Page 26 of The Surrogate Mother
“Absolutely.”
She frowns at me. “Don’t disappoint me, Abigail. This is an important account.”
Yes, Iknowthis is an important account. Despite my success with the diapers campaign, you’re only as good as the last thing you’ve done. If I screw this up, I’m finished. Why else would I be sitting here, eating this disgusting baby food?
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m on it.”
I let out a breath when Denise breezes out of my office. I’m dreading the conversation where I have to tell her I need twelve weeks of family leave after all. But what can I do?
Wow, this baby thing is really going to happen.
I’m going to have a baby.
I can’t believe it.
“I better prepare for this meeting,” I say to Monica, who kept her head down the whole time Denise was berating me. “But… well, I know I’ve said this before, but I can’t say it enough: thank you. This is… incredible.”
She smiles, showing off a row of pearly white teeth. “I’m happy to do it for you.”
She looks down at the positive pregnancy test lying on the table in front of me. She starts to reach for it, but I shake my head. “I can throw this away for you.”
“Oh,no.” She snatches it off my desk and holds it up, admiring the two blue lines. “I want to save it. You know, as a keepsake.”
She wants tosaveit? She wants a keepsake from apregnancy she’s going through just to get a ticket to art school? Is it just me or is that odd?
If anyone should want to save the pregnancy test, it should be me. And I don’t want it. I mean, it’s goturineon it. But I don’t want to make a big thing of it. So I don’t say a word as Monica carefully tucks the pregnancy test back in her purse.
11
Today, Sam and I have been married for eight years.
We’re going out tonight to celebrate, to a nice Spanish restaurant in midtown that serves really good paella. Most nights we stay in and cook or else get takeout, because I’m always so busy, but we always go out on our anniversary.
Sam finds parking a few blocks away from the restaurant, which is something of a miracle. The major bonus of his refusal to lease a spot in a parking garage is he has become amazing at parallel parking. I’m certain he’ll never squeeze the Highlander into that tiny little spot, but he insists he can do it. As he attempts to maneuver his car into the space, a small crowd of pedestrians gathers to watch.
“You’ll never make it, buddy!” one guy yells out.
“Watch me!” Sam yells back.
When he makes it into the spot (as if there was any doubt), he’s met with a smattering of applause. I’m still not sure how he did it. There’s no more than a couple of inchesof give on either end of the vehicle. Sam always says the eternal goal is to have zero space on either end of the car.
As we walk the short distance to the Spanish restaurant, Sam reaches for my hand. He always holds my hand when we walk—he did it when we were dating, and he does it now, after eight years of marriage. It’s sweet.
“I’m glad we’re married,” he says as he squeezes my hand.
I laugh. “Good to know.”
He’s not just saying it because it’s our anniversary—it’s obvious Sam is truly glad to be married. The first couple of years we were together, before the fertility stuff went off the rails, he would say it constantly.I’m really glad we’re married.Or,I’m so glad I have a wife!Or sometimes,Thank God we’re finally married.I don’t think he liked dating very much. He said it was exhausting.
That’s probably why we got married relatively quickly after we started dating. Shelley started dating her husband Rick at around the same time I met Sam, but Rick was always squeamish about commitment. Sam was the polar opposite. We quickly fell into an exclusive relationship with an implied date every Saturday night and several weeknights too. While Rick had a freak out when Shelley left a toothbrush at his apartment, Sam—unprompted—cleaned out a drawer for me in his bedroom and made me a copy of his key, and soon after, said, “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just moved in with me?” Shelley and I were both in our late twenties with marriage on our minds, and she was dying of jealousy.
Then when we were living together, he started making comments that began with, “When we’re married.” For example, “When we’re married, we can file our taxes jointly.” Or, “When we’re married, we should get a two-bedroomapartment.” Granted, they weren’t super romantic statements (like, “When we’re married, we should honeymoon in Paris” or “When we’re married, we should buy a villa in Milan”) but there was something sweet about his assumption we’d end up together. Eventually, I started making “When we’re married” statements too.
One day, we were passing a Zales, hand-in-hand, and I commented, “When you propose to me, you better get me a ring from Tiffany’s.”
Sam got this odd look on his face and my heart sank. He’d been making so many statements about marriage, I’d thought it was okay. This was entirely his fault!
Finally, just when I was about to stammer an awkward apology, he leaned over and murmured in my ear, “And what if I got it from Kay’s?”
