What had Katya gotten herself into? I thought as I walked out.
25.
KATYA
THEN
“Do you know anyone who might want to go in on a green card marriage with me?”
Nick rested his elbows on the bar and stared at me. It was nearly two in the morning and there were only three other customers left. I’d spent the past week researching it. The going rate was between eight and thirty thousand dollars. What better use for the ten grand I’d make for my donation? I’d be guilt-free and legal. I would no longer have to worry about finding an employer willing to sponsor me for a visa. I couldn’t have asked for more.
I’d come to Nick for obvious reasons. He knew a ton of people who came to the bar. He lived in the neighborhood. He was my best bet.
“How much?”
“Ten grand.”
He whistled, then locked me in his gaze. “Yeah, me.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Why pay some motherfucker you don’t know?”
“Nick, this is no joke. You can get in real trouble if we get caught. They interview you separately, asking you shit like which side of the bed I sleep on, what color toothbrush I use, and then they compare our answers. We have to prove we live together; we need a joint bank account, utility bills, shit like that.”
“Again, why trust a stranger?”
I thought about it. “True. You and I already have a story. No need to make up shit about how we met and when we first hooked up. I have shots on social media at the bar that date back months. A couple even with you and we can easily add more before we sign the papers.”
He raised the right corner of his lip. That counted for a smile with Nick.
“You know this is at least a two-year commitment, right? We’ll continue our own separate lives, sure. But what if you meet a girl you want to marry for real?”
He stared at me as if to say, Who, me?
“We really have to be careful.” I went on. “Your roommate will be a problem. He can testify that we’re not living . . . Wait. Can you get rid of him? I’ll need to find a room after graduation anyway. Why pay rent to some stranger when I can be your roommate?”
He poured us both a shot of tequila and lifted his in a silent Cheers. I followed suit.
“Roommates with benefits. I like it,” he said, and drank it down. “I like it a lot.”
“Now we’re talking.” I laughed and set my empty glass on the bar. “I’m thinking we can do it on the day of graduation. I’ll wear a white summer dress and we can show them the party photos as our ‘wedding’ shots.”
“That’s like four months from now, no?”
“We need that time to prepare. It can’t look like we got married the day I have to leave. That will be suspicious. We’ll get the marriage license like a month in advance to show we’ve planned it long before.”
I thought about it as he drank.
“You’re right, the best part is that I can trust you. I will give you the money before we do the deed in city hall. This way it won’t look suspicious. You know what I mean?”
He shook his head.
“Like we get married and the next day you deposit ten grand into your bank account. Duh. Instead, I’ll write you a check a few weeks before we become ‘husband and wife.’ So nobody can put two and two together. No, wait. I better give it to you in cash. We don’t want to leave a paper trail of money changing hands.”
We clinked glasses and drank to seal the deal.
26.
LANA
NOW
“Lana, can you come in, please?” Alistair called out the next day as I walked by his office with two folio volumes from the Watson Library downstairs under my arm. “I’d like to have a chat.”
Here it comes, I thought, but smiled and said, “Sure.”
His office was as constipated as his appearance. There was not a book on his desk, not a sheet of paper, not a loose pen. If he had stacks of documents, to-do lists, correspondence, he kept it all out of sight in drawers and cabinets. His art books and catalogs were lined up on the bookshelf and organized by region and period, not piled on the desk or strewn all over the floor like mine. Everything in Alistair’s life seemed to be arranged just so, down to the kerchief in his pocket. Today it was a burgundy red (to match the tie) with a pink trim, folded in such a way that one of the two corners that showed was bigger and taller than the other, creating the silhouette of a mountain. At other times, he would have three corners poking out spread like a flower, or just one solid triangle. Sometimes, the part showing would be simply parallel to the line of the pocket. I’d always wanted to ask him how he determined which shape was suited for each day.
“I know you’re undergoing medical treatments,” he began, “but this is getting out of hand. You come in late. You leave early.”
I nodded patiently. I apologized. I promised my work hadn’t suffered. What was I supposed to say? See, Alistair, sometimes life gets in the way of art?
“I don’t understand what’s happened to you,” he continued. “You used to be a responsible, dedicated researcher.”
My hands curled into fists. I wanted to tell him to shove his kerchief up his ass. I was sick of his questioning the quality of my work just because of my schedule.
“Now, listen to me,” he began in his typical patronizing manner, and went on to tell me he’d just gotten off the phone with a prominent European dealer who’d informed him that a private collector was planning on selling a drawing by Charles de La Fosse that we’d long hoped to add to our collection. Alistair was going to have to fly to Paris tomorrow, which meant he would have to miss the Visiting Committee meeting on Monday. “It will be up to you,” he continued, “to present the Parmigianino show.”
“Of course,” I said, thrilled for the opportunity.
He leaned forward. “I’m counting on you to dazzle them,” he said, but by the way he was looking at me, his head tilted, his eyes narrowed, I knew what he really meant was: I don’t trust you, but I have no choice.
“You have nothing to worry about.” I got up to leave.
“And Lana,” he said, still squinting at me. “I’ll need your presentation by Saturday, Sunday at the latest, so that I can review it and send you notes by Monday morning.”
I sighed with relief because it didn’t look like I’d be able to finish it by end of day tomorrow as I’d promised.
* * *
Back in my office, I dropped the folios on my desk and pulled up my chair. Before starting on the presentation, I went online to check the news about Katya. Nothing. It was already two p.m. Assuming Nick had gone to the police station yesterday—as he’d said he would—there should have been some media update by now. I tried to imagine the order of things: interview Nick, go look at Katya’s stuff in his place, take her computer in case there were some clues in there, check out Mehanata’s footage of that night, and try to identify Jacuzzi Guy. I was basing this, of course, on what I’d seen in movies. Maybe in real life things moved at a slower pace.
Or maybe Nick hadn’t gone to the police at all.
* * *
At four, I checked the Internet again. Still no news on Katya. It had been eleven days already. Was there still a chance for a good ending? I googled missing woman and browsed through the entries, reading articles and notices about girls gone missing all over the country. Along with the stories that were happily resolved, I found just as many cases that had ended in tragedy. The exercise reminded me of the search I’d done for hematoma. Things could turn out well or badly, and nobody could tell you on which side of the divide you’d land.
We just have to wait and see, Dr. Williams had told me.
I felt like I would burst if I did any more sitting and waiting. Two lives were hanging in the balance—and, strangely enough, they had the same genes.
One thing I’d learned from my quick read on the Internet: when a woman goes missing, the first person the police look into is “a spouse or a partner, or a spurned lover,” as one detective was quoted. There were at least three men—that I knew of—in Katya’s life: her Tom-Cruise-look-alike “boyfriend”; her fiancé, Nick, presuming he hadn’t lied about that; and Jacuzzi Guy, with whom she’d gone home that night.
* * *
On my way home through the park, I had the nagging feeling that someone was following me. I turned to look over my shoulder not once but three times. Of course there was nobody. I was on heightened alert simply because of all the horrible stories I’d just read. Nick had given me the creeps yesterday, too. I had to know if he’d gone to the cops or not. Every minute counted.
I pulled out my phone and called Coogan’s. A woman answered and I asked for Nick. She didn’t say anything but it didn’t seem like she’d hung up because I could hear music and voices in the background.
“Yeah?” he said into the receiver.
“This is Lana, Katya’s friend. Just wondering if you went to the police.”
Nick blew the air out of his lungs loudly. “They kept me there all night. Thank you very much.”
“Oh.” I felt bad for him. But it had been a small price to pay for finally getting the cops’ attention. “But they let you go in the end—”
“With a warning not to go anywhere until my stories check out. And just so you know, they weren’t impressed a bit that I’d gone to talk to them myself. Apparently, killers like to meddle with investigations and are known to lurk around.”
“Killers? Are they worried she was killed?”
“Aren’t you?” And with that he hung up.
I sped up my steps, anxious to get out of the park.
27.
KATYA
THEN
It was happening. I was going to be an egg donor. In my excitement, I even told my mother about it. We connected on Skype every now and then. She called me all the time, actually, but I hardly ever answered. What was there to talk about? Since I never really called her, when I finally did last week, she nearly had a heart attack.
“Katya, are you okay? Is everything okay?” She started fretting before I’d even said “Hello.” She looked tired, deep dark circles under her eyes.
“Good news,” I said to preempt any further worrying. She lit a cigarette and stared at the computer screen as if she hadn’t seen me in years. She kept her old Dell laptop in the kitchen on a shelf under the TV. Her entire life was in that small dark kitchen. She got home from work, turned on the television, and spent the rest of the evening smoking and watching reality shows, Turkish and Indian soaps, and, of course, the news. Her neighbor across the hall—a divorced woman about my mother’s age whose son was in high school—often came over in the evenings. The two would have a glass of rakia and some meze, clouds of cigarette smoke floating over their heads, especially in the winter when the windows were closed.
Anyway, she freaked out when I told her about the egg donation. She didn’t exactly know what it was. She’d only heard about it on television. But once I explained the process, she got it.
“As long as it’s not dangerous,” she said, “and you’ll still have eggs left for the future, for your own baby.”
I refrained from mentioning I wasn’t planning on having any babies of my own. One shock at a time. But I did tell her that I was doing it for Alex. We hadn’t spoken of him all these years. Not a word. She went to the cemetery all the time—All Souls’ Day, the anniversary of Alex’s death, you name it—but we never talked about him, only about his grave (the stone needs cleaning; the weeds need weeding). So it was a big deal bringing it up. Just mentioning his name made her cry. And it wasn’t like I talked about what had happened. I only said, “I’m doing it in memory of Alex. A payback of sorts.”
She lit a new cigarette, fumbling with the lighter in an attempt to hide her tears.
“I don’t know what I’d expected she’d say,” I told Josh. “It wasn’t like I was looking for approval or a pat on the back. I just wanted her to know, I guess.”
Josh did one of his bobbing nods, jotted something in his notebook.
“Anyway, I’m super excited. I’m officially one of the agency’s donors. You should see my profile. I look really good on paper. Tyler told me to say that I’d already graduated so as not to alarm his partner.” I smiled. “I need to stop thinking of him as Tyler. I signed up for one of his classes, actually, and starting tomorrow, he will be Professor Jones.”
Josh sat up. “You’re taking a philosophy class?”
“Why not? Damian asked me the same thing. I haven’t told him—obviously—about becoming a donor. But is it so absurd to want to learn a bit about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle? People keep quoting them. The mighty ancient Greek philosophers.”
Josh blinked at me. “You don’t think it would be awkward to have Tyler Jones as your professor?”
“Why? It would be great. I’d get to know him better.”
I’d checked out his profile on the philosophy department’s website: Prof. Jones specializes in logic, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. . . . He has a particular interest in modal logic, topological and probabilistic semantics, and philosophical theories of chance, coincidence, and luck. I didn’t understand many of the terms, but the last bit about chance and luck seemed quite interesting. Like, if I’d gone back to Bulgaria for the winter break, I wouldn’t have seen the donor egg flyer.
I’d always been intrigued by the fact that our lives often hung on the smallest, most trivial decisions. Go for a drive at the wrong time, or for a swim, in my case. It’s almost like it’s not the action that’s good or bad but what happens afterward that colors it and gives it meaning. Who hasn’t answered their phone while driving, right? We can’t even remember each time we’ve done it because there is nothing inherently wrong in the action. It’s not like stealing or cheating. Until that one time when a child happens to run across the street and you don’t see it because for a fraction of a second, you’ve looked away to pick up your phone.
“And he doesn’t mind that you’ll be his student?” Josh asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.
I shrugged. “I’m sure he won’t. I mean, we’ve already met. His partner is the one who wants it all anonymous. But Tyler’s okay.”
“Professor Jones,” Josh said.
“Oops. Yeah. Professor Jones.” It rolled easily off my tongue. I could almost taste it. Sweet and smooth, like chocolate. Professor Tyler Jones.
28.
LANA
NOW
On Friday morning, I turned on the local news and stared at a freeze frame from a security camera of Katya and Jacuzzi Guy walking out of the Bulgarian club, his hand behind her back. The banner read: Police seeking man in photograph in connection with missing Columbia student’s case.
Finally.
By lunchtime, Jacuzzi Guy, whose name apparently was Mark Patterson, “had been detained by police for questioning,” according to Gothamist—a neighborhood news site that Angie had told me about.
Part relieved, part scared, I kept checking for news of Katya’s whereabouts the rest of the day. By the time five o’clock rolled around, I’d barely made any progress on the damn presentation for the visiting committee. Since Alistair wasn’t in the office today, I packed up and left, thinking that the trip home would reenergize me and then, after an early dinner, I could work all evening.
* * *
Before going to bed, I made the mistake of turning on the eleven o’clock news. The police had apparently let Jacuzzi Guy go. Mark Patterson was not a suspect, the anchor read, and the police were pursuing other leads.
I turned off the TV and went to bed. An hour later, I was still too agitated to sleep. I was furious. They’d kept Mark Patterson, an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, for only
a few hours while Nick, a bartender in Washington Heights, had spent the night at the police station, even though he hadn’t even been with Katya on the night she’d disappeared. Unless . . . Could she have gone “home” to his place that night?
I gave up trying to sleep and sat up in the dark to surf the Internet, hoping to distract myself. I had my laptop propped on top of a pillow instead of directly on my belly. Maybe the whole thing about computers emitting harmful waves wasn’t true, but why add yet another unknown variable to the equation? After I’d exhausted my tolerance for other people’s vacations, meals, and baby photos on Facebook, I signed on to the Fertile Thoughts forum. I didn’t post any updates. I didn’t even search for posts about hematomas. I just scanned through the messages, responding to those I could, trying to be helpful and encouraging to other women doing a donor egg cycle.
I answered a question about the process of selecting a donor, then another one about donors’ medical histories and how to spot potential red flags. It had never occurred to me before but I wondered what donors talked about in their section of the forum. You have to request to join each group if you want to post, answer questions, or interact with other members, but the threads are public and can be read by anyone on the Internet.
I scanned the posts quickly at first, feeling like I was trespassing. Donors seemed to be mostly concerned with the retrieval surgery (Was it painful? For how long are you out?) and with the injections (How do you administer them? Do you go crazy because of the hormones? And so on). As I scrawled through the exchanges, a user name jumped out at me: BGgirl. My pulse sped up. Katya’s Instagram ID was @BGgirl. Could it be?
I clicked on BGgirl and started reading through her posts. Her last one read: Don’t worry, ladies, the surgery is no big deal. Loving the high from the anesthesia ;)
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