How to Be Single (29 page)

She decided to just blurt it out. “I want you to inseminate me.”

Ruby put her hands on the table to steady herself.

Gary turned to Dennis and said, “I told you so.”

Ruby looked at them. “What?”

Gary simply shrugged. “I just had a hunch.”

Ruby began her pitch. “You know how responsible I am. I never miss a deadline, no matter how depressed I am or upset I am. Not that I would be depressed or anything, because the reason why I was depressed before was because of guys, you know, giving them so much power over my life. But when I'm a mother, I could never be that depressed about some guy or anything because I would be having a higher calling. I would be a mother.”

Dennis and Gary looked at each other. They looked back at Ruby, each with a different expression of uncomfortable pity in his eyes. Dennis leaned over and touched Ruby's arm.

“I'm sorry. We just gave our semen to Veronica and Lea.”

Ruby sat there for a moment, taking in this new information. Then she thought,
Who the hell are Veronica and Lea?
She had never even heard of Veronica and Lea.

“Who are Veronica and Lea?” Ruby asked, a little too much outrage in her voice.

Gary answered. “They're our friends that we met doing volunteer work at the soup kitchen near our house. A lesbian couple. They're really nice.”

“New friends? You gave new friends your semen over me?” Ruby said, softly but with a trembling in her voice.

“We didn't know you wanted it!”

“But you could have asked! Before you gave your semen over to strangers you should have thought for just a minute of which one of your good friends might want your semen first!” Ruby's voice was raised just a bit, but in the cacophony of talking and techno, no one even noticed. “You should have been more considerate!”

This time, Dennis spoke. “Honey, the last time we talked to you, your cat had just died and you hadn't gotten out of bed in three days.”

“We came over and washed your hair for you, remember?” Dennis added.

Ruby cringed. She knew it. While they were being nice and nurturing, they had been making little mental notes on her fitness for motherhood. She felt betrayed. She made up her own new rule about how to be single:
Never let anyone see you at your worst. Because someday you might want that person's sperm or to date their brother, so you can't ever let them see you crazy or sad or ugly.
That's what she would tell me to put in my damn book the minute she had the chance. She immediately calmed down.

“I was depressed. But a lot has happened since then. I went and helped kill dogs at the shelter uptown to toughen up and now I'm ready to have a child.”

Gary and Dennis looked at her, confused. Dennis went in first.

“You helped kill dogs at that awful shelter up in Harlem?”

“Yes. Okay. That's not the point.” Then Ruby, being a businesswoman, decided to start negotiating. “The point is, I don't think there's anything wrong with your lesbian offspring having a half sibling in New York City somewhere. We'll arrange playdates. It'll be fun!”

“Ruby, I don't think—”

The waiter came over to take their orders. He didn't get the chance.

Ruby raised her voice even louder. “It's because I'm single, is that it? You'd rather give your semen to a couple even if they're lesbians, than one single straight woman. I get it now. Single discrimination. Fine.” The waiter quietly excused himself from the table.

Ruby started to get up, but Gary grabbed her arm and sat her back down. “Honey, we're so sorry, we are.”

Ruby leaned back in her chair. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overreact. I'm just disappointed.”

“We know, sweetie,” Dennis said, softly. “After we see how this goes, maybe we'd consider having another.”

“Never mind. I understand.” But Ruby wasn't really sure if she understood. She didn't know if the real reason they didn't ask her first was that it didn't cross their minds, or because they thought she would be a terrible mother. She didn't know if they really would consider her in a year or two, if things went well with the first child. She didn't know anything, except that she wanted to retain whatever dignity she might have left.

“I should have asked sooner,” she said, trying to smile. Then the waiter came over and took their orders.

By the time she got back to her office, she had decided that this time she wasn't going to give in to her disappointment. Theirs was not the only semen in the sea. There were lots of possible fathers out there for her to choose from. And as she was walking into the elevator, she had another brilliant prospect: her gay friend Craig. A former theatrical lighting designer, he'd made a career change a few years before and now drove around selling rare and gourmet mushrooms to the high-end restaurants in the city. He was single and made a decent living, but his sperm couldn't possibly be as sought-after as the highly cultivated and high-income sperm of Dennis and Gary. She decided to give him a call. But this time she laid it all right out there from the beginning.

“Hi, Craig, this is Ruby. Can we get together and talk about you possibly being the father of my child? How about we meet at Monsoon, at, say, eight tonight? Give me a call.”

When Craig called back, Ruby let it go to voice mail. He agreed to meet her.

At 8:15 Ruby walked into Monsoon, a low-key Vietnamese chain restaurant with great food and unpretentious décor. This time she had decided to have him sitting there waiting for her—it put her in the power position. She sauntered in, wearing an extremely expensive top from Catherine Malandrino and high heels. Not knowing what his reaction would be to this big question, Ruby decided she should at least try to look wealthy. Even though she desperately wanted something from him, she was going to make sure she had something, too. She sat down. Before she had a chance even to say hello, Craig blurted it out.

“I'm HIV positive, Ruby. I never told you.”

Ruby's stomach flipped. She hadn't even entertained this as a possibility, mainly because she assumed he would have told her if he was. So she just assumed he wasn't. She realized now that that was naïve of her. She was also flummoxed as to what the appropriate reaction was. Being HIV positive today means something so different than it used to. Does she say she's sorry? Does she ask how he is? How his T cells are? What kind of cocktail he's on?

“I'm sorry to hear that. Are you…?”

“I'm fine, I've been on drugs for years, no side effects. I'm going to live to be a hundred.”

“I'm so glad,” Ruby said, relieved. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I'm okay, I just thought you should know, now, because of…everything.”

Ruby nodded. They both got quiet. She thought about this news for a few minutes. Then she came back to thinking about how badly she wanted this child. She had known Craig since college—longer than she'd known Gary. He was an incredibly sweet person, and loyal and kind and consistent. He would be a great father.

“You know, I heard you can do a wash now,” Ruby said.

“What?”

“You know, an HIV wash. On your sperm. Before you inseminate someone. They can clean your sperm of the HIV before you inject it in them and everyone is fine.”

Craig fidgeted in his chair. “Really?”

“Yeah. I read about it in the
Times
science section, a year ago I think. I think you might have to go to Italy or somewhere to do it, but it can be done.” Ruby didn't want to seem too pushy, but at the same time, she was determined.

“Oh.” Craig paused, sipping nervously at his tea.

“I know you might be worried about how it could affect me and my health, but I could do research…”

Craig put down his tea. “I know about the wash.”

Ruby brightened up. “Oh, you do? So, does it seem doable? Is it something you might be interested in—”

Craig interrupted. “Ruby, I don't want to hurt your feelings and I didn't think you'd suggest the wash…”

Ruby looked at Craig, confused. “I don't understand.”

“My friend Leslie already asked if she could do the wash. She's forty-one and she—”

Ruby pushed her chair out and slammed her hands on the table. She began to speak without thinking.

“No no no no, I don't want to hear it. I thought I was being generous by being willing to do the wash. I had no idea you were
fielding offers
from women who were willing to do it.”

“I was surprised, too. But Leslie liked that I went to Brown and was tall,” Craig said sheepishly.

“Who is this Leslie person anyway?” Ruby's hands were flapping in the air, gesturing at no one in particular.

“She's my Pilates instructor.”

Ruby pushed her chair back into the table and leaned over to Craig. “Your
Pilates instructor
?”

Craig looked at her helplessly. “Ruby, if you had asked me first I would have been happy to…”

Just then, the waitress came over. “Do you know what you'd like to order?”

Ruby stood, her coat still on. “Yes. I would like a little, healthy baby girl or boy, ten fingers and toes, with one responsible, kind, coparenting partner on the side. I mean really, is that so much to ask?”

The waitress gave Ruby the death stare, which signified “I'm not going to acknowledge you until you say something not crazy.”

Ruby took a breath. “No, thank you. I'm not hungry.” She then turned to Craig. “I'm so glad you're okay, and I'm so happy that you're going to be a father one day. But I think I'm just going to go home now if that's okay with you?” Craig nodded as Ruby quickly stood up. She leaned down and gave Craig a big kiss on the cheek, turned, and walked out the door.

Back in Bali

Our hotel in Kutu was another obscenely luxurious villa, this one with its own little backyard and private swimming pool overlooking the ocean. I know. Insane. Thomas had gone to a business meeting an hour ago. The bad news was, I missed him terribly. This was the first time we had been apart in over a week and it was horrible. I'd become completely emotionally dependent on him. I was never a possessive girlfriend, even in my teens and twenties, but if I could have sewn a pocket into my skin and tucked Thomas inside me, I would have. I didn't want him to ever leave my side.

It took all my energy to fight the urge to stay in that hotel room and refuse to leave it for the rest of my born days. But Thomas had told me Kutu was a big surfer beach, so I decided to go watch the surfers; finally I might not look so out of place in my surfing trunks. But I was also curious if I was going to see some gigolos waiting to tell some lady that she was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. And I wondered if the beach would be full of older women waiting for their day to be Made.

The beach was dotted with surfers, all waiting for the next wave. The beach wasn't crowded yet, and as far as I could tell, there were no gigolos or women waiting to be gigoloed.

As I sat in one of the chairs provided by the hotel, a young Balinese man came up to me with a big plastic bag.

“Excuse me, miss, would you like one? Very cheap.”

He pulled from his bag something that looked like a Rolex watch—I'm going to go out on a limb and say I don't think it was real. I shook my head.

“But look, they are so nice, very cheap. Buy one.”

Being a New Yorker, I know how to get my point across. I shook my head forcefully, and said loudly, “No thank you.” He got the message, picked up his bag, and walked away.

The surfers had found a wave and I watched them doing their best to ride it. They made it look so easy, most of them keeping their balance until the wave deposited them gently on the shore.

My thoughts quickly drifted back to Thomas and the fact that he was going to be going home in less than a week. Back to Paris, to his wife. It started to dawn on me that in only a few days, I might never see him again.

I began to think again about what a great deal this had been for him. A nice little vacation he must be having from the monotony of marriage. And he could go home guilt free, because he had been completely honest with me about his open marriage, and his wife didn't seem to mind. He had a perfect arrangement. I was starting to get pissed off.

Just then, an older Balinese woman came up to me and asked if I wanted my hair braided. I said no, forcefully, with one very big shake of my head. She moved on.

It also began to dawn on me that I might not be the only woman Thomas had done this with. I know, sometimes I'm a little slow. I realized that this might be where he takes all his lady friends. In fact, he might've known he was going to Bali and made sure he had a girlfriend lined up for the trip. Who knows? All I knew for certain was that I had bought it all, every last romantic bit of it, like a tourist snapping up a fake Rolex.