Maternity Leave (2 page)

Fortunately, I’m not a completely disgruntled employee. I do enjoy “cake day.” On the fifteenth of each month, Johnson Smith purchases a Wright’s Gourmet Cake to celebrate the birthdays and new hires of the current month. Even in an office of two hundred people, the new hires easily outnumber the birthdays each month given the high employee turnover at Johnson Smith. My secretary’s most important task is to avoid scheduling anything on cake day. If the fifteenth of the month falls on a Saturday or Sunday, my secretary knows to block off the Friday before the fifteenth and the Monday after the fifteenth, as Johnson Smith is quite unpredictable in such a situation.

Fridays are generally tolerable at Johnson Smith because I often leave a few hours early to get a jump on traffic en route to an out-of-town cycling race. However, this weekend’s race, the last of the season, is in Ocala. Because Ocala is only an hour away from my home in South Tampa, there is no need to travel a day early. Instead, I’ll make day trips to the Saturday and Sunday races and spare my parents the duty of watching my dog for the fourth weekend in a row.

At 4:00 p.m. I was hit with the repercussions of working an entire Friday when the initials DSG popped up on my work phone. When making an interoffice phone call, the caller ID displays the initials of the Johnson Smith employee placing the call. DSG is David S. Greene.

“Hi David.”

“Hi Jennifer. Do you have a second?” David always calls me Jennifer because he believes nicknames are unprofessional and inappropriate in the workplace. It is immaterial to David that my name, as written on my birth certificate, is Jenna.

“Sure, what do you need?”

“We need to finish up another one of your evaluations.”

“Be right in,” I said.

I have worked at Johnson Smith for three years, but have only worked for David during the past year. At the time of my one-year evaluation, David realized that he never conducted my mini-evaluations. David normally conducts these mini-evaluations during months one through six as a way to welcome and acclimate new attorneys to the department. I was very enthusiastic about the oversight until I realized that we were going to make up for lost time. David has been conducting my month one through six evaluations during months thirteen through eighteen of working for David, and months thirty-seven through forty-three of working for the firm. Not surprisingly, the topics covered during a three month evaluation are not applicable to a third-year associate. Nevertheless, I walked to David’s office.

“Topic one: assimilation. Jennifer, are you assimilating well? Have you met people in the office? Do you want me to introduce you to anyone in particular?”

My inner monologue was shouting, “I have friends and you don’t!” but out loud I replied, “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Great. Moving on. As we discussed at your year evaluation, you’re almost swimming.”

This again.

“You know what I mean by ‘swimming’ right? There are steps to becoming a good lawyer, just like ‘swimming.’ First you need me to help you ‘stay afloat’ like your ‘parents’ did for you. Essentially, I’m your ‘parent’ here.”

My focus during this kindergarten tutorial was on whether I was more annoyed by David’s clichéd sports analogy, or his insistence on using air quotes inappropriately every third word.

“…Then you’re on your own with ‘water wings.’ Eventually, you take off your ‘water wings’ but you can only swim ‘doggy style.’ ” David started cracking up at his hilarious double entendre, which was inappropriate both situationally and substantively.

“Actually David, I think the appropriate term is doggy ‘paddle,’” I said while flashing exaggerated air quotes back at David.

“Either term is appropriate, Jennifer. Next, you start swimming ‘for real’ and can even do ‘flip turns.’ ”

Even though I’d heard this analogy before, I was stunned to be back at square one after twenty years of schooling and three years of practicing law, not to mention David’s four previous recitations of the same exact speech.

David mistook my expression of disbelief for confusion because he said, “Oh, I just remembered, you’re a ‘biker’ or is it ‘bicyclist?’ I’ll put this in terms you can understand. First, you sit in a seat in the back of your ‘parents’ bike…then you get a ‘tricycle’…finally, a ‘two-wheeled bike’ and ‘training wheels’…then, you get your first ‘big girl bike’…”

As David air quoted big girl bike, I snapped and explained that in spite of the subtleness of his first analogy, no further explanation was necessary. I felt compelled to nip this conversation in the bud before it morphed into something more difficult, like learning the alphabet or subtraction.

* * *

My dissatisfaction at work was forgotten when I clipped into my pedals to warm up for the Ocala criterium. A criterium course is generally a loop around a few city blocks. The blocks add up to approximately one mile and each race covers the course repeatedly for a set amount of time. For women, this generally equates to between twenty and forty laps. This sounds extremely boring but in reality, criteriums, commonly called crits, are fast paced and exciting, with cheering crowds on every lap. In contrast, cows are the only spectators during cycling races that take place on the open road. To add excitement to the crit, the announcer puts up cash or prizes called
primes
every few laps. The announcer yells, “Prime, five dollars, next lap,” and the racers initiate a race within the race to claim the coveted five dollar
prime
. In a field of competitive cyclists, the
prime
prize, pronounced “preem,” could be a stapler and each woman would turn herself inside out to nab the Swingline. It is not until later, when claiming your two dollars and a pencil, that you think, why did I sprint for that crap?

The Ocala women’s criterium was to be an hour, plus five laps over the 0.8 mile course. Based on the average speed of the women’s field in past races, we would probably complete about thirty laps of the rectangular shaped course that offered a scenic view of downtown Ocala: turn one had a general store called the Old Time Shoppe; turn two, a diner which may have doubled as the studio set for the 1950’s scenes of the movie
Back to the Future
; turn three had a misplaced-looking McDonald’s and Starbucks; and turn four was a horse feed store. Your typical downtown metropolis.

After the crit, I used the drive time back to Tampa to bitch about the race to my friend Danny since he was my captive audience in the car for at least an hour. I am relatively new to cycling, which is the least welcoming sport in the world. Once you’re “in,” cyclists will do anything for one another. However, when a newbie shows up for a ride, they’re on their own. There is an unwritten rule in cycling which prohibits racing cyclists from initiating unknown newcomers into the sport. To compound the situation, you’re often in the middle of nowhere when you realize you suck at cycling. This is because group training rides often start on the outskirts of civilization at a leisurely warm-up speed. This pace, which an electric wheelchair could maintain, remains steady for approximately five to ten miles of winding back roads, lulling newcomers into a false sense of security. Then, once the warm-up officially reaches the middle of nowhere, the real ride begins and weaker riders are spit out the back of the fast-paced pack and left to find their way back to their cars without the benefit of a map or a draft. This welcoming attitude is only magnified in the field of women’s racing, where cattiness merges with the golden rule of cycling: “Do unto others as you have had done unto you.” I began cycling at group rides around Tampa less than a year ago and was quickly able to mix it up with the strongest men, who encouraged me to race. However, with only half of a racing season under my belt, I am still “the new girl” at Florida women’s races.

“She’s a bitch and a cheater,” I said to Danny. I knew it wasn’t exactly true, but I was so pissed about being beaten by Brenda again that I didn’t care.

“I’ll grant you the bitch thing, but having experience and teammates is not cheating.”

“She has a monopoly over all of the talent in Florida and uses it to fuck me over at every opportunity.”

“You have two teammates.”

“I have a fifty-five-year-old woman and an eleven-year-old junior, both of whom are teammates by virtue of the fact that the same bike shop sponsors us. Neither of them has ever lasted longer than two laps, let alone offer me any sort of assistance. Brenda has six teammates, each of whom take turns attacking me, then sit up and refuse to work with me once I catch them.”

“You’re a bad-ass, you don’t need teammates in a little Florida race.”

“Today’s results beg to differ.”

“What are you talking about? You did well and won a few
primes
.”

“Objectively, they were the worst
primes
ever,” I pointed out. I won two T-shirts that were free to begin with. Someone had re-gifted their drawer of XXL blood donor T-shirts. The shirts fall below my knees, and say, “Be a Donorsaurus” and “Donate for a Porpoise.”

“You still won the
primes
, it was a good race. Brenda is the queen of Florida racing and has been for twenty years. She’s not going to pass the torch to you willingly in your first few months of racing.”

“She’s forty years old and I hope to be in her shape when I’m forty, but I kick her ass on every group ride and during some races, she has to realize that the end is near.”

“No, you beat her on every group ride with a hill. She smokes you in the sprints each and every time. Plus, she’s still really strong. As long as she can sprint and has teammates to get her there, she’s not relinquishing her designation as top dog, especially to a new rider like you.”

I turned on Danny who sat casually in the driver’s seat, arm out the window, trim and tanned in his shorts and white T-shirt. “What does that mean?”

“You’re already stronger than her and you’ve not even been racing a year
and
you’re doing it in your spare time when you’re not doing your little gig as a lawyer. It took her five years of sucking before she got to the top and she didn’t have a full-time job. You’re making it look too easy. She’s going to go ape shit when you learn how to sprint.”

“I was a runner before becoming a cyclist. She was a chain smoker. Besides, if I’m so worthy of jealousy, why does every other girl in Florida want to be on her team? I swear Brenda is slipping those girls some sort of tainted Gatorade because there is no other reason for them to adore her.”

“She’s the only professional female racer Florida has ever produced. Every single one of them thinks they’re racing for Lancette Armstrong and wants to impress their team captain. Besides, she’s mercurial. Her teammates have only seen her good side and you’ve only seen her bad side. Her teammates are actually nice, they’re just being aloof with you because they’re intimidated by you and don’t want to piss Brenda off.”

“No one is intimidated by me. Did you see her henchman ram me into the curb?”

“Sammy is a former track rider, that’s how they ride. Scary, but legal. Tomorrow is a hilly road race. It’s more suited to you and less suited to Brenda and her teammates. You’ll be fine. Sammy’s fat ass won’t even make it over the first hill.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Relax, everyone’s fighting to be the big fish in the little sea here. Things will be better when you go pro and the women are more supportive and less threatened by you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “They seem respectful and professional when I read interviews and post-race comments on the Internet. I want to race at the level when that happens.”

“You will.” Danny said this matter-of-factly.

“I’ll never be able to turn pro unless I quit my job and sell my house. A drastic move to chase a dream where even the most seasoned professional woman rarely earns a five figure-salary.”

“You’re smart, you’ll figure something out.”

When I got home from the race, I napped for four hours then went out for drinks with some of my friends. I am single, as I have been for most of my life, save for a few disastrous relationships and horrendous first dates. I bear a lot of the fault for this, because I want to be swept off my feet by somebody tall, dark and handsome, who is athletic, brilliant, funny, nice, rich, and lives to please me. This results in being alone for long stretches of time. In reality, I like being alone and am not interested in any of the men I meet. However, I have made a concerted effort to date more often recently because I am nearing thirty and it is clear to me that, at this rate, I will surely be alone for the rest of my life. Consequently, I have forced myself to lower my standards and agree to dates that my gut urges me to avoid. If a guy is off-the-wall brilliant, he can be slack in all other areas and becomes dateable as long as he isn’t bland, hideous, on welfare, fat, and so forth. The same theory applies if a guy is an Olympic-caliber athlete, obscenely handsome, filthy rich or ridiculously funny. As a result, I have not dated the most well-balanced men.

Even when I think I meet “the one,” there’s always a problem. Jason preferred
Friends
to
Seinfeld
; Alex sent emails confusing
to, two
and
too
(keeping
their, there
and
they’re
straight is also very important to me); Peter kept Kosher; Dan went to church; Aiden disliked beer; Mike knew too much about wine; Matt designated Bennigan’s as a favorite restaurant; Martin went to a hair salon instead of a six dollar barber; John saved a movie stub as a souvenir because “it will be cool to show our kids someday if we get married;” Jarred had a “
W”
bumper sticker; Aaron went to tanning beds; Scott believed in horoscopes; Ed designated half of his refrigerator to be a reptarium for snakes; Brian preferred cats to dogs; Alex had a vanity license plate; Dave sent emails with winking smiley faces or LOL; Seth wore a bracelet and necklace; Joel shaved his chest and arm hair; Tyler used the phrase “this guac is delish,”; Brett walked only on his tiptoes; Sean drove exactly the speed limit in the left lane on the highway; Vinny used a Band-Aid for a paper cut; Jeff parked diagonally so that no one could park near his precious car. I feel like I’m forgetting a lot. The only guy to ever dump me was James and he did so because I suck at Trivial Pursuit. Good riddance, I’m better off without that judgmental asshole.