THEIR LAST NAMES were different. She was Amanda Tutt Hartmann, spiritual leader of the Alliance of Christian Voters. He was Toby Travis and apparently also involved in the Alliance. They were constantly exchanging looks and touches, which led Jamie to believe that they were very much in love. The ring on Amanda’s finger was a simple gold band. For some reason that impressed Jamie. It seemed more sincere than an ostentatious show of diamonds.
With the contracts signed, arrangements discussed, and an envelope in her purse containing a ten-thousand-dollar cashier’s check and a post-office-box number, Jamie shook hands with Amanda and Toby. In a daze, she walked to the nearest bank.
It was really happening.
The plan she had hatched out of desperation had come to fruition. She was both relieved and…
And what?
Afraid, perhaps.
But what did she have to be afraid of?
Well, for one thing, pregnancy itself. And her own emotions. She was setting sail on an uncharted sea.
She opened a checking account and with a new checkbook, an ATM card, and more cash than she had ever carried in her life tucked in her purse, she walked back to the office, her mind racing ahead as she thought of all the things she needed to take care of during the upcoming week.
When she entered the law office, Lenora looked up from her computer. “You okay?” she asked.
Jamie nodded.
“The procedure-an inner-uterine insemination-is scheduled for Monday morning, and you will be required to give a urine specimen for a drug test before it takes place. Afterward I will be spending every minute with you until I deliver you to the airpark on Tuesday morning, at which time you will be flown to the ranch.”
“I want to check out of the hotel this afternoon,” Jamie said, “and move to someplace that will let me keep a dog.”
“I guess that’s okay. Just let me know where you are as soon as you’ve made the change, and I’ll arrange to have the room billed to the office. So, what kind of dog are you going to get?”
“A lonely dog.”
“Good idea,” Lenora said.
Jamie sat at the table in her hotel room and wrote checks to pay off her credit cards, a task that left her feeling giddy with relief.
It took her less than thirty minutes to pack and check out. She threw her suitcase on top of the pile of assorted possessions stored in the backseat of her car and drove first to a post office and then to a motel just across the river that claimed to be pet-friendly in its Yellow Pages ad.
Once she had checked in, she grabbed a sandwich and headed north on I-35.
The monument company was located near the cemetery. The late-afternoon sun beat down unmercifully as the stonecutter showed her through the display yard. Jamie chose a simple monument that looked much like the one Granny had placed on her husband’s grave all those years ago.
In the air-conditioned office, Jamie wrote out an inscription-just her grandmother’s name and dates. There was no way to say in a few words what an incredible woman she had been and how much she had been loved by the granddaughter she had raised. “But I would like for you to carve a bird over the inscription,” she told the stonecutter. “My grandmother loved birds.”
Her business concluded, Jamie drove into the cemetery and placed a rose on her grandmother’s bare grave. “I won’t be visiting you again for a long time, Granny,” Jamie said, “but I’ll think of you every day.”
It was dark when she returned to the motel. She walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant, where she had a platter of sizzling chicken fajitas and a plate of sopaipillas. She didn’t even wince when she looked at the check.
The next morning, she had her car serviced and bought four brand-new tires. Then she drove to an animal-rescue establishment on the far west side of the city.
“I can’t bear to look at the animals,” Jamie told the woman behind the desk. “I’m afraid I’ll want them all. Just bring me a nice, friendly dog that nobody else is going to want.”
The animal the woman brought was about as homely as a dog could be. One ear stood straight up and the other flopped over. He was a nondescript shade of grayish brown, and his coat appeared to have the texture of a Brillo pad. His legs seemed too long for his slender body, and the last three inches of his tail veered off at an angle. But the crooked tail was wagging, and his big brown eyes were looking up at Jamie with such hope. When she knelt in front of him, however, he cowered a bit and backed away. She held out her hand for him to sniff, and he took a tentative step forward, then she gently scratched his neck. And with great solemnity, the dog licked her chin.
“I love him,” Jamie declared.
The woman smiled. “He’s been with us for several months. Apparently he’d been fending for himself for some time when he was brought in. He was little more than skin and bones and had a serious case of mange. He’s about eight months old now, and I wouldn’t hazard a guess about his breeding. We’ve been calling him Ralph for no particular reason, but you can change that, of course.”
“No, Ralph is fine,” Jamie said.
She paid for his immunizations and neutering and was told that she could pick him up in the morning. “We’ll have him bathed and ready to go,” the woman said. “You’ll need to bring a collar and a leash.”
Jamie knelt in front of Ralph and explained that she would return for him tomorrow. “We’re going to be a family, you and me,” she promised. “And I hope you like to walk. I plan for us to walk miles and miles every single day.”
Jamie felt almost happy as she drove back to the motel. She would have a dog to keep her company during the strange journey on which she was embarking.
Perhaps it was just as well that Amanda Tutt Hartmann and Toby Travis did not plan to fawn over her and make her feel like a member of the family, Jamie decided. That would be dishonest of them, and she really didn’t want to have any sort of lasting relationship with them. It was better that way. Tidier.
She spent the following day getting to know her dog and taking him for his first walk at the end of a leash. He was smart and eager to please. “We’re going to get along just fine,” she told him. That evening she folded a blanket on the floor by the bed, and he dutifully curled up on it.
The next three days went by quickly.
She went shopping and bought socks, underwear, jeans, knit tops, hiking boots, a windbreaker, and a warm coat.
Twice she drove to a nearby greenbelt and took Ralph for an extra-long walk.
She visited the UT distance-learning office. The clerk told her that yes, the university still offered old-fashioned correspondence courses, although most of their students enrolled in online courses. Jamie left the office with a catalog of course offerings.
She spent one afternoon writing letters. The first was to her sister, Ginger. “I just wanted you to know that I’m okay but will not have a permanent address for a number of months. Please remember me to my nieces. I know you are so proud of them.”
Then she wrote to Charlene in California, two other high school friends, and her closest college friends, saying only that she had a “domestic” position with a wealthy family and would be living on their ranch and that she hoped to return to college next summer and would let them know when she had a permanent address.
And she wrote to Joe Brammer’s grandparents, thanking them for years of friendship and their help during her grandmother’s illness. “Tell Joe I said hello,” she added at the end.
She wondered what Joe would think of what she was doing. Would he be appalled? Or would he think she had made a sensible decision?
And she wondered if Joe was married yet. If he ever thought about her at all.
She recalled the day he stopped by the dry cleaner’s to tell her that he was going to get married. He had tried to make it seem like a by-the-way sort of announcement on his part and not something that he felt the need to tell her because there had been any sort of understanding between them. Which there hadn’t been. Not ever. But that was the last time she saw him, and if he thought of her as just a friend, wouldn’t he have continued to drop by to say hello when he was in the neighborhood?
Of course, only a few weeks later, she had taken her semester finals and gone home to take care of her dying grandmother, so she never had a chance to discern the nature of his exact feelings for her. But even if Joe had fostered some level of romantic feelings for her, apparently they weren’t deep enough or strong enough to keep him from wanting to marry someone else.
The afternoon before the insemination procedure, Jamie watched her car being loaded on to a flatbed truck for its journey to the Hartmann Ranch. That evening she purchased a carry-out meal at a nearby restaurant and tried to watch television but couldn’t concentrate. She paced for a while, which made Ralph nervous. Finally, she took a bath and crawled into bed. Ralph took his usual position on the blanket beside the bed, but she patted the place beside her. Once he had resituated himself, she put an arm around him and curled her body against his.
She wondered about tomorrow. Would Amanda and her husband be there? Or would Toby have been there earlier to…
She struggled for a term that was not indelicate to describe the act that Toby would be required to perform but could not come up with one. God, it was so weird. Toby would masturbate to provide the semen that would be used to impregnate her. She hoped that Toby had already left the clinic by the time she arrived. She would blush if she saw him. Which would be mortifying. Maybe he had already done his part. He’d said that he and Amanda traveled a lot. And mentioned a trip to Florida and then a ten-city “crusade.” Maybe she wouldn’t see him and Amanda again for weeks and weeks.
The next day, Dr. Betty Winslow showed Jamie the instruments she would be using and explained that Jamie might experience some discomfort but it would be over very quickly.
Jamie closed her eyes and tried to keep her mind blank while Dr. Winslow carried out the procedure.
Once it was completed, the examining table was tilted so that her feet were higher than her head, and she was told that she would need to remain in that position for a half hour. As Jamie lay there staring up at her feet, she wondered what the baby’s last name would be. Would he be given his father’s last name or his mother’s far more famous one?
Then she put such thoughts out of her head. The baby’s name was none of her business. She didn’t want to know its name. Didn’t want to know anything about it at all. Except that it was healthy. She would like to know that.
She wondered if a woman who had been penetrated by an instrument could still be considered a virgin. Would she someday have to explain to a man that she had never had sex but had given birth?
Or did one just keep such things a secret?
“How’d it go?” Lenora asked when Jamie entered the waiting room.
“Okay,” Jamie said. “I’m sorry you got stuck with making sure I don’t go on some sort of a binge.”
“No problem,” Lenora said, linking arms with her. “Let’s go treat ourselves to a wonderful dinner, then curl up in bed and watch a movie.”
They had dinner at T.G.I. Fridays, then watched a Harry Potter movie on pay-per-view and called it a night. Jamie knew that sleep was once again going to be difficult for her. She tried to put aside the events of the day so that she could mentally and emotionally prepare herself for tomorrow’s flight.
Jamie hadn’t flown in an airplane since those childhood trips that ended when her parents died in a plane crash. Her stomach was knotted with apprehension, and she was afraid to close her eyes lest she dream of planes plunging from the sky.
Finally she gave up on sleep. If it weren’t for Lenora in the other bed, she would have watched television or turned on the lamp and read. Ralph sensed her wakefulness and came to comfort her. She curled her body around his, and the next thing she knew, the alarm was going off. An hour later, she and Ralph were in Lenora’s car on their way to the airport.
The Hartmann airplane was a great deal larger than her father’s had been and had jet engines instead of propellers. The words The Messenger were painted in script on the side. Beneath the words was a golden cross.
The uniformed pilot and copilot introduced themselves. They were father and son-Russ was the father and Rusty the son. They were based in Virginia and flew regularly for Miss Hartmann and her brother, Russ explained.
Suddenly the moment of departure was at hand.
“You’ll be fine,” Lenora said. “Amanda and Toby are not your run-of-the-mill folks, but you will be well cared for.”
Jamie hugged Lenora and thanked her for everything. They promised to stay in touch, and yes, Jamie would let her know if she needed anything.
Ralph was hesitant about climbing up the steep steps, so the young copilot carried him. Jamie turned and waved at Lenora before entering the spacious cabin. No, this wasn’t like her father’s little airplane at all, she thought as she took in the easy chairs and individual television monitors. In the back were a conference table and chairs.
As soon as Jamie took her seat, Ralph jumped onto her lap. Jamie let him stay there, putting her arms around him and burying her face against his neck while the plane raced down the runway and lifted heavenward.
She avoided looking out the window during the short flight, but when she felt the plane bank and begin its descent, she moved to a window seat and looked down on the emptiest landscape she had ever seen. Not a house, not a road, not a hill, only an occasional clump of stunted mesquite along a creek bed. But already there were the beginnings of one of those spectacular sunsets Toby Travis had promised.
Then miraculously there was a landing field, and beyond it were a water tower, a silo, and rooftops emerging from an oasis of trees and cultivated fields. As they descended farther she spotted a large greenhouse and a trailer park.
The plane made a looping turn over the large L-shaped stone ranch house with a turreted tower. Behind the house were two swimming pools, one a large free-form pool with a small island in the center and the other a rectangular pool with swimming lanes. Beyond the pools were tennis courts. The place looked more like a resort than a home.
Obviously, the people to whom she was now contractually bound were wealthy beyond anything she could even begin to imagine, which represented enormous good luck for the baby she would carry for them. The child would have every advantage that money could buy. He or she would never be made fun of for wearing secondhand clothes.
Which hadn’t been the worst thing in the world, she decided.
The plane descended very quickly and soon the wheels were touching the ground. When it had rolled to a stop, Rusty emerged from the cockpit. “Welcome to Hartmann Ranch, home to the only bowling alley in Marshall County,” he said with a grin. “If the ranch were a town, it would be the second largest in the county, which may not be saying too much since there are only two so-called towns in the whole damned county, and one of them is just a wide spot in the road.”