Black Girls Must Have It All
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Synopsis
In this final installment in the acclaimed Black Girls Must Die Exhausted trilogy, Tabitha is juggling work, relationships, and a newborn baby—but will she find the happy ending she’s always wanted?
After a whirlwind year, Tabitha Walker’s carefully organized plan to achieve the life she wanted—perfect job, dream husband, and stylish home—has gone off the rails. Her checklist now consists of diapers changed (infinite), showers taken (zero), tears cried (buckets), and hours of sleep (what’s that?).
Don't get her wrong, Tabby loves her new bundle of joy and motherhood is perhaps the only thing that's consistent for her these days. When the news station announces that they will be hiring outside competitors for the new anchor position, Tabby throws herself into her work. But it’s not just maintaining her position as the station’s weekend anchor that has her worried. All of her relationships seem to be shifting out of their regular orbits. Best friend Alexis can’t manage to strike the right balance in her “refurbished” marriage with Rob, and Laila’s gone from being a consistent ride-or-die to a newly minted entrepreneur trying to raise capital for her growing business. And when Marc presents her with an ultimatum about their relationship, coupled with an extended “visit” from his mother, Tabby is forced to take stock of her life and make a new plan for the future.
Consumed by work, motherhood, and love, Tabby finds herself isolated from her friends and family just when she needs them most. But help is always there when you ask for it, and Tabby’s village will once again rally around her as she comes to terms with her new life and faces her biggest challenge yet—choosing herself.
Release date: April 11, 2023
Publisher: HarperCollins
Print pages: 288
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Black Girls Must Have It All
Jayne Allen
THREE SHORT WEEKS AND TWO DAYS AGO, I STARTED A NEW JOB with absolutely no experience. The job of motherhood. Someone should fire me—I’ve already made a mess of it. I often call it a hot gloppy mess, both figuratively and literally, for me to clean up. Although the irony is, as I understand it, I can’t get fired. I’ll have this job for life. Strangely enough, it does not pay well, but the benefits are enormous. Good thing I have paying employment. I can actually get fired from that position, and I just might be. I made a mess there too. Unfortunately, that cleanup is not as easy as dealing with a bunch of soiled diapers, or even this Rorschach blot of baby barf on the third shirt I’ve changed into since sunrise. A sunrise I was awake to witness, by the way, as happens often when there’s no chance to sleep.
It’s important to know that this job as a mother was one that I very much wanted. Very much. Possibly too much. I’m very good at wanting things—and then I go after them as if there aren’t any consequences. It’s not that I’m not afraid—it’s just that when I really want something, my desire wins out. Maybe someone else would call it ambition. But raw ambition runs over some people, ruins things for others. I only ruin things for myself.
With my new job, it’s hard to ruin things, because it’s the same thing every day. Evie has her schedule—eat, play, cry, sleep—every three hours. It just repeats. And my schedule has become: feed, entertain, panic, scramble to pump, clean, do laundry, and maybe eat or bathe (but not both) while the baby is sleeping. As soon as she’s hungry, it starts all over again.
Like right now, I’m in the comfy chair in the lilac-colored nursery listening to the airy pfwhoosh pfwhoosh of the breast pump rhythmically coaxing a trickle of milk from my mammaries. I do this for twenty minutes, even though I’m not very good at it, or even that successful. I am a terrible cow. As it turns out, my breasts don’t really like to produce large quantities of milk, even after supplements and water, and prayer. It just hasn’t been working for me. But I pump anyway, because whatever little bit I can manage is evidently good.
“You don’t have to be good at everything,” I whisper to sleeping Evie. “Just be good at the things that matter most.” I’m sure she’ll need that advice just as much as I do. When she wakes up, she will have a bottle of formula waiting for her, at just the right temperature, in the perfect number of ounces. Thankfully, these days, they make machines for that—kind of like the coffee maker at work.
Tabitha Evelyn Walker Brown, my new boss. I call her “Ladybug” sometimes, “Cutie,” “Cuddles,” or “Baby Love,” but mostly Evie. Like E-V. Evie is the name we decided to put on the wall of her nursery, floating cursive on top of a big rectangle of faux peonies and soft pink roses. When I was a little girl, I had a pink room and hated it. I promised I would never, but an accent color isn’t terrible. Plus, she’ll never know.
In about an hour, my new boss will scream for me, like bloody murder. It will be so loud, I’ll think the neighbors will hear and call the authorities. But it’s just her way of saying, Hello, I’m hungry. If I could imagine a job description, I think it would be: Loveable but demanding boss seeks food source, comfort, and a human cushion (with ample neck cuddle space), for long-term employment. Please note, punctuality is a plus. Employer expects needs to be anticipated. Working from home is not only preferred, but required.
Right now, Evie’s whole life, and consequently mine too, is set to the pace of hunger. Hunger is easy to satisfy. My other job, my paid employment, is governed by ratings—making sure complete strangers like me so much they tune in to watch every day. That’s been a challenge. Until recently, my main focus and title was Tabitha Abigail Walker, weekend news anchor at Los Angeles–based KVTV news. Around this same time in the morning, I’d be walking into the KVTV office, through the glass doors, composed and pristine, ready to do battle. I’d be dressed immaculately, caramel skin glowing, hair flowing, and more recently, curls poppin’ in my twist-out. I wanted to succeed at KVTV, and I did—but not without sacrifices. Some of them big. Still, in a short time, I had won an Emmy and been promoted twice to my current position as weekend anchor.
My journey has been one of upward movement. A career with some amount of ambition and an increasing amount of risk. I’ve been taking big swings lately, playing it a little fast and loose with the rules. It hasn’t been whimsical though. It’s been back-against-the wall calculations. If you really want to move forward in battle, sometimes you have to burn the ships. Well, when I went on maternity leave, all the ships were ablaze and the port too. One big tanker fire set in the office of my boss—Chris Perkins, KVTV’s news director. In two months, what will I return to? I have no idea, but all I know is there’s no turning back. “It’s okay to burn the ships, Ladybug,” I whisper to Evie. “But make sure you take the map with you.”
Can I say I love what I do? Maybe I do love it. It’s the career I chose and built, and I need it. Well, I need to have a job, a generously paying one. But this is the work that fulfills me. It’s my responsibility to see and make seen and heard the voices and stories that are often forgotten in my city of Los Angeles. I know all too well what it’s like to be left behind.
My work is my freedom, my mortgage payment, my backup plan, and my “yes” to the happy hours I used to go to with my best friends, Alexis and Laila. It is Evie’s diapers and that expensive-assed formula I have to buy because as it turns out, again, I am not a very good cow. Even so, I am determined to be an excellent mother. And just maybe, if I can manage it, I’d really really like to be happy—not my mother’s kind of happy, or my grandmother’s even. What I want is life’s very best.
My career is all the more important because I’m not just a mother—I’m also a single mother. Well, maybe not exactly single.
Just about two and a half years ago, I was told that if I didn’t do something quick, I’d lose the chance to have biological children. As an only child, that was something I’d always wanted. But I didn’t have much time, and that means desperation, realizing this dream by any means necessary. I’d run out of options, all but one.
My sweet Evie, she’s so precious, I’d love to take full credit. But while I may be a single mother, I am by no means a solo parent. That’s where Evie’s father, Marc, comes in. He’ll be over later, part of the parenting evening shift. Our schedule is well defined—it’s just our relationship that isn’t. After the devastation of my infertility diagnosis, Marc and I were on the verge of ending things. We wouldn’t even be here without my hasty decision-making, and Evie wouldn’t be here either if I hadn’t been willing to break the rules. But now is not the time to dwell on mistakes, or regrets. Pumping is done. And it’s time to make formula. In less than an hour, Evie will be awake and hungry. As I’ve learned, the sooner the bottle touches her lips, the better—for both of us.
Can you have it all? I thought about it at the kitchen sink while washing pump parts, bottles, and the backup supply of pacifiers. While on maternity leave, there was no way to know what would become of the other parts of my life. When I’d left KVTV, I’d angered Chris with a rogue interview conducted by my friend Lisa Sinclair, our primetime anchor. I’d been dealing with viewer complaints about my natural hair, which I supposed they either weren’t used to seeing, or didn’t like, or both. But it wasn’t my job to hide. My job was to see and also to be seen. To be authentic was crucial.
After a women’s issues meeting where I voiced my concerns, Lisa decided that we’d do an interview during her anchor block that evening. I was appreciative of the support, and thought it was what needed to be done.
“In my office,” was all that Chris had to say when the broadcast was over.
Lisa and I sat in uncomfortable under-stuffed chairs facing his desk. I was too pregnant to fight. Lisa fought on my behalf. But if I hadn’t done it, if I hadn’t stood up for myself, who would have? I can’t go back into KVTV hiding behind that same old mask. And now my most important viewer will be Evie.
“It isn’t all about ratings, Chris,” Lisa had said.
“It is to me,” Chris replied.
And that was the last thing I heard before I was out the door. The next time I step foot through the KVTV entrance, I’ll have been away for three months, like taking a season break in a championship game. I have no idea what I’ll be returning to, or even who the players will be.
At least while I’m on maternity leave, things have been predictable and my circle is small. Just a few close friends and family who are all in my corner, like Alexis. Alexis was there on the night of Evie’s birth, and a much-appreciated presence these first weeks of her life, especially since I wasn’t totally prepared. Not only was the baby born early, but she made her way into the world in a spectacular show that no one would forget, especially not me. And how could I?
My water broke on the dance floor of Alexis and Rob’s vows renewal while the spotlight still shone on them from the thank-you speeches. The sudden commotion of my best friends scrambling around in heels and fancy dresses, and Alexis leaving her own party to come with me to the hospital had been no part of my carefully laid birth plans. Evie came so early and with such insistence that we had to head straight for the nearest hospital with a small army in tow.
In the heat of the moment, everything changed. In the delivery room, I screamed for an epidural, even though I never planned for one. And it turned out to be too late in the progress of my labor to have it. Andouele, my doula, held my hand and gave me reassurances that I struggled to believe. “You’re stronger than you think,” she spoke to me above the shrillness of my own voice.
Somehow, the pain isn’t what I remember most. It’s the exact second they put Evie on my chest, and I could see her face. My own little Ladybug. Right then, time stopped for me and there was only silence. The room became so still I could hear my breath. Evie opened her eyes and looked up at me for the very first time and I was instantly locked in love. Still, as a new parent, I had a lot to learn, too much. By the end of the first week at home, I found myself barely holding on to sanity.
Nobody tells you this, but as a mother, the sound of my own baby crying is like a primal trigger tuned precisely to my ears. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to affect anyone else the same way, not even Marc. Perhaps to others it’s a familiar sound, maybe not so different from a dog barking. But to a new mother, that cry from my child? It’s nothing less than a wailing siren that activates every cell in my body, dragging my psyche to the brink. Nothing can get in the way of stopping that cry. Nothing. And maybe this is where it starts, the slippery slope of forgetting about your own needs. Maybe it’s biological programming.
TODAY, AT ONLY 9:50 IN THE MORNING, A FULL TEN MINUTESearly, the crying started again. “Ssshh, it’s okay, Sweetpea,” I offered, swooping Evie into my arms and swaying her with calm gestures. Thankfully the bottle would be ready quickly and we could return to some semblance of peace. Feeding time came, and I couldn’t wait for Alexis to arrive with reinforcements.
An hour and two spit-ups later, finally, she texted her arrival.
At the front door.
I’d been “reading” a book to Evie, Guess How Much I Love You, with her little fingers fidgeting toward her face as we flipped through the pages.
It was only as I headed to the front door that I’d given any thought to what I looked like for the day. It couldn’t have been good—over a week since I’d styled my hair, and I hadn’t yet changed from the latest round of post-feeding dribble stains. There weren’t many people I’d let witness me like this.
If only the KVTV audience could see me now, I thought as I pulled the door open.
Alexis Carter looked amazing, as always. She filled out her tailored slacks in a way that only “Sexy Lexi” could, with a flowing blouse and a fresh silk press accentuating her still girlish features. She gestured to me to ask if the baby was sleeping.
“Girl, not yet,” I said aloud, opening the door wider and ushering Lexi inside my living room. “We just did a feeding. And I’m starting to think the movie Poltergeist was inspired by a newborn.” I was only half joking and suddenly self-conscious of the dried baby goo that accessorized my hair and clothes.
Alexis gave me a knowing look. “Girl,” she laughingly called out in a cascade of clinking bracelets and heel clacks as she entered my living room. “Be glad you don’t have a sprinkler fountain like when we had Rob junior. That extra shower during diaper changes will make you reconsider your entire life!”
I smiled from the memory. The first time Rob junior peed on her, Lexi called me in shock. Now, with a baby of my own, there were much greater traumas to share. “The diaper blowouts, though!” I said through laughter. “Lex, where does it all come from? And with such force?” My arms held the tiny culprit, who squirmed a bit against me, seeming to smile briefly. “Like a little human torpedo. I’m sure you find this hilarious.” I tried to give her a serious look.
Alexis laughed again. “Tab, I have to say—it kinda is!” She smiled widely, wending her way toward the kitchen holding the handles of two paper bags stuffed to the brim with food containers. I closed the front door behind her, imagining what a disaster I must have looked like. Disheveled—in dirty, baggy sweats, my face a pimply mess of dark circles and bloodshot eyes—I headed to join Alexis in the kitchen. She was already unloading the stockpile of food that I couldn’t dissuade her from bringing.
“Lex!” I said as I walked into the kitchen, “I told you that you didn’t have to do meal delivery. I can—”
Alexis shot me a look that stopped me midsentence. Unloading the delicious-smelling food onto my kitchen island, she raised an eyebrow at me. “Mmmm??” she said.
When Alexis told me that she’d help fill in once my mother left, I had no idea that she’d be bringing over an entire restaurant buffet. My mother arrived the day after Evie’s birth, on the first commercial flight she could get to Los Angeles from the DC area. And for three weeks, together with Marc on evening duty, we braved the whirlwind. Finally satisfied that Evie and I would survive without her, she headed back home. I thought I had it under control. Clearly, I was wrong.
“Well . . . maybe I can’t,” I admitted. “It’s only day two alone. I tried to make toast this morning and thought I ran out of butter . . . until an hour later I found the stick from yesterday in the utility drawer when I was looking for a pair of scissors.” I shook my head as Alexis chuckled.
“Girl, there is no way you’re going to be able to do this on your own. Even as much as you want to. Tabitha Walker, you’ve been my best friend since forever and you’re the same overachiever you’ve always been. I know you. But this time, believe me, you’re in over your head.” Alexis crossed the kitchen to put her arm around me. When she pulled back, she earnestly looked me up and down. “You look like you could use some sleep . . . and a shower. When’s the last time you took one?”
Even with my best friend, I felt self-conscious. “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” I said, attempting to mount a quick defense. “I just took a shower . . .” But I couldn’t remember. “Yesterday? Or, maybe it was the day before,” I said weakly.
Alexis didn’t react. Instead, she looked down at my arms holding a groggy Evie. “Look at this precious,” Alexis cooed at Evie, reaching for her. “Come to your auntie Lex,” she said in a soft baby speak, gently scooping my squirming baby into a football. “Yesss,” she cooed again. “Isn’t it almost nap time?” She looked up at me.
I stood there, suspended, holding my breath, waiting for “the cry.” But it didn’t come. I shook my head. Yes. It would be nap time soon, assuming full cooperation from my unpredictable infant.
“Go,” Alexis said. “GO!” With her free arm, she waved me in the direction of my bathroom, pointing in the way that only a mother can. Soon enough, I’d learn how to point that way, and people would obey me too.
I willed my feet to move down the hallway in the direction of my bath.
AS THE WATER WASHED OVER ME, EXHAUSTED AND OPERATINGon sleep-deprived fumes, I remembered the miracle this whole situation was. Just a short time ago, I thought this part of my life would never be a reality. Back then, my idea of a checklist was something like the life I had now—a child, a partner, friends, family, and a career I could be proud of. But just when you think you have it all figured out, things change.
So I had to reevaluate anew what I wanted my life to look like. What is there to want when you’re too overwhelmed to think of anything other than a hot shower and just a few mins of REM sleep? If I made a new checklist, it would have revolved around number of diapers changed (infinite), stained shirts, loads of laundry, hours of sleep (none), and tears cried, both Evie’s and my own, just from frustration. Frustration born of love and fear and complete confusion, understanding that for the first time in my life, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
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