“Thanks. But, yeah, we were farmers. I’ve lived in Eula all my life. Now I work at the K-mart.”
“And do they know that you’re doing this? That you’ll have to take some time off down the road?” Melissa asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’ve worked there a long time. They’re behind me on this.”
Randy inhaled, then paused, then said, “What makes you want to do this, Wanda? I mean, it’s such an odd situation”—he cast a sheepish glance at Helen, who had folded her arms and leaned her chair against the wall, as if she could melt into it—“and it makes perfect sense from our end, but, from yours . . .” His sentence trailed off, and his tiny eyes blinked.
“Well,” said Wanda, “I’m thirty-one years old. I had a boyfriend Hank all through my twenties, and he was a good man. We talked about gettin’ married and havin’ kids, but we were just so busy, me at K-mart and Hank with his career, and pretty soon he got so high up that his company had to move him. He asked me to come with him, to Washington, DC, but I just couldn’t, you know? Eula’s always been my home. I have a sick uncle I take care of. Plus, I just knew Hank would never settle down and make a real family with me. So I broke it off. And now here I am at thirty-one, healthy and ready to bear kids. And I don’t have a man, and I don’t want a man. But I do want to experience pregnancy, to do that with my body. My body wants it. It’s in my genes; women in my family have always had children. But, you know, I can’t afford a kid, and I don’t want to be a single mother. So I figured I’d do what the Bible says and give to the poor. Not that you two are poor, of course, but you need help. My friend Sarah gave her kidney to her brother. He died anyway, but that’s not the point. I see this as a way of giving to the needy, even though I don’t have nothin’ to give. Does that make sense?”
Melissa glowed. “It makes perfect sense. It’s the only reason anyone would ever do this, I think.”
“Wanda,” said Helen, “do you have anything you’d like to ask Melissa and Randy?”
“Um, sure. What do you do?”
“Well,” Melissa said, “I’m an architect, and Randy owns a bike shop.”
“We do a lot of cycling,” Randy added.
“Wait, you’re an architect?” Wanda asked.
“Yes.”
“I never heard of a girl architect,” Wanda said.
“Well,” Melissa sang airily, repositioning herself in the chair, “there aren’t too many of us around.”
Randy chimed in, “They always said, a woman’s place is in the home.”
Helen guffawed. This was the first thing the couple did that felt canned; Wanda could tell they had said this a thousand times.
After a short pause, Wanda said, “Do you live here in Portland?”
“Pretty much,” Randy said. “Out in the gorge.”
“And do your parents live here?”
“Melissa’s recently moved to Arizona.”
Wanda continued asking them unobtrusive questions, and her mind wandered a bit during their answers. She had known what type of people they were since she laid eyes on them: They exercised regularly and watched very little TV. They used dental floss and voted in every election. There were people like them in Boise.
Nearly everything Wanda had said so far in this meeting had been a lie. She had told herself two weeks ago, before her first meeting with Helen, that she would lie about the drugs and that would be all. But then there had been questions about her parents on the form, and she knew that they’d never accept her unless she changed her family history a little. And once you change your family history, you change everything.
So, in this meeting, she was forced to tell those first lies, and after that she had had to keep going. A true answer would have sounded like a lie. Even when Randy had asked her why she wanted to be a surrogate, she had to lie—because she couldn’t remember. She had known once, back before she had been asked to put it into words, but ever since that conversation with Coop on his porch, she had been quoting the women on Donahue. Once she was pregnant and everyone left her alone, the reasons would return to her. Until then, ten thousand dollars would be her reason.
“I hate to interrupt,” said Helen. “I know you all have a million questions for each other, but, like I said, we try to keep these initial meetings short.” She stood, and so did the others. “Melissa, Randy, have a seat for a minute. I’ll be back to wrap things up.”
Helen led Wanda back to the side lounge and sat down with her. “You all right, kiddo?”
“That was easy,” Wanda said.
“No reason it shouldn’t be. You did great. Now just sit tight for a few minutes, okay?” Helen disappeared back into the office.
Wanda picked up another magazine. Was there another couple for her to meet? Helen hadn’t been clear about this part of the process. How many interviews would she go through, and, at the end, would she choose them, or would they choose her? After a few minutes, Helen came back into the room and plopped down with a satisfied sigh. She leaned toward Wanda and grinned. The grin implied that there was something Wanda should be expecting, hoping for—something about which she should feel in suspense.
“Did you like them?” Helen asked.
“Yeah.”
Helen clapped her hands together and fell back in the couch. “I had a good feeling about this from the start. Somehow I knew.” Then she leaned forward again and said, “They want to have you over for dinner, Wanda. Would you like to have dinner at their house?”
“When?”
“Well, you leave tomorrow, don’t you? So it’ll have to be tonight.”
“What about the other couples?” Wanda asked, a little disappointed that she wouldn’t get to order room service, as she had last night.
“Think of them as backups. You like the Weston-Sloanes, right?”
“The what?”
“Randy and Melissa. The Weston-Sloanes. Do you feel comfortable going forward with them? You can say no.”
“I like them. They like me?”
“Enough to have you over for dinner and get to know you better. This is a very good sign, Wanda.”
“And they don’t mind that I live all the way in Eula?”
“Like I told you that first day, Wanda, that’s going to work in your favor. Everyone wants a farm girl to carry their baby. They’re a little concerned that you’ve never been pregnant before, that you’ve never carried a baby to term, but you can’t have everything, can you?”
“Well, then,” Wanda said, “I’ll go over.”
“God, I love my job,” Helen said, with a force that startled Wanda. “I’m sorry, but this is the part that really excites me, when there’s chemistry between a couple and a surrogate. You can help them make a family, Wanda. You have that power.” Helen squeezed Wanda’s shoulder and went back into the office.
THAT EVENING CONNIE took Bill Howard to Payette, a half-hour drive from Eula, to give his presentation to a board of deacons. The pastor of Payette Nazarene, Bill had explained to Connie as she drove, had approached Bill about giving a short talk during the Sunday morning service. The church would take a special collection for the mission, and this required the approval of the board of deacons. Hence, this presentation.
Connie remembered this sort of thing being presented to the board when she served as a deaconess. Still, by being Bill’s guide, she was learning new things about how churches worked. The group at Melba Nazarene had made a collection after she and Bill had left, and someone had delivered a check to the parsonage the following day. It seemed this was the way large groups in small churches operated. Bill had been very encouraged by Melba Nazarene’s generosity. Connie’s group, the Dorcases, had left it to its members to quietly slip Bill a check after his talk. She wondered which method the smaller groups she and Bill were scheduled to visit would use, and she worried that they would shame the Dorcases by being more generous. Then she remembered Christ’s words of the woman who put a penny in the offering: “This poor widow hath cast more in than all they wh
ich have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had.” Bill would never judge one group harshly for having given less than another.
And so, here they were on a Friday evening, Bill giving his talk and Connie at the back of the room, listening to it for the third time. She loved it. She especially loved hearing the improvements he made each time. It seemed he was gradually realizing that people were interested not only in the fact of his work but the details of it, and he allowed himself to use the children’s names and tell quick anecdotes about them. Connie would tell him, on the way home, just how well this worked. She had arrived at a decision during her evening prayer a few nights previous that it was her role not only to drive him around but to encourage him.
She sat in the back, quietly waiting for him to come to the slide that she had put right, hoping that he would pause, just for a second, and realize what she had done for him.
“And this is me with some of the children,” he said at last. Then he looked up to the screen, and—he did!—he paused before he went on.
After Bill’s talk, the deacons showered him with questions. It was clear that they were fascinated with his work.
“That went well,” said Connie, once they were driving back to Eula.
“Yes, it did.”
“Will you be showing slides Sunday morning, or just giving a talk?”
“I’m not sure. The pastor said he would leave me a message after the meeting lets out.”
“I see,” said Connie. She wanted to ask if she could accompany him Sunday morning, if he would need help finding the church again, but she worried that this would sound overeager.
“Connie?” said Bill.
“Yes?”
“Did you fix that slide that was upside-down?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
They were quiet for a long time. Wasn’t he going to thank her? He cracked his knuckles and gazed out the window. Maybe he disliked that she had taken care of this. Maybe it embarrassed him. Gene sometimes tore his coat out of Connie’s hands when she was helping him put it on; maybe Bill was feeling a grown-up version of this rebellion. The idea that she could have made a mistake so early in her position of assisting him made her throat seize a little in panic.
They were coming into Eula now.
“I’m a little embarrassed,” Bill said, chuckling affably. He turned to her. His eyes were brown and close-set, and Connie could see from the lift in his brow that he was, indeed, embarrassed. Vulnerable. “See, Connie, you’ve found me out. There’s a bit of the performer in me. That first night when I was speaking to your group, the slide was upside-down. You all laughed, and it kind of broke the ice, so I figured I would leave it that way.”
“Oh,” Connie said.
“Maybe you’ve noticed, on these church visits, it’s had the same effect. It puts people at ease. Silly, isn’t it? That it works?”
“Yes,” Connie said, and she laughed lifelessly.
“I figure, a little showmanship never hurts, especially when it’s in service of the mission.”
“Of course, Bill. I’m sorry I changed it. I’ll put it back the way it was.”
“Please, Connie, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll take care of it. I’ve been meaning to change the order of some of the slides anyhow.”
They arrived at the parsonage, where rosebushes lined the drive. Spindly at the base, they then ballooned into great masses of gray leaves and ragged flowers, which even now kept some of their petals, splayed away from their cottony hearts, which had long since been stripped of pollen.
“Well, until Wednesday?” he said. “Remind me, what is our destination?”
“Marsing.”
“Marsing, Idaho.” He shook his head in amazement, a gesture Connie couldn’t quite interpret. “Thanks again, Connie.” He patted her shoulder and got out of the car. Then he knocked on the window. “The trunk?” he said.
“Oh, of course!” She got out and opened the trunk with her key. He took out the slides, closed the trunk, and bid her good-bye. It hurt horribly to see him carrying away those boxes, as if she’d never see them, or him, again.
Driving away, Connie began to cry. “Darn it!” she said aloud and hit the steering wheel with her open hand. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she left well enough alone? She had embarrassed him, overstepped her bounds, made things tense between them, and placed an obstacle before Bill, whose ministry—whose calling in life—already presented such challenges. She wiped her eyes. “You are proud, Connie Anderson,” she said aloud. “Proud and vain and stupid.”
MELISSA, IN A jeep whose bumper was plastered with stickers—MONDALE/FERRARO ’84 and SAVE THE WHALES—picked Wanda up in front of the hotel at the appointed time. “I forgot to ask if you were a vegetarian,” Melissa said. She sat on a little cushion, Wanda noticed, but still had to tilt her head back to see over the dashboard and hike herself up to change lanes.
“Oh, no. I eat everything,” Wanda said.
“Good. I think we’ll have tuna.”
“I eat tuna all the time.”
They drove down a hill away from the tall buildings, then took a ramp onto the highway. The city disappeared behind them and the thickly wooded Columbia River gorge opened ahead. The forest here was different from the forest in the mountains above Boise. The same spindly pines were interspersed with the skeletons of aspen that had shed their leaves, but in Idaho there was a carpet of dry pine needles underneath that was always catching fire. The forest would then burn for days, and a dark haze would settle into the valley. Here, the forest floor was steamy and green, even now in November. Wanda could imagine lying on a bed of moss and pulling the feathery ferns around her and falling asleep. The day before, riding the bus down this same highway, Wanda had wondered about these houses among the trees. Now she was going to have dinner in one of them.
“In the meeting, you didn’t ask about our problems . . . with getting pregnant,” Melissa said.
“Oh. I didn’t want to pry,” Wanda said.
“I figured that was it.” Melissa turned off the highway onto a narrow road that zigzagged up the side of the gorge. “I have cervical incompetence. Charming name, isn’t it? The opening up there is just weak. I would get pregnant no problem, I’d reach the second trimester, and then everything would just fall out. It happened four times. I’d walk around on eggshells, like I had a house of cards inside, and when I miscarried . . . well, it was just unbearable. Twice they put sutures in but they didn’t take, and I suspect they made the problem worse. It nearly did me in. Oh, look! Here’s Randy.”
Ahead of them, dressed in tight black cycling clothes and a helmet, Randy was laboring up the road on a bicycle, his head low over the handlebars, his torso rocking side to side as he threw his weight into every step.
“He bikes to and from work,” said Melissa. She tapped a little greeting on her horn as she passed him, and he nodded breathlessly.
“Aren’t you going to pick him up?” Wanda asked.
“Pick him up?” Melissa laughed. “No, it’s his thing.”
Wanda turned in her seat to watch Randy pumping with all his might. He looked in agony. Then the road turned, and he disappeared behind a wall of pines. Melissa drove a little farther up the slope, then pulled onto a gravel road that led into a hollow. “Here we are,” she said. She parked the car and reached for a bag of groceries in the backseat.
The house—or what Wanda could see of it, as it was hidden behind trees and shrubs—resembled a bunch of tool sheds and greenhouses, piled on top of each other and linked with bulging joints. A spiral staircase led from a deck up to a balcony. There were panes of glass in all the roofs. Wanda wondered if it was finished. Melissa walked to the front door, which rattled with the scratching of dogs, and balanced the groceries on a knee while she got out her keys. “All right, already,” she said. She opened the door and out they bounded—four mutts of all different sizes and colors, y
ipping and panting. They jumped on Melissa, who mimicked their whimpers—“Yes, I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?”—then jumped on Wanda, then ran out into the trees to pee. “Come on in,” Melissa said to Wanda. “Make yourself at home.”
Wanda slid onto a stool at a little bar that divided the kitchen from the living room, while Melissa put away the groceries and continued the story she had started in the car. “I felt that we should adopt. It seemed like the moral thing to do when there are so many kids who need homes, but Randy was adamant that the child should be connected biologically to at least one of us. He wasn’t raised by his birth parents; he was raised in foster care, and it scarred him in certain ways. So we called the agency. That was in September. It’s been a lot of appointments since then, paperwork, sperm counts. You’re actually the first girl we’ve met.” Then Melissa stopped. “Is everything all right, Wanda?” she said.
Wanda had been unable to focus on what Melissa had been saying. The room in which she sat was spacious like the interior of a barn, but a barn where she could stay forever—bright and clean, with a library where the hayloft should have been. The leaves of houseplants dangled from an archway, a hexagonal window revealed a lush bank, and a shaft of light slanted across a glass hallway. Wanda bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been in a beautiful house like this before.” She was ashamed, but it was true. The rich people in Eula lived in big, square houses where you were afraid to walk on the carpet. None of them would ever hide their treasure in the woods.
Melissa looked very solemn for a moment. “Well, that is the highest compliment anyone has ever paid me,” she said.
It struck Wanda, and she was further humbled: Melissa, an architect, had made this house.
A shyness overcame the two women and they were quiet until Randy came in the front door, teetering on his cycling shoes. “One hour, seventeen minutes, my love,” he said.
“Not too bad,” Melissa said.
“Not too good either.”
“He’s been trying to get his time back down to where it was before he pulled his groin,” Melissa explained. Randy came into the kitchen, and they bent in to kiss each other lightly on the lips, careful not to otherwise touch each other, as Randy was covered in sweat. Wanda could see that his buttocks were completely flat in his cycling shorts.
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