by Sky Winters
Finally arriving at the front door, she fished around in her purse for her keys. Pulling them free, she separated the house key Holly had given her ages ago from the rest and tossed the remainder in the grass behind her before letting herself in and making her way to the kitchen. The candy bar she had snuck out and eaten in the early morning hours had worn off long ago. Foraging in Holly’s fridge, she found some entrees on the freezer side and pulled one free, stripping off the plastic and popping it in the microwave before moving on to the wine cabinet.
Five minutes later, she was parked at the kitchen bar eating zucchini lasagna and drinking a glass of port. It was early in the day, sure, but after the night she had just experienced, she felt it was justified. Finishing off the lasagna, she moved on to Holly’s candy drawer, where she retrieved a chocolate cupcake from the stash of cakes that were her friend’s secret weakness. It was hardly a feast fit for a queen, but it would do in a pinch. Finishing off the last bites of the cake, she tossed her remnants in the trash and retrieved the bottle of port and her glass, carting them up to the spare bedroom with her.
Two more glasses and she was not feeling nearly as anxious and depressed. She succumbed to her fatigue and slipped between the fresh, clean sheets, falling fast asleep. She was still asleep when she heard Holly speaking to her from the side of the bed.
“Mystic? You okay? Wake up,” Holly urged, shaking her gently.
“Ugh. Not now, Mom. I don’t want to go to school.”
“I’ll Mom you. Come on. Let’s get up and go get your stuff before shit head decides to burn it and claim it was stolen. We’ll stop by the liquor store on the way back, as we seem to be out of port.”
“Yeah, funny how that happened,” Mystic said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “You got a t-shirt and some jeans I can borrow? I slept in this suit last night, and well, today.”
“You are kidding, right? You’re like four inches taller than me and have actual curves. How about some yoga pants? They’ll stretch.”
“Right. Might as well go for looking the part of a homeless person.”
“They are yoga pants, not second hand jogging pants. You’ll look fine. At least we have the same shoe size, so you won’t have to wear heels with them.”
“Ah, yes. That’ll be one bonus to living here. I have full access to the massive shoe closet.”
“Don’t push your luck, sister. Now get up and we’ll go find you some clothes. Get a shower. You smell like armpits and vomit.”
“I found some keys out on the front lawn,” Bob told them once she was clean and changed into an oversize t-shirt, stretch pants and sneakers and making her way down the stairs behind Holly.
“I won’t be needing those anymore. You can toss them,” Mystic told him.
“Hold up,” Holly said, walking over to retrieve the keys from Bob. “Are these the keys to the house and the car?”
“And some other things.”
“You can’t throw them away, Mystic. He’ll be looking for them back.”
“So?”
“So? Haven’t you had enough with fighting him?”
Mystic shrugged, causing Holly to roll her eyes. She tossed the keys in her own bag and motioned for everyone to follow her out the door.
An hour later, they were on their way to William’s house with Holly’s brother, Bob, in his crew cab F-250. In all honestly, the amount of stuff she would get from this visit would probably fit in the trunk of Holly’s car, but they needed to make only one trip, so it was better to have too much room than too little and Bob was a big guy, so he was there to make sure nothing went wrong. William himself was harmless, but he was prone to employing some pretty nasty pieces of work if he felt the need for intimidation.
As it turned out, the exchange was uneventful. As suspected, William had installed a couple of pit bulls outside the garage to make sure she didn’t try to go in and touch anything he hadn’t left for her and they stood looking menacing while the trio loaded boxes onto Bob’s truck. Each box was taped shut, so none of them had any idea what they were loading up. For all she knew, they were full of manure or explosives.
“Will be interesting to get this stuff home and see what he actually gave you,” Holly remarked as they loaded up the last of it.
“Or infuriating,” Mystic shot back. “Better make that pit stop at the liquor store on the way home.”
“Consider it done. We’ll have a little pity party and then get an early start on the new and fabulous Mystic Jansen.”
“Mystic Carlton.”
“What?”
“Mystic Carlton. Don’t you read your legal documents? I don’t even get to keep his last name. He took that too. I’m back to my maiden name, not that I mind being shut of that asshole’s surname.”
“Of course, Ms. Carlton,” Holly said, climbing into the cab of the truck.
Mystic shot the goons in front of the garage a bird, dancing her middle finger around outside the truck window to make sure they saw it as Bob pulled away.
“Classy,” Holly said, rolling her eyes as she was prone to doing.
“That’s me. Always a class act,” Mystic told her, smiling proudly as she rolled the window up and faced the front.
Stopping only at the liquor store, they drove the forty miles back to the suburbs, unloading the mystery boxes into Holly’s garage, stacking them up and down one side so they would be out of the way while she went through them to see what she needed to unpack and what could stay until she found a place to move in to. Looking over them, she felt overcome by a sense of melancholy. This was it. It was truly over, and she was on her own, broke and homeless.
“Come on, girl. Let’s not worry about what is in those right now. Let’s make some dinner and have some drinks. Bob’s going to eat with us and then head home. After that, we’ll get fucked up and put this behind us. You can wait and go through those tomorrow.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a job and a home.”
“And you will too, but we’re not going to sweat that tonight. How about a steak? Bob will fire up the grill and cook them for us. He is a master at it.”
“Sounds good. Make mine a smaller one, though. I still don’t have a huge appetite. I’ve only eaten one of your frozen lunch lasagnas today and still a little full from it.”
“Fair enough. How about we open a bottle of wine to sip while we make dinner? It’ll calm your nerves a bit more.”
“I drank a whole bottle of port for lunch,” Mystic noted.
“I know. I saw the empty bottle. So, hair of the dog?”
“Sure, why not.”
Two hours later, dinner was past, Bob was long gone, and the two women were on their own. A second bottle of wine was almost empty, and they were well on their way to being tipsy. They sat giggling on the sofa at random ideas for employment.
“You’ve got a killer body. You could make a killing as a stripper.”
“Oh yeah. I could pay my rent in single bills every month. I can’t think of anything that appeals less to me than being groped by strange men.”
Holly laughed, picking up her tablet and opening the Craigslist ads. She squinted at the screen a little as she read off some of the ads.
“You can sell cosmetics,” she said.
“That’s pretty much a guarantee that I’ll be living in your backyard in a box until I die.”
“But you’ll have loads of free samples to keep you looking hot.”
“Let’s face it. I’m qualified for fuck all. I’m almost thirty years old with almost zero job skills.”
“Maybe no formal job skills and experience, but you have great people skills and you’re very smart.”
“That’ll get me a job as a department store greeter.”
“People survive doing that.”
“Not very well, though.”
“Well, you have to start somewhere, Mystic. Here, you take a look and see if any of these strike your fancy. I’ll get us another bottle of wine.”
Myst
ic took the tablet and began scrolling through the ads. Virtually everything there was either way beyond her qualifications or menial. It wasn’t that she was below getting a regular job like normal people, but these were on the bottom of the pay scale. No way would she have enough money to do anything but live in Holly’s spare bedroom for a very long time and she didn’t want to put that sort of strain on their friendship. Being here temporarily was one thing, but eventually, it would wear on both of them. Holly was very private, having always been single and preferring it that way. Having Mystic underfoot would grate on her, no matter how hard she tried to accommodate her situation.
“Hey, here’s one. Listen to this,” she told Mystic, reading the text of the ad.
Surrogates wanted. Serious applicants only. Please send resume and full-length photo to be considered. Top dollar paid to those who qualify. NDA required.
Holly laughed, topping off her glass with fresh wine. She stopped when she realized that Mystic seemed to be seriously contemplating it.
“You can’t be for real. A surrogate? You’re going to ruin your body for a stranger?”
“Why not? I always wanted kids and William always put it off, said he didn’t have time for the burden. If these people want to pay me to pop out a kid, why not?”
“You’ve lost your damned mind.”
“I’m sending them my resume,” Mystic told her, opening up her cloud account and attaching a copy to a response. “Here, take a photo of me and Bluetooth it to your tablet.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I’m not. Just a bit tipsy. Come on. Take my picture.”
Holly shook her head and took a photo of her, shooting it over to her tablet, even while protesting that this was a bad idea.
“So, they probably won’t even call me. Surrogacy pays pretty well, usually a healthy fee on top of covering all the expenses. It might give me enough to get on my feet.”
“More like on your back, considering the nature of the job.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m sure they do artificial insemination or something.”
“I would hope so. Come one, put that aside. Maybe it was a bad idea to let you look for jobs after too much wine.”
Mystic hit send and put the tablet aside. She and Holly continued drinking for a while, but eventually, headed off to bed. Holly had to work tomorrow, and she had all those boxes to look through, so she could see what she was starting over with.
Chapter Three
“I’m carpooling with Devon, across the street, the rest of this week, so the car is in the garage if you need to go anywhere. It should have plenty of gas in it and I’ve left you some cash on the kitchen counter. I know you’re busted. You can pay me back for whatever you use when you can,” Holly told her the following morning.
Mystic looked her over. She had her hair in a loose bun and a pair of sunglasses on even though she hadn’t gone out into the sun yet. It was a sure sign that she was hungover, and Mystic wasn’t much better herself.
“Thanks, Holly. Hopefully, I’ll just be here going through boxes today.”
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” Holly replied, picking up her briefcase and heading for the front door.
Once she was gone, Mystic made her way to the garage to start on the boxes. There was no point in showering until she found some clothes and such. She groaned as she went through what William had packed up for her. There were none of the nice dresses or expensive shoes he had purchased for her during the marriage. Only jeans, t-shirts, and less expensive items. It was if he made sure not to include anything that might be of value, anything she might sell to make a little money to get by on. She noted that he had even kept her electronics. The only reason her phone was still working was that she had purchased it on a contract in her name a few months before the split.
That was another worry. The payment would be due in a couple of weeks and she had nothing to pay it with. She had hoped there would be something of value in the boxes, but after sifting through more than ten of them, she knew she would find nothing in the final two. William was a jackass to the very end. She picked up a stack of clothes she had gathered and took them upstairs with her, showering and changing. At least she was in her own things again.
The phone vibrated beside her as she sat on the bed brushing out her hair. She looked down at the blocked number and started not to answer it, but curiosity won over in the end and she clicked the button to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Mystic Jansen?”
“Carlton,” Mystic groaned.
“Excuse me?”
“My last name is Carlton.”
“Oh. I, well, uh . . . I’m confused. I have the name Mystic Jansen in front of me.”
“What is this about?” Mystic groaned, expecting some cold call or more bad news.
“This is Margaret Stanford with Specialty Surrogates. We received your photo and resume last night. The name on it was Mystic Jansen. Is that you?”
Mystic’s brow knotted together for a moment. Then, she remembered the ad. She had sent in her resume but hadn’t had time to update it before doing so. It still said Jansen.
“Yes. I’m sorry. That’s me. I am newly divorced and just need to update my resume.”
“Ah, very good then. We’d like to talk to you about becoming a surrogate if you have time to meet today.”
“Today?” Mystic replied. “That’s quick.”
“Yes. Well, we have a very high demand for our services and finding qualified candidates can be difficult.”
“Right. What, exactly, are the qualifications required?”
“I’ll be more than happy to discuss that with you in person. Can you come in today?”
“Look. I appreciate the call, but I think that maybe I’m not the person you are looking for. I really can’t afford to be pregnant for nine months while trying to re-establish myself.”
“I see. It’s not for everyone. I find that a lot of people will even come for the initial meeting, mostly lured in by the $250,000 payment for completed pregnancy, but back out when faced with actually going through with everything.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say $250,000?” Mystic gasped.
“Yes. Double for multiple births, triple for beyond that.”
“That’s insane.”
“Well, there is a lot to be discussed beyond just payment that might make the payment sound less appealing.”
“What time would you like to meet?” Mystic asked.
“Is one p.m. good for you? Our offices are located at the Masterson Clinic. Are you familiar with the location?”
“Yes,” Mystic replied, feeling a little apprehensive.
The Masterson Clinic was the subject of much speculation. There were rumors that they did weird human experiments there and other horror stories. None of it had been proven beyond just local lore, but most people steered clear of the place. The fact that they were willing to offer five times the amount most places would pay for a surrogate spoke volumes, as far as she was concerned.
“Then I will see you at one?”
“Sure. I mean, yes. I’ll see you then. Thank you, Ms. Stanford.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up. Mystic sat and looked at her cell phone for a moment, debating whether she was going to go through with the meeting. In the end, the money was just too good to ignore. It was worth at least going in to find out more about it. She contemplated it some more as she hung her clothes in the closet, debating it all the way up until the time she needed to leave if she was going to arrive on time.
“What the hell?” she asked herself, grabbing Holly’s money and car keys from the kitchen counter and heading toward the garage.
The drive into the city gave her more time to think about this. It was nine months of her life, maybe ten, a year at most, depending on how long it took for the insemination to work. In the end, she would have two hundred and fifty thousand to show for it, maybe more. No menial job she could get was g
oing to pay her nearly that much. If she was lucky, she might make it in ten years time.
So, what was a year to put herself ahead of the game? That much money would buy her a decent house and a new car with money left over to put in the bank and subsidize her income, even if she couldn’t find anything more than a low paying job. Unless there was something incredibly weird about this, it would be hard to pass up that kind of money.
She found herself even daring to feel optimistic. Holly was going to go ballistic about this, but she’d calm down. She was just protective of Mystic and always had been. They had grown up together, both coming from poor families and making their own way. It was just that Holly had been the smart one and gotten scholarships to go to college, while Mystic had been stupid enough to drop out of college her sophomore year and marry someone who was all wrong for her and left her with the same nothing she had come to him with.
Her heart was thudding as she pulled up to the gates of the Masterson Clinic and waited for the guard to come out to her window. He motioned for her to roll down the window.
“May I help you?”
“I have a one p.m. appointment with Margaret Stanford at Specialty Surrogates.”
“Name?”
“Mystic Jansen, uh, Carlton.”
“Which is it? Jansen or Carlton?”
“Um, Carlton, I guess.”
The guard looked at her with a disdained expression and then looked down his chart. After a moment, he pushed a button and the gates in front of her opened.
“Go in the front doors, cross the lobby and take the elevator to the eighth floor. Room 810 will be to your left on the right side of the hallway.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
Her pulse was still racing even as she made her way up the elevator. Stepping off, she was immediately aware of how sterile it all looked. Everything was white and stainless steel. It looked out of place compared to the opulence she had noted in the lobby. The entrance had been filled with statues and paintings done in gothic tones, rich with touches of antique brass and gold. It was like walking into a castle from days gone by. In stark contrast was the incredibly pristine hallway of the eighth floor, with its frosted glass doors and lack of decor.