Whispering Hearts Read online

  “My father hates wasted time, too, but for a different reason.”

  “Men think in almost a different language,” she said, and smiled.

  “But leave tonight?” I said. “It’s very quick. I barely have time to give what your husband tells me any deep thought.”

  “Nothing will happen during the next few days, anyway, except you’ll get a free medical exam. I’d hate it, but you could turn around and come back immediately or soon afterward. And you’d be paid something significant for doing just that. But let’s not talk about the money. It makes it all so much… less than it is, don’t you think? Cheapens it, in a way. My mother-in-law does that with so many things. Her first question always is, how much did it cost? Sometimes I feel like putting tags on everything in the house that’s mine, describing the cost. I know it sounds funny for me to say that knowing what something costs cheapens it. There are some things you cannot put a money value on, like friendship or love or… having a baby.”

  “Yes. Yes,” I added, more emphatically.

  It was as if I had found a new argument for my mummy to reject my father’s declaration that money was life. There was definitely something more important: self-respect. Money didn’t always give someone that. And when he said people respect rich people more, I thought to myself, Not respected: envied or feared. There was a big difference. It surprised me that he didn’t see that or maybe refused to see it. Samantha appeared to understand, despite her innocence.

  Leo returned close to an hour later and found us talking and laughing in his living room. He looked very pleased.

  “I’ll be taking Emma to lunch,” Samantha told him. “She’s never been to Fontaine’s.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “It’s all girl-talk time, Leo. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “You girls do your thing.”

  “Dr. Davenport will be here about three, if that’s all right with you,” Samantha said. “I phoned him a few minutes ago to confirm.”

  “I’ll keep my appointment with the president, then,” he replied.

  All three of us laughed. Leo looked at me with twinkling eyes. He looked happy he had arranged for all this.

  Should I be? I wondered.

  Was something wrong with me? I was feeling better than I had in months.

  A weatherman or woman might say, There are storms beyond your imagination on the horizon.

  But for now, thinking of the money, all I could see were clearer skies.

  NINE

  The moment we left for lunch, I felt pangs of panic.

  Was I deceiving myself? I can’t go through with this. I will have a baby? Me? Someone who’s never had sex? A virgin giving birth? Mother of Jesus? And someone else’s baby as well? Is this what science had created? And just because it was in a clinic run by respected doctors, that didn’t make it less weird to me.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or simply foolish fantasy. Samantha either noticed my nervousness now and simply ignored it or was so excited and pleased that I was the one who would carry her baby that she wouldn’t let herself notice anything negative. She struck me as the latter, because from the way she described her childhood and life at Wyndemere, it was easy to conclude she was someone who never had spent time looking at the downside of things. There would always be someone holding that net if you fell. Money, which could buy you the best education, could also buy you obliviousness.

  Fontaine’s reeked of wealth, yet it wasn’t overstated and gaudy like some restaurants with expensive menu items. Nevertheless, I sensed that the combined wealth of the patrons having lunch might easily be twice that of most Third World countries. Naturally, I felt underdressed, but Samantha refused to permit me to think that way.

  “We don’t care what anyone else thinks, anyway,” she said when I suggested it. “We don’t live to please them. We live to please ourselves.” She said it as if she were the queen of selfishness, but she was so innocent and harmless about it I had to smile. It was all in fun. She wasn’t being condescending or arrogant.

  However, despite how many ways she was listing to conclude that we were so similar, I knew we were as different as two young women might be. We were, after all, brought up in different worlds and not just different countries. Even if my father was as wealthy as hers obviously was and as wealthy as her husband was, he wouldn’t have permitted me to demonstrate an iota of blissful indifference when it came to what something cost.

  She ordered a bottle of very expensive champagne and then a platter of hors d’oeuvres that included beluga caviar, something I had never had. The most expensive item my father would permit my mother to buy either to prepare at home or have in a restaurant was a prime cut of beef. From the way the waiter at Fontaine’s treated us, I had the sense that Samantha had been here many times. I felt like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. There were so many forks and knives, the correct way to drink champagne, and French descriptions of foods and wines. Some I could translate, but many I could not.

  Samantha was eager to teach me anything and everything. I had the strange, almost eerie feeling that she was out to mold me into a mirror image of her as quickly as possible. It was important for me to like the things she liked. If I indicated in the slightest way that something wasn’t my cup of tea, she suggested substitutes. It was as if she believed the fetus that would live within me could be fooled into thinking it was indeed she who had carried it to its birth.

  “You don’t have to bring a single thing with you tonight,” she said. “We’re the same size. You will see that you will have miles of clothing from which to choose. And everything is fashionable. I’m pretty sure we’re the same shoe size.”

  “Seven?”

  “Yes,” she said, clapping her hands. “Seven. Serendipity. Our guest rooms—there are seventeen bedrooms—are fully stocked with everything any guest would need. My mother-in-law keeps Wyndemere as if it were a first-class hotel, a five-, even six-star. It’s been in the Davenport family for decades and decades. It was originally built and owned by the Jameson family, a family with a history full of intrigue, most of it embellished to give the house more character, as my mother-in-law likes to remind us all.”

  She leaned toward me to whisper.

  “Sometimes, just out of spite, I attempt to change things. I’ve been after Dr. Davenport to remodel the outside, but my mother-in-law considers it a historical site. I’m lucky to change the color of my own bedroom curtains.”

  I think she saw me immediately pick up on the word my.

  “The doctor and I sleep in separate bedrooms because he keeps terrible hours. I’d have my sleep interrupted every time he had an emergency. I’d be wakened in the middle of the night and rise with bags so big under my eyes they could be used for luggage.”

  I had to laugh at that.

  “But that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the pleasure of marriage,” she added. “In fact,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “it adds romance. I can pretend a strange, handsome, debonair new lover has found his way to my boudoir.” She scrunched her nose. “Sometimes, I think he’s doing the same thing… pretending I’m someone new.

  “It’s so important to keep romance alive, even after years and years of marriage, don’t you think?”

  I never thought that about my parents. Could it be true?

  “Really?”

  “Of course. My in-laws let romance dry up like a peach or something. The only time I saw them kiss each other was on their anniversary, and it was as mechanical as could be. Now, with him being an invalid, they are unable to do anything together again. Sometimes, I get the feeling they had separate bedrooms on their honeymoon, and it wasn’t to make it more romantic, either.

  “Elizabeth always said he snored so loudly that he woke the dead, but don’t you worry. You’ll have privacy. In fact, you’ll love Wyndemere. Wait until you see the grounds. There are more than fifteen acres, and the lake is five miles long. We have rowboats and motorboats. It’s
always been too cold for me, but my husband swims in it.

  “The dining room seats twenty, although we haven’t had a dinner like that since my father-in-law became a severe diabetic. He has a full-time nurse caring for him now. That doesn’t slow down my mother-in-law, however. Elizabeth Davenport attends one charity event after another and always seems to have a lunch date. She still has dinner parties, too. Sometimes I avoid them, claim I have a headache or something, especially when I know the doctor won’t be there because of some medical thing or another. No one would bother saying much to me. I don’t move in her circles.”

  She leaned over to whisper again.

  “She thinks she looks fifty at most. She’s seventy-four but has had so much plastic surgery she’s practically opaque. Her true self is buried under surgery. I know she can’t close her eyes fully anymore and has to sleep with blinders. But don’t give her a second thought. She won’t even notice you’re in the house. She won’t look at anyone who’s worth less than three or four million. I ‘yes’ her to death.

  “Frankly, to disagree with her only prolongs the conversation, and she’ll always find something wrong with something I’m doing, whether it’s the shade of my shoes with a certain dress or the way I sit. Any other daughter-in-law would explode, but I look at the doctor and see the amusement in his eyes and think to myself, Samantha, just pretend she’s one of the ghosts she swears she’s heard walking the corridors.”

  “Do you always call your husband ‘the doctor’?”

  She laughed. “He’s not terribly fond of his given name, Harrison. He thinks it makes him seem too stuffy, but I do call him Harrison. I just don’t refer to him that way when I’m speaking about him with strangers or the servants, of course. But you won’t be a stranger. After a while, he’ll probably prefer you call him Harrison,” she predicted, although not with complete confidence.

  “Anyway, when you see the house, how big it is, you’ll understand why you don’t have to be too concerned about my mother-in-law. You can go days without seeing her. Before my father-in-law became more or less an invalid, he used to tease his wife by telling her one of their houseguests never left.

  “Oh. Let’s have something to eat,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  I was happy for the short intermission. I was beginning to feel bowled over by one wave after another at high tide. As it turned out, it was the longest lunch I’d had in New York, or anywhere. We were there until almost three, when she suddenly realized the time and signaled the waiter in a panic.

  “The doctor is always prompt,” she explained. “Remember what I told you about how he feels about time. I think it comes from the tasks he performs during heart surgery. A moment is a life, after all.”

  “My father believes time is money and money is life,” I said.

  “Sometimes, I get the feeling my husband hates money—but don’t make him wait. That he hates more.”

  She was right. We returned to the apartment house just two minutes after three, but her husband was already there, waiting in the living room with Leo. Despite being quite skeptical and undecided about it all, I was surprised at how nervous I was when we entered. I was less nervous auditioning for a Broadway role.

  Dr. Davenport was seated in Leo’s chair, his legs crossed, leaning back, but sitting perfectly straight, stiffly. He was in a dark-blue suit and matching tie. When we entered, he turned slowly, the way a man who was careful about all his moves might turn. He didn’t smile. His sterling-silver-gray eyes focused entirely on me with an intensity that made me feel naked. I thought he was very handsome and quite distinguished-looking. There was firmness in his lips that tightened the muscles in his jaw. His pecan-brown hair looked recently cut, with a slight wave in the front.

  “Oh, we had such a good time at lunch, Harrison. I wish you could have been there.”

  He nodded. “Why don’t you return to the hotel, Samantha, and get things organized for our return?” he said. He had the tone of someone whose orders were politely cloaked in the dress of a suggestion but were not to be doubted or opposed. “Our car is waiting for you. Leo will signal him.”

  “Sure will,” Leo said, rising quickly. “I have to check on a plumbin’ problem, too.”

  “Don’t frighten her to death, Dr. Davenport,” Samantha warned with as much authority as she could muster.

  His eyes did soften, as did his lips. I imagined that no one but she could speak to him this way. His love for her was palpable. His face might as well be a marquee advertising it.

  She squeezed my hand for support and walked out. Leo rushed after her.

  “Please,” Dr. Davenport said, nodding at the sofa.

  I had a moment of hesitation I would remember for the rest of my life. Half of me was turning to the door to leave. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to hear any more, but when I envisioned what awaited me upstairs, the empty apartment, the absence of any potential success, and the suitcase that I would pack for my return to England, I turned to the sofa.

  Dr. Davenport finally offered me a warm smile. “I can imagine the fear and hesitation swirling around inside you,” he said. “Do you know anything at all about in vitro?”

  “I’ve heard of it. That’s about all,” I said. “There was something on the BBC once, but I didn’t pay enough attention.”

  He nodded, uncrossed his legs, and sat a little more forward. “I have to ask you some rather personal questions first, and then I’ll explain it all. Is that all right?”

  “It will have to be, won’t it?”

  His smile softened even more. “Yes. Are you sexually active?”

  “Actually, I was going to ask you a related question right off that would give you the answer. Does it matter that I’m a virgin?”

  “No. Matter of fact, there are a number of virginal women involved with in vitro fertilization. They don’t want relationships, for one reason or another, but they do want children. I’d like you to understand it as much as possible just in case you discuss it with someone and get incorrect information. There are two kinds of surrogate mothers, traditional and gestational. The traditional is artificially inseminated with the father’s sperm. She carries the baby and delivers it and is the baby’s biological mother. Gestational surrogates have the egg from the mother and the father’s sperm from something known as in vitro fertilization. The egg and the sperm are combined in a laboratory. Once the embryo is formed, it’s placed in the uterus of the surrogate mother. That’s you.”

  “Is it painful?”

  “Only the pain of natural labor and delivery, but that will be mitigated with some new drug therapies my good friend Dr. Franklin Bliskin will use. He will do all the pretests that are required for someone to become a surrogate mother.”

  “What are they?”

  “First, he’ll do a hysteroscopy to determine the clear passage of your fallopian tubes, the size and shape of your uterus. You’ll be checked for any signs of any infectious disease. You’ll get a Pap smear, and then he’ll do what is called a mock cycle. He’ll give you estrogen pills three times a day for about eleven days and then do an ultrasound to look at your lining. If everything looks good, you’re done with that. There’s also something called a trial transfer. Dr. Bliskin will do a better job of explaining that and all the rest.”

  “How long before…”

  “Before in vitro? We’ll start the process in the laboratory a day or so after you see Dr. Bliskin so we have viable embryos ready when you’re ready. We want you to be comfortable the entire time, and that’s why I thought you should come to Wyndemere now, spend some time with Samantha, and be sure you want to do this. I’ll pay your debts here and an additional five thousand dollars no matter what, which we’ll deduct from the seventy-five. How’s that?”

  “So it will be a while before I’m actually… something is actually…”

  “Let’s plan on two weeks at least. Samantha will keep you busy, I’m sure, the entire time. Another personal question,” he said. “Do you n
ow use or have you ever used recreational drugs?”

  “No. Before you ask, not even pot,” I said.

  “Okay. There are ways to tell,” he warned. I just stared coldly at him. “Leo told me he gave you an outline of what you’ll be paid, what I’ll do for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll draw up an actual contract between us all. I don’t imagine you have an attorney to review it.”

  “No. And I don’t have the money for one, anyway.”

  “It’ll be quite clear, and if you do have questions, I’ll have my attorney at your disposal.”

  “You really want me to go back with you tonight?”

  “We’re determined to have a child. We’d like to start our family now. Lots to do beforehand,” he said. “And from what Leo tells me, there’s nothing to keep you here.”

  “No, nothing,” I said.

  “Not to say there won’t be in the future,” he offered with a smile. “I appreciate how big a step this is for you; it’s big for us, too. We’ll all be on a learning curve, especially with each other. I take it Samantha has clued you in on my parents, the house, some of it.”

  “Some of it,” I said. “Yes. She did tell me about your parents, your father being ill.”

  He nodded and then looked at his watch. “How’s two hours from now? We’ll be coming back with my limousine.”

  This was it. Say yes or no, Emma.

  “Two hours,” I said. We both rose.

  “Once, when I stopped in to see a patient before he was going to be wheeled into the OR, I told him we were going to do our best and everything looked good for the preparation. He nodded and said, ‘Doc, nothing is until it is.’ Simple but true,” he added. “I urge you to keep that in mind. I always do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Look. If you get cold feet before I return, here’s my car phone number.” He handed me a card.