Sorry for doubting you, Doctor Pine.
After I’ve filled out the mailing address and billing information, I have the jarring realization that Kai is supposed to leave for overnight camp with Teddy in just a few days. What if the test doesn’t arrive in time for us to collect a sample before he goes? I’d prefer to do the test at home in order to prevent Kai from discovering the true nature of this testing, but maybe time constraints mean that going to a lab is our only option.
Below the main contact number on the website, there is a special number to call just for questions about DNA testing. I dial, trying to quell my embarrassment about making this call at all. An automated message begins speaking to me—a woman’s voice thanking me for putting my trust in LabCorp—and then a real person picks up.
I swallow my discomfort and ask the woman how long it takes for the paternity test to arrive in the mail. It’s FedExed overnight, she tells me. And how long will it take to receive results, I ask, after we mail back the samples? It will be three to five business days, and I can have the results emailed. What sort of package does the testing kit arrive in? Will other people be able to tell what it is from outside the box? No, she assures me. It’s an unmarked box branded by FedEx. It may contain the return address of LabCorp, but there will be no indication of what is inside. I thank her for her help, and her tone is so gentle in response that I feel like she can see inside my thoughts, inside my soul. In my fragile state, it feels for a moment that this anonymous woman on the other end of the line is the only one who understands me at all.
I pinch the skin on the inside of my wrist, forcing myself back to reality, back to my job and the tasks that I’m certain have been piling up all morning. I finish my order on the LabCorp website, wishing I could achieve some modicum of detachment. Then I reach for my desk phone and buzz Erica at her desk.
“Could you come talk these through with me?” It’s not really a question—more of a summons to my office. I close out of the LabCorp screen and click a few times to pull up a digital spreadsheet on Wenzo.
When Erica knocks, I’m plugging my cell phone into the charger on my desk, checking to ensure the ringer is on in case anyone calls about anything having to do with this DNA clusterfuck. Maybe Felicia from the birth registrar will surprise me by calling back sooner than expected. Or ever.
“Come in.” I try to sound focused and together, attempting to readjust my equilibrium so I can be a professional broker for the moment rather than just a hand-wringing dad.
Erica pokes her head around the door, her wispy blond bangs as tentative as the rest of her.
“Come,” I say again, knowing she needs coaxing before she’ll feel comfortable stepping forward, inserting herself into someone else’s space. I still can’t figure out how she expects to thrive in the world of commercial real estate when apprehension is her defining characteristic.
Even though she was hired as a junior broker, we utilize Erica as though she’s part of the design department. Her spatial planning skills are beyond, beyond. The brokering she does . . . well, not so well. When it comes to brokerage, you have to be willing to push and shove until you get your way. Without a certain level of personal volume—aggression, even—there’s nothing to prevent competitors from stealing clients out from under you. And let’s be honest, real estate deals are all about the commissions, so unless she finds a way to rid herself of that stench of deference, I just don’t see her earning out enough to remain on this career path for the long haul. She’s lucky to have ended up here at Hopper, at least, which is quite possibly the only real estate firm in New York with such an extensive design division.
She walks in slowly, her pale blue eyes scanning my office like she’s checking for booby traps. In her khaki chinos and striped sweater set, she reminds me of a Gap ad, except that she lacks any sort of swagger.
“Okay, walk me through this.” I pull the plans back to the center of my desk as she comes and stands beside my chair. I can smell her fruity body-grooming products—strawberry or cherry, like those scented erasers Teddy used to collect when he was in first grade.
As I look again at the plans, I see that she hasn’t used the vacant warehouse in TriBeCa that we talked about, but has instead based the design on a different location that we never even considered. No wonder she’s worried. As I flip through the pages and contemplate the drawings, however, I see that her idea is rather stellar. The space she apparently wants to present is the defunct church that used to serve as the famous dance club SpackleNine, the one that was so popular in the ’80s. A host of restaurants have gone in and out of that space over the years, so many that a number of brokers have declared it to be cursed. I personally tend to shy away from the vampiric old church because I think it has proven itself as a consistently poor choice for eateries. But Erica’s vision for the restaurant is sufficiently sublime to make me second-guess my usual position.
Using the 10,000-square-foot space, she has created a garden area, a bar lounge, a main dining room, a salon, and two additional private dining rooms. The dining areas range from 150 to 3,000 square feet, and each has its own theme.
“I was thinking . . .” She looks up from the pages with her wide baby-lamb eyes, waiting.
I nod to nudge her along. She reaches toward the packet and flips back to the front page.
“I was trying to create a concept that’s immense but also intimate.”
“Yes.” I’m bobbing my head along in agreement as I begin arranging each of the pages side by side on the desk so I can view them all at once. My eyes travel from clip sheet to clip sheet, noting the way she has incorporated the building’s arched windows, its vaulted roofline, and the vertical stacking of the existing layout to create something surprising and enticing. The Wenzo execs would be foolish to do anything other than swoon over these concepts. Her description of the aura these spaces will create is spot-on—private, yet boundless—and I want to get my head in the game here, to make the most of this explosion of creativity she’s sharing with me.
“Maybe we add a street mural here”—she points to a series of arches in one clip sheet, and then lifts another sheet off the desk—“disco balls in this one.”
She’s done a great job, and she deserves serious praise for it. Any one of the ideas she proffered today would generally have me throwing compliments at her, but this comprehensive, mouthwatering combination? I mean, disco balls alone . . .
“It’s a complete turn-around from the image Wenzo wants to leave behind.” I force myself to sound as excited as I know I should be. “No more mass-produced Asian fast food. It’s a sexy, high-end vibe, exactly what they asked for. Really excellent, Er.” I collect the pages and hand the stack back to her.
“They’re coming in at three to see the designs,” she tells me, looking toward the open door of the office rather than meeting my eyes, “and then they might want to go downtown to see the physical space.”
“Today?” It’s not really her place to schedule a client meeting on her own, but I suppose I should be proud that she’s finally showing some initiative. Any recrimination might squash that gumption down, so instead I tell her, “Excellent, that’s just what I was going to ask you to arrange.”
“Thanks,” she says, but her shoulders tense again.
“Why don’t you check in with the street team? And have a list of backup spaces just in case, though I don’t think we’ll need it.”
“Okay.” She looks at me with an indecipherable expression. “Okay,” she says again, then turns quickly and scurries out as though she’s only just made a narrow escape.
She’s always timid, but her nervousness today was so exaggerated. There must be something else she is not telling me—one more question to which I do not know the answer.
Chapter 5
MAGGIE
SEPTEMBER 2004
I’m standing at the South Rim, looking down into the abyss that is supposed to be the Grand Canyon, but all I see is emptiness. I borrowed my friend
Albert’s car and took the long drive from Los Angeles—seven, maybe eight hours of driving alongside dirt and cactus plants. I thought when I got here, I’d be able to stare down into the earth’s depths and find something, some meaning, a way to move forward from here. I realize now that I’ve put too much importance on this trip, as if it was a momentous pilgrimage toward a better life rather than a drive to a canyon.
My eyes rove over the formations of dust below me, hopeful ambers and russets, quiet traces of lavender, and I am reminded of a family vacation to London we suffered through during one winter break when I was a kid. My mother kept insisting that we had to visit the Prime Meridian, the imaginary line where the Eastern and Western hemispheres meet. It was like the equator, Tess explained to me, except vertical instead of horizontal. She said there was a marking on the ground outside the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, where tourists liked to congregate and have their pictures taken, one foot on each side of the line.
It happened to be Tess’s thirteenth birthday that day, and she was sure that something amazingly mystical was going to happen if she stood in two different hemispheres at the exact hour of her birth. She was reading MacBeth in her “gifted” English class, and I remember that she had also taken up a brief fascination with witchcraft around then. It shocks me now, as I gaze blindly into the canyon, that our parents found her nascent interest in magic and sorcery endearing, when each of my own attempts to step outside the box created such strife between us. Perhaps it was the very fact of their tolerance that led Tess to move so quickly on to other interests.
As usual, my parents were happy to indulge Tess that day, so we made sure we would be at the Observatory well before 10:56 a.m., the precise time at which Tess was born. We took a ferry up the Thames from London—a grand adventure in itself that gave us the chance to pass beneath London Bridge and sing all about it falling down. Our teenage self-consciousness was dulled by the miles between our voices and home, and we sang with abandon, both of us glad to make our mother smile.
What we had not budgeted for when we planned our day was the crowd at the latitudinal marker, lines of tourists waiting to snap photos with their legs splayed across the line. My dad pleaded with a group of Italian travelers, explaining the importance of the timing, until they generously allowed us to cut in front of them for our moment on the marker. We stood in size order while an older Italian man wrangled my dad’s oversize Nikon and captured the shot, each of us with one foot on either side of the divide, just in time.
My parents were thrilled that we had completed the mission successfully, but not Tess. She was oddly quiet and deflated the remainder of the day. She didn’t even perk up during the show in the planetarium with the vibrating seats. She never offered up the cause of her sudden dejection, but I imagined then that she had been hoping for something more while she stood on both sides of the world at once—some sort of cosmic message or adjustment—and that moment had never come.
This is how I feel now, standing on the edge of this enormous gorge, this actual wonder of the natural world, on my own birthday. I had hoped to find some sort of understanding or direction here. It’s been exactly six months since I last got high, and I know in my heart that this is the year I will get my act together.
I lean over the black railing slightly, cautiously, wondering what it’s like down at the very bottom of the canyon. I came here hungry for awe, hoping to feel a jolt of energy or some sort of spiritual surge, something to acknowledge the work I’ve put into rebuilding my life over these last six months, but all I feel is disappointment. It’s as though my insides are mimicking the scenery. It’s all just one big hole.
I close my eyes and take a cleansing breath. There are so many tourists standing on either side of me that it’s difficult to get into any sort of serious meditation zone, but I attempt to at least drown out the noise in my own head.
“You know, you should be more careful than that.”
I open my eyes in irritation, ready to rebuke whoever just saw fit to interrupt my attempted calm, but I’m unprepared for the openness I feel toward the face of the man standing beside me. He is a pretty average-looking guy somewhere near my own age. He has brown hair cut close to his head, brown eyes above a slightly crooked nose and a chin full of stubble. Beneath the scruff I can make out a whisper of lingering scarring, probably from acne in years gone by. He’s wearing a navy-blue T-shirt and a pair of jeans so worn that they must be his favorites. I cock my head at him, unsure if I am willing to engage, but he just keeps going.
“Two to three people die every year from falling into the Grand Canyon.” He juts his chin toward the abyss beyond the barrier. “You might want to be more careful than leaning over the rail with your eyes closed.”
“How does someone with a Queens accent become an authority on the Grand Canyon?” I ask, friendly in spite of myself.
He holds up the little pamphlet in his hand, showing me the title, Canyon Trivia. He shrugs. “I picked it up at the last rest stop.”
I reach for the water bottle in my bag and nod politely, ready for him to be on his way, but he keeps talking.
“Here’s my favorite one, though.” He opens the booklet and takes a step closer to show me.
I look down at the thick orange writing and bark out a laugh before I read aloud, “Americans eat enough peanut butter each year to fully coat the floor of the Grand Canyon.”
He smiles at me—a move that transforms his face and jolts me out of complacency. His shining, mischievous eyes and straight white teeth are apparently the sight I’ve been waiting for all day; suddenly, I’m a little less ready for him to move on.
“Peanut butter,” I say again as I sip my water. “Who knew? I’ve always been more of a jelly girl myself.”
“Nick,” he says, and extends his hand to shake.
“Maggie,” I answer. My hand fits neatly into his own.
He holds on for an extra beat as he smiles down at me and adds, “And it’s Scotch Plains.”
“What?” I retract my hand, feeling suddenly awkward in the heat of the afternoon sun, sticky and blundering.
“The accent,” he clarifies. “It’s from Scotch Plains. New Jersey. But I just moved to Phoenix.”
“Huh,” is all I say, an acknowledgment that he has spoken. I don’t mention that I’m planning to move to Phoenix as well. I don’t tell him how I’ve finally gotten my act together after three years of living on other people’s sofas. “Nice tat,” I say instead, nodding my head toward the image of a crisscrossed fork and knife that occupies half of his forearm.
“Thanks. I cook,” he explains. “And despite reports to the contrary, it seems I can still get myself buried in a Jewish cemetery, after all.”
I’m surprised to hear that he’s Jewish, but then I’m not surprised, because I was already feeling that the Universe had sent him my way for a reason, and perhaps he’s one more way I am supposed to be getting my life on track, something I can report home to the parents that might actually bring them pleasure: the nice Jewish boy I met at the Canyon. It’s so cliché, it’s almost vintage. My mother would love it—at least, I think she would.
“You cook?” I ask. “I cook too—mostly eggs, yet shockingly, it hasn’t led me to tattoo an omelet on my arm.” I hold up my own wrist to show him the rainbow-colored hamsa tattoo that does adorn my skin. It’s a Middle Eastern symbol meant to represent the hand of God, one of three tattoos I committed to during the first year I was living on my own.
He opens his mouth to comment but we are interrupted by the arrival of another guy. This one also looks to be in his twenties, and he’s holding an old-fashioned metal canteen by its thick strap. He has long blond hair held back in a ponytail and a plaid flannel shirt tied around his waist.
“Hey,” he says as he gives Nick a friendly slap on the back. “I found the meeting site.” His eyes travel to me and he smiles noncommittally. He’s exactly the kind of guy I would have gone bonkers for in high school, a Kurt Cobain
lookalike. But three years later, out here in the desert, he does nothing for me. “We have to get down there,” he prods Nick.
“We booked a helicopter tour,” Nick explains to me. “It was nice to meet you.” He smiles, and I can see regret in his dark eyes, like he thinks this was a lost opportunity, like it might have been something. “I hope you find what you were looking for,” he adds before hurrying away with his friend.
I don’t tell him that until he turned to walk away, I thought I had found exactly what I’d been seeking.
Chapter 6
DONOVAN
JANUARY 2007
Chip thumbs through the pages of an out-of-date Men’s Health magazine in the waiting room of the surrogate services office as I take in our surroundings. I’m not sure what I was expecting, exactly, but that doesn’t negate the fact that I am comforted by the large ficus tree resting in a bronze oblong pot in the corner and the two matching prints of sailboats framed on the wall. The décor, as horrific as any found in a dentist’s or nutritionist’s office, is oddly calming.
The young receptionist calls our names and stands with a file folder, waiting for us to follow her into Melanie Collier’s office.
“Come in, come in!” The illustrious Melanie Collier, surrogate matchmaker, steps into the hallway to greet us. She has blond, wavy hair and thick-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. I am reminded of the television character Murphy Brown as I absorb her persona. She’s younger, maybe forty, but she has the same no-nonsense, can-do body language, not to mention the distinctive feathery hairstyle. She extends a hand to shake, and her grip is as firm as I would have expected. Chip and I trail her into her office, where we heed her instruction to sit in the two burgundy armchairs facing her desk.
We did our research before coming to this office in Connecticut. We spoke to our doctors; we spoke to our friends and our friends’ doctors. We solicited advice from a female friend with a heart defect who used a surrogate several years ago and another friend who donated eggs to her sister. We joined internet chat rooms and read news stories. Ever since we got married in San Francisco last year, Chip has been talking about kids. I’m quieter about it, but I think I want to be a father even more than he does. When he talks about our theoretical children, it seems almost like whimsy, a pipe dream. For me, my desire to father a child, multiple children, is fierce, always has been. Maybe it’s a result of my upbringing in a large Italian family, but I want children so badly that I am generally averse to talking about it, to feeling the pain of knowing it’s likely an impossibility.
He Gets That from Me Page 4
