I smile and say, “I know….It feels a little ridiculous, checking the boxes for a baby. Maybe I should pay up and just get to the essays and photos.” I scroll down the site, clicking on the price menu.
“Definitely. Let’s do that,” Gabe says, as I pull my credit card from my wallet and begin typing in the numbers. It feels a bit hasty, especially when I’m not even sure this is the sperm bank I will ultimately use, but I’m afraid of losing momentum, as well as Gabe’s attention. Before I click the final button making payment, I say, “You really think I should pull the trigger here? This isn’t cheap.”
“Yeah. I do,” Gabe says, nodding. “I think this will give us a good gut feeling.”
I look up at him and say, “But you’re always saying I have bad instincts when it comes to guys….”
“You do,” Gabe says, smiling. “That’s why I said give us a gut feeling. Now. Move over, and let’s read these essays.”
chapter twelve
MEREDITH
If you don’t want to have sex with me, maybe I should find someone who will.
Those are Nolan’s exact words when I rebuff his Monday morning advances, and the first thing I share with Amy once I’m settled on the white slipcovered sofa in her Midtown office for my monthly appointment. The comment has been echoing in my head all day as I draft a response to an emergency motion to compel, prepare for a hearing on a motion to dismiss, and attempt to negotiate a global settlement on behalf of one of my top (but least likable) clients.
“He said that?” Amy asks, leaning forward in her usual straight-back chair across from me, looking the slightest trace appalled. She doesn’t often overtly disapprove of Nolan, but I relish it when she does. It is my validation, an excuse to feel the way I do.
“Yes…He said it jokingly,” I reluctantly confess. “But he still said it.”
Amy nods, her calm, inscrutable mask returning. “And how did you respond?”
“I told him to go for it,” I say, reclining into the sofa cushions. “If he can find someone who wants to have sex at six-thirty A.M. on a rainy Monday, all power to him.”
“Did you really say that?”
“More or less, yes,” I say, as I admire Amy’s polished ensemble—wide-legged, cuffed navy trousers, a bright white button-down blouse, and black pumps that look fresh-out-of-the-box new. Everything about Amy is crisp, uncluttered, smart—her clothing, mannerisms, and advice.
“Hmm. Well, try to avoid responses like that in the future,” Amy says. “Joking or otherwise.”
“He started it,” I say.
“Yes. But you don’t have to play along….He just might take you up on your suggestion.”
I shake my head and say, “He would never do that.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Don’t be na?ve, Meredith,” Amy says. “Pretty much all men—and all people—are capable of cheating under the right circumstances.”
It is the sort of concrete insight that sets her apart from so many other therapists, and the main reason I keep coming back to her. She actually adds to the conversation, rather than just listening to me talking away self-indulgently.
She adds, “Do you know how easy it is for a nice-looking, successful man like Nolan to find someone who will have sex with him?” She taps her mechanical pencil on her tablet, the rhythm of a rhetorical question.
I give her a little shrug.
“Well. It’s easy to be cavalier when you’re confident nothing is going on,” Amy says. “But what if he actually had an affair?” She crosses her legs. “How would you feel?”
I sigh and tell her that I can’t fathom Nolan ever cheating on me. “He’s far from perfect, but he’s not a liar,” I say, thinking that his flaws fall more under the heading of not doing things. Not listening. Not helping with Harper. Not putting his clothes in the hamper.
“Well, I’d like you to try to imagine it anyway,” she presses. “Picture Nolan…spending time with one of his more attractive female friends. Innocent at first…They simply enjoy a strong rapport—a genuine, platonic affection.”
“He doesn’t have female friends,” I say.
She gives me a skeptical look.
“What?” I say. “He really doesn’t.”
“Okay. Then perhaps a colleague. Someone he likes and respects at work.”
“Honestly, I can’t picture anyone that fits that bill,” I say, just as Diane West, our new neighbor and a recently divorced mother of one teenaged son, pops into my head. Diane is a decade older than I am, somewhere in her mid-forties, but has a fantastic figure, an elegant sense of style, and an impressive career as an equine veterinarian.
“Okay. I just thought of someone,” I say, deciding to play along with Amy’s game. “Our neighbor Diane.”
“Okay.” Amy nods. “Tell me about her.”
“She’s a horse vet. She also rides. Pretty, very confident.”
“Comfortable in her own skin?” Amy says, an expression she often uses, and one of her litmus tests for happiness.