Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [76]
Dr. Dreiser had sent me to the Princeton Fertility Clinic, after I’d declined a fourth round of in vitro. He’d been the one to steer us toward donor eggs—those, plus a gestational carrier, would give us the best chance for success, addressing all my failings: my iffy eggs, my unreliable uterus. I’d gone to the clinic’s website, clicked through the links, filled out the forms, sent in a check, and picked out one of their “carefully screened eggs from donors who meet our high standards of health, medical history, and intelligence.” It sounded a lot like eugenics. Then again, who’d want eggs from someone who wasn’t healthy, or intelligent and gorgeous? The website said nothing about the egg donors’ looks, but I could fill in that blank and assume they were all beauties. Picking the egg donor was easy: I went for tall, blond, smart, and healthy, the way any man would have done. And as soon as I’d met Annie, I’d known she was the one to carry the baby. I hadn’t planned on choosing someone so young, but there was something I recognized in her expression, a hopefulness and a determination to make something better of her life. She reminded me of me, when I’d been young, and her life, as best as I could tell from the forms she’d filled out and the stories she’d told me, could have been my life, if things had gone just a little bit differently.
Annie was perfect. I’d asked for a gestational surrogate who lived in Pennsylvania, the clinic’s state of choice, where the laws were clear. There’d be no legal wrangling over who the baby belonged with, whose name went on the birth certificate under “parents.” I’d requested a woman within a two-hour drive, in her twenties, and Annie was twenty-four and lived outside of Philadelphia, an easy commute to the city. She’d have had kids already, I knew: the clinic insisted on it. She was married—the clinic didn’t insist on that; couldn’t, legally, but Leslie had mentioned that most of their surrogates were in “stable family arrangements,” which, in Annie’s case meant a husband who’d been in the army and still had army benefits. The two of them and their two boys weren’t rich, but they weren’t destitute—the money she’d earn would make a difference, but it wasn’t as if they were living in poverty. From the pictures she’d shown me, I thought their farmhouse looked charming . . . and Annie, so far, was earnest and sweet and surprisingly funny sometimes.
We were meeting for lunch at the restaurant on the seventh floor of Bergdorf’s, one of my favorite places, a gorgeous little jewel box of a room that felt like a secret and served delicious salads. Annie was waiting on the first floor, by the display of purses. I stood by the doors and watched her, unseen, as she shyly fingered a silk Valentino bag made of fabric flowers in shades of scarlet and plum. I felt a stab of guilt as I noticed her clothes, sneakers and leggings and a loose-fitting tunic-style top that most assuredly had not come from Bergdorf’s. Why had I brought her here? Was I showing off, trying to prove who had the upper hand, letting her know that she might be carrying the baby but I was the one with the cash?
I tapped her on the shoulder. She set the bag on the glass counter and spun around, looking guilty.
“Oh, India! Hi!”
I gave her a hug. “Pretty bag.”
She lowered her voice. “It costs twenty-one hundred dollars. Two thousand dollars for a purse!”
I didn’t answer. The truth was, I had that very purse in my closet at home, along with its patent-leather cousin and a wallet that matched. “Are you hungry?”
“Oh, my God. Always.”
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