Work Text:
“Have a baby with me,” Stan says in 1975.
They’re not married. Peggy is two years out of her McCann agreement and doing just fine as a partner in Holloway & Harris & Olson productions. Stan freelances and creates oil paintings of everything in New York from the garbage in the gutters to Peggy half-asleep and glaring at him over her first cup of coffee.
“Let me think about it,” she says.
He kisses her shoulder to agree with her and then kisses her breast to try and convince her to have sex before she goes to work.
“No,” she says, while laughing.
“I can’t believe I let you live here,” Stan says.
“I own this building,” Peggy replies.
“It’s still embarrassing,” Stan says, and he laughs when Peggy shoves him off the bed.
*
“Stan wants to have a baby,” Peggy tells Joan during what should be lunch but is actually a scheduling meeting.
Joan taps her pen against her notebook and looks out the window of the conference room to the red brick of the building next door. “Do you want to have a baby?” she asks.
Peggy looks down at her own notebook and thinks about how Joan’s desk is covered in pictures of Kevin. “I’ve had a baby,” she says. “I gave it away.”
Joan doesn’t answer right away. She looks at Peggy, then stands up and pours them both two inches of wine from a bottle they keep hidden from the writers and clients. If it was ever discovered they drank wine during business hours, they’d never be taken seriously again.
Joan sets the glasses in front of both of them, stares into hers and says, “I was married twice and had two abortions.”
“I thought you were only married to Greg,” Peggy replies and knows as soon as she says it it’s the wrong thing to say. “God, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so bad at this.”
Joan chuckles and takes a drink of her wine. “You will always be bad at this,” she says.
Peggy laughs without meaning to and turns her wine glass in circles on the table. “I had a baby,” she says. “And I gave it away.”
“Does Stan know?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want a baby of your own?”
“Yes.”
“Then have a baby with him.”
Peggy looks up from her glass. Her eyes are narrowed. “You can’t—”
“If you want a baby and Stan wants a baby, then have a baby,” Joan says. “If you’re worried about not being married, marry him. He’s not going to turn you down.”
Peggy takes a long drink of her wine. Joan doesn’t break eye contact while she does. “I don’t know how to be a mother,” Peggy says.
“Yes, you do,” Joan replies. “You’ve been practicing in your head this whole time.”
“He’d be fourteen,” Peggy says. “Fourteen.”
Joan takes a long drink of her own wine and presses the back of her hand to her mouth. “Whose was it?”
Peggy looks out the window of the brick wall on the building next door. “Pete’s.”
Joan bursts out laughing. After a moment, Peggy joins her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Joan says. “I just wouldn’t have guessed.”
“I thought he was powerful,” Peggy says.
“Well, he was at the time.”
They quiet their giggles and look at each other.
“Kevin isn’t Greg’s,” Joan says.
“It’s not my business,” Peggy replies.
“I want it to be your business. He’s not Greg’s.”
Peggy works her mouth back and forth and shrugs. “Roger’s?” she says.
Joan shakes her head. “Am I that obvious?”
“No, but he always was.”
Joan chuckles. “If you want a baby, let Stan give you one. If you don’t want one, convince him he really wants a dog.”
Peggy laughs. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m glad I could come to you, Joan.”
“Me, too,” she agrees, and they clink their glasses and drink the rest of their wine.
*
“Yes,” Peggy says that night when Stan asks her if she wants to have sex.
“Great,” Stan says.
“Wait. No,” and Peggy grips his shoulders tightly when he holds himself completely still. “No, I mean yes, I want to have sex.”
“That is a very confusing sentence,” Stan says, though he relaxes enough to put some of his weight on her.
“I meant yes about the baby,” Peggy says.
Stan beams. He reaches up and cups Peggy’s face and leans in so his smile is the only thing she can see. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes.”