Bumped - Completed Novel

Bumped - Chapter Two

On Monday when I returned to Los Angeles, I was feeling so run down, I went to visit my doctor. No big surprise there with the schedule I kept. I had crisscrossed the country three times and made one overseas trip in just in the last three weeks alone. I wasn’t quite at the level of George Clooney’s Ryan Bingham from Up in the Air, but I was getting close.

New York for Letterman. Arizona for Wango Tango. Back to LA for Jimmy Kimmel. Off to Paris for my artist Cameron. As a music publicist, it was the same on both coasts, and on any continent: schmooze, smile, hand hold and of course, get blamed for any bad press suffered by my artists. Take the red-eye, land in the morning and go straight to the office.  Sounded glamorous on paper but after eight years it was about as exciting as surfing the ‘net on dial-up.

I had expected my convo with Dr. Madison to run something like:

“Elle, here’s a prescription for Amoxicillin, take one every eight hours for 10 days and slow down, get some rest. This bug is really getting around.”

Instead, as I sat perched on the examining table, shock had unhinged my jaw and it felt as loose and flimsy as the paper gown gaping open at my backside when she said, “Elle, you’re about six weeks pregnant. Here’s a prescription for prenatal vitamins. No alcohol and ease up on the caffeine.” No alcohol and caffeine? She might as well have said “lay off on the breathing.” 

I always assumed if I were to have a kid, it wouldn’t be easy. A turkey baster and test tubes or surrogate mom would be involved or at the very least, months of trying.  At 35, my eggs were supposed to be a cycle away from being on life support from what all the magazine articles and websites touted. I had happily stood in line and bought tickets to the myth that motherhood and careers were divergent paths and to choose one was to forsake the other.  

After the doctor dropped her bombshell, I drove back to my office in Beverly Hills on autopilot. I ignored the tall palm trees that lined the sidewalks, their fronds swaying in a lazy salute to a sky that was perfectly blue as long as you didn’t look northward where the Hollywood Hills jutted toward a sullen, gray cloud of smog and exhaust. It was a typical April day, a balmy 70 degrees. Standard for LA. Or at least it was typical this morning when I left for the doctor’s office. Now everything had changed. I had a passenger traveling with me. The sharp stench of tar stung my nose and the staccato beat of a drill thrummed a budding headache as I tried to merge into one lane and out of the way of the roadwork being done. Crater-sized potholes littered the streets adding an obstacle course feel to the process. The stop and go traffic was second nature and allowed my mind to wander.

Children had never really come up between us. We thought they were cute when they were someone else’s accessories and did the obligatory “oohs” and “ahhs” over the rugrats of acquaintances. We didn’t exactly share a kid-friendly lifestyle. We were unapologetically married to our careers and were still young enough not to have any regrets. We wanted to have kids someday in that vague, hazy future sort of way as in “someday I want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.” But today was never that day.

I had the media elite on speed dial. Getting some of my B-list and unknown clients into A-List events? Not a problem. Getting an upgrade to first class without the required mileage points? Could do it in my sleep. Knowing the best bars in eight different cities in four countries when on a lay over? Easy. I also could make a mean vanilla martini. Knew the best caterers in town. If you needed to buy a last minute dress that would turn heads at the Grammy’s, the address was already programmed into my GPS. These were all very valuable skills to have in my world. Breastfeeding and changing diapers? Not so much.

Hollywood made it look easy but they had an army of personal trainers, chefs, nannies, therapists, pool boys and plastic surgeons on hand to keep them looking and feeling young. Motherhood was nothing but a set prop for them but for me, way above my pay grade. You might as well ask me to build a rocket ship that ran on flax seed oil. I shook my head to restart my thoughts. Babies were supposed to be a blessing…gift-wrapped in stretch marks. I was unnerved by the guilt that came rushing in for being so thrown by Dr. Madison’s news. My maternal instinct was on hiatus; maybe it would kick in once the hormones started flowing.