Maternity Leave (15 page)

“They’re excited. They want me to move back in so that they can be with their grandbaby at all times.”

“Really? I’d kill my daughter.”

“Your daughter is nineteen, I’m twenty-eight. I’m pretty sure my parents put plecebos in my birth control in order to cause this very result.”

“I don’t care how old my daughter is, I’d still kill her.”

“I’m sure you won’t have to worry, she’s a good girl and she’ll probably be married off by her twenty-first birthday.”

“I hope so, she’s not very smart. She needs to find a rich man.”

I found it interesting that David spent forty grand a year for his daughter to attend a small, private liberal-arts college, when he thought her calling in life was to marry wealthy. I also couldn’t believe that David would throw his daughter under the bus like that. I could have an I.Q. of eleven and my delusional parents would still tell me that I could be CEO of MENSA if I put my mind to it. Proof of this is Jason. He maintains a straight C average and watches television nine hours a day, but my parents are looking forward to touring the University of Florida with him next year, just like they did with John and me. I’d love to see his personal statement to get into a college. Jason uses “fuck’n” as a prefix and “n’shit” as a suffix for nearly all of his sentences. For example, “Fuck’n, let’s go get coffee n’shit.” I should set Jason up with David’s daughter.

After the powwow, I went back to my desk and started updating my files so the business of insurance companies suing insurance companies could go on in the event of my untimely passing, or more realistically, my maternity leave. As I was doing this, David sent out an email congratulating one of my coworkers for settling his first case. I hate these emails because they’re always entitled “Congratz.” Few things are more annoying to me than intentionally misspelling something to be “kool.”

After work and my bike ride, I went over to John and Julie’s with Sonny for dinner and to watch a movie with Julie. We turned on the DVD player and television and heard grunting. I immediately averted my eyes in order to avoid the possibility of watching a home movie starring my brother. I hit “eject” and removed what turned out to be
Hardcore Fucking #9
.

I turned to Julie and said, “Don’t you have the Internet? Where do you want me to put this? I don’t see the box.”

“Oops, sorry, I’ll take that.”

Julie opened a cabinet stuffed with sex toys. Real ones, not peanut butter jars. Sonny poked his nose in and grabbed a dildo and ran outside.

“He can have that now,” said Julie with a tone that suggested it was one of her favorites.

“That’s not necessary,” I replied, “his elephant keeps him satisfied.”

A few seconds later, Sonny ran back in with the dildo and dropped it at my feet. Julie picked it up and threw it. She continued to play dildo fetch with Sonny throughout the two-hour movie. When it was time to leave, Sonny grabbed the dildo. I told him to drop it, but he wouldn’t. My other alternative was to pry it out of his mouth, but that involved touching my brother and sister-in-law’s dildo. I told Julie to grab it, but she just laughed and said, “No way, he gets to keep it.”

Finally, I gave up and let him take his pre-owned nine-inch cock with him to my house. I figured I’d pick it up with a plastic bag, like I do with his poop, while he slept.

* * *

In April, things were still going smoothly. I had a meeting with Human Resources in a few weeks. Our HR woman was a mother of six, so I decided a little preparation was in order. I Googled the Family Medical Leave Act and came up with a bunch of articles about laws concerning pregnancy in the workplace. Unfortunately, they all dealt with the rights of pregnant women and none focused on the necessary paperwork to prove pregnancy. The related searches at the bottom of the site were titled, “Pregnancy Do’s and Don’ts,” “The Pregnancy Diet,” and my personal favorite, “How to Make a Belly Cast.”

According to my search, hair dye was a “don’t,” but nail polish a “do.” Hot tubs and saunas were “don’ts” because they raised the body’s temperature, increasing the risk of a miscarriage. Lying in the sun was a “don’t” for pregnant women as well, but the reasoning was different. Evidently, if a pregnant woman tans in the sun, it could cause skin cancer; not a unique side effect. Alcohol, cigarettes and fish were “don’ts” for pregnant women, in that order, but tap water was a “do.”

I clicked on a few belly cast photos. The process seemed time consuming and messy, not to mention unnecessary considering that the new kid would be enough of a souvenir at the end of the pregnancy. The only useful purpose I could think of for one was for me to wear it for the next three months instead of the cumbersome Empathy Belly that had been created solely to scare teenagers into safe sex.

While researching FMLA, I got an email from David. My secretary had sent him an email with “The Martin Case,” in the subject line. In the body of the email, she wrote, “Mediation on Tuesday, June 9th at 9:00 a.m.” David’s email to me said, “What case is this?”

Someone was not focusing today. I replied, “The Martin Case.”

David responded, “What is it? What’s going on?”

I toyed with writing “see supra,” but opted to be cordial. “There’s a mediation.”

“When?”

Was he fucking kidding? “Tuesday, June 9th at 9:00.”

“Will you still be here?”

“Yes, I’m due in July.”

When I was certain David was out of stupid questions, I printed out our email correspondence and put it in my “An Attorney Actually Said That,” category along with the following:

–
Please join us in congratulating Jason Voss in his hard fought summary judgment award he received today in favor of his client, a night club that served alcohol to an underage individual who later drove his car home in an intoxicated state and killed a husband and father of four young children. Our client inspected his identification, which was fake and made him 32 instead of 16. This is a tremendous result and Jason should be congratulated.
(Brought to you by Johnson Smith’s patron saint, Satan).

–Will the person who took my newspaper please give me the classifieds back. I’d like to do my daily crossword.
(At least I’m discreet about my time wasting.)

–Confidential High Priority Email: A couple of employees have been diagnosed with the contagious eye disease, “pink eye.” Please wash your hands frequently and avoid excessive rubbing of your eyes. If you contract this, get the proper medicine to contain it prior to coming back to work.
(Um, can I work from home until this blows over?)

–If Capital One Financial is the adverse party, is it a conflict of interest that I have a Capital One Visa card?
(Yes, change banks immediately or find a new job.)

–Does anyone have any case law to support our client’s position that a 13-year-old plaintiff would be held to the same legal standard as an adult in regard to appreciating the danger of walking onto a street in front of oncoming traffic?
(Patron Saint at work again.)

I put the folder away and looked up the weeks 31 through 34; the bottom of the third trimester of pregnancy.

Week Thirty-One:

Mom:
You may feel as if your internal organs are crowded. They are.

Good time to donate a kidney.

Baby:
Try monitoring the baby yourself by using fetal kick counts.

That sounded like a chocolate bar. I looked up fetal kick counts and found that the baby should move ten times in four hours, significantly less than the ten-second intervals at which my Empathy Belly was kicking me.

Week Thirty-Two:

Mom:
Posture is very important to your comfort.

I’m thinking Xanax would go a long way as well.

Baby:
The baby’s irises can now dilate and contract in response to light.

Great, what time does the sun set in my uterus?

Week Thirty-Three:

Mom:
Rib cage and pelvis may be sore.

The bag of horrors continues.

Baby:
Baby is very aware of the surroundings. We tend to think of the uterus as a dark place, but it can be light and dark depending on the mother’s environment.

I stand corrected, maybe the sun does set in my uterus.

Week Thirty-Four:

Mom:
You may start noticing contractions.

What? I thought contractions started the day of delivery, not two months prior.

Baby:
Baby is urinating a pint a day.

I’ll never look at a pint of beer in the same way.

In May, I met with Janice Robinson of Human Resources to discuss my pregnancy leave. Crunch time. She gave me some forms to take home and fill out, then spent the rest of the meeting trying to pry information from me. Excessive gossiping is an integral part of Janice’s position. Essentially, her questions focused on learning information about my mysterious baby-daddy. I gave her nothing.

Janice’s other focal point was my wardrobe. Johnson Smith had a very strict and absurd dress code that each employee received on their first day. Thongs were not permitted. Enforcement of this rule made me nervous until I realized Johnson Smith referred to flip-flops as “thongs.” The rest of the dress code was not as clear as the “no thongs” rule. On Monday through Thursday, business casual was acceptable. Friday was casual day. Capri pants were considered casual rather than business casual, and were allowable only on Fridays, as were jeans, provided they weren’t blue. The dress code specifically states that pink or yellow jeans were acceptable, but not blue jeans.

The problem was that my meeting with Janice was on a Wednesday and I was wearing a pair of Jessica’s maternity capri pants. This may have seemed like a flagrant violation, but in my defense, Jessica was approximately five inches taller than me. Thus, her capris fit me like regular pants, which was why I dared to wear them on a Wednesday. Janice did not understand my logic, let alone agree with it.

“I know you’re pregnant, and it’s tough, but you have to obey the dress code.”

I pulled my flip-flopped or “thonged” feet away from Janice’s gaze and said, “The pants go down to my ankles.”

“The rule in the dress code clearly states that capris are only proper on Fridays. The length of the capris is irrelevant.”

“Yes, but by definition, capris are calf-length. These are ankle-length.”

“I can tell they’re capris, don’t wear them again unless it’s a Friday.”

I was tempted to say something along the lines of “Fuck off,” but I didn’t want to get fired before my maternity leave.

I took the FMLA packet back to my office and started filling out the forms. Name, address, age, social security number…I was acing this questionnaire so far. Reason for medical leave: giving birth. Doctor’s name and signature: I’d fill that in later.

The form had a place to choose eight weeks or twelve weeks maternity leave. What dipshit workaholic would only choose eight? There’s gotta be a catch. I Googled it and found the catch. FMLA required that women receive twelve weeks maternity leave after giving birth. A new mother cannot be fired during this time period, but a business does not necessarily have to pay them for the duration. A number of factors dictated the amount of paid leave a business granted to a new mother. At Johnson Smith, women were entitled to take twelve weeks leave, but only eight of them were paid at two-thirds salary. I only had enough in savings to last me three days, but it was still a no-brainer to choose the twelve-week option. I’d figure out how to support myself for the other three-and-a-half weeks when the time came. Hopefully I’d turn pro. Not exactly a cash cow, but I would be paid in “cycling money,” which would get me through for three weeks.

The top domestic professional women racers in the United States make salaries of approximately five thousand a year, and not more than forty thousand. Unfortunately, the
domestiques
for these top racers don’t necessarily earn more than zero. The term
domestique
is French for “servant.” Unlike triathlon or running, cycling is a team sport. The team leader needs people to block the wind, chase down breakaways, get water bottles from the team car, and in the event of a mechanical, such as a flat tire or broken chain, give up their wheel or bike to their team captain.

In women’s racing in the U.S.,
domestiques
are paid next to nothing, plus some cycling money, which is more valuable than Monopoly money but less valuable than actual currency.
Domestiques
receive a free team bike (worth about five thousand dollars), several uniforms (called “kits”), travel expenses (hotel, gas, food), entry fees, and, if applicable, a split of their captain’s winnings (captains get these perks in addition to becoming thousandaires). The prize purses for women’s races are often staggeringly less than the men’s races. Because
domestiques
get paid in cycling money rather than actual currency,
domestiques
in the women’s
peloton
tend to be either extremely poor if they’re not college kids supported by their parents or student loans, housewives supported by their husbands or, hopefully, lawyers fraudulently posing as pregnant women.

I would consider myself a success in cycling if I could avoid losing money. Placing in a regional women’s bike race nets a whopping fifty to three hundred bucks. After putting these winnings towards my weekend expenses, I’ve been losing an average of seventy-five dollars per weekend since I started racing. I make much more money as a lawyer than I ever could as a cyclist and my maternity leave is only going to make this worse. My “vacation” of racing the Tour de West and all of the NRC races leading up to the Tour de West will require me to purchase a four hundred dollar plane ticket for myself and two hundred dollar plane ticket for my bike, then pay for entry fees, hotel, car, gas etc. Therefore, four weeks with no income whatsoever will be a hardship without the help of a professional team.