Screwed. Part 7

"h.e.l.lo, may I help you?" Ada asked the young girl standing outside the front door.

"I'm Jennifer, a friend of Grace's. Is she home?" Jennifer knew that Mrs. Teitelbaum was loaded, but she hadn't expected a maid in a uniform carrying a feather duster.

"Yes, please come in. Grace is in the library doing her homework," Ada said, pointing across an acre of black and white marble floor tiles to a pair of elaborately carved doors.

"Um, thank you." Jennifer's footsteps echoed through the two-story foyer, and she marveled at Grace's good luck to be rescued by a millionaire. It might not be such a bad thing if Grace never made up with her parents.

As Jennifer opened one of the heavy wooden doors, she let out a whistle. Grace and Charlie were doing their homework, sitting on either side of an enormous partners desk made of curly maple with an inlaid leather top. Shelves filled with leather-bound books lined all four walls, right up to the ceiling, and two oversized leather chairs flanked a fireplace. An entire herd of cattle must have died just to decorate this room.

"You're living on the set of Masterpiece f.u.c.king Theatre," Jennifer said.

Startled, Grace looked up and said, "I didn't even hear the bell. Sorry."

"Doesn't matter. Apparently you have people who do that door-opening thing for you." Glancing over at Charlie, who was listening to music on his iPhone and hadn't even noticed her arrival, Jennifer said, "He's even cuter up close. I can't believe he came with the house."

"Why are you being so weird?" For some reason, whenever she was in this room, Grace felt compelled to whisper.

"Because it's been more than three weeks, and you haven't introduced me to your hottie housemate." At first Jennifer had been insulted that Grace hadn't introduced her to the new family right away, but she had to give Grace a pa.s.s - being pregnant and disowned by her family and abandoned by the babydaddy would be enough to make even someone like Grace forget her manners.

"I'm sorry. I'm just so out of it."

"No worries. It's not like I didn't recognize him."

"What do you mean?" Grace asked. Head bobbing in time to the music, Charlie remained oblivious to their guest.

"That whole European vibe, the expensive clothes, the Rolex, the silver Mercedes - he's a celebrity."

"Really?" So distracted by her own s.h.i.+t parade, Grace hadn't been paying attention.

"Yeah, he's like his own MTV reality show. And the fact that he's kind of quiet only adds to the mystery. You haven't heard? Melissa Schwartz is tracking him. She thinks she has the advantage, because of the Jewish thing." Jennifer stage-whispered the last part.

Grace was astounded. She and Charlie hardly ever talked about what went on at school, but now that she thought about it, of course he would attract attention. Next to the typical Silver Lake High School student, who favored torn T-s.h.i.+rts and four-letter swear words, Charlie was definitely out of the ordinary. Well-mannered, incredibly well dressed, with a ridiculously expensive car, he was pretty choice. Grace wondered if he liked Melissa Schwartz, who was cute but kind of squat with a voice that could crack bra.s.s, and she worried that the tightness in her chest might be jealousy, not just heartburn. "Hmm." Saying anything more might betray her real feelings, which she wasn't even ready to acknowledge to herself just yet.

Jennifer's eyebrows went up. "Do you .... Never mind, sorry to barge, but you weren't answering your phone, and I wanted to know if you'd like to go the mall and help me find a dress for my cousin's wedding. That and the fact that I'm incredibly nosy, and you weren't inviting me over, and I really wanted to see your new crib." Jennifer looked at her phone. "But we have to go right now, because I have to get back to babysit my rotten little sister."

"I'm sorry about not having you over. It just felt funny, inviting you to someone else's house. You know?" As generous and welcoming as Mrs. T. had been, Grace didn't want to make herself too much at home. "And of course I'm a mess generally, so there's that ...."

"I know, you and your manners, so I took matters into my own hands. No big deal." Jennifer tapped on the leather desktop in front of Charlie.

"Oh, hi." Charlie pulled the white buds out of his ears, and, ever the gentleman, jumped up and introduced himself. "It's so nice to finally meet you. Grace talks about you all the time. I'm glad she invited you over."

"She didn't. I invited myself," Jennifer said, glaring at Grace.

"Well, however you got here, you're here now. Would you like some tea?"

"Tea?" Jennifer stifled a giggle. He was cute, she thought, but with a little corduroy and a couple of elbow patches, he could be a graduate student at Yale. "Do you have crumpets?"

"I'm sure Vera could find some. Or coffee? Espresso? Scotch?"

Aware that he sometimes came off like a character out of an Agatha Christie novel, Charlie ignored Jennifer's snarky remarks. When he was living abroad, as soon as a guest arrived, you put the kettle on. Apparently that was not the custom in America. Feeling like a stranger in a strange land, he knew he needed to start acting like one of the natives, which included talking like a teenager instead of a British private school headmaster. He sounded old even to himself.

"Thanks, but I actually just stopped by to see if Grace wanted to go shopping with me." Turning back to Grace, she said, "So, do you?"

"Actually, I have a ton of homework that I have to finish. I don't work as fast as I used to. If you wait until the weekend, I'll go with you."

"If I don't find anything today, that sounds good. Charlie, it was a pleasure to meet you. Perhaps we can have tea on another occasion," Jennifer said, enunciating each word and putting on a slight English accent. She extended her hand, which Charlie took and kissed.

"The pleasure was all mine," said Charlie mimicking her My Fair Lady postHenry Higgins voice.

"Come on, Jennifer, I'll show you out," Grace said, eager to get her more-embarra.s.sing-than-usual friend out of Charlie's house. "What was that all about?"

"I was just playing," Jennifer said. "He was fine with it. I like him, even though he's such a grownup. Do you like him?" Grace looked away. "I think you do."

"He's been so nice to me, and right now I can use all the friends I can get. That's all." That was far from all, but Grace didn't feel up to the inevitable ragging that would follow if she admitted to caring about Charlie. Life was complicated enough right now without more boy trouble, and since the byproduct of her first trip around the block was at that moment making her feel vaguely seasick, Grace was determined to proceed with caution.

"I don't mean like him like you like milkshakes, I mean like him, like you thought you liked Nick," Jennifer said, gagging on the last word.

Grace blushed. "I'm not exactly girlfriend material right now."

"Your bright red face says it all. Grace loves Charlie," Jennifer sang.

"Be quiet. I don't even know what love is. I'm just thankful for his patience and understanding." Grace looked behind her, grateful they were having this conversation where there was no way Charlie could hear.

"You keep telling yourself that. Now hurry back to your boyfriend. I've got to go dress hunting. See you later." Blowing a kiss, Jennifer ran to her car and sped away.

Back in the library, Charlie was waiting. "So that's your best friend? I never would have put you two together." Even though they'd been at school together for a few weeks, Grace had worked hard to keep Jennifer and Charlie apart, worried that Jennifer's big mouth and Charlie's old-school manners would clash, and then she would be torn between the two.

"Maybe that's why it works so well."

"Probably. But you need to tell her to check her sources more carefully."

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

"I have it on very good authority that Melissa Schwartz doesn't like boys," said Charlie.

Grace gasped. "You heard all that?"

"Yup."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Grace asked.

"Listening was way more interesting."

"Jennifer's great, but sometimes she doesn't filter."

"Don't apologize for her. I liked her. She's honest; you always know exactly where you stand with someone like that. It's kind of refres.h.i.+ng." If Charlie was going to win Grace over, he knew he had to make nice with Jennifer, and he did appreciate her candor. Most people he had met so far were incredibly phony.

"She's always there for me, sarcastic for sure, but she's got my back." Maybe her two best friends could be friends with each other, and they could face the savages of Silver Lake together - strength in numbers.

"Well, add me to the list. I'm there for you, too." Looking directly into her eyes, Charlie was trying to convey the depth of his feelings in those superficially neutral words. Gazing back at him, Grace hoped he could see how much she liked him. But neither said anything more.

CHAPTER 10.

Dear Baby, You're sweet sixteen weeks and four and a half inches long. Your nervous system works and you can yawn, but you're far from being done. My stomach isn't flat anymore, but n.o.body knows yet. No offense, but I'm not looking forward to the day when everybody at school finds out you're hiding in there. Someday when you're my age, you'll know how I feel. This afternoon Mrs. T. and I are going to see the lady at the adoption agency so we can find you a good home with two parents who can give you the wonderful life you deserve. I promise to choose carefully. Whoever gets you will have to be very special.

Love, Grace When she was seventeen years old, Janet Olson got pregnant at a frat party during the first week of her freshman year at college. Feeling brave and beautiful after one too many plastic cups of garbage can punch, she had fallen into bed with a senior who, through her grain alcoholglazed eyes, looked and sounded like Harrison Ford when he played Han Solo in Star Wars. What this guy had done to her was probably rape, but admitting to that would mean telling her parents what had happened - the underage drinking, the flirting, the messing around. Besides, in 1980, rape was a crime committed by a stranger who dragged his victim behind an abandoned building and a.s.saulted her while she shrieked for help. Janet had floated up the stairs with someone she'd just met and was fantasizing would become her first college boyfriend - no kicking or screaming. When her sluggish brain realized what was happening, that pus.h.i.+ng his hand away and shaking her head did nothing to discourage him, she was too out of it to do anything to protect herself. She vaguely remembered him undressing her, her limbs not responding to her unfocused efforts to control them. Even as his hands roamed, flipping her over like some life-sized rag doll, she felt as if it were happening to someone else. Aware but far removed from what was being done to her, she just lay there while some guy who didn't even know her last name made a baby inside of her. Through a fog, she had felt the sharp pain as he entered her, the full weight of his six-foot frame crus.h.i.+ng her, the bed springs squeaking rhythmically with every excruciating thrust. The stench of beer filled her nose as he grunted and moaned in her face. To this day, she couldn't stand that yeasty smell. Losing her virginity and getting pregnant all in one go had been an incredibly efficient disaster. It would have made a compelling cautionary tale, an unfunny version of Animal House, if only it had happened to someone else.

Afraid to go to the infirmary, too terrified to tell her family, too mortified to tell the boy, whose last name she realized she didn't even know, she ended up having one of those cheap, efficient abortions widely available in the decade following Roe v. Wade. At the time it had seemed the only option, but in the thirty years since she had made what at the time had seemed like the only decision, she wondered every single day about that baby that never was, despite the fact that it had existed for only a few weeks, probably never getting much larger than a peanut before it disappeared in a rush of blood.

Ten years after what had turned out to be a defining moment in her life, Janet Olson founded Children First to honor that little he or she who never had a chance, and to give young girls a soft place to land when they didn't know where to go or what to do. While Janet had nothing against abortion - she couldn't stand those self-aggrandizing, illogical lunatics who believed it was okay to kill doctors to drive home the point that it wasn't okay to kill fetuses - she understood that it wasn't the right option for everyone. Her goal was to create a special place where want-to-be parents could build a family out of what had started out as a tragedy for someone else and could, with a little help, end up being the ultimate gift. One person's lemons could be someone else's lemonade. Not that there weren't hundreds of adoption agencies across the country, but Janet felt she could do a better job with these lost girls because she had already walked in their shoes and come out the other side, not necessarily better, but certainly wiser.

Every photograph of every newborn that crossed her desk made her wonder what her own baby would have looked like, and sometimes it was hard to get through a client interview without bursting into tears, but she knew she was doing valuable work. She loved every single one of these infants as if each were her own. Not that they could make up for what she had lost, but helping other people realize their dreams of a family did allow her to sleep at night without dreaming about her what-if, and that was enough. It had to be.

It was tough for Janet to spend her days talking about babies, especially when she had met and married the perfect man and, in the ultimate irony, when she was ready to be a mother, she was unable to get pregnant. But she couldn't bring herself to adopt a child, no matter how desperately she wanted a baby. Her psychiatrist talked about some unresolved Freudian mumbo jumbo stemming from the rape and guilt over the abortion, and although that may have been the right diagnosis, the shrink was unable to deliver a cure. Janet's husband was disappointed, but because he loved her more than he could ever love anyone else, even a precious child, he never pushed her, despite the fact that he thought it was completely illogical that Janet ran a b.l.o.o.d.y adoption agency but still refused to go through the process herself. So, subscribing to his wife's lemonade theory, they became dog people, proud parents of three miniature dachshunds. Pet owners.h.i.+p could never replace fatherhood, but since nothing could replace an otherwise perfect marriage, her husband made do, and Janet was grateful every single day that he accommodated her craziness, putting their dogs in matching sweaters for their Christmas card photo and not complaining that he was the only Little League coach who didn't actually have a kid on the team, which put him in constant danger of being labeled a dirty old man or worse.

"Welcome Grace, Mrs. Teitelbaum. Please come in. I know this is hard, and you're in a dark place, but let me a.s.sure you that you will never regret what you're doing," Janet said, wis.h.i.+ng, as she did every day, that her job wasn't necessary, that children like Grace didn't have to make adult decisions that would likely plague them for the rest of their lives.

"I don't think I could feel much worse, so thank you."

Grace wondered if this woman had given up her baby as well. Something about the way she spoke, the look in her eyes that went way beyond professional sympathy ... this person had definitely been there. If Mrs. Olson had been a pregnant teenager, then Grace knew it could all work out, because this woman was beautiful and normal and there was nothing about her appearance that gave away her mistake.

"I think the best place to start is to talk about the two different types of adoption: open and closed," said Janet.

Having given this speech thousands of time, Janet could practically deliver it in her sleep. But each girl was unique. Some arrived with parents, who could be supportive and understanding or furious and distant, either because they couldn't get past the pregnancy, or because they wanted to keep their grandchild and their daughter didn't. A few girls came with their boyfriends, the rare relations.h.i.+ps that survived the shock of an unplanned pregnancy. Janet admired those children, mature beyond their years, and she wondered if those couples would make it through to have another baby at the right time that they would be able to keep. Many girls showed up with their best friend, sometimes the only friend left, to prop them up. And then the saddest ones of all, the girls who wandered in all alone, facing the most difficult decision of their young lives without any support whatsoever.

"I don't know. Doesn't it depend on what the adoptive parents want?" Grace asked. Letting someone else make the big decisions would be such a relief. All she wanted to do right now was go to sleep and wake up sometime in late April, her stomach flat and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s small again.

"That depends. If an open adoption is very important to you, then you should only look at potential parents who would agree to that. Some couples won't even consider it. If you want to choose a couple based on other factors, then you can leave it up to them. You have to figure out what your priorities are, Grace."

"What do most people do?"

"It varies. In an open adoption, while you give up all legal rights to your baby, you'll maintain a long-term relations.h.i.+p with your biological child and his or her family. A written agreement between you and the adoptive parents will lay out the extent and frequency of your contact. Typically, the contract might say that the adoptive parents send you pictures every six months, and you get to visit once a year."

"That's weird. Don't you think that's weird, Mrs. T.?" Turning to Helen, Grace needed some input.

"It does sound a little strange. It would be hard to do, at least for me - revisiting a very difficult moment in one's life over and over. But don't a lot of girls choose that?" asked Helen, sitting up and trying to pay attention to the matter at hand.

Instead of listening to the adoption counselor, she had been thinking how stupid she and Abe had been, going through life childless, believing it was G.o.d's will that they not be parents. Becoming a parent was not about sharing blood. It was about sharing their boundless love with a sweet-smelling infant with velvet skin, whatever the provenance of that skin. Instead, all of their love that couldn't be lavished on their own precious babies had been piled onto other people's children through myriad charities. Worthwhile for sure, and Helen didn't regret all of the good things they had accomplished, but it had felt so impersonal, and she had no idea what any of those children were doing now. It was a shame that eighty was too old to adopt a baby.

"Many girls find it comforting to maintain a connection with the baby. It's a way for them to show the child that she was given up out of love, not indifference," said Janet.

"I suppose so," said Grace.

It would be awful to worry that her baby wouldn't know how much love had gone into the decision, that it was truly the only thing that mattered. Grace feared the baby would resent her for giving her up, no matter how good the reason. Thinking about what the bean would be thinking about when it was ten years old made her head ache.

"You hear about adoptees who grow up wondering why they were given up and feeling like something's missing. An open adoption is a way to make sure your biological child knows that you've always loved her and you always will."

"I get it, but I don't want to disrupt the baby's life with its adoptive parents. No matter what people say, I think having lunch once a year with your birth mother could be really confusing. Is there a way that I can let it know how much I cared, that I gave it up because I loved it so much?" Grace asked.

She was worried that by showing up once a year with a bag full of toys and a desperate 'please like me' smile, she would screw up the normal childhood she was trying to give her baby by putting it up for adoption. No matter how articulately she explained her decision, it would be almost impossible for a child not to believe that she was given away because her mommy didn't want her. There were no words to explain to a five-year-old the desperation she'd felt when she found out she was pregnant and the boy she thought she was falling in love with barely acknowledged that he, the only guy she'd ever been with, was the father. Grace didn't know how she was ever going to be able to tell this baby that she loved her so much that she didn't want to raise her, after conceiving her in the back of an SUV with a guy she hardly knew, who wanted her to have an abortion. It wasn't going to replace Goodnight Moon as a bedtime story anytime soon. Besides, attempting to balance that fine line between loving this child like the mother she was and maintaining the emotional distance that was required because she had signed away her legal rights as a parent seemed an impossible feat. Grace was fairly certain that she lacked the strength of character to step in and out of her child's life according to a schedule drawn up by a bunch of lawyers, a sort-of-but-not-really fake aunt who just happened to bear a startling resemblance to this child.

"Absolutely, I understand what you're saying. It's devastating even when you know it's right. There's a middle ground called a semi-open adoption that might appeal to you. You can meet the adoptive parents, but after the baby is born, you won't have any contact with the child," Janet offered.

"That sounds better. I would like to meet the people who are going to raise my baby, know who's going to take care of her, but I don't think I can manage the rest of it," Grace said.

"Some girls don't even want to see the baby after giving birth. But others need to say h.e.l.lo and goodbye, make peace, you know. That's something else to consider," said Janet.

"It's too much to think about. Do I have to decide today?" Grace asked. Maybe Jennifer in her cut-and-dried, crystal-clear world would have some suggestions about how to handle all these transitions.

"What about keeping track of the baby as she grows up? Do you want to see pictures of her?" Helen asked, still fantasizing about signing up with Children First to find a baby of her own.

"I don't know. That would be okay, I guess. It's so hard to imagine what I'm going to feel like afterwards." Grace sighed.

There were so many decisions she had to make, all stemming from one stupid choice made when she was high on fake love and a flood of hormones. It was truly laughable. Maybe it had been better in the old days when girls like her were hidden away in church-run homes as their stomachs expanded. When the infants were born, they were whisked away to anonymous new families, and the girls returned home, where no one ever spoke of the matter again, except to perpetuate the fiction by talking about the eight-month visit with the relatives on the other side of the country. Most of those children grew up believing they had only one set of parents, and the young girls who gave up their babies without ever laying eyes on them managed to stuff all that pain into the deepest crevices of their souls, growing into women who married and had more children with husbands who believed in their midcentury innocence that their wedding night was the first time their wives had been in bed with a man.

"When the baby's older, old enough to understand, if he wants to find me, then I would love to meet him. But I don't want to confuse him when he's little. That wouldn't be fair." Not knowing what the bean was, Grace kept switching genders when she talked about it.

At the moment, Grace felt most comfortable with a semi-open adoption. Meeting potential parents, getting a feel for them, was important. However, once she made that decision, Grace didn't want to spend the next eighteen years hovering on the fringes of her baby's life. That would make it impossible for her to move on and make a life for herself, which she so desperately wanted to start doing.

Janet slid a large black loose-leaf notebook across the desk. A snapshot and a two-paragraph summary seemed more suited to finding a date than selecting a mother and father for her baby, but what was the alternative? These girls had to start somewhere.

"Look through this book and see if any of the couples jump out at you. Check in with me at the end of the week and we can set up another meeting."

"Thank you, Mrs. Olson." Grace picked up the book and held it close to her. Inside this notebook might be the people who would become her baby's family. While she hadn't ever seriously thought about keeping the bean, it was still strange to be taking this giant step closer to giving it up.

"There is one more thing. Although you've said the father has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with this child, we're going to need that in writing. If he doesn't sign away his parental rights, as you will be doing, there is always the danger that he could change his mind and sue to gain custody."

That disastrous scenario had occurred not long after Janet had started Children First, when a seventeen-year-old girl showed up, desperate to find someone to adopt her twins. She claimed not to know who the father was - a drunken one-night stand at a Pink Floyd concert - and Janet had let it go at that. Well acquainted with the hazards of a night of partying, she had no desire to torture the girl by interrogating her about the whereabouts of the dirtbag who had impregnated her. Three days before the twins' first birthday a young man, reeking of pot and an apparent aversion to basic hygiene, stormed into her office, demanding to know where his children were. It had been an ugly court battle, some sleazy ACLU-type ranting about fathers' rights while his client sat like a statue, eyes bloodshot, clearly stoned out of his mind. And while the adoptive parents had ultimately prevailed, it was only after much heartache and the delivery of a big, fat envelope of cash to the on-again, off-again father. From that day forward, Janet tracked down every sperm donor, and if her private detective couldn't find the b.u.m or he refused to sign the paper, Janet refused to take on the client. It killed her to turn away a desperate girl, all the more tragic because the a.s.shole who had gotten her into this mess wasn't stepping up, but she had a business to run, and she couldn't risk some lunatic coming out of the woodwork in search of his baby or, more likely, a quick payoff.

"I think I can get that, as long as no one finds out about it. Nick, the father, he never told his parents, and not that I care about him, but I don't see the point in ruining his life too." Why she felt the need to lighten Nick's burden, Grace didn't know, after the way he'd used her, but wrecking his life wouldn't do anything to repair hers, even if it made her feel better.

"It's just an insurance policy. That piece of paper will never see the light of day," Janet promised.

"Okay." That meant Grace would actually have to talk to Nick. She hadn't spoken a word to him since that day on the lake when she first told him about the bean. At the thought of seeing him again, her heart pounded. Maybe she would take Jennifer with her for backup.

"And if he gives you any trouble, just remind him that if he doesn't sign it, no one will adopt the child, and he'll be on the hook for the next eighteen years. That little secret won't be so easy to hide from his parents." Janet had plenty of experience dealing with reluctant fathers who were wavering when it came time to step up to the plate. Teenage boys were all strut and testosterone, right up until the moment they actually had to behave like grown men, and then most of them turned into stuttering little boys.

"That should do it," Grace said, not sure she had the strength to face him again, but knowing she had no choice, and well aware that she needed to stand up to him if she was ever going to come out of this nightmare in one piece.

"If you like, you can set up a meeting here, and I can explain everything to him myself. I know how hard this must be for you." It was easy to see Grace's anxiety as she chewed ferociously on her lower lip. She was a ball of nerves, and that couldn't be good for the baby.