After giving me a small bag with two bottles, Ramala led me out, and I discovered I really had been in a different building, the one situated across the long-term parking lot and all but hidden in the trees. It was new, one-story, and probably larger than it appeared from the front. Again I wondered what went on in there, since it seemed so empty.
Check it out and soon, I told myself as I slipped my key into the ignition. You've got to find out a lot more about this place.
On the drive back to the city, my main thought was that I'd lost a day of my life. It'd just sort of slipped away. But that wasn't all. I also began to meditate on the fact that Alex Goddard could have an immense influence over my body (or was it my mind?) with a simple touch. Give him his due, he could definitely make things happen. First my cold and now this. Perhaps he could give me a child, if I got "centered," whatever that meant. But why should I trust him?
And there was another problem. For a baby I'd need Steve, the man I loved, the guy who'd promised to be with me through thick and thin. Did he really mean it? He'd have to fly in, which meant a serious piece of change for the airfare. Finally, could he face another chance of failure? My spirits sank at the prospect of having to ask him. Were we both just going to be humiliated one more time?
He'd made his home base in Belize, that little Rhode Island of a country abutting big, bad Guatemala. He liked the fact they used English, more or less, as the official language and they hadn't gotten around to murdering two hundred thousand Maya, the way Guatemala had. In a romantic moment, I'd programmed his Belize hotel number into the memory of my cell phone-the telephones down there are amazingly good, maybe the Brit legacy-though I'd never actually tried it. (I'd called him from home about half a dozen times, but he was rarely there.) Well, I thought, the time has come. Maybe it was the sensual feelings released by all the Chi flowing around, but for some reason I found myself feeling very lonely. He hadn't called recently, though…
It took ten rings, but eventually the hotel answered. A moment later, they were trying his room. I guess I was half afraid a woman might pick up, but it was him and there were no hushed tones or cryptic monosyllables. I heaved a minor sigh of reassurance.
"Baby, I can't believe it's you," he declared. "I've actually been trying to reach you for a day now."
"You finally get around to missing me?" It was so good to hear his voice, full of life and energy.
"All the time. Never didn't. You've just got to understand it's crazy down here. All last week I was in Honduras, haggling over permits. Don't ask." He paused. "So, when are you coming down? They've got a national park here that's a pure chunk of rain forest, jaguars everywhere." He laughed. "But forget that. If you come down, we'll never get out of the hotel. Just room service all day."
"No immediate plans," I said, immediately wondering how I could swing it. "But you never know."
I wasn't entirely sure how to approach Steve anymore. There was something about the abrupt way he took off that left things up in the air. A tiny sliver of uneasiness was slipping into my head-over-heels trust, the camel's nose under the tent.
"First the good news," I declared. "David's talking to Orion about a theatrical release for Baby Love."
Steve knew how deeply I longed for a theatrical-it would be my first-and he enthused appropriately. But he also knew I wouldn't call him early Sunday morning just to tell him that. There was only one other thing that would inspire such an unsocialized act.
"Uh, should I be asking how the other baby project is going?" he said.
For a moment I wasn't sure what to say, since I didn't really even know myself.
"Still a work in progress," I said finally. Then; "Honey, I've just been to see a doctor who's… well, he's a little unconventional. And nervous-making. But everything else has failed."
Whereupon I gave him a quick, cell-phone summary of what I'd just been through at Quetzal Manor.
"So are you going to go back eventually?" He sounded uneasy. "For the full 'program'?"
He had a way of zeroing in on essentials. The truth was, my baby hopes and my sense of self-preservation were at war with each other…
"Morgy, are you there?"
"I'm here. And I guess the answer is, I'm still trying to decide. Like I said, he's into Eastern medicine and Native American… I'm not sure what. But if I need you, are you still in the project?"
"What do you mean?"
"Darlin', don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. Could you come back if I needed you? Really needed you?"
There was a long pause, wherein the milliseconds dragged by like hours. Trees were gliding past, throwing shadows on my windshield, and I still felt vaguely dizzy. I also had a residual ache in my abdomen where Alex Goddard had given me those damned muscle-relaxant shots. Why was I even considering going back?
Finally: "You're not making this easy, you know. Down here, without our… project on the front burner every day, I've been reassessing… well, a lot of things. If we had a baby, it would turn our lives upside down. I mean, it's not like we just bought a sheepdog and chipped in on the grooming. This is a human life we're talking about. Are we really prepared to do justice to a child?"
There it was. I didn't know whether I wanted to burst into tears, or strangle the man.
"Well, why don't you just think about it," I told him. "This doesn't sound like a conversation we should be having on a cell phone." Blast him. "If that's the way you feel now, then I might just have a baby on my own." How, I wasn't sure. I'd been so certain we were a couple, I'd not given it any real thought. "Or then again, I might just go ahead and adopt, with or without you."
"Look, I'm not saying I won't do it. I'm just saying it's not a trivial thing." He paused. "So where does that leave us?"
Translation: second thoughts.
"I don't know where that leaves us, Steve. In the shit, I guess. But I'd still like to know if I can count on you, or am I going to have to go to a sperm bank or something?"
"Jesus. Let me think about this, okay? Do I have to answer you now?"
"No. But I'm not going to wait forever either."
"All right." Then he paused. "Morgy, I miss you. I really do. I just need some time to think about our next step. Are you sure you're okay? You sound a little out of it."
"Thanks for asking. I've just got a lot on my mind."
Turmoil, dismay, and hope, all tossed together, that was what I had on my mind. I really didn't need mixed signals from Steve at the moment.
A few more awkward pleasantries and I clicked off the phone, wiped the streaks from my cheeks, and abruptly sensed Alex Goddard's face floating through my psyche. Why was that? Then I looked down at the bottles on the seat beside me, the "herbal extracts" Ramala had given me on the way out. What, I wondered, should I do about them? For that matter, what were they anyway? And what did they have to do with "centering"? If I started on his homeopathic treatments, what would I be getting into? Then I lectured myself: Never take something when you don't know what it is.
Hannah Klein. That's who I should ask.
I was so focused, I pushed the number I had stored for her in my phone memory before I remembered it was Sunday. Instead of getting her office, I got an answering service.
"Do you want to leave the doctor a message?" a southern-sounding voice enquired.
Without thinking, I heard myself declaring, "No, this is an emergency."
What am I saying? I asked myself. But before I could take it back, Hannah was on the line.
I know how intruded on I feel when an actor calls me at home on Sunday to bitch. Better make this good, I told myself.
"I was at an infertility clinic yesterday and passed out," I began. "And now I have some herbs to take, but I'm… well, I'm not sure about them."
"What 'clinic'?" she asked. There was no reprimand for calling her on Sunday morning.
When I told her about Alex Goddard, she said little, but she did not sound impressed. Looming there between us like the dead elephant on the living room floor was the fact that she'd specifically warned me not to go near him. And after what had just happened, there was a good case she might be right.
"Can I buy you brunch?" I finally asked, hoping to lure her back onto my case. "I'd really like to show you these herbs he gave me and get your opinion."
"I was just headed out to Zabar's to get something," she said, somewhat icily. Well, I suppose she thought she had good reason. "I'll get some bagels and meet you at my office."
Sunday traffic on upper Broadway was light, and I lucked out and found a parking space roughly two blocks from her building. It was one of the low-overhead "professional" types with a single small elevator and no doorman. When I got there, the lobby was empty.
Her suite was on the third floor, and I rang the bell before I realized the door was open. She was back in her office, behind the reception area, taking off her coat, when I marched in.
While she was unwrapping her sesame bagels, smoked sturgeon, and cream cheese with chives, she got an earful. My feeling was I'd better talk fast, and I did. I told her everything I could think of about what had happened to me at Quetzal Manor. I didn't expect her to make sense of it from my secondhand account, but I wanted to set the background for my next move.
"When I was leaving, his assistant gave me these two bottles of gel-caps. She said they're special herbal extracts he makes from plants in the rain forest. Do you think I ought to take them?"
I suspected I already knew the answer. Given her previously voiced views on Alex Goddard, I doubted she would endorse any potions he might dispense. But plant medicine has a long history. At least she might know if they presented any real danger.
She was schmearing cream cheese on the bagels, but she put down the plastic knife, took the two bottles, and examined them skeptically.
"These are not 'herbal extracts,' " she declared giving her first analysis before even opening them. "They're both manufactured drugs. The gel-caps have names on them. It's a Latin American pharmaceutical company."
Then she opened the first bottle, took out one of the caps, crushed it between her fingers, and sniffed.
"Uh-huh, just what I thought." Then she touched a pinch of the white powder to her tongue. "Right." She made a face and wiped her tongue with a tissue. "Except it's much stronger than the usual version. I can tell you right now that this drug, in this potency, is illegal in the U.S."
What was it? I wondered. Cocaine? And how could she tell its potency with just a taste? Then I reminded myself why I'd come to her in the first place: She'd been around the track many, many times.
"It's gonadotropin," she said glaring at me. Like, you damned fool. "I'm virtually certain. The trade name here in the U.S. is Pergonal, though that's not what this is. This is a much stronger concoction, and I can see some impurities." She settled the bottle onto her desk with what seemed almost a shudder. "This is the pharmaceutical equivalent of hundred-and-ninety-proof moonshine."
"What is it? What's it supposed it do?" Jesus, I thought, what's he giving me?
"It's a hormone extracted from the urine of menopausal women. It triggers a greater than normal egg production and release. It's sometimes prescribed together with Lupron, which causes your body to release a similar hormone. Look, if you want to try Pergonal, the real version, I'll write you a prescription, though I honestly don't think it's going to do you the slightest bit of good."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I'd almost been considering giving Alex Goddard the benefit of the doubt, at least till I found out more about him, and now he hands me this.
Now we both were looking at the other bottle.
"What do you think that is?" I asked, pointing.
She broke the plastic seal, opened it, and looked in. It too was a white powder sealed in gel-caps, and she gave one a sniff, then the taste test.
"I have no idea."
She set the bottle back on her desk, and I stared at it, terrified of what it might be. Finally I got up my courage and reached for it. A white sticker had been wrapped around it, with directions for taking… whatever it was… written on it. Then I happened to notice that one corner showed the edge of another label, one beneath the hand-applied first one. I lifted a letter opener off her desk and managed to get it under the outer label. With a little scraping and tugging, I got it off.
"Does this mean anything to you?" I asked her, handing it back. "It's in Spanish, but the contents seem to be HMG Massone."
"I don't believe it," she said, taking the bottle as though lifting a cobra. I even got the distinct feeling she didn't want to leave any fingerprints on it. "That's an even more powerful drug to stimulate ovarian follicles and induce superovulation. It's highly illegal in this country. Anybody who gives these drugs in combination to a patient is flirting with an ethics charge, or worse."
I think I gasped. What was he trying to put into my body?
She settled the bottle back on the desk, her eyes growing narrow. "Since you say his 'nurse' or assistant or whatever she was gave you this, I suppose there's always the chance she made an innocent mistake. But still, what's he doing with this stuff at all? They manufacture it down in Mexico, and also, I've heard, somewhere in Central America, but it's not approved in the U.S. Anybody who dispenses this to a patient is putting their license at risk." She paused to give me one of those looks. "Assuming Alex Goddard even has a medical license. These 'alternative medicine' types sometimes claim they answer to a higher power, they're board-certified by God."
"I don't for a minute think it was an 'innocent mistake.' " I was beginning to feel terribly betrayed and violated. I also was getting mad as hell, my fingertips tingling. "But why would he give me these drugs at all? Did he somehow-?"
"I think you'd better ask him," she said passing me a bagel piled high with cream cheese and sturgeon.
She bit into her own bagel and for a while we both just chewed in silence. I, however, had just lost all my appetite. Alex Goddard who might well be my last chance for a baby, had just dispensed massive doses of illegal drugs to me. Which, my longtime ob/gyn was warning me, were both unnecessary and unethical.
"What do you think I should do?" I asked finally, breaking the silence but barely able to get my voice out.
She didn't say anything. She'd finished her bagel, and now she'd begun wrapping up the container of cream cheese, folding the wax paper back over the remaining sturgeon. I thought her silent treatment was her way of telling me my brunch consultation was over. She clearly was exasperated with me.
"Let me tell you a story," she said finally, as she carefully began putting the leftover sturgeon back into the Zabar's bag. "When I was eight years old all the Jews in our Polish ghetto were starving because the Nazis refused to give us food stamps. So my father bribed a Nazi officer to let him go out into the countryside to try to buy some eggs and flour, anything, just so we could eat. The farmer came that Saturday morning in a horse-drawn wagon to pick up my father. At the last minute, I asked to go with him and he let me. That night the Nazis liquidated our entire ghetto, almost five thousand people. No one else in my family survived. Not my mother, not my two sisters, not anyone."
Her voice had become totally dispassionate, matter-of- fact, as though repression of the horror was the only way a sane person could deal with it. She could just as easily have been describing a country outing as she continued. I did notice, however, that her East European accent had suddenly become very prominent, as though she was returning there in her thoughts.
"When we learned what had happened, my father asked the farmer we were visiting to go to a certain rural doctor we knew and beg him to give us some poison, so we could commit suicide before the Nazis got us too. The doctor, however, told him he had only enough poison for his own family. He did, however, give him a prescription for us. But when my father begged that farmer to go to a pharmacy and get the poison, he and his entire family refused. Instead, they hid us in their barn for over a year, even though they knew it meant a firing squad if the Nazis found us." She glared at me. "Do you understand what I'm saying? They told us that if we wanted to do something foolish because we were desperate, we would have to do it without their help."
It was the first time I ever knew her real story. I was stunned.
"What, exactly, are you driving at?" I think I already knew. The long, trusting relationship we'd shared was now teetering on the brink. By going to see Alex Goddard-even if it was partly a research trip to check him out-I had disappointed her terribly. She'd lost respect for me. She thought I was desperate and about to embark on something foolish.
"I'm saying do whatever you want." She got up and lifted her coat off the corner rack. "But get those drugs out of here. I don't want them anywhere near this office. I tried everything legal there was to get you pregnant. If that wasn't good enough for you and now you want to go to some quack, that's your affair. Let me just warn you that combining gonadotropin and HMG Massone at these dosages is like putting your ovaries on steroids; you get massive egg production for a couple of cycles, but the long-term damage could be severe. I strongly advise you against it, but if you insist and then start having complications, I would appreciate not being involved."
Translation: If you start fooling around with Alex Goddard, don't ever come back.
It felt like a dagger in my chest. What was I going to do? One thought: Okay, so these drugs aren't the way, but you couldn't help me get pregnant. All I did was spend twenty thousand dollars on futile procedures. Not to mention the heartbreak.
"You know," I said finally, maybe a little sharply, "I think we ought to be working together, not at cross-purposes."
"You're welcome to think what you like," she bristled. "But I have to tell you I don't appreciate your tone."
I guess I'd really ticked her off, and it hurt to do it. Then, finally, her own rejection of me was sinking in.
"So that's it? You're telling me if I try anything except exactly what you want me to, then just don't ever come back."
"I've said all I intend to." She was resolutely ushering me toward the door, her eyes abruptly blank.
Well, I told myself, going from anger to despair, then back to anger, whatever else I might think about Alex Goddard, at least he doesn't kick people out because of their problems, even a sad soul like Tara.
Still, what about these illegal drugs? There I was, caught in the middle-between an honorable woman who had failed, and Alex Goddard, who'd just lived up to my worst suspicions. Heading down in the elevator, alone, I could still hear Hannah Klein's rejection, and warning, ringing in my ears. Maybe she had just confirmed that still, small voice of rationality lecturing me from the back of my mind.
I marched out onto the empty Sunday streets of upper Broadway, and when I got to the corner, I stood for a long moment looking up at the pitiless blue of the sky. The sun was there, but in my soul I felt all the light was gone.
Finally I opened the first bottle and then, one by one, I began taking out the gel-caps and dropping them into the rainwater grate there at my feet, watching them bounce like the metal sphere in an old pinball machine before disappearing into the darkness below. When both bottles were empty, I tossed them into the wire trash basket I'd been standing next to.
The next time I saw Alex Goddard, he was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Beginning with why he'd given me a glimmer of hope, only to then cruelly snatch it back. I found myself hating him with all my being.