Expecting: A Novel
Page 6
“No, I’m fine,” he says.
“They’re not going to find anything, you know,” Laurie tells him. “But we still have to do it.”
She’s right. And he’s a moron for letting his imagination run away to nutso land. Everything is going to work out. They’re young; they have an excellent fertility doctor. Alan has Laurie, his best friend.
“I’m lucky to have you,” he calls out to her.
“You bet you are.”
He hopes she’ll still love him when she finds out about his zero motility, bad antibody sperm.
Laurie taps on the door again. “Hey, Mr. Lucky,” she says. “I could put on my sexy black corset. Maybe find a riding crop.” She lowers her voice. Says in a husky whisper, “Have you been a naughty boy?”
“Go away,” he tells her.
***
When she’s gone and he’s finished the motorcycle article, he looks around. He’s in a bathroom. With pictures of Jessica Alba.
This isn’t how you’re supposed to make a baby. Sometimes old-fashioned ways are the most kick-ass. Jessica Alba? Who cares? Although she is gorgeous. Really gorgeous.
He hates being dependent on doctors and lab tests, and why does it have to be so damn difficult? And humiliating? He looks up to see his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Are those wrinkles around the corners of his eyes? He’s sure they weren’t there a year ago. Oh, man. By the time they have a child, he could be sixty.
But what else can he do? They have to keep going, push forward. They aren’t quitters. So they’ll try anything. Dance naked around a maypole, sacrifice animals (not really, unless slugs or cockroaches count), they’ll do whatever they have to do.
He will be positive and supportive. He will embrace this fucktoid fertility technology. He loves his wife. They want a child—even if he’s uncomfortable with the process, even if he despises it. And it could be worse. He looks down at the seminaked photos of Jessica Alba.
Because this time, dammit, this is the one that’s going to work.
Jack
He has every intention of paying back the money. It’s not as if anybody will notice it’s missing; people have been stealing from the fraternity party fund for years, no big deal. “Stealing” sounds too harsh. Jack prefers to think of it as borrowing. Granted, he could have asked Danny to help him out—Danny, who gets a new leased BMW every fall and wears a TAG Heuer watch (“A Carrera,” he says, “like the Porsche”), but he didn’t want to tell him the truth, explain how his parents had slashed his allowance in half. (“Perhaps if you’re forced to deal with the realities of life—you can’t stay in school forever,” Jack’s father told him.) Even though his father was the one who made the hard-ass phone call, he thinks his mother was the one who went apeshit because he changed his major again, from history to South American studies.
And who knew they audited books at fraternity houses? Danny told the guys it was no big deal, but some big honcho from the National SAE board would be dropping by some time in the future to make sure everything was running okay.
Jack only borrowed a little over a thousand dollars, so he’s got a couple months to put the money back. Only how’s he going to work and get his degree at the same time? He’s already decided to not drive as much to save on gas, so hopefully he can find a job in Westwood, within walking distance. Except the pay at restaurant jobs is shit and he doesn’t see himself as a busboy. He looks at the UCLA job board, and everything listed looks crappy or offers more busboy jobs. As a last resort, he checks out The Daily Bruin, and while no amazing jobs appear, an ad on the back page catches his eye. The Westside Cryobank.
Sperm donation. Why didn’t he think about that before? He goes to the Westside Cryobank website—$40 to $100 for each semen sample. The potential to make up to $6,000 a year. And the work—do you really call it work?—it’s something you do for fun anyway. Why not get paid for it?
He reads through the info. The screening process is extensive—a long form to fill out and interviews and your sperm and blood work are checked and double-checked for diseases. Still, better than bussing tables. He clicks on the box to begin the application process. Name, address, the usual. And then more specific questions:
Have you had West Nile virus, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? Did any of your sexual partners live in Cameroon, Chad, the Congo? Unexplained diarrhea, SARS, exposure to heavy metals?
Heavy metal? Yeah, he likes Metallica and Slayer and Seether. Should he put that in the application, let them know he has a sense of humor?
Probably a bad idea.
Physical characteristics. Height, weight, ethnic origin of parents. Talents.
Talent. He can drink a bottle of Captain Morgan without puking. He’s a beer pong champion. He took violin lessons for five years but didn’t practice much.
He writes, “Play the violin.”
He played flag football in high school, some tennis, ran cross-country one season (most of one season—okay, half of one season) until he realized he hated it as much as he hated violin. His mother despaired: What will become of you? You quit everything. He liked kickball. A bunch of his friends thought it would be cool to start a high school kickball team, but they never did.
He writes, “Athletic, likes kickball.”
Professional aspirations.
Oh no. Maybe he should email this question to his mother, give her a good laugh. “My son is coasting through life,” she’ll write on the form. “Four years, almost five years at UCLA, and he changes his major once a week. Who would choose such low achieving sperm? Now, if you need eggs, our daughter, Subhra—she’s in medical school at Johns Hopkins. Brilliant, beautiful, excels at sports, especially swimming and volleyball, fluent in five languages, plays the violin and cello.”
Jack chooses to be vague. “I have so many aspirations, I haven’t narrowed them down yet.”
Personal reasons for becoming a sperm donor. He thinks. Well, he’s got plenty of sperm. Why shouldn’t he use it for good? Instead of just squirting it into mouths. Or other places.
He’ll do that question later.
Can he provide a childhood photo? He has a couple old little league baseball photo cards in his desk. He looks okay in the photo—his teeth are slightly funky (preorthodontist), but probably most six-year-olds have funky teeth.
But his teeth might be the kiss of death. People are going to look at the picture and read his file. Is this sperm donor thing a waste of time? Maybe it’s easier to ask Megan for money, except she has less than he does. It’s funny how Gwnn’s/Megan’s name really turned out to be Megan. And it’s been great dating her. Except for the inconvenience of the missing party fund money and his mother’s occasional annoying emails, things are okay. Pretty close to excellent. And now the sperm donor idea—what’s more genius than that? It’s foolproof. His life is golden.
***
He’s eating dinner at a fish place Carter told him about; in fact, Carter is supposed to be here having dinner with him, but he hasn’t showed up yet. The fish tacos are good, very tasty with a cayenne kick. He’s on his third taco when he realizes there’s something hard in his mouth—a fish bone. He chokes a little and spits out the bone on his plate.
“Disgusting,” says a voice beside him.
He looks over to see a small, cute girl watching him. She has short red-blond hair, with bangs. Her haircut looks precise and squared off, no loose pieces anywhere.
“Sorry,” he says to her, but she’s walking over to his table and looking at his plate.
“Not you. This place is disgusting to serve big hunks of bone in their fish tacos. Don’t they double-check? You could sue them. Did you break a tooth? I smell lawsuit.” This is how Jack meets Normandie. She’s a junior at UCLA, prelaw, very focused. “It’s not enough for me to win at life,” she says later after she’s joined him at his table. “My enemies must lose.”
***
On their first official date, at a café in Venice Beach that’d been triple-vetted by Normandie, she tells him how much she admires Gloria Allred.
“I won’t be as brittle,” Normandie says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’ll be warmer—not a viper, but some kind of animal that seems gentle and cuddly on the outside until you realize they can—and will—kill you. Like the dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park who looks cute and friendly to the fat guy who’s stolen the dinosaur eggs, only then it sprouts this creepy frill and opens its mouth to reveal giant, sharp teeth and spits venom. And that’s the end of the fat guy.”
Normandie spears a cherry tomato with her fork and pops it in her mouth. “Squish,” she says.
Normandie’s parents run a local radio station in Fresno. Cool, Jack said. Normandie shakes her head. “My parents are ex-hippies with MBAs who should be Silicon Valley billionaires, but instead they embraced an alternative lifestyle. If you want to drive around in a beat-up truck with pot in the glove compartment, that’s fine, but one day, you’re going to have kids and be role models. They never thought about that part.”
“I think running a radio station sounds great. You can be your own boss, play your favorite music all day.”
“There’s a lot of corporate stuff involved and zero money,” Normandie says. “They have to do these terrible promotions like tractor pulls and mini slot car races.”
“They must hate that.”
“No. That’s the worst part—they think it’s fantastic. They had a ‘Guess the Weight of the Pig’ contest and they had this gigantic pig, like out of Charlotte’s Web, and the winner got to keep it. Only not as a pet, duh. ‘Mr. Bacon.’ That’s what they named the pig. Disgusting.”
“So you’re a vegetarian?”
“Hell, no. They’re animals, not people.” She pokes at her salad again, looking for another cherry tomato.
“What about all the inhumane ways they’re treated?” Jack is almost a vegetarian. He likes a steak every now and then, but that’s only when he forces himself not to think about slaughterhouses.
“You mean like veal? Yeah, it’s sick to keep them cooped up in tiny cages so they can’t move and won’t develop muscles and feed them milk and kill them when they’re babies. But they’re cows. It’s not like they know what’s going on—or care.”
Jack thinks they probably do care about being dead versus being alive. And the thought of living your short life in a crate, always indoors, with zero contact with other calves—it’s pretty ghastly.
“Don’t you worship cows?” she asks him.
“Hindus believe animals have souls. So that includes cows. Krishna was a cowherd.”
“The blue guy?”
Jack nods.
“So you’re Hindu?” she asks.
“Presbyterian.”
She frowns. “You’re not as exotic as I thought.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I always look at the long term. An Indian husband, that would stand out. Look good on my résumé. Not that I’d ever change my name.”
She’s talking about marriage. He should run. But she’s cute. Will she have sex with him tonight? A good chance if she’s already talking about marriage.
She sips her drink. “Change my last name, I mean. My first name I’m going to change soon. Normandie. What were my parents thinking? They were probably high. Normandy’s a place in France, you know, D-Day. Which would be stupid enough, but they had to end it in –ie. Isn’t that hideous? My brother’s name is Merlot.”
Jack laughs.
“Get this—because the night he was conceived, they were drinking Merlot. I suppose it could be worse; they could’ve been drinking absinthe. Or mint juleps.”
***
They don’t have sex that night. Or on the next date or the date after that. Jack thinks it’s probably okay, since he’s technically dating Megan, although she’s busy in a production of Guys and Dolls, understudying Miss Adelaide. According to Megan, the girl playing Miss Adelaide, Jyll, got the part because she told the director her father had cancer and his dying wish was to see his daughter in a UCLA musical, and even though Jyll is tone-deaf and dance-challenged, she got the part anyway. And Megan has heard some of the Hot Box girls talking about how the stuff with her father having cancer is bullshit.
So Megan is busy with her play and whenever Jack talks to her, all she wants to do is complain about Jyll, and Jack has never liked musicals anyway and seeing this one sounds especially awful. Medea wasn’t bad though; he was surprised he liked it. But musicals give him the creeps. People suddenly bursting into song for no reason. Who does that? Life isn’t Glee.
***
Why won’t Normandie have sex with him? Because she wants to be sure, she says. Is she seeing anybody else? No, of course not. Would she care if she knew about Megan? Maybe. Would she care if she knew about the money he’s borrowed from the party fund? Would she loan him money? He’s not willing to go that far. Potential sex outweighs a loan. At least for now.
***
After dinner, Carter comes in with a keg he’s liberated from another fraternity and even though the beer tastes flat, “What’s that expression about a gift horse?” Carter says, so they finish the keg, and when Jack goes back to his room, he’s a little light-headed, but checks his email messages and sees an email from Westside Cryobank asking if he could come in for an interview next week. Ka-ching, he thinks. He might be a failure at graduating from college on time or picking a major. Dating two girls at the same time could be considered some kind of failure too. And being forced to borrow money from your fraternity—wait, he refuses to go to the dark-cloud-hovering-over-his-head place. Golden, that’s what his life is now, isn’t it?
Yeah, look on the bright side—somebody wants his sperm. Woo-hoo, he’s finally good at something.
Laurie
Dr. Julian wasn’t surprised when none of the tests revealed anything. “With a high percentage of miscarriages and infertility issues, we never find the exact problem,” he tells Laurie and Alan.
Not especially reassuring. Laurie was hoping he’d say something like drinking iced green tea three times a day would do the trick.
Alan has some motility issues. “Slow swimmers,” says Dr. Julian. Probably not directly related to the miscarriages, but Dr. Julian will monitor the next pregnancy closely, starting with the conception process. “To make sure you have the best chance of getting pregnant and staying pregnant, with no worries.”
No worries. Laurie wants to laugh. What would that be like? she wonders.
“It’s not as if we’re moving into the heavy-duty stuff,” Dr. Julian says. “No in vitro. At least not yet.” Is he making a joke? Dr. Julian doesn’t seem to have a great sense of humor. And he’s too old for his jazz patch. You’re only allowed to wear a jazz patch if you’re under twenty-five or play an instrument. Dr. Julian gives them a booklet about “the next step.” It’s called “Everything You Want to Know About IUI.” Laurie isn’t sure she wants to know anything about IUI (intrauterine insemination), especially after Alan starts making jokes about it.
“Insemination Under the Influence, ha-ha,” Alan says. They’re driving home from the doctor’s office and Alan is chipper. He’s been very chipper lately, and she wonders if he is covering up his anxiet
y about another potential pregnancy.
“Insanity Under the Influence.” Alan grins at Laurie. She manages a small grin back.
“Do you want to have lunch?” Laurie asks him. “Grace found a Greek place near our office. They have great chicken souvlaki and grape leaves. We could go over everything Dr. Julian talked about.”
“I’d love to. But I should get back to Palmer-Boone. Everything goes to hell when I’m not there. Rain check?”
She looks at him, imagines his face with a jazz patch. “Rain check,” she says.
“Great.” Alan frowns. “Okay, IUI. Hmmm, I can’t think of another one. Come on, your turn.”
***
At the Hidden Valley office, Grace flips through the IUI booklet and tosses it on the desk. “Yikes, this looks grim. But it’s probably effective.” Emilie has come with her today; she sits on the floor and plays with a Duplo zoo set. Hal is in the office checking over things with his partner, Ian. Grace gets down on the floor beside Emilie and makes a zebra bounce on Emilie’s hand. Emilie giggles and Grace giggles back. Their matching copper-colored curls bounce on their heads and Laurie smiles. They are so clearly mother and daughter.
“There’s nothing wrong with doing fertility stuff and looking into adoption at the same time,” Grace says to Laurie.
“Yeah. Alan and I talked about adoption back when we were dating.” She doesn’t say anything about Alan’s recent fear of meth-addicted birth mothers.
“It still might work out that way. I know an adoption attorney in West Hollywood. He’s supposed to be very good. Or you could check out some online sites, see what’s out there.”
“I guess I could,” Laurie says, hesitates. “IUI, in vitro—yuck. Does this mean I’m going to turn into Octomom?”
“I hope so. Then you could get a reality series. And I could be on it as your best friend. Tetramom, is that when you have ten?”
“I think ten would be dectuplets. But I’m not sure that’s medically possible. Ten, can you imagine?”