Chapter 42
The Need for Seed Cryobank was a solid hour’s drive from Green Valley, in a building that was modern for this part of the state. It stood west of Gatlinburg, nestled in the far foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, rising above the tree line like a beacon made of glass.
A penis-shaped beacon, I realized, the more I looked at the thing, though it wasn’t quite so overt. It was already obvious from the name that someone was a comedian—either that, or someone was very serious about what they did. So long as the product lived up to the reputation, I didn’t care how the building was shaped.
The parking lot was full despite today being the day after Thanksgiving. It underscored my sense that this place operated all year, like some unstoppable machine. The building was fully staffed, complete with a smiling receptionist in the lobby, who took one look at me and routed me toward the entrance of a grand-looking clinic, its welcoming decor visible through walls of glass.
My investigator’s brain was always working, even on a day like this. It led me to a quick assessment of the scene: eleven women in the waiting room, including me. There were pregnancy and baby magazines, but the art on the walls was all portraits of good-looking teenagers. Quotes next to their images said things like, “I’m studying biomedical engineering at Stanford” and “I take after my donor.”
“Miss Boggs, right this way,” came a voice from across the room.
A woman emerged from a secure area. She wore tailored slacks and a silk blouse. Her silvery-gray hair was smartly cut to her chin. Her tranquil smile reached soft hazel eyes. I took my cue to walk through the door that separated the waiting room from the back, unclear as to why I’d been called in so quickly.
“Sassafras Taylor,” she said by way of introduction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Boggs. I’ll be your experience concierge. We’ll start you off with a facility tour, let you take the catalog for a spin, then take you to meet with our practitioner.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” I threw her a polite smile, though it was impossible not to be distracted. We’d walked into an area that was unlike any medical clinic I’d ever seen.
A wide hallway bisected a space that announced itself as The Man Cave on one side and held a futuristic lab with purple accent lighting and glass walls on the other. The lab was attended by three suited technicians who milled between refrigerated vats and computer workstations. A sign on the door to The Man Cave read Only Donors Past This Point.
“This is quite an operation,” I said plainly, starting to see the reason for the hype about this place.
“We house the most sophisticated cryobank in all of North America,” Sassafras reported with pride. “Ninety percent of our capacity is used to store stem cells, bone marrow, and other living tissue for outside organizations. Only the bottom two floors of the building are dedicated to Need for Seed.”
“How many vials—I mean, how many units—” I stammered, lacking the vocabulary to ask. “Just how much sperm do you store here?”
“About five hundred specimens are from women who froze their eggs and men who froze their sperm for their own family planning. The remaining twenty-five hundred specimens are from donors.”
I nodded and she continued walking me through, speaking with the even composure of someone who had given this tour hundreds of times. I wondered how many babies had been born just because this place existed.
“On this floor are our examination rooms, donor clinics, sample storage, and catalog bays. Upstairs is more sample storage as well as our procedure suites. Tell me, Miss Boggs, are you interested in our catalog?”
The catalog, as I’d inferred from the website, was their listing of sperm donors. “I’d like to see the selection.”
No sooner had she answered with a knowing nod than we arrived onto a different part of the floor. It vaguely reminded me of a private airport lounge. A large, carpeted space was filled with clusters of leather chairs. Each pod was organized to center a large monitor that displayed the clinic’s logo and a button that read Touch Here to Start.
“Are you looking for a specific donor profile?” she asked casually.
A picture of Buck flashed through my mind. I willed it to go away. This visit was a big enough step without thoughts of him. Before I met him, I’d always thought of my future child in my own image, brown skinned, with my brown eyes—a little girl with soft, tight coils like mine that I would tie into Afro-puffs. I scolded myself to stop imagining that same little girl with looser curls and bright blue eyes.
“No, I haven’t thought of anything specific,” I lied through a nervous smile. “Maybe I ought to just look through your book.”
“Calling it a catalog is a bit of a misnomer.” She led me to an empty pod. “It’s a searchable database. This thing is better than Google,” she said with pride. “You just put in your criteria. Race. Ethnicity. Level of education. Religious affiliation. And, my personal favorite, height.”
She smiled at me conspiratorially.
“How do you know the men don’t lie?” Maybe bringing up misleading dating profiles would make me forget how pleasantly Buck hovered over me.
“Because we personally screen and verify every piece of metadata about every single donor in our database. Our donors don’t just come and leave samples. They are subject to stringent and thorough vetting.
“We give Keirsey personality tests; take three-generation medical, mental health, and genetic histories; no matter how often a donor gives, every single sample is tested for carrier traits of certain diseases. There’s a reason why our product costs more, Miss Boggs, and why there’s a waiting list for our services. What happens in The Man Cave is comprehensive.”
I raised a tentative hand and clicked the button on the screen. I now regretted coming alone. Clarine had offered to join, but I’d declined, not having expected much from an initial consultation.
“Can I see pictures?”
Sassafras shook her head. “Not current ones. It poses too big a risk to donor confidentiality. Most donors have added a baby picture of themselves so you can get a sense for their features. And we do have something called our Pretty Meter. Now, that’s a trademarked term. Through a separate confidential process, we have a racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse group of people rate current pictures of the donors on a scale of one to ten.”
The expression on my face must have given away my overwhelm. Sassafras rose from her seat.
“You aren’t scheduled to meet with the practitioner for another thirty minutes, so I’ll just leave you to it. You can use the heart feature to mark your favorites, but nothing you bookmark now will decide anything. Go ahead,” she encouraged. “Get a sense for the caliber of men in our pool.”
I thanked her and smiled, my heart quickening at the prospect of truly taking the reins. Favoriting donors...that felt real. And when I came back, it wouldn’t just be for a consultation. It would change the trajectory of my entire life.
You wanted this, Loretta.
And I had wanted this, dearly.The fact that the timing couldn’t have been worse for my broken heart was just bad luck. Not wanting to squander my time, I gathered my courage and navigated to the top, determined to prove that I could find a man to rival Buck—that there were other fish in the sea, and that he wasn’t the only man ever to have been genetically blessed.
So I typed in my criteria. Genius-level intelligence. Ten on the Pretty Meter. Protector-Supporter on the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Race, ethnicity, and religious affiliation unimportant. My heart fell to the floor after I hit the search button and saw what came back.
Zero results found.