You are the Story (The Extra Series Book 7)

by Megan Walker

  Josh gives a heavy sigh, but I already know he’s going to say yes. Gabby’s always going on and on about what a good guy Josh is, so I figured he wouldn’t abandon the kid to this. “Okay. Tell her I’ll come meet them tomorrow afternoon. I’ll charge him at an hourly rate until this project is over, and then after that I’ll pass him along to someone reputable who actually works with kids.”

  I smile. This gives me a decent chance of being able to do my job in the future, and also not have to watch while vultures circle a spoiled-rotten kid like he’s yesterday’s road kill. “Thanks, Josh.”

  “Text me the details,” Josh says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Two

  Josh

  When I meet my wife for dinner at the French restaurant she picked for the occasion, I’m more nervous than I’ve been in a long time. The possibility of representing Axel Dane—whose mom, I’ve heard, is a nightmare to work with—barely even registers on the scale of my concerns.

  I had to work late, so Anna-Marie took an Uber to the restaurant—a habit of hers I’m not fond of, but I didn’t want to get in a fight by insisting I pick her up. The conversation we’re going to have tonight will be hard enough.

  It’s been two years since we last used birth control, and a year since we’ve been using Clomid and doing IUIs and trying all the less invasive options for getting pregnant—although to me, the monthly “sperm extraction” at the clinic feels pretty damn invasive.

  It’s not working. We’ve both been increasingly on edge as the months go by, neither of us wanting to face this fact. Anna-Marie was the one who suggested that if we have to talk about what comes next, we might as well do it over a nice dinner, so we get something pleasant out of the deal.

  I agree in theory, but really, I wish we could be meeting to talk about anything else.

  “Hey, beautiful,” I say when I meet her in the foyer. Her long auburn hair is pinned up on one side and falling in waves down the other, and she’s wearing a gauzy lavender dress with a keyhole neckline. We’ve been together three years, and she still takes my breath away.

  “Hey,” she says, rocking up on the toes of her designer shoes and kissing me.

  One thing I’ve got going for me—I love my wife more than I would have thought any human being was capable of loving another. “I have good news,” I tell her.

  She brightens. “Husband good news or agent good news?”

  I smile. “Agent good news.” I put my hand on her back as we glide into the restaurant and take our seats. Anna-Marie looks up at me, waiting, but I’m enjoying the suspense. This is going to be the only happy part of tonight, and I want to make it last.

  “Do you do this with all your clients?” Anna-Marie asks. “Take them out to dinner, say you have news and then not tell them?”

  I grin at her. “No, I save that move especially for you.”

  She pretends to throw her cloth napkin at me, and I pretend to duck. If I don’t tell her soon, she’s going to resort to kicking me under the table, and her shoes look particularly pointy today.

  “I got a call today from the casting director for that sitcom.”

  Anna-Marie’s smile drops, in the way it does when she’s thinking about things she really wants and is afraid she can’t have. I’ve seen this expression a lot lately. “Did they make a decision? Did I get the part?”

  I nod. “It’s one week of filming, middle of next month.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Okay, that is good news.”

  I reach across the table for her hand. She looks more nervous than happy about it, and I know why. The part is just a pilot, and she’s done a few of those over the last year. Nothing’s been picked up yet, but this one is different. It’s a comedy in which she’s been cast as the star, and she hasn’t done much of either of those things.

  Which means that while this news is welcome, it’s also a lot of pressure and uncertainty. “We should order wine to celebrate.”

  Anna-Marie doesn’t drink very often anymore, even though our fertility doctor has said that an occasional glass of wine is fine, even on the Clomid. But she doesn’t seem inclined to object to a drink tonight.

  Her smile returns. “I got the part. And the script for this one was great. I think it stands a good chance. But I’ve thought that before, and—”

  “I know,” I say. “And if it doesn’t, you’ll keep auditioning.”

  Anna-Marie closes her eyes. “Is it bad that one of the reasons I want it to get picked up is so I can quit my job?”

  I squeeze her hand. “Bad day?”

  “No,” she says, shrugging. “I mean, it was just Ron and his stupid insistence on wearing that putrid cologne. I know you said I should tell them I’m allergic, and I did, but the health official says he’s not legally required to change it unless I can submit medical documentation. So I went to talk to Ron about it again, but he says that he couldn’t possibly stop his daily dousing in what can only be called Urine Analysis for Men. Apparently it’s an integral part of his character, and he has to engage all of his senses to properly channel—and I’m quoting here—‘Sylvio’s masculine mystique.’”

  We meet eyes across the table as I’m trying to smother a smile.

  “Go ahead,” Anna-Marie says. “I’d laugh about it too, if my lungs weren’t painted on the insides with rancid perfume.”

  I do laugh, and she joins in. “I can probably find a doctor who will forge a medical note without seeing you. I have some clients who’ve made liberal use of them, and I generally think it’s unethical, but since your respiratory health is at risk . . .”

  Anna-Marie’s smile widens. “You’re the best. But no. It’s fine. I just—I’ve been on Southern Heat for a while, and it’s been a long year, and I’m tired.”

  We both look down at the tablecloth. It has been a long year. We’re both worn out.

  “Is it just temporary stress?” I ask. “Or do you want to quit? Because you can.”

  Anna-Marie shakes her head. “I can’t, can I? Because it’ll be easier for me to get roles if people see I can maintain a long-term job, and I look more desirable if—”

  “Honestly, I think you can quit any time you want. You’ve been on this show long enough that you’ve gotten what you’re going to get out of it in terms of longevity and experience. Being on a soap for five years isn’t significantly better than three, so unless this really is where you want to end up . . .” I shrug. “I say do what you want.”

  Anna-Marie looks skeptical. “But it’s not like I can’t audition while I’m working.”

  “And you have been.” Neither of us has opened a menu, and in a moment we’re going to be asked what we want to order. I keep talking. “But I could have you out to a lot more auditions if you weren’t working.”

  “True.” She doesn’t sound thrilled about the prospect, and I don’t blame her. Auditions are a necessary evil, but no actor actually enjoys the process.

  Anna-Marie smiles. “I feel like I should bring up the money, but you’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  She’s not wrong. I make a lot more than Anna-Marie does, and the gap widened quite a bit when I started repping Kim Watterson. “We really don’t need it. You work at your job because you love it. If you don’t love it anymore . . .”

  Anna-Marie looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t. I’m ready to be done. But twenty-year-old Anna-Marie is completely appalled that I could get sick of a job that she wanted so badly.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Well, twenty-eight-year-old Anna-Marie wants different things. And that’s okay.”

  “Is it?” she asks.

  We look at each other. That’s been the question of the year—how much stress and expense are we willing to go through to get what we want? We can afford the money, even without Anna-Marie’s job.

  The stress, on the other hand . .
.

  Anna-Marie opens her menu, and I do the same. Once we’ve ordered and the server has brought us our wine, Anna-Marie’s ankle rubs mine under the table. “I really am excited about the part,” she says.

  I nod. “I know.” And I do. But there was a time when that kind of excitement would have been accompanied by bouncing and squeeing and vigorous sex. Not that I think she should jump me right here in the restaurant, but we both used to be better at setting aside the what-ifs and loving what we have now.

  I wonder if that’s really what this wanting to quit thing is about. If so, maybe this isn’t the best time to make that decision.

  “It’s just,” Anna-Marie says, “even the exciting things are all tempered now.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  She shakes her head. “But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s selfish and spoiled of me. We have everything and here I am pitching fits about the one thing I can’t have.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But really, what wouldn’t you give up to have a baby?”

  She considers that for a moment. “You.”

  I smile. “Yeah, me too. Just you. So maybe we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for having a hard time when we’re doing so good, because our family is the most important thing, and nothing else can replace it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Anna-Marie says. “Makes sense when you put it that way.”

  I’m quiet for a moment. We should have been doing more of this over the last year—talking about our feelings, instead of just setting them aside.

  “I think we’re supposed to be talking about something like that,” I say.

  Anna-Marie closes her eyes briefly and lets out a short breath. “The medication isn’t working. And neither are the IUIs. Which makes me feel terrible for making you go through all that.”

  “You didn’t make me,” I say. But I know what she means. The first time we went to the clinic to “extract my sperm”—a term that still gives me the shivers—I had this emotional meltdown in the office. Anna-Marie was rightly frustrated that I couldn’t just let her grope me and then jack off like it was nothing, and really, it should have been.

  But sitting there in the strange mix of disinfectant and pornography and the silicone glove dispenser and (weirdly) a forgotten copy of Casino Royale . . .

  It all just felt so squicky to me. Even though, as Anna-Marie pointed out, I’d definitely had sex in sketchier places, it felt awful to have these intimate things we do together reduced to an observable medical process.

  I’ve now had enough coitus interruptus—as they call it—in doctors’ offices over the last year that I’m mostly over it. Mostly. “Besides,” I say, “whatever the next step is will probably involve a similar process, right?”

  “Right.” She nods. “We should talk about all the options.”

  “Okay,” I say, “option one, we could keep doing what we’ve been doing for a while longer.”

  She swirls the wine around in her glass a little, not taking a drink. “What do you think about that option?”

  “I feel like we’re spinning wheels.”

  “That’s how I feel,” she says.

  “Option two. We could give up.”

  She grimaces. “I really hate that option.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” There’s always the possibility we could get pregnant on our own, but Anna-Marie’s got a hormonal thing that makes it deeply unlikely without help.

  Another reason she feels the need to apologize whenever some step in the process doesn’t work as we hoped. As if she should somehow be in control of what her body is doing, or not doing.

  “So that leaves adoption,” Anna-Marie says. She tugs her lower lip between her teeth. “And surrogacy. And IVF.”

  “Pretty much. And theoretically, all of those are good options.”

  Anna-Marie nods, straightening like she’s about to make a case for one of them. We haven’t sat down and properly discussed it, but we’ve both read everything under the sun about all three of these options over the last six months, and we’ve mentioned to each other in passing what we’ve learned. I have a pretty good idea which options we’re both favoring.

  And also that they aren’t the same.

  “I think surrogacy could be a really good thing,” Anna-Marie says, her blue eyes studying me carefully. “We could have a baby that’s genetically ours, but I wouldn’t have to worry about missing work, or moving shooting schedules. And we could get the whole thing worked out contractually so there’s no fear of things falling through legally. Which, with adoption . . .” Her gaze drops to the table, and she takes a small sip of wine, like she wants something to keep her from finishing that sentence.

  We agree on this much, at least—adoption sounds like the same nightmare we’ve been going through, except with babies you can hold and snuggle and fall in love with, who might not legally end up being yours. I can only imagine how much worse that would be than the endless months without a positive pregnancy test. “I’d like to work through the other options before we consider adoption,” I say, and Anna-Marie nods.

  “Exactly. And this way, we can avoid the thing that’s been causing us problems, that thing being my uncooperative body, and . . .” Anna-Marie trails off and wrinkles her nose at me. “And you don’t seem to like this idea as much as I do.”

  I wonder if she’s picked this up these last months, or if it’s written all over my face right now. “I think that’s a good thing to look into.”

  “Do you?” Anna-Marie asks.

  I take a deep breath. “No. But you’re the one who’s going to have to go through all the pain and discomfort, so if that’s what you want to do, I want to want it, too.”

  “But you don’t.” I can tell she’s trying not to be disappointed.

  I don’t want to admit this. I’ve been avoiding it for almost two years, because, being us, the second we didn’t get pregnant—or, more accurately, the second we realized our pregnancy scare wasn’t all that scary and we were actually disappointed to find out the test was negative—we both started thinking about options.

  At the time, we thought we were being ridiculous. We knew it was silly to be worried about not getting pregnant that first month. But the last two years have made our panic feel a lot less ridiculous.

  “No,” I say finally. “I don’t want to use a surrogate.”

  The waiter chooses that moment to bring our meals—Pistou soup for her, and a cheesy chicken Tartiflette for me. The food smells incredible—and looks it, too—but I don’t think either of us are going to be able to enjoy it much, given the conversation. Anna-Marie arranges her napkin on her lap with too much care. She’s obviously trying to avoid looking at me.

  I’ve tried, over the last three years, to always make her feel secure and safe. I’ve done my best to be there for her as she’s worked on her relationship with her father, and as she’s worked admirably through the trust issues caused by him. I’ve been at her side as she suffered the aftermath of being naked on the internet, and as her dirtbag ex-boyfriend, Shane, put out yet another rock album full of lies about their relationship. I haven’t been able to catapult her career into non-daytime TV or movie stardom yet, but she’s had a few good roles now, and we’re getting there.

  I want to be the person who always makes her life better. God knows she does that for me.

  This, though, the baby thing, is the one thing I haven’t been able to make easier on her. It’s one thing to have failed at that month after month, but it’s another to directly cause her more pain, just because of my own stupid issues.

  When the server has gone again, I poke at a thin slice of gruyère-covered potato on my plate. “I know it’s irrational,” I begin. “But it just feels so . . . icky to me.”

  Anna-Marie purses her lips. “The idea of a surrogate sounds . . . icky.”

  I can tell
she’s trying not to sound judgmental, but it’s hard not to be when I’m using the reasoning of a four-year-old to make decisions about family planning.

  God, it’s moments like this that I feel unworthy of even having a family.

  “I know it’s a totally medical procedure,” I say. “I know it’s morally above board. But I just really hate the idea of anyone being pregnant with my child who isn’t you. I can’t—” My voice is getting emotional, and I hate that, because I know what a big baby I’m being. “I can’t stand the idea of knocking up some other woman, even with our baby. It bothers me.”

  Anna-Marie nods. “So if we did that, it would be hard for you to be involved. Like, in interviewing surrogates, or going to doctor’s appointments.”

  “Yeah.” I hate that this is true, but I know it is, and I’m not going to lie about it. Not to Anna-Marie, who deserves better. “I guess, to me, part of this whole experience is getting to be there for you while you’re pregnant, but if some other woman is pregnant . . .” I shiver, and it’s not just for effect. “It’s too close to the cheating thing. I don’t want anyone else involved in stuff that’s supposed to be just you and me, you know?”

  “Yeah, okay,” she says slowly. “I get that.”

  I’m not sure how that can be possible, given how ridiculous I’m being. “Do you?”

  “I mean, that’s not how I see it,” she says. “But I get that you feel that way. And what am I going to do? Be mad at you for wanting to avoid anything that makes you feel even a little bit like you’re cheating on me?” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it gently, her expression soft.

  I smile. “Yeah, okay. When you put it that way.”

  Anna-Marie looks down at her soup, but I’m not sure she’s seeing it. “So that leaves us with IVF.”

  IVF is more or less like what we’ve been doing, except that they’ll do the conception part in a petri dish, so that each cycle we’re only leaving implantation up to chance. It pings at my annoyance with sex-related medical procedures, but we’re clearly not going to be able to have a baby without doing things that make us uncomfortable. “But you don’t like that idea. Which I get.”