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T H I R T Y N I N E
- Maeve -
I was never the little girl that put a pillowcase on her head and daydreamed about her wedding day. Maybe if I had been, I wouldn’t be staring at an online shopping cart containing two vials of frozen sperm that belonged to a guy on the other side of the country.
No matter. Times were changing, and I was on the right side of history, the side where a woman could call the shots in her own life and make a family without a man. Okay, so I did need a man’s sperm, but at least I didn’t have to stroke his ego to get it. All I needed was a Visa card.
I scrutinized the order form, finding it frustrating that each vial cost a thousand dollars. Then again, if I focused on the fact that I was getting around thirteen million swimmers for that price, it seemed like decent value. I mean, I paid around seventeen cents for an egg at the grocery store and almost sixty cents for a Nespresso pod. So .00007 cents for a squiggly sperm sounded like a steal.
Thirteen million, though? Made it feel kind of crazy to get two vials. Yet one seemed overly optimistic, and I didn’t want to jinx myself. The online forums I’d visited were full of women who bought up to five on their first purchase. That sounded excessive to me, but if I eventually decided to have more kids, it would be nice if they all had the same father.
Ugh.
Why was this so hard? And why was I doing this at work? What the hell was wrong with me? Not that I usually beat myself up about a sneaky online purchase, but it wasn’t exactly paper towels and Tide Pods I was picking up. It was sperm.
Daniel’s sperm.
The childhood photos had been the tiebreaker.
Dartmouth was cute. He had big brown eyes and lopsided dimples I found endearing. But Daniel ran away with it. He had twinkly blue eyes, dirty-blond hair, and cheeks that were just pudgy enough for pinching. He also seemed quietly confident, like I imagined Finn probably was as a kid.
I knew the notion was ridiculous. Daniel from Boston was no more Finn than I was Beyoncé. Still, the idea that my baby might resemble a man I found attractive comforted me in an otherwise uncomfortable situation.
Plus, although I’d never met anyone who graduated from Dartmouth, I’d met some awfully entitled snobs from Ivy League schools over the years. And while I liked the idea of getting knocked up by a soldier, he’d probably killed more people than the web designer who enjoyed scuba holidays.
So to avoid procrastinating any longer, I clicked “Pay Now” before I could change my mind. Then I stared at the screen with my order number on it, holding my breath until the confirmation email arrived on my phone with a heavy plink.
Holy shit.
The clichéd phrase here goes nothing ran through my head, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I must’ve been nine years old last time I said that to myself, and there was probably a diving board involved.
My forehead ran hot, and I was seized by a nauseating wave of panic. But then came euphoria. I was going to be a MOM. With a bit of luck, of course, but at least I’d done my part.
Now I just had to wait for the clinic to tell me Daniel’s swimmers had arrived safely, hopefully under lock and key. God forbid they got mixed up with Barry from clown school’s sperm after I spent all that time choosing carefully.
I took a few deep breaths and turned my attention back to the proposal I was working on. Because that’s what moms did, right? They got interrupted and then went back to what they were doing. I smiled at the thought, but no sooner had I begun rereading my notes than my phone rang.
I lunged for it, thinking it might be the clinic calling to tell me Daniel just won a Nobel Prize. But it was Finn. Even better. “You’ll never guess what I just did.”
“Did you…win the lottery?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did you meet someone famous?”
“No.”
“Did you touch yourself and pretend it was me?”
I blushed. “No.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You sound breathless.”
“I’m at work.”
“Even hotter.”
“I bought two vials of frozen swimmers.”
