What's Yours Is Mine (9 page)

“… get a second opinion,” Claudia is saying. “This is just one doctor, one test. He could be wrong—”

“He's not wrong. I saw the ultrasound. There's so much scarring on my ovaries, there's no chance of getting a decent egg, even with IVF.”

“What about using a donor egg?”

Grace laughs shortly. “I'm that one-in-a-million woman who has also been blessed with a T-shaped uterus, apparently, which means I can't carry a baby to full term. There's no chance, Claudia. We can't even adopt, because of Tom's heart. I'll never be a mother. I'll never have a child.”

For a long moment, all I can hear is the muffled sound of my sister weeping into the shoulder of her best friend.
Grace can't have a baby?
The Golden Girl, the woman who has everything, the girl with the perfect life? She can't do the one thing I've always found too bloody easy?

I know it's mean, but I can't help a brief spurt of
pleasure. It's about time she tried eating some of the shit I've been shoveling all my life. You've got to love the irony. Having a baby ruined my life. Now it seems
not
having one is going to ruin my sister's.

Claudia is talking again, and I edge closer to the kitchen, straining to make out the words. “Grace, you know I'd have a baby for you if you asked,” she says. “After the current tenant has vacated, of course. I mean it. You know that, don't you?”

Christ. That's big of her. I wouldn't fucking volunteer, and I'm Grace's sister. I hated being pregnant. There's no way I'd go through it again.

A door opens behind me, and I jump, guiltily stubbing my cigarette into a depressed-looking cheese plant.

“Susannah?” Tom says. “Is everything OK?”

Poor bastard. No wonder he looks so bloody miserable. He's stuck with Grace for the rest of his life, and now there won't be any kids to lighten the gloom. Impulsively, I throw my arms around his neck, and kiss him on the mouth. “It will be, Tom,” I say.

I PEER OUT
of the lounge window again, impatient for Grace and Tom to get home from work. I hate being stuck here by myself all day. On the days when Tom can spare his hybrid, I can drive down to see Mum, but otherwise there's nothing much for me to do around here apart from go on lots of walks. I've never been the country type.

I scoop another spoonful of Ben & Jerry's straight from
the carton. Grace'd have a fit if she saw me. Grace has a fit over something I do most days. I'd forgotten what a pain my sister can be to live with. Even when we were kids, she'd freak if I left a damp towel on the bathroom floor, or spilled eyeshadow on her half of our dressing table. One summer, she put blue masking tape down the middle of our room to divide it in two. I wouldn't have minded so much, but the door was on
her
side. She made me pay a toll from my pocket money just to get into bed.

Crap. I stare in dismay at the lump of chocolate ice cream sliding down my shirt. Or, to be precise—and more to the point—down
Grace's
shirt. Her £295, never-been-worn, still-sporting-the-price-tag, black silk Dolce & Gabbana shirt.

Grabbing a linen tea towel, I mop ineffectually at the mess. Fuck. She'll have a total shit fit when she finds out. She's so anal about her clothes. Strike that. Grace is anal about
every
thing.

Oh, well. Maybe it'll come out in the wash.

Dumping the empty ice-cream tub in the bin, I pull out my cigarettes and light up in defiance of Grace's no-smoking-inside-the-house edict. It's bloody March, and she expects me to freeze my tits off outside every time I want a fag. Won't let me wear my shoes in the house. Won't let me eat in front of the TV in case I spill something. It's like living with the
Home & Garden
Taliban. Every time I crack open a beer, she's there with her bloody coasters. Coasters! Who the fuck under the age of ninety-five bothers with
coasters
?

OK, so this is
her
house. I get it. Her million-dollar, Grade II listed, Colefax-and-Fowler, turret-and-moated fucking
castle
. But what happened to making guests feel welcome?

This place is gorgeous, but it feels more like a museum than a home. Even a peasant like me can tell how expensive it all is: antique grandfather clock in the hall, big fat leather sofas in Tom's “den.” Matching Spode and Le Creuset in the kitchen. Wooden side tables, silver photo frames, original watercolors, books
everywhere
. My sister's rich. Seriously
rich
.

But I can do something she can't. For the first time in my life, I've got the upper hand. And it's time to use it to my advantage.

I jump at the sound of the back door opening, dropping my cigarette on the sofa. Frantically I brush it off, but there's already a neat brown hole in the center of the pale aquamarine linen. I flip the cushion over, and realize I'd already done that last week when I spilled a glass of red wine. Shit! I turn it back, and cover the burn mark with a velvet throw. Maybe she won't notice.

“Tom? I've left the rototiller in the—hey. Susannah.”

I grimace. “Call me Zee. Grace is the only person who calls me Susannah apart from my mother.”

Blake strolls into the sitting room, all six-pack and testosterone. Seriously, the guy is
hot
. Ashton Kutcher's better-looking, sexier older brother. Lean, ripped, and boasting quite a package if I'm not mistaken. And I'm usually not.

I reach for my smokes again. “Tom's not back yet. Got held up in surgery. Want me to pass on a message?”

“He'll figure it out.” His gaze slides down my bare, tanned legs, then back up to my cleavage. “You spilled something on your shirt.”

“Blame the boys from Vermont.” I exhale a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Guess I should change,” I add, “now I've got company.”

I hand him my cigarette and unbutton my blouse. Blake's smile is lazy, but I know the look in his eye. Rototiller, my ass. He's been hanging around here like a dog in heat since day one.

I straighten the straps of my red lace bra, but make no effort to cover up.

“You want to watch you don't catch cold,” he says, passing me my cigarette back.

I shrug, and let him look.

“Nice tattoo,” he says, pointing to the vine twining from my left shoulder, down around my waist, and disappearing beneath the waistband of my skirt.

“You should see what's at the end of the rainbow.”

His smile doesn't falter. “Don't flatter yourself, Zee.” He hands me my shirt. “I'll see myself out.”

I storm upstairs to put on a new shirt before Tom and Grace get home. Arrogant bastard! Who the
fuck
does he think he is? Acting like he's God's fucking gift. Blake may be cute, but he's not all that. I've had better. And he's kidding himself if he thinks I don't know he's interested. I can tell. I can
always
tell.

I pull a faded black T-shirt over my head and stomp back down to the kitchen. Screw Blake. I've got more important things to think about right now: like keeping a roof over my head.

I've been here five weeks, and outstayed my welcome by at least four. Any day now Grace is going to give me my marching orders. Unless I come up with a really good reason for her to let me stay.

There's a crunch of tires on gravel outside, and moments later, the slam of car doors. I take a deep breath, and dig out my brightest smile. I've only got one shot at this, so I'd better make it a good one. I reckon I can convince Grace, but Tom's going to be a harder nut to crack. This is one of the few times I can't use sex to get what I want, which is something of a novelty. If I can just get Grace to go for it, I'll be home and dry.

I open the kitchen door as Grace runs towards it, her leather shopper held over her head to shelter her from the rain. Tom follows behind, looking tired. At a guess, I'd say she's been tearing him a new one again on the way home. Probably over me. It usually is.

“What's the matter?” my sister demands. She shakes her bag, scattering water droplets, and looks suspiciously around the kitchen. “What have you broken now?”

Remember the big picture
, I tell myself firmly.

“Nothing's broken,” I say. “But I've had a
brilliant
idea.”

“I'm going to give you a baby,” Susannah announces.

For perhaps the first time in my life, my sister renders me speechless. I gape at Tom, sitting next to me on the sofa. He shrugs helplessly back at me. We both turn to Susannah, who's smiling delightedly and bouncing her knees up and down in the chair opposite us. She looks like a child who's found her mother the perfect Christmas present: bursting with pride and anticipation.

“I'm sorry, Grace, I didn't mean to spy on you or anything, but I heard you in the kitchen Friday night when you were talking to Claudia. You said you didn't have any eggs and you couldn't have a baby, and I just thought: what about me?”

“A baby,” I repeat weakly.

“It's the obvious answer!” she says excitedly. “I can get pregnant just sitting on a loo seat a bloke has used. I'm only thirty-four, and my eggs are raring to go. You can't have a baby. So why don't I have one for you?”

“Absolutely not,” I snap.

“Grace, don't just dismiss the idea out of hand,” she says, a little crossly. “I know I'm not good at much, but I
can
have babies. There's nothing wrong with my genes, they're the same as yours. I'm the one who's fucked-up, not my eggs. They're pure and wholesome and they don't have a single tattoo.”

“Please, Susannah, this isn't a game. Don't joke about it.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Grace, lighten up. Look, it's no big deal. I'm not offering you my kidney, just the use of my womb for a few months. You've let me stay here for all this time without asking me to pay for anything. Think of it as my way of returning the favor.”

She gets up and goes into the kitchen, leaving us alone for a few moments to get used to the idea. Tom and I are still sitting there in shocked silence when she returns five minutes later with a sweating bottle of beer. Automatically, I push a coaster across the table towards her.

“Susannah, this isn't like watering the plants for us while we're away,” Tom says. “This is a
baby
we're talking about.”

“Yes, Tom, I do realize that. I wasn't planning to give birth to a pit bull.” She puts the beer down. “Look, I just want to help you. I can do this. Let me do this.”

“You're really offering to be our surrogate?” I ask.

“Do you have any idea what you're suggesting?” Tom demands, sounding almost angry. “You'd have to carry this baby—our baby, Susannah, yours and mine—for nine months, go through labor, and then give it away. Forever. You won't be able to change your mind.”

“I get it, Tom. Jack Black No Take Backs.”

“Be serious, Susannah. You'd have to sign your baby over to us, to Grace and me. What on earth makes you think you could do something like that?”

“I've done it before,” Susannah says simply.

There's no answer to that. I'll never understand how my sister could have handed her own babies over to total strangers, apparently without a second thought; how she could have abandoned her own flesh and blood, the children she had nurtured inside her body, kissed and hugged and taken care of, in her own haphazard fashion, for so many years, and just walk away. What was it that enabled her to just switch motherhood off when she decided she wanted to do something else?

An unexpected glimmer of hope flickers to life inside me for the first time in weeks. Susannah may be the perfect surrogate precisely because she
can
switch it off.

Almost immediately, I douse it. I can hear my mother's reaction as clearly as if she were in the room with us.
Don't even think about doing this! It's out of the question! Babies aren't handbags; you can't just swap them when you feel like it!

“Look,” Susannah says, reaching for her beer. “I know how much you want a baby, Grace. At least this way, you'd actually be related to it too, as well as Tom. It might not be completely yours, but it'd have the same grandparents and family as if it were. And you know I wouldn't suddenly change my mind and decide to keep it. What've you got to lose?”

“It's very good of you to offer,” Tom says stiffly, “but we couldn't possibly—”

My voice cuts across him. “Would you live with us while you were pregnant? Stay here?”

Tom looks at me sharply, but I squeeze his hand, signaling him to be quiet.

Susannah smiles sheepishly. “I don't have anywhere else to go.”

“We'd support you during the pregnancy, of course,” I say. “Take care of all your expenses. I don't know how much the going rate is for a surrogacy, but we can find out, and—”

“I only need enough to get by. Maybe a bit extra for things like clothes and cigarettes—”

“You can't smoke!” I exclaim. I point to the bottle in her hand. “Or drink! You'd have to watch what you ate—no shellfish, or soft cheeses, or pâté—and nothing with caffeine in it, so no tea or coffee, and of course nothing raw, definitely no sushi—”

“Grace,” Tom says warningly.

“We'd pay for you to go private. I know the NHS is wonderful in a crisis, but I haven't got time to sit around in their waiting rooms for hours and hours, and of course I'd want to come with you to all the scans—”

Tom stands up. “Grace! This is all very kind of Susannah, but you and I need to talk about it before we start discussing hospitals.” He grabs my hand none-too-gently and pulls me with him. “
In private.
”

As soon as we get upstairs, I round on him, alive with excitement. “Tom, this is the answer we've been looking for! Susannah's the perfect surrogate! She's had children before, so she knows what to expect. She's got nothing else to do right now, and as long as we keep a close eye on her, make sure she eats well and takes her vitamins and goes along to all the pre-natal appointments—”