Obviously, he doesn’t know who I am. He just read my name off my desk. But still. It was nice that he made the effort. I liked hearing my ordinary four-letter name on his tongue.
Andrew and Stewart have been in his office talking for about half an hour. Stewart instructed me not to leave while Mr. Winchester was in there, because he might need me to fetch some data from the computer. I can’t quite figure out what Stewart does, because I do all his work. But that’s fine. I don’t mind, as long as I get my paychecks and my health insurance. Cecelia and I need a place to live, and the pediatrician says there’s a set of shots she requires next month （for diseases she doesn’t even have!）。
But what I mind a little more is that Stewart didn’t warn me he was going to ask me to wait around. I’m supposed to be pumping now. My breasts are full and aching with milk, straining at the clips of my flimsy nursing bra. I’m trying my best not to think about Cece, because if I do, the milk will almost certainly burst through my nipples. And that’s just not the kind of thing you want to happen when you’re sitting at your desk.
Cece is with my neighbor Elena right now. Elena is also a single mother, so we trade babysitting duties. My hours are more regular, and she works evening shifts at a bar. So I take Teddy for her, and she takes Cece for me. We are making it work. Barely.
I miss Cece when I’m at work. I think about her all the time. I had always fantasized that when I had a baby, I would be able to stay home for at least the first six months. Instead, I just took my two weeks of vacation and went right back to work, even though it still sort of hurt to walk. They would have allowed me twelve weeks off, but the other ten would have been unpaid. Who could afford ten weeks unpaid? Certainly not me.
Sometimes Elena resents her son for what she gave up for him. I was in graduate school when I got that positive pregnancy test, leisurely working on a Ph.D. in English as I lived in semi-poverty. It hit me when I saw those two blue lines that my eternal graduate school lifestyle would never provide for me and my unborn child. The next day, I quit. And I started pounding the pavement, looking for something to pay the bills.
This isn’t my dream job. Far from it. But the salary is decent, the benefits are great, and the hours are steady and not too long. And I was told there’s room for advancement. Eventually.
But right now, I just have to get through the next twenty minutes without my breasts leaking.
I’m this close to running off to the bathroom with my little pumping backpack and my tiny little milk bottles when Stewart’s voice crackles out of the intercom.
“Nina?” he barks at me. “Could you bring in the Grady data?”
“Yes, sir, right away!”
I get on my computer and load up the files he wants, then I hit print. It’s about fifty pages’ worth of data, and I sit there, tapping my toes against the ground, watching the printer spit out each page. When the final page finishes printing, I yank out the sheets of paper and hurry over to his office.
I crack open the door. “Mr. Lynch, sir?”
“Come in, Nina.”
I let the door swing the rest of the way open. Right away, I notice both men are staring at me. And not in that appreciative way I used to get at bars before I got knocked up and my whole life changed. They’re looking at me like I’ve got a giant spider hanging off my hair and I don’t even know it. I’m about to ask them what the hell both of them are staring at when I look down and figure it out.
I leaked.
And I didn’t just leak—I squirted milk out like the office cow. There are two huge circles around each of my nipples, and a few droplets of milk are trickling down my blouse. I want to crawl under a desk and die.
“Nina!” Stewart cries. “Get yourself cleaned up!”
“Right,” I say quickly. “I… I’m so sorry. I…”
I drop the papers on Stewart’s desk and hurry out of the office as fast as I can. I grab my coat to hide my blouse, all the while blinking back tears. I’m not even sure what I’m more upset about. The fact that my boss’s boss’s boss saw me lactating or all the milk I just wasted.
I take my pump to the bathroom, plug it in, and relieve the pressure in my breasts. Despite my embarrassment, it feels so good to empty all that milk. Maybe better than sex. Not that I remember what sex feels like—the last time was that stupid, stupid one-night stand that got me into this situation to begin with. I fill two entire five-ounce bottles and stick them in my bag with an ice pack. I’ll put it in the refrigerator until it’s time to go home. Right now, I’ve got to get back to my desk. And leave my coat on for the rest of the afternoon, because I have recently discovered that even if it dries, milk leaves a stain.