The Old-Fashioned Way

We've known one another for years -- I've lost count how many. I remember where and when we met, how you looked walking through the door, the first description I heard of you -- "That's Anna's roommate, Eloise. She's a bitch." I remember the rush of watching you come up the dorm hall steps hoping for the chance to talk to you, and the thrill of being there when you punched Nick in the jaw for grabbing your ass at the dorm Halloween party. I remember working up the nerve to knock on your door, and those painfully long seconds that come between "would you like to grab a coffee at the Student Union sometime?" and "sorry, no."

And then the intervening years and their corresponding events move quickly. The adage is true -- the days are long, but the years are short. A decade worth of coffees as friends, a few evenings and early mornings in one another's bathrooms regretting how much we had to drink. Concerts at the downtown strip, dinners at the Chinese restaurant or the Pizza Parlor. Hikes up north, white-water rafting trips on spring weekends. Graduating together and being one another's "dates" for the inevitable family parties. We ended up in the same city after college -- most folks end up here -- and late nights with cheap beer turned into wine and dinner at a respectable hour.

I was there when you met your partner, Kathryne. A lawyer. Successful. Well put together. A pantsuit, headshot ready hair, a feared litigator. If being a lesbian was holding her back at her firm, one would never know. She's brilliant, and passionate, and pretty. It came as no surprise to me that things moved so quickly between you two.

The calendar tells us it's been a decade since you rejected me at your dorm room door and we became fast friends. It has felt at times like we just met. It has felt at times like we've known one another our entire lives. We have been confidants and travel companions. We have played cheerleader and therapist for each other. We have yelled, and laughed, and years later laughed about the yelling. In the moments that compromise the days and months and years, we have become best friends.

Kathryne and I have never been particularly close. Certainly not as close as you and I -- though we are not as close now as you and her. Kathryne and I are friendly, we can talk casually and effortlessly, but we are not friends. She's your future wife. And I'm your old friend from college. We fit together in your life like puzzle pieces -- separated and distant from one another, she and I both knobbed pieces unable to connect without a third between us, but together we are part of that large complete image of your life. This has been our normal for a few years now and I've long since grown accustomed to seeing Kathryne when I see you.

# # #

We were at a distillery - the sort of establishment that tries to appeal to all comers. The bathrooms are always clean, there is a decent food menu, plenty of space for dogs and children to run around. I met the two of you there on a Saturday night -- early enough that the sun had only just begun to set, and the air was cooling off as we claimed a table, away from children, closer to the dogs. We settled into our table -- your arm touched Kathryne's, her pinky and ring finger stretched out to tap your hand as you shifted your weight to a comfortable position. I sat across from you, with a view of the whole of the outdoor seating behind you. The dogs -- all on their best behavior -- and I all took it in together. The sounds of cocktails glasses meeting those heavy wooden farm tables, of children and adults laughing, an occasional loud expression of agony or ecstasy from the folks playing the board games, and if you concentrated you could just barely hear the interstate behind the wood fence and across two residential streets. It felt peaceful.

With a cocktail in my hand, I leaned across the table and prepared for our evening out. But I remember you both looked uneasy, uncomfortable. I looked at Kathryne and then over at you. I paused a beat and waited for one of you to speak, but neither of you did. So, I broke the silence. "So, uh, Eloise, you look like you have something on your mind." You glanced at Kathryne and shared a short look. You brought your whiskey to your lips and took a long drink. Finally, you set it down on the table, already the condensation had begun to circle the glass, and you said, "Kathryne and I want to have a baby."

I leaned back in my chair. We were in our early thirties, so we have reached the age when children are more often planned, and not accidents. I suspected that when most women in their early thirties announced to their friends that they wanted to start trying to have kids, the news is delivered with a smile, not consternation. I didn't know what was eating at you, but I had known you long enough to feel entitled to just ask. "That's exciting news for you both, right? Why don't you look happier about it?" Kathryne shot you another glance, and then turned to me herself. A half dozen possibilities raced through my mind. Your parents might not have thought you and Kathryne were ready to have a child so soon after an economic recession and were giving you grief. Maybe you two had discovered one or both of you were infertile. Maybe you had hit a wall with adopting. Maybe you had found out that invitro is expensive, and you planned on asking me for money.

"Well," Kathryne began, as you held your glass by the top and twisted it in place so that the ring below it grew, "having a kid is expensive. Especially when neither of us have any sperm. IVF can cost tens of thousands of dollars. And IUI is much cheaper, but the success rate is, like, 10% or something. We're well off, but we aren't rich. This is something Eloise and I both really want. We're ready to take this next big step together. I couldn't imagine raising a kid with anyone else. But the cost is astronomical."

I took a sip of my mint julep and replied, "I don't know what either of those acronyms mean, but it does sound expensive. Is that the big hang up? Just the cost?" I thought, so this is about money. I crunched the numbers in my head, trying to arrive at a sum I could reasonably pitch in to the Elle and Kat baby fund.

You took a sip of your own drink and picked up where Kathryne left off. "And it's so clinical and impersonal. Don't get me wrong, IVF is a miracle for a lot of women, but we're not struggling to get pregnant, we just don't have a biological male in our relationship. The cold sterile rooms and drab white walls with those early 2000s faux-wood cabinets. I can't think of a less inspiring place to start a life. I feel the same way about adoption. It's some maternal Neanderthal bullshit, but I want to be pregnant. I want to grow our baby and feel them kick and nurse them. If I can't get pregnant and we have to adopt, we'll love that baby with all our hearts, but I'm not ready to give up on being pregnant just yet. And, Christ, I don't want to drop fifteen grand for it." You kept your thoughts going, gesturing at me, drink in hand, so that the whiskey rolled like a wave from end side of the glass to the other. "And you have it so easy, Warren! You can just go knock up some stranger at the bar whenever you want and have a kid. Kathryne and I have to pinch our pennies for the world's most expensive turkey baster." You immediately finished your whiskey in one go, as if to punctuate the point.

I laughed and leaned back in my seat. "I don't think knocking up strangers from the bar after a one-night stand is the benefit that you're making it out to be, put your point is well taken."

You rolled your eyes. "You know what I mean," you said. I laughed again.

"I do know what you mean. So, what are you going to do?" As I asked the question, Kathryne shifted in her seat, leaning now into you as you were earlier leaning into her. You kept your eyes locked on mine and took a deep breath.

"We're going to get a sperm donor." I glanced around the distillery. Was I missing something? Or was the this the build-up to the inevitable ask? How could I say no to my best friend needing a couple grand to have a baby? I could come up with a few thousand to pitch in. I was planning on traveling in the summer, and after the pandemic, my travel savings were plenty flush. I could spare it. But how do you loan someone that much money? Surely you can't Venmo someone three thousand dollars with a baby bottle emoji as the charge. Do you have to write a check? Where even was my check book?

"How much is that going to cost?" I finally asked, knowing we were getting close to that most awkward of questions.

"Well," you replied, "we were hoping we could just buy you a drink."

I didn't understand. "You don't have to buy me a drink, Elle. How much do you need? I can probably chip in two thousand dollars. Three thousand max." You squeezed Kathryne's hand and shook your head.

"No, Warren, keep up. We're not asking you to help pay for artificial insemination. We want you to be the biological father. We want you to donate the sperm. But I can't stand the idea of doing this in the clinic and I really do not want to spend fifteen grand just to get pregnant." You took another deep breath, this one sounding more exasperated, like you didn't think you would have to say it out loud. "So, I want you to do it the old-fashioned way."

I felt dazed, like I had been beaten about the head. The dogs barking and children laughing and glasses clanking rang loudly in my ears, a crescendo building to a thumping silence. I must have misheard, I thought. That can't be right. I felt my jaw open, as if I was ready to speak a hundred different words my mind had not yet settled on, ask a hundred different questions I did not yet know. I closed my mouth and then opened it again to speak the thought underlying everything swirling around in my head. "I'm sorry, what?"

You, however, had not lost your composure or your confidence. You must have practiced that delivery time and time again in the bathroom mirror, run through the conversation with Kathryne at the kitchen table like you were reading lines for an audition. You didn't miss a beat. "I want you to be the biological father of our baby and I want you to fuck me to get me pregnant."

Somewhere in the oceans of my mind, I managed to grab ahold of some floating piece of flotsam and found refuge from the waves of all the unanswered questions, long enough to keep my head above the crashing waters and form at least one coherent thought. I turned to Kathryne. "And you're okay with this?"

You turned to look at Kathryne, too, who met your eyes and then turned to me. "I can't say it's my favorite idea that Eloise has ever come up with it, but god knows it's no use in arguing with her. I do like knowing who the father will be. I don't want to be pregnant; that's Eloise's desire, so I'm okay with not exploring adoption just yet. Eloise isn't bi, and you've known one another for what, ten years? If I had anything to worry about between you two, it would have happened by now. So, yeah, I guess I'm okay with it."

The flotsam floating in my mind took a beating, the mental ocean churning in a storm at the thought of all the things I had wanted to happen between us a decade ago, in foolish moments betrayed by carnal desire. Never acted upon because I loved you as my friend, and because I knew you had no interest whatsoever in men. Like a drowning man who thinks he sees land on the horizon, moments came back to me as I clung to the little bit of mental capacity that kept me engaged in our conversation. I could see our freshman year Spring Break trip to Colorado. We stayed at a skiing lodge with our group of friends, and it was the first time I saw you in a bathing suit. It was no secret then you were a lesbian -- you told me as soon as you turned me down for that coffee -- but my cock didn't care and sitting next to you in the hotel hot tub, trying to sneak a peek down your bikini top, I wanted you so terribly. So many moments across the decade of hoping it would happen, maybe just once.

I saw us at the Pizza Parlor, our favorite pizza dive in town, off the Monongahela River, drinking beers together after our kayaking trips. The second booth from the door, always. I would make you laugh and as you tossed your head back, your hair falling off your shoulder, I always felt that pang of regret that our circumstances were not different. With all due respect to Shakespeare, the fault, dear Warren, was not in ourselves, but in our stars that we were not lovers. I had wanted, so many times, for something to happen. Foolish, stupid desires and now, here, an offer to sleep together, fully sanctioned and above board. To help you and your future wife have a baby. It would be almost uncharitable of me to say no.

"You can have time to think about it, obviously," you told me. "I know it's not a conventional thing to ask of a friend."

I looked at you, then Kathryne, and then back you. "No, I'd be happy to help. Honestly, Elle, I'm relieved. I didn't want to have to find my checkbook."

# # #

We met at the Pizza Parlor, second booth from the door. It was my suggestion to take the day trip back down to our alma mater. Ever a lawyer, Kathryne brought a planner. I sipped my coke -- in the oversized hard plastic glass with the crushed ice -- taking in the assignment. I had known you for a decade and that was my first time getting a crash course in your cycle. It was a lot to take in.

Kathryne bracketed a week in the calendar. "Elle is going to ovulate on this day," Kathryne announced, circling a date on the calendar in red, "which means she is going to be most fertile, roughly, these five days before and the day after." I took another sip of my coke, looked at the calendar, and then up at you. I tapped the circled date with my finger.

"So, you get your period on this day?" Kathryne sighed heavily. You tilted your head in disbelief.

You couldn't tell if I was joking or being serious. "Are you shitting me? Are you an idiot?" I shrugged my shoulders and kept sipping my soda.

"Isn't that what ovulating is? The egg comes down and meets the sperm and you get pregnant?" I asked. You turned your head slowly to meet Kathryne's eye and she just shook her head. You picked him, she seemed to say. You turned back to me and decided on a different tact.

"You know what? Human anatomy isn't your strong suit. That's okay. I hope your understanding of the mechanics of getting pregnant is deeper than your understanding of the science. You just worry about providing decent sperm and we'll just tell you where and when to show up. How about that?"

I took a bite of my pizza and nodded. "I can do that." Kathryne continued with her explanation of the calendar, and I turned my attention back to dates and brackets and appointments.

"Anyway, Warren, Eloise is going to be most fertile these five days before and the day after her ovulation. The internet blogs say that week, every other day and the day after, is best for trying to get pregnant. So that's these four days." Kathryne put a heavy asterisk next to the designated four days on the calendar. "So, you'll come to our house on these four nights, finish inside Eloise, and we'll reassess after whether we need to keep doing this. Do you know how to make healthy sperm?" I stopped chewing and looked around the restaurant. I could tell Kathryne wouldn't appreciate a witty quip or a joke, so I was honest.

"Not, uh, not really. I guess not. I just sort of assumed they all came out healthy." Kathryne nodded and continued her debriefing.

"That's okay. There are actually several tips you can follow to increase the potency of your sperm. First, no heat on your groin..." As she started to tick off the lifestyle changes I would need to make in the next few weeks to assist in the endeavor, I scribbled down notes on the back of a napkin. The dates and instructions and details from Kathryne filled the back of the napkin and I flipped to the front. The words were crammed around the edges, in the nooks and crannies around the logo of the Pizza Parlor. By the end of dinner, I had a veritable guidebook to getting you pregnant and I drove home to detox from caffeine and get more exercise. You and Kathryne had made it clear the goal was to get pregnant on your first try, and I was certainly happy to sacrifice a few cups of coffee in the morning to help.

# # #

I remember feeling like a kid on prom night who somehow managed to get the school beauty queen to agree to go to the dance. I felt this palpable excitement and nervousness down in my gut, sitting like a heavy stone. I sat in my car, down the street, waiting for the minutes on the clock glowing in the dark to turn to 7:55. For some reason, I felt it was very important to show up exactly on time. The analog numbers shifted from 7:54 to 7:55 and I put the car in gear. It lurched forward, a low rumble echoing as I slowly made my way down your quiet block.

I had been to your house often, and yet those final blocks felt otherworldly. The house numbers blurred. The landmarks morphed to a strange, formless void. Each house appeared different from those I remembered until finally, by pure muscle memory, I pulled into your driveway and cut the engine. The green lights of the dashboard clock slowly faded -- 7:59 -- and the rumbling of the engine died. It felt so real in that moment, the weight of it, the absurdity of it. I wondered if you felt the same. If you were sitting in your back living room, heart-pounding, palms sweating, hands shaking, waiting for me to knock on your door. If Kathryne was sitting next to you on the couch, holding your hand, hoping the hands of the clock would never reach 8:00. If I would walk into your house to learn this whole operation was canceled. Did you want that? Did I?

In the dark, lonely emptiness of the car, you're sitting next to me again in the hotel hot tub in Colorado. I'm straining my eyes to glimpse down your chest and into your bikini top without turning my head and making it obvious. I think I can spy your nipple, but I can't keep looking without being obvious. We've snuck a few beers in the back of the pick-up on our way out of Morgantown and you drink yours with such ease -- unafraid of getting caught by the hotel staff, unafraid of consequences, living your life openly and without fear. I envy it and I envy you. I'm resting my arm along the cement floor behind your head, just at the edge of the hot tub, and my fingers are inches away from your long brown hair. You kept it shorter then than you do now, and it would fall just above your shoulder line. My heart is pounding, the sound of blood pumping furiously feels like the only sound I've ever heard or ever will, and I extend my fingers just slightly, so they almost catch the strands of your hair. A million possibilities travel across my mind, swiftly and all at once, like watching a rowing competition, they leave ripples colliding with ripples until the actions and consequences of every potential next move are all lost and the appear same. All I know is I want to brush your hair, run my finger along the back of your neck, have you turn into me, and share a kiss. I know you won't, and I know why, but my foolish heart craves it and nothing more. You take another long drink of your cheap beer, set the empty can down on the cement next to you, and shift your weight forward, so that your hair is out of reach, and you move across the hot tub. The voices of our friends echo down the hotel hallway, and they key their way into the pool. They beeline for the hut tub and take your place next to me. I hope you had heard them before you moved, and that you couldn't read my thoughts.

The lights of the car dash had long since faded, but my phone told me I've been visiting old memories long enough that I was, despite my best efforts, several minutes late. The car door slammed behind me -- too loud, too jarring, not at all on purpose -- and I made the short walk to your front door. You lived in a modest home, in what was once a post-War boom neighborhood, but now felt dated, like the sort of street on which Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz or Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore might reside. Homes like these came from catalogues with names like "the Birchwood" and "the Mt. Vernon" or "the Brewster." The bricks had been painted a soft grey blue that seemingly matched or complimented the sky at any given hour on any given day in any given season. The windows were original -- you were glad to see they had not been replaced and refused to let Kathryne even consider replacing them. The overhead porch light was on, and I twisted the doorknob carefully. I couldn't explain any of my feelings -- why I felt it was important to be on time, why I felt like I might be disturbing you when you both knew as I was arriving. The door unlatched and swung open, and I stepped inside your house.