by Piper Lennox
“It’s not so much ‘caved’ as...hesitantly agreed.” I twist in my seat, checking behind us for any sign of my brother. He’s still out front, switching the plates on my work van: now it’ll read “FRFLD7,” instead of a jumble of letters. It’ll also make customers think we have an entire fleet of vans, instead of just three. My brother still has a few tricks up his perfectly ironed sleeves.
“And don’t say it like that.” I swat her with an empty seed packet from the table. “If he hears, ‘Oh, Levi caved,’ he’ll call off the deal, just out of spite. You know how he is.”
“You’re right, you’re right. Sorry.” She gets serious. “Thank you, by the way. For pushing him on it.”
“I had to. I’m tired of doing the grunt work.”
“No, I know. But I’m still grateful. I’ve been trying to book us a vacation for....” Her voice trails. “I don’t even know how long, actually.”
“You’re welcome, I guess. Let’s just hope he doesn’t change his mind about either one.” Levi already rescheduled the cruise; they’re leaving the day after the party, instead of the day before, so he can breathe down my neck properly.
“Are you nervous? The Wallman Anniversary is a big deal.”
“It’s like any other party. Only everyone’s rich.”
“Exactly. Rich people expect way more.”
“Trust me, I can handle it.” Even though Levi and I come from a bare-bones, viva-la-Woodstock household, it’s not like we’re strangers to luxury: we spent plenty of time in Uncle Tim’s mansion and the hotel, growing up. We learned early on what it was like to be rich. Even if it was a study in contrast.
“Did Levi ever tell you about our cousin’s Sweet Sixteen?” I ask. Lindsay shakes her head, so I take a breath, grinning. This is one of my all-time favorite stories. “Okay, so you know how Caitlin-Anne is—spoiled, whiny, always gets her way.”
“Yeah.” Lindsay lifts her eyebrow, sighing.
“Right. Well, her birthday parties were exactly what you’d expect. Always huge, obnoxious events and all about her, to an insane degree. So her Sweet Sixteen had to top all of those, which wasn’t easy.”
“I’m willing to bet money,” Lindsay says, narrowing her eyes, “they had it at the Acre.”
“You’d be correct. So Levi and I show up. He’s sixteen, I’m fourteen. And Caitlin-Anne makes her entrance—she literally entered the room on a damn pony, by the way—and she’s just glaring at me and Levi, like, the entire time.”
“I thought you guys got along all right, growing up?”
“Oh, we did. But apparently her idea of a perfect party didn’t involve us, because a bunch of her friends had crushes on Levi, so she was worried they’d only pay attention to him instead of her. Because...duh, that’s how she is. Turned out her mom sent us the invitation, not Caitlin-Anne, and she was furious.”
Lindsay scoffs into her palm.
“Oh, wait—it gets better.” I sit straight, gearing up. “So she gets off the horse, has this super creepy ‘first dance as a woman’ thing with both her parents—don’t ask; I still don’t get it—and then marches up to Levi and me. And we’re just sitting at a table eating, okay? We’re not even doing anything. She tells us we have to get out, and Levi’s like, ‘No, we were invited,’ and Cait actually calls security to escort us off the premises.”
“No way. Where were your aunt and uncle in all this? Why didn’t they stop her?”
“I’m getting to that. So we’re outside the Acre, and I’m like, ‘Let’s just go home, man, who cares,’ and Levi just is not having it. ‘No, no, we’re gonna teach her a lesson.’ We walk around the building, and that’s when he sees that the patio—you know, the one that leads into the balcony inside, over the dance floor?—was totally empty.”
“No way,” she says again, already laughing.
I nod. “He and I climb up to the patio, which is easily twenty feet high, so I’m exhausted as soon as we get over the railing. But Levi’s just, like, full of adrenaline. He goes inside to the balcony, and right over the dance floor is this giant balloon net. I guess it was supposed to open at the end of the night, or when everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ or something. He gets up on the railing and grabs this beam running across the ceiling, right over the balloons—”
“And made a complete ass of myself,” Levi finishes, stepping out onto the deck with my old license plates in hand. He drops them in my lap, then bends down to kiss Lindsay. “No need to tell my wife those kinds of stories, Co.”
“Oh, come on,” Lindsay pouts. “I love all his Wild Levi stories.” She points at me while Levi takes a seat. “Finish it, I want to know what he did.”
I look at Levi. He sits back, deflates, and shrugs.
“So he’s dangling over the balloon net,” I sputter, Lindsay once again hanging on my every word, “and he kicks it loose. All the balloons fall. Everyone’s looking up and cheering, thinking it was supposed to happen, and I can hear Caitlin-Anne freaking out that it isn’t time yet. She’s going off.”
I glance at my brother again. He’s studying some dirt on his palms, but I know he’s listening. We both love this story.
“And after all the balloons fall,” I go on, “everyone looks up. And there’s Levi, dangling from the rafter and giving Cait the finger, before he monkeys his way back to the balcony with me.”
Lindsay and I are both laughing hysterically now. I think I see Levi smile to himself, but he runs his hand over his hair and exhales, hiding it.
“Did you guys get caught?” Lindsay dabs some tears from her eyes. “They knew it was him, right?”
“Oh, yeah, the hotel staff was on us so fast. Aunt Jeannie was pissed, but Uncle Tim took over and went really easy on us. We just had to apologize to Cait, then he made her apologize for kicking us out. Tim’s always known she was spoiled. Plus, we were kind of like sons to him, growing up. I think that helped.”
“I just can’t get over,” Lindsay says, holding up her palms as she dissolves back into laughter, “the image of teenage Levi, swinging from a freaking rafter—”
“It was dangerous,” Levi says, “and stupid. I could have fallen all the way to the dance floor and broken both my legs. Or died.”
“But you didn’t.” I throw the seed packet at him; he deflects it like spiking a volleyball. Too hard, almost violent. The laughter stops instantly.
Levi gets to his feet and motions to the old plates in my lap. “New ones are on, tags are good.” He looks at Lindsay again, who’s chewing the skin around her thumbnail. “I’ve got some work to finish upstairs, then we’ll go get dinner. Sound good?”
Maybe it’s just me, but her smile looks forced. “Sure.”
He leaves. The two of us relax in our chairs.
“What a buzzkill.”
Lindsay nods. She knows Levi as well as I do; they’ve been married almost seven years. By now, she really feels like a sister to me, no “in-law” required, and has no illusions about my brother’s flaws.
“The business is really getting to him,” she mumbles. Out on the golf course, a guy with a prosthetic leg pretends to putt the ball with his foot. His buddies crack up.
“Levi used to be like that,” I tell her, nodding at them. “Always joking around. Always.” I look over my shoulder at the back of their house, up to the window of his home office. “I don’t know what the hell happened to him.”
“It’s hard to be a free spirit when you’ve got a company to run.”
I wonder if Lindsay’s making this observation herself, or sarcastically repeating a phrase Levi’s told her too many times to count.
“Maybe the vacation will help,” I offer. I don’t believe it, even after I’ve said it—ten days on a boat is unlikely to lower Levi’s stress. If anything, he’ll spend the entire time trying to check up on things back here. But I want to make her feel better.
“Yeah,” she nods, practically insistent. It’s the best we can do: hope and pretend.
Leaving Levi and
Lindsay’s house is always tough. I never want to overstay my welcome, but the place is so big and new and comfortable, and my place is...well. None of those things.
I don’t let myself get jealous, though. Tiny or not, my apartment’s nestled right in the chaos of the city, which I love, and pretty adequate for what I need: Murphy bed in the wall, radiator under the window, kitchenette with ancient but functional appliances. And I have a good view from my bathroom, overlooking the park. It isn’t a golf course, but it’s nice.
I nail the old van plates to the wall over the TV before microwaving some pizza. It’s been my breakfast, lunch, and dinner the last two days. If anyone ever wants to torture information out of me, all they’ll have to do is make me smell pepperoni again.
I’ve got two voicemails, when my phone’s charged enough to turn on. The first is from Mom, detailing her trip. She and her boyfriend, a fellow ex-nudist named Patch, have just reached the Grand Canyon. “I miss you and Levi so much, though,” she adds, which always signals the end of her messages. “Call me when you get the chance, okay? Love you.”
I save the message. My inbox is constantly running out of space, I’ve saved so many from her over the years. I never listen to them again, oddly enough. I just like knowing they’re there.
The next message is from a number I don’t recognize. I hate the fact it doesn’t turn out to be Juliet.
Actually, I hate that I hoped it’d be from her in the first place.
The telemarketer starts their spiel, complete with calling me “Conan.” My finger stabs the screen to delete.
The Murphy bed whines its way out of the frame as I pull it down. I grab my laptop and pray the neighbors haven’t suddenly decided to lock their Wi-Fi.
Juliet’s Facebook is the same as the last time I looked her up…last night. And the night before that. Which sounds like total stalker behavior, but it’s not like I’ve commented on any of her shit or sent her a message.
I could send her a message.
Hey, just double-checking on that whole “not interested” thing. Simple and sweet. But still not what she wants, apparently.
“Cohen! Cohen, yes....”
I make sure to log out and close my laptop before I unbutton my pants. Something about jerking off to an actual memory is far less creepy than doing it to a woman’s profile photo.
8
“You can’t really be considering it.”
I push the tag of Abigail’s shirt back in as she strides ahead of me on the sidewalk. “It’s just to see if I’m a viable candidate. For all I know, I’ve got the same issues as Viola, and the whole thing won’t matter.”
“Jules. You know her. All she heard when you agreed to get the fertility testing done was a big, fat ‘yes’ to the whole deal.”
We reach the end of her block, pivot, and powerwalk in the other direction to her house. Exercise is getting harder for her every day, but she’s determined to walk at least three miles a week. Volunteering to join her hadn’t seemed like a big undertaking at the time, but I’m constantly watching her for signs of fatigue or pain. Never mind the fact she can waddle laps around me.
“Just tell her no,” she says, handing me her water bottle when I start panting. “That’s always been your problem.”
“Funny, you didn’t think it was such a problem when I cosigned on your car, or loaned you the money for Lionel’s night classes.”
“I didn’t crash my car. I paid you back every cent that I borrowed.”
She’s right. Abigail has always asked far less of me than Viola, and been more responsible. Still—fair is fair.
“If it was you who’d asked me, I’d be doing the exact same thing: thinking it over, agreeing to a few basic tests, and going from there.”
“I wouldn’t ask you.” She peers at me over her shoulder as she takes the lead again. Something about her eyes is so pitying, I have to look away. “That’s the difference.”
Last week feels like months ago already. The day Viola asked me to be their surrogate, I sat in stunned silence and tried to find an answer. Yes, no, maybe—I didn’t know what to tell her.
It turned out to be a non-issue, at least for the moment, because Abby had plenty to say.
“Vi,” she’d snapped, “you cannot ask her that.”
“Why not? She’s young, healthy, lives in town, we trust her completely—”
“No, no, don’t fucking do that. Stop thinking about why she’s perfect for you, and start thinking about why this is ridiculous for her. You’re asking her to give up nine months of her life—but probably more, because IVF rarely works, like, right away—and completely change her body, and her lifestyle, when you and Marco could easily afford to hire someone.”
Viola set her mouth in her signature tight line while Abby spoke, then looked at me. “Jules,” she smiled, “I...I know this is a huge favor to ask. Bigger than huge.”
Favor, I thought, fighting the urge to laugh. Sure. The mother—literally—of all favors.
“And I completely understand if you don’t want to.”
“Of course she doesn’t want to. She just told us she doesn’t think she wants to have kids.”
“She wouldn’t be having kids.” Viola nudged Abby’s shin with her shoe. “She’d be carrying mine and Marco’s kid for us. Then she goes back to her life without kids, just like she wants.”
“Oh, my God, Viola.” Abby ran her hand down her face and stared at the ceiling. “You’ve lost your damn mind. Like, if you were asking me? I’d still laugh at you, but at least it’d make sense.”
“What, do you want to carry my baby?”
“No. This is my limit.” Abby rubbed her stomach. “As soon as these two pop out, I’m closing up shop.”
“Exactly. So shut your mouth, please. This is between me and Juliet.” Viola turned her sweet smile and big lashes on me again. “Marco and I would pay you, just like a real surrogate. All the doctor bills, your maternity clothes, the hospital—plus another twenty-five thousand on top of all that.”
At this, Abigail whistled. “Shit. For twenty-five grand I might just give you one of these.”
I laughed, but only because I wasn’t sure what else to do.
“Just think about it.” Viola reached out and rubbed my arm. “That’s all I’m asking.”
All I’m asking. As though this wasn’t the biggest thing she’d ever asked of me, or ever would again. As if even requesting I consider it wasn’t huge.
But I did think about it. Even with Abby sending me rapid-fire texts all night about why Viola’s request was complete and utter bullshit, and how I’d spoiled her rotten with my yes-manning all these years…I thought it over.
“Someone we can trust.”
“...not having Mom around, when I was growing up? It makes me want to be one myself even more.”
I still didn’t understand what they meant, about motherhood somehow repairing the pain of being motherless as kids. But maybe I wasn’t supposed to understand. All I had to know was that having a baby would make Viola happy. And I had the power to grant that wish, if I wanted.
“Okay,” Abby challenges, when we’re halfway back to her house, “think about this: you meet a cute guy. You hit it off, go on a date, head back to your place—but bam! You’re naked. He’s staring. You’ve got to explain why your stomach is covered in stretchmarks, or you’ve got a huge fucking Cesarean scar under your bikini line. Is that what you want?”
“Any guy who cares about that wouldn’t be worth my time.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. But what about the emotional aspect? Nine months of putting yourself through the wringer, getting attached to this little thing inside you...then giving it to someone else.”
I lean on her mailbox as soon as it’s in reach and catch my breath. Sweat soaks my sports bra; Abby looks refreshed. Pregnancy fatigue or not, she’s still the most in-shape of all three of us.
Her point not only gets across, it hits me like a baseball to the gut.
&nb
sp; “I already told her I’d get the fertility testing done,” I protest softly, my voice carried off in the merciful breeze that skates down her street. “It feels like the least I can do. I mean…this is the one thing she wants most.”
“It’s not your job to give it to her, though. She and Marco can hire someone. She’ll get over her distrust thing and find a woman who’s perfect. A woman who’s done this before and knows what she’s getting into.”
“I haven’t said yes. Calm down.”
“And that’s the other thing,” she adds, my response falling on selectively deaf ears. “Why do you think they had to move heaven and earth to find a doctor who’d agree to test you? Surrogacy as a first pregnancy is just inviting psychological shit to hit the fan. The entire medical community knows that. Lifetime has at least twenty damn movies about it.”
“I’m not going to kidnap my sister’s baby,” I snort.
She takes back her water, sips, and shakes her head.
“Seriously: you don’t think I can handle it?”
“Not really. If you hadn’t already done a million favors for her over the years, or if you’d already been pregnant once or twice and knew what you were getting into? Yeah, you could totally do this. But as it all stands, right now...no. I think it’s the worst idea either of you have ever had.”
Her honesty stings. But, hey—I asked.
“Might as well see if I even can get pregnant,” I reiterate, because I can’t think of any holes to poke in her argument, and she knows it.
She also knows me incredibly well. On our way up her driveway, she cuts her eyes to me and says, “You’re hoping the tests say you’re infertile or something, aren’t you? Because then you don’t have to tell Vi, ‘No.’ Fate does it for you.” Her smile is half-sarcastic. “Not a bad way to weasel out of things, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m not hoping I’m infertile. That’s a pretty shitty thing to say.”
“I meant, like, subconsciously.”
My muttered “bitch” fills her front porch as we step inside, waving hello to Lionel and Stella in the living room. She gives me a glass of ice water wordlessly, pours herself one, and taps our glasses together. What we’re toasting to, exactly, I’m not sure.