“And eighty-two when it gets its master’s degree.”
“It’s wrong. It’s unnatural.”
“It’s technology,” he said, shrugging. “Remember that woman who had eight kids at once?”
I shuddered and said nothing. Darren sat up, put his glasses back on, and flipped to a fresh page of his legal pad.
“Pros? Cons?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell him that a baby would mean that our family was irrevocably, irretrievably broken, that there’d be no going back to the way we were. I remembered the smallest things, every happy detail. In the Hamptons, after dinner, my father would pile us into the car for a trip to Carvel. Bring me a small dish of Thinny-Thin, my mother would instruct from the daybed on the screened-in porch, where she spent much of the summer curled up with the tabloid magazines she’d never permit herself in the city. No, wait, just regular vanilla. With a little hot fudge. And maybe some whipped cream. And nuts. Actually, vanilla-chocolate swirl. And see if they’ll throw on some cookie crunchies. I love those cookie crunchies. Tell them it’s for me.
If Darren thought his own parents’ divorce had turned out to be a good thing, there was no way he’d understand how I felt, how badly I missed my parents as a couple, the five of us together, my parents, my brothers, and me.
I looked at my watch and brushed my hands along my skirt to remove any bits of food or lint or pollen. Darren was watching me so closely that I wondered if I had ketchup or mustard on my face, or if my slip was showing. (How Vanessa had howled when I’d unpacked my slips! “You wear these?” she’d asked, pinching one between her thumb and index finger and holding it away from her body like it was going to attack her.)
“You want to get together some time for dinner?”
“Sure,” I said, thinking that maybe this was the one good thing that could come out of all this mess. I liked him. It was a nice surprise.
After work, instead of going home, I took the subway to my father’s office down on Wall Street, taking the elevator up to the thirty-second floor, where he and his assistants worked in glass-walled rooms that had floor-to-ceiling views of the Hudson River. When I was little the office had been smaller, and he’d just had one assistant, who kept a stash of caramel squares in her desk drawer and let me bang on an unplugged keyboard while I waited for my dad. I hadn’t been to his office in years, maybe not since high school, when I’d ridden the elevator flush with triumph, clutching my college acceptance letters. Now my dad’s assistants had assistants. . but he didn’t keep me waiting for nearly as long as my mother had before waving me into his office.
“To what do I owe the privilege?” he asked.
He looked good, better than I’d seen him in years, his skin flushed, his hair recently cut and neatly combed. I thought he’d lost a few pounds — since the scare with his artery, he’d been trying to stick to a low-fat diet. He was on new medication for his cholesterol, plus a bunch of vitamins that India had researched. The last time I’d been over there’d been turkey meatloaf and oven-roasted vegetables instead of the usual roast beef and mashed potatoes, but he’d been a good sport about it, and India had smiled proudly when he’d asked for fat-free yogurt for dessert. She’s good for him, the voice in my head said, and I told it to be quiet. Just because she could make a turkey meatloaf — or, more likely, tell the chef to make one — didn’t mean she wasn’t going to hurt him, or that she had his best interests at heart.
I took a seat opposite my father’s desk and opened my mouth to tell him: Don’t have a baby with this woman. . or maybe just to remind him of the good times we’d had. Dim sum brunches in Chinatown, dinners at Daniel to celebrate each of our high school graduations, heading to the Hamptons on Friday afternoons, the five of us in a helicopter, smiling with anticipation, feeling that swooping sensation in our bellies as the city fell away beneath us.
“Bettina,” he said. “What’s up?” As he sat there looking at me, eyes crinkled at the corners, I noticed a new picture among the familiar shots of the five of us, over the years — Trey with braces, holding a striped bass he’d hooked in Montauk; Tommy with his first guitar; me at my debut, in a white lacy dress that seemed, in retrospect, specially cut to display my bony clavicles, dancing with my father. The new picture sat in a silver frame right next to his oversize computer monitor, and my heart sank when I saw it: him and India, under a canopy of lilies and roses, saying their vows.
“What’s up, hon?”
I couldn’t deny it. He looked happy… happy in a way I hadn’t seen him looking since my mother had left. . and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the one to tell him that his happiness was based on a lie, or to force him to trade what I wanted — my family, back the way it had been — for what he had. It was over. The odds of a reunion had been slim to begin with, and now, with Satya burbling her coffee-cup wisdom from her ashram and India determined to have a baby, they’d dwindled to none.
“Bettina?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, and tried to smile. “I was in the neighborhood having lunch with a friend, and I haven’t been up here in forever. I thought I’d just say hi.”
INDIA
The morning I met my surrogate for lunch, I’d woken up in an empty bed. Marcus’s pillow was smooth, the covers untouched. The curtains were open, Central Park visible through the windows, the trees pale green with new leaves. Shimmery early-morning sunlight dappled the walls it had taken me three months to have painted just the right shade of coral: not too orange, not too pink. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep in his office, or the living room, and tapped out a text asking him. Then I got out of bed, pulled on my sports bra, my tank top, my two-hundred-dollar yoga pants and three-hundred-dollar sneakers and went to meet my trainer in the lobby.
Ninety agonizing minutes later, after we’d done sprints and squats and lunges, followed by push-ups and tricep dips against the benches in the park, I took a shower, wrapped my hair in a towel and myself in a robe, and sat at the vanity in my dressing room, in front of the three-way mirror I’d had installed. Because I wasn’t going out that night, I did my makeup myself, smoothing on custom-blended foundation with a fresh wedge of sponge, curling my lashes, blow-drying my hair, then running a flatiron over it, performing each step as automatically as I brushed my teeth. My clothes hung in perfect order in my immense closet, which had specially designed shelves, motorized racks, and cubbies to hold everything from scarves to handbags to suitcases and hats, and padded benches where I could sit to put on my shoes. Dressed, I looked at myself in the full-length antique mirror that stood beside the door. A stranger stared back, a stranger in an eight-hundred-dollar sweater and a nine-hundred-dollar skirt and a cushion-cut diamond insured for six figures.
I remembered the first time that Marcus had taken me home, to the apartment in the San Giacomo. I’d seen the place before, in pictures, when I was conducting my initial research. It had been featured in all of the shelter magazines and photographed for the Times, but it took very little effort to feign complete, jaw-on-my-chest awe when the elevator doors slid open for the first time. It was enormous, of course, gorgeously decorated, every detail perfect, from the silk carpets on the floor to the crown moldings on the ceilings to the art that was mounted and hung on all the walls, and the flowers, ranging from a soaring arrangement of cherry blossoms in the entryway to the simple bouquets next to each of the guest room’s beds. I walked through, admiring, taking care not to stare or let my hands linger too long on any plush or polished surface, asking questions—Where did you find these dishes? Is that a real Degas? — assuming, correctly, that Marcus would be amused—“tickled,” as he’d say — by my interest.
The apartment went on and on, bedrooms flowing into dressing rooms which opened into bathrooms with amenities that even spas didn’t have. There was a Japanese soaking tub made of cedar in Marcus’s bathroom, a steam shower, coils that warmed the marble floors and the towel racks, and an intercom system that let you call down to the kitchen if you sho
uld require, for example, some cucumber slices to lay on your eyes or some mineral water to sip while you soaked. I could barely breathe as I followed Marcus on the tour, until finally we stepped out onto the terrace that wrapped around two sides of the building and overlooked the park. “So?” he asked. Maybe I was flattering myself, but I imagined that he looked a little nervous as he waited for my assessment.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, poker-faced. “I just don’t know how you manage in such a small space.” Inside, I was whooping, dancing with glee, with the Jeffersons theme song playing loudly in my head. Movin’ on up. Yes, I was.
The deluxe apartment in the sky came with staff: maids and a cook and a tall, silent, broad-chested man named Paul who introduced himself as the majordomo. His actual job, Marcus explained, was to serve as a combination butler and bodyguard. “He’s got a gun?” I’d asked. “Look,” Marcus said, squeezing my shoulder. “There’s a lot here to protect. You can never be too careful.” Paul scared me. . but I hardly ever saw him. His quarters, along with the maid’s and the cook’s, were on the lower floor, where I rarely went. I stayed upstairs, where I had my dressing room, my office, a walk-in closet that was easily twice the size of my old apartment, and a butler’s pantry, with its own refrigerator and sink and two-burner stove and coffeemaker.
The cook and his assistants were just for me and Marcus, and for his children, who came to dinner once a week and always wanted the same thing — grilled steaks and baked or mashed potatoes, served with some kind of green vegetable that they’d move around their plates without actually eating. When we entertained, whether it was dinner for eight or cocktails for twenty or a holiday party for two hundred of Marcus’s employees, we’d hire a caterer, and a half-dozen cooks plus uniformed waitresses and bartenders would take over the kitchen, preparing all manner of delicacies, little bites and sips of things, shot glasses of sherry-topped cream of mushroom soup, spoonfuls of risotto, bacon-stuffed dates, and curried shrimp on skewers. They’d leave every dish and countertop spotless at the end of the night. I had no idea how much any of this cost. Since my marriage, I’d never seen, much less paid, a bill.
I was a rich lady with a part-time job, a job I kept just to have something to get me out of the house each day. I had the life I’d always wanted, with all the trappings and the trimmings: the personal trainer who charged two hundred dollars an hour to hold a stopwatch while I ran, the hairdresser and makeup artist, similarly paid, who would come at any hour of the day or night. I had a car and driver — I’d send a text, and ten minutes later I’d walk out the front door, and there’d be a Town Car idling by the curb. I could buy whatever I wanted — art, clothes, jewels, a car of my own to join the half dozen that Marcus kept in a garage uptown. What I was learning was that having felt, sometimes, less satisfying than wanting… that dreaming of all this luxury was somehow better than actually possessing it, because once you had it, it could all be taken away.
Another troubling development was that at some point, I’d actually fallen in love with my husband. I hadn’t planned on that happening; had, in fact, suspected that I no longer had the capacity to love anyone at all. But there it was. I’d wake up some mornings while he was still asleep, curled on his side in the plain white T-shirt and white boxer shorts he wore to bed, and I’d be overwhelmed with a wave of tenderness so strong it made me dizzy. I wanted to protect him, to tuck myself in his pocket and go with him when he traveled, smoothing his way, cuddling up with him at night.
I loved feeling his hand on my arm, guiding me into or out of the backseat of a car. I liked his company at dinner, the nights he was home or the times we went out. I could talk to him, joke with him. . and if he was a little in love with the sound of his own voice, if he was already starting to acquire an old man’s smell, if his balls, which I tried to avoid looking at or touching, drooped against his pale, hairy thighs, well, there were worse things in the world. Marcus was reliable, one hundred percent. He remembered everything I’d ever told him about myself, every detail about my family that I’d shared. If he said he was going to be somewhere or do something, he kept his word. If I told him I wanted something, an art book or theater tickets or a baby, he would do whatever it took to see that I got it.
Dr. Dreiser had sent me to the Princeton Fertility Clinic, after I’d declined a fourth round of in vitro. He’d been the one to steer us toward donor eggs — those, plus a gestational carrier, would give us the best chance for success, addressing all my failings: my iffy eggs, my unreliable uterus. I’d gone to the clinic’s website, clicked through the links, filled out the forms, sent in a check, and picked out one of their “carefully screened eggs from donors who meet our high standards of health, medical history, and intelligence.” It sounded a lot like eugenics. Then again, who’d want eggs from someone who wasn’t healthy, or intelligent and gorgeous? The website said nothing about the egg donors’ looks, but I could fill in that blank and assume they were all beauties. Picking the egg donor was easy: I went for tall, blond, smart, and healthy, the way any man would have done. And as soon as I’d met Annie, I’d known she was the one to carry the baby. I hadn’t planned on choosing someone so young, but there was something I recognized in her expression, a hopefulness and a determination to make something better of her life. She reminded me of me, when I’d been young, and her life, as best as I could tell from the forms she’d filled out and the stories she’d told me, could have been my life, if things had gone just a little bit differently.
Annie was perfect. I’d asked for a gestational surrogate who lived in Pennsylvania, the clinic’s state of choice, where the laws were clear. There’d be no legal wrangling over who the baby belonged with, whose name went on the birth certificate under “parents.” I’d requested a woman within a two-hour drive, in her twenties, and Annie was twenty-four and lived outside of Philadelphia, an easy commute to the city. She’d have had kids already, I knew: the clinic insisted on it. She was married — the clinic didn’t insist on that; couldn’t, legally, but Leslie had mentioned that most of their surrogates were in “stable family arrangements,” which, in Annie’s case meant a husband who’d been in the army and still had army benefits. The two of them and their two boys weren’t rich, but they weren’t destitute — the money she’d earn would make a difference, but it wasn’t as if they were living in poverty. From the pictures she’d shown me, I thought their farmhouse looked charming. . and Annie, so far, was earnest and sweet and surprisingly funny sometimes.
We were meeting for lunch at the restaurant on the seventh floor of Bergdorf’s, one of my favorite places, a gorgeous little jewel box of a room that felt like a secret and served delicious salads. Annie was waiting on the first floor, by the display of purses. I stood by the doors and watched her, unseen, as she shyly fingered a silk Valentino bag made of fabric flowers in shades of scarlet and plum. I felt a stab of guilt as I noticed her clothes, sneakers and leggings and a loose-fitting tunic-style top that most assuredly had not come from Bergdorf’s. Why had I brought her here? Was I showing off, trying to prove who had the upper hand, letting her know that she might be carrying the baby but I was the one with the cash?
I tapped her on the shoulder. She set the bag on the glass counter and spun around, looking guilty.
“Oh, India! Hi!”
I gave her a hug. “Pretty bag.”
She lowered her voice. “It costs twenty-one hundred dollars. Two thousand dollars for a purse!”
I didn’t answer. The truth was, I had that very purse in my closet at home, along with its patent-leather cousin and a wallet that matched. “Are you hungry?”
“Oh, my God. Always.”
We took the elevator up to the restaurant, where the maître d’ whisked us to a table by the windows. Central Park spread out on one side, and we could see Fifth Avenue on the other. I ordered my usual salade niçoise, and Annie, looking embarrassed again, asked for the filet and mashed potatoes, an item that was probably on the menu just for the husbands and boyf
riends who got dragged along on their wives’ shopping excursions.
“Are you feeling good?” I asked her. I’d wanted a glass of wine with lunch, but it seemed cruel to order one, to drink when she couldn’t, to emphasize once again that she was doing a task I’d hired her to perform.
“I feel great,” she said, buttering a piece of bread (normally, I would have waved the bread basket away, but Annie had looked so happy when it arrived that I hadn’t said a word, and had even made a mental note to order dessert so that she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable if she wanted something). “I told you, I’m good at this.” She tore off a bite of bread. “Some skill, right?”
“I’m sure you have other talents.” From what I’d heard, Annie’s life sounded fun and full. She was close to both her mother and her sister, and sounded genuinely content when she talked about her garden, her sons, her plans for the farmhouse. I felt good that the money she’d be getting would help her realize some of her dreams.
The waiter set our plates down with a flourish, and I watched Annie as she ate. She wasn’t fat, but she was too big to fit into a sample size, which meant she was too big, period, for New York. Clearly she didn’t care for fashion, because, as I’d learned in Los Angeles, even on a budget, you could have a look. Annie had no look. To her, I guessed, clothing was something that existed strictly to keep her from being naked. Her tunic was a shapeless sack in drab purple. Her no-style hair, a pretty light brown, was brushed back from her face and secured with a headband. I could tell she’d made an effort with lipstick and eyeliner and mascara, insofar as “effort” meant putting them on. The eyeliner was smudged a little, and there was a faint track of mascara underneath one eye. The first time I’d seen her, I’d guessed that she didn’t paint her face between one Sunday and another. There was a small diamond ring and a slim gold band on her left ring finger, a cheap-looking watch on her right wrist, plain gold hoops in her ears, and a black leather purse that probably hadn’t cost a fraction of the bag she’d been eyeing downstairs.
Then Came You Page 17