(Almost) Happily Ever After

by Annabelle Costa

  “Do you get autonomic dysreflexia?” she asks.

  Whatever that is. He shakes his head no.

  “Good,” she says. “So go ahead and give that a try. And if that’s unsuccessful, the next step I’d like to try would be high amplitude penile stimulation.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” I remark. It seems like something you’d see on bright red lettering on a chain-linked fence. Caution: High Amplitude Penile Stimulation!

  Dr. Powell smiles. “Not at all. It basically just involves applying a vibrator to the head of the penis to stimulate ejaculation. It’s something that could be done at home, but I’d like you to do it here so that we could test the sperm sample.”

  Will nods, a resigned look on his face. “Okay, fine. So say that works. Then what?”

  “Let’s see how energetic those sperm are,” Dr. Powell says. “But I think intrauterine insemination would be our best bet.”

  Intrauterine insemination?

  When she sees the blank look on my face, she adds, “That involves inserting a small catheter directly into the uterus to deposit the sperm.”

  Oh my God…

  Wow. Who knew having a baby would be so much work?

  _____

  After we finish our consultation with Dr. Powell, Will makes an appointment for himself for “sperm retrieval.” I thought the two of us would be pumped after this appointment, but we barely talk on the way home. Will turns on the radio, which he never does because usually we can’t shut up when we’re together.

  “I’m sorry,” Will finally said, when we’re about a mile away from home.

  I frown at him. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because,” he says, “you wouldn’t have to go through this shit with any other guy. Any other guy would have knocked you up two years ago.”

  “Well, I wasn’t ready to have a baby two years ago,” I point out. “So really, you just saved me money on two years of birth control.”

  Will doesn’t smile.

  I rub his shoulder, even though I know he’s using his arm to work the hand controls on his car, and I probably shouldn’t distract him. “We don’t need to use that clinic, you know,” I say. “Dr. Powell said we could buy one of those penis vibratory thingies and do it ourselves at home. We could do it together.” I wink at him. “Could be fun.”

  “No,” he says so sharply that I jump. “I’ll do it there.”

  I pull my hand away. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

  He sighs. “I’m sorry, Libby. I just feel really crappy about the whole thing. It just makes me feel like such a loser that I have to go through all this.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I’m quiet as Will pulls into the parking garage below his building. He parks in one of the handicapped spots near the elevators, but then doesn’t make a move to unbuckle his seatbelt.

  “Will?”

  He stares at the steering wheel for a minute, his eyes glassy, rubbing his hands over his knees. “Do you still find me attractive?”

  “Oh my God, Will.” I smack him in the arm—I can’t help myself. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you ask me that?”

  He still won’t look at me. “Because I seriously don’t know how you could be listening to that conversation I had with Dr. Powell and not feel disgusted.”

  “Will you quit it?” I tug on his arm until he looks at me. “Of course I find you attractive. I don’t know how you could say that? You’re this, like, crazy sexy lawyer who is like Superman, helping everyone I know with their legal battles. You know how hot that is?”

  He relents with a small smile. “Usually it’s something dumb that takes me like fifteen minutes to sort through.”

  “Only because you’re so brilliant.” I look him in his nice brown eyes. “Trust me, Will. There’s nothing you could ever do to make me disgusted with you. Ever.”

  As Will leans forward and presses his soft lips against mine until I melt against him, I don’t have a clue that I am one-hundred percent, completely and utterly wrong.

  Chapter 9

  In addition to going to school, I’ve retained my job working as an administrative assistant for Harvey Peterson, who is an executive in a large office supply company. (No, not Staples. Everyone always asks me that.) I cut back my hours and I plan to quit entirely once Will and I tie the knot. But in the meantime, I’m still here on a Tuesday morning, putting together a quarterly report for Harvey.

  I hate my job, but even more than that, I hate my boss. I think he’s evil, and I know that because he’s recently started growing a legit evil, black moustache. He shaved his head after so many years of the comb-over, and he wanted to have some hair somewhere on his head, but that moustache is really not flattering.

  If he grows that moustache long enough to start twirling it, I’m going to whip out my phone and take a video. I don’t care if he fires me—it will be worth it.

  Usually I feel lousy during the first half of the week, but today I’m in a good mood. Why, you ask? Because in about an hour, Will is going to pick me up so we can go get a new marriage license. And the second we can get another weekday off, we’re going to get married.

  Eek!

  Even despite how much I hate being here, I feel a smile touch my lips. Will seems really serious about getting this whole marriage deal squared away and I feel the same. I’ve even got a very simple white silk dress tucked away in my closet for the big day. I wonder how it will feel to look into Will’s brown eyes and know that he’s my husband…

  My phone buzzes from inside my purse, interrupting my daydreams. It’s Will. Hopefully, he’s on his way.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re running late,” I say before even saying hello.

  “Libby.” He doesn’t sound happy. “Listen, we’ve got a problem…”

  My throat constricts. I already know where this is going. “Yes…?”

  He sighs. “Remember that big case I said was coming to me? Well, Saperstein just came in and dumped all the paperwork on me. I’ve got to be in court Thursday and I’m drowning in this shit. There’s no way I can leave work right now.”

  “Don’t you have any minions who can help you?” My voice sounds whiny, but I don’t care.

  “No, I can’t do that…” He sighs again. “Look, I told you what a big deal this case is. I can’t show up at my first court appearance looking like an idiot.”

  I don’t know why I bothered even asking. I knew he was going to say that.

  “I’m really sorry,” he says softly. “I want to make it up to you. Can I take you out to dinner tonight?”

  “When will you be home?”

  “I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe not till midnight.”

  I know Will, and midnight is probably optimistic. “Forget it,” I say.

  “Well,” he says, “at least you’ll be happy to know that yesterday I managed to get to my appointment to give that sperm sample. So that’s done. Thank God.”

  Despite everything, I have to smile. “How did it go?”

  “It went awesome,” he says. “I had the time of my life.”

  “Did the penile stimulation thingy work?” I tease him.

  “No.” I can almost hear him making a face on the other line. “But… they got the sample. And that’s all I’m going to share about that experience.”

  “Did they have to go for the prostate?” I giggle.

  He groans. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want to discuss it? But like I said, it’s done.”

  I smile at the phone. “Well, good.”

  “Libby…” There’s an urgency in his voice that makes me uneasy. “I love you a lot. I’m so sorry about this. I promise I’m going to make it up to you.”

  “I know,” I say.

  After we hang up, I sit there, staring at my computer screen, unable to make myself continue working on this stupid quarterly report. I don’t want to work here at all, but I’ll probably be here forever because I’m going to flunk out of college.

  “Libby!�
�

  I turn my head and see Harvey approaching my desk. God, he really needs to shave off that moustache. He looks like a sex offender.

  “I’m glad you haven’t left yet,” he says breathlessly. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “I’ll have the quarterly report done in fifteen minutes, Mr. Peterson,” I mutter.

  He shakes his head. “No, Libby. I need you to pick up my dry cleaning.”

  I groan. It was supposed to be an inward groan but it becomes an outward groan. Fortunately, Harvey chooses to ignore my grunt of protest.

  “The place closes at five,” he says. “Just drop it off at my apartment building with the doorman.”

  He’s saying this to me like I don’t pick up his dry cleaning constantly. Believe me, I know the drill.

  I started out the day thinking I was going to go get a marriage license for a wedding with the man I love. Instead, I’m picking up my boss’s dry cleaning. This is not a good day.

  _____

  Part of the requirement for my introductory biology course is going to lab section led by none other than Reid Shaw. It’s probably my least favorite part of the course, partially because I have to deal with a lab partner.

  There was probably a time in my life when I would have given my right arm for a lab partner as smart as Alice Brennan. But right now, all I can think to myself is that this girl is only eighteen years old and her grasp of every aspect of the course is better than mine. Sometimes I think she might even know more about life than I do.

  “You can’t possibly see anything with a microscope at that resolution,” Alice tells me impatiently as she pulls the microscope away from me to adjust it.

  “Oh,” I say and I let her do it. I sit perched on the tiny stool they gives us, glancing around at the rows of glossy black lab surfaces, each one equipped with a shiny, new microscope.

  “There,” she says triumphantly, as she pushes her brown-rimmed glasses up her narrow nose. “Try it now.”

  Today we’re looking at single-celled organisms under the microscope and our lab report is a paper about what we see. When I look under the microscope, I see… a blotchy cell with a bunch of gunk floating around inside.

  “You’re supposed to take notes on what you see,” Alice reminds me.

  “Oh, right.”

  God, I can’t even imagine what Alice must think of me. I’m a good fifteen years older than she is, in the same class, and very obviously struggling where she seems to be coasting. The only positive thing I can say is that my breasts are larger than Alice’s. I mean, that’s something. Although it’s mostly just because I’m fatter than she is.

  I feel a heavy hand rest on my shoulder. I turn away from the microscope to find Reid’s large shadow falling over me. Even for lab, he’s dressed in his usual T-shirt and baggy shorts. And sandals. “How’s it going, Libby?” he asks.

  “Great!” I exclaim. I look at Alice for confirmation and she nods rather reluctantly.

  “Isn’t it amazing to see what you’ve learned in the lectures and textbooks come alive?” Reid says with genuine enthusiasm.

  I stare down doubtfully at the microscope. “Come alive” isn’t an entirely accurate description of what I’m seeing here. Maybe “move very slightly” would be better. But I force a smile and nod eagerly at Reid.

  “Listen, Libby,” Reid says to me in a low voice, “I’d like to talk to you after class. If you have time.”

  Of course I have time. What else would I be doing late on a Friday afternoon? Getting ready to meet my boyfriend for dinner? Ha. Will probably won’t be home until midnight if the last three days are any indication.

  “Sure,” I say as Alice shoots me a look. She probably thinks Reid and I are hooking up. Like that’s the only way I could pass the class.

  Well, that could be true. But I’m still not going to hook up with him.

  Two hours later, as the last of my classmates are filtering out of the lab, I notice that another guy comes into the room to talk to Reid. This guy is bone thin with long, scraggly hair, accompanied by a scraggly beard. My opinion about beards is that if you’re going to have one, the hairs can’t be longer than half a centimeter in length. Any longer, and your beard is going to seriously remind me of pubic hair, both in appearance and texture. Not that he’d ever want to, but I would never let Will grow a beard. Once he didn’t shave for two whole days on the weekend, and I got antsy.

  The new guy and Reid seem to be looking in my direction as they talk. It’s making me uneasy. I agreed to talk. Not to some sort of weird stoner threesome. Yeah, I want to pass this class—but not at any cost.

  “Libby,” Reid calls to me. “I’d like you to meet someone.”

  I take my time putting away my microscope before I walk to the front of the room. I didn’t uglify myself today. I’m wearing skinny jeans with a fitted top, and I just got my hair cut and highlighted yesterday. Even though I stopped dyeing my hair blond, I just feel so drab with my natural color.

  “Hey.” The guy raises his hand in greeting. “I’m Josh. You must be the vet.”

  My cheeks grow warm. “Future vet.”

  Maybe.

  “And she volunteers at an animal shelter,” Reid adds. “She’s a good soul.”

  “That’s so awesome.” Josh nods his approval. “She’s so perfect.”

  I’m… perfect? So perfect? For what, exactly? This is making me really uneasy.

  “The thing is…” Reid gets a crease between his eyebrows. “We need help. From anyone who really and truly cares about animals. Which you obviously do.”

  “When you hear this,” Josh says, “you’re going to be absolutely furious. Any animal-lover would be.”

  Okay, now he’s got my attention…

  “Do you want to grab some dinner?” Reid asks me. “We can tell you the whole story.”

  I look at my watch. It’s five o’clock. Will is probably nowhere near done. I’ll probably be eating dinner alone tonight, like I have all week.

  “Sure,” I agree. “Why not?”

  Chapter 10

  Josh and Reid drag me to a tiny Russian restaurant in the East Village. There are types of cuisine that are ubiquitous in Manhattan, but I’d say that Russian food is not one of them—maybe it’s more popular in Brooklyn, which has a higher Russian population. All I really know about Russian food is blinis and borsht. And that borsht is made from beets. I suppose I’m going to learn more about it today though, like it or not.

  “You should try the borsht,” Josh tells me as we settle down at one of the six tables squeezed into this cramped restaurant. “It’s amazing here.”

  “I don’t really like beets,” I say.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “Have you ever tried beets?”

  Hmm. That’s actually a good question. I feel like I must have tried a beet at some point, but the truth is, I don’t have any solid memories of tasting beets. But somehow I know that I don’t like them. I can just sense it. For example, I’ve never been punched in the mouth and I know I wouldn’t like that.

  A plump woman with her hair in a messy bun approaches us with a tiny notepad. “Ya? What you have?”

  “I’ll have a kasha knish and a bowl of borsht,” Josh tells her.

  “I’ll have the vinegret,” Reid says as he hands the woman his menu.

  “I’ll have the beef stroganoff,” I say.

  The woman waddles off with our orders, and that’s when I notice that Reid and Josh are both staring at me with identical horrified looks on their faces. Is there something about beef stroganoff I don’t know? Do they defecate in the beef stroganoff here?

  “What?” I finally say.

  “Libby,” Reid manages. “You eat meat?”

  “Uh…” Honestly, as much as I love animals, the thought of giving up meat has never occurred to me. Mostly because the animals I love best, like dogs and cats and guinea pigs, aren’t ones that people typically eat. I don’t particularly love cows. I don’t find them cute or endear
ing, so I don’t feel bad about eating them. But these guys are looking at me like I’m worse than Hitler. Christ, it’s not like I ordered veal.

  “I like meat,” I finally say.

  “A veterinarian can’t eat meat!” Josh protests. “That would be like… a pediatrician who eats kids.”

  I really don’t think it’s like that at all. But still, they’re making me feel bad. Maybe they’re right. After all, just because a cow isn’t cute and cuddly, that doesn’t mean it should be slaughtered for food.

  Except they do taste really good.

  “I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world,” I say carefully. “I mean, there’s the food chain, right? Animals are meant to eat each other.”

  “If you want to catch a cow in the wild and kill it, you’re welcome to eat it,” Josh says. No, thank you. “It doesn’t have to do with eating animals. It has to do with the way they’re treated before they’re killed.” He eyes me. “But not everyone cares.”

  I feel my cheeks burn. Why did they invite me to dinner? To humiliate me?

  “Listen, it was hard for me to give up meat too,” Reid says sympathetically. “I was sixteen when I decided and my parents practically disowned me. My father said if I wouldn’t eat meat, I wasn’t going to eat at all.”

  I stare at him. “So what happened?”

  He grins and pats his gut. “Luckily, I had plenty of reserves to last me till they gave in.”

  I look at Reid with new respect. It must have been hard for him to be a teenager and stand up to his parents that way. And look at Will—when he was a teenager, he lost the ability to walk and had to adjust to spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. When I was a teenager, my biggest problem was that the boy I had a crush on didn’t like me back.

  “Do you eat pork?” Reid asks me.

  Of course I eat pork. Why wouldn’t I? It’s delicious. How can you make a ham and pineapple Hawaiian pizza without pork?

  “Not really,” I say carefully.

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,” Reid says. He leans back in his seat and rubs his goatee. “Have you ever heard of the Hanford Corporation?”