The Surrogate Mother Read online

  Back when I first started working at Stewart, I thought the games were a real hoot. Somewhere between my third and tenth negative pregnancy test, they stopped being so much fun. Around the twentieth negative test, it became a form of torture. When I saw those big, swollen bellies, I wanted to hide in a bathroom stall and sob, not celebrate by making little Franken-babies out of magazine clippings. Usually I stayed around five minutes before excusing myself due to my heavy workload—it was true that I had a ton of work, but it wasn’t the main reason I raced out of the room like it was on fire.

  But today, I’m enjoying myself. Because after years of heartbreak, I am on the brink of motherhood. In about three weeks, I’m going to become the proud parent of a newborn boy, whose sixteen-year-old birth mother is currently living in Tucson, Arizona. I told Shelley I wasn’t sure if an adoption warranted a baby shower, but she was insistent I get the same treatment as all the ladies with the big bellies.

  The door to the conference room swings open and in walks my assistant Monica, carrying a comically large diaper cake. It’s trimmed with blue ribbon, and has a blue teddy bear clinging to the side of it. Poor Monica’s arms are trembling with the effort of holding it, and I rush over to grab the other end before she drops the whole thing on the floor.

  “A diaper cake from Cuddles,” she says breathlessly as we lower the monstrosity onto the banquet table. “It’s a bit… big.”

  I smile to myself, imaging Jed Cofield telling his secretary to send over this giant cake. Is it terrible that I secretly hope the diapers in the diaper cake are any brand other than Cuddles?

  I roll my eyes at Monica. “Next time, I’m going to request a diaper cupcake.”

  Monica covers her mouth with her hand as she giggles. She’s been my assistant for the last six months, since my old assistant Gertie fell and broke her hip, and was not-so-gently pressured by the powers-that-be into an early retirement. And it’s been amazing having Monica. Not that I didn’t like Gertie, who made really incredible chocolate chip cookies, but she was just so slow at everything. Like, even watching her walk across the room was painful. And she didn’t know how to send documents to the printer from her computer. Even faxes were a little tricky for her—I think the fax machine hadn’t been invented yet when she started at Stewart. I’m not sure if phones had been invented yet. But they probably had fire and the wheel.

  So yes, Monica is absolutely a breath of fresh air. She’s in her early twenties, a recent college graduate with a degree in art and math, and sharp as a tack. She soaks in everything like a sponge. Having Monica as an assistant has increased my efficiency by at least… sixty-eight percent.

  I knew immediately during our interview that she was going to be my new assistant. The way she looked reminded me so much of myself, from her jet black hair tied awkwardly in a bun behind her head to her ill-fitting suit to her overeager smile. And then instead of praising me for the Cuddles campaign like every other candidate I interviewed, Monica gushed in detail about a campaign I did years ago for a yogurt company—one that was less well-known but one I was particularly proud of. It showed the girl did her research.

  And when I asked her what she wanted to get out of the position, she replied, “I want to learn everything you know.”

  I hired her on the spot.

  After Monica adjusts the diaper cake on the table, she frowns at a pile of baby-sized Yankee caps on the side. I laugh at the baffled look on her face. “Shelley wanted us to wear those, but she couldn’t get any takers. You’d make her day if you put one on.”

  Monica smiles. “Oh, no. I grew up a Red Sox fan—I went to all their games when I was a kid. I could never put on a Yankees cap. They’d never let me come home!”

  “Well, I’m a Yankees fan,” I say, “and yet I still don’t want to put on the cap.”

  Shelley rushes over at that moment and thrusts a baby bottle into Monica’s hands. “Ten minutes till chug time,” Shelley warns.

  “Oh.” Monica’s cheeks color and she glances at me. “I still need to type up the minutes from the meeting this morning and make copies for the—”

  “No, you don’t.” I rest a hand on my assistant’s shoulder. “You’ve been working so hard, and Cuddles loved our pitch today. You’re allowed to take a break for a baby shower.”

  “Well, at least let me clean up the—”

  “No.” I give her a sharp look. “I want you to relax. Enjoy yourself for a bit. You deserve it as much as anyone.”

  Shelley winks at Monica. “You’re lucky, Monica. Abby is too nice to her team. If you were my assistant, I’d have you picking up plastic cups from the floor right now.”

  I survey the room, and… wow, there are a lot of plastic cups on the floor. The employees at Stewart are a bunch of slobs. Denise was right to mention the garbage situation. But we have a cleaning staff here—Monica is my personal assistant.

  “I guess I could…” Monica glances around the room with her dark brown eyes. Sometimes when I look into her eyes, I really do feel like I’m looking into a mirror. Her jet black hair is like mine, although hers is ramrod straight while mine falls in random waves around my face. In any case, Monica and I do look somewhat similar, although she’s more than a decade younger than I am. Sometimes I appreciate when people remark on our likeness to each other, but not so much when Jack in the Creative department calls her Abby Two Point Oh. “I’ll stay, but just for a few minutes. Then I really should get back to work!”

  Honestly, if it doesn’t work out with this baby, I might just adopt Monica.

  “It’s so nice of Cuddles to send all those diapers,” Monica says. “I’ve heard diapers are actually very expensive.”

  “Oh, Abby doesn’t have to worry about that,” Shelley giggles. “Her family is really rich. Her grandfather got in on an investment in this really big company on the ground floor.”

  I sigh. I really dislike it when she brings up my family’s money—it’s embarrassing and tacky. “Shelley…”

  “Abby doesn’t want me to tell you which company,” she says. “But I’ll give you a hint. You may have a product from this company in your purse right now.”

  “Shelley…”

  “Here’s another hint. It’s not an orange…”

  “Shelley!”

  Shelley laughs. “Don’t worry, Abby, I won’t blab your secret.” She grins at Monica. “But anyway, she’s got a big trust fund, so she doesn’t have to worry about the cost of diapers, believe me.”

  She isn’t entirely wrong. I do have a small trust fund that’s gotten me through some tough times. But it’s not infinite money. I’m well-off, but not rich. That said, the cost of diapers is definitely not something I need to stress over.

  Monica wanders off to grab a sandwich, but Shelley lingers by my side. She’s got an unreadable expression on her face. I’ve known Shelley ten years, since the two of us were both lowly assistants ourselves, but I still have trouble knowing what she’s thinking. “You getting nervous, Abby?” she asks me.

  I give her a look. “What are you talking about? I nailed the Cuddles pitch.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Are you nervous about the B-A-B-Y?”

  I shake my head. “No. We’ll be fine.”

  “How about Sam? How’s he holding up?”

  I can’t suppress a grin. “He’s really excited. It’s adorable. He spent all of yesterday putting together the crib.”

  “Oh right, I forgot—Sam’s perfect.”

  “He’s not perfect…”

  “Yes, he is.” Shelley takes a swig from her baby bottle. What is in those things? “He takes out the garbage, he cleans, he does laundry… he presumably changes the toilet paper roll more than once per millennium. He even cooks now…”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I say. In the last few months, buoyed by the excitement of the new baby coming, Sam decided he was going to learn how to cook. The results have been mixed. No, that’s kind. He’s horrible at it. You would think that just by foll
owing a recipe, he could achieve some level of competence, but no.

  “Well, so what if he can’t cook?” she says. “Most importantly, he’s still desperately in love with you even though you’ve been married forever. And best of all, he’s still really hot. He hasn’t lost even one hair on his head, while Rick is practically bald.”

  I almost laugh at the expression on my best friend’s face. “Rick isn’t bald.”

  “No, I said he’s practically bald. Bald would be better! Instead he’s pathetically clinging to those last few strands.” Her jaw tightens. “One day, I swear I’ll shave him in his sleep.”

  “I’d think Sam was just as handsome even if he went bald.”

  “Please stop, Abby. You’re going to make me vomit.”

  “Well, sorry.”

  Shelley always pretends to be jealous of me, but the truth is, her husband Rick is a really good guy too. He’s a great dad too, as far as I can tell. But yes, I have to admit, Sam is hotter and less bald. But that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I like having an attractive husband, but it’s not so great when that attractive husband is a math professor who works with young undergrads.

  Not that I think Sam would cheat or anything, but…

  Well, he wouldn’t. But sometimes I wish he worked at an all-male university.

  I feel my shoulders relax as Shelley and I chat. Maybe I can spend more than fifteen minutes here. I have done nothing but slave away for the last three months on the Cuddles campaign—I’m entitled to at least twenty minutes to enjoy a party held in my honor. How often do I get a baby shower?

  I pick up the baby bottle in my hand and take a long swig from the nipple. And… damn—it really is apple juice. Okay, I guess I won’t enjoy this party that much.

  I’m about to suggest to Shelley we get drinks after work when the door to the conference room cracks open. My mouth falls open when the familiar face of my husband appears at the door. A warm feeling of joy fills my chest like it always does whenever I see Sam unexpectedly. I can’t believe Shelley invited him! She’s the best.

  “Hey, it’s the father!” Shelley calls out when she spies him at the door. “Sam! Come get a bottle!”

  Sam smiles crookedly. Whenever he appears suddenly, I always get a jolt when I notice how handsome he is. A guy like him could easily have become a player, but he’s actually somewhat shy and often seems mortified by the impact he has on the opposite sex—like when his students refer to him as Professor McHottie. He wears glasses because contacts are “pointless,” he’s never bought a bottle of hair gel in his life, nor has he ever even set foot in an Armani store. Yet in spite of all that, he still manages to turn heads on a regular basis.

  “Hey,” I say. I’m smiling so wide now that it’s beginning to hurt. “I can’t believe you made it here. Didn’t you have a lecture this afternoon?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Sam scratches at the stubble on his chin because he only shaves every other day, even though he really needs to shave every day. He looks ridiculously sexy on non-shaving days. “Hey, um, Abby…”

  Sam lifts his brown eyes to meet mine. Sam has really kind eyes. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and if that’s true, my husband has the best soul of anyone I’ve ever met. He has a lot of good qualities, but it’s his kind eyes that made me fall in love with him.

  And I know just from looking into those eyes that something horrible has happened.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask him, even though I would bet the farm it’s not.

  He glances around the room, his ears turning red. “Abby, could we talk? Outside?”

  The room goes instantly silent. This is really bad. I don’t know what he’s going to say to me and I don’t want to know. I want to live in five minutes ago—when I was having a (relatively) great time at my first and only baby shower. Before my husband showed up and everything fell apart.

  Chapter 3

  Sam takes my hand the second I join him at the door. His warm, large hand envelopes mine, and he pulls down the hallway, past a large leafy plant and the water cooler.

  “Sam,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  “Let’s talk in your office.”

  I pull my hand away from his and grab his elbow, yanking him into the nook by the copy machine. “No, let’s talk here.”

  “Okay, but…” His eyes dart around. “Maybe we should get you a chair…”

  He wants me to be sitting. Oh God. I think I’m going to throw up.

  “Sam,” I say as patiently as I can. “Will you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Sam focuses his brown eyes back on my face. A deep crease forms between his eyebrows. “Janelle pulled out.”

  “What?”

  “I just got the call from Steve.” He rakes a hand through his light brown hair—his fingers are shaking. “He said Janelle changed her mind. She wants to keep the baby.”

  “What?”

  My legs feel rubbery. Sam was right—we should have gone to my office. Or I should have held out for a chair.

  “Something about how her mother is going to help her or… I don’t know.” He sighs. “It all amounts to the same thing. She’s keeping him.”

  “Is… is she allowed to do that?” I sputter. “Our contract says…”

  “She’s allowed to back out.” Sam shuts his eyes for a moment, then when he opens them again, I notice for the first time they’re slightly bloodshot. “We can’t fight her in court for her baby. We’d never win.”

  I’m starting to get tunnel vision. The whole world is disappearing and all I can see is Sam’s face in front of me. A lump forms in my throat, and I know I’m seconds away from bursting into tears.

  “Abby?” His voice sounds far away. “Are… are you okay?”

  “No,” I whisper. “I’m not.”

  I fall into his arms, and even though there are still some people in their cubicles who could probably see us, I let the tears fall. Maybe “let” is the wrong word. I’m helpless to stop these tears.

  At least Sam is here. When he got the news, he was all alone. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for him. He wanted this baby as badly as I did. I can see in his eyes how devastated he is.

  “I’ll drive you home, okay?” he says. “I’ve got the car.”

  Home. Where the nursery is all set up for the baby we’re not going to get. How can we go back there? I can’t bear it. Also…

  “The baby shower…” The thought of going back to the room with the giant diaper cake is like being stabbed in the chest. “I need to tell them.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” he says. “You wait here.”

  Sam is such a wonderful husband.

  It’s all my fault we can’t get pregnant. He’s normal. Perfect sperm. All-star sperm. I’m the defective one.

  “You don’t have to…” I murmur.

  “I’ll talk to them,” he says again, more firmly this time. “But don’t leave without me. Promise?”

  I nod mutely. I’m not going to argue with him.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says. “It will.”

  Except I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince—me or himself.

  _____

  Sam and I don’t say one word to each other on the drive home. Even Sam’s car is a depressing reminder of what we’ve lost. Ever since I met him, Sam had driven a 1997 Honda Civic. It was old when he bought it used, and it got to the point where he had to say a prayer every time he turned the key in the ignition. I begged him to trade it in for something safer and more reliable, insisting we had the money to get him any car he wanted, but he clung to that car like it was his first child.

  Then when we found out we had a baby on the way for sure, without prompting, Sam got rid of his old Civic and got a brand new Toyota Highlander. It’s a big, safe SUV that has a car seat strapped into the back which we will probably never use. Just looking at that car seat makes me want to burst into tears.

  I should have taken the subway home.
/>   By the time we get to our apartment, my eyes are swollen and my cheeks are sticky with tears. Sam lets me out at the front so he can park the car. He won’t let me shell out the exorbitant fee for the parking garage below our building, so he spends half his time searching the neighborhood for open parking spots. He’ll drag himself out of bed at six in the morning on his day off to move his car to avoid getting a ticket. I had planned to insist on paying for the parking garage once the baby came, but that won’t be an issue anymore.

  I feel a surge of resentment at Sam’s stubbornness about the parking garage as I trek up to our apartment all alone. I don’t want to face the open door to what would have been the baby’s room all alone. I catch a glimpse of the light brown wood of the crib and the yellow paint on the wall before I pull the door shut with a resounding snap.

  My phone buzzes inside my purse. There’s no one I want to talk to right now, but I assume it’s Shelley, trying to say something comforting. I fish out the phone, and see the text message filling the screen. It’s from none other than my favorite boss, Denise:

  Sorry to hear about your situation. I assume I can cancel your family leave totaling 12 weeks? Also, please let me know ASAP if you will require a personal day tomorrow.

  For God’s sake, couldn’t the woman let me grieve for one hour? Denise used to be the woman I respected most in the entire universe, but now I hate her. I hate Denise. No, “hate” isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel for her. “Loathe” or “abhor” don’t quite do it either. Someone needs to invent a new word to describe the way I feel right now about Denise Holt.

  Except none of this is Denise’s fault. And an hour ago, she was no more than an annoyance in my life, instead of the object of my seething hatred. So maybe I should hold off on answering her text right now, because I can’t afford to tell off my boss. My job is all I have anymore.

  I glance at my watch. How long does it take Sam to park a goddamn car?