by Beth Martin
“Our table’s ready,” Jamie said, pushing through the crowd to reach Irene, who was still standing at the bar, nursing her drink. Irene nodded and followed Jamie to their table.
Aiden smiled and pulled out a seat for Jamie, pushing it in for her as she sat. She looked at him and smiled. She seemed to enjoy his attention. Maybe too much.
When he moved around the table to help Irene into her seat, she held up her hand. “I can get it myself.”
Aiden sat and placed a hand on his menu, but didn’t open it. “Please, ladies, get whatever you’d like. My treat.”
“Thank you,” Jamie gushed. “You’re so very generous.”
“Yes, thank you,” Irene added.
“It’s the least I can do,” he said, flashing his megawatt smile to both women. “It has been an absolute pleasure having Irene on board.”
Irene had just grabbed her glass to take a sip and had to set it back down. “I’m so glad to be a part of the team.” Only after bringing the glass back up to her lips did she realize it was empty.
A waiter came by to rattle off the current specials, and Irene took the opportunity to request a second double. When he returned with Irene’s bourbon, Jamie’s glass of white wine, and mineral water for Aiden, Irene felt prepared to navigate the small talk for the evening.
“Jamie, I’ve heard you’re an artist,” Aiden said. Irene couldn’t recall telling him that, but it had been on the membership form Jamie filled out. Had he read Jamie’s form? Did he read everyone’s? “What kind of art do you do?”
“I paint,” Jamie said. “I know physical oil on canvas is a little antiquated, but there’s nothing quite like the tactile feeling of the color spreading onto the surface. It’s almost addictive. I love it.”
“I can tell,” he said.
“It also makes a mess,” Irene said. Jamie flashed her a frown. Irene was already beginning to feel a little warm. After this drink, she should be good. Maybe one more; she’d have to see how the night went.
Aiden leaned forward and focused on Jamie. “If you could have lunch with any artist, who would it be?”
Jamie took a sip of her wine, then carefully set down the glass. “If I could choose anyone, I’d have to say Carmen Potts. I’ve always found his work fascinating. I wish I could do what he does. I’d probably pick his brain, figure out how he comes up with his amazing sculptures.”
Aiden nodded and smiled. “You know, I actually had the pleasure of meeting him ages ago.”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “Really? I’m so jealous! What was he like?”
“Real sharp, witty guy. He loved puns.”
“Wow.” She rubbed a finger around the rim of her glass. “How did you meet him?”
He leaned back in his seat. “Just one of those chance things.” Turning to Irene, he continued, “You must be so proud of your wife.”
Irene forced a smile. “I am.” She reached over and patted Jamie’s hand with her own.
The waiter came back and took their order. The rest of the evening went similar to the beginning. Aiden kept asking Jamie questions about herself, and they seemed to flirt back and forth while Irene quietly listened and drank her second and third drink.
Although she didn’t like the idea of her wife cozying up to Aiden, especially after his ‘test’ with the house for sale, she figured it was easier if they got along than if they hated each other. At least she was tolerating their conversation until babies came up.
“Tell me about your attempts to have a baby,” Aiden said. “How long have you been trying to get pregnant?”
“I don’t know if you could call it trying,” Jamie said, glancing at Irene.
“We’ve been searching for a sperm donor for quite some time,” Irene said. “We haven’t gotten past that step.”
“How did you decide that Jamie would be the first to carry a child?” he asked.
Even after three doubles, Irene felt uncomfortable. She peered at the empty glass on the table wishing it to be full.
“Irene can’t get pregnant,” Jamie said.
“Not at all?” he asked Irene.
Irene didn’t look away from her empty glass. “My ovaries were removed when I was sixteen.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching out and grasping her hand. Even though his hand was warm and his eyes caring, his touch still made her skin crawl. “That must be really hard, to know you’ll never mother a child.”
Irene pulled her hand away. “She’ll mother our child,” Jamie said.
“But you’ll never know the joy of nurturing a baby in your womb. The miracle of childbirth.” His piercing eyes seemed to scathe Irene’s very soul, like he could personally feel her loss. She had dealt with these feelings when she was a teen, but his words brought the buried pain back to the surface. As long as she was too busy with work and Jamie wasn’t yet carrying a child, she had been able to suppress these feelings.
“It’s okay to cry,” Aiden said. “It’s like mourning a death. The death of a possibility.”
“Oh, babe,” Jamie said, moving her chair with her as she slid up next to Irene and wrapped her slender arms around her wife.
“I’m fine,” Irene said. She hadn’t even realized the tears were crawling down her cheeks and quickly wiped them off her face. “Let’s just talk about something else.” Jamie rubbed Irene’s back until Irene held her hand up to let her know she didn’t want any more comforting.
“Actually, I think I can help,” Aiden said. “If all you need is a sperm donor, I’d be happy to offer myself.”
“Really?” Jamie said, straightening up in her seat. She looked eagerly at Irene, waiting for her to accept.
“What about AQD?” Irene asked. “Haven’t you been matched with a female donor to make a superior child?”
“I haven’t fathered any children yet,” he admitted. “And any child of Jamie’s would be superior.” Jamie was smiling and squeezing Irene’s hand. She couldn’t contain her excitement. He turned to Irene. “You’ve really been a huge help at the office, this is the least I can do. What do you think?”
“That would be…” Horrible. Catastrophic. A huge mistake. “Amazing!”
Jamie squealed in delight. She jumped up from her chair and squeezed Irene in a tight hug before dashing around the table and hugging Aiden. He laughed and hugged her back for a moment before she sat back down in her chair.
“I’ll have to make an appointment to get my implant removed,” Jamie said. “Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. Irene, we’re going to have a baby.”
Irene nodded in agreement. How had she let this happen? She waved the waiter over to order another drink.
twelve
Irene jogged along the path through the wooded area of the park. When they were first married, Jamie came along on these pleasure runs. Now, she preferred to sleep in instead of getting up at the crack of dawn and watching the sunrise through the trees.
Perhaps Irene should have slept in as well. She had an awful hangover: her head ached and body was too tired. No amount of willing her legs to keep jogging could make her keep up the pace. Even though the sun was low in the sky, the bright light seemed to taunt her as it burned at her retinas.
There was a water fountain ahead, and Irene slowed down for a moment to get a drink. A man in dark gray sweats came up behind her, probably waiting for his turn at the fountain. Even so, she took her time before jogging off.
“Wait up,” he said. “Let me run with you.”
Irene enjoyed the solitude of her morning run and didn’t want to share it with a stranger. She was about to tell him, “No thanks” when she realized she knew him.
She stopped running. “Agent Rick?”
“Just act natural, like you and I are simply jogging at the same pace,” he said.
They jogged along for a moment, the path curving toward the harbor. Ships and boats were visible below the rocky cliffs. On a sunny day like today, the low morning sun filtered through the trees making a patchwork of li
ght on the path. Irene wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the natural beauty. She had to slow down and catch her breath.
“Did you learn anything at the Friday meeting?” Rick asked, jogging in place beside her as she stood, hands on knees, gasping for air.
She shook her head. “Not at the meeting. Although the president took my wife and I out to dinner afterward.”
“Interesting. You’re attempting to establish a personal relationship with their leader,” he said.
She looked up at Rick. “I’ve gotten a job with them as well,” she said.
“That’s great. So you know all the details for their planned terrorist attack?”
“I’ve heard nothing about a planned attack. It’s a pretty small operation, and I doubt they have the means…”
Rick cut her off, “Our sources don’t lie.”
“Where are you getting your information?” she asked.
Before Rick could answer, Irene’s device started buzzing from its pocket in the band of her sports bra. “Heart rate below threshold. Please increase activity.” She tapped the device twice through her shirt which switched off the heart monitor software.
“I shouldn’t tell you,” he said.
“I’m asking because AQD is completely off the grid. All of their files are on paper. They don’t even use hardware storage. They share information through pamphlets and word of mouth. I can’t bring my device to the office. Aiden doesn’t even have a device.”
“That’s good,” Rick said.
“No it’s not,” Irene said.
“It’s good that you’re on a first name basis with the president. You need to cultivate that relationship. Get him to trust you.”
Aiden would certainly trust her more if he was going to be the father of her baby. Jamie’s baby. Her head began to spin at the idea, but it was the best way to get closer to him.
Irene started moving again, this time walking along the trail. Rick maintained his jog even at their new, slower pace. He was surprisingly fit, but Irene guessed that was required of an agent. They continued in silence as the path led back into the trees and away from the harbor.
“You need him to trust you,” Rick reiterated.
Irene stopped again and leaned forward, her stomach leaping to her throat. She tried to take deep, intentional breaths.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She felt faint. After a moment, the trees stopped spinning and her eyes were able to focus on the gravel of the path. “He wants to father my baby, with my wife.”
“That’s perfect,” Rick said.
“I can’t,” Irene said. “I can’t let Jamie get close to him. I shouldn’t have let her even meet him. Now she’s obsessed with the idea of having his baby.”
“That could be a problem,” Rick pointed out.
“I can’t raise his child,” Irene said, looking Agent Rick in the eye so he could see how serious she was. “The man is deranged.”
He shook his head, “If you had kept your wife out of this, it would have been easier for us to protected her. It might look suspicious if we tried to remove her now that she’s involved.”
“What do you mean, remove her?” Irene asked, crossing her arms. They were no longer even pretending to be jogging together and were arguing in the middle of the path.
“Change her name. Relocate her. You’d never get to see or talk to her again,” Rick explained. “But she would be safe.”
“No,” Irene said, picking back up her jog. “No. I’m not losing her.”
Rick chased after her. “Then you’ll have to let her try to get pregnant with the enemy.”
The path forked ahead, and when Irene took the path to the right, Rick continued on to the left. She returned to the parking lot huffing and puffing. What was she going to do? She was faced with an impossible decision: keeping Jamie safe, or keeping Jamie in her life.
The only car in the parking lot was Irene’s silver economy sedan. She got in and took a deep breath. “Ch cha cherry, drive to Taco Palace.” She pulled her device from it’s pocket in her bra and pressed it against the dash.
··OOO··
“Sorry I’m all gross and sweaty. I just came from my morning run,” Irene said.
“That’s alright. Anything can be forgiven when you arrive with Mexican takeout,” Annette said, accepting the bags of food. Her apartment was in its normal disarray. Ophelia was lying in her crib in the living room, watching intently as the mobile spun above her. She was starting to get chubby. Even though Irene found her friend’s baby adorable, Ophelia’s presence only intensified her anxiety over her current situation.
She sat heavily on the sofa as Annette opened the boxes of food in the kitchen.
“I need to talk with someone,” she said.
“Good,” Annette said, piling tacos on a recyclable plate and taking them with her as she sat in a chair next to Irene. “I could really use some adult conversation. Ophelia isn’t much of a talker.”
Irene covered her face with her hands.
Annette put down her plate to focus on her friend. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“We found a donor.”
“Well, isn’t that good news?” Annette asked.
Irene looked up at her friend. “He’s terrible. He’s got all these insane ideas. He’s manipulative. He’s not someone I’d want to father my kid.”
“What does Jamie think about him?”
“She’s in love with the idea of having a baby. I don’t think I can talk her out of it.”
Annette picked up a taco and started eating. Between mouthfuls, she said, “You could try telling her how you feel.”
Irene sighed. “She’s pretty much given me an ultimatum. Either I get on board with him being our baby daddy, or she’ll leave me.”
“That’s what she said?” Annette asked.
“Basically,” Irene said, shrugging. It was essentially the truth, even though the ultimatum had come from the FBI and not Jamie.
“You’ve got time. Doctors make you jump through a ton of hoops before they’ll remove the birth control implant. I took out my own when my doc refused. I had to have a specific father in mind to subject to genetic compatibility testing.” Irene glanced at the scar on Annette’s arm. It had pretty much healed by now, but was a permanent mark of how she had taken matters into her own hands. “You might be able to find better man meat while Jamie’s waiting on approval for this current guy.”
Irene nodded. If only she could do that. She wished she could separate the genetic material from the man who made it. Annette was lucky that her daughter had gotten her DNA from a savant. She had almost forgotten that her best friend’s baby was also a product of AQD’s tampering.
But Annette had a point. There was time. All she needed to do was complete the FBI investigation before Jamie could get pregnant. Then Aiden would be in jail, and they could move on and find a new donor.
“You’re right,” she said. “We have time.”
“I usually am,” Annette said with a smile before inhaling the next taco.
“I’ve avoided home long enough today. I should head back.”
“Thanks for stopping by,” Annette said, holding up a taco.
“Thanks for the talk,” Irene said. She didn’t feel nearly as anxious now. As she stepped outside of Annette’s building, she breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to enjoy the morning air.
··OOO··
Jamie tried to look at her canvas with a critical eye. She was too close to the work. Every brush stroke she added ruined her vision. There were too many cool tones. She loaded her brush with burnt ochre and drew a curve through the middle. No, it was all wrong. Grabbing her rag, she smeared the wet paint, blurring the background in the process. She threw the rag at her canvas and it flopped down, dragging paint with it, before landing on the floor. Before she could do any more irreparable damage a knock came from the door.
“Check peephole,” she said. She looked at her device sitting on the
cabinet which stored all her paints and brushes. The screen displayed Aiden standing in the hallway holding a gray messenger bag. She wished she had known he was coming. She would have changed into something nicer than her stained long sleeved painting top and overalls. At least she could remove the smock.
She went out to the living room and opened the door. “Hi.”
“Hello, Jamie. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” He looked like he came straight from work wearing a soft blue button up shirt with dark slacks.
“No, please come in,” she said, holding the door open. “I was just in the middle or destroying my current piece. I could use a break from it for a few. What brings you here?”
“I brought you something,” he said, flashing her a smile. His warm expression was disarming and friendly. Even though she had only had the one meaningful conversation with him the other day over dinner, he felt like an old friend she’d known for ages.
“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” she said, flustered. She could feel her face growing hot.
He strolled into the apartment and set his bag on the dining table. Before opening it to pull out whatever he brought, something caught his eye. “Did you do that?” he asked.
She followed his extended finger to the canvas on the living room wall. “I did.”
“It’s amazing,” he said, walking closer to the piece. He stood there for a minute, just looking at the painting and taking it in.
Jamie couldn’t help but feel proud. This was one of her favorite works. Irene didn’t really like having large art pieces in the apartment, but reluctantly agreed to leave this one on display. It was nice to finally have someone admire it instead of merely tolerating it.
Aiden stepped a little closer to the canvas. “I can feel the chaos, with the swirls of color, but it still feels warm and inviting. It’s very moving.”
She walked over and stood next to him, admiring her own work. Although she did photorealistic paintings, this one was more abstract. Among the bold swirls of color, she had added a few definite elements. A hand reaching out between two swaths of color. A tall building bending around the perimeter. “I made it after graduating college. I felt like I was finally entering the world, its huge expanse chaotic and scary, yet enticing for a young woman. I was ready to jump in head first, that hand pulling me into the center of human experience.”
