Stella

“Gross. Someone farted,” I whisper-hiss.

I really hate hot yoga. I really do. The dripping sweat. The odors. The strong urge to bathe in a vat of bleach afterward. The things we do in the name of friendship.

In a moment of weakness, I allowed my best friend to talk me into buying a ridiculously expensive package of classes for the yoga studio every New Yorker is flocking to like flies to dog poop, The Bend. “It’s the guy next to me. I’ve gotta get out of here or I’m going to barf.”

The friend in question is currently glaring at me, her dark eyes two slits communicating her lack of sympathy for my predicament. Nothing new for Delia, sympathy is not a dominant trait in her bloodline.

“Suck it up.”

“You suck it up. I’m leaving.” Ungracefully uncurling my body from its pretzel-like state, I grab my hand towel and place it over my mouth and nose. “Are you coming?” I inquire, the sound muffled by Egyptian cotton.

“Wimp.”

Delia stretches her full five-foot-ten-inch length out of king pigeon pose. While we quietly gather our stuff, the yoga instructor scolds us with an eyebrow, if an eyebrow can be scolding, which in this case it can. Then we head for the exit.

Cordelia Lawrence, aka Delia Law, as she’s known to her throng of fans. Dels is a best-selling author of over twenty paranormal romance books. She’s also my best friend. Has been since my freshman year at Princeton when she walked up to my table at the Starbucks close to campus and said, “Can I sit here, or are you a total asshole?”

There was no good answer to that.

Heavily immersed in my economics textbook, I had no idea the question was directed at me. It didn’t register because no one ever spoke to me. Mostly because I never spoke to anybody. A loud rap of knuckles on the table startled me out of my reading zone.

“What?” I snapped. Needless to say, there are only a handful of things I despise more than people interrupting me while I’m reading.

A pair of toe-tapping Doc Martens lace-up boots moved into my line of sight. My eyes climbed up the leopard print tights attached to those boots, to a faux fur shaggy black coat. They kept climbing until they reached wild red hair and an obnoxious glare.

“I said––”

“I know what you said,” I interrupted, projecting all the irritation I was feeling. “Why are you saying it to me?”

“Because those two are assholes––” she reiterated, jerking her chin at the only other tables with available chairs. “King of the douchebags over yonder needs the chair to rest his million-dollar leg. And the bonehead at the table next to his is being stood up for her blind date and refuses to accept it.”

At one table sat the captain of the soccer team. I only knew who he was because everyone in the history of Princeton knew who he was. And at the other, a mousy blonde sat across an empty chair looking around furtively. I wasn’t sure about the blind date. However, it must be said that she was wearing way-too-much makeup for the four o’clock Starbucks crowd.

“I can’t go back to my room, man,” the angry giant whined. “My roommate’s having a sexathon with her new dude and I can’t listen to her scream ‘fuck me harder, Daddy’ one more time. I just can’t do it.” She exhaled raggedly, her desperation coming through loud and clear. At my unsympathetic expression she seemed to lose some of her spine. “Can I sit here, please?”

“Fine,” I answered with great reluctance.

It was the relief on her face that got to me. She didn’t seem to be winning any popularity contests either, and I knew what it felt like to be marginalized. The difference was I had stopped caring long ago, whereas this bizarrely dressed, tall stranger still cared. It was easy to conclude that the bluster was all an act.

Her face lit up. She pulled out the chair with gusto, scraping the floor loud enough to raise the dead, and sat. “Sorry,” she whisper-hissed. “I’m Delia.”

“No talking.”

“Gotcha.”

“I mean it. I have an advanced econ exam tomorrow.”

“My lips are buttoned.”

For obvious reasons, I didn’t believe her; the mere existence of her was loud. After a warning glance, I buried my gaze in my econ textbook. “Get all the stuff you need out of your bag now because I don’t want to hear you rummaging.”

When my instructions were met with silence, I looked up to find her staring back at me. She smirked. No smile was forthcoming from my side of the table, and none would be. I had scholarships to worry about and an impossibly high GPA to maintain.

“Hoorah,” she sang, adding a jaunty salute.

She had me at hoorah. Against my best attempt to stop it, I smiled.

“Stella.”

That definitively unquiet afternoon marked the beginning of an epic friendship.

It’s uncommonly hot for May. Spring seems to have sprung into summer early, the sidewalks of SoHo congested with overly pale people seeking a bit of sunshine.

“Balthazar’s for steak frites?” I suggest with a guilty expression.

The minute we stepped out of that humid pit of stink my stomach started rumbling. Another reason I hate hot yoga. What’s the point of suffering through all that if the second I get done I feel like dive-bombing into a gallon tub of ice cream?

“You’re the worst influence,” Delia returns.

I’m usually on my best behavior around her. Food is a major trigger she’s been struggling to control her whole life, and I one hundred percent support her, but today I can’t muster the requisite self-control. Ten minutes later we’re shown to one of the outdoor tables.

“How’s the search going?”

Her question has an immediate effect on my mood. As in it is now wallowing in the pits. “Jeff finally called me back.” Delia has always hated Jeff, which is why the disgusted look she gives me is no surprise. Swiping a French fry from the middle of the table, I angry-chew. “He started to laugh before I made it halfway through my bullet points.”

Jeff, my one and only serious relationship. If you can call having semi-regular sex and catching a movie every other week a relationship. We dated for two years while he was attending Harvard Law and I was getting my MBA.

At the time, it worked. Mostly because we were equally busy, consumed by our studies and our soon-to-be careers. Was he my one true love? No. And I never assumed I was his. Then, the day of his graduation, he proposed.

To say I was surprised is putting it lightly. I was blindsided. He knew how I felt about marriage. I told him repeatedly. Did he listen? Of course not. And made me out to be the bad guy.

Although I’d received offers from a number of financial institutions based in New York, I hadn’t accepted one yet. He, however, had already accepted a position at one of San Francisco’s most prestigious law firms and had assumed the little wifey––the little wifey being yours truly––would dutifully follow him to California.

If I had serious reservations about marriage before that moment, then afterward I had none. The last proverbial nail drilled into the coffin, marriage was officially dead to me––may it rest in peace.

“He said I was too closed off to be a mother. His exact words. This is the same man that when I asked him why he wanted to marry me, he said quote because we make a killer team unquote. Never mentioned love once.”

“Swoony. It’s a mystery how he’s still single.” Delia stares at my French fries with ambivalence. I stop chewing. “Should I ask them to take these away?”

“No,” she practically barks. “I’m made of tougher stuff than that. Give me some credit.”

“You’re such a masochist.”

“I do love a good, hard spanking once in a while.”

“I thought you weren’t into that.”

“Tastes change,” she says, with a one-shoulder shrug. “I like to dish it out. I should be able to take it.”

No surprise. Delia has always been the type to experiment whereas I like to pick a lane and stay there. “Back to Jeff. He’s not that bad. He’s just…Jeff.”

“Exactly. Who’s left on your spreadsheet?” She shovels lettuce in her mouth and makes a face.

“How do you know I have a spreadsheet?”

Her brown eyes slowly tear away from the bread she’s eyeballing with intent to destroy and meet mine, a knowing smirk already forming. “You put everything on a spreadsheet.”

“I do not.”

“You’re the only nutter I know that puts her monthly on a spreadsheet.”

“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 black 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.

“Can I have your sperm?”

“Umm, no,” says my very handsome friend. He’s standing in the doorway of his stunning Upper East Side townhouse, wearing a completely bewildered expression. Who can blame him? It’s 10 p.m. and I’m in my pajamas, my bunned-up hair hanging askew off my head.

“Before you say no, hear me out––”

“No,” he repeats as if I haven’t just given him instructions. He eyeballs my pjs with the pigs with wings pattern on them. A joke gift Delia bought me when she told me she sleeps naked and I said I would do that when pigs fly. They’re very comfy.

“Are you in your pajamas?”

“Yes.” I push past him to get inside. “I’m prepared to assume all cost,” I rush to say, my voice high and marked with desperation. “You know my financial situation. You know I don’t need help in that regard. And you can participate as little or as much as you want in raising our child––”

“Slow down, Stella––”

“Jeff said no.”

One of the few perks of having dated Jeff was that he introduced me to Ethan who to this day remains one of my closest friends. It was Ethan who informed me that his best friend needed a property manager. A position that required discretion. My mother was hired by the number one draft pick of the NY Titans, quarterback Calvin Shaw, and the rest is history. She’s been working for him ever since, long after she stopped needing to work because of the exponentially massive improvement of my financial situation.

I walk directly into his living room and come to an abrupt stop. Stacks of cardboard boxes are everywhere.

“Are you moving?”

“Yes.” Ethan brushes a hand over his gorgeous face. “Where’s this coming from?”

“I want a baby and the gays said I was too structured. And we’re friends, right? We respect each other, right?”

“Wait? What gays?”

“The architect, and the professor of economics at Columbia. Keep up, will you.”

Ethan chuckles and I glare back. This wasn’t supposed to be this hard. And it’s poking at all my sore spots.

“I really liked the professor. He’s the one that said I was too structured. The architect said he found a more geographically suitable candidate, but I’m pretty sure he was lying because I would’ve moved uptown if that was the only issue.”

“Okay––” he says, taking a deep breath, his hands on his hips. “You want a baby.”

“Yes.”

“So go to a sperm bank.”

“Too anonymous.”

“I’m not giving you my sperm, Stella. I’m moving to Los Angeles in less than two weeks and I’m getting married. I don’t think she’d be too keen on me handing over my sperm.”

Stunned, I rock back on my heels. “What?! To who?”

“To a woman I’m in love with.” He smiles then, the sweetest of smiles, and I know he’s serious. “Camilla’s friend.” At my blank response he continues, “The actress––we haven’t talked in months.”

“I called.”

“To tell me my investments are up thirteen percent.”

“You’re up fourteen for the year now. And you said you were too busy for a drink.”

“You canceled the last time.”

Totally dejected, I slump down on the armrest of his couch. “You were the last name on my list.” I can’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. I’m so bummed I may start to cry and I am not a crier.

Ethan chuckles softly. “Wow, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Why not a sperm bank?”

“I want my kid to know his or her father. I don’t want to tell them I bought their father.”

Ethan’s face goes unnaturally still. Then it does something strange. The smile stretching across his face is strange, that is. “I think I may have a solution for you.”