victor. Until tonight.

  “Want to know why I'm late? Hmm? I was all set to leave, but Victor and his little chippy with the winter tan—I mean, his girlfriend—were giggling away in the lobby. So, I'm a mature adult and I decided to wait at my desk until they left, thus avoiding the awkward scene, and aren't I nice?”

  She held her empty martini glass aloft and signaled the waiter for a refill.

  “So I waited. I waited. But they were lingering there, because that's what truly evil people do. It was like they were never leaving. So fine. I went out.”

  When her waiting was done, Teresa strode out to the lobby and pushed the glass doors open. She tossed a quick “Good night” over her shoulder, proud of her cool maturity. The glass door closed, and she froze. She turned. The girlfriend was standing up, and she had a distinct belly. She was pregnant. She was very, very pregnant.

  Teresa was staring. Victor shielded his young, pregnant girlfriend from Teresa's gaze. He stepped outside to Teresa.

  “You're probably wondering—” was all he managed to say.

  “You bastard. I quit.”

  And in a blink, she was an unemployed, single-mother-to-be. She rose to the top of her own list of candidates to drop out of the adoption process. But first, she had stepped out to Twenty-third Street at rush hour and cried.

  After Teresa finished her story, and her third martini, Jane advised her to sue Victor for crimes against humanity. Karen, who thought that all litigation led to bad karma, thought this might be the exception. Sue him.

  “Ruin him. Take the business away from him. He owes you.”

  Ray advised her to make no plans tonight, other than more martinis.

  “Look, I don't know you very well, and I don't know Victor at all. But sure, he'll buy you out. He'll have to. And maybe you can start your own agency—”

  Teresa crumbled under the exhaustion implicit in that suggestion. Ray continued.

  “Or maybe you can work somewhere else. Or maybe you can take a year off and think about it all and play with a cooing little baby. Maybe you don't have to decide anything tonight. Wait.”

  Waiting sounded just fine to Teresa and to everyone. Jane was justifiably proud of her hubstitute. Everyone settled in for an evening of Victor-bashing. Teresa was not holding back.

  “For twelve years, he didn't want to have kids. Suddenly, he meets little miss fake-tan, and he decides he's going to be a daddy? He waited until I was gone? He waited until I was in menopause? The bastard. The unbelievable bastard!”

  Jane echoed, “He's a bastard.”

  “He's older than me. Did I tell you that?” Yes. “And he can still get that girl pregnant. He has all the time in the world. And he doesn't know what to do with it.”

  Karen should have echoed her friend. Instead, she said, “Will China let you adopt if you're not employed anymore?”

  This question should have waited. But once it was said, Teresa nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

  “I don't know. I have to fix this. And soon. If the latest statistics stay true, we'll be getting o
ur referrals in about a month, maybe two. I'll be damned if Victor is going to ruin this for me. The bastard.”

  Teresa laid her head down on the table and echoed herself.

  “The bastard.”

  Her friends took her home.

  …

  Jane called Sheila but spoke only to the crackly answering machine. This was not a saga for an answering machine. She left an insistent “Call me and you'll be glad you did” message for her sister. She hung up and studied the phone. She wanted to ask her sister: Was Betty in heaven, protecting Jane from all the turmoil her friends were experiencing? She began to see herself as the Lucky One. She had no bad ex-boyfriend to induce her to quit a job where her paycheck actually covered her living expenses plus child care.

  And Peter was almost free and almost hers. Everything was so close.

  …

  Ray settled in to watch Jane empty a neatly organized drawer.

  “Peter needs room for some things. He keeps piling up T-shirts on the hamper. And look” She dangled a shiny new set of keys she had made for Peter. Ray didn't smile.

  “He gave me keys to his place,” Jane said. “It's only fair.”

  “Cozy. Have you told Howard yet?”

  Jane hadn't told her father yet.

  “I have to tell Sheila first, and I can't seem to find her lately”

  “There are no accidents …”

  “No. Telling Dad is a lose-lose situation. Either he'll say, ‘See? I was right about how you can't be single and adopt,’ or he'll say, ‘Jezebel! Stealing another woman's husband!’ ”

  Ray nodded. “It's nice to know just how crazy a person is, huh?”

  “Well. Isn't he right?”

  “About which thing?” Ray was peeking in the boxes.

  “The first. Second. Both. Is it a bad sign to start a relationship like this? With him leaving his wife like this?”

  “You can't start a relationship if he doesn't. And isn't this what Bitty-Betty wanted?”

  Jane was folding and putting away.

  “Still.”

  “I know.”

  Ray made them tea. They settled in the kitchen, where Jane watched for Peter to come up the street.

  “I wonder if I could have raised a baby all alone.”

  “No.”

  “Ouch. I thought you believed in me. I thought you supported this adoption.”

  “You were never going to be alone, darling. You had me. In fact, Burton thinks that he and I should adopt. I think we should start with a plant and see if we can keep that alive.”

  “In your place? You get no light. Get a plastic plant.”

  “Excellent plan. And maybe Burton's right. I had sort of gotten used to the idea of being a pseudo-dad for you and your little one. Now that I'm out of the picture—”

  “When did you fall out of the picture?”

  “When you emptied that drawer.” Jane gave him a look of sympathy/sad/I love you, which forced him to look away. “And that's fine. I always kind of knew you'd leave me for another man. You're a hottie; you just don't dress like one. So now I'm the wacky uncle. Again. I play that part well.”

  “You're not out of the picture. You're still coming with me to China, aren't you?”

  Now it was Ray's turn to give a look of sympathy/sad/I love you. “The three of us? What would Chairman Mao say? No, no, no. This is not a trip for the wacky uncle. I'm out.”

  Jane's doorbell rang, and she buzzed Peter in. She trolled around for words of comfort for Ray but she found none. She opened her front door, and there was Peter, carrying a crazy bouquet of blue daisies.

  …

  Peter was a morning person. Jane was not. He started the day with an indecent amount of energy, whereas Jane eased into the morning. More often than not, Jane and Peter commuted together. She collapsed

  against his shoulder as they held hands. She knew they were looking so couply-cute when they bumped into Dick-Richard, who hurt Peter with his vigorous handshake. He was on a break from the new Martin Scorsese movie.

  “I love working with Marty. He really feeds the extras well. And you? What are you up to these days?”

  He was asking about someone other than himself. How was that for a sign of Divine Providence?

  She replied, “I'm adopting a baby from China.”

  Dick-Richard said nothing. He seemed to be concentrating on something in his teeth. When he finished with his dental hygiene, he said, “Did I tell you about the showcase I'm doing next month? It's a new play and I don't think it's very good. It's some kind of murder mystery, I think. But I have a really funny scene at the end. You should come.”

  Jane smiled, and Peter took a flier from him. Maybe they would actually go see this play called The Customer Is Always Dead.

  Chapter Twelve

  You have one new message.

  “Hi, Janie, it's me.” Sheila. At last. “Call me. Something happened and— I don't want to leave this on your machine, so just call me, okay? Right away”

  Beep.

  Jane dialed her sister's number. Sheila answered the phone in a perfect telephone-lady voice, calm and composed, but dissolved the moment she heard Jane's voice.

  After Sheila caught her breath, she said, “I was pregnant, and don't be mad at me, but I didn't want to tell anyone too soon. I was afraid of bad luck. But then Raoul was telling everyone and I got mad at him and told him it was bad luck, but he doesn't believe in luck or signs or anything. I do. Especially now.”

  Sheila was talking quickly, and Jane had to struggle to keep up. Sheila was crying, so her words were wet and mushy. Jane pieced the story together as if it were a quilt. Pregnant. Miscarried. Distraught. Sheila was grieving and needed all the family she could get.

  “I know I said all that stuff about not being sure I wanted to get pregnant. Right now, I can't believe I ever said anything so crazy. I was so happy, Janie. I was counting the days until I could tell you. Why did this happen to me? Why?”

  Jane stayed on the phone with her sister for the rest of the evening. There were long stretches of crying and even longer stretches of silence. They hung up, both depleted, and that night Jane dreamed that Betty was knitting a small boat, urging her girls to get in and start rowing.

  …

  Jane and Peter were late for work. She had stayed up late with Sheila once again, and they both forgot about petty things like alarm clocks. Jane usually raced to work, hating to walk in late, hating to have everyone see her emerge from the elevator long after they had started working/surfing the Web/fake-working. But Peter's presence made even this anticipated stress more survivable.

  Peter locked the apartment door as Jane began the race down the stairs. She had just a moment to notice the Open House sign posted near the mailboxes before they sped out the door. Jane tried to maintain her dignity as they did a speed-walk from the subway to the office building. They kissed good-bye as they approached their separate elevator banks. During the ride, she worked to catch her breath and make a serene entrance to workday. She entered her busy floor and stopped cold. No one was there. For a moment, she had to check that it was a workday. It was. It was a Tuesday. Jane finally found a living human being. It was Kendra, who was clutching a stack of personnel folders. She looked at her folders, then at Jane. The lines around her mouth were set and hard. Her shoulders were up high, and she looked tired.

  “Jane. You're late.”

  Tuesday. The perfect day to lay off all the staff. Not a Monday, since everybody hates Mondays. Early enough in the week that they can start to make some progress on a job search. Not so late in the week that they end up brooding for the weekend, only to return to the office with an Uzi. Tuesday, bloody Tuesday.

  “Jane? I've been waiting for you.”

  Walking to Kendra's office felt like wading through ice water. She sat down carefully and silently begged for this to be merciful and brief. It wasn't. Kendra had been instructed to speak only Corporate Speak today. She had a party line to say to each and ever
y person she fired. Jane had to sift through it all and translate it to plain English.

  “After careful analysis, we realized that outsourcing is going to be the best way for us to leverage resources.”

  This means, “We fired everyone.”

  “I want to manage your expectations here, but, Jane, you've always added value, and we've retained headcount for you for the rest of the fiscal year.”

  This means, “Don't get your hopes up, but we like you and you're not fired. Yet.”

  “But we'll need you to reach out to different business silos and evaluate their needs. We need to be flexible and responsive. We're redesigning your position, but we need you to architect it too.”

  This means, “You have to do a lot more work”

  Kendra described Jane's new job—which would involve much longer hours, supervising global support in Europe and Asia. Of course, Jane would have no trouble keeping up with the time differences—just come in real early and leave real late. Oh, and be here for lots of weekend projects. Oh, and there'll be lots of travel.

  Jane felt like melted wax. She chose this time to come out.

  “I'm adopting a baby. I don't think I'll be able to reach out to different silos or travel all that much. Once the baby comes home, I'll need to be less flexible here at the office. I'll need to go home. On time.”

  Kendra gasped. There was nothing in her Corporate Speak script to address adoptions. She shook her head and said, “I think we'll need to take this off-line.”

  …

  The office was depressingly quiet. Jane phoned Peter at work. After all, he worked on Wall Street too. He'd understand her situation and have good advice and insights. He was the right person to call. And okay, yes, she was longing to hear his voice again. After all, it had been minutes since they had spoken.

  “I was hoping I'd get promoted before the baby came, but this isn't a promotion. It's just more work. I can't do more work. I can only do less.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “Because I'm all alone here and it's creepy”