Vada Faith (14 page)

“Well, uh, thank you again.” I was suddenly aware of the man, brushing against me. I was aware of my short skirt and my low cut top. What was I thinking when I dressed that morning?

“Let me know about the baby.” He edged closer and I backed up against the entryway wall. “When you know.” I could smell his breath, scented this time with the mint he’d popped into his mouth moments ago.

“Yes.” I grasped the door handle. “I will. When I know.”

I knew one thing for certain as I drove up to the main road and away from the beautiful mountain retreat. I wanted to know if I was pregnant. The first person I’d tell would be my own husband. Somehow I had to work things out with him.

I couldn’t help wondering what was going on with this couple. I was uneasy about all the feelings welling up inside me.

All I’d wanted was to help a childless couple have a baby and get myself a new house. I hadn’t bargained on the negative publicity or a couple who seemed to get quirkier with each passing day.

The next day after work I hurried home to see John Wasper. Mama was there instead, painting her nails at the kitchen table with supplies from the wicker basket I kept in my bathroom. That was one thing about my mother. She made herself at home wherever she went.

“Your guy had to work late. The girls are sleeping,” she said, blowing on her nails. “Too much city pool. They were asleep before I could get them into their pajamas. There’s a casserole in the oven.” She pulled on a straw hat with daisies on it. “I’m meeting that scoundrel, Albert, for coffee. He wants to discuss what went wrong on our trip. As if he doesn’t know. He thinks I’m going to Cancun with him in a few months.” She picked up her straw purse. “No way.” A big smile came over her face. “I met someone new at the Methodist Church picnic.”

“Why were you at the Methodist Church picnic?” I asked, bending down to peek into the oven. “Something smells wonderful.”

“That’s potato casserole.” She gathered up the tote bag she carried with her everywhere she went. “Some ham slices in the refrig too. Leftovers I didn’t take to the picnic.”

“What’s with going to that Methodist picnic? I thought you were a Baptist like me and Joy Ruth.”

“I am a Baptist.” She held herself erect as if to prove it. “Did you know there are more single men over at the Methodist Church,” she said, “than in all the other churches in town? Of course, I didn’t go for that reason. I went because Harry Rinehart, the minister, who is an old friend of mine asked me to. They’re having this membership drive. So I went as a favor. He introduced me to one of the single deacons. Who by the way is taking me to dinner next Friday. Look,” she checked her watch, “I’ve got to get over to Memory Lane and let Albert down easy. Let’s get together soon. We need to talk about this mess you’re in. I do worry about you.”

“I’m not in any mess.”

“I think you might be, honey. Everyone at garden club yesterday was talking about you. Wondering what was in your head to do such a thing. Especially using your own egg. Everyone knows now. It changes things. If you have a child it will be part yours. Our blood.”

“Do you think I’m crazy for doing this?” I sat down at the table. “If you do, just say so.”

“Look,” she said, sitting down across from me, “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think maybe you got into this too fast and didn’t think it through enough. Besides, you can stop this thing.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said, wiping my cheeks with a napkin from the apple napkin holder. Only a few weeks ago I’d been caught up in decorating with apples. Now decor seemed so unimportant. “I’m just feeling emotional right now,” I said. “I didn’t expect this to affect anyone but me. Instead it’s got the whole town upset. People I don’t even know. We’ve had messages written on our shop windows. Breeder woman. Adulterer. Awful things.” I wiped my eyes. “With permanent marker, too. We’ve had to hire a company to clean it. How can people be so mean? I thought some of them were my friends, like that dumbhead Bruiser. I hate that man.”

“Now,” she said, handing me a tissue from her bag, “you don’t hate Bruiser.”

“I do.”

“He’s still lashing out at that flighty Missy Sue, that ex-wife of his,” she said, “that’s all. She was not the girl for him. I could have told him that.”

Mama knew every last person in town even though she’d been gone all those years and she could tell you something about each one of them. Both good and bad.

“Bruiser’s probably mad at himself. His size is a burden. He’s always towered over everyone else.” She smiled. “I’ll never forget him. Little Brucie Waddell.” She sighed. “Maybe life has got Bruiser down. I’m sure he’s not angry at you.” She patted my arm. “People are just provoked because they don’t know anything about surrogacy. The unknown is scary.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve lived long enough to know they’ll get over it.”

I stopped sniffling and smiled. Brucie Waddell and his little brothers, John Wasper and Bobby Joe.

Memories came flooding back. I think I loved John Wasper back when we were kids. “Go home, Waspie,” I’d yelled at him once. “I hate you.” We’d been fighting over who was bravest. He jumped on his bike, all red-faced, but before pedaling away, he said, “Vada Faith, don’t ever call me Waspie again. Call me John Wasper. Bruiser calls me Wasper because I’m brave. I’m not afraid of bees even.”

Mama interrupted my thoughts. “Did you know,” she said, “that I was a protester?

Me and your father both. During the Vietnam War.”

“No.” I wiped my face, feeling a little bit better. “I can’t see you as a protester of anything. Maybe low heeled shoes.”

“Well, I was, and if you don’t think that didn’t cause a stink in town. People here didn’t protest things back then. We carried signs around town square and got arrested for disturbing the peace.” She chuckled. “We loved going against the system like the kids in the big cities were doing.”

“I can’t imagine you in handcuffs.”

“I was. Other kids threw eggs at us. Daddy was furious. Someone threw rotten tomatoes at our house. A group of us moved into the old Hulbert farm. They called us hippies and flower children and we loved it. The more they rankled us the more we got into protesting. We never did get into drugs. We were too scared and God fearing for that.”

“How’d you make a living?”

“We tie dyed shirts and sold them. Your father moved into the house with us. He’d come from Chicago.” She got this dreamy look. “I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. He introduced himself as Del Dunn. He was cool back then. He drove draft dodgers to Canada in his truck. That was before he got in his trailer park mode and got the job at Ben’s Auto Body.”

“Drove draft dodgers to Canada? You never told me that. He never told us either.”

“No reason, I guess. Do you understand what I’m telling you? People have made your surrogacy their cause. It’s not you they’re mad at. They’re mad because they don’t understand it. Most don’t care to.”

“Maybe I could do something to make them understand.”

“I doubt it.” She shook her head. “They may come around in time.” She glanced up at my new wall clock, a big red apple, and set her watch by it.

It didn’t matter to me anymore that I’d finally found a clock to match my new apple decor. It all seemed so ridiculous now.

“Goodness, I’m late. Gotta run, honey. Hey, you got a postcard from your daddy today. It’s on the table. Don’t forget the casserole.” She sniffed the air and then she was gone, leaving me to sit there in my red apple kitchen alone with my thoughts. To wonder where John Wasper was. To wonder what I’d gotten myself into and to wonder what my next step was.

I looked at the postcard from Anchorage, where my father was living in his RV and wondered what to make of his new life. Maybe he’d been waiting for his children to get settled to strike out on his own. It was true he’d stuck by us though there’d been few frills in our lives.

I heard mama’s horn honking far down the road. It was a sign to let me know she was on the way to her next adventure. I knew what my next adventure was. I intended to let the townspeople know what I was up to. I’d do it in a big way.

“What did you say, Vada Faith?” John Wasper was weaving across the kitchen floor toward me.

“Shush,” I said. “You’ll wake the girls.”

I hurried upstairs to close their bedroom door. I didn’t want them to hear any of this. This was the second night in a row he hadn’t come straight home from work. Now I had some things to say to him.

“I’m going to be on a television talk show,” I said, when I got back down to the kitchen. “I’m going to tell my story to the world and stop all the gossip.”

“That Kilgore man is a criminal. The guys at the shop are all talking about him. You want to have a baby for a criminal and tell it on television?”

“It will not be my baby and Mr. Kilgore isn’t a criminal,” I said. “You know the news media and how they blow everything out of proportion. You said so yourself. Remember what they said about your company last year. They had them dealing drugs, when all they did was haul a load of pharmaceuticals to Kentucky. It was all a lie. That’s exactly what this is. A lie about Roy and Dottie Kilgore. I believe them.”

“What if they are crooks?” He sat down on the floor and leaned back against the cabinet.

“You’ve been drinking. Now get up off the floor,” I said in disgust, “before I lose my temper.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” He looked up at me with his sad eyes and I couldn’t stay mad at him. “My clothes are dirty. See.” He turned halfway over and I could see his jeans were filthy.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Fixing a flat on my truck. With Bobby Joe’s assistance.”

“I’ll bet. Then where did you two go?”

“Kelly’s. For one beer.” He grinned. “Two. Maybe three. Not more than three.”

“While you were out playing look what I have to deal with. This came in today’s mail.” I handed him the letter, written on heavy cream paper. He was all fingers thanks to the beer he’d been drinking and couldn’t unfold the letter.

“Here,” I said, finally, taking the letter from him and unfolding it. “Listen to this.

Dear Vada Faith,

We would like to point out to you - since you can’t see it for yourself that you are involved in the act of using your body as a baby machine. It is apparent you need guidance in this matter. In our opinion surrogacy is not ethical or moral or legitimate. We feel this way of reproduction can cause long term consequences. It is our fear that your children will endure great pain as the siblings of this lost surrogate child. However, it’s not too late to turn this thing around!

Keep your baby. Please!

Sincerely, your friends who care

P.S. Vada Faith, stop being stupid!

“Is that awful or what?” I folded the letter and noticed again the vaguely familiar heavy cream paper. I was too mad to care. “Some of this stuff was taken straight from a library book. I read it myself. Long term consequences. My foot!”

I looked down at my husband. He was slumped over, sound asleep. I wanted to slap him. Instead, I went upstairs and got a warm blanket to cover him and a pillow for his head.

My life was going down the tubes. Gossip and rumors were tearing my family apart. I had to set people straight, whether it was pleasing to my husband or to anyone else.

As television talk show host Maddie Magill walked on stage the audience cheered.

I was already there, seated in one of the red wing back chairs. The audience stood and cheered as Maddie joined me in a matching chair. On the table between us was a pitcher of water and two glasses.

Maddie raised her hand like Oprah and the crowd settled down. She had turned the local talk show into a huge success.

As silence enveloped the room I knew I should have prepared more. I’d been too busy tweezing my eyebrows, spreading on Estee Lauder tanning cream, and pressing my beige linen suit. I did look just about perfect. Every hair on my blonde head was in place. I could say that for sure. I’d been looking in the mirror since 5 a.m.

“Now let’s get started,” Maddie said, smiling. “Please welcome Vada Faith Waddell.” She started clapping and the audience joined her.

I could see I didn’t have a thing on Maddie Magill. Her dark bobbed hair was perfectly molded to her petite head. I knew something about clothes, and the hot pink suit she wore said designer all the way.

“Vada Faith is going to tell us more about her surrogacy!” She shouted over the roar. The audience continued cheering. A blush had spread from my hair roots all the way down to my toes.

“First question,” Maddie said, holding her hand in the air and settling the audience, “why did you choose to be a surrogate? You’re the first local woman to do this, and it’s caused quite a stir.”

“Well,” I said, as a hush came over the audience, “I’m doing it because I have two children of my own. I wanted to help a childless couple complete their family. I wanted them to be able to experience the joy of having children.”

“That’s a thought,” she said. “Isn’t it going to hurt to give away your baby.”

“Oh, it won’t be my baby,” I said, parroting everything I’d read. “It’ll belong to the couple.”

“Is it true, then, that only the father will be genetically linked to this child? Now am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“But you are providing the egg?” Her eyes probed mine. “If that’s true, you will be the genetic mother. Am I right?”

“Yes,” I said, lowering my voice. I hadn’t planned on that fact being announced on television. “I am not the child’s mother. I will only house it, so to speak.”

“Let’s go to the couple now. We have a taped interview with Roy and Dottie Kilgore.”

The couple appeared on the large screen behind me. The talk show host sat across from them in a white wicker chair. They were on their back deck with the mountain range behind them. Roy and Dottie could have been advertising a brand new toothpaste. They wore big toothy smiles and matching navy shorts. The picture of perfectness.

“Yes, we’re the couple in question,” Roy said, his chest puffing out. “We’ve formed a partnership with the little lady there. We hope she will soon carry our baby.” He stood up and gazed out over the tree tops. Dottie chewed on a thumbnail and watched him.