430 PM Adam
“So, wait a second,” the Ghostbuster said, “you just, like, went up to Norwalk, Connecticut, and jerked off in a cup?”
Adam considered the question.
He said, “I mean, yeah, basically, I guess.”
“And now they’re going to use a turkey baster or something and put it inside the woman?”
“Well, first they have to make embryos. That’s where the egg donor comes in. Then they test the embryos, and then they transfer one to the gestational carrier.”
“And that’s when they use the turkey baster.”
“I don’t think they use an actual turkey baster.”
“My cousin’s a lesbian, and she and her wife used a turkey baster. Twice.”
“That’s some luck.”
The Ghostbuster worried a corner of the label on his beer bottle, pulling it away from the glass. “You know, to be honest, I thought the whole thing was going to be a little more complicated than that.”
Adam shrugged. He said, “Science is pretty amazing,” and shook the ice in his cup.
He was lying. The whole thing was, in fact, a little more complicated than that.
For example, when the nurse at the clinic in Norwalk had handed Adam the specimen cup into which he was meant to ejaculate, she gave him very stern instructions to not only collect every single drop of his semen but also to record the exact time that he came—preferably, she added, to the second.
And if he did manage to drip any on the side of the cup or, say, over one of his knuckles, then he needed to make note of that too, so the doctor could account for it in his records.
“Is that a big deal?” he’d asked her. “I mean if it, like, dribbles a little?”
The nurse handed him the cup. It was plastic and had a sturdy screw-on top. Affixed to one side of it was a label with two blanks for him to fill in. One of them said Name, and the other, Time.
“Just try to get it in the cup,” she said, then left him and closed the door.
Adam had looked around him. The room was small, about twice the size of an office cubicle.
A counter ran along one side of it, at the center of which was a sink, a bottle of antibacterial hand soap, and a bowl filled with individual sachets of lubricant.
There was also a chair on which Adam was ostensibly meant to sit while he masturbated.
It was upholstered in fake leather and covered with the sort of crinkly paper that was used to protect chairs in dentists’ and doctors’ offices.
It stuck to the backs of Adam’s thighs and, whenever he moved his wrist in the requisite jerking motion, made a sound that was certainly loud enough to be heard at the nurse’s desk outside.
This was embarrassing. For a minute or so he tried to be as quiet as possible, but then he reminded himself that the entire reason he had come to Norwalk, Connecticut, was to masturbate, and that the stranger who was sitting outside was the same stranger who had led him to the room in which he was currently sitting, a room whose designated purpose was, well, masturbating.
He reminded himself that when straight couples made babies, they were often in places far less comfortable than this—places like the backseats of Volkswagens and all-inclusive resorts in Cancún.
He gritted his teeth, cleared his mind, and got to work.
“So, are you going to, like, tell the kid where he came from at some point?” the Ghostbuster asked.
“Well, we don’t know if the baby will be a he. We’ve actually decided not to select the sex.”
“You can do that?”
“Some people do.”
The Ghostbuster rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “Wow.”
Adam had come to hate these conversations—the intensely personal questions strangers always asked him, and the obligation he felt to answer them; the worry that he was giving something secret away. The Ghostbuster said “Wow” again, and Adam smiled. He wondered where Mia had gone.
“How long does the whole thing take?” the Ghostbuster asked.
“Around two years.”
“Two years?!”
“If we’re lucky.”
“Christ, you could have one of mine, if you want. We’ve got three, and let me tell you—”
Another Ghostbuster came up to stand beside him—a woman who, given the urgent manner in which she whispered to the first Ghostbuster, Adam surmised was his wife.
He stood there awkwardly, checking his phone for texts from Rami, and glancing every so often over his shoulder.
Then he heard the Ghostbuster’s wife say, “Well, David, that’s what happens when you put on a diaper drunk,” and decided to make a trip to the kitchen to refill his cup.
On the way, he stepped over discarded bits of costumes, lying forgotten in the grass.
A Scooby-Doo mask and a prosthetic hook hand.
Cruella de Vil’s cigarette holder. As he neared the house’s back door, he took off the glasses he was wearing and rubbed their lenses along the hem of his shirt.
The tape around the bridge had come undone, and he took a moment to reaffix it.
The door he walked through led into a darkened living room.
All the floor lamps were turned off, and the sun had dipped far enough below the tree line to cast everything in shadow.
He passed behind the couch and then into the foyer, where he heard the echo of Mia’s voice.
He listened for a moment, then followed it to find her in the kitchen.
“That’s not the point, Sasha,” she said.
She was standing with her ass pressed up against the countertop.
Even though she was wearing her coat, her arms were folded across her chest, like she was protecting herself from the cold.
On the other side of the kitchen, Sasha searched for something in the open refrigerator.
Mia took a quick look at Adam. The lead singer of Theo’s band thanked everyone for indulging them.
An amplifier screeched and no one clapped.
Sasha said, “Can we talk about this later, please?”
“No, actually, we can’t. Because I never see you.”
Sasha’s shoulders tensed. “I’m not doing this right now,” she said, and began opening and closing the refrigerator’s drawers.
“Isn’t that convenient.”
Adam took a step deeper into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Sasha’s a liar. That’s what’s going on.”
There was a small crashing sound near the refrigerator: a plastic bottle of ketchup lay on the kitchen floor. Sasha said, “Shit.” She reached down to pick it up and replaced it in one of the shelves that lined the door, just as Theo came in from outside.
“Babe, do you know where the bat is?”
“The what?”
“The baseball bat. The kids are dying to get this pinata going.”
“Why would I know where the baseball bat is?”
“Because you bought it last week?”
“I’m sorry, am I the only one who lives here? Are you incapable of finding something yourself?”
“Uh, okay. Wow.”
The refrigerator started beeping. Mia said, “Sasha,” and Sasha covered her face with her hands.
Theo frowned; Adam ran his tongue across his teeth.
A bowl of apples sat in the center of the kitchen island, the overhead lights reflecting off their skins.
He still couldn’t figure out what was going on—all he knew was that there was an uneasy fluttering in his stomach. He picked up one of the apples.
He said, “Guys, I’m not sure what happened, but I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal.”
No one acknowledged him. Mouthing something to herself, Mia pulled her arms tighter across her chest. Sasha opened another drawer, then slammed it. Bottles rattled in their shelves.
“There was a whole fucking tray of Jell-O shots in here,” she said. “And now they’ve disappeared.”
The door from the foyer swung open and through it Richie stepped into the kitchen. Bits of orange frosting coated the stubble of his beard. There was a half-eaten cupcake in his right hand.
“There’s something wrong with these cupcakes,” he said. And then: “Ohhh, are we having a group meeting?”
Mia unfolded her arms. “Sasha’s bailing on our trip to Miami to go hang out with Emily and her kids in DC.”
“Emily Emily?”
“Emily Emily.”
Richie rolled his eyes. He walked to a trash can, opened it, and dropped the cupcake inside.
He said, “Gross.”
Shutting the refrigerator, Sasha turned around and closed her eyes. Adam watched as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“I’m sorry I can’t go to Miami, Mia,” she said.
“The point isn’t Miami!”
“Okay, but are you sure about that?”
“Oh my God, Sasha, are you being serious right now? The point is you fucking lied to me!” The fluttering in Adam’s stomach grew faster.
Mia turned to face Richie, raising the register of her voice.
“She made up some bullshit excuse about Theo going on a work trip to Phoenix and not being able to find childcare. But that’s not what she’s doing at all.
She’s going down to DC to hang out with my ex-boyfriend’s wife. She lied.”
Theo said, “I have to go to Phoenix?”
Richie said, “Oh, that’s shitty.”
Outside there were four older children taking turns on the pinata with a sizable stick. Adam heard four loud whacks in quick succession, followed by a happy scream. Richie took the apple from him. He gave it two rubs against his shirt, then pierced it with his front teeth.
Sasha threw up her hands.
“This is insane,” she said. “I mean, this is actually insane. You want to know why I lied to you, Mia? Because I knew that if I didn’t, this is exactly what would happen. You’d throw some fit—”
“I am not throwing a fit.”
“—and I’d have to deal with you being pissed at me all afternoon.
” She pressed her fingers against her temples.
“Look, Emily needs my help, okay? She has a demanding job and two kids to take care of. I know that it’s impossible for you to understand what that amount of responsibility is like, but that’s not my fault, and it’s not hers either.
You’re just going to have to accept that this is something I have to do. We can go to Miami another time.”
Mia took a sharp breath, her eyes glossing over. Richie ate another bite of his apple. His jaw moved in slow, methodical circles.
He said, “You’re a selfish bitch, Sasha.”
“Excuse me?”
Theo stepped between them. He said, “That’s enough, Richie.”
But Richie pushed past him. “You. Are. A. Selfish. Bitch,” he said, and took a third bite. “Sasha.”
“Oh, okay.” She laughed cruelly. “Coming from the king of kindness himself—who, by the way, couldn’t even be bothered to wear a costume.
That’s great. That’s really great, Richie.
” She laughed again, this time tilting her gaze to the ceiling.
“I was trying to be nice, you know. By inviting all of you? I thought, okay, we haven’t seen them in a while, this will give us a chance to, I don’t know, evolve.
But instead all you do is come out here and act like a bunch of children and embarrass me in front of my friends. ”
“We’re your friends, Sasha,” Mia said. “Are you forgetting that? We’re the ones who have known you the longest. We’re the ones who actually care about you.”
“Are you? Because five minutes ago you were treating Claire and Cassie like they were some backcountry hicks.”
“Oh my God, I was just trying to be funny!”
“You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“Okay, well, guess what: That woman Claire? She sucks. Okay? She sucks. She’s like a fucking walking Lululemon headband.”
“Well, I like her!”
Mia slammed her open palm against the island.
“Goddamn it, Sasha! How many times do I have to tell you: you don’t like her, you like me!”
Veins bulged along the length of Sasha’s neck. Her fists clenched.
She said, “What do you want from me, Mia? To pretend like we’re all living together in some shitty apartment in Midtown East again?
To listen to you go on and on and on about how you don’t know if you ever got over Marco?
To respond with LOL to every stupid dog video you send me?
To keep retelling the same goddamned stories that we’ve been telling for the last twenty-two years because that’s the only thing we have to talk about anymore?
I can’t do that! I’m a fucking adult! I have kids, and a marriage, and a mortgage, and, like, in-laws who I have to cook for on Thanksgiving!
So, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to tell you, Mia, other than to grow up. Okay? Just grow up already!”
The air left the room. There were sounds from the party outside, though now they seemed distant. Mia’s chest heaved; she pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. Richie finished what was left of his apple, then tossed its core into the sink.
He turned to Theo and said, “You know that Sasha fucked Mitch Reynolds a few years ago, right?”
Theo laughed. “What?”
“Yeah. It happened a number of times, apparently. A proper affair, if we want to be ‘grown-up’ about it.” He exaggerated the air quotes around grown-up, then wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “But, oof, can you imagine? Having sex with Mitch Reynolds? That’s some desperate shit.”
The color drained from Theo’s face; Sasha’s jaw trembled.
In the year that followed, Adam would think about this moment many times a day—first with anger, and then with regret, and then, finally, with a fantastical desire to crawl back inside of it, deconstruct it, and reconfigure its pieces into a wholly different arrangement.
He would blame himself for not being able to stop something he saw coming from its beginning, for not being able to defuse a ticking bomb.
More than anything, he would wonder how they had gotten here.
He would wonder how five people could have loved each other so completely, only then to decide they were repulsed by the monsters they had become.
“Get out,” Sasha said. “All of you.”
Adam took off his glasses.
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“I said get out, Adam.”