Page 37 of The Surrogate Mother
When I stumblehome over two hours later, I have a throbbing headache in my left temple. I fixed the draft for the meeting in fifteen minutes, sent it to Denise, but it was still unacceptable. So was the next draft. At one point, she gave me an exasperated look and said, “Honestly, Abigail, I feel like I’m talking to anintern.”
If it had taken even five minutes longer to fix the document, I swear I would have strangled her with my bare hands. She never treated me this way before I started trying to have a baby.
It feels like an icepick is jabbing me in the side of the head while I fumble in my purse for my keys. Whenever I get a headache, it’s always in my left temple. Why is that? Is it a sign of a tumor? Christ, where are my keys? Sam is going to kill me for being so late.
And then I hear it:
Laughter. Coming from inside the apartment.
My fingers make contact with my keyring. I yank it out and when I get the door open, I see Sam and Monica sitting together in the living room. They’ve got two empty plates on the coffee table, which means they ate in the living room, which Sam knows I hate because I’m worried about the floral-patterned couch getting stained. There’s a bottle of white wine open on the table that is half-full, and Sam’s got that flushed look he always gets when he’s had a bit too much to drink.
And Monica…
In the time I’ve known Monica, I’ve always thought of her as being somewhat plain. She has some nice features, but she doesn’t wear makeup and she dresses like a choirgirl, which makes her look fairly average. But tonight she looks very different. She’s got on mascara that makes her dark eyes pop, dark red lipstick that compliments her jet-black hair, and a low-cut blouse that shows off her now impressive cleavage.
Monica isn’t just attractive—she’s reallyhot. Much more attractive than I am, if I’m being completely honest. Especially right now, when I’m rumpled and exhausted from my twelve-hour workday.
“Abby!” Sam exclaims when he notices me staring at them, probably for far too long. “You’re home!”
He gets up off the couch and stumbles in my direction, nearly tripping on the carpeting. Oh my God, how much has he had to drink? He plants a wet, sloppy kiss on my face. “We missed you. The leftover lasagna is in the kitchen.”
At first, I think he’s going to go get me some, but instead, he returns to the sofa next to Monica and falls back down with a plop.
“Are you drunk?” I ask him, eyeing the half-empty bottle of wine. Sam rarely has more than one drink, so that’s more than enough to put him over the limit. And presumably, Monica wasn’t helping him make a dent in the bottle.
“No!” He blinks a few times and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I barely had anything. We’re just having fun here. Right, Mon?”
“Abby.” Monica smiles up at me. I still can’t get over how much makeup she’s wearing. “You didn’t tell me how funny Sam is.”
I didn’t, because heisn’tfunny. Well, sometimes he is. But certainly no more than average. Nothing worth commenting on. “Oh,” is all I can muster.
“He’s been telling me all these math jokes,” she says. “They’rereallyfunny.”
Okay, I have heard Sam’s math jokes and they arenotfunny. The only thing funny about them is how incrediblyunfunny they are. Like how something is so bad that it’s good? Although I think the math jokes might have circled around and gone back to being unfunny again.
“Monica was a math minor in college,” Sam informs me. “Isn’t that incredible?”
Yes. Incredible.
She grins at him. “Do you have any other jokes, Sammy?”
Sammy? She’s calling himSammy? And he’s apparently calling herMon. When did they get nicknames for each other? How long was I at the office?
Sam scratches at his chin, thinking for a moment. “Um… why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?” When she doesn’t answer, he says, “To get to the same side.”
Monica laughs louder than anyone should rightfully laugh at a joke about Mobius strips. And as she laughs, she grips his arm. “Oh my God, you aresofunny.”
Sam notices me staring at them blankly. “Abby, a Mobius strip is a surface with one continuous side that—”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “You don’t need to explain it to me.”
There’s an awkward silence. Monica’s eyes dart around and finally land on the two plates on the coffee table. She reaches for them. “Let me bring these to the kitchen.”
“Hey, no way,” Sam says as he brushes her aside. “You’re our guest, and also, you’re pregnant. You let me take care of that.”
He’s being a gentleman like I told him to. I wish he would cut it out.
He seems steadier as he brings the plates into the kitchen. Monica gets up off the couch to follow him, but I step in front of her. “Hey, Monica,” I say. “Did you know there’s a meeting tomorrow morning at eight?”
