Such a Fun Age(66)
But then Alix scrolled to Maura’s second email, which was sent an hour after the first.
Hellooo? Alix love, let’s schedule a chat. I’m getting concerned that I haven’t seen any work from you, especially since most of the work in this case is already done. I know writing a book is quite a feat, especially with two little ones, but I want to make sure we’re on the same page (oh God, what a bad pun) before we move forward. I’d hate to have to amend our contract but I want to do what’s best for both of us here. Let’s talk soon. Maura.
Amend our contract? Could they take her advance away? What if she’d already spent it? This slap on the wrist from Maura felt like Alix’s mother had caught her drinking wine coolers in someone else’s car, opened the passenger-side door, and said, “Alex. Let’s go.” How fast could she write fifty pages? Or thirty? Hadn’t she had an outline for all of this? This was supposed to be easy and fun! What was Kelley telling Emira?!
And that was when she heard it. With her palm pressed to her chin as she leaned against the standing desk, Alix heard Catherine emit an annoyed drip of baby sounds. Alix turned to the counter and seized the black-and-white baby monitor screen. There was Catherine in her crib. Kicking in her sleep sack.
It was as if all her organs rushed up and squeezed into the space around her ears. But wasn’t Peter just . . . How did I . . . But I thought Emira had . . . She couldn’t have been . . . Alix ran and opened the girls’ bedroom door, and there was Catherine, who, now startled from the door opening so quickly, started to cry. Alix swooped her into her arms and held her against her beating chest. Had she been screaming or crying? Had she accidentally swallowed something? Did the neighbors hear her cry? Was she completely traumatized? Alix had left her daughter at home. Alone. What if something had happened?!
You never leave a baby. It’s unlikely something will happen to it, but what about to you? Alix could barely remember walking home. What if she’d been hit by a car? What if she’d had a seizure and was left unconscious? Emira and Briar would be at a movie and God knows where else for hours, and Catherine would just be by herself in a fleece zip-up sack? How could she forget a person who’d been strapped to her for the past five days? What would she have said? Had Kelley really made her forget her own baby? Her brand-new baby, who already looked like a replica of herself? When was the last time Alix had cried this hard? Probably when Kelley broke up with her. Alix pressed her hand against her mouth and said, “I’m so sorry,” into it. Catherine calmed and waahh’d softly into her ear.
Alix bounced Catherine in her arms as she walked into the kitchen and around the table. On her third rotation, she glanced at her computer screen and caught sight of the word Inbox on a tab she hadn’t opened. It was followed by EmiraCTucker@ before it was cut off. Alix slid Catherine into her right arm.
It was just so easy to type his name. After Kell it came right up. It was even easier to find the attachment dated September2015; it was the first and only email they’d ever exchanged. And once it was downloaded, Alix dragged it into a folder marked Spring Blog Posts that she hadn’t used since last spring. Without watching the video, Alix quickly emailed it to herself as well—now she had it twice—and then she erased the email in the Sent folder and logged out of Emira’s email. Alix cleared her browser’s history and put in two new searches before she left the computer—winter toddler crafts and organic teething bars—and then she reached for her phone.
“Hi, Laney, are you busy right now?” Alix sniffed audibly and let her voice shake as she greeted Peter’s co-host. She kissed her daughter’s cheek and continued to bounce her. “Well, I might need your help . . . but can you keep a secret?”
Twenty-two
Under peach neon signs and acrylic palm tree leaves, Emira sat with a plastic tiara on her head in a plunging black dress and sheer black tights. The implication that this was Emira’s “favorite place” only slightly bothered her. Yes, the DJ was lit and played the best reggaeton in her opinion, but much like baking brownies and matinee movie showtimes and boxed wine that you kept in the refrigerator, Emira loved Tropicana 187 because of the low prices (two for ones, ladies’ night specials, three-dollar beers, six-dollar palomas). It wasn’t half as fancy as the places Zara, Josefa, and Shaunie had picked for their birthdays, but the drinks and the night were aggressively sweet.
In a red and squishy booth, Emira’s three friends sat around her in tight dresses and heavy bronzer. The table was covered in pi?a coladas, fish tacos, pineapple salsa, and pulled jerk chicken. Everything reeked of sugary mai tais and fried coconut shrimp, and every song that came on was another killer. As she opened her last birthday present, a new phone cover to replace her faded and cracked one, Emira unstuck her heel from the floor and said, “Ohmygod, thank you, Z.” She began to rip the packaging open using the side of her black nail.
“Yeah we can’t have you carrying this around anymore.” Zara grabbed Emira’s phone and began to remove the worn, pink rubber casing. “Ohmygod, this thing is so tired and done. It wasn’t doing anything for our brand.”
Zara applied the new, matte-finished gold casing onto Emira’s phone. Emira placed her other gifts into one bag (metallic earbuds and an iTunes gift card from Josefa, two silky “interview shirts” from Shaunie) and announced to the group, “The next round is on me.”