by Roxy Harte
“I hope it does!”
His eyes narrow as he watches me, unsmiling. “I don’t want to leave it this way, Simone. Tell me what you’re thinking. What’s going on in your head?”
“Does it matter? You’ve never cared before.”
He crosses his arms and leans against the cool, white stucco wall. “That’s harsh. I care very deeply for you and what is going on in your brain tends to affect both of us.”
“Us?” I square my jaw and press my lips together in a tense line. “There is no us. Especially after I retire.”
We stand there, staring at each other long enough for me to get uncomfortable, but not long enough to soften my resolve.
He whispers, “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I really am worried about you.”
My shoulders slump and I try to rally against the coming assault, but when he looks at me with concerned eyes, I want to believe so badly that he really is worried. It proves I haven’t learned anything. No matter how many times he uses the same tactic, no matter that now I can see straight through the bullshit. I want to believe his bullshit.
“Miss Simone?” Esmeralda announces from the doorway. “I placed a pitcher of iced margaritas on the veranda for you.”
“Thank you, Esmeralda.” I dismiss her with a nod and watch as she disappears back down the hall before turning back to face Simon.
Simon lifts his hands up in mock surrender. “I promise I won’t try anything. I just want to talk...old friend to old friend.”
How can I argue against that?
I lead Simon out onto the covered veranda. Ceiling fans rotate overhead, stirring the air, but a real breeze would be even more welcome. It’s very warm. Hot. I don’t envy Simon in his long sleeves, tie and suit jacket. Maybe his discomfort will lead to his quick departure.
I pull a chair away from the table and sit. He takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves before sitting. I don’t feel sorry for him and I especially don’t ask if he’d be more comfortable inside. “Why do you always go south?”
“The heat reminds me of home. I find it comforting,” I answer. “Why do you always feel a need to stalk me?”
“I’m not stalking you. I’m purely selfish. I sleep better when I know you are safe and sound in Seattle.”
“Right.” I shake my head at his flimsy excuse and take a sip of my drink, humming with appreciation because Esmeralda makes the best margaritas I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking. Her secret is agave nectar. I keep sipping, watching Simon over the rim of my damp glass. He looks out over the pool to the sandy beach and calm sea below. “Why are you really here?”
“I need you to come back to Seattle. There are papers that need to be signed, a final show to be taped...and a retirement party to attend.”
“Fine.”
“No argument?” he asks me warily. “Why the change in heart?”
I smile. “Vanity, Simon. I’m a woman. I didn’t want to face the fact that I’m old, undesirable—”
He coughs and shifts in his seat. “You are far from undesirable.”
“But I am forty-four,” I admit. “Men want to see perky, twenty-something girls playing volleyball naked. They want to see girls who look like they are twelve with their shaved mons and underdeveloped bodies.” I pause. “There will always be a market for the buxom blonde...” I point at my covered breasts through the gap in my robe and smile idiotically to illustrate the point by exposing my perfect, not sagging, not surgically enhanced double-D’s, “...but I don’t want to be pushed to the MILF section, or worse. I’d like to leave while I still look good...and while I still have enough life left in me to do something else.” He sighs and nods. “So your mind is made up?” “Book the retirement party,” I say enthusiastically.
“And one more set?” he asks. “We’ll make it special, an anniversary slash retirement special.”
I nod. “One more and that’s it. I have a life to get started.”
“You seem awfully excited to do something else.” He frowns, thinking too hard. “What’s going on? Are you considering another studio?”
“Oh Simon,” I sigh. “Believe me when I say this. I am finished. The best years of my life are in front of me.”
“You mean your time working for me hasn’t been the best years of your life?”
“I had fun. I had a good time most days.” I laugh. “Hell, what other job promises orgasms as a perk?” “And amazing health insurance.” He chuckles.
I smile and lift my glass. “To happiness.” Then take a long swallow of the cold liquid.
“So, what are you going to do after your retirement?”
I look away shyly, blushing, as the thought of a rosy-cheeked infant fills my mind.
“What?” he cajoles curiously. “Not even a hint?”
I sigh, rolling my eyes, but then succumb to the temptation to tell somebody what I’ve been thinking. “My biological clock is ticking. I want to have a baby.”
His jaw drops and I believe it is the first time I’ve seen Simon speechless. He stutters a second before he actually forces out the word with a gasp, “Baby?” And then he explodes. “You can’t have a baby!” “Excuse me?” My smile disappears.
“You’re a porn star, Simone.”
“I’ll be retired before I ever give birth, I assure you.”
“Your insurance coverage covers abortions. There’s no reason for a hasty decision here,” he rambles. “Damn it! Who the fuck is the father? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. We could narrow it down, but it really doesn’t matter.”
Narrow it down? The list of possible fathers? I tilt my head, deciding that he is the emotionally unstable one at the table. “I’m not pregnant! I said my biological clock is ticking. I said I want a baby.”
The relief that crosses his face is unbearable, making me sorry I thought I could talk to him about it. Why am I such an idiot when it comes to this man?
“You’re not pregnant?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“Thank God,” he says. Reaching across the table, he pats my hand. “This is a tough, emotional time for you, babe, I get that. Don’t be too quick to jump into any life-changing situations. It wouldn’t be right.”
I bristle at the thought that, because I’m a porn star, he thinks I’m not good enough to be a mother.
“You do realize that my being a porn star embarrasses you more than it does me, right, Simon?” He looks flustered. “That’s crazy. I absolutely love it that you’re a porn star,” he leers.
He squeezes my fingertips. “You know when all of this began, I thought you’d see a few years in the bright lights, I never in a million years thought I’d have to wait two decades for you.”
I sit, stunned. He looks out over the ocean. “I think you are the only woman I’ve ever really loved and it’s taken me a long time to figure that out. So let’s forget all this baby talk and focus on us.”
His gaze travels back to my face and I snap my mouth closed, not sure what to think or believe. My heart races, wanting his words to be truth, but my brain, on overtime, refuses to let me believe, reminding me of all the other promises, all of the past false starts.
He leans across the table to kiss me and I let him, but I feel detached, watching myself. I feel like I do on a shoot when I am analyzing how the shot will look and correcting each pose. It dawns on me that I am thinking quite clearly, logically, and what I don’t feel is what I should be feeling in this moment. His mouth moves over mine with an expertise born from years of perfecting his craft and it makes me feel absolutely nothing.
When he finally pulls away, he gazes longingly into my face. “I do love you.”
I watch him and decide his words sound like a rehearsed line. He looks at his watch and says, “If we leave now—”
“Not we, Simon,” I interrupt him, delivering my own lines with forceful intent, hoping I get through my whole speech before chickening out. “You. You catch the jet. You fly back to Seattle. You finalize all
of the plans for my retirement party. I am staying right here for rest of this week.”
He looks dumbfounded for a second, but recovers quickly, pulling a blank mask into place. He pushes his chair away abruptly and stands. “You honestly don’t want to come back to Seattle? Because I’m a busy man, Simone, I can’t lie around a pool all day, waiting for you to come to your senses.”
“Does coming to my senses include giving up my plans to have a child?”
He looks incredulous. “A baby is a deal breaker. Definitely. I can honestly say that there is no baby in my future. So, if it’s me and you...” I nod, also standing.
His face turns softer when he thinks for a moment that he has won. He thinks that I will beg him to wait for me to grab my bags, but I surprise him by crossing my arms and standing my ground. “I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve taken the last twenty years to figure out how to live without you in my life.” His entire face goes red.
I feel detached as I watch him storm into the villa. He’s leaving. I should be sad, but I feel such a relief that it is over and I realize with sudden clarity that it finally is over. I have released myself from whatever it was that bound me to Simon Kramer.
I hear his car door slam and I cover my mouth with a shocked gasp as my knees go out from under me, sitting me down hard in the chair. I can’t tell you how long I sit like that...numb, my hands still covering my mouth in shock. A while. Long enough for the sun to set and the deep purple shadows of twilight to settle around me.
I do eventually blink back into awareness and realize that I’m not sad. Honestly, I feel nothing and it feels exactly the same as the last twenty years has felt. I close my eyes, realizing that there is one exception.
Geri. Even if it was for just one night, I felt something... Idiot! I have to stop this! There is no Geri!
Chapter Nine
♥
First stop stateside is Dr. Abrams and, as I arrive in the parking lot, jetlagged and scared to death about what I am about to do, I wish I was back in Cabo. I think I could hide there forever, not making decisions, not worrying about relationships, just floating on the high brought on by sun and salt water.
The doctor’s waiting room is packed and it makes me a little claustrophobic. Who knew that getting pregnant, something I’ve always considered a natural occurrence that happens when you don’t take steps to prohibit its happening, so often requires medical intervention for its success? At least I’m not alone in the unhappy uterus department. I don’t feel like such a freak of nature now.
The longer I sit, watching couples go in together, I realize that I am the only one here alone and I am a spectacle. I don’t mind the staring, I’ve gotten used to being stared at over the years. It’s the alone part making me nervous. I am alone. I will be raising this baby alone.
As the clock ticks, the thought becomes more and more terrifying. I am white-knuckled anxious by the time my name is called. I hurry to the nurse’s side, ready for the next stage of sit and wait, because isn’t that always the way of it? Sit in the waiting room. Wait. Get called into the examination room. Wait longer...
What I am not prepared for is to be led to the doctor’s office, where he sits behind a large cherry desk, a huge bookcase lined with thick medical tomes behind him.
He picks up a manila file, my file I assume, flips it open, scans a page of notes, and closes the file, all before he actually meets my gaze.
“Ms. Sinclair.” He says my name and I wait for something more...but there is nothing more said; so after a long uncomfortable pause, I assume that that was his way of saying hello. I follow suit, saying, “Doctor.”
Even before he says another word, the expression on his face turns my green light yellow...
“Ms. Sinclair, I don’t want to dash your enthusiasm, I merely want to caution you, and I am certain that you have probably put a lot of thought into this decision. So here, we decide to become partners in the venture of creating your baby. My part of the process is to fertilize your eggs.” He sits behind his long cherry desk, wearing his white lab coat with his name embroidered in red on the left side, his hands are folded over his stomach.
He exudes cockiness...and boredom. I wonder how many times a day he gives this particular sales pitch. “And I want to assure you that I am an expert. I can fertilize eggs all day long. Now, your job of course is a bit more complicated, but has absolutely nothing to do with skill. Your job rests with your uterus. So, in essence, your uterus must fall in love with one of the fertilized eggs I implant and allow that egg to hang out there for nine months. After reviewing the file your gynecologist sent over, I’m not convinced your uterus is ready for that kind of a commitment. It also seems you have extensive scarring along your fallopian tubes and that is traditionally where fertilization takes place.”
I sit on the edge of my seat, wringing my hands, focusing on the tall, full bookcase behind him, trying so hard not to meet his eyes, because if I do, I might cry. I bite my lip, waiting for him to say more. He doesn’t. I finally meet his gaze. “So, what are you saying, Dr. Abrams? No?”
“I’m saying that I wish you had come to see me ten years ago.”
I can’t hide the disappointment in my voice. “So you’re saying you won’t even try.”
“I’m not saying that at all, Ms. Sinclair. I’m trying to prepare you for failure. I’m trying to make you realize that a lot can go wrong. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, because this will be a long process.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Time, Ms. Sinclair. I can fertilize your eggs every single month and try to convince them to implant and, eventually, odds are one of the eggs will implant and you will become pregnant. The question is, how much available time do we have left? A perhaps better option for you would be in-vitro fertilization, which bumps up your chances for success significantly, especially in your case, since the fertilization would take place in a lab and not your body.”
“So we should do that then?”
“I believe it is your best option, but it isn’t without some risk, the most likely being a multiple birth.” “Twins?”
“Quite possible.”
That’s fine,” I say, adding nonchalantly, “Twins run in my family.”
He flips through the file, saying as if he is checking through a list, “I see. Mother, nephews. ” He looks over his glasses. “We would want to limit your live births to two. It’s much safer. So you will need to go in understanding that if more than two eggs implant, we would want to remove those over two.”
“But if you only put two fertilized eggs inside of me...then there wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Unless one or both divides. Then there is the potential for two sets of identical twins and we would need to remove one set.”
“Oh.” My stomach rolls with the thought.
“We can limit that chance by keeping your fertilized eggs incubating in the lab slightly longer, using a blastocyst transfer instead of a three-day transfer. In the package of information you take home today there will be directions explaining every step of the process and what to expect.” He barely takes a breath before continuing, “I will do everything I can to not only ensure your pregnancy, but a healthy pregnancy. A single live birth would be our first choice since our concern above all else is your health, and the fact is, pregnancy is high-risk for an older mother. There can be complications, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and then there is also the health of the infant to consider when an older mother is involved.” I nod, having read all the horrible outcomes that are possible. “Birth defects?
“Sure,” he answers nonchalantly, making me feel that those fears are perhaps exaggerated, but then he asks more seriously, “Will you be able to abort this baby at ten weeks if you find out that it is severely flawed?”
My mouth falls open and I realize that I hadn’t really thought that part through. “I don’t know.”
“In that case, will you be able to commit the rest of your life
to raising a severely handicapped child if you choose to not abort? And the child’s health is only half of this question. If you die giving birth to your child, not likely, but possible, do you know who you would ask to raise the baby?” My eyes go wide with his last question.
“I understand that it’s a lot for you to think about and I will understand if you decide to take this no farther than this initial consultation, but in case you do decide to go the route of in-vitro, I’m going to go ahead and get you going on some prenatal vitamins.”
I watch him write a prescription for vitamins, and take the slip of paper.
He opens the information package and shows me several pages that are important if I decide to go the in-vitro route, directions for how to monitor my fertility levels, and guidelines for when to call the office.
“The direction card will tell you when to schedule your appointment for the first series of shots.”
“Shots?” I ask, trying to pay attention.
He nods. “The hormones to prepare your uterus.”
I nod.
“Ms. Sinclair.” He stands, holding out his hand. “I will do everything in my ability to achieve a successful pregnancy.”
“So, when can we start?”
“So, we’re going to make a baby? You don’t want to go home and think about it?”
I nod. “I’ve thought enough. I want to get started...immediately.”
“Great! The first thing we need to do is have you fill out a sperm donor request. On that form you will get to request exactly what you see as the most important qualities of your donor—hair color, eye color, height, race, nationality, even religious preference.”
His smile doesn’t waiver as he launches into what I now know is the script part that he probably says a hundred times a week. I know it is a script, because although he pauses periodically to highlight certain points, his breath is measured, controlled, and he gets out all the words without thought.