HGP1

The title, if you're confused, is a code. It stands for Having Grace, page 1.
This is the first page of the book. I am posting it on here at great peril to myself (imprisonment and the subsequent beating/sodomy/bland food). I can only hope that no one steals this book from me. I don't think that that will happen, but then again, people that get their identies stolen obviously don't think that's going to happen to them, either. Anyways, I'm thinking that I might start either: A) Emailing the pages to you or B) Making my blog private. These are some ideas that I have hashed out during a recent meeting of minds with my editor in chief, Lorrie S. Let me know which one you would prefer. But for now I'll just leave things as they are.
Have a nice weekend!!

The Proposition
-2-

It wasn’t like she just came out and asked me. I mean, it’s just not socially acceptable to approach someone and say “I’m in a bit of a jam here, my uterus is the shits and you look young and fertile, so why don’t I just implant my embryo in your uterus and pay you a large sum of money for your trouble and then we all live happily ever after.” The proposition was, in some ways, a lot like the pregnancy itself. It started out as a tiny seedling of an idea. It was fed oxygen and nutrients and in time it grew into a bigger idea, and then several months later, it came to fruition, kicking and screaming and taking over every aspect of my life.
So how do you ask someone to carry a child for you? Well, quite simply, you don’t. At least not in so many words anyways. I’d been working for Cynthia Jacobson for nearly a year, and we’d probably spoken about a word to each other for every week that we worked together. And I use the word ‘together’ loosely. She was the CEO of the company. Very black suit, cat eye glasses, hurried pace and hassled expression every time you tried to ask her a question. Her bleached blonde hair was cut in a severe looking page boy, leaving her face looking as pinched as her size two Versace waistline. I worked in Accounts Payable, which was a short distance down the hall from her office but virtually in another galaxy, judging by the infrequency of her visits and the vastly different appearance of our offices. Her office was a posh, professionally designed sprawling space adorned with antiques and oil paintings. She had her own private secretary and waiting room in what she called the ‘antechamber’. I, on the other hand, shared my dingy office with three other underlings. There was a small window that looked directly into the building next door and virtually no ventilation, which was especially bad given my one coworkers propensity towards lunches that reeked of curry. The walls were some kind of mustard yellow. I don’t know if she chose that color because it motivates people at some unconscious level to work like slaves, or if they were having some sort of a selling out sale at Benjamin Moore. Either way, it was quite nauseating. The combination of the color on the wall and the perpetual smell of curry in the air gave one the vague sensation of actually being in the intestines.
Being that I work in accounts payable, you would think that my job was important, if not essential, to the continued survival of her company. But you would be sadly mistaken, at least if you asked Cynthia. She treated me as no more significant than the teenage, unfortunately acne prone, Starbucks attendant that works in the building, whom, incidentally, was also essential to the survival of her company though admittedly in a far less direct way. Her company, called Gem Stones, was a small but profitable company that specialized in appraising rare, valuable pieces of jewelry, mostly for insurance purposes, but also sometimes for auction companies and the like. My job entailed billing the appropriate parties for the services rendered and ensuring that payments were made in due time. It was fairly simple, in theory, especially given that the company was so small. I had few other responsibilities, preparing spreadsheets and whatever financial documents were necessary. But in truth, between you and me, I actually spent a lot of time on Google and MSN. And Ebay. And various other websites that I visited regularly. But anyways, I do go on…