Perfect People

25

John woke with a start, feeling groggy and confused. What the hell time was it?

6.47, the clock told him.

Naomi stirred. ‘Wasser-?’

Who the hell was ringing at this hour? Sweden, probably. Even after eight years here, his mother never could figure out the time difference. Several times when they had first come out to LA she had called at two and then at three in the morning. Three more rings and the answering machine kicked in.

He closed his eyes and was back asleep in moments.

At five past seven the phone rang again.

‘Jesus, mother, we need to sleep!’ he yelled.

‘It might be important,’ Naomi slurred.

‘I don’t care.’

The answering machine picked it up. Was it his mother? Some problem? It could wait, it would have to wait, whatever it was. He had a nine o’clock faculty meeting at the college and desperately needed a bit more sleep. He’d set the alarm for seven fifteen. He closed his eyes.

Moments later, it rang again. He lay there with his eyes shut against the bright daylight in the room. Felt the bed move. Naomi getting up. The ringing stopped.

‘I’ll see who it is,’ she said.

‘Leave it, darling, just leave it!’

She went out of the room. Moments later she came back in. ‘KTTV,’ she said. ‘Three messages from some woman called Bobby.’

‘Bobby? I don’t know anyone called Bobby. What do they want?’

‘She didn’t say – wants you to call. Says it’s urgent.’

KTTV was a Fox affiliate, one of the Los Angeles television stations. He had done an interview with them a few months back for a show they were doing on evolution. ‘What the hell time of day is this for them to call?’ he said, wide awake now, despite his brain feeling leaden from tiredness and the pills.

The phone began ringing again.

‘I can’t believe this!’ he said, and grabbed the cordless that was right by the bed.

A breezy male voice said, ‘Hi, this is Dan Wagner from KCAL, is that Dr Klaesson?’

‘Do you know what time it is?’ John said.

‘Well – ah – sure, it’s early, but I was just hoping you might do a quick interview for our morning show-’

John hit the button, ending the call. Then he sat up. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

Naomi, draped in a towel, was looking at him in bewilderment. ‘Some breaking news story – maybe they’ve got a big new discovery in your field. This could be a chance to get publicity – you’re acting crazy, come on!’

John got out of bed and went through to the bathroom. He pulled on his dressing gown and stared into the mirror. Some deranged, sheet-white face, with dark rings beneath the eyes and hair sticking up like freshly harvested straw, stared back. He had about an hour to get himself together, to shower, shave, swill down some coffee, throw himself in the car and haul his ass over to the campus.

And now the damned phone was ringing again.

‘LEAVE IT!!!’ he bellowed at Naomi.

‘John-’

‘Leave it, I said!’

‘John – what’s the matter with-?’

‘I didn’t have any sleep, that’s the matter with me, OK? I didn’t have any sleep, I haven’t made love for three months, and my wife is pregnant with God-knows-what child. Anything else you want to know?’

The phone stopped and immediately began ringing again. Ignoring John, Naomi answered it.

‘This is Jodi Parker from KNBC news. Is that the Klaesson residence?’

‘This is – can I help you?’

‘May I speak with Professor John Klaesson?’

‘Can I tell him what this is about?’ she asked.

‘Sure, we’d like to send a car over, bring him into the studio – we just need a quick interview.’

‘I’ll pass you over to my husband,’ she said.

John gave a cut-throat sign with his finger.

Covering the receiver with her hand, Naomi hissed, ‘Take the phone.’

He shook his head.

‘John, for God’s sake-’

John snatched the phone from her hand and hit the disconnect button.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Naomi demanded.

John looked at her, exasperated. ‘Because I’m tired, OK? I’m very tired. I have a faculty meeting on campus at nine o’clock, which I have to be at, compos mentis. There will be at least two senior staff members at this meeting who will have a lot of sway over whether or not I get tenure. And as of this moment, if I don’t get tenure, then in a year’s time I’m going to be out on the streets, playing a banjo or washing car windshields at stoplights to pay for our baby’s food. Any part of that you don’t understand?’

She put her arms around him, her throat sore from vomiting when there was nothing more to vomit, worn out herself from barely sleeping all night, and worry.

After all they had been through, all the pain of the injections, all the discussions, the choices, the indignity, the heartache, the cost, the death of Dr Dettore, she was more scared than she could ever remember.

Everything was changing. This life she and John had together, this little home, this world they had created, all the good things they had together, this wonderful love between them, it was all different, suddenly.

John seemed like a stranger.

The baby inside her, this creature, growing in her womb, tiny arms and legs, so frail, so utterly dependent on her, was she going to turn out to be a stranger, also? I saw you inside me, saw you through the scan, wiggling your cute little arms and legs. I don’t mind if you are a girl, not a boy. I don’t mind. I just want you to be healthy.

She sensed, although she knew it must be her imagination, the tiniest sensation of movement inside her. Like an acknowledgement.

‘John,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let this destroy us – this thing – this baby of ours – don’t-’

The phone was ringing again.

John held her tightly. ‘We have to be strong, darling. You and I. Wagon train, remember? Wagon-train circle? I love you, more than anything in the world. Please, ignore the phone, take the damned thing off the hook, just for ten minutes. I can’t be late for this meeting. Please, there’s no damned interview that’s as important as this meeting.’

Naomi took the phone off the hook. John showered and shaved, gave her a peck on the cheek, grabbed his car keys and his laptop bag, and hurried out of the front door.

The morning newspaper lay where it had been chucked, on the damp lawn. John picked it up, unrolled it and glanced at the front page. His eyes were drawn to a photograph of someone familiar. Incredibly familiar. An attractive woman, in tight close-up, with sunglasses pushed back on her head. She had a confident, rich-bitch-without-a-care-in-the-world expression on her face. Then he realized why she looked so familiar.

It was Naomi.

And his own photograph, twice her size, was above. His face, staring at the camera with a DNA double helix superimposed behind.

The newspaper was the one he received every morning. USA Today. The front page headline said: LA PROFESSOR ADMITS, ‘WE’RE HAVING A DESIGNER BABY’.