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“Whatever. Spreadsheets are awesome. It wouldn’t kill you to use one to keep track of who you’re dating.”
“Nah, they’re color coded in my phone.”
We both start laughing. God, I love her.
Long story short, Delia has been busy making up for all the adolescent years she spent being scorned and ridiculed by the opposite sex. In other words she’s a love ’em and leave ’em kind of girl. And I won’t lie, I love nothing more than to live vicariously through her. She’s completely unapologetic about her lifestyle, which I admire and envy.
If only I had a tenth of her courage when it comes to men. Ask me to make a split-second decision that hangs millions of dollars in the balance and I don’t flinch. Ask me to get naked with a stranger and I have a massive existential crisis.
I wasn’t a wallflower in high school. Wallflower implies cute girl that no one notices until everyone does. In other words, implausible fiction perpetuated by Hollywood.
I was more the dull gray wall. I didn’t exist. Not because I was shunned, but because I was so busy trying to escape my life that high school felt like a speed bump, something I had to get over to get to the good stuff.
For as long as I can remember, we were poor. My mother worked full time at the local supermarket and it was still never enough. We depended on the scraps my father sent home to make ends meet. When those stopped coming, she started working days cleaning houses and nights at the supermarket.
This was hardly conducive to a thriving social life. The only time I can remember really cutting loose was at my quinceañera, celebrated at Applebee’s with my mother, brother, and Tina.
I didn’t become class valedictorian, or win multiple scholarships, or earn a near perfect score on my SATs because I was smarter than everyone else. Not even close. I accomplished all those things because I worked harder than anyone else. Hard work was a Sunday at my house.
Which in turn left no time for anything else. I didn’t care. Poverty was the disease we suffered and the cure was money, so money became my objective. Boys came later. Much later. My junior year as an undergrad at Princeton later. And even then, I wasn’t all that impressed.
“Moving on. I was doing research on my next novel and came across something interesting. It’s called communal parenting, or co-parenting.”
My interest wakes up at the word parent.
“It’s the newest thing apparently. Websites and organizations devoted to bringing people together that are interested in raising a child in an unconventional family system.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, the rules are written by two parties coming to a legal agreement. Gay couples and singles looking for a second or third party to father or mother a child. Older couples that are no longer able to conceive with a younger single woman. You get the picture. The possibilities are endless.”
Mind blown. Mind totally blown. The hair on my arm stands on end.
“People like me.”
Nodding, she continues, “It’s all very tidy. Lots of legal paperwork, but everything is negotiated and agreed on up front.”
“You’re a genius, you know that, right?”
“I’ll remind you of that next time we go to hot yoga.”
Like any important endeavor, this one needed meticulous planning. In other words, I started a new spreadsheet. I did extensive research, sought legal counsel, weighed the pros and cons. I started taking massive amounts of prenatal vitamins. If I had a gag reflex before, there isn’t one now.
I called my mother.
“Communal parenting. It’s all done by a legally binding contract,” I tell her while nervously wearing out the brand-new Swedish wide-plank flooring I had recently installed in my Gramercy Park condo. Looking out the window, I spot a stroller in the park, a young mother pulling her baby out of it. I watch them with the same totally absorbed, unwavering attention Delia gives carbohydrates and fried foods.
“Legally binding contract?” I can practically hear her arching an eyebrow through the phone. “Stella––”
“We share custody and parental responsibility. Everything is negotiated beforehand.”
And when I say everything, I mean everything from greater to smaller. Holidays to orthodontist appointments. Private school or public. Religion. Organic vs. conventionally grown. Circumcision or no circumcision. The list is endless.
For some, this might seem tedious. To me, however, this has all the earmarks of a good time. I live for negotiating details.
“Stella, this is not a stock or bond or whatever you do with your investing. You don’t think you will grow feelings for this man? Life is not lived in absolutes. Life is lived in between absolutes.”
My mother fancies herself an amateur philosopher. I indulge her. It should also be said that most of the time she’s right. Not this time though. I let my silence speak for itself.
“Raising a child by yourself…this is crazy.”
“Crazy? You did it with no money. I have the means to hire people to help me.”
“Do you think I wanted to? Do you think I would have chosen that life for myself? I prayed every day for your father to come back.”
Fury rips through me faster than a wildfire. My father would’ve only been more of a burden. After all these years, she still can’t see him for what he was––a beautiful, charming loser.
“My mind’s made up. Call me when you’re ready to be supportive.”
The next morning, my cell phone rings a little past 5 am. It’s my brother FaceTiming me, and the eye roll cannot be helped.
“Did you speak to Mom?” I grumble.
“No, why? Is she okay?” Alex snaps, immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion. One of the many pitfalls of his job I guess.
“She’s fine. I didn’t mean to worry you. Where are you?”
I rub the sleep out of my eyes, noting that my brother looks like his usual gorgeous self.
It is beyond explanation how the man can live in the desert with practically no sleep and still manage to look as fresh as a daisy while I look like a tweaker after a two-day bender if I don’t get at least seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.
The running joke in the family is that Alex got the height, the charm, the eyelashes and I got the leftovers. He even came out first.
“Germany. We just landed and I got the feels.” That’s twin speak for “a nagging feeling to hear your voice.” Nothing out of the ordinary for us.
“I’m having a baby.”
Cue the pregnant pause––pun intended. On the other side of the pond, my brother’s confused expression says it all.
“With who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus, you don’t know who the father is? How many people are you dating?”
“Shut up. I’m not pregnant yet. I’m searching for a man to share parental responsibility.”
“What?”
“Co-parenting. We legally share a child.”
“Like a sperm donor?” He looks unhappy with this turn of events. As much as I love my brother, and I do, he’s a total caveman when it suits him.
“I’ll volunteer my sperm,” a deep voice shouts in the background.
Alex turns in the direction of the voice. “Not if I stuff your nuts down your throat first, Hayes. That’s my baby sister you’re talking about.”
“By a minute,” I feel the need to clarify.
“You’re still my baby sister.” He looks behind him again. “I gotta go. I’ll see you in a few weeks and we’ll talk about it.”
“My mind is made up.”
“Being a single mother is the hardest job on the planet, Stel. You know this.”
“Al––I’m rich, remember?”
“It takes more than money,” he quickly rejoins.
And that’s where he and I have always disagreed. Alex has never cared for money either way. He’s forgotten how hard it was. I sometimes wonder if he was brainwashed in a paperback thriller style government bl
ack op. Then his memory loss would make sense.
When I brought up the time I found him crying because he couldn’t play little league because he felt bad about asking our mother for money for the uniform and fees, he had no recollection. Or when he couldn’t take the girl he liked out on a real date because the money he earned shoveling snow all winter went to a new set of tires for the old Ford Fiesta my mother drove to work, he didn’t remember. Alex has somehow forgotten it all. I haven’t.
“I’ll probably be pregnant by the time you get back. Just sayin’.”
“Stel…” he huffs.
“Stay safe. Love you.”
“Love you too,” he mutters sullenly.
The screen goes dark. A newfound sense of relief spreads through me. Now that the family has been notified and reassured I am not playing around, all that’s left is to find a suitable candidate. How hard could that possibly be?
Two completely demoralizing weeks later, I am no closer to finding the father of my child, and my choices are dwindling by the minute. Literally by the minute. In the last ten minutes, I received two more rejections via one of the many co-parenting websites and forums I’d joined. Panic has officially become my middle name.
