Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [112]
Bettina flipped one hand in my direction. “Tall. Blond. Gorgeous. Smart.” Somehow, she managed to make all of those words sound like insults. “What’d you play, field hockey? And you were in Cap, I bet.”
“I played field hockey and lacrosse, but only in high school. And I wasn’t in Cap.”
She lifted her plucked eyebrows. “You got hosed at bicker?”
This was insider lingo. “Cap” was Cap and Gown, one of the most selective eating clubs. Bicker was like rush, and getting hosed was Princeton parlance for getting rejected. “I wasn’t in a club. Did you go to Princeton?”
She shook her head, adjusting her headband. “My dad did. And my uncles, and my oldest brother. But I spent enough time around the campus to know what it’s like. Why weren’t you in an eating club?”
“Because I couldn’t afford it.” Her thin eyebrows arched even higher. I wondered why she was surprised. Did she imagine that girls like her, in apartments like this, were the ones selling their eggs?
“I was hoping you could tell me about yourself.” She reached into the purse she’d kept slung over her shoulder and pulled out a notebook and a pen. “Any health issues in your family? Do you happen to know your blood type?”
I knew it from the tests the clinic had done . . . which meant that Bettina probably knew it, too. “O negative,” I said, wondering when she’d get around to asking me what she really wanted to know. I was still struggling to make sense of what I’d learned—that her father, the baby’s father, was dead, and that his wife, the baby’s mother, was gone.
“And your family history? Cancer? Diabetes? Heart disease?”
My unease was solidifying into anger. “The clinic can tell you about that,” I said, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms against my chest.
“Mental illness? Substance abuse?” She sat back, skinny legs crossed, staring at me.
“Google?” I answered back.
“If anyone in your family had an issue with substance abuse,” she said sweetly, “I think that’s something you might have mentioned before donating an egg.”
She was right, of course. She was right, and I’d been wrong. “I needed the money,” I said, dropping my eyes and wishing, once more, for Kimmie.
“For what?”
“For my dad.” My eyes were stinging. “To get him into rehab. Which didn’t work, as I’m sure you already know.”
“You shouldn’t have lied.”
“I didn’t lie. Nobody at the clinic ever asked.”
“Well, don’t you think it was something you should have mentioned?” Her voice was getting louder. I got to my feet.
“Did you bring me up here just to insult me? Because I could have just stayed at work and had my boss do that.”
She surprised me by changing the subject. “Where do you work?”
“Steinman Cox. I’m a junior analyst.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“Yeah,” I said sourly. “It’s spectacular.”
She sighed, finally looking her age. “I’m sorry I was provoking you,” she said. “This whole thing’s just very new.”
“So why did you want to meet me? Because it sounds like you know all the important stuff already.”
“I just wanted to see you in person. To meet you, before I asked.”
“Asked what?”
She shifted on the couch, recrossing her legs. “This is probably going to sound crazy,” she said, “but I want to know if you want to be . . . involved, somehow.”
I blinked at her. “Involved?”
“Like... oh, I don’t know. An aunt, or a friend of the family.” She looked at me, her eyes wide, an expression that was almost pleading on her face. “My dad’s gone . . .” She paused, then cleared her throat. “My dad’s gone, and my stepmother took off, and good riddance, as far as I’m concerned, but this baby’s got me as a parent, and I don’t know what I’m doing. So I thought...”
“You want people,” I said, remembering my conversation with Kimmie; my dream of being a mysterious benefactor.
“A village,” Bettina agreed. “You know, ‘it takes a village’? So I thought . . . I mean, it’s probably crazy. You agreed to sell an egg, it’s not like you wanted to be a mother.”
I interrupted. “Can I see her?”
“She’s sleeping,” said Bettina. I thought this was a refusal until she added, “Take your shoes off and come