Vanessa shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I won’t play this game like Max did. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not, Zoe. I spent half my life doing that.”
In that moment, the anger I feel toward Max bubbles up like blisters on my tongue. It is one thing for him to take away my right to use these embryos. It’s another thing to take away what makes me happy.
“Vanessa,” I say, “I want a baby. But not if it means losing you.”
She looks up at me as the social worker sails through the door again. “My apologies, again. Everything looks good on my end.”
Vanessa and I look at each other. “You mean we’re done?” I ask. “We passed?”
She smiles. “It’s not a test. We don’t expect you to have the right answers. We just want you to have answers, period.”
Vanessa stands up and shakes the social worker’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Good luck.”
I gather my coat and purse, and we walk out of the office. For a moment, we just stand in the hallway, and then Vanessa grabs me and hugs me so hard I am lifted off my feet. “I feel like I just won the Super Bowl.”
“More like the first game of the season,” I point out.
“Still. It feels good to have someone say yes instead of no.”
Her arm is draped over my shoulders as we walk down the hall. “For the record,” I say, “when you went to beat up that hypothetical bully? I may not have wanted to tell the social worker, but I would have been right behind you.”
“That’s why I love you.”
We’ve reached the elevator, and I press the button. When the bell sounds, Vanessa and I step away from each other.
It’s second nature.
It’s so that the people inside have nothing to stare at.
On Tuesday mornings I go to a hospice and do music therapy with people who are dying by degrees. It is brutal, soul-draining work. And yet, I’d far rather be there than sitting next to Angela Moretti again, this time for a hearing on an emergency motion that was filed by Wade Preston just before the close of business last night. Angela is so angry, in fact, she’s not even making lawyer jokes at Preston’s expense.
Judge O’Neill stares daggers at Preston. “I have before me an emergency motion filed by you asking to disqualify Angela Moretti as Zoe Baxter’s attorney, and a Rule Eleven motion to strike this motion, filed by Ms. Moretti. Or, as I like to call it, a whole bottle of Excedrin before noon. What’s going on, Counselor?”
“Judge, I take no pleasure in bringing this information to the court. But as you can see from the attached photograph, which I’d like to enter as Exhibit A, Ms. Moretti is not only a lesbian sympathizer . . . she is engaged in this deviant lifestyle herself.”
He holds up a grainy eight-by-ten that shows Angela and me, embracing. I have to squint to figure out where on earth this was taken. Then I see the chain-link fence and the lamppost and realize it is the high school parking lot.
Angela and I didn’t have a scheduled meeting that day.
Which means Preston has had someone following me.
Wade Preston shrugs. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”
“He’s right,” Angela says. “And this fallacious photo speaks for itself.”
“If this is what they’re willing to do in public, imagine what they do in private . . .”
“Oh, my God,” Angela mutters.
“It’s a little late to start praying now, darlin’. Clearly the defendant and her attorney are embroiled in an improper relationship that’s in violation of the ethical rules governing attorneys in the state of Rhode Island,” Preston says.
Ben Benjamin slowly comes out of his seat. “Um, actually, Wade? In Rhode Island, you can have sex with your client.”
Preston whips around and looks at him. “Youcan?”
I blink at Angela. “Youcan?”
