Page 21 of The Surrogate Mother
I look down at my coffee cup. I just got a plain coffee—no cream, no sugar. When I was in college, I used to add about a quarter of a cup of cream to my coffee, but when I saw Denise drinking it black every day, I switched. Now that’s all I’ll ever drink. And like Denise, I lose respect for anyone who pours cream into their coffee.
“Does Monica take good care of herself?” I ask.
Chelsea frowns. “What do you mean? She, like, showers every day and all that.”
“I mean, does she do drugs or drink a lot or…?”
That makes her laugh. “Monica? No way. She’s a complete square. Like, the designated driver and all that shit.”
Of course. I should have guessed. Everyone I’ve spoken to without exception has verified Monica Johnson is squeaky clean. She’s one halo away from being a saint.
“Listen,” Chelsea says as she wipes some white froth from her lips, “I just want to say I think the arrangement you’ve got with Monica is really cool.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Do you?”
“Yeah!” She nods vigorously. “Just because you’re too old to have children of your own, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make great parents, right?”
Too old to have children of my own?I’m thirty-six! I’ve got quite a bit of time left before menopause. If not for my bum ovaries, I’d have no trouble at all having children at my age.
But Chelsea here is all of twenty-three. I hate to think how old she thinks I am. I’m not even going to ask—why make this meeting more depressing?
“Thank you,” I say.
She grins at me. “So are you going to go through with it?”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “I think we might.”
9
When I come home from work, Sam greets me with dinner.
He comes out of the kitchen, his face pink from the heat of the stove, red wine staining his T-shirt, and somehow there’s white flour dotting his hair. So I have absolutely no idea what he’s made. Red wine biscuits?
I glance at the kitchen, flinching at the mess inside. At least I know he’ll clean it up himself—I can always count on him to clean up his own kitchen disasters without prompting. “Can I help with anything?”
“No way,” he says. “You’ve been hard at work all day. I want you to relax and have a delicious meal. Do you want any wine?”
I look at the splotches of wine on his T-shirt and grin. “Should I squeeze it out of your clothing?”
“Ho ho, very funny.”
He does pour me a glass of red wine, which is very nice indeed, because I did have a long day at work. Sam never complains about my hours—he always says he thinks it’s cool his wife is a high-power advertising exec. (I’m notexactly an exec, but I don’t correct him.) I’ve overheard him bragging about me, so I guess he means it.
A few minutes later, he emerges from the kitchen with two plates of food. He places one of them in front of me. “Ta da!” he says. “It’s chicken marsala with rice.”
I look down at the chicken on my plate. I chew on my lip. “Is the chicken supposed to be red?”
“Well, I used red wine.”
“It’s just… it’s awfully red.”
He looks down at his own chicken thoughtfully. “Well, it’s not how it looks, right? It’s how it tastes.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
He watches me as I slice a small piece of chicken off the end. Well, at least it appears to be cooked. Although judging how long it took me to slice through it, I’m worried it’s a bit overcooked.
“It’s not pink this time,” Sam points out. “Score.”
