The Surrogate

Chapter 2

The October morning air filled Esther’s lungs as she walked along her firm partner and best friend, Hillary. Hillary has been in her cohort in graduate school at Emory, and they bonded over similar taste in design and architecture. Hillary born and raised in the East Village seemed like a perfect candidate to call up six years ago. Working in Manhattan as an undervalued junior partner in a large design firm serving Manhattan elites, it took all of five minutes for the woman to snatch up her city contacts and quit. Five weeks later, Boudreaux-Lebowitz was born with its first client. After coming from a nearby supplier’s office, the pair had decided to get coffee and walk the scenic way back to their Greenwich headquarters.

Esther ordered decaf, and knew that Hillary had noticed.

“So, did you meet with your OBGYN?” Hillary sipped her Americano, her brown eyes intense under her long auburn bangs.

“Did you get you get your haircut, Hill? It looks so much like Jane Birkin’s. I love it.”

“Esther, you are avoiding my question!” Hillary exclaimed with no patience for delaying the inevitable.

They paused at a crosswalk, the stop sign ticking down the time as Esther’s throat began to fill with words. She was never good at announcing news.

“Um, yeah, I did. The in vitro fertilization was successful. I am officially seven weeks pregnant.”

Hillary squealed as they hurried across the street toward Washington Square Park to cut through the green space. Disrupting pigeons and passing jazz musicians, the friends passed through the square as Hillary bubbled up with a million things to say.

“This is so exciting! I mean, I haven’t held a baby since my youngest was born, and we’re planning his Bar Mitzvah! By the way, mark your calendar for the first Saturday of March for that. You’re totally coming. I don’t care how fat you are by then.”    

Esther shook her head as they kept strolling, expecting nothing less from her perpetually blunt friend.

“I would not miss Levi’s birthday for the world, Hillary,” she replied as she linked arms with her friend.

Hillary grinned, sipping her coffee before asking, “So, have you told the father yet?”

“I went over to his place last night, and he took me out after.”

Esther tried to sound nonchalant. She did not want to cause a stir in the park. It all seemed so peaceful, but the

“Oh, what did you do?”

“He took me over to La Grenouille in Midtown. I had the most amazing torte. Then, we went ice skating over at the Rockefeller Center until Midnight.”

“Was that safe?”

“Um, it was definitely fine. I took lessons as a kid. I even medaled in youth competitions. There was no chance of me hurting myself. He did fall once or twice though.”

“Well, that’s nice of him. I guess it was a good time to get to know you better. After all, you’re going to be his baby momma!” Hillary joked loudly.

A shrewd-looking woman shot of a prudish glance from the corner of her eyes as she passed Hillary. Not giving a single goose egg about propriety, Hillary stared her down until the woman hurried onward in defeat.

“Um, that’s the thing, Hillary.” Esther had been dreading this part. “I already knew him before.”

“Oh? He wasn’t a client, was he?”

“No.”

“Was he a friend when you lived in Washington D.C.? Did he go to school with you at George Washington?”

Esther shook her head.

“Well, you only hung out with me and Josh at Emory.”

“Hillary, I’m talking way back. I’m talking Westchester. I have known Archibald for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories was his birthday party.”

“Wow, that’s a long…” Hillary pulled away, her mind working at a million miles a moment as she faded away and shot her attention right back at Esther. “You don’t mean Archibald MacArthur? Billionaire International Real Estate Firm CEO? He owns property on every continent, Mr. James Archibald MacArthur, the fourth? That one?!”

Sheepishly, Esther nodded. “Our mothers were at Princeton together in the same sorority.”

“He’s that same Archie?!” Hillary shrieked, turning the attention of some nearby park visitors and nearly crushing her hot coffee cup in her gloved grip. Minding her precious Burberry coat, Hillary checked herself before leading Esther to a nearby bench.

“Babes, you’ve got to calm down,” Esther pleaded as Hillary sucked in the fall air and let out slowly like she learned at her beloved sunrise yoga class. “He approached me two months ago with the idea, but he asked me to be discreet until the pregnancy was confirmed.”

“I mean. I get why. He’s been a favorite of Page Six for ages. He’s like the James Dean of real estate, except for the tragic young death part. But Esther, you never told me your first boyfriend was a billionaire.”

“It is not something I want to publicize. I don’t like people getting the wrong idea about where I come from.”

“Wealth? New York’s elite?”

“Wealthy is an understatement, Hillary. His grandfather was one of the greatest investment minds of his time. I don’t even think Archie knows how deep his pockets go. He never did when we were young. I once asked him about it when we dated, and he told me there was too much of it wrapped up in art and real estate to be sure. Plus, Archie’s mother had her own money. She had some attachment to French aristocracy, and he followed her to Paris when they divorced. He went to boarding school in Switzerland to finish up his degree before heading to Cambridge, and it was during his gap year that he came back.”

Esther felt her heart in another place and another time as she explained to Hillary what she hardly explained to anyone. Not fully understanding it herself, she had locked that chapter of her life far away.

“When I had come back to New York after my first semester at George Washington, Archie came without warning. He called me up out of the blue and asked me to meet him for the weekend. I took the train into the city, and went to his father’s home on the Upper East Side where he was staying. His father was in China on business, and I could tell he was lonely. He had been all over the world by himself for the last six months, but he had realized he wanted to share some small part of his life with someone who actually cared about him. I still can see his face, Hillary. When he told me that I was the only person he could think of to share himself with, I just melted.