Nora stares at me long enough that I decide to wad up my straw wrapper and toss it in her gaping maw.
“Yes, it’s rare, but it can happen even younger,” I say in a rush to fill the awkwardness with a more casual no-big-whoop normalcy.
She finally closes her mouth when she realizes I threw something in there that was not food.
“Thanks very much,” she says, her watery Irish accent spiking slightly. She was born in Limerick, but has lived in the States since high school. She scowls at the spitball pinched between her fingers. Her narrowed hazel eyes shift to mine before she flicks it back at me.
“Nasty.” I bat the slimy ball away. “Will you say something… I don’t know, comforting?”
She huffs. “Hun, you know I prefer that you cut to the chase as opposed to this ‘drag out the misery’ routine.”
“Premature menopause isn’t enough of a hint? Damn, Nor, what does a girl have to do to get some sympathy from you? Pity, even?”
She twists her long black hair on top of her head and knots it into itself. I still don’t understand how that can work without a tie. “My mother was Korean, not comforting. She didn’t know how to be both, so I learned from unconventional sources.”
“What about your father? He’s Irish. Surely he gave you something.”
“Yeah, he’s Irish. He taught me how to drink a pint and swear properly.” Her expression is guarded, but her eyes are dancing.
“I’m sure he’d love to know his legacy will live on with you. I’m going to write that in his Christmas card. Where is Mr. Bennett living these days?” I ask.
“He moved to New York last year after he retired.”
“Cool. We should go visit.”
“Well—”
“After you help me stop freaking out!”
Everyone in the restaurant is staring at us. “Preparing for a scene in our indie film,” I say. As we live just outside of Los Angeles, most people just turn away, uninterested. I turn back to Nora.
“What am I supposed to say?” she asks, shrugging. “Yay for no more periods?”
I fall forward, narrowly missing my ginger ale and dramatically face-plant on the table before I say, “You are. Incredibly. Helpful.”
“I try.”
Some kind of rage-driven gurgling sound rumbles out of me and I push to sit up. As I do, the napkin from the table comes with me. Attached to my forehead. The bottom sucks into my mouth as I breathe in.
Nora completely cracks up. “Okay, I’m going to take pity on you just this once,” she tells me as she tries to tamp down the hilarity. She picks the paper napkin off my face and holds my hand in both of hers. “Aside from missing out on monthly cramps and cotton corks, what’s really going on here?”
I scratch at my forehead and take a breath, preparing to spill my holy-shit beans. “I… think I want to have a baby.”
Her eyes bulge. “With who?”
I tilt my head and bat my baby blues at her. “With you,” I answer with a wink.
Her expression morphs from surprise into humor. It’s far too easy for her. I resent it. “You know that’s not possible, right?”
My eyes roll on my intellect’s behalf. “I hate you.”
“It would be easier,” she says, unruffled. “What about egg freezing?”
“Why does everyone say that? Don’t you think I’ve thought of it?” I ask impatiently. “Basically”—I begin ticking off reasons on my fingers—“hella spendy, too much debt already, and the crappiest insurance this side of actually having insurance.”
“Recipe for success!” Nora’s sarcastic decree is sincerely appreciated but the “touchdown!” arms are unnecessary. At least I know she feels me. Of course she ruins my gratitude by adding, “Sperm-dot-com, it is then?”
I sit back in the booth, sighing with irritation. “I’m suddenly quite unsure as to why I wanted to talk to you about this.”
“I’m your best friend?”
“Why are you saying that like it’s a question?” I snap. We’ve been besties since high school. We even shared an apartment during undergrad at USC and managed not to kill each other. There were homicidal moments, I’ll grant you, but we survived. As did our friendship.
“I’m sorry, love,” she says, reaching across to grab my arms at the wrists. “I’m being a dick—though I don’t have a dick regardless of my enormous balls, so don’t get any ideas.”
That’s about all I can take; I crack. It starts with laughter, but before I know it, tears are running down my cheeks.
“Crap. One too many.” She gets up from her side of the booth and shoves me over with her hip. “Don’t do that! I get it, it’s stressful. You don’t want to have to make this decision, but here it is.”
I fall onto her shoulder and make sure to wipe my nose on her sleeve.
“Right,” she says.
And with that I know my determined, whip-smart friend is ready to batten down the hatches. Or whatever. She wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Let’s do this. Cry it out. I’ll shoot eye daggers at any looky-loos who think it’s an elephant and not a human being wailing in the middle of a diner.”
“Nora,” I moan, but not in the sex noise way. I straighten, but she maintains a hold on my shoulders.
“From what I understand, no one is ever ready to be a mom,” she says, suddenly free and clear of sarcasm and snark. “If that’s what’s throwing you, just let that shit go right now. Have you considered adoption?”
I nod and sniffle. “I know that’s always a possibility.”
“But you want to have your own.” She says it like she knows. She’s not wrong.
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh. “I want the opportunity. I thought I’d pop out a couple in my thirties somewhere, but… you know.”
“Life is what happens—”
“While you’re busy making other plans, yeah,” I say.
“John Lennon.”
“I know.” I give her the side-eye. “Please don’t barrage me with Beatles’ trivia right now. I can’t deal.”
She blows air out her nostrils like the Irish-Korean dragon lady she is. She straightens and stretches, reminding me she’s nearly two inches taller than me. The woman puts on heels and she’s well over six feet. “Don’t hate on my boys now.”
“You weren’t even born when Lennon died,” I argue. “How can you call them ‘your boys’?”
“Don’t shit on my sundae, okay?” she says, smacking her lips as the waitress—who smothers her mirth—sets down her burger.
“That escalated quickly.”
“Back to the topic of the day.” Nora resumes her position on the other side of the booth. You’d think her ability to focus on conversation goes to nil the second she sets eyes on her burger with the way she’s looking at it.
“Your food?”
“Your progeny,” she says without taking her eyes off the food.
“I’m going to have a baby.” I steal a fry.
“Once you get the daddy DNA.” She picks up another fry and throws it at me.
“Yes, and that’s where I need your help.” I pick the tossed fry off my lap and eat it. I’m about to continue, but she interrupts.
“No way! No more back-alley hand jobs. I promised your mom I’d quit,” she tells me with a straight face.
I can’t. I literally can’t. I knock my forehead against the table. Refreshed somehow, I sit up and retaliate. “My mother would never turn someone away from their dreams. You get your hand in every back-alley john’s pants you need to. Hell, siphon a third off with a hose, if you’re so inclined. We’re on a mission!”
She chokes on her lemonade. “Fuckin’ hell.”
“Yeah, you may be the queen of bullshit, Madame Mensa, but I’m no slacker,” I tell her.
“Will you let that go? I tell you about Mensa once and suddenly I’m holier than thou,” she snaps. “I didn’t even end up joining.”
“I’m just saying, I wish I could buy sperm from you,” I say, honestly. She’s gorgeous, ridiculously smart, and would make very pretty, intelligent babies.
“Back off, stalker,” she says, pointing a long finger at me. “But seriously. You’re in the market then? That’s what you want my help with?”
I look around, feeling as if there’s a spotlight on me in a dark room. The decision is still fresh and thereby I doubt myself every other minute. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. My shoulders slump in self-imposed shame. “Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’ve been smoking—hopefully not that shit Jonah and Rae get, which is horrible, by the way.” She pauses to give me a look of disdain as if I’m going to pass the judgment on to the newlywed stoners on her behalf. “But I do not in any way have some inside track on sperm banks.”
I smirk because she’s serious. “I do not need your help finding a sperm bank. I was going to say that buying sperm is not as cheap as I thought it’d be.”
“It’s not unaffordable, though, right?” she asks.
I don’t answer right away because I’m transfixed by her extremely liberal application of ketchup on her bun. It’s not a new thing, but she uses so much I wonder if she should have been given a bowl and not a plate.
Buying a tube daddy is not, in fact, out of range. Though I’m still paying off grad school and my budget is reasonably tight. On top of the debt I charged up and the Brett-sponsored shitty credit, I am afraid of all the extra costs sperm shopping would incur. Not to mention if there are more medical expenses that come along with getting a bun in my oven. Hell, can I even afford to have a kid?
“No,” I say, finally. “It’s manageable, sure. It just doesn’t… it’s not the option I want.”
“Because you’re inundated with options at this point?” She uses the voice I hate—the one that makes me feel like I’m a complete moron.
“Of course not, whorebag, but this way feels so dry.”
“That’s what lube is for, honey.” Not a single beat skipped. It’s part of why I love her.
“Goddammit.” I try not to smile and fail. I rest against the back of the booth and run a hand over my hair.
Nora shakes her head and spreads her arms, burger in one hand. I eyeball it to see if she hits anyone passing by with the ketchup version of a paintball. “You know I can’t pass that shit up.”
“That’s why we’re friends, hot pants,” I remind her with an exasperated sigh. “I wish I had a partner, but I don’t think I have that kind of time.”
She takes a monstrous bite of the sandwich and speaks through a mouthful of ground sirloin, ketchup, and far too many onions. But mostly ketchup. “Pndrf.”
“Honest to God?” I give her “exasperation jazz hands.”
She chews and battles the cheek bulges for the better part of a minute. I maintain eye contact the whole time hoping to make her choke. Just a little.
“Tinder, I said.”
“Oh, yeah, because that was clear,” I say. “So you’re suggesting I bang some random right-swipe and hope for the best? That’s sane. And sanitary.”
She wipes half a bottle of amateur-level stage blood off her face with my forehead napkin and takes a sip of her water. “I was referring to some quick and easy dating, not necessarily hookups.”
“Now simply dating someone gets you pregnant? Good plan.”
“You are determined to be a pain in the ass, aren’t you?”
“I’ll just call up a matchmaker!” My baby blues are intentionally wide and crazy as I gasp and fake some excitement and awe.
She flips me the bird before focusing back on her food. She hums as she thinks, swiping up some more ketchup on her plate with the side of her burger and taking another bite.
I glance at my chicken salad and realize I’m not the slightest bit hungry.
“You could take out an ad?” She still has ketchup on the corner of her mouth, but I’m not telling her until she coughs up some serious advice.
I cackle. “I can see it now: Sassy Single Egg Seeks Virile Fertilizer—Are You The Sperm For Me?”
“You should probably say ‘Sassy and Single-yet-Senior Egg’ given the state of your lady parts.”
“I’m leaving.”