by Jamie Metzl
“You know this is bullshit, don’t you?”
She knows and I know that she can’t really turn me down now that I’ve mentioned my sister. I’d been cautious about mentioning Astrid to Toni when we’d first started dating. Something about sharing the crisis that had shaped so much of my world had felt like a river that, once crossed, I’d never be able to cross back again. But once I’d begun Toni had coaxed the pain out of me in her gentle way.
“Six months ago you couldn’t figure out how you felt and now that you need me you’re asking me to risk my career?”
I try to speak but can’t think of anything valid to say.
“To be or not to be,” she had said six months ago in one of our final painful conversations. All of my convoluted words sounded like thinking to her. That was why she left.
What if life is never meant to be lived between these two poles? I’d then thought, between being here physically and everywhere metaphysically, between being present for the day-to-day and simultaneously observing the philosophical absurdities of our existence from above? Toni lived her life at the near pole. I floated, as always, somewhere in between.
“And you want me to sneak into the pathology lab, steal the tissue, and then what?” she says angrily.
“Then I need you to put it into a small refrigerated cooler and bring it to me.”
“And what exactly will you do with it?” she asks.
“Give it to Maurice Henderson,” I say, “the police inspector I’m working with.”
Toni looks at me and doesn’t need to say it. If the police want the tissue, they can pretty well get it themselves.
I shake my head slightly to reject the thought.
She breathes in deeply then blows the breath out through her mouth.
27
It’s a lot of pressure being an only child, even worse one who didn’t always have that status from a family and a people overburdened by the memory of loss. I’d always known it was expected of me to bring new life into the world to rekindle the tiniest bit of what has been lost and plant a seed for the future. But with each failed relationship the possibility of actually doing this has declined and my barely suppressed anxiety about failing some kind of ancestral mission has edged up.
That’s why I’d considered the possibility before as some kind of insurance policy. I’d just never quite followed through.
I’d thought about this a lot. Doing it is another matter.
“Hi. May I help you?”
The Hope Parkway receptionist’s words throw me for a loop. What is this, Burger King? I’ve knocked all five OBs and one fertility clinic off of Joseph’s list with creative phone shenanigans, but the last two fertility clinics on the list have proven harder nuts to crack, so I’m stepping up my game in person.
It’s sometimes hard to remember the days when fertility clinics were places where older women went trying to have children when nature alone wasn’t playing along. In those days sex was the primary act leading to children and people only came to places like this when there was a problem. But that was before we learned how to read the human genome and before Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and Selection, PGDS, gave parents the ability to decide which of their many fertilized eggs they wanted to have implanted in the mother.
With parents having the increasing ability to choose which of their potential children had the best chance of success, only the desperately poor and religious zealots choose to do things the old-fashioned way. For most everyone else sex is becoming a highly enjoyable recreation but an unnecessary risk for procreation, and in vitro fertilization and genetic selection clinics like this have become the norm, at least until the Christian right began to fight back, declaring the IVFGS baby industry contrary to “God’s plan.”
“I’m, um, here to freeze my sperm,” I say haltingly.
“Oh,” she says as if I’d said that I was there to deliver office supplies. “Have you been here before?”
“First time,” I say with a silly look on my face.
“You’ll need to read these materials then fill out the six forms.” She hands me an e-tablet. “This isn’t covered by insurance. I’ll need to get your credit information.”
“Um, okay,” I say, waving my u.D over the reader.
The charge for $495 appears on my screen. Ouch. Could I have done this at home, I wonder. I have a Ziploc and extra freezer space. I tap the green icon to confirm.
“You can go in that door,” she says.
I do.
“Sir.” The deep voice comes from behind the nurses’ station. I look over.
I hadn’t expected a male nurse, let alone one built like a football player.
I must look a bit startled as I read his name tag, Nurse Dwayne Richardson.
“No problem, man,” he says, reading my look, “I get that sometimes.”
His words dispel some of the awkwardness but not all.
“Okay,” I say in a caricature of a sporty voice, “let’s get this show on the road.” I cringe at my awkwardness.
“This is one of the easiest jobs you’ll ever have,” Richardson says calmly. I can’t tell if this is some form of male bonding. “Here’s the receptacle, there’s the room. Go in and lock the door. Magazines are in the top drawer. You can also download some virtual stuff on your u.D. Just wave it over the reader if you like. We also have virtual reality goggles. When you’re done, leave the specimen in the cabinet.”
“Tallyho,” I say in an overwrought British accent, trying to be funny but immediately feeling like an even bigger idiot.
“Just take the time you need,” he says with a coolness that makes me feel even more like crawling into a hole.
The room could have been any medical examination room in any city in America. Had I expected incense and soft music?
I don’t dare even touch the outdated Oculus Rift goggles and am tempted to go for the u.D app, but I don’t fully trust the privacy settings and am not much of a porn guy anyway.
I leaf through the embedded magazines and see something for everyone. In addition to Playboy, they have Buttmaster, Sexy over Sixty, Gazongas Maximus, Spicy Latinas, and Va China. I sense I must be more old-fashioned than I think as I pick up Playboy and start leafing through.
I find myself drawn to an article describing the growing conflict in Siberia as the Russians fight the losing battle to stop China from stealing fresh water via the massive underground cross-border tunnels they’ve dug into Siberia’s Lake Baikal. I get lost in the article until I remind myself of the mission at hand. Or, perhaps, not yet in hand.
I look at the women in the photos, but they all look like children to me. Beautiful, sexy, but kids. I must be getting older. I don’t remember having such concerns leafing through the pornos in Billy Gregorian’s basement during middle school. I’m not feeling much stirring. This approach isn’t going to work.
I close the magazine, lean my back against the wall, and shut my eyes. I don’t have to scan long to find the image. It’s Toni, just sleeping in my bed. Her head is faced away from me, her black hair rolling over the pillow, her small ribcage gently rising and falling with her breath. I watch her for a while from my side of the bed, feel her warmth, smell her scent. Slowly, I slide behind her, my body following the curve of hers, my arm softly gliding over her stomach. She stirs ever so slightly and her hand reaches up to hold my wrist, pulling me closer into her. She rolls her head in my direction and kisses my shoulder while making an almost imperceptible whine. Our bodies slowly revolve together and settle into each other, fitting perfectly as if mine has an inversion for each protrusion of hers and vice versa.
I unzip my pants and screw the lid off the container.
I close my eyes and enter her. Our bodies rub against each other, into each other, deeper and deeper. They merge.
I release then open my eyes again, dizzy, confused.
What am I doing with my life? I ask myself.
Two billion years of evolution, my life story from a hor
ny protozoan to an angst-ridden thirty-nine-year-old hominid, all collected in a plastic container left in a stainless steel cabinet.
“I have a question for you,” I say to football Nurse Dwayne Richardson as I exit the room.
“Shoot.”
I refrain from making the obvious joke.
“My wife said after I’m done I should ask about when you are going to fertilize the eggs and what more you need from us?”
“Your wife?” He looks confused.
“She said you had her eggs and now this is what you need.” I point back to the examination room.
Nurse Richardson picks up my file.
“You didn’t mention that in your forms.”
“I thought you knew. That’s why I’m here.”
“Sorry, man,” Richardson says, “this is above my pay grade. You’ll need to talk to the doctor for that.”
“Can I speak to her now?”
“Sorry, man,” Nurse Richardson says, “doesn’t work like that. You need to make an appointment.”
“Ugh, God, really?” I say. “My wife told me that everything was set and all I need to do is this. We’ve already met with the doctor two times.”
“I don’t see that on your file,” he says, again leafing through my papers. “Which doctor did you meet with?”
“Dr. Chaudhury,” I say.
“Don’t see it.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “There’s definitely a file. Maybe it’s under my wife’s name.”
“All right,” Richardson says cautiously, “let me have a look.”
“Last name is Stock,” I say, “MaryLee Stock.”
He walks up to the reception then comes back a few minutes later. “I don’t know what to tell you, man,” he says, “we’ve looked through our all of our files and nothing under that name.”
“Oh, shit,” I say.
“Sorry man,” he says supportively, “we can still freeze your sperm if you want. I see you’ve already paid for that.”
My strong breath out makes my closed lips flap. “Why don’t you just do that for now,” I say, projecting dejection.
“Sorry man.”
This is not the place I’m looking for, but the Azadian legacy is secure until the next power outage.
It’s 4:15 p.m. on a Friday and I race toward the next name on the list hoping the drive will be long enough to let the same trick work once more.
Oh, to be twenty again.
28
I pull into the Bright Horizons parking lot twenty minutes before five.
I’d thought Hope Parkway was like a Burger King, but this place is even more corporatized, designed to a T. The Hope Parkway walls seemed painted with army surplus. Here, a Pantone consultant has obviously earned big bucks to come up with a soothing aquamarine and caramel color scheme. The elegant signs on the wall and subdued track lighting seem designed to create an impression—competent, professional, comfortable, safe.
Again the receptionist gives me the e-tablet to fill out, scans my u.D for payment, and sends me through a door. Again a nurse hands me a plastic container, directs me to a room in the back, and gives me instructions. Again I feel awkward.
I still can’t get it through my thick head that what was once the result of wild sex in the back of a teenager’s car now comes from a man shooting in a plastic container, a woman having her eggs extracted surgically, and the couple coming back a few days later to select from among their twenty or so fertilized eggs based on genetic predictors of future traits. It’s even more shocking to me that scientists are on the verge of being able to produce unlimited eggs from induced stem cells that will blow this process wide open.
The room here at Bright Horizons is far better designed for the task than the one at Hope Parkway. The lights are less glaring, the Oculus Rift VR glasses are the latest model and apps can download into them without touching anything. Someone even had the foresight to provide Handi Wipes just in case. How thoughtful, I think, a pump dispenser of Sinoglide.
I must have gotten warmed up at Hope Parkway because I slide on the virtual reality glasses and tap the car wash app. It’s as if I am between the young woman and the car, as if I am a soap bubble. Up and down, up and down. This is going to be one fucking clean car. Up and down, now sideways. Her body provides a lot of extra surface area to the cleaning process. The hose . . .
Maybe, I think, as I screw the top back on the filled container, I’m not as complicated as I’d led myself to believe an hour ago.
I leave the specimen in the cabinet then come outside to pull the same trick.
The nurse, a not so spicy thirty-something Latina, stiffens when I mention MaryLee Stock’s name then excuses herself and scurries away awkwardly.
I wait for ten minutes.
Nothing.
Ten minutes more.
Nothing.
Then a rail-thin, highly made-up woman who appears to be in her fifties emerges from around the corner where the nurse had disappeared. Her face looks like she’s just come through a wind tunnel. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Her gait and expression are all business.
“Mr. Azadian, my name is Jessica Crandell. I’m the general manager here. Can you please step into my office?” She speaks reluctantly, as if retracting each word before she has fully offered it.
She gestures for me to take a seat.
“You say that your wife has had her eggs extracted here. Is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am,”
“And the name of your wife is?”
“Stock, MaryLee Stock.”
“I see,” she says slowly. “And do you have documentation of your marital status?”
“Not with me,” I say. “Do I need it?”
“As you can imagine, Mr. Azadian, the work we do here at Bright Horizons is highly confidential. We are bound by law and corporate ethics to maintain the utmost secrecy of our records.”
“But can’t you just look in MaryLee’s file? You’ll just see my name listed and then I can show you my driver’s license to confirm my identity?”
“But Mr. Azadian, I’m sure you will understand I am not at liberty to say if there is a file or not.”
“I completely understand,” I say, lifting my wrist and starting to tap my u.D, “why don’t I just call MaryLee and put you on with her.”
A strange, almost smug look comes over Jessica Crandell’s face. She leans slightly toward me. “Why don’t you just do that, Mr. Azadian,” she says, her eyes glaring into mine before a forced almost-smile presses up the edges of her lips.
My suspicion radar is pinging.
“Speed dial five,” I dictate to my u.D. I’m not sure what inspires me to pick this number. Maybe it’s the one most likely to go straight to voice mail. Maybe I’m a masochist. The voice streams through my earpiece.
“This is Martina Hernandez. I’ve missed your call. Leave your name and number.”
“Baby it’s me,” I say. “I’m at Bright Horizons and they’re having a hard time accessing your file. Can you please call me when you get this? You can also,” I look up at the impassive Jessica Crandell, “call Jessica Crandell at . . .”
I revel in the hint of suppressed anger on her face as she spits out the ten digits.
“At nine one three, two seven four, thirty-seven thirty-three,” I repeat. “Please call as soon as you can. Love you, baby,” I add as I tap off.
A more composed look comes across Crandell’s face.
“She’ll call any minute,” I say.
“It doesn’t really matter,” she says calmly, “we wouldn’t be able to divulge information about any of our, our potential clients by a phone call anyway.”
“But didn’t you just say that I should just call my wife?” I ask, projecting innocence.
She doesn’t miss a beat. “I was saying that you had every right to do that, not that a phone message would have any determinative status.”
The words “determinative status” somehow jar me. “I se
e,” I say slowly, “that’s what you meant?”
The undercurrent of tension rages below our formal conversation.
“Well, I’ll just have to bring her in with me on Monday then.”
“You do that, Mr. Azadian,” she says, standing with an unconvincing half smile. “We’ll look forward to seeing you then.” Her demeanor doesn’t suggest she’s looking forward to anything.
I stand and take a few steps toward the door before turning back. “Oh,” I say deliberately, “I see you have the Kansas City Star on your coffee table? Are you a reader?”
She is smooth, but I can almost see the calculations in her head. My article on MaryLee Stock’s death is on page A3 of this edition of the paper. If she says no, what is the uncreased paper doing on her coffee table. If she says yes and she’s as on the ball as she seems, what’s the likelihood that MaryLee Stock’s name has rung a bell? I enjoy watching her squirm.
“It gets delivered,” she says calmly, “but I hardly ever have time to read it.”
Bingo.
“Thank you so much, Ms. Crandell. MaryLee and I look forward to getting this straightened out on Monday,” I say.
I hold my gaze at Jessica Crandell.
As she stares back, suppressed anger almost pulsates beneath the surface calm of her studied professionalism.
After five or so long seconds I turn and walk out the door with the strange feeling that MaryLee Stock may well have walked these steps before.
29
“I think we may have found it,” I say breathlessly into my dashboard screen.
“Are you sure, boss?” Joseph looks startled.
“Pretty sure.”
“Which one?” he asks.
“Bright Horizons, 103rd and Mission.”
“Now what?”
“Whoever’s the father, the information is in their records. That’s the link.”
“Can we get it?”
“Good question,” I say. “I’m not sure. Either we get it or we pretend we have it, either way this could be our blue dress.”