Emma looks at the women sprawled out in her living room and knows a gal couldn’t ask for better friends. Even if they do fall short occasionally and drive each other to the brink from time to time.
“I know we covered this, but I still can’t imagine what Devin is thinking.” Andi tears into a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, then pauses and sprints to the kitchen to retrieve a serving bowl, hollering as she goes. “Does he think Greta is going to do all the work?”
“He’s having his midlife crisis. His brain is addled.” Fern opens the barbecue chips, sending Andi back to the kitchen for a second bowl.
Carolina grabs a handful directly from the bag and calls to Andi, “Just let us eat like heathens!”
Fern says, “I know it’s a cliché to say men think with their dicks, but for some of them, it’s true. There’s a reason women can’t have babies at our age.”
Emma isn’t listening. Or, she is, but mostly she’s letting the warmth of the evening wash over her. This is what friendship is, why the four of them have never truly drifted. When hard luck falls, girlfriends show up. She ought to make that into a sweatshirt.
“Mack was great with the babies,” Fern says. “We had a whole system worked out because I’m a morning person and he’s a night owl. But that still didn’t make it easy.”
Carolina crunches on a chip. “Queenie would’ve been great with babies. I would’ve been a mess. Eight hours of sleep a night, minimum, or I can’t function.”
“Still. It’s amazing what hormones can do.” Andi is finally back, arms loaded with extra bowls, napkins, and a pitcher of water. “Some days I functioned on zero sleep like a superhero. I believe those stories about mothers being able to lift cars off trapped children or whatever.”
“Isn’t that thanks to adrenaline?” asks Fern.
Nobody knows exactly.
“Girls, why do I feel like such a cliché?” Emma groans, feeling the self-pity set in. “I keep thinking of that scene in WHMS.” The friends have watched When Harry Met Sally so many dozens of times it’s earned its own shorthand. “At Marie’s wedding. Sally and Harry are fighting, and Sally says, ‘Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario?’ And he says, ‘You are,’ all self-righteous like, even though he can see how much he’s hurting Sally.”
“And?” Fern asks.
“And that’s me—I’m reliving that scene. Devin’s gone and gotten his much younger über-Anglo goddess-looking girlfriend pregnant, and yet I’m the cliché. I am the dog.”
“How?” Andi wants to know.
“Because I’m the jilted older ex-wife. Of course, he’s going to procreate with Greta Magnussen. Who wouldn’t?”
Carolina scoffs. “Lots of guys, obviously. Isn’t she in her thirties already?”
“Oh, my God—ageist, much?!” Andi squeals, pointing an accusatory finger.
“I was being sarcastic.” Carolina scowls, then returns her attention to Emma. “My point is, Ems, you are neither the dog nor the cliché in this scenario. And anyway, I always disagreed with Harry. If anyone, he’s the dog.”
“Agree.” Fern raises a hand. “Harry is totally the dog.”
Andi snuggles up to Emma and wraps her into a squeeze. “I’m happy to let you be a cliché if it means hanging here with you. All of us together.”
Emma leans in, soaking up the love.
Andi continues, “Watching the girls at Cameron’s school reminds me of what a good thing we’ve got with each other.” She reaches for a blanket and pulls it across her lap and Emma’s. “There’s this group of girls that always stands together while waiting for their rides. They’re obviously friends, but the whole time, they hardly speak to each other. Then their phones light up at the same time and they all laugh.”
“Snapchat?” asks Fern. “Insta? TikTok?”
“Who knows.” Andi rolls her eyes. “But it’s just so weird. Is that what qualifies as conversation now?”
“That is what passes for conversation now—interaction via screen,” Fern explains. “My boys do it, but to the extreme. They play video games online with their friends and threaten to kill each other several times an hour. We’d never know if someone was actually being murdered in our house because Mack and I tune it out.”
Andi sighs. “I know. Cam does that, too. But this seems different. Does Maisy have friends the way we’re friends?” She gestures at the four of them.
“She does,” says Fern. “But it is different. Social media facilitates friendship, but it also catalogs it. Since nothing can be deleted, it’s never truly forgotten—every insult, slight, and misunderstanding can be dredged up with a few clicks. It can be devastating.”
“How are kids supposed to learn to trust anyone growing up fearing the worst?” Carolina asks.
“Right?”
“Portia went through that.” Emma’s mind drifts to entire evenings spent trying to console her brokenhearted daughter. “She’d fall apart if an Instagram post only got a hundred likes. There was this girl in her high school who doled out exclamation points like she was a Michelin food critic. I remember she commented, ‘Cute!’ with one exclamation point on a picture of Portia in front of the DMV with her new driver’s license and Portia came home so upset you’d have thought she’d run over a pedestrian during the exam. This gigantic milestone and a single comment ruined the whole day for her. It’s ridiculous.”
Andi groans. “And people wonder why there’s a teenage mental health crisis.”
Fern passes the tray of cupcakes. “Why are we so terrible to each other? I mean, yes, something needs to change with this whole climate of toxic masculinity that’s taken hold, but it feels like women should have figured out how to end the pattern of keeping each other down.”
“The cards are stacked against us.” Carolina takes two cupcakes and grins. “I’m going big on the sugar tonight.”
“What do you mean the cards are stacked?” Fern asks.
“I mean, okay. Here’s the reality. I try to mentor the strongest people on my team, regardless of gender or race. But I especially try to reach out to the women because there are so few of them. You get past a certain level and the numbers just dwindle.”
“Don’t you have a female CIO?” asks Fern.
“We do. But I’ve worked for nearly a dozen CIOs in my career and she’s the first woman. That’s a bad ratio, even for tech.”
Andi nods. “Same with lawyers. It varies by field of course, but you wouldn’t believe how lopsided the profession can be.”
“Anyway,” Carolina continues. “We’re going through this pseudo layoff. Long story short, my biggest fear from the beginning has been that I’ll lose one of my team leads. Yesterday I found out that not only am I losing one, but I’m losing my only female team lead.”
“Crap,” says Fern.
“She’s leaving for a better job, so I can’t blame her. But now there are no women in the leadership pipeline.”
“Shouldn’t that make it easier for a talented woman to rise in the ranks?” asks Emma.
“Not necessarily. When we were hiring for her position, HR sent over a huge bundle of candidate résumés they wanted me and the former CIO to go review. My boss flips through them like, ‘Okay...interview this one, this one, and this one.’”
She flicks her wrist as if tossing cards from a deck one by one into the air.
“The whole effort takes five minutes, tops. And I say, ‘You haven’t selected a single woman or person of color to interview.’ But he’s suddenly all defensive. ‘These are the best candidates for the position. None of the others have the necessary relevant experience.’ Which is exactly the problem!” She throws her arms in the air. “How are women going to get the relevant experience if we don’t give it to them? It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. You give the men the opportunities, they get the skills.”
Fern asks, “What does that have to do with girls outside Cam’s school?”
“Because females are forced to compete on every level, at every stage, when we really ought to be looking out for each other. It’s even biological. Think about it. The world’s population is 51 percent female, right? So simply to complete one of our most fundamental biological functions—to have babies—we’re fighting for resources.”
“As in, one Devin for two women,” says Fern. “See, Emma? You’re not the cliché. It’s just biology.”
“Well, in that case—” she holds out her glass “—someone please refill my wine. It appears I’m off baby duty for the rest of my life.”
Fern obliges. “Don’t forget about grandkids.”
“Oh, my God.” Emma drops her head against the back of the couch. She can’t believe she didn’t think of this before. “Portia’s kids are barely going to be younger than Devin’s.”
Carolina peels the paper from her cupcake. “At least she and Lyle will be young enough to enjoy them.”
“How did we get on this subject?” asks Fern.
“Because men think with their ding-dongs, and women are expected to either celebrate that or get out of the way,” Andi answers.
Fern laughs. “Did you really just say ‘ding-dong’?”
“It’s a legal term.”
“What about meat stick? Would you use that in a court briefing?”
“Absolutely.”
“Mr. Silly Business and his pals, Billy and Baldwin?”
“I’ve got a case pending against them right now.”
“Brilliant. Can I come to the trial?”
“Of course. Though I’ll warn you, Judge Palmer can take a long time to finish.”