Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell (20 page)

Charles Evans sets us up with a lawyer, Gregory Larkin, a specialist in paternity cases. “Eleanor,” Charles Evans says. “I just need to ask you one question. What in the name of Sam Hill are you doing up there?” Next question, I say.

I travel with Nancy to Diana’s for Christmas in the city. We are still talking when Luigi and G go off to bed. I ask Diana what’s wrong with Luigi. “Tom is wrong with Luigi,” she says. “You remember those fights in Southampton about the hedges? That was only the beginning.” And? “Now Tom is badmouthing him everywhere, to everyone all over town. Saying he’s a sicko, a homosexual.” Diana starts to cry. “The Tennis Hall of Fame!” Diana says. “They won’t even invite us to their dinners any more. I used to love their dinners in Newport. All the courses. The appetizers. The dancing.” I take Diana’s hands. “I know my life is a fake,” Diana says. “But it was my choice to make it fake. It was
my
fake. My own private hell. Tom had no business, no right to tell a soul. Now Luigi has nowhere to go. His old friends laugh at him. Everyone knows and now G knows, too. We had to tell him what he already knew. I hate Tom for that.”

Nancy and I meet with Gregory Larkin at his office on
State Street. “A nuisance suit, pure and simple,” he says. I say I wouldn’t be so sure.

“It’s Odette,” Allyson says. “She’s bleeding. She’s the first Tomgirl to bleed.” That’s wonderful news, I say. “Why is that?” Allyson says. I say there’s no time like the present.

Gregory Larkin is latent, isn’t he? I say to Charles Evans. “Very observant,” he says. Very obvious, I say.

“We’re in some trouble,” Nancy says. “There’s a hearing date.” I tell her that Charles Evans tells me not to wor
ry. He says Gregory Larkin is the best in Boston. “He better be,” Nancy says.

March 9, 1985

“I think I found what you were looking for,” Abigail Rickover says. “The market for aborted tissue? It’s even better than we thought. Researchers can’t get enough of it. The stuff is pure gold. We can charge them anything we want. Especially in Europe. And we’ve got plenty of tissue to sell them. Everything’s perfectly legal. It’s like a license to print money.”

I don’t want a court record, I tell Gregory Larkin. I don’t want anyone in the outside world to know anything about The Tommies. “I’ll do what I can,” he says. “But once someone starts to pull on a piece of thread it’s very difficult to put the garment back together again.”

April 16, 1985

The judge won’t let us delay. Vincent D’Angelo, the Harvard lawyer-donor, is asking for sum
mary judgment.

The border collies are giving birth to their first litters. “I think we’re on to something,” Abigail Rickover says. “I’m just not sure what it is yet.”

We are in Boston at the hearing and a Judge Benning with a face like an old Irish cop is looking at the monogrammed handkerchief so perfectly folded it could be glazed in Gregory Larkin’s coat pocket. “What in God’s name are your clients doing in that town, counselor?” the Judge says. “I think they’re trying to play God, and that means they’re playing with fire. I have every intention of hosing them down to the fullest extent of the law.” Gregory Larkin tells the Judge that under statute such-and-such
blah-blah-blah
—“You got these bleeding records,” the Judge is looking at me, “so why in the name of Hades are you withholding them like you’re bank robbers or something? Just give the father the name of his child. I slap down the gavel. End of case. End of story.” Gregory Larkin stands up. “Your honor,” he says, “my clients feel that such a revelation would place undue strain upon the confidentiality of the relationships established by The Good Egg and its client-mothers.” Judge Benning looks at Gregory Larkin for a long time over his glasses, the kind of cheap black bifocals you can buy at any dime store. “‘Client-mothers’ is it now?” the Judge says. “Is that what the bleeding world’s come to?
Client-mothers
? Not in my Court, counselor! Either reach a settlement or I turn The Good Egg into an omelet.”

We end up paying our Harvard donor $1 million and promising to open up our archives upon request. “The Court does not have any other requests for parental disclosure before it,” the Judge says. “But I would warn defendants this Court will look favorably upon all such petitions in the future. I would warn defendants
not
to encourage such petitions to come before this Court.”

The best lawyer in Boston? I say to Charles Evans. “It could have been much worse, Eleanor,” he tells me over the phone. “You had no case. I don’t think you realize how vulnerable you are in any kind of legal proceeding. Be forewarned.”

Vincent D’Angelo is on the phone. “I just wanted to thank you for being so —what’s the right word?—
reasonable
, Miss O’Kell. I never thought you’d cave like that.” What’s your point? I say. “My point is there’s a lot of Harvard sperm swimming around in the canals out there. You know that and I know that. I have a feeling we’ll be talking again.” What you don’t know can’t hurt you, I say.

I am waiting for the sound of the other shoe dropping, but there was no coverage of our case, nothing in the newspapers. To the world, the Tommies are still a total mystery. I think we may have dodged a bullet. Or a  bazooka.

“I actually watched the embryo enter my body on the screen of your  machine,” one of our new mothers tells me at the Lying-In. “Everything is so amazing here.” The amazing thing is she can’t tell our Cushing eggs from her own.

August 22, 1985

Tommies were born to have babies, to propagate our own private species. That’s why they’re bleeding now. I do the math to make sure the Tomgirls will be ready to produce in time. Worst case, we won’t miss a beat.

“Have you ever heard of stem cells?” Abigail Rickover says. “They’re like cells that never really die, that have a kind of immortality. With one stem cell you can create any other kind of cell. That’s why they’re so powerful. We can sell stem cells from our boy embryos for more money than ever before.” I give her the green light. I like the idea of stem cells, the notion of embryonic immortality for Cushing cells. I also like the idea of carving up every speck, every cell, for profit.

Your bodies are being made ready for what is to come, I say to the Tomgirls. That’s why you are bleeding or will be soon enough. And that’s what we have all been waiting for. Any questions?

“The mothers are lined up out the door,” Abigail Rickover says. “And there’s nothing I can do about it. We just don’t have the eggs.” Raise the prices, I say. And the doses.

“We’ve got to do something about Allyson,” Nancy says. “She won’t take the injections. And she’s starting to badmouth us to the other Tommies.”

“Sometimes I think about boys,” Allyson’s Odette says to me. “I know it’s wrong, but I do.” I tell her that this, too, shall pass.

We are in my living room and the lights are low when I show the Tomgirls how to pleasure themselves. I tell them it’s just another way to do men one better before they do you.

When a Tomgirl starts to bleed I tell her she/we are sacred. They know their obligations are to the Tommies. I know there’s no time to lose.

“I already have a child,” Allyson says. “I don’t want any more. Odette is my child. She’s my baby. I want to take her with me. I want to go away.” I say  nobody is going anywhere.

“Allyson won’t leave without Odette,” Nancy says. “She won’t take the money.” Double it, I say. Triple it if you have to. “I already did,” Nancy says. “I already offered her ten times what we talked about. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want money. She just wants to be with her daughter.” I tell her I have other plans for Odette.

March 2, 1986

“We just can’t keep up,” Nancy says. “It’s supply and demand. It’s that simple.” We have to go Tommies-only, I tell Nancy. That’s our new policy. From now on, if you won’t become a Tommie, you won’t get a baby. It’s the only way. “That changes things,” Nancy says. “We’re no longer a business. Now we’re a movement.” So what else is new? I tell her.

March 14, 1986

“May I have a moment?” Abigail Rickover says. “I’m seeing some anomalies in our carriers.” In English please, I say. “There are some irregularities,” she says. “In their ovaries. It’s cause for concern. We need to take a closer look.” I say a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Another geneticist, one of our best, defects to Tom, damn him. “I don’t think that’s the end of it,” Abigail Rickover says. “Your brother keeps upping the ante.” Tom knows a good thing when he sees it. He keeps buying into biotechnology companies, just like he did with nuclear power after the war. Everything he does feels like rape to me. He can up
this
, I say.

“Egg production is down
again
,” Nancy says. “The fertility drugs aren’t working.” Raise the prices again, I say. “It doesn’t matter how much we charge if we don’t have the eggs to sell.” Then raise the doses, I say. “It’s going to backfire,” Nancy says.

Of course, my Tomgirls are curious about boys, about men. They have to wonder why there are no men in their lives, though they never say a word to me about it. From birth they have learned all about the evil that men do, that boys will be boys if you let them. And they have heard why Tommies and now Tomgirls are so obviously superior. They have learned their lessons well. They only see what we want them to see. They know all about my old-time religion. Their time is coming.

You pathetic bastard, I say to Tom. We are at The Plaza, so he has to be quiet, if not quite polite. “I’m afraid you will have to be more specific,” he says.
Specific
? I say. How about this, you specific son of a bitch? You sell all of our nuclear holdings without consulting the board. Then you wait to see where I’m putting my money, so you can do me one better. Close enough? “Oh, Eleanor, Eleanor,” he says, “you do flatter yourself so. You act as if you
invented
biotechnology. You’re nothing more than a flea on the ass of the genetic future, as are we all. O’Kell Consolidated is now immersed in foodstuffs, in soy products, in all manner of genetic investments far beyond your ignoble experiment in that ugly little town. As a member of the family, you will still profit mightily from our prescience. You are protected from your ignorance by my hereditary persistence. But you flatter yourself far too much. Your ego is bloated, egregious. You forget that competition is good for the soul.” How would you know? I say. You don’t have a soul. “And you do?” he says.

“It’s Allyson,” Abigail Rickover says. “She’s not well. She’s got cramps, nausea. She’s putting on weight. So are the other Tommies. It might have something to do with the drugs for the eggs.” Says who? I say.

“It’s not just Allyson any more,” Nancy says. “It’s everyone, all the Tommies. They’re all getting sick, cramping up, putting on weight. They’re all depressed. It’s got to be the fertility drugs. They’re not working any more anyway. We need a moratorium. We need to stop.” Over my dead body, I say.

“I’m encouraged by our research with the border collies,” Abigail Rickover says. “I think there’s a gene that makes them so vigilant.” So? “So that means some day I can replace that gene with other genes.” Today’s the day, I say.

“We have to do
something
,” Nancy says. “The Cushing eggs are all used up.” Go to the frozen food aisle, I say.