Maybe Once, Maybe Twice(103)
“I would have called you earlier, but I went over to Sony to play her a couple of your demos from the film—I couldn’t risk sending them because of confidentiality. She loved you, and she’s all in—all in on you,” Fin said.
A wide grin split open my face as a blood-orange sunset roared in the sky above me.
“I mean…fuck yeah,” I said.
“Great. So the next call you get—if it’s a 212 number, take it. Her name’s Cara.”
And just like that, my music career took flight.
54
THIRTY-FIVE
I WAS SOARING. ASHER AND I had been going strong for seven months, I was midway into recording my first studio album, the movie had wrapped, and the Oscar buzz had already started—buzz that included Best Original Song. There was only one more box to check, but I wanted to understand my options fully before I approached it with the man I wanted by my side.
I had found a new OB, a woman who specialized in fertility and who didn’t mansplain my ovaries to me. Out of an abundance of caution, and because I could afford it, I had her redo all the tests. I wanted someone I trusted telling me about my body.
My OB sat me down across from her, inside a beautiful, cream-on-cream office on the Upper East Side.
“Okay, let’s get one thing straight: you’re not a lost cause—not at all. If your goal is to get pregnant, I would start with IUI, and I would start as soon as possible. You can absolutely try to do it the old-fashioned way, but I don’t want you to waste too much time trying, because with your egg count and your PCOS, the odds aren’t great on that end. If you’re serious, time is really important here.”
She went over the payment plans, and I exhaled. The numbers were still egregious, but they were now affordable to me. I had options. I just hadn’t discussed any of them with my live-in boyfriend.
“I’ll be back with my partner, and we can go over this with him.”
“That sounds like a plan,” she said.
My OB stood and smiled at me, her eyes filled with hope for my future. I smiled back, because I knew that she would help me reach my goal—somehow.
I walked back home, listening to a handful of home-recorded demos that I would send Bex later, as I took in the quiet West Village brownstones around me. Asher had moved to New York permanently after filming, purchasing a three-story brownstone on Perry Street so that I could live out all my Carrie Bradshaw dreams—minus sex with other men.
I ducked my head as I passed a stray paparazzo, the guy who always loitered one street back. Holding two coffees, I ran upstairs, finding Asher standing in the living room across from a roaring fire.
The fire lit up the dark gray leather wallpaper and deep green accents where Asher paced in front of a bookshelf lined with the works of Shakespeare and my record collection. I froze—taking him in, watching how he floated back and forth with a furrowed brow, all his attention glued to the script in front of him, his mouth muttering lines for his next upcoming feature. He turned, feeling eyes on him.
“You little lurker,” he said, grinning.
“What can I say? I get off on watching you work.”
I kissed him hard and handed him his coffee.
“How’d the writing session go this morning?” he asked.
“Great. Halfway there.”
He glanced down at his watch, a new Explorer Rolex.
“Shit—we’re going to be late for lunch.”
He grabbed his leather jacket from the chair and threw it on, and I tugged the lapel of his jacket toward me, so that I could pull his lips onto mine.
“Summer asked to push lunch back thirty minutes—Olivia ran long on a shoot,” I said, kissing his lips.
Summer had recently started dating an established makeup artist who really was right for her. Olivia was kind and soft in the places Summer could be loud and bold, and Summer was exuberant in the places Olivia was quiet. It was a perfect yin and yang. And neither woman wanted children. Olivia and Summer hadn’t left each other’s orbit since I introduced them on Asher’s set.
We filed into the airy white marbled kitchen and I took Asher’s hand, bringing him toward me.
“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked, my tone even.
Asher studied me, with his puzzled eyes narrowing on my neutral expression.
“What’s going on?”
“I went to my gyno today, and we discussed my options.”
“Your options for…?”
“For children.”
Asher’s face went white. My eyes widened, surprised by his reaction.
“You want children…now?” he asked, his voice so quiet that I had to lean in to hear it.
My eyes scanned the dreadful stillness of his body. I steadied my now-shaking hand on our kitchen island, trying to keep my spine upright. “Asher, I want children, and I don’t have a lot of time to do it naturally. I need to start trying now-ish. I’m not exactly blessed with the eggs of a twentysomething. Time isn’t on my side in this area.”
He was frozen, and it took him a moment to speak.
“You should text Summer and tell her we’re rescheduling,” he said, his voice low.
A sinking feeling enveloped my body as his ashen face didn’t seem to melt away. I texted Summer quickly, my heart racing in my throat.