Chapter 9 #2
‘No, not yet, but I’m going to be.’ Rosalie reached for her purse on the counter and took out her phone. Tapping in her passcode, she pulled up a website and displayed the screen for them all to see. ‘I’ve found this agency called Swans. It matches you up to a baby daddy.’
‘Like a sperm donor?’ Hannah asked.
‘Kind of but not exactly. So I’ll fill in a checklist of what I consider essential and what I consider desirable in a man who would be the father of my child. Somewhere, a man will have done the same about his ideal mommy. The Swans agency matches our profiles and we, you know, make a baby.’
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Sofia said, sitting up straighter in her seat. ‘So you guys – man and woman – both want to make a baby? Then who gets the baby?’
Rosalie beamed. ‘Well, that’s why it’s so much better than a donor. We both do.’
Andrea was aware of how comical she must have looked as she rubbed her temples and scratched her brow, trying to follow the idea. ‘It’s like a dating agency but for people who want to make babies?’
Rosalie sipped her drink and shook her head. ‘No, we both want to have a baby but haven’t found the right person, so we agree to make the perfect baby together, and we share custody. It’s just like parents who got divorced. Except much nicer because we won’t fight. See?’
‘Ros, I hate to point out the obvious here but there are no perfect babies,’ Hannah said. ‘Besides that, I mean parenting isn’t easy sharing it with the man you love, never mind a stranger.’
Rosalie drew her lips into a pout and nodded slowly.
‘I see. Silly Rosalie, that’s what you’re all thinking, isn’t it?
She isn’t responsible enough for a child.
She isn’t responsible enough to have a demanding job or husband.
She only loves shoes, and purses, and… and clothes and…
’ She stood from her stool and stuffed her cell phone back in her purse. ‘Shame on you, my so-called friends.’
God, she could be dramatic and ridiculous… in equal measure . Babysitting a tantrum-taking Rosalie was even lower on Andrea’s list of priorities than sitting in this bar. Still, she stood and reached out to grab Rosalie’s hand before she stomped away.
‘Rosalie, sit down. We are your friends and we love you, which is why we want to make sure you’ve thought this through. I mean, you did spring this on us. How long have you been thinking about it? What brought this all on?’
Rosalie’s bottom lip protruded before she replied. ‘Hannah has kids. Three! Is it so strange that I would also want someone to love and take care of? Someone to hang out with all the time and who would love me back?’
Andrea sighed. ‘No, Ros, it isn’t. It’s lovely. But why don’t we all chat it through some more? You would usually have a baby daddy to discuss things with in these situations, wouldn’t you? It’s not an easy decision to make on your own.’
Rosalie resumed her position at the bar, as did Andrea. The whole thing wasn’t worth an argument given, knowing Rosalie, it was a fad that would change direction with the next wind.
‘Have you spoken to your mom and dad about it?’ Hannah asked, wincing slightly in Andrea’s direction.
Of course, because here she was, the woman fucking Rosalie’s father, giving her advice about the birds and the bees.
‘Marco!’ Andrea called, raising a hand to the bartender. ‘We’re going to need another round.’
* * *
At 6.30a.m., having had less than four hours’ sleep, Andrea had decided not to rouse Hannah from her child-free slumber and had completed her presentation to the board of Stellar herself.
At 9.30a.m., armed with a double-shot, full-fat mocha latte, she had stood before the all-male board of directors and told them her ideas for growing and strengthening Stellar division of XM Music Group.
Now, armed with a large bottle of sparkling water, having demolished the Jarlsberg bagel Hannah had picked up for her on the way into the office, she could admit she was failing to work through her hangover and failing to impress her colleagues.
She was gently pacing the floor of her office, her high-heels tip-tapping, one hand on her hip, which was covered by a grey pencil skirt, the other fiddling with the double collar of her blouse.
Clouds hovered in a low line over the backdrop view of Manhattan, the tips of One World Trade Center and 432 Park Avenue poking out above. Her office felt as grey as she did.
‘Knock, knock.’ She turned to see Hunter in her favourite of his suits – light grey with a dazzlingly white shirt beneath and his top three buttons undone.
‘You know, you can’t just say “knock knock” and enter. It’s a call for a response, like the Beale Street blues.’
Hunter’s lips curved. ‘Smart as well as beautiful, that’s my girl.’
Andrea felt her eyes widen as she shot a look at the office door, relieved to see Hunter had closed it behind him.
‘I wasn’t your girl last night.’ She knew it was a bitter and childish response but that was something close to how she was feeling.
Hunter gave her a look that felt as patronising as his words and she thought, in this moment, it would be easier to end their affair than she had been fearing.
He crossed the room toward her and she took a step back toward the window. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said. ‘I know last night must have been… less than ideal.’
She scoffed. Less than ideal? Understatement of the millennium .
‘I want to make it up to you.’
Shaking her head, she moved behind her desk. ‘It’s the middle of the day and, frankly Hunter, I’m not in the mood.’
With his hands resting casually in his pockets like he couldn’t give a damn about how she was feeling, he made for her office door. ‘I meant later. I’ll come to your place tonight. We’ll talk and I’ll show you how much you mean to me.’
As he closed the door behind him, Andrea took a steadying deep breath.
How much I mean to him? Hunter never spoke to her about feelings.
Neither of them ever spoke about feelings.
Was this a turning point? Maybe seeing her next to his wife had triggered something in him.
Made him realise what he could have with Andrea. But did she want it?
She watched him walk along the corridor out of sight, then typed her password into her computer and got back to procrastinating.
What she really needed to do was think of an idea she could present to the board to show her true value – whilst pretending she wasn’t screwing the ultimate boss.
Instead, she typed ‘Seth Young singer/songwriter’ into her search engine.
There wasn’t an abundance of hits but enough to fill the first page of searches – she recommended to her artists (even the newer ones) that at least the first five pages of search results must be about them and they should do whatever it took to make that happen.
The first hit was a link to Seth’s own website – well, at least he had one of those. Second, already, was a YouTube video from last night’s performance at the Presley John concert. The third, a blog article titled ‘Who is Seth Young?’ The fourth, Seth Young: Spotify .
She clicked the YouTube hit and replayed what she could admit to herself was a very special stage debut – on a real stage – last night.
His voice was ruggedly remarkable – a quality she hoped he wouldn’t lose.
His lyrics were… Well, she was watching with a lump in her throat, which told its own story.
And the way he held himself on stage – in front of the mic, the casual movement of his arm as he strummed his guitar, the confident way his fingers plucked the strings – it was all effortless and… sexy.
She found herself simultaneously charged by what he offered and immensely proud of her younger sister for recognising his talent. On her screen, the crowd roared as Randy Jonson shouted his brother’s name into the arena. She cleared her tight throat when the video ended.
The next video that rolled on YouTube was titled ‘The Singing Soldier’.
On screen was a man dressed in the khaki-coloured casuals of a US serviceman.
He was sitting on what looked like a crate in the middle of a group of similarly dressed men wearing Santa hats and holding bottles of beer.
The cameraman stood behind the group and the poor quality of the video suggested he was using an old cell phone.
The ground around them was sand. Military vehicles were parked in the distance. A compound wall surrounded them.
Even in his uniform, despite the shades covering his eyes and the Santa hat covering his hair, the way the man held his guitar and rocked to the beat of his own strum, he was unmistakably Seth Young.
And he started to sing, a song she had never heard:
We see kids playing in the streets
No socks or shoes on their feet
They live in hope of better days
When the men they should look up to
When they correct their ways
And we’re here
And we’re fighting
To make a better place
We’re supposed to be tough
But these things we see
Goddamn they’re rough
We question everything
Except our hope
To make a better place
Lord knows, I couldn’t get by
Without my brothers
Infallible as she tried to be, Andrea found herself pressing her thumbs to the corners of her eyes to stem her impending tears as she listened to his words and the sincerity in his voice.
Then she laughed as a soldier took off his Santa hat and threw it at Seth on the video. ‘It’s fucking Christmas, man!’
She watched Seth laugh and burst into a rendition of ‘White Christmas’.