Breed
Page 2
“That’s insane,” Leslie had exclaimed, to Alex’s delight.
Tonight, Jim Johnson is dressed in a dark brown leather jacket and a light brown beret. His hair is much too long. To Alex, he looks like one of those lawyers who imagine themselves champions of the underdogs but who are actually vain grandstanders, would-be gadflies, Sandinistas in three-piece suits. But the real sight to behold is Jill. Never particularly slender, she is immense. At first Alex thinks unhappiness and bad genes have made Jill obese, but he realizes she is pregnant, gloriously, radiantly, and, by the looks of it, quintupfully pregnant. New York City, some say, is the schadenfreude capital of the world—but for Alex and Leslie, seeing a formerly infertile couple pregnant gives them hope. The Johnsons have been trying to get pregnant for eleven years.
“So how did this happen?” Alex bursts out, pointing at Jill’s belly.
“Alex,” Leslie says, giving him a little shove.
“It’s a reasonable question,” he says, as if to her but really to them. “After all we’ve been through together? Come on, we’re soldiers in the same battalion. Right? So what is it? A new diet, a new exercise, a new doctor?”
But the Johnsons are playing coy. “You know, the thing is,” Jill says, “we tried so many things, in the end I’m not sure what the heck worked.” Her voice is breathless; she sounds like what she is: a woman carrying fifty extra pounds.
Alex narrows his eyes at Jim, causing the father-to-be to shift his weight and his glance—he is the very definition of shifty.
“Well, if you have some great new doctor or something,” Alex says, “I wish you’d tell us. We’re really at the end of our rope. And, honestly, Jim, I think we have a right to know. At the very least—” Alex pokes Jim lightly in the stomach. “Professional courtesy, right?”
“We’re actually not able to do that,” Jim says. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” Alex says, as if the word itself were absurd. “Try us.”
“Oh, come on, Alex, we’re fine,” Leslie says. This is far from her idea of how to get information out of people—she would invite them over, serve them a brilliant meal with wonderful wine.
“I’ll tell you what, old friend,” Jim says to Alex, his smile as cold as a zipper. “With a young’un on the way, the mind turns to practical matters. Make me a partner in your law firm and I’ll tell you exactly what we did to make this happen.” Jim pats his wife’s stomach while their little dog begins to yip impatiently.
The men’s eyes lock. It is just now dawning on Alex that this meeting might not be a total coincidence. The Johnsons might well have known that he and Leslie would be coming out of Fertilize-Her at this time and crossing the park on their way to the Upper East Side. And as these thoughts form themselves in Alex’s mind, Jim seems to be nodding his head as if to say That’s right, you’re figuring it out.
“I might see my way clear to offering you a position, but I’m certainly not able to offer a partnership,” Alex says, with such seriousness that both of the women turn toward Jim, like people in a stadium watching a tennis match.
“I would need some guarantee that a partnership was at least possible.”
“In the world of business, everything is possible,” Alex says.
“All right, then,” Jim says.
“It’s a deal,” Alex says. He extends his hand. Jim offers his own in return but slowly, suddenly shy. Alex further extends his own reach and seizes Jim’s hand. It looks to Leslie like a big fish eating a small fish. “Come see me at nine o’clock tomorrow.”
“I have an appointment at nine tomorrow,” Jim says.
“Break it,” Alex advises. Though he is ostensibly the supplicant in this matter, he has seized control of the situation nevertheless.
Throughout his career, Alex has always been the first person to the office, generally arriving between six and six thirty in the morning. When he began at the firm, the other young lawyers with whom he was presumably in competition secretly nicknamed him Eager Alex and Alexander Daybreak, but now he is a partner and he continues to arrive before the other partners, the other lawyers, the paralegals, the secretaries, the receptionist, and the mail-room workers. The only people he sees when he enters the Bailey, Twisden, Kaufman, and Chang offices on Fifty-Ninth and Madison are the security guards in the lobby—a recent addition to the building, since the attack on Lower Manhattan two years before—and the cleaners, who on most days are leaving with their buckets and mops and brooms and plastic bags filled with wastepaper just as Alex is walking in, dressed in his bespoke suit, his Turnbull and Asser shirt, and his Crockett and Jones shoes, which he polishes himself.
As usual, Alex uses the early-morning hours at his desk to clear away any lingering paperwork, to make little notes to himself about whatever cases or contracts he is working on, and to simply collect his thoughts, without the distraction of ringing phones, pinging e-mails, and other people. By nine o’clock, Alex feels well on top of his work. He is standing at the office’s espresso machine—a gift from a well-known pop singer, thanking the firm for its pro bono work on behalf of the singer’s chauffeur—when the first arrivals step out of the elevator: Alex’s longtime secretary; his paralegal; his intern (the daughter of an old friend), all of whom know enough to arrive at work promptly; two other secretaries holding their breakfasts in white paper bags; an IT kid with a backpack and earbuds; Lew Chang’s paralegal, who looks as if she has been crying, which more or less confirms Alex’s suspicion that Lew and she are having a fling, a lawsuit waiting to happen; and Jim Johnson, the last one off the elevator. His face has been nicked and scraped by this morning’s hasty shave, and his flowing hair has been sensibly barbered. A classic case of too little, too late.
“Hello, Jim,” Alex says, indicating with a wave that Johnson follow through the outer office and into his corner lair, where Alex settles in behind his desk, a cherrywood Sheraton that used to be in Alex’s house. With a second wave he directs Johnson to an old leather club chair, which looks comfortable enough but is so deep that anyone consigned to it must sit with his knees practically parallel with his chin.
After a minute of small talk, Alex, with the efficiency of a man who bills at $1,750 per hour, arrives at the point of this meeting.
“So, Jim. Pregnancy. We don’t understand your reluctance to give us the name of your doctor. That seems odd to me, to both of us.”
“Well, Alex,” Johnson says, with a weirdly sarcastic edge to his voice, “it doesn’t seem odd to me. Not in the slightest. I noted the look on your face when you saw Jill. And I think you’ll understand this, Alex: I thought there just might be something more I could be doing to provide for my family.”
“What look on my face, my friend?” Alex is aware that calling someone my friend is usually a way of saying you are not friends, and he notes with equal measures of amazement and amusement how quickly the gloves have come off between him and Johnson.
“Envy. A need to know. Desire. Sorrow. You name it.”
“It seems as if you’re doing all the naming, Jim.”
“Yes, I am. And I am also naming the price.”
“For giving us a simple piece of information?”
“Didn’t you know, Alex? We’re living in an information economy. Information is gold, it’s oil, it’s land, it’s power.”
“Okay, then tell me this, Counselor. And you don’t have to divulge where you had this done—but what did you do? Is this some state-of-the-art in vitro clinic? In which case, I’d have to say: I’d be very surprised if there is anybody reputable or anyplace that’s had any kind of track record that we’ve overlooked. Is this something that involves surgery? Because Leslie’s been through enough of that. Is this some mumbo-jumbo faith-healing situation? Because if that’s your great trump card, then, my friend, I might have to throw you out the window.”
“Is there a box I can check that says ‘None of the above’?” Johnson says, palpably enjoying his position in this back-and-forth.
“I can say two words, a man’s name, and you and Leslie will be on your way to the nursery. But meanwhile, I have to do what’s best for my family. Kids change everything, don’t you understand that? This isn’t about me and Jill anymore. This is about our son.”
“Your son…”
“Yes, we peeked. Fact is, Jill’s had a few complications and we’ve spent our fair share of time on the old ob-gyn trail.”
“Okay. So it’s none of the above. Tell me what procedure you used.”
“It’s called fertility enhancement,” Johnson says. He leans forward in his chair and quickly stands up, begins to pace, rolling his shoulders, craning his neck, rubbing his long hands together, like an athlete alone in the locker room.
“So what is that?” Alex asks. “Vitamins? Diet?”
“It’s all done in one appointment,” Johnson says. “You’re in, you’re out, you’re pregnant.”
“Each and every time?”
“So he says. I won’t lie to you, Alex. I don’t really know his success rate. The people who told us about him were certainly successful. And he charges enough—not that that would be an issue for you.” Again that quick zipper smile.
“And he’s a doctor.”
“Indeed he is.” There’s a bit of irony in Johnson’s tone. “All very cutting edge, etcetera.”
“I still don’t know what it is he does.”
“Fertility enhancement.”
“I know. You said that. But that’s what they all do. Fertility enhancement—you either interfere with fertility, and that’s called birth control, or you enhance it, and that’s called the last three years of my life and, oh, something close to three-quarters of a million dollars for everything from laser surgery to Chinese tea.”
“This doctor treats both the woman and the man. He has a formula that radically increases the motility of your sperm and the viability of her eggs. God only knows what’s in the stuff he gives you, but it fucking works, I’ll tell you that. And I’ll tell you his name, and how to get in touch with him, and everything else you need—but I need something too, Alex. I need to work here. My firm—well, you know all about it. It’s a nothing place with flea-bitten clients and I’m not making any money, not the kind of money I need, not the kind of money I see around here. I’m an okay lawyer. Not great, I’m nobody’s hero, nobody’s salvation. But I know how to grind it out. Am I going to be one of the bright lights here? No, probably not. But I can do the work and I’m not going to embarrass myself or you.”
“I’ll say this for you, Jim. For you to come here and dangle this possibility in front of me and then to make it a precondition that I give you a job here—you’ve got to have some big brass balls to try something like this. Big. Fucking. Brass. Balls.”
“Then, judging by your words and your tone,” Johnson says, “I assume we have a deal. I’m asking for a three-year contract—and if you try to get rid of me for some personal reason or for some Mickey Mouse screwup or for anything short of gross incompetence, I will sue you for breach. And retire.”
After his negotiation with Jim Johnson, Alex called Leslie at her office and said he would be bringing dinner home tonight and there was something he wanted to tell her. He’d thought it was obvious what this conversation was going to be about—after all, she had been standing right there the night before in Central Park when he made his appointment with Johnson—but Leslie had seemed distracted on the phone and didn’t ask for any further elucidation. She simply said, “Oh, all right,” and left it at that.
And now, hours later, Alex is laying out the carry-in sushi and ice-cold dai ginjo sake in their dining room while Leslie watches him, sitting in a tufted leather Queen Anne sofa that Twisdens and their spouses had been sitting in since 1808, her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped around her knees, a distracted look on her face.
“I’ve been looking forward to this conversation all day,” Alex announces as he pours the sake into two small pale green earthenware cups.
“There’s something I need to talk about too,” Leslie says. She brushes her bangs away from her eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath.
“Well, you first,” Alex says.
From the next room, the telephone sounds—their answering machine is programmed to pick up on the first ring, and they hear Alex’s deep voice instructing the caller to wait for the tone. (Alex believes that those who call it “the beep” ought to be thrashed to within an inch of their lives!)
“Remember meeting Mary Gallo?”
“From your office.” Alex doesn’t remember this person at all but he knows how to lead the witness.
“Yes. She’s an editor, cookbooks mainly. I can see by your face you don’t remember her—but you’ve met her.”
“Of course I have,” Alex says. Most of the people with whom Leslie works are interchangeable to him, but nice, awfully nice.
“Well, she and her partner just adopted. A little girl from Russia.”
“Attachment disorder,” Alex says quickly.
“What?”
“A lot of the Russian kids have attachment disorder. They don’t bond.” He takes a sip of sake.
“Alex. I want us to adopt. I’m sick of living this way. I’m tired of doctors, and diets, and I am most of all worried.” She senses Alex is about to say something but she stops him with a gesture. “I am worried about what this is doing to us. Our marriage. Our souls.”
“There’s nothing wrong with our marriage or our souls,” Alex manages to put in.
But Leslie is being carried by the force of all that she has kept pent up for months and she barely hears him. “I am sick of feeling like this, like a failure. I never want to hold my legs up like a beetle on its back after we have sex—it’s ridiculous.” She holds the sides of her head, as if to prevent an explosion. “I want our sex life to be about us. I want you to touch me because you love me and because you are attracted to me, not because I am ovulating, or am supposed to be ovulating according to the goddamned calendar and that horrible thermometer. I never want to see a calendar or a thermometer again. Ever. No, no.” She puts up her hands as if Alex is about to interrupt, though by now he has decided to sit silently, let her vent, let the steam blow off. “I want a calendar, but full of dinner dates, and theater tickets, and meeting friends for drinks at the Sherry—remember? Remember our life together? What it used to be like? When was the last time we had dinner with people? When was the last time I had an orgasm?” She sees Alex’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, Alex. I don’t even fake them anymore. At this point I’m like a clump of dirt waiting for the farmer to shove a seed in me.” She reaches for his hand. “I used to be so sexy, Alex. With you. I was just blazing. You turned me on so much. And I want that back. We’re not getting any younger, we’re not going to live forever, and I don’t want to waste any more of our time.”
“May I speak now?” Alex says.
“I want you to,” she says softly.
“Well, first of all, I take it that the remark about our not getting any younger primarily concerns me. Now that my fiftieth birthday is in sight. Though I must say, it feels more as if the fiftieth birthday has me in its sights, like in the crosshairs.”
“No one gets younger, Alex. Life is a one-way street.”
“Well… yes. That’s true. But you’re still a very young woman, and in a few years you’re still going to be young, and you’re still going to be beautiful—and young enough to be a mother. You get to my age, the pace quickens. I think you begin to age four years for every actual year, at a certain point. My time is running out.”
“Your time is never going to run out with me.”
/> “I repeat: my time is running out.”
“Alex…”
“Jim Johnson came to my office today, Leslie.”
Leslie falls silent. She drinks her sake and holds out her cup for Alex to refill.
“And?” she asks in a small voice.
“And now he is an attorney at Bailey, Twisden, Kaufman, and Chang.”
“So he told you the name of their miracle doctor, I gather,” Leslie says.
“Yes, he did. Dr. Kis, and he’s in Ljubljana.”
“Where?”
“Lub. Yan. Na. Ljubljana.”
“Thanks for the lesson, Alex. Now you want to tell me where the hell that is?” Things seem to be moving along without her; she doesn’t care to be a passenger on the SS Alex as it steams across the ocean of life.
“Slovenia, beautiful Slovenia.” He cannot escape noticing the dejection showing in Leslie’s face, and he covers his own nervousness by thoughtfully chewing an oily, briny slab of yellowtail. “Every girl’s dream destination,” he adds.
“Next week is sales conference,” Leslie says. “I’m presenting my entire list.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I didn’t consult you, I’m sorry about your sales conference, I’m sorry this new doctor is not in Paris, but most of all I’m sorry we don’t have children in our life. We have to do this, Leslie. One last attempt, okay? We just have to.”
“Alex, I’m done, I’m just… done.”
“No, please. We can’t quit now. I just gave this guy a job.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Leslie, this child—”
“There is no child, Alex.”
“I know, I know. But there could be. And I have never wanted anything so much in all my life.”
“You haven’t had a chance to long for things, Alex.” She gestures around her, at the house, the furniture, the artwork, and all it implied: Alex is an heir and has never wanted for anything in his life.