Scott Sherman - Third You Die

“But who’s to say what’s basic?” she continued. “For some women, ‘basic’ is a tenement apartment in the South Bronx. Those women require very little support to maintain the lifestyle. Of course, we all know what kind of babies they produce.”

“What?” my mother asked in a hushed and frightened whisper.

Ms. Peterson answered with cautious alarm, as if the very utterance of the next two words risked raising demons in our midst. “Puerto. Ricans. ”

My mother slapped her hand over her mouth and widened her eyes in mock horror. “No,” she gasped, “that would never do.”

For the first time, Ms. Peterson’s smile appeared sincere. Not friendly or warm, mind you, but sincere. The wide toothy smirk of a shark smelling chum in the water. She moved in for the kill.

“But the kind of woman you’re looking for is accustomed to a finer lifestyle. Park Avenue. Maternity clothing from Neiman Marcus. During her pregnancy, she’ll require pampering and services to ensure the healthiest baby possible. Massages, spa treatments, nutritional counseling. I’m afraid the costs can be… considerable.

“We keep track of everything, though,” Ms. Peterson said. “Every dollar passes through us so we can make sure they’re spent responsibly. Naturally, for your protection, we retain fifteen percent of the costs you reimburse to the birth mother to ensure proper bookkeeping and accountability.”

I bet. Fifteen percent off the top of what I’d expect would be thousands of dollars a week. Not to mention how easy it would be to fake receipts for services never received.

“Nothing,” my mother said, her voice heavy with emotion, “is too good for my little boy. Whatever it takes, we can afford it. Right, Murray?”

“Yarghh.”

The sawtoothed shark grin broadened. “Then, there are our fees.” She reached into our file and withdrew two glossy single-page brochures. She handed one to each of us.

A required Home Study cost $20,000 (I knew from the experiences of friends that they were usually in the $1,500 range). Three mandatory counseling sessions at $1,500 each. Preparation of the Family Profile (a file which is shown to prospective birth mothers) was $25,000 (a service offered free by some agencies; others encourage prospective parents to develop their own). Unspecified processing and administrative fees totaled another $50K.

“This is all so reasonable!” my mother enthused. “If, that is, you can promise us a kid real quick. I can’t wait to be a mother! I’m thinking a couple of months.” My mother’s voice dropped to what I’d always think of as her “pick-up-your-clothes-or-else” tone. “Tops. ”

“We guarantee placement within a year.” Ms. Peterson was serene.

My mother picked her purse off the floor and placed it in her lap. “That’s not good enough, Amy. You hear that ticking? It’s not my biological clock, just the regular one. Always running. Remember what I said before? Fish? Bait? This isn’t the time to dawdle, darling.”

Ms. Peterson placed her hands faced flat against the table, a poker player about to show a winning hand. “We do offer an… expedited process. For the small group of birth mothers who won’t be satisfied with anything but the best. They require an even higher level of service.” She spun her Aeron Chair around and withdrew two new forms from the top drawer. These were simpler menus of services. Black type on white paper. The agency’s name didn’t appear on them.

As for the prices, just double what I described earlier. Except for the “processing and administrative forms,” which skyrocketed from $50,000 to $250,000.

My mother noticed the same thing. “Listen,” she said, “I get it. If I want my dry cleaning back on the same day, it costs an extra buck fifty. I don’t see why a baby would be any different. But an extra $200,000 for paperwork? What, you go through extra secretaries because they keep breaking their fingers trying to type that fast?”

A patronizing smile this time. “I wish it were that simple. The sad truth is, not everyone is as committed to building happy, healthy families as we are. There are government agencies-faceless bureaucracies, really-whose sole purpose is to interfere in your private affairs. The only way they can maintain their existence is by making things more complicated and intrusive than they need to be. They live to slow things done, erect hurdles, and delay, delay, delay. They say they want to protect the children, but”-she sighed and turned her palms up as if toward God-“all they really want to protect are their jobs.

“Those extra fees help us… grease the wheels, if you will. Keep things moving.”

My mother looked at her blankly. “Huh?”

“You know.” Ms. Peterson arched an eyebrow. “That money… incentivizes those state employees not to look so deeply at everything. To accelerate the approval process.”

“In what way?” my mother asked.

Ms. Peterson looked frustrated. I knew how she felt. Surely, my mother knew what Ms. Peterson was implying.

Then, I understood. My mother knew exactly what Ms. Peterson was implying. What she was trying to do was to get Ms. Peterson to come out and say it. On tape.

Everything Ms. Peterson had done so far was open to interpretation. Sure, she seemed to indulge a lot of my mother’s objectionable comments, but she could always later claim that she was just being polite to avoid a confrontation. She could make a credible case that she was merely indulging a crazy woman so she could get her out of her office.

She might even be able to defend her exorbitant costs and Park Avenue birth mothers.

But my mother wasn’t as clueless as she seemed. This was her opportunity to get Ms. Peterson to admit to an undeniably illegal act. On tape.

I turned my body to face my mother, aiming my tiepin straight at her. If she could pull this off, she deserved to be captured on video.

Ms. Peterson looked at my mother’s mask of confusion, then at my even blanker expression. You could see her thinking Do I have to spell it out for these idiots? Every day, she met with couples of considerable wealth who came to her knowing her agency’s reputation. They were sophisticated people who knew how to read between the lines. What was wrong with us?

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. “Ms.

…”Another look at the file. “Heffelbergen. I don’t know how to say it clearer…”

“Well, then, I suppose we’re done,” my mother surprised me by saying. She stood up abruptly. “We’re not stupid, Amy. My Murray is a very rich man. He didn’t get that way because he’s a dummy, did you, darling?”

“Glrff,” I replied.

“See? I am not a cheap woman. But if someone wants to sell me something, I expect them to have the decency to tell me what my money is buying.” She put the second form Ms. Peterson had given us on her desk, jabbing at the “processing and administrative” line with an angry finger.

“Otherwise, I assume they’re ripping me off. Especially if it’s two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Amy. I think I have the right to know where my quarter million is going.”

She put her hands on Ms. Peterson’s desk and leaned forward, her face inches from the rapidly flushing adoption director’s. “I don’t think you can blame me for expecting a straight answer.”

Ms. Peterson’s face was blazing. I suspected the last time she was that red was after her last chemical peel. Her eyes drew together like a snake’s about to strike.

“The money goes to the state agencies. To the people whose approval we need- you need-to get you your baby. It takes that kind of money to get their stamp of approval with no questions asked.”

“Oh, I see!” My mother smiled and sat back down. Ms. Peterson’s shoulders relaxed. The heat started to drain from her cheeks.