"Seventy-five grand. One hundred if it's a boy this time. The rest of the details will be the same. Call us soon. We're not going to wait forever." There was some scuffling on the line, like he was fumbling with the phone. Faint voices were in the background. "Oh," he sighed. "The number's 914-740-3085, in case you forgot."
So this was the message that they'd been trying to get to me. I'd been deleting messages as soon as I heard "Hi, it's Jim/Maria" or "Don't hang up." The seventy-five grand caught my attention this time.
For the next several days, my head was filled with Jim's voice, Jim himself, Maria herself, the baby girl I'd delivered to them but never seen, the tuition payments made and looming, and the rest of my life's recent fugue. I didn't mean to think about any of it, about the message, but I couldn't help it. Sometimes I made up my mind to delete the message, to lose forever the number I'd deleted months ago, and other times I entered their number in my cell and thumbed the green send button. I stared at it long enough to fixate on the shape of the phone as though nothing else existed and then return to picturing the Cunninghams in their kitchen, cooing to an infant girl in a frilly white dress in a car seat on their marble countertop. I could imagine everything but her face. And after a while of failing to see her, of feeling the dread of the unknown, I finally pressed the button, almost without thinking, almost surprising myself.
"Hello! We were hoping you would call! How are you?"
I wasn't expecting them to expect me. Confusion slowed my heart, cooled my body. Then analytical thought balanced everything; they still had my name and number in their phone. I breathed in relief. I felt stronger, surer. It was all meant to be, for the confusing greeting was far too calming to be a mere coincidence.
"Hello?"
"I'm here, Maria."
"Oh, good. How are you?"
I knew she didn't really want to know. If she didn't realize it herself, it would only take a moment of the truth before she begged to move onto the negotiations. She didn't want to know about the despondency since the birth, the feeling of disassociation, the lack of emotion or displays thereof. She didn't want to know that I hadn't felt so adrift since childhood, since Mamá dragged me across the south in search of orange groves, peach-picking, house-cleaning, and men with apartments who enjoyed her body and tolerated my presence, until finally settling down with Papá. She didn't want to know that I hadn't felt so helplessly resigned since I became old enough to realize, to understand without being told, that Papá had married my mother because — with his looks — he knew he couldn't do much better than a pretty migrant with a bastard child. She didn't want to know that I'd somehow accepted growing a child only to abandon her without as much as a look.
"Where do you want to meet? The lawyer's office, same one as before?"
The lawyer, Mr. Bullinger, was near Jim's Wall Street office, of course, a four hour ride from Cambridge to the bus stop at Madison Square Garden, followed by a twenty minute cab. The office was at the top of a very expensive building, commanding a spectacular view. It was the kind of office that had large trays of fruit and bottles of complimentary Perrier in the lobby, the kind where even the secretaries carried Louis Vutton handbags. The office furniture cost more than any of the houses I had ever lived in.
Jim and Maria were dressed down. He'd left his tie and jacket at the office; the first three buttons of his pastel blue shirt were undone. He had on casual loafers instead of the patent leather dress shoes he normally favored. In brief, an off-duty yuppie. Maria wore dark jeans that were cut like dress pants, a bright, loose-fitting flower-print blouse that could've been Saks or JCPenny, and a pair of Prada heels. She was light on make-up today, just mascara, black eye-liner, and a little foundation — the cosmetic care of a house-wife. Their attempt to minimize their social standing was so painfully obvious, so pathetically pointless given our surroundings, that I would've laughed out loud if I hadn't hated them so much.
Mr. Bullinger leaned forward in his high-backed leather chair, slightly contorting his five thousand dollar three-piece suit over the undulating waves of his girth, and started the meeting in his dry northeastern accent. "Thank you all for coming down. Forgive me if I go straight to the heart of the matter." He pushed a stack of papers in my direction and went on to summarize the similarity of the previous and current contract agreements. Then he placed a very expensive pen in front of me, as though that was that.
I'd prepared a lengthy, self-righteous diatribe for this moment, but now that I was here, sitting before them, about to push my demands, I suddenly felt weak. "I want some changes," I said, managing a soft but audible decibel level.
Mr. Bullinger's bull-dog head twitched to the side. Jim and Maria's eyes simultaneously clicked.
"What kind of changes?" Bullinger asked, head still tilted.
"I want a hundred grand. If it's a boy, I want an extra fifty."
Bullinger shifted his eyes to Jim and Maria. Jim's face was draining of color. He leaned back, ran a hand through his hair, and blew out a whiff of air. Maria didn't flinch a muscle — it might have been botox though, because her eyes showed disbelief.
"Why do you think you deserve that kind of increase?" she asked.
"Why don't I?" I blurted. She'd struck a very raw nerve. "Are you going to deal with morning sickness? Exhaustion? Weight gain? Joint pain? Back pain? Foot pain? Your professors looking at you differently than everyone else? Other students staring at you? Lying to your parents about taking summer and intersession classes, about having homework piled over your head, just so you don't have to go home to visit? Oh, right, Maria. You can't even carry a baby. You need me a hell of a lot more than I need you."
"We could also find someone else," Jim spat. "You're hardly the only Ivy Leaguer who would like us to pay tuition."
Maria put a hand on his arm and stared at him. He looked at her in surprise and then in defeat. She turned back to me, saying, "She's right. We need her more than she needs us. And we can afford it."
Bullinger sighed. "I'll change the amount. We can still sign the contract today."
"Second," I said pointedly, "I want to have some time with the baby before you take it. At least an hour of uninterrupted, undisturbed alone time. In the hospital. I want copies of the sonograms and pictures of Leila."
I could tell that I lost them at the end. They were looking at me with confusion — brows furrowed, eyes questioning, lips slightly parted, ready to ask for clarification as if I was the stupid one.
"Pictures. Of Leila. What's so hard about that?"
Maria shook her head, asking, "Who's Leila?"
Then I understood my mistake. I looked away, closing my eyes, withdrawing into myself.
She asked again, "Who's Leila?"
"Leila," I whispered.
"What? I can't hear you."
"Leila," my voice cracked, "is the name I gave her."
After that, the room was very quiet for a very long time. I felt their eyes on me, on each other, on the floor, maneuvering so as not to confront the spectacle before them. Finally, Maria broke the silence ringing in my ears, her voice itself breaking here and there. "We named her Elizabeth. We call her Liz or Lizzy. And if you want pictures, of course we'll give you pictures. It never occurred to me to offer. You didn't want to see her at birth, so I thought you were fine with not knowing her."
"Fine with it?" Jim scoffed. "It took us a month to get her to call us back. Even I knew she wasn't fine."
"Did you think this was the reason?"
"No."
"Then don't smart off. I just thought she didn't want to deal with being pregnant again. I had no idea it was something like this."
Part of me wished they wouldn't talk about me like I wasn't there. Part of me was glad someone finally knew my story, my soul, and cared enough to talk.
"This is ridiculous," Jim said. "You've been so picky, and now we're up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. How much are we gonna spend on kids?"
A fresh nerve exploded. "You want them to go to Harvard?" I asked.
"Who wouldn't?"
I laughed. "Then you'll spend a lot more. But that should be okay. How much was your bonus this year? Or last year? The year before? Surely one of those will cover it. In fact, maybe I should be asking for—"
"You know what," Maria interrupted, clearly losing some of her patience. She regained her composure, placed a hand on my shoulder, and leaned her face close to mine. I was struck, once again, by our identical features. "You could count on some big bonuses yourself, pay off those student loans in no time, except you majored in political science." She shook her head slightly, moving her brown curls, my brown curls. "You can pay off student loans for twenty or thirty years, or you can graduate debt-free. Imagine everything you've never had. Now imagine having it because you've got a first-class degree for free."
"Actually," Jim said dryly, "taking her minority scholarship into consideration, I believe she'll net some money."
"Good for her!" Maria chirped. "We'll agree to a hundred and fifty thousand for a boy, one hundred twenty-five if it's a girl. Deal?"
Unlike last time, I was afraid. I knew what was in store. But I wanted it, too. I could avoid the pain of giving up another child only by losing the chance to take the smallest part in Leila's life. I said, "I want good pictures. Big ones, not just wallet-size."
She smiled, my smile. "How would you like to see the real thing first? Play with her? Take pictures with her?"
"Maria," Jim snapped. "We've talked about the risks."
She answered him, "I really think we should do this. Of course, we won't ever tell either child that I'm not their mother; we don't want to confuse or upset them. But we should do at least this small thing." She turned back to me, tears forming at the edge of her mascara. "Not just for her, but for Liz. For the next one, too."
I embraced her. And she held me tight long after I thought the hug would end. She stroked my hair and patted my back, and I let myself feel loved. It felt so strange and so right.
There was scarcely a millisecond between heartbeats, and with each heartbeat, it felt like a sledgehammer ripped through my brain and slammed against my skull. The pain subsided between beats and when my shrieks swallowed every sensation above my neck—the dried tears, the sweat-soaked hairline, the strained screaming-muscles.
Pressure consumed my body from navel to knee. People were talking to me, saying things in soothing tones, but I couldn't comprehend, couldn't even care. It felt like I would explode or die or both. And then, suddenly, the pressure lessened dramatically. Numb relief spread through my body, except for the pounding headache. I heard crying from somewhere far away. I felt everyone's attention shift from me to something I couldn't see.
And that was it. I had to ask a nurse about its sex and health. I looked for her among the other newborns but didn't find her.
We agreed to meet at a Starbucks in Hartford, about halfway between Cambridge and their home in New Rochelle, NY. Their ad specified good lucks, so I wore tight jeans and a form-fitting shirt. I felt self-conscious as I walked inside; I'd gained weight in the wrong places, and the tight clothes made me look and feel pudgy.
Sighing, I skimmed the menu. Everything I wanted was three or four bucks. I had the money, but I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for a latte. Instead, I popped some gum and chewed hard to work up some saliva.
I scanned the Starbucks, looking for someone who appeared to be looking for someone, too. A latina noticed me, got up from her table, and walked toward me. Her face lit up. She asked my name and then made an ecstatic fuss over meeting me. She barely remembered to tell me her name amid her semi-squealing. Without taking a breath, she invited me to her table and explained that her husband was in the restroom.
As if on cue, a white guy walked up. "Oh my goodness, Jim, look at her. Isn't she gorgeous?"
He took a good, long look. Drunken teenagers at quinceñeras hadn't made me feel so awkward."It's like looking at a younger you," he said, cutting his eyes quickly to Maria.
"I know, like looking in the mirror," she agreed.
"Thank you," I whispered, smiling shyly in spite of myself.
A thrill rushed through me as I leaned closer to the screen and reread the ad on Craig's List, trying to focus on the words instead of my excitement at such a golden opportunity:
Hispanic, aged 18-26. Perfect health. Height should be between 5'4 and 5'8. Weight 110-125 pounds. Must be gorgeous in appearance, well-proportioned, medium dark complexion, impeccable facial features. The ideal candidate won't have a history of braces. Must be an Ivy League student. No legacies. Preferably Harvard or Yale. Minimum 1400 SAT. Perfect GPA. Some extracurricular activities preferred. $50,000 plus all medical expenses.
